his people, and how Brace’s wife had been dead three
years, and Brace wanted to marry Benny and she shook
him, and Jubiter was working for Uncle Silas, and him
and Uncle Silas quarreling all the time — and then he
let go and laughed.
“Land!” he says, “it’s like old times to hear all
this tittle-tattle, and does me good. It’s been seven
years and more since I heard any. How do they talk
about me these days?”
“Who?”
“The farmers — and the family.”
“Why, they don’t talk about you at all — at least
only just a mention, once in a long time.”
“The nation!” he says, surprised; “why is that?”
“Because they think you are dead long ago.”
“No! Are you speaking true? — honor bright,
now.” He jumped up, excited.
“Honor bright. There ain’t anybody thinks you are
alive.”
“Then I’m saved, I’m saved, sure! I’ll go home.
They’ll hide me and save my life. You keep mum.
Swear you’ll keep mum — swear you’ll never, never tell
on me. Oh, boys, be good to a poor devil that’s being
hunted day and night, and dasn’t show his face! I’ve
never done you any harm; I’ll never do you any, as
God is in the heavens; swear you’ll be good to me
and help me save my life.”
We’d a swore it if he’d been a dog; and so we done
it. Well, he couldn’t love us enough for it or be grate-
ful enough, poor cuss; it was all he could do to keep
from hugging us.
We talked along, and he got out a little hand-bag
and begun to open it, and told us to turn our backs.
We done it, and when he told us to turn again he was
perfectly different to what he was before. He had on
blue goggles and the naturalest-looking long brown
whiskers and mustashes you ever see. His own
mother wouldn’t ‘a’ knowed him. He asked us if he
looked like his brother Jubiter, now.
“No,” Tom said; “there ain’t anything left that’s
like him except the long hair.”
“All right, I’ll get that cropped close to my head be-
fore I get there; then him and Brace will keep my
secret, and I’ll live with them as being a stranger, and
the neighbors won’t ever guess me out. What do you
think?”
Tom he studied awhile, then he says:
“Well, of course me and Huck are going to keep
mum there, but if you don’t keep mum yourself there’s
going to be a little bit of a risk — it ain’t much, maybe,
but it’s a little. I mean, if you talk, won’t people
notice that your voice is just like Jubiter’s; and
mightn’t it make them think of the twin they reckoned
was dead, but maybe after all was hid all this time
under another name?”
“By George,” he says, “you’re a sharp one!
You’re perfectly right. I’ve got to play deef and
dumb when there’s a neighbor around. If I’d a struck
for home and forgot that little detail — However, I
wasn’t striking for home. I was breaking for any
place where I could get away from these fellows that
are after me; then I was going to put on this disguise
and get some different clothes, and –”
He jumped for the outside door and laid his ear
against it and listened, pale and kind of panting.
Presently he whispers:
“Sounded like cocking a gun! Lord, what a life to
lead!”
Then he sunk down in a chair all limp and sick like,
and wiped the sweat off of his face.
CHAPTER III.
A DIAMOND ROBBERY
FROM that time out, we was with him ‘most all the
time, and one or t’other of us slept in his upper
berth. He said he had been so lonesome, and it was
such a comfort to him to have company, and somebody
to talk to in his troubles. We was in a sweat to find
out what his secret was, but Tom said the best way was
not to seem anxious, then likely he would drop into it
himself in one of his talks, but if we got to asking