“The door ain’t going to be locked, Tom, and there’s the window and the rod; but you’ll be good, WON’T you? And you won’t go? For MY sake.”
Laws knows I WANTED to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all intending to go; but after that I wouldn’t a went, not for kingdoms.
But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless. And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them; and I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn’t, only to swear that I wouldn’t never do nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn’t get no track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not eating anything. And by and by the old man says:
“Did I give you the letter?”
“What letter?”
“The one I got yesterday out of the post-office.”
“No, you didn’t give me no letter.”
“Well, I must a forgot it.”
So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off some- wheres where he had laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:
“Why, it’s from St. Petersburg — it’s from Sis.”
I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn’t stir. But before she could break it open she dropped it and run — for she see something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old doctor; and Jim, in HER calico dress, with his hands tied behind him; and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:
“Oh, he’s dead, he’s dead, I know he’s dead!”
And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other, which showed he warn’t in his right mind; then she flung up her hands, and says:
“He’s alive, thank God! And that’s enough!” and she snatched a kiss of him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue could go, every jump of the way.
I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn’t be trying to run away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a whole family scared most to death for days and nights. But the others said, don’t do it, it wouldn’t answer at all; he ain’t our nigger, and his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled them down a little, be- cause the people that’s always the most anxious for to hang a nigger that hain’t done just right is always the very ones that ain’t the most anxious to pay for him when they’ve got their satisfaction out of him.
They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes on him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to a big staple drove into the bot- tom log, and chained his hands, too, and both legs, and said he warn’t to have nothing but bread and water to eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold at auc- tion because he didn’t come in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and said a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the day- time; and about this time they was through with the job and was tapering off with a kind of generl good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and takes a look, and says: