you, I felt pretty good, for Tom Sawyer was always a
hard person to git ahead of. Jim slapped his leg and
says:
“I tell YOU! dat’s smart, dat’s right down smart.
Ain’t no use, Mars Tom; he got you DIS time, sho’!”
He slapped his leg again, and says, “My LAN’, but it
was smart one!”
I never felt so good in my life; and yet I didn’t
know I was saying anything much till it was out. I
was just mooning along, perfectly careless, and not
expecting anything was going to happen, and never
THINKING of such a thing at all, when, all of a sudden,
out it came. Why, it was just as much a surprise to
me as it was to any of them. It was just the same way
it is when a person is munching along on a hunk of
corn-pone, and not thinking about anything, and all of
a sudden bites into a di’mond. Now all that HE knows
first off is that it’s some kind of gravel he’s bit into;
but he don’t find out it’s a di’mond till he gits it out
and brushes off the sand and crumbs and one thing or
another, and has a look at it, and then he’s surprised
and glad — yes, and proud too; though when you
come to look the thing straight in the eye, he ain’t
entitled to as much credit as he would ‘a’ been if he’d
been HUNTING di’monds. You can see the difference
easy if you think it over. You see, an accident, that
way, ain’t fairly as big a thing as a thing that’s done
a-purpose. Anybody could find that di’mond in that
corn-pone; but mind you, it’s got to be somebody
that’s got THAT KIND OF A CORN-PONE. That’s where that
feller’s credit comes in, you see; and that’s where
mine comes in. I don’t claim no great things — I
don’t reckon I could ‘a’ done it again — but I done it
that time; that’s all I claim. And I hadn’t no more
idea I could do such a thing, and warn’t any more
thinking about it or trying to, than you be this minute.
Why, I was just as ca’m, a body couldn’t be any
ca’mer, and yet, all of a sudden, out it come. I’ve
often thought of that time, and I can remember just
the way everything looked, same as if it was only last
week. I can see it all: beautiful rolling country with
woods and fields and lakes for hundreds and hundreds
of miles all around, and towns and villages scattered
everywheres under us, here and there and yonder; and
the professor mooning over a chart on his little table,
and Tom’s cap flopping in the rigging where it was
hung up to dry. And one thing in particular was a
bird right alongside, not ten foot off, going our way
and trying to keep up, but losing ground all the time;
and a railroad train doing the same thing down there,
sliding among the trees and farms, and pouring out a
long cloud of black smoke and now and then a little
puff of white; and when the white was gone so long
you had almost forgot it, you would hear a little faint
toot, and that was the whistle. And we left the bird
and the train both behind, ‘WAY behind, and done it
easy, too.
But Tom he was huffy, and said me and Jim was a
couple of ignorant blatherskites, and then he says:
“Suppose there’s a brown calf and a big brown dog,
and an artist is making a picture of them. What is the
MAIN thing that that artist has got to do? He has got
to paint them so you can tell them apart the minute
you look at them, hain’t he? Of course. Well, then,
do you want him to go and paint BOTH of them brown?
Certainly you don’t. He paints one of them blue,
and then you can’t make no mistake. It’s just the
same with the maps. That’s why they make every
State a different color; it ain’t to deceive you, it’s to