deal of talk. And Tom said he’d bet the quarreling
was all Jubiter’s fault, and he was going to be on hand
the first time he got a chance, and see; and if it was
so, he was going to do his level best to get Uncle Silas
to turn him off.
And so we talked and smoked and stuffed water-
melons much as two hours, and then it was pretty late,
and when we got back the house was quiet and dark,
and everybody gone to bed.
Tom he always seen everything, and now he see that
the old green baize work-gown was gone, and said it
wasn’t gone when he went out; so he allowed it was
curious, and then we went up to bed.
We could hear Benny stirring around in her room,
which was next to ourn, and judged she was worried a
good deal about her father and couldn’t sleep. We
found we couldn’t, neither. So we set up a long time,
and smoked and talked in a low voice, and felt pretty
dull and down-hearted. We talked the murder and the
ghost over and over again, and got so creepy and
crawly we couldn’t get sleepy nohow and noway.
By and by, when it was away late in the night and all
the sounds was late sounds and solemn, Tom nudged
me and whispers to me to look, and I done it, and there
we see a man poking around in the yard like he didn’t
know just what he wanted to do, but it was pretty dim
and we couldn’t see him good. Then he started for
the stile, and as he went over it the moon came out
strong, and he had a long-handled shovel over his
shoulder, and we see the white patch on the old work-
gown. So Tom says:
“He’s a-walking in his sleep. I wish we was
allowed to follow him and see where he’s going to.
There, he’s turned down by the tobacker-field. Out
of sight now. It’s a dreadful pity he can’t rest no
better.”
We waited a long time, but he didn’t come back any
more, or if he did he come around the other way; so
at last we was tuckered out and went to sleep and had
nightmares, a million of them. But before dawn we
was awake again, because meantime a storm had come
up and been raging, and the thunder and lightning
was awful, and the wind was a-thrashing the trees
around, and the rain was driving down in slanting
sheets, and the gullies was running rivers. Tom says:
“Looky here, Huck, I’ll tell you one thing that’s
mighty curious. Up to the time we went out last night
the family hadn’t heard about Jake Dunlap being mur-
dered. Now the men that chased Hal Clayton and
Bud Dixon away would spread the thing around in a
half an hour, and every neighbor that heard it would
shin out and fly around from one farm to t’other and
try to be the first to tell the news. Land, they don’t
have such a big thing as that to tell twice in thirty year!
Huck, it’s mighty strange; I don’t understand it.”
So then he was in a fidget for the rain to let up, so
we could turn out and run across some of the people
and see if they would say anything about it to us.
And he said if they did we must be horribly surprised
and shocked.
We was out and gone the minute the rain stopped.
It was just broad day then. We loafed along up the
road, and now and then met a person and stopped and
said howdy, and told them when we come, and how we
left the folks at home, and how long we was going to
stay, and all that, but none of them said a word about
that thing; which was just astonishing, and no mistake.
Tom said he believed if we went to the sycamores we
would find that body laying there solitary and alone,
and not a soul around. Said he believed the men
chased the thieves so far into the woods that the thieves