He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he
was most likely to get afire all over. That was the way
this time. In two minutes he had got it all ciphered
out, and wasn’t only just going to find the corpse —
no, he was going to get on the track of that murderer
and hunt HIM down, too; and not only that, but he
was going to stick to him till —
“Well,” I says, “you better find the corpse first; I
reckon that’s a-plenty for to-day. For all we know,
there AIN’T any corpse and nobody hain’t been mur-
dered. That cuss could ‘a’ gone off somers and not
been killed at all.”
That graveled him, and he says:
“Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to
want to spoil everything. As long as YOU can’t see
anything hopeful in a thing, you won’t let anybody
else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on
that corpse and get up that selfish theory that there
ain’t been any murder? None in the world. I don’t
see how you can act so. I wouldn’t treat you like
that, and you know it. Here we’ve got a noble good
opportunity to make a ruputation, and –”
“Oh, go ahead,” I says. “I’m sorry, and I take it
all back. I didn’t mean nothing. Fix it any way
you want it. HE ain’t any consequence to me. If
he’s killed, I’m as glad of it as you are; and if he –”
“I never said anything about being glad; I only –”
“Well, then, I’m as SORRY as you are. Any way
you druther have it, that is the way I druther have it.
He –”
“There ain’t any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; no-
body said anything about druthers. And as for –”
He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along,
studying. He begun to get excited again, and pretty
soon he says:
“Huck, it’ll be the bulliest thing that ever happened
if we find the body after everybody else has quit look-
ing, and then go ahead and hunt up the murderer. It
won’t only be an honor to us, but it’ll be an honor to
Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It’ll set
him up again, you see if it don’t.”
But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the
whole business when we got to his blacksmith shop and
told him what we come for.
“You can take the dog,” he says, “but you ain’t
a-going to find any corpse, because there ain’t any
corpse to find. Everybody’s quit looking, and they’re
right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed there
warn’t no corpse. And I’ll tell you for why. What
does a person kill another person for, Tom Sawyer? —
answer me that.”
“Why, he — er –”
“Answer up! You ain’t no fool. What does he kill
him FOR?”
“Well, sometimes it’s for revenge, and –”
“Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you;
and right you are. Now who ever had anything agin
that poor trifling no-account? Who do you reckon
would want to kill HIM? — that rabbit!”
Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn’t thought of a
person having to have a REASON for killing a person be-
fore, and now he sees it warn’t likely anybody would
have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter
Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:
“The revenge idea won’t work, you see. Well,
then, what’s next? Robbery? B’gosh, that must ‘a’
been it, Tom! Yes, sirree, I reckon we’ve struck it
this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and
so he –”
But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just
went on laughing and laughing and laughing till he was
‘most dead, and Tom looked so put out and cheap that
I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished
he hadn’t. But old Hooker never let up on him. He
raked up everything a person ever could want to kill
another person about, and any fool could see they
didn’t any of them fit this case, and he just made no