thing awful. Nat passed his arms through the loops
and hung on for life and death, but pretty soon the
hack hit a rock and flew up in the air, and the bottom
fell out, and when it come down Nat’s feet was on the
ground, and he see he was in the most desperate danger
if he couldn’t keep up with the hack. He was horrible
scared, but he laid into his work for all he was worth,
and hung tight to the arm-loops and made his legs
fairly fly. He yelled and shouted to the driver to
stop, and so did the crowds along the street, for they
could see his legs spinning along under the coach, and
his head and shoulders bobbing inside through the
windows, and he was in awful danger; but the more
they all shouted the more the nigger whooped and
yelled and lashed the horses and shouted, “Don’t you
fret, I’se gwine to git you dah in time, boss; I’s gwine
to do it, sho’!” for you see he thought they were all
hurrying him up, and, of course, he couldn’t hear any-
thing for the racket he was making. And so they went
ripping along, and everybody just petrified to see it;
and when they got to the Capitol at last it was the
quickest trip that ever was made, and everybody said
so. The horses laid down, and Nat dropped, all tuck-
ered out, and he was all dust and rags and barefooted;
but he was in time and just in time, and caught the
President and give him the letter, and everything was
all right, and the President give him a free pardon on
the spot, and Nat give the nigger two extra quarters
instead of one, because he could see that if he hadn’t
had the hack he wouldn’t’a’ got there in time, nor
anywhere near it.
It WAS a powerful good adventure, and Tom Sawyer
had to work his bullet-wound mighty lively to hold his
own against it.
Well, by and by Tom’s glory got to paling down
gradu’ly, on account of other things turning up for the
people to talk about — first a horse-race, and on top of
that a house afire, and on top of that the circus, and
on top of that the eclipse; and that started a revival,
same as it always does, and by that time there wasn’t
any more talk about Tom, so to speak, and you never
see a person so sick and disgusted.
Pretty soon he got to worrying and fretting right
along day in and day out, and when I asked him what
WAS he in such a state about, he said it ‘most broke his
heart to think how time was slipping away, and him
getting older and older, and no wars breaking out and
no way of making a name for himself that he could
see. Now that is the way boys is always thinking, but
he was the first one I ever heard come out and say it.
So then he set to work to get up a plan to make him
celebrated; and pretty soon he struck it, and offered to
take me and Jim in. Tom Sawyer was always free and
generous that way. There’s a-plenty of boys that’s
mighty good and friendly when YOU’VE got a good
thing, but when a good thing happens to come their
way they don’t say a word to you, and try to hog it
all. That warn’t ever Tom Sawyer’s way, I can say
that for him. There’s plenty of boys that will come
hankering and groveling around you when you’ve got
an apple and beg the core off of you; but when they’ve
got one, and you beg for the core and remind them
how you give them a core one time, they say thank
you ‘most to death, but there ain’t a-going to be no
core. But I notice they always git come up with; all
you got to do is to wait.
Well, we went out in the woods on the hill, and Tom
told us what it was. It was a crusade.
“What’s a crusade?” I says.