TOM SAWYER ABROAD

we was in that solemn, peaceful desert, the more the

hurry and fuss got kind of soothed down in us, and

the more happier and contented and satisfied we got to

feeling, and the more we got to liking the desert, and

then loving it. So we had cramped the speed down,

as I was saying, and was having a most noble good

lazy time, sometimes watching through the glasses,

sometimes stretched out on the lockers reading, some-

times taking a nap.

It didn’t seem like we was the same lot that was in

such a state to find land and git ashore, but it was.

But we had got over that — clean over it. We was

used to the balloon now and not afraid any more, and

didn’t want to be anywheres else. Why, it seemed

just like home; it ‘most seemed as if I had been born

and raised in it, and Jim and Tom said the same. And

always I had had hateful people around me, a-nagging

at me, and pestering of me, and scolding, and finding

fault, and fussing and bothering, and sticking to me,

and keeping after me, and making me do this, and

making me do that and t’other, and always selecting

out the things I didn’t want to do, and then giving me

Sam Hill because I shirked and done something else,

and just aggravating the life out of a body all the time;

but up here in the sky it was so still and sunshiny and

lovely, and plenty to eat, and plenty of sleep, and

strange things to see, and no nagging and no pester-

ing, and no good people, and just holiday all the time.

Land, I warn’t in no hurry to git out and buck at

civilization again. Now, one of the worst things about

civilization is, that anybody that gits a letter with

trouble in it comes and tells you all about it and makes

you feel bad, and the newspapers fetches you the

troubles of everybody all over the world, and keeps

you downhearted and dismal ‘most all the time, and

it’s such a heavy load for a person. I hate them

newspapers; and I hate letters; and if I had my way

I wouldn’t allow nobody to load his troubles on to

other folks he ain’t acquainted with, on t’other side of

the world, that way. Well, up in a balloon there ain’t

any of that, and it’s the darlingest place there is.

We had supper, and that night was one of the

prettiest nights I ever see. The moon made it just

like daylight, only a heap softer; and once we see a

lion standing all alone by himself, just all alone on the

earth, it seemed like, and his shadder laid on the sand

by him like a puddle of ink. That’s the kind of moon-

light to have.

Mainly we laid on our backs and talked; we didn’t

want to go to sleep. Tom said we was right in the

midst of the Arabian Nights now. He said it was right

along here that one of the cutest things in that book

happened; so we looked down and watched while he

told about it, because there ain’t anything that is so

interesting to look at as a place that a book has talked

about. It was a tale about a camel-driver that had lost

his camel, and he come along in the desert and met a

man, and says:

“Have you run across a stray camel to-day?”

And the man says:

“Was he blind in his left eye?”

“Yes.”

“Had he lost an upper front tooth?”

“Yes.”

“Was his off hind leg lame?”

“Yes.”

“Was he loaded with millet-seed on one side and

honey on the other?”

“Yes, but you needn’t go into no more details —

that’s the one, and I’m in a hurry. Where did you

see him?”

“I hain’t seen him at all,” the man says.

“Hain’t seen him at all? How can you describe

him so close, then?”

“Because when a person knows how to use his eyes,

everything has got a meaning to it; but most people’s

eyes ain’t any good to them. I knowed a camel had

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