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diff --git a/102-0.txt b/102-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..59e96a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/102-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5967 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 102 *** + +The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson + +By Mark Twain + +Samuel L. Clemens + + +1894 +HARTFORD, CONN. +AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY + + + +Copyright, 1894, +by OLIVIA L. CLEMENS +All Rights Reserved +The right of dramatization and translation reserved. + + + +Copyright, 1893-1894, by the Century Company, in the Century Magazine. +Copyright, 1894, by Olivia L. Clemens +(All Rights Reserved) + + +Contents + + Pudd'nhead Wilson +Chapter Chapter Title Page + A Whisper to the Reader 15 + I. Pudd'nhead Wins His Name 17 + II. Driscoll Spares His Slaves 27 + III. Roxy Plays a Shrewd Trick 41 + IV. The Ways of the Changelings 52 + V. The Twins Thrill Dawson's Landing 67 + VI. Swimming in Glory 77 + VII. The Unknown Nymph 86 + VIII. Marse Tom Tramples His Chance 93 + IX. Tom Practises Sycophancy 111 + X. The Nymph Revealed 121 + XI. Pudd'nhead's Startling Discovery 130 + XII. The Shame of Judge Driscoll 155 + XIII. Tom Stares at Ruin 166 + XIV. Roxana Insists Upon Reform 179 + XV. The Robber Robbed 197 + XVI. Sold Down the River 214 + XVII. The Judge Utters Dire Prophecy 221 + XVIII. Roxana Commands 225 + XIX. The Prophecy Realized 246 + XX. The Murderer Chuckles 263 + XXI. Doom 278 + Conclusion 300 + + + + + + +A Whisper + +to the Reader. + +There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed +by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: +his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the +humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of +feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in +doubt.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +A person who is ignorant of legal matters is always liable to make +mistakes when he tries to photograph a court scene with his pen; and so +I was not willing to let the law chapters in this book go to press +without first subjecting them to rigid and exhausting revision and +correction by a trained barrister--if that is what they are called. +These chapters are right, now, in every detail, for they were rewritten +under the immediate eye of William Hicks, who studied law part of a +while in southwest Missouri thirty-five years ago and then came over +here to Florence for his health and is still helping for exercise and +board in Macaroni Vermicelli's horse-feed shed which is up the back +alley as you turn around the corner out of the Piazza del Duomo just +beyond the house where that stone that Dante used to sit on six hundred +years ago is let into the wall when he let on to be watching them build +Giotto's campanile and yet always got tired looking as soon as Beatrice +passed along on her way to get a chunk of chestnut cake to defend +herself with in case of a Ghibelline outbreak before she got to school, +at the same old stand where they sell the same old cake to this day and +it is just as light and good as it was then, too, and this is not +flattery, far from it. He was a little rusty on his law, but he rubbed +up for this book, and those two or three legal chapters are right and +straight, now. He told me so himself. + +Given under my hand this second day of January, 1893, at the Villa +Viviani, village of Settignano, three miles back of Florence, on the +hills--the same certainly affording the most charming view to be found +on this planet, and with it the most dreamlike and enchanting sunsets to +be found in any planet or even in any solar system--and given, too, in +the swell room of the house, with the busts of Cerretani senators and +other grandees of this line looking approvingly down upon me as they +used to look down upon Dante, and mutely asking me to adopt them into my +family, which I do with pleasure, for my remotest ancestors are but +spring chickens compared with these robed and stately antiques, and it +will be a great and satisfying lift for me, that six hundred years will. + +Mark Twain. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +Pudd'nhead Wins His Name. + +Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's +Calendar. + +The scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing, on the +Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey, per steamboat, +below St. Louis. + +In 1830 it was a snug little collection of modest one- and two-story +frame dwellings whose whitewashed exteriors were almost concealed from +sight by climbing tangles of rose-vines, honeysuckles, and +morning-glories. Each of these pretty homes had a garden in front fenced +with white palings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, +touch-me-nots, prince's-feathers and other old-fashioned flowers; while +on the window-sills of the houses stood wooden boxes containing +moss-rose plants and terra-cotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium +whose spread of intensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint +of the rose-clad house-front like an explosion of flame. When there was +room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was +there--in sunny weather--stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, +with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then +that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made +manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A +home without a cat--and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered +cat--may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title? + +All along the streets, on both sides, at the outer edge of the brick +sidewalks, stood locust-trees with trunks protected by wooden boxing, +and these furnished shade for summer and a sweet fragrance in spring +when the clusters of buds came forth. The main street, one block back +from the river, and running parallel with it, was the sole business +street. It was six blocks long, and in each block two or three brick +stores three stories high towered above interjected bunches of little +frame shops. Swinging signs creaked in the wind, the street's whole +length. The candy-striped pole which indicates nobility proud and +ancient along the palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated merely the +humble barber shop along the main street of Dawson's Landing. On a chief +corner stood a lofty unpainted pole wreathed from top to bottom with tin +pots and pans and cups, the chief tinmonger's noisy notice to the world +(when the wind blew) that his shop was on hand for business at that +corner. + +The hamlet's front was washed by the clear waters of the great river; +its body stretched itself rearward up a gentle incline; its most +rearward border fringed itself out and scattered its houses about the +base-line of the hills; the hills rose high, inclosing the town in a +half-moon curve, clothed with forests from foot to summit. + +Steamboats passed up and down every hour or so. Those belonging to the +little Cairo line and the little Memphis line always stopped; the big +Orleans liners stopped for hails only, or to land passengers or freight; +and this was the case also with the great flotilla of "transients." +These latter came out of a dozen rivers--the Illinois, the Missouri, the +Upper Mississippi, the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Red +River, the White River, and so on; and were bound every whither and +stocked with every imaginable comfort or necessity which the +Mississippi's communities could want, from the frosty Falls of St. +Anthony down through nine climates to torrid New Orleans. + +Dawson's Landing was a slaveholding town, with a rich slave-worked grain +and pork country back of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and +contented. It was fifty years old, and was growing slowly--very slowly, +in fact, but still it was growing. + +The chief citizen was York Leicester Driscoll, about forty years old, +judge of the county court. He was very proud of his old Virginian +ancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and stately +manners he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous. To +be a gentleman--a gentleman without stain or blemish--was his only +religion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed +and beloved by all the community. He was well off, and was gradually +adding to his store. He and his wife were very nearly happy, but not +quite, for they had no children. The longing for the treasure of a child +had grown stronger and stronger as the years slipped away, but the +blessing never came--and was never to come. + +With this pair lived the Judge's widowed sister, Mrs. Rachel Pratt, and +she also was childless--childless, and sorrowful for that reason, and +not to be comforted. The women were good and commonplace people, and did +their duty and had their reward in clear consciences and the community's +approbation. They were Presbyterians, the Judge was a free-thinker. + +Pembroke Howard, lawyer and bachelor, aged about forty, was another old +Virginian grandee with proved descent from the First Families. He was a +fine, brave, majestic creature, a gentleman according to the nicest +requirements of the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority +on the "code," and a man always courteously ready to stand up before you +in the field if any act or word of his had seemed doubtful or suspicious +to you, and explain it with any weapon you might prefer from brad-awls +to artillery. He was very popular with the people, and was the Judge's +dearest friend. + +Then there was Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, another F. F. V. of +formidable caliber--however, with him we have no concern. + +Percy Northumberland Driscoll, brother to the Judge, and younger than he +by five years, was a married man, and had had children around his +hearthstone; but they were attacked in detail by measles, croup and +scarlet fever, and this had given the doctor a chance with his effective +antediluvian methods; so the cradles were empty. He was a prosperous +man, with a good head for speculations, and his fortune was growing. On +the 1st of February, 1830, two boy babes were born in his house: one to +him, the other to one of his slave girls, Roxana by name. Roxana was +twenty years old. She was up and around the same day, with her hands +full, for she was tending both babies. + +Mrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxy remained in charge of the +children. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed himself in +his speculations and left her to her own devices. + +In that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen. +This was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage. He had +wandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior of +the State of New York, to seek his fortune. He was twenty-five years +old, college-bred, and had finished a post-college course in an Eastern +law school a couple of years before. + +He was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an +intelligent blue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it and a +covert twinkle of a pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his, +he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at +Dawson's Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent in +the village, and it "gaged" him. He had just made the acquaintance of a +group of citizens when an invisible dog began to yelp and snarl and howl +and make himself very comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon young +Wilson said, much as one who is thinking aloud-- + +"I wish I owned half of that dog." + +"Why?" somebody asked. + +"Because I would kill my half." + +The group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found +no light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from +him as from something uncanny, and went into privacy to discuss him. One +said: + +"'Pears to be a fool." + +"'Pears?" said another. "Is, I reckon you better say." + +"Said he wished he owned half of the dog, the idiot," said a third. +"What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his +half? Do you reckon he thought it would live?" + +"Why, he must have thought it, unless he is the downrightest fool in the +world; because if he hadn't thought it, he would have wanted to own the +whole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died, +he would be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed +that half instead of his own. Don't it look that way to you, gents?" + +"Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so; +if he owned one end of the dog and another person owned the other end, +it would be so, just the same; particularly in the first case, because +if you kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell +whose half it was, but if he owned one end of the dog, maybe he could +kill his end of it and--" + +"No, he couldn't either; he couldn't and not be responsible if the other +end died, which it would. In my opinion that man ain't in his right +mind." + +"In my opinion he hain't got any mind." + +No. 3 said: "Well, he's a lummox, anyway." + +"That's what he is," said No. 4, "he's a labrick--just a Simon-pure +labrick, if ever there was one." + +"Yes, sir, he's a dam fool, that's the way I put him up," said No. 5. +"Anybody can think different that wants to, but those are my +sentiments." + +"I'm with you, gentlemen," said No. 6. "Perfect jackass--yes, and it +ain't going too far to say he is a pudd'nhead. If he ain't a pudd'nhead, +I ain't no judge, that's all." + +Mr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and +gravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first +name; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well +liked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it +stayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to +get it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry +any harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was +to continue to hold its place for twenty long years. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Driscoll Spares His Slaves. + +Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for +the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The +mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the +serpent.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +Pudd'nhead Wilson had a trifle of money when he arrived, and he bought a +small house on the extreme western verge of the town. Between it and +Judge Driscoll's house there was only a grassy yard, with a paling fence +dividing the properties in the middle. He hired a small office down in +the town and hung out a tin sign with these words on it: + +DAVID WILSON. + +ATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR-AT-LAW. +SURVEYING, CONVEYANCING, ETC. + +But his deadly remark had ruined his chance--at least in the law. No +clients came. He took down his sign, after a while, and put it up on his +own house with the law features knocked out of it. It offered his +services now in the humble capacities of land-surveyor and expert +accountant. Now and then he got a job of surveying to do, and now and +then a merchant got him to straighten out his books. With Scotch +patience and pluck he resolved to live down his reputation and work his +way into the legal field yet. Poor fellow, he could not foresee that it +was going to take him such a weary long time to do it. + +He had a rich abundance of idle time, but it never hung heavy on his +hands, for he interested himself in every new thing that was born into +the universe of ideas, and studied it and experimented upon it at his +house. One of his pet fads was palmistry. To another one he gave no +name, neither would he explain to anybody what its purpose was, but +merely said it was an amusement. In fact he had found that his fads +added to his reputation as a pudd'nhead; therefore he was growing chary +of being too communicative about them. The fad without a name was one +which dealt with people's finger-marks. He carried in his coat pocket a +shallow box with grooves in it, and in the grooves strips of glass five +inches long and three inches wide. Along the lower edge of each strip +was pasted a slip of white paper. He asked people to pass their hands +through their hair (thus collecting upon them a thin coating of the +natural oil) and then make a thumb-mark on a glass strip, following it +with the mark of the ball of each finger in succession. Under this row +of faint grease-prints he would write a record on the strip of white +paper--thus: + +John Smith, right hand-- + +and add the day of the month and the year, then take Smith's left hand +on another glass strip, and add name and date and the words "left hand." +The strips were now returned to the grooved box, and took their place +among what Wilson called his "records." + +He often studied his records, examining and poring over them with +absorbing interest until far into the night; but what he found there--if +he found anything--he revealed to no one. Sometimes he copied on paper +the involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of a finger, and then +vastly enlarged it with a pantograph so that he could examine its web of +curving lines with ease and convenience. + +One sweltering afternoon--it was the first day of July, 1830--he was at +work over a set of tangled account-books in his work-room, which looked +westward over a stretch of vacant lots, when a conversation outside +disturbed him. It was carried on in yells, which showed that the people +engaged in it were not close together: + +"Say, Roxy, how does yo' baby come on?" This from the distant voice. + +"Fust-rate; how does you come on, Jasper?" This yell was from close by. + +"Oh, I's middlin'; hain't got noth'n' to complain of. I's gwine to come +a-court'n' you bimeby, Roxy." + +"You is, you black mud-cat! Yah--yah--yah! I got somep'n' better to do +den 'sociat'n' wid niggers as black as you is. Is ole Miss Cooper's +Nancy done give you de mitten?" Roxy followed this sally with another +discharge of care-free laughter. + +"You's jealous, Roxy, dat's what's de matter wid you, you +hussy--yah--yah--yah! Dat's de time I got you!" + +"Oh, yes, you got me, hain't you. 'Clah to goodness if dat conceit o' +yo'n strikes in, Jasper, it gwine to kill you sho'. If you b'longed to +me I'd sell you down de river 'fo' you git too fur gone. Fust time I +runs acrost yo' marster, I's gwine to tell him so." + +This idle and aimless jabber went on and on, both parties enjoying the +friendly duel and each well satisfied with his own share of the wit +exchanged--for wit they considered it. + +Wilson stepped to the window to observe the combatants; he could not +work while their chatter continued. Over in the vacant lots was Jasper, +young, coal-black and of magnificent build, sitting on a wheelbarrow in +the pelting sun--at work, supposably, whereas he was in fact only +preparing for it by taking an hour's rest before beginning. In front of +Wilson's porch stood Roxy, with a local hand-made baby-wagon, in which +sat her two charges--one at each end and facing each other. From Roxy's +manner of speech, a stranger would have expected her to be black, but +she was not. Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did +not show. She was of majestic form and stature, her attitudes were +imposing and statuesque, and her gestures and movements distinguished by +a noble and stately grace. Her complexion was very fair, with the rosy +glow of vigorous health in the cheeks, her face was full of character +and expression, her eyes were brown and liquid, and she had a heavy suit +of fine soft hair which was also brown, but the fact was not apparent +because her head was bound about with a checkered handkerchief and the +hair was concealed under it. Her face was shapely, intelligent and +comely--even beautiful. She had an easy, independent carriage--when she +was among her own caste--and a high and "sassy" way, withal; but of +course she was meek and humble enough where white people were. + +To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one +sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and +made her a negro. She was a slave, and salable as such. Her child was +thirty-one parts white, and he, too, was a slave, and by a fiction of +law and custom a negro. He had blue eyes and flaxen curls like his white +comrade, but even the father of the white child was able to tell the +children apart--little as he had commerce with them--by their clothes: +for the white babe wore ruffled soft muslin and a coral necklace, while +the other wore merely a coarse tow-linen shirt which barely reached to +its knees, and no jewelry. + +The white child's name was Thomas à Becket Driscoll, the other's name +was Valet de Chambre: no surname--slaves hadn't the privilege. Roxana +had heard that phrase somewhere, the fine sound of it had pleased her +ear, and as she had supposed it was a name, she loaded it on to her +darling. It soon got shorted to "Chambers," of course. + +Wilson knew Roxy by sight, and when the duel of wit began to play out, +he stepped outside to gather in a record or two. Jasper went to work +energetically, at once, perceiving that his leisure was observed. Wilson +inspected the children and asked-- + +"How old are they, Roxy?" + +"Bofe de same age, sir--five months. Bawn de fust o' Feb'uary." + +"They're handsome little chaps. One's just as handsome as the other, +too." + +A delighted smile exposed the girl's white teeth, and she said: + +"Bless yo' soul, Misto Wilson, it's pow'ful nice o' you to say dat, +'ca'se one of 'em ain't on'y a nigger. Mighty prime little nigger, I +al'ays says, but dat's 'ca'se it's mine, o' course." + +"How do you tell them apart, Roxy, when they haven't any clothes on?" + +Roxy laughed a laugh proportioned to her size, and said: + +"Oh, I kin tell 'em 'part, Misto Wilson, but I bet Marse Percy couldn't, +not to save his life." + +Wilson chatted along for awhile, and presently got Roxy's finger-prints +for his collection--right hand and left--on a couple of his glass +strips; then labeled and dated them, and took the "records" of both +children, and labeled and dated them also. + +Two months later, on the 3d of September, he took this trio of +finger-marks again. He liked to have a "series," two or three "takings" +at intervals during the period of childhood, these to be followed by +others at intervals of several years. + +The next day--that is to say, on the 4th of September--something +occurred which profoundly impressed Roxana. Mr. Driscoll missed another +small sum of money--which is a way of saying that this was not a new +thing, but had happened before. In truth it had happened three times +before. Driscoll's patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man +toward slaves and other animals; he was an exceedingly humane man toward +the erring of his own race. Theft he could not abide, and plainly there +was a thief in his house. Necessarily the thief must be one of his +negroes. Sharp measures must be taken. He called his servants before +him. There were three of these, besides Roxy: a man, a woman, and a boy +twelve years old. They were not related. Mr. Driscoll said: + +"You have all been warned before. It has done no good. This time I will +teach you a lesson. I will sell the thief. Which of you is the guilty +one?" + +They all shuddered at the threat, for here they had a good home, and a +new one was likely to be a change for the worse. The denial was general. +None had stolen anything--not money, anyway--a little sugar, or cake, or +honey, or something like that, that "Marse Percy wouldn't mind or miss," +but not money--never a cent of money. They were eloquent in their +protestations, but Mr. Driscoll was not moved by them. He answered each +in turn with a stern "Name the thief!" + +The truth was, all were guilty but Roxana; she suspected that the others +were guilty, but she did not know them to be so. She was horrified to +think how near she had come to being guilty herself; she had been saved +in the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church, a +fortnight before, at which time and place she "got religion." The very +next day after that gracious experience, while her change of style was +fresh upon her and she was vain of her purified condition, her master +left a couple dollars lying unprotected on his desk, and she happened +upon that temptation when she was polishing around with a dust-rag. She +looked at the money awhile with a steady rising resentment, then she +burst out with-- + +"Dad blame dat revival, I wisht it had 'a' be'n put off till to-morrow!" + +Then she covered the tempter with a book, and another member of the +kitchen cabinet got it. She made this sacrifice as a matter of religious +etiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be wrested +into a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety, then she +would be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left out in +the cold would find a comforter--and she could name the comforter. + +Was she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No. They +had an unfair show in the battle of life, and they held it no sin to +take military advantage of the enemy--in a small way; in a small way, +but not in a large one. They would smouch provisions from the pantry +whenever they got a chance; or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an +emery-bag, or a paper of needles, or a silver spoon, or a dollar bill, +or small articles of clothing, or any other property of light value; and +so far were they from considering such reprisals sinful, that they would +go to church and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their +plunder in their pockets. A farm smoke-house had to be kept heavily +padlocked, for even the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham +when Providence showed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a thing +hung lonesome and longed for some one to love. But with a hundred +hanging before him the deacon would not take two--that is, on the same +night. On frosty nights the humane negro prowler would warm the end of a +plank and put it up under the cold claws of chickens roosting in a tree; +a drowsy hen would step on to the comfortable board, softly clucking her +gratitude, and the prowler would dump her into his bag, and later into +his stomach, perfectly sure that in taking this trifle from the man who +daily robbed him of an inestimable treasure--his liberty--he was not +committing any sin that God would remember against him in the Last Great +Day. + +"Name the thief!" + +For the fourth time Mr. Driscoll had said it, and always in the same +hard tone. And now he added these words of awful import: + +"I give you one minute"--he took out his watch. "If at the end of that +time you have not confessed, I will not only sell all four of you, +but--I will sell you down the river!" + +It was equivalent to condemning them to hell! No Missouri negro doubted +this. Roxy reeled in her tracks and the color vanished out of her face; +the others dropped to their knees as if they had been shot; tears gushed +from their eyes, their supplicating hands went up, and three answers +came in the one instant: + +"I done it!" + +"I done it!" + +"I done it!--have mercy, marster--Lord have mercy on us po' niggers!" + +"Very good," said the master, putting up his watch, "I will sell you +here though you don't deserve it. You ought to be sold down the river." + +The culprits flung themselves prone, in an ecstasy of gratitude, and +kissed his feet, declaring that they would never forget his goodness and +never cease to pray for him as long as they lived. They were sincere, +for like a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the +gates of hell against them. He knew, himself, that he had done a noble +and gracious thing, and was privately well pleased with his magnanimity; +and that night he set the incident down in his diary, so that his son +might read it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds of +gentleness and humanity himself. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +Roxy Plays a Shrewd Trick. + +Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a +debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our +race. He brought death into the world.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +Percy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house-minions from +going down the river, but no wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes. A +profound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could grow up and +be sold down the river! The thought crazed her with horror. If she dozed +and lost herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet +flying to her child's cradle to see if it was still there. Then she +would gather it to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy +of kisses, moaning, crying, and saying, "Dey sha'n't, oh, dey +sha'n't!--yo' po' mammy will kill you fust!" + +Once, when she was tucking it back in its cradle again, the other child +nestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood +over it a long time communing with herself: + +"What has my po' baby done, dat he couldn't have yo' luck? He hain't +done noth'n'. God was good to you; why warn't he good to him? Dey can't +sell you down de river. I hates yo' pappy; he hain't got no heart--for +niggers he hain't, anyways. I hates him, en I could kill him!" She +paused awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild sobbings again, and +turned away, saying, "Oh, I got to kill my chile, dey ain't no yuther +way,--killin' him wouldn't save de chile fum goin' down de river. Oh, I +got to do it, yo' po' mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey"--she +gathered her baby to her bosom, now, and began to smother it with +caresses--"Mammy's got to kill you--how kin I do it! But yo' mammy ain't +gwine to desert you--no, no; dah, don't cry--she gwine wid you, she +gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey, come along wid mammy; we +gwine to jump in de river, den de troubles o' dis worl' is all over--dey +don't sell po' niggers down the river over yonder." + +She started toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it; +midway she stopped, suddenly. She had caught sight of her new Sunday +gown--a cheap curtain-calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy colors and +fantastic figures. She surveyed it wistfully, longingly. + +"Hain't ever wore it yet," she said, "en it's jist lovely." Then she +nodded her head in response to a pleasant idea, and added, "No, I ain't +gwine to be fished out, wid everybody lookin' at me, in dis mis'able ole +linsey-woolsey." + +She put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass and +was astonished at her beauty. She resolved to make her death-toilet +perfect. She took off her handkerchief-turban and dressed her glossy +wealth of hair "like white folks"; she added some odds and ends of +rather lurid ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally +she threw over her shoulders a fluffy thing called a "cloud" in that +day, which was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the +tomb. + +She gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its +miserably short little gray tow-linen shirt and noted the contrast +between its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic irruption of infernal +splendors, her mother-heart was touched, and she was ashamed. + +"No, dolling, mammy ain't gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine to +'mire you jist as much as dey does yo' mammy. Ain't gwine to have 'em +putt'n' dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David en Goliah en dem +yuther prophets, 'Dat chile is dress' too indelicate fo' dis place.'" + +By this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked +little creature in one of Thomas à Becket's snowy long baby-gowns, with +its bright blue bows and dainty flummery of ruffles. + +"Dah--now you's fixed." She propped the child in a chair and stood off +to inspect it. Straightway her eyes began to widen with astonishment and +admiration, and she clapped her hands and cried out, "Why, it do beat +all!--I never knowed you was so lovely. Marse Tommy ain't a bit +puttier--not a single bit." + +She stepped over and glanced at the other infant; she flung a glance +back at her own; then one more at the heir of the house. Now a strange +light dawned in her eyes, and in a moment she was lost in thought. She +seemed in a trance; when she came out of it she muttered, "When I 'uz +a-washin' 'em in de tub, yistiddy, his own pappy asked me which of 'em +was his'n." + +She began to move about like one in a dream. She undressed Thomas à +Becket, stripping him of everything, and put the tow-linen shirt on him. +She put his coral necklace on her own child's neck. Then she placed the +children side by side, and after earnest inspection she muttered-- + +"Now who would b'lieve clo'es could do de like o' dat? Dog my cats if it +ain't all I kin do to tell t'other fum which, let alone his pappy." + +She put her cub in Tommy's elegant cradle and said-- + +"You's young Marse Tom fum dis out, en I got to practise and git used to +'memberin' to call you dat, honey, or I's gwine to make a mistake some +time en git us bofe into trouble. Dah--now you lay still en don't fret +no mo', Marse Tom--oh, thank de good Lord in heaven, you's saved, you's +saved!--dey ain't no man kin ever sell mammy's po' little honey down de +river now!" + +She put the heir of the house in her own child's unpainted pine cradle, +and said, contemplating its slumbering form uneasily-- + +"I's sorry for you, honey; I's sorry, God knows I is,--but what kin I +do, what could I do? Yo' pappy would sell him to somebody, some time, en +den he'd go down de river, sho', en I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't stan' +it." + +She flung herself on her bed and began to think and toss, toss and +think. By and by she sat suddenly upright, for a comforting thought had +flown through her worried mind-- + +"'Tain't no sin--white folks has done it! It ain't no sin, glory to +goodness it ain't no sin! Dey's done it--yes, en dey was de biggest +quality in de whole bilin', too--kings!" + +She began to muse; she was trying to gather out of her memory the dim +particulars of some tale she had heard some time or other. At last she +said-- + +"Now I's got it; now I 'member. It was dat ole nigger preacher dat tole +it, de time he come over here fum Illinois en preached in de nigger +church. He said dey ain't nobody kin save his own self--can't do it by +faith, can't do it by works, can't do it no way at all. Free grace is de +on'y way, en dat don't come fum nobody but jis' de Lord; en he kin give +it to anybody he please, saint or sinner--he don't kyer. He do jis' as +he's a mineter. He s'lect out anybody dat suit him, en put another one +in his place, and make de fust one happy forever en leave t'other one to +burn wid Satan. De preacher said it was jist like dey done in Englan' +one time, long time ago. De queen she lef' her baby layin' aroun' one +day, en went out callin'; en one o' de niggers roun'-'bout de place dat +was 'mos' white, she come in en see de chile layin' aroun', en tuck en +put her own chile's clo'es on de queen's chile, en put de queen's +chile's clo'es on her own chile, en den lef' her own chile layin' aroun' +en tuck en toted de queen's chile home to de nigger-quarter, en nobody +ever foun' it out, en her chile was de king bimeby, en sole de queen's +chile down de river one time when dey had to settle up de estate. Dah, +now--de preacher said it his own self, en it ain't no sin, 'ca'se white +folks done it. Dey done it--yes, dey done it; en not on'y jis' common +white folks nuther, but de biggest quality dey is in de whole bilin'. +Oh, I's so glad I 'member 'bout dat!" + +She got up light-hearted and happy, and went to the cradles and spent +what was left of the night "practising." She would give her own child a +light pat and say humbly, "Lay still, Marse Tom," then give the real Tom +a pat and say with severity, "Lay still, Chambers!--does you want me to +take somep'n' to you?" + +As she progressed with her practice, she was surprised to see how +steadily and surely the awe which had kept her tongue reverent and her +manner humble toward her young master was transferring itself to her +speech and manner toward the usurper, and how similarly handy she was +becoming in transferring her motherly curtness of speech and +peremptoriness of manner to the unlucky heir of the ancient house of +Driscoll. + +She took occasional rests from practising, and absorbed herself in +calculating her chances. + +"Dey'll sell dese niggers to-day fo' stealin' de money, den dey'll buy +some mo' dat don't know de chillen--so dat's all right. When I takes de +chillen out to git de air, de minute I's roun' de corner I's gwine to +gaum dey mouths all roun' wid jam, den dey can't nobody notice dey's +changed. Yes, I gwineter do dat till I's safe, if it's a year. + +"Dey ain't but one man dat I's afeard of, en dat's dat Pudd'nhead +Wilson. Dey calls him a pudd'nhead, en says he's a fool. My lan', dat +man ain't no mo' fool den I is! He's de smartes' man in dis town, less'n +it's Jedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard. Blame dat man, he worries me +wid dem ornery glasses o' hisn; I b'lieve he's a witch. But nemmine, I's +gwine to happen aroun' dah one o' dese days en let on dat I reckon he +wants to print de chillen's fingers ag'in; en if he don't notice dey's +changed, I bound dey ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe, +sho'. But I reckon I'll tote along a hoss-shoe to keep off de +witch-work." + +The new negroes gave Roxy no trouble, of course. The master gave her +none, for one of his speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so +occupied that he hardly saw the children when he looked at them, and all +Roxy had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter when he came +about; then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums, and he was +gone again before the spasm passed and the little creatures resumed a +human aspect. + +Within a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that Mr. +Percy went away with his brother the Judge, to see what could be done +with it. It was a land speculation as usual, and it had gotten +complicated with a lawsuit. The men were gone seven weeks. Before they +got back Roxy had paid her visit to Wilson, and was satisfied. Wilson +took the finger-prints, labeled them with the names and with the +date--October the first--put them carefully away and continued his chat +with Roxy, who seemed very anxious that he should admire the great +advance in flesh and beauty which the babies had made since he took +their finger-prints a month before. He complimented their improvement to +her contentment; and as they were without any disguise of jam or other +stain, she trembled all the while and was miserably frightened lest at +any moment he-- + +But he didn't. He discovered nothing; and she went home jubilant, and +dropped all concern about the matter permanently out of her mind. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +The Ways of the Changelings. + +Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they +escaped teething.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +There is this trouble about special providences--namely, there is so +often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In +the case of the children, the bears and the prophet, the bears got more +real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they +got the children.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +This history must henceforth accommodate itself to the change which +Roxana has consummated, and call the real heir "Chambers" and the +usurping little slave "Thomas à Becket"--shortening this latter name to +"Tom," for daily use, as the people about him did. + +"Tom" was a bad baby, from the very beginning of his usurpation. He +would cry for nothing; he would burst into storms of devilish temper +without notice, and let go scream after scream and squall after squall, +then climax the thing with "holding his breath"--that frightful +specialty of the teething nursling, in the throes of which the creature +exhausts its lungs, then is convulsed with noiseless squirmings and +twistings and kickings in the effort to get its breath, while the lips +turn blue and the mouth stands wide and rigid, offering for inspection +one wee tooth set in the lower rim of a hoop of red gums; and when the +appalling stillness has endured until one is sure the lost breath will +never return, a nurse comes flying, and dashes water in the child's +face, and--presto! the lungs fill, and instantly discharge a shriek, or +a yell, or a howl which bursts the listening ear and surprises the owner +of it into saying words which would not go well with a halo if he had +one. The baby Tom would claw anybody who came within reach of his nails, +and pound anybody he could reach with his rattle. He would scream for +water until he got it, and then throw cup and all on the floor and +scream for more. He was indulged in all his caprices, howsoever +troublesome and exasperating they might be; he was allowed to eat +anything he wanted, particularly things that would give him the +stomach-ache. + +When he got to be old enough to begin to toddle about and say broken +words and get an idea of what his hands were for, he was a more +consummate pest than ever. Roxy got no rest while he was awake. He would +call for anything and everything he saw, simply saying "Awnt it!" (want +it), which was a command. When it was brought, he said in a frenzy, and +motioning it away with his hands, "Don't awnt it! don't awnt it!" and +the moment it was gone he set up frantic yells of "Awnt it! awnt it! +awnt it!" and Roxy had to give wings to her heels to get that thing back +to him again before he could get time to carry out his intention of +going into convulsions about it. + +What he preferred above all other things was the tongs. This was because +his "father" had forbidden him to have them lest he break windows and +furniture with them. The moment Roxy's back was turned he would toddle +to the presence of the tongs and say "Like it!" and cock his eye to one +side to see if Roxy was observing; then, "Awnt it!" and cock his eye +again; then, "Hab it!" with another furtive glance; and finally, "Take +it!"--and the prize was his. The next moment the heavy implement was +raised aloft; the next, there was a crash and a squall, and the cat was +off on three legs to meet an engagement; Roxy would arrive just as the +lamp or a window went to irremediable smash. + +Tom got all the petting, Chambers got none. Tom got all the delicacies, +Chambers got mush and milk, and clabber without sugar. In consequence +Tom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't. Tom was "fractious," as Roxy +called it, and overbearing; Chambers was meek and docile. + +With all her splendid common sense and practical every-day ability, Roxy +was a doting fool of a mother. She was this toward her child--and she +was also more than this: by the fiction created by herself, he was +become her master; the necessity of recognizing this relation outwardly +and of perfecting herself in the forms required to express the +recognition, had moved her to such diligence and faithfulness in +practicing these forms that this exercise soon concreted itself into +habit; it became automatic and unconscious; then a natural result +followed: deceptions intended solely for others gradually grew +practically into self-deceptions as well; the mock reverence became real +reverence, the mock obsequiousness real obsequiousness, the mock homage +real homage; the little counterfeit rift of separation between +imitation-slave and imitation-master widened and widened, and became an +abyss, and a very real one--and on one side of it stood Roxy, the dupe +of her own deceptions, and on the other stood her child, no longer a +usurper to her, but her accepted and recognized master. He was her +darling, her master, and her deity all in one, and in her worship of him +she forgot who she was and what he had been. + +In babyhood Tom cuffed and banged and scratched Chambers unrebuked, and +Chambers early learned that between meekly bearing it and resenting it, +the advantage all lay with the former policy. The few times that his +persecutions had moved him beyond control and made him fight back had +cost him very dear at headquarters; not at the hands of Roxy, for if she +ever went beyond scolding him sharply for "forgitt'n' who his young +marster was," she at least never extended her punishment beyond a box on +the ear. No, Percy Driscoll was the person. He told Chambers that under +no provocation whatever was he privileged to lift his hand against his +little master. Chambers overstepped the line three times, and got three +such convincing canings from the man who was his father and didn't know +it, that he took Tom's cruelties in all humility after that, and made no +more experiments. + +Outside of the house the two boys were together all through their +boyhood. Chambers was strong beyond his years, and a good fighter; +strong because he was coarsely fed and hard worked about the house, and +a good fighter because Tom furnished him plenty of practice--on white +boys whom he hated and was afraid of. Chambers was his constant +body-guard, to and from school; he was present on the playground at +recess to protect his charge. He fought himself into such a formidable +reputation, by and by, that Tom could have changed clothes with him, and +"ridden in peace," like Sir Kay in Launcelot's armor. + +He was good at games of skill, too. Tom staked him with marbles to play +"keeps" with, and then took all the winnings away from him. In the +winter season Chambers was on hand, in Tom's worn-out clothes, with +"holy" red mittens, and "holy" shoes, and pants "holy" at the knees and +seat, to drag a sled up the hill for Tom, warmly clad, to ride down on; +but he never got a ride himself. He built snow men and snow +fortifications under Tom's directions. He was Tom's patient target when +Tom wanted to do some snowballing, but the target couldn't fire back. +Chambers carried Tom's skates to the river and strapped them on him, +then trotted around after him on the ice, so as to be on hand when +wanted; but he wasn't ever asked to try the skates himself. + +In summer the pet pastime of the boys of Dawson's Landing was to steal +apples, peaches, and melons from the farmers' fruit-wagons,--mainly on +account of the risk they ran of getting their heads laid open with the +butt of the farmer's whip. Tom was a distinguished adept at these +thefts--by proxy. Chambers did his stealing, and got the peach-stones, +apple-cores, and melon-rinds for his share. + +Tom always made Chambers go in swimming with him, and stay by him as a +protection. When Tom had had enough, he would slip out and tie knots in +Chambers's shirt, dip the knots in the water and make them hard to undo, +then dress himself and sit by and laugh while the naked shiverer tugged +at the stubborn knots with his teeth. + +Tom did his humble comrade these various ill turns partly out of native +viciousness, and partly because he hated him for his superiorities of +physique and pluck, and for his manifold cleverness. Tom couldn't dive, +for it gave him splitting headaches. Chambers could dive without +inconvenience, and was fond of doing it. He excited so much admiration, +one day, among a crowd of white boys, by throwing back somersaults from +the stern of a canoe, that it wearied Tom's spirit, and at last he +shoved the canoe underneath Chambers while he was in the air--so he came +down on his head in the canoe-bottom; and while he lay unconscious, +several of Tom's ancient adversaries saw that their long-desired +opportunity was come, and they gave the false heir such a drubbing that +with Chambers's best help he was hardly able to drag himself home +afterward. + +When the boys were fifteen and upward, Tom was "showing off" in the +river one day, when he was taken with a cramp, and shouted for help. It +was a common trick with the boys--particularly if a stranger was +present--to pretend a cramp and howl for help; then when the stranger +came tearing hand over hand to the rescue, the howler would go on +struggling and howling till he was close at hand, then replace the howl +with a sarcastic smile and swim blandly away, while the town boys +assailed the dupe with a volley of jeers and laughter. Tom had never +tried this joke as yet, but was supposed to be trying it now, so the +boys held warily back; but Chambers believed his master was in earnest, +therefore he swam out, and arrived in time, unfortunately, and saved his +life. + +This was the last feather. Tom had managed to endure everything else, +but to have to remain publicly and permanently under such an obligation +as this to a nigger, and to this nigger of all niggers--this was too +much. He heaped insults upon Chambers for "pretending" to think he was +in earnest in calling for help, and said that anybody but a block-headed +nigger would have known he was funning and left him alone. + +Tom's enemies were in strong force here, so they came out with their +opinions quite freely. They laughed at him, and called him coward, liar, +sneak, and other sorts of pet names, and told him they meant to call +Chambers by a new name after this, and make it common in the town--"Tom +Driscoll's niggerpappy,"--to signify that he had had a second birth into +this life, and that Chambers was the author of his new being. Tom grew +frantic under these taunts, and shouted-- + +"Knock their heads off, Chambers! knock their heads off! What do you +stand there with your hands in your pockets for?" + +Chambers expostulated, and said, "But, Marse Tom, dey's too many of +'em--dey's--" + +"Do you hear me?" + +"Please, Marse Tom, don't make me! Dey's so many of 'em dat--" + +Tom sprang at him and drove his pocket-knife into him two or three times +before the boys could snatch him away and give the wounded lad a chance +to escape. He was considerably hurt, but not seriously. If the blade had +been a little longer his career would have ended there. + +Tom had long ago taught Roxy "her place." It had been many a day now +since she had ventured a caress or a fondling epithet in his quarter. +Such things, from a "nigger," were repulsive to him, and she had been +warned to keep her distance and remember who she was. She saw her +darling gradually cease from being her son, she saw that detail perish +utterly; all that was left was master--master, pure and simple, and it +was not a gentle mastership, either. She saw herself sink from the +sublime height of motherhood to the somber depths of unmodified slavery. +The abyss of separation between her and her boy was complete. She was +merely his chattel, now, his convenience, his dog, his cringing and +helpless slave, the humble and unresisting victim of his capricious +temper and vicious nature. + +Sometimes she could not go to sleep, even when worn out with fatigue, +because her rage boiled so high over the day's experiences with her boy. +She would mumble and mutter to herself-- + +"He struck me, en I warn't no way to blame--struck me in de face, right +before folks. En he's al'ays callin' me nigger-wench, en hussy, en all +dem mean names, when I's doin' de very bes' I kin. Oh, Lord, I done so +much for him--I lift' him away up to what he is--en dis is what I git +for it." + +Sometimes when some outrage of peculiar offensiveness stung her to the +heart, she would plan schemes of vengeance and revel in the fancied +spectacle of his exposure to the world as an imposter and a slave; but +in the midst of these joys fear would strike her: she had made him too +strong; she could prove nothing, and--heavens, she might get sold down +the river for her pains! So her schemes always went for nothing, and she +laid them aside in impotent rage against the fates, and against herself +for playing the fool on that fatal September day in not providing +herself with a witness for use in the day when such a thing might be +needed for the appeasing of her vengeance-hungry heart. + +And yet the moment Tom happened to be good to her, and kind,--and this +occurred every now and then,--all her sore places were healed, and she +was happy; happy and proud, for this was her son, her nigger son, +lording it among the whites and securely avenging their crimes against +her race. + +There were two grand funerals in Dawson's Landing that fall--the fall of +1845. One was that of Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, the other that of +Percy Driscoll. + +On his death-bed Driscoll set Roxy free and delivered his idolized +ostensible son solemnly into the keeping of his brother, the Judge and +his wife. Those childless people were glad to get him. Childless people +are not difficult to please. + +Judge Driscoll had gone privately to his brother, a month before, and +bought Chambers. He had heard that Tom had been trying to get his father +to sell the boy down the river, and he wanted to prevent the +scandal--for public sentiment did not approve of that way of treating +family servants for light cause or for no cause. + +Percy Driscoll had worn himself out in trying to save his great +speculative landed estate, and had died without succeeding. He was +hardly in his grave before the boom collapsed and left his hitherto +envied young devil of an heir a pauper. But that was nothing; his uncle +told him he should be his heir and have all his fortune when he died; so +Tom was comforted. + +Roxy had no home, now; so she resolved to go around and say good-by to +her friends and then clear out and see the world--that is to say, she +would go chambermaiding on a steamboat, the darling ambition of her race +and sex. + +Her last call was on the black giant, Jasper. She found him chopping +Pudd'nhead Wilson's winter provision of wood. + +Wilson was chatting with him when Roxy arrived. He asked her how she +could bear to go off chambermaiding and leave her boys; and chaffingly +offered to copy off a series of their finger-prints, reaching up to +their twelfth year, for her to remember them by; but she sobered in a +moment, wondering if he suspected anything; then she said she believed +she didn't want them. Wilson said to himself, "The drop of black blood +in her is superstitious; she thinks there's some devilry, some +witch-business about my glass mystery somewhere; she used to come here +with an old horseshoe in her hand; it could have been an accident, but I +doubt it." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +The Twins Thrill Dawson's Landing. + +Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower +is nothing but cabbage with a college education.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's +Calendar. + +Remark of Dr. Baldwin's, concerning upstarts: We don't care to eat +toadstools that think they are truffles.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +Mrs. York Driscoll enjoyed two years of bliss with that prize, +Tom--bliss that was troubled a little at times, it is true, but bliss +nevertheless; then she died, and her husband and his childless sister, +Mrs. Pratt, continued the bliss-business at the old stand. Tom was +petted and indulged and spoiled to his entire content--or nearly that. +This went on till he was nineteen, then he was sent to Yale. He went +handsomely equipped with "conditions," but otherwise he was not an +object of distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then +threw up the struggle. He came home with his manners a good deal +improved; he had lost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather +pleasantly soft and smooth, now; he was furtively, and sometimes openly, +ironical of speech, and given to gently touching people on the raw, but +he did it with a good-natured semiconscious air that carried it off +safely, and kept him from getting into trouble. He was as indolent as +ever and showed no very strenuous desire to hunt up an occupation. +People argued from this that he preferred to be supported by his uncle +until his uncle's shoes should become vacant. He brought back one or two +new habits with him, one of which he rather openly +practised--tippling--but concealed another which was gambling. It would +not do to gamble where his uncle could hear of it; he knew that quite +well. + +Tom's Eastern polish was not popular among the young people. They could +have endured it, perhaps, if Tom had stopped there; but he wore gloves, +and that they couldn't stand, and wouldn't; so he was mainly without +society. He brought home with him a suit of clothes of such exquisite +style and cut and fashion,--Eastern fashion, city fashion,--that it +filled everybody with anguish and was regarded as a peculiarly wanton +affront. He enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting, and paraded the +town serene and happy all day; but the young fellows set a tailor to +work that night, and when Tom started out on his parade next morning he +found the old deformed negro bell-ringer straddling along in his wake +tricked out in a flamboyant curtain-calico exaggeration of his finery, +and imitating his fancy Eastern graces as well as he could. + +Tom surrendered, and after that clothed himself in the local fashion. +But the dull country town was tiresome to him, since his +acquaintanceship with livelier regions, and it grew daily more and more +so. He began to make little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he +found companionship to suit him, and pleasures to his taste, along with +more freedom, in some particulars, than he could have at home. So, +during the next two years his visits to the city grew in frequency and +his tarryings there grew steadily longer in duration. + +He was getting into deep waters. He was taking chances, privately, which +might get him into trouble some day--in fact, did. + +Judge Driscoll had retired from the bench and from all business +activities in 1850, and had now been comfortably idle three years. He +was president of the Free-thinkers' Society, and Pudd'nhead Wilson was +the other member. The society's weekly discussions were now the old +lawyer's main interest in life. Pudd'nhead was still toiling in +obscurity at the bottom of the ladder, under the blight of that unlucky +remark which he had let fall twenty-three years before about the dog. + +Judge Driscoll was his friend, and claimed that he had a mind above the +average, but that was regarded as one of the Judge's whims, and it +failed to modify the public opinion. Or rather, that was one of the +reasons why it failed, but there was another and better one. If the +Judge had stopped with bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of +effect; but he made the mistake of trying to prove his position. For +some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for +his amusement--a calendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, +usually in ironical form, appended to each date; and the Judge thought +that these quips and fancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute; so +he carried a handful of them around, one day, and read them to some of +the chief citizens. But irony was not for those people; their mental +vision was not focussed for it. They read those playful trifles in the +solidest earnest, and decided without hesitancy that if there had ever +been any doubt that Dave Wilson was a pudd'nhead--which there +hadn't--this revelation removed that doubt for good and all. That is +just the way in this world; an enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes +a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it +perfect. After this the Judge felt tenderer than ever toward Wilson, and +surer than ever that his calendar had merit. + +Judge Driscoll could be a free-thinker and still hold his place in +society because he was the person of most consequence in the community, +and therefore could venture to go his own way and follow out his own +notions. The other member of his pet organization was allowed the like +liberty because he was a cipher in the estimation of the public, and +nobody attached any importance to what he thought or did. He was liked, +he was welcome enough all around, but he simply didn't count for +anything. + +The widow Cooper--affectionately called "aunt Patsy" by everybody--lived +in a snug and comely cottage with her daughter Rowena, who was nineteen, +romantic, amiable, and very pretty, but otherwise of no consequence. +Rowena had a couple of young brothers--also of no consequence. + +The widow had a large spare room which she let to a lodger, with board, +when she could find one, but this room had been empty for a year now, to +her sorrow. Her income was only sufficient for the family support, and +she needed the lodging-money for trifling luxuries. But now, at last, on +a flaming June day, she found herself happy; her tedious wait was ended; +her year-worn advertisement had been answered; and not by a village +applicant, oh, no!--this letter was from away off yonder in the dim +great world to the North: it was from St. Louis. She sat on her porch +gazing out with unseeing eyes upon the shining reaches of the mighty +Mississippi, her thoughts steeped in her good fortune. Indeed, it was +specially good fortune, for she was to have two lodgers instead of one. + +She had read the letter to the family, and Rowena had danced away to see +to the cleaning and airing of the room by the slave woman Nancy, and the +boys had rushed abroad in the town to spread the great news, for it was +matter of public interest, and the public would wonder and not be +pleased if not informed. Presently Rowena returned, all ablush with +joyous excitement, and begged for a re-reading of the letter. It was +framed thus: + +Honored Madam: My brother and I have seen your advertisement, by chance, +and beg leave to take the room you offer. We are twenty-four years of +age and twins. We are Italians by birth, but have lived long in the +various countries of Europe, and several years in the United States. Our +names are Luigi and Angelo Capello. You desire but one guest; but dear +Madam, if you will allow us to pay for two, we will not incommode you. +We shall be down Thursday. + +"Italians! How romantic! Just think, ma--there's never been one in this +town, and everybody will be dying to see them, and they're all ours! +Think of that!" + +"Yes, I reckon they'll make a grand stir." + +"Oh, indeed they will. The whole town will be on its head! +Think--they've been in Europe and everywhere! There's never been a +traveler in this town before. Ma, I shouldn't wonder if they've seen +kings!" + +"Well, a body can't tell, but they'll make stir enough, without that." + +"Yes, that's of course. Luigi--Angelo. They're lovely names; and so +grand and foreign--not like Jones and Robinson and such. Thursday they +are coming, and this is only Tuesday; it's a cruel long time to wait. +Here comes Judge Driscoll in at the gate. He's heard about it. I'll go +and open the door." + +The Judge was full of congratulations and curiosity. The letter was read +and discussed. Soon Justice Robinson arrived with more congratulations, +and there was a new reading and a new discussion. This was the +beginning. Neighbor after neighbor, of both sexes, followed, and the +procession drifted in and out all day and evening and all Wednesday and +Thursday. The letter was read and re-read until it was nearly worn out; +everybody admired its courtly and gracious tone, and smooth and +practised style, everybody was sympathetic and excited, and the Coopers +were steeped in happiness all the while. + +The boats were very uncertain in low water, in these primitive times. +This time the Thursday boat had not arrived at ten at night--so the +people had waited at the landing all day for nothing; they were driven +to their homes by a heavy storm without having had a view of the +illustrious foreigners. + +Eleven o'clock came; and the Cooper house was the only one in the town +that still had lights burning. The rain and thunder were booming yet, +and the anxious family were still waiting, still hoping. At last there +was a knock at the door and the family jumped to open it. Two negro men +entered, each carrying a trunk, and proceeded up-stairs toward the +guest-room. Then entered the twins--the handsomest, the best dressed, +the most distinguished-looking pair of young fellows the West had ever +seen. One was a little fairer than the other, but otherwise they were +exact duplicates. + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Swimming in Glory. + +Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker +will be sorry.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but +coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +At breakfast in the morning the twins' charm of manner and easy and +polished bearing made speedy conquest of the family's good graces. All +constraint and formality quickly disappeared, and the friendliest +feeling succeeded. Aunt Patsy called them by their Christian names +almost from the beginning. She was full of the keenest curiosity about +them, and showed it; they responded by talking about themselves, which +pleased her greatly. It presently appeared that in their early youth +they had known poverty and hardship. As the talk wandered along the old +lady watched for the right place to drop in a question or two concerning +that matter, and when she found it she said to the blond twin who was +now doing the biographies in his turn while the brunette one rested-- + +"If it ain't asking what I ought not to ask, Mr. Angelo, how did you +come to be so friendless and in such trouble when you were little? Do +you mind telling? But don't if you do." + +"Oh, we don't mind it at all, madam; in our case it was merely +misfortune, and nobody's fault. Our parents were well to do, there in +Italy, and we were their only child. We were of the old Florentine +nobility"--Rowena's heart gave a great bound, her nostrils expanded, and +a fine light played in her eyes--"and when the war broke out my father +was on the losing side and had to fly for his life. His estates were +confiscated, his personal property seized, and there we were, in +Germany, strangers, friendless, and in fact paupers. My brother and I +were ten years old, and well educated for that age, very studious, very +fond of our books, and well grounded in the German, French, Spanish, and +English languages. Also, we were marvelous musical prodigies--if you +will allow me to say it, it being only the truth. + +"Our father survived his misfortunes only a month, our mother soon +followed him, and we were alone in the world. Our parents could have +made themselves comfortable by exhibiting us as a show, and they had +many and large offers; but the thought revolted their pride, and they +said they would starve and die first. But what they wouldn't consent to +do we had to do without the formality of consent. We were seized for the +debts occasioned by their illness and their funerals, and placed among +the attractions of a cheap museum in Berlin to earn the liquidation +money. It took us two years to get out of that slavery. We traveled all +about Germany receiving no wages, and not even our keep. We had to be +exhibited for nothing, and beg our bread. + +"Well, madam, the rest is not of much consequence. When we escaped from +that slavery at twelve years of age, we were in some respects men. +Experience had taught us some valuable things; among others, how to take +care of ourselves, how to avoid and defeat sharks and sharpers, and how +to conduct our own business for our own profit and without other +people's help. We traveled everywhere--years and years--picking up +smatterings of strange tongues, familiarizing ourselves with strange +sights and strange customs, accumulating an education of a wide and +varied and curious sort. It was a pleasant life. We went to Venice--to +London, Paris, Russia, India, China, Japan--" + +At this point Nancy the slave woman thrust her head in at the door and +exclaimed: + +"Ole Missus, de house is plum' jam full o' people, en dey's jes +a-spi'lin' to see de gen'lmen!" She indicated the twins with a nod of +her head, and tucked it back out of sight again. + +It was a proud occasion for the widow, and she promised herself high +satisfaction in showing off her fine foreign birds before her neighbors +and friends--simple folk who had hardly ever seen a foreigner of any +kind, and never one of any distinction or style. Yet her feeling was +moderate indeed when contrasted with Rowena's. Rowena was in the clouds, +she walked on air; this was to be the greatest day, the most romantic +episode, in the colorless history of that dull country town. She was to +be familiarly near the source of its glory and feel the full flood of it +pour over her and about her; the other girls could only gaze and envy, +not partake. + +The widow was ready, Rowena was ready, so also were the foreigners. + +The party moved along the hall, the twins in advance, and entered the +open parlor door, whence issued a low hum of conversation. The twins +took a position near the door, the widow stood at Luigi's side, Rowena +stood beside Angelo, and the march-past and the introductions began. The +widow was all smiles and contentment. She received the procession and +passed it on to Rowena. + +"Good mornin', Sister Cooper"--hand-shake. + +"Good morning, Brother Higgins--Count Luigi Capello, Mr. +Higgins"--hand-shake, followed by a devouring stare and "I'm glad to see +ye," on the part of Higgins, and a courteous inclination of the head and +a pleasant "Most happy!" on the part of Count Luigi. + +"Good mornin', Roweny"--hand-shake. + +"Good morning, Mr. Higgins--present you to Count Angelo Capello." +Hand-shake, admiring stare, "Glad to see ye,"--courteous nod, smily +"Most happy!" and Higgins passes on. + +None of these visitors was at ease, but, being honest people, they +didn't pretend to be. None of them had ever seen a person bearing a +title of nobility before, and none had been expecting to see one now, +consequently the title came upon them as a kind of pile-driving surprise +and caught them unprepared. A few tried to rise to the emergency, and +got out an awkward "My lord," or "Your lordship," or something of that +sort, but the great majority were overwhelmed by the unaccustomed word +and its dim and awful associations with gilded courts and stately +ceremony and anointed kingship, so they only fumbled through the +hand-shake and passed on, speechless. Now and then, as happens at all +receptions everywhere, a more than ordinary friendly soul blocked the +procession and kept it waiting while he inquired how the brothers liked +the village, and how long they were going to stay, and if their families +were well, and dragged in the weather, and hoped it would get cooler +soon, and all that sort of thing, so as to be able to say, when they got +home, "I had quite a long talk with them"; but nobody did or said +anything of a regrettable kind, and so the great affair went through to +the end in a creditable and satisfactory fashion. + +General conversation followed, and the twins drifted about from group to +group, talking easily and fluently and winning approval, compelling +admiration and achieving favor from all. The widow followed their +conquering march with a proud eye, and every now and then Rowena said to +herself with deep satisfaction, "And to think they are ours--all ours!" + +There were no idle moments for mother or daughter. Eager inquiries +concerning the twins were pouring into their enchanted ears all the +time; each was the constant center of a group of breathless listeners; +each recognized that she knew now for the first time the real meaning of +that great word Glory, and perceived the stupendous value of it, and +understood why men in all ages had been willing to throw away meaner +happinesses, treasure, life itself, to get a taste of its sublime and +supreme joy. Napoleon and all his kind stood accounted for--and +justified. + +When Rowena had at last done all her duty by the people in the parlor, +she went up-stairs to satisfy the longings of an overflow-meeting there, +for the parlor was not big enough to hold all the comers. Again she was +besieged by eager questioners and again she swam in sunset seas of +glory. When the forenoon was nearly gone, she recognized with a pang +that this most splendid episode of her life was almost over, that +nothing could prolong it, that nothing quite its equal could ever fall +to her fortune again. But never mind, it was sufficient unto itself, the +grand occasion had moved on an ascending scale from the start, and was a +noble and memorable success. If the twins could but do some crowning +act, now, to climax it, something unusual, something startling, +something to concentrate upon themselves the company's loftiest +admiration, something in the nature of an electric surprise-- + +Here a prodigious slam-banging broke out below, and everybody rushed +down to see. It was the twins knocking out a classic four-handed piece +on the piano, in great style. Rowena was satisfied--satisfied down to +the bottom of her heart. + +The young strangers were kept long at the piano. The villagers were +astonished and enchanted with the magnificence of their performance, and +could not bear to have them stop. All the music that they had ever heard +before seemed spiritless prentice-work and barren of grace or charm when +compared with these intoxicating floods of melodious sound. They +realized that for once in their lives they were hearing masters. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +The Unknown Nymph + +One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a +cat has only nine lives.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +The company broke up reluctantly, and drifted toward their several +homes, chatting with vivacity, and all agreeing that it would be many a +long day before Dawson's Landing would see the equal of this one again. +The twins had accepted several invitations while the reception was in +progress, and had also volunteered to play some duets at an amateur +entertainment for the benefit of a local charity. Society was eager to +receive them to its bosom. Judge Driscoll had the good fortune to secure +them for an immediate drive, and to be the first to display them in +public. They entered his buggy with him, and were paraded down the main +street, everybody flocking to the windows and sidewalks to see. + +The Judge showed the strangers the new graveyard, and the jail, and +where the richest man lived, and the Freemasons' hall, and the Methodist +church, and the Presbyterian church, and where the Baptist church was +going to be when they got some money to build it with, and showed them +the town hall and the slaughter-house, and got out the independent fire +company in uniform and had them put out an imaginary fire; then he let +them inspect the muskets of the militia company, and poured out an +exhaustless stream of enthusiasm over all these splendors, and seemed +very well satisfied with the responses he got, for the twins admired his +admiration, and paid him back the best they could, though they could +have done better if some fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand previous +experiences of this sort in various countries had not already rubbed off +a considerable part of the novelty of it. + +The Judge laid himself out hospitably to make them have a good time, and +if there was a defect anywhere it was not his fault. He told them a good +many humorous anecdotes, and always forgot the nub, but they were always +able to furnish it, for these yarns were of a pretty early vintage, and +they had had many a rejuvenating pull at them before. And he told them +all about his several dignities, and how he had held this and that and +the other place of honor or profit, and had once been to the +legislature, and was now president of the Society of Free-thinkers. He +said the society had been in existence four years, and already had two +members, and was firmly established. He would call for the brothers in +the evening if they would like to attend a meeting of it. + +Accordingly he called for them, and on the way he told them all about +Pudd'nhead Wilson, in order that they might get a favorable impression +of him in advance and be prepared to like him. This scheme +succeeded--the favorable impression was achieved. Later it was confirmed +and solidified when Wilson proposed that out of courtesy to the +strangers the usual topics be put aside and the hour be devoted to +conversation upon ordinary subjects and the cultivation of friendly +relations and good-fellowship,--a proposition which was put to vote and +carried. + +The hour passed quickly away in lively talk, and when it was ended the +lonesome and neglected Wilson was richer by two friends than he had been +when it began. He invited the twins to look in at his lodgings, +presently, after disposing of an intervening engagement, and they +accepted with pleasure. + +Toward the middle of the evening they found themselves on the road to +his house. Pudd'nhead was at home waiting for them and putting in his +time puzzling over a thing which had come under his notice that morning. +The matter was this: He happened to be up very early--at dawn, in fact; +and he crossed the hall which divided his cottage through the center, +and entered a room to get something there. The window of the room had no +curtains, for that side of the house had long been unoccupied, and +through this window he caught sight of something which surprised and +interested him. It was a young woman--a young woman where properly no +young woman belonged; for she was in Judge Driscoll's house, and in the +bedroom over the Judge's private study or sitting-room. This was young +Tom Driscoll's bedroom. He and the Judge, the Judge's widowed sister +Mrs. Pratt and three negro servants were the only people who belonged in +the house. Who, then, might this young lady be? The two houses were +separated by an ordinary yard, with a low fence running back through its +middle from the street in front to the lane in the rear. The distance +was not great, and Wilson was able to see the girl very well, the +window-shades of the room she was in being up, and the window also. The +girl had on a neat and trim summer dress, patterned in broad stripes of +pink and white, and her bonnet was equipped with a pink veil. She was +practising steps, gaits and attitudes, apparently; she was doing the +thing gracefully, and was very much absorbed in her work. Who could she +be, and how came she to be in young Tom Driscoll's room? + +Wilson had quickly chosen a position from which he could watch the girl +without running much risk of being seen by her, and he remained there +hoping she would raise her veil and betray her face. But she +disappointed him. After a matter of twenty minutes she disappeared, and +although he stayed at his post half an hour longer, she came no more. + +Toward noon he dropped in at the Judge's and talked with Mrs. Pratt +about the great event of the day, the levee of the distinguished +foreigners at Aunt Patsy Cooper's. He asked after her nephew Tom, and +she said he was on his way home, and that she was expecting him to +arrive a little before night; and added that she and the Judge were +gratified to gather from his letters that he was conducting himself very +nicely and creditably--at which Wilson winked to himself privately. +Wilson did not ask if there was a newcomer in the house, but he asked +questions that would have brought light-throwing answers as to that +matter if Mrs. Pratt had had any light to throw; so he went away +satisfied that he knew of things that were going on in her house of +which she herself was not aware. + +He was now waiting for the twins, and still puzzling over the problem of +who that girl might be, and how she happened to be in that young +fellow's room at daybreak in the morning. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Marse Tom Tramples His Chance. + +The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and +enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not +asked to lend money.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young +June-bug than an old bird of paradise.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +It is necessary now, to hunt up Roxy. + +At the time she was set free and went away chambermaiding, she was +thirty-five. She got a berth as second chambermaid on a Cincinnati boat +in the New Orleans trade, the Grand Mogul. A couple of trips made her +wonted and easy-going at the work, and infatuated her with the stir and +adventure and independence of steamboat life. Then she was promoted and +became head chambermaid. She was a favorite with the officers, and +exceedingly proud of their joking and friendly way with her. + +During eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and +the winters on a Vicksburg packet. But now for two months she had had +rheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the wash-tub alone. So +she resigned. But she was well fixed--rich, as she would have described +it; for she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every +month in New Orleans as a provision for her old age. She said in the +start that she had "put shoes on one bar'footed nigger to tromple on her +with," and that one mistake like that was enough; she would be +independent of the human race thenceforth forevermore if hard work and +economy could accomplish it. When the boat touched the levee at New +Orleans she bade good-by to her comrades on the Grand Mogul and moved +her kit ashore. + +But she was back in a hour. The bank had gone to smash and carried her +four hundred dollars with it. She was a pauper, and homeless. Also +disabled bodily, at least for the present. The officers were full of +sympathy for her in her trouble, and made up a little purse for her. She +resolved to go to her birthplace; she had friends there among the +negroes, and the unfortunate always help the unfortunate, she was well +aware of that; those lowly comrades of her youth would not let her +starve. + +She took the little local packet at Cairo, and now she was on the +home-stretch. Time had worn away her bitterness against her son, and she +was able to think of him with serenity. She put the vile side of him out +of her mind, and dwelt only on recollections of his occasional acts of +kindness to her. She gilded and otherwise decorated these, and made them +very pleasant to contemplate. She began to long to see him. She would go +and fawn upon him, slave-like--for this would have to be her attitude, +of course--and maybe she would find that time had modified him, and that +he would be glad to see his long-forgotten old nurse and treat her +gently. That would be lovely; that would make her forget her woes and +her poverty. + +Her poverty! That thought inspired her to add another castle to her +dream: maybe he would give her a trifle now and then--maybe a dollar, +once a month, say; any little thing like that would help, oh, ever so +much. + +By the time she reached Dawson's Landing she was her old self again; her +blues were gone, she was in high feather. She would get along, surely; +there were many kitchens where the servants would share their meals with +her, and also steal sugar and apples and other dainties for her to carry +home--or give her a chance to pilfer them herself, which would answer +just as well. And there was the church. She was a more rabid and devoted +Methodist than ever, and her piety was no sham, but was strong and +sincere. Yes, with plenty of creature comforts and her old place in the +amen-corner in her possession again, she would be perfectly happy and at +peace thenceforward to the end. + +She went to Judge Driscoll's kitchen first of all. She was received +there in great form and with vast enthusiasm. Her wonderful travels, and +the strange countries she had seen and the adventures she had had, made +her a marvel, and a heroine of romance. The negroes hung enchanted upon +the great story of her experiences, interrupting her all along with +eager questions, with laughter, exclamations of delight and expressions +of applause; and she was obliged to confess to herself that if there was +anything better in this world than steamboating, it was the glory to be +got by telling about it. The audience loaded her stomach with their +dinners, and then stole the pantry bare to load up her basket. + +Tom was in St. Louis. The servants said he had spent the best part of +his time there during the previous two years. Roxy came every day, and +had many talks about the family and its affairs. Once she asked why Tom +was away so much. The ostensible "Chambers" said: + +"De fac' is, ole marster kin git along better when young marster's away +den he kin when he's in de town; yes, en he love him better, too; so he +gives him fifty dollahs a month--" + +"No, is dat so? Chambers, you's a-jokin', ain't you?" + +"'Clah to goodness I ain't, mammy; Marse Tom tole me so his own self. +But nemmine, 'tain't enough." + +"My lan', what de reason 'tain't enough?" + +"Well, I's gwine to tell you, if you gimme a chanst, mammy. De reason it +ain't enough is 'ca'se Marse Tom gambles." + +Roxy threw up her hands in astonishment and Chambers went on-- + +"Ole marster found it out, 'ca'se he had to pay two hundred dollahs for +Marse Tom's gamblin' debts, en dat's true, mammy, jes as dead certain as +you's bawn." + +"Two--hund'd--dollahs! Why, what is you talkin' 'bout? +Two--hund'd--dollahs. Sakes alive, it's 'mos' enough to buy a tol'able +good second-hand nigger wid. En you ain't lyin', honey?--you wouldn't +lie to yo' ole mammy?" + +"It's God's own truth, jes as I tell you--two hund'd dollahs--I wisht I +may never stir outen my tracks if it ain't so. En, oh, my lan', ole +Marse was jes a-hoppin'! he was b'ilin' mad, I tell you! He tuck 'n' +dissenhurrit him." + +He licked his chops with relish after that stately word. Roxy struggled +with it a moment, then gave it up and said-- + +"Dissenwhiched him?" + +"Dissenhurrit him." + +"What's dat? What do it mean?" + +"Means he bu'sted de will." + +"Bu's--ted de will! He wouldn't ever treat him so! Take it back, you +mis'able imitation nigger dat I bore in sorrow en tribbilation." + +Roxy's pet castle--an occasional dollar from Tom's pocket--was tumbling +to ruin before her eyes. She could not abide such a disaster as that; +she couldn't endure the thought of it. Her remark amused Chambers: + +"Yah-yah-yah! jes listen to dat! If I's imitation, what is you? Bofe of +us is imitation white--dat's what we is--en pow'ful good imitation, +too--yah-yah-yah!--we don't 'mount to noth'n as imitation niggers; en as +for--" + +"Shet up yo' foolin', 'fo' I knock you side de head, en tell me 'bout de +will. Tell me 'tain't bu'sted--do, honey, en I'll never forgit you." + +"Well, 'tain't--'ca'se dey's a new one made, en Marse Tom's all right +ag'in. But what is you in sich a sweat 'bout it for, mammy? 'Tain't none +o' your business I don't reckon." + +"'Tain't none o' my business? Whose business is it den, I'd like to +know? Wuz I his mother tell he was fifteen years old, or wusn't I?--you +answer me dat. En you speck I could see him turned out po' en ornery on +de worl' en never care noth'n' 'bout it? I reckon if you'd ever be'n a +mother yo'self, Valet de Chambers, you wouldn't talk sich foolishness as +dat." + +"Well, den, ole Marse forgive him en fixed up de will ag'in--do dat +satisfy you?" + +Yes, she was satisfied now, and quite happy and sentimental over it. She +kept coming daily, and at last she was told that Tom had come home. She +began to tremble with emotion, and straightway sent to beg him to let +his "po' ole nigger mammy have jes one sight of him en die for joy." + +Tom was stretched at his lazy ease on a sofa when Chambers brought the +petition. Time had not modified his ancient detestation of the humble +drudge and protector of his boyhood; it was still bitter and +uncompromising. He sat up and bent a severe gaze upon the fair face of +the young fellow whose name he was unconsciously using and whose family +rights he was enjoying. He maintained the gaze until the victim of it +had become satisfactorily pallid with terror, then he said-- + +"What does the old rip want with me?" + +The petition was meekly repeated. + +"Who gave you permission to come and disturb me with the social +attentions of niggers?" + +Tom had risen. The other young man was trembling now, visibly. He saw +what was coming, and bent his head sideways, and put up his left arm to +shield it. Tom rained cuffs upon the head and its shield, saying no +word: the victim received each blow with a beseeching, "Please, Marse +Tom!--oh, please, Marse Tom!" Seven blows--then Tom said, "Face the +door--march!" He followed behind with one, two, three solid kicks. The +last one helped the pure-white slave over the door-sill, and he limped +away mopping his eyes with his old ragged sleeve. Tom shouted after him, +"Send her in!" + +Then he flung himself panting on the sofa again, and rasped out the +remark, "He arrived just at the right moment; I was full to the brim +with bitter thinkings, and nobody to take it out of. How refreshing it +was! I feel better." + +Tom's mother entered now, closing the door behind her, and approached +her son with all the wheedling and supplicating servilities that fear +and interest can impart to the words and attitudes of the born slave. +She stopped a yard from her boy and made two or three admiring +exclamations over his manly stature and general handsomeness, and Tom +put an arm under his head and hoisted a leg over the sofa-back in order +to look properly indifferent. + +"My lan', how you is growed, honey! 'Clah to goodness, I wouldn't +a-knowed you, Marse Tom! 'deed I wouldn't! Look at me good; does you +'member old Roxy?--does you know yo' old nigger mammy, honey? Well, now, +I kin lay down en die in peace, 'ca'se I'se seed--" + +"Cut it short, ------ it, cut it short! What is it you want?" + +"You heah dat? Jes the same old Marse Tom, al'ays so gay and funnin' wid +de ole mammy. I 'uz jes as shore--" + +"Cut it short, I tell you, and get along! What do you want?" + +This was a bitter disappointment. Roxy had for so many days nourished +and fondled and petted her notion that Tom would be glad to see his old +nurse, and would make her proud and happy to the marrow with a cordial +word or two, that it took two rebuffs to convince her that he was not +funning, and that her beautiful dream was a fond and foolish vanity, a +shabby and pitiful mistake. She was hurt to the heart, and so ashamed +that for a moment she did not quite know what to do or how to act. Then +her breast began to heave, the tears came, and in her forlornness she +was moved to try that other dream of hers--an appeal to her boy's +charity; and so, upon the impulse, and without reflection, she offered +her supplication: + +"Oh, Marse Tom, de po' ole mammy is in sich hard luck dese days; en +she's kinder crippled in de arms and can't work, en if you could gimme a +dollah--on'y jes one little dol--" + +Tom was on his feet so suddenly that the supplicant was startled into a +jump herself. + +"A dollar!--give you a dollar! I've a notion to strangle you! Is that +your errand here? Clear out! and be quick about it!" + +Roxy backed slowly toward the door. When she was half-way she stopped, +and said mournfully: + +"Marse Tom, I nussed you when you was a little baby, en I raised you all +by myself tell you was 'most a young man; en now you is young en rich, +en I is po' en gitt'n ole, en I come heah b'lievin' dat you would he'p +de ole mammy 'long down de little road dat's lef' 'twix' her en de +grave, en--" + +Tom relished this tune less than any that had preceded it, for it began +to wake up a sort of echo in his conscience; so he interrupted and said +with decision, though without asperity, that he was not in a situation +to help her, and wasn't going to do it. + +"Ain't you ever gwine to he'p me, Marse Tom?" + +"No! Now go away and don't bother me any more." + +Roxy's head was down, in an attitude of humility. But now the fires of +her old wrongs flamed up in her breast and began to burn fiercely. She +raised her head slowly, till it was well up, and at the same time her +great frame unconsciously assumed an erect and masterful attitude, with +all the majesty and grace of her vanished youth in it. She raised her +finger and punctuated with it: + +"You has said de word. You has had yo' chance, en you has trompled it +under yo' foot. When you git another one, you'll git down on yo' knees +en beg for it!" + +A cold chill went to Tom's heart, he didn't know why; for he did not +reflect that such words, from such an incongruous source, and so +solemnly delivered, could not easily fail of that effect. However, he +did the natural thing: he replied with bluster and mockery: + +"You'll give me a chance--you! Perhaps I'd better get down on my knees +now! But in case I don't--just for argument's sake--what's going to +happen, pray?" + +"Dis is what is gwine to happen. I's gwine as straight to yo' uncle as I +kin walk, en tell him every las' thing I knows 'bout you." + +Tom's cheek blenched, and she saw it. Disturbing thoughts began to chase +each other through his head. "How can she know? And yet she must have +found out--she looks it. I've had the will back only three months, and +am already deep in debt again, and moving heaven and earth to save +myself from exposure and destruction, with a reasonably fair show of +getting the thing covered up if I'm let alone, and now this fiend has +gone and found me out somehow or other. I wonder how much she knows? Oh, +oh, oh, it's enough to break a body's heart! But I've got to humor +her--there's no other way." + +Then he worked up a rather sickly sample of a gay laugh and a hollow +chipperness of manner, and said: + +"Well, well, Roxy dear, old friends like you and me mustn't quarrel. +Here's your dollar--now tell me what you know." + +He held out the wild-cat bill; she stood as she was, and made no +movement. It was her turn to scorn persuasive foolery, now, and she did +not waste it. She said, with a grim implacability in voice and manner +which made Tom almost realize that even a former slave can remember for +ten minutes insults and injuries returned for compliments and flatteries +received, and can also enjoy taking revenge for them when the +opportunity offers: + +"What does I know? I'll tell you what I knows. I knows enough to bu'st +dat will to flinders--en more, mind you, more!" + +Tom was aghast. + +"More?" he said. "What do you call more? Where's there any room for +more?" + +Roxy laughed a mocking laugh, and said scoffingly, with a toss of her +head, and her hands on her hips-- + +"Yes!--oh, I reckon! Co'se you'd like to know--wid yo' po' little ole +rag dollah. What you reckon I's gwine to tell you for?--you ain't got no +money. I's gwine to tell yo' uncle--en I'll do it dis minute, too--he'll +gimme five dollahs for de news, en mighty glad, too." + +She swung herself around disdainfully, and started away. Tom was in a +panic. He seized her skirts, and implored her to wait. She turned and +said, loftily-- + +"Look-a-heah, what 'uz it I tole you?" + +"You--you--I don't remember anything. What was it you told me?" + +"I tole you dat de next time I give you a chance you'd git down on yo' +knees en beg for it." + +Tom was stupefied for a moment. He was panting with excitement. Then he +said: + +"Oh, Roxy, you wouldn't require your young master to do such a horrible +thing. You can't mean it." + +"I'll let you know mighty quick whether I means it or not! You call me +names, en as good as spit on me when I comes here po' en ornery en +'umble, to praise you for bein' growed up so fine en handsome, en tell +you how I used to nuss you en tend you en watch you when you 'uz sick en +hadn't no mother but me in de whole worl', en beg you to give de po' ole +nigger a dollah for to git her som'n' to eat, en you call me +names--names, dad blame you! Yassir, I gives you jes one chance mo', and +dat's now, en it las' on'y a half a second--you hear?" + +Tom slumped to his knees and began to beg, saying-- + +"You see, I'm begging, and it's honest begging, too! Now tell me, Roxy, +tell me." + +The heir of two centuries of unatoned insult and outrage looked down on +him and seemed to drink in deep draughts of satisfaction. Then she +said-- + +"Fine nice young white gen'l'man kneelin' down to a nigger-wench! I's +wanted to see dat jes once befo' I's called. Now, Gabr'el, blow de hawn, +I's ready ... Git up!" + +Tom did it. He said, humbly-- + +"Now, Roxy, don't punish me any more. I deserved what I've got, but be +good and let me off with that. Don't go to uncle. Tell me--I'll give you +the five dollars." + +"Yes, I bet you will; en you won't stop dah, nuther. But I ain't gwine +to tell you heah--" + +"Good gracious, no!" + +"Is you 'feared o' de ha'nted house?" + +"N-no." + +"Well, den, you come to de ha'nted house 'bout ten or 'leven to-night, +en climb up de ladder, 'ca'se de sta'r-steps is broke down, en you'll +find me. I's a-roostin' in de ha'nted house 'ca'se I can't 'ford to +roos' nowhers' else." She started toward the door, but stopped and said, +"Gimme de dollah bill!" He gave it to her. She examined it and said, +"H'm--like enough de bank's bu'sted." She started again, but halted +again. "Has you got any whisky?" + +"Yes, a little." + +"Fetch it!" + +He ran to his room overhead and brought down a bottle which was +two-thirds full. She tilted it up and took a drink. Her eyes sparkled +with satisfaction, and she tucked the bottle under her shawl, saying, +"It's prime. I'll take it along." + +Tom humbly held the door for her, and she marched out as grim and erect +as a grenadier. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Tom Practises Sycophancy. + +Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is +because we are not the person involved.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a +man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, +complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.--Pudd'nhead +Wilson's Calendar. + +Tom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands, +and rested his elbows on his knees. He rocked himself back and forth and +moaned. + +"I've knelt to a nigger wench!" he muttered. "I thought I had struck the +deepest depths of degradation before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to +this.... Well, there is one consolation, such as it is--I've struck +bottom this time; there's nothing lower." + +But that was a hasty conclusion. + +At ten that night he climbed the ladder in the haunted house, pale, weak +and wretched. Roxy was standing in the door of one of the rooms, +waiting, for she had heard him. + +This was a two-story log house which had acquired the reputation a few +years before of being haunted, and that was the end of its usefulness. +Nobody would live in it afterward, or go near it by night, and most +people even gave it a wide berth in the daytime. As it had no +competition, it was called the haunted house. It was getting crazy and +ruinous, now, from long neglect. It stood three hundred yards beyond +Pudd'nhead Wilson's house, with nothing between but vacancy. It was the +last house in the town at that end. + +Tom followed Roxy into the room. She had a pile of clean straw in the +corner for a bed, some cheap but well-kept clothing was hanging on the +wall, there was a tin lantern freckling the floor with little spots of +light, and there were various soap-and-candle boxes scattered about, +which served for chairs. The two sat down. Roxy said-- + +"Now den, I'll tell you straight off, en I'll begin to k'leck de money +later on; I ain't in no hurry. What does you reckon I's gwine to tell +you?" + +"Well, you--you--oh, Roxy, don't make it too hard for me! Come right out +and tell me you've found out somehow what a shape I'm in on account of +dissipation and foolishness." + +"Disposition en foolishness! No sir, dat ain't it. Dat jist ain't +nothin' at all, 'longside o' what I knows." + +Tom stared at her, and said-- + +"Why, Roxy, what do you mean?" + +She rose, and gloomed above him like a Fate. + +"I means dis--en it's de Lord's truth. You ain't no more kin to ole +Marse Driscoll den I is!--dat's what I means!" and her eyes flamed with +triumph. + +"What!" + +"Yassir, en dat ain't all! You's a nigger!--bawn a nigger en a +slave!--en you's a nigger en a slave dis minute; en if I opens my mouf +ole Marse Driscoll'll sell you down de river befo' you is two days older +den what you is now!" + +"It's a thundering lie, you miserable old blatherskite!" + +"It ain't no lie, nuther. It's jes de truth, en nothin' but de truth, so +he'p me. Yassir--you's my son--" + +"You devil!" + +"En dat po' boy dat you's be'n a-kickin' en a-cuffin' to-day is Percy +Driscoll's son en yo' marster--" + +"You beast!" + +"En his name's Tom Driscoll, en yo' name's Valet de Chambers, en you +ain't got no fambly name, beca'se niggers don't have em!" + +Tom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised raised it; but his +mother only laughed at him, and said-- + +"Set down, you pup! Does you think you kin skyer me? It ain't in you, +nor de likes of you. I reckon you'd shoot me in de back, maybe, if you +got a chance, for dat's jist yo' style--I knows you, throo en throo--but +I don't mind gitt'n killed, beca'se all dis is down in writin' en it's +in safe hands, too, en de man dat's got it knows whah to look for de +right man when I gits killed. Oh, bless yo' soul, if you puts yo' mother +up for as big a fool as you is, you's pow'ful mistaken, I kin tell you! +Now den, you set still en behave yo'self; en don't you git up ag'in till +I tell you!" + +Tom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations +and emotions, and finally said, with something like settled conviction-- + +"The whole thing is moonshine; now then, go ahead and do your worst; I'm +done with you." + +Roxy made no answer. She took the lantern and started toward the door. +Tom was in a cold panic in a moment. + +"Come back, come back!" he wailed. "I didn't mean it, Roxy; I take it +all back, and I'll never say it again! Please come back, Roxy!" + +The woman stood a moment, then she said gravely: + +"Dat's one thing you's got to stop, Valet de Chambers. You can't call me +Roxy, same as if you was my equal. Chillen don't speak to dey mammies +like dat. You'll call me ma or mammy, dat's what you'll call +me--leastways when dey ain't nobody aroun'. Say it!" + +It cost Tom a struggle, but he got it out. + +"Dat's all right. Don't you ever forgit it ag'in, if you knows what's +good for you. Now den, you has said you wouldn't ever call it lies en +moonshine ag'in. I'll tell you dis, for a warnin': if you ever does say +it ag'in, it's de las' time you'll ever say it to me; I'll tramp as +straight to de Judge as I kin walk, en tell him who you is, en prove it. +Does you b'lieve me when I says dat?" + +"Oh," groaned Tom, "I more than believe it; I know it." + +Roxy knew her conquest was complete. She could have proved nothing to +anybody, and her threat about the writings was a lie; but she knew the +person she was dealing with, and had made both statements without any +doubt as to the effect they would produce. + +She went and sat down on her candle-box, and the pride and pomp of her +victorious attitude made it a throne. She said-- + +"Now den, Chambers, we's gwine to talk business, en dey ain't gwine to +be no mo' foolishness. In de fust place, you gits fifty dollahs a month; +you's gwine to han' over half of it to yo' ma. Plank it out!" + +But Tom had only six dollars in the world. He gave her that, and +promised to start fair on next month's pension. + +"Chambers, how much is you in debt?" + +Tom shuddered, and said-- + +"Nearly three hundred dollars." + +"How is you gwine to pay it?" + +Tom groaned out--"Oh, I don't know; don't ask me such awful questions." + +But she stuck to her point until she wearied a confession out of him: he +had been prowling about in disguise, stealing small valuables from +private houses; in fact, he made a good deal of a raid on his +fellow-villagers a fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St. +Louis; but he doubted if he had sent away enough stuff to realize the +required amount, and was afraid to make a further venture in the present +excited state of the town. His mother approved of his conduct, and +offered to help, but this frightened him. He tremblingly ventured to say +that if she would retire from the town he should feel better and safer, +and could hold his head higher--and was going on to make an argument, +but she interrupted and surprised him pleasantly by saying she was +ready; it didn't make any difference to her where she stayed, so that +she got her share of the pension regularly. She said she would not go +far, and would call at the haunted house once a month for her money. +Then she said-- + +"I don't hate you so much now, but I've hated you a many a year--and +anybody would. Didn't I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a +good name, en made you a white gen'l'man en rich, wid store clothes +on--en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al'ays +sayin' mean hard things to me befo' folks, en wouldn't ever let me +forgit I's a nigger--en--en------" + +She fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said--"But you know I didn't +know you were my mother; and besides--" + +"Well, nemmine 'bout dat, now; let it go. I's gwine to fo'git it." Then +she added fiercely, "En don't ever make me remember it ag'in, or you'll +be sorry, I tell you." + +When they were parting, Tom said, in the most persuasive way he could +command-- + +"Ma, would you mind telling me who was my father?" + +He had supposed he was asking an embarrassing question. He was mistaken. +Roxy drew herself up with a proud toss of her head, and said-- + +"Does I mine tellin' you? No, dat I don't! You ain't got no 'casion to +be shame' o' yo' father, I kin tell you. He wuz de highest quality in +dis whole town--ole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz. Jes as good +stock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes' day dey ever seed." She put +on a little prouder air, if possible, and added impressively: "Does you +'member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Essex, dat died de same year yo' young +Marse Tom Driscoll's pappy died, en all de Masons en Odd Fellers en +Churches turned out en give him de bigges' funeral dis town ever seed? +Dat's de man." + +Under the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of +her earlier days returned to her, and her bearing took to itself a +dignity and state that might have passed for queenly if her surroundings +had been a little more in keeping with it. + +"Dey ain't another nigger in dis town dat's as high-bawn as you is. Now +den, go 'long! En jes you hold yo' head up as high as you want to--you +has de right, en dat I kin swah." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +The Nymph Revealed. + +All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to +come from the mouths of people who have had to live.--Pudd'nhead +Wilson's Calendar. + +When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's +Calendar. + +Every now and then, after Tom went to bed, he had sudden wakings out of +his sleep, and his first thought was, "Oh, joy, it was all a dream!" +Then he laid himself heavily down again, with a groan and the muttered +words, "A nigger! I am a nigger! Oh, I wish I was dead!" + +He woke at dawn with one more repetition of this horror, and then he +resolved to meddle no more with that treacherous sleep. He began to +think. Sufficiently bitter thinkings they were. They wandered along +something after this fashion: + +"Why were niggers and whites made? What crime did the uncreated first +nigger commit that the curse of birth was decreed for him? And why is +this awful difference made between white and black? ... How hard the +nigger's fate seems, this morning!--yet until last night such a thought +never entered my head." + +He sighed and groaned an hour or more away. Then "Chambers" came humbly +in to say that breakfast was nearly ready. "Tom" blushed scarlet to see +this aristocratic white youth cringe to him, a nigger, and call him +"Young Marster." He said roughly-- + +"Get out of my sight!" and when the youth was gone, he muttered, "He has +done me no harm, poor wretch, but he is an eyesore to me now, for he is +Driscoll the young gentleman, and I am a--oh, I wish I was dead!" + +A gigantic irruption, like that of Krakatoa a few years ago, with the +accompanying earthquakes, tidal waves, and clouds of volcanic dust, +changes the face of the surrounding landscape beyond recognition, +bringing down the high lands, elevating the low, making fair lakes where +deserts had been, and deserts where green prairies had smiled before. +The tremendous catastrophe which had befallen Tom had changed his moral +landscape in much the same way. Some of his low places he found lifted +to ideals, some of his ideals had sunk to the valleys, and lay there +with the sackcloth and ashes of pumice-stone and sulphur on their ruined +heads. + +For days he wandered in lonely places, thinking, thinking, +thinking--trying to get his bearings. It was new work. If he met a +friend, he found that the habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way +vanished--his arm hung limp, instead of involuntarily extending the hand +for a shake. It was the "nigger" in him asserting its humility, and he +blushed and was abashed. And the "nigger" in him was surprised when the +white friend put out his hand for a shake with him. He found the +"nigger" in him involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to a +white rowdy and loafer. When Rowena, the dearest thing his heart knew, +the idol of his secret worship, invited him in, the "nigger" in him made +an embarrassed excuse and was afraid to enter and sit with the dread +white folks on equal terms. The "nigger" in him went shrinking and +skulking here and there and yonder, and fancying it saw suspicion and +maybe detection in all faces, tones, and gestures. So strange and +uncharacteristic was Tom's conduct that people noticed it, and turned to +look after him when he passed on; and when he glanced back--as he could +not help doing, in spite of his best resistance--and caught that puzzled +expression in a person's face, it gave him a sick feeling, and he took +himself out of view as quickly as he could. He presently came to have a +hunted sense and a hunted look, and then he fled away to the hill-tops +and the solitudes. He said to himself that the curse of Ham was upon +him. + +He dreaded his meals; the "nigger" in him was ashamed to sit at the +white folks' table, and feared discovery all the time; and once when +Judge Driscoll said, "What's the matter with you? You look as meek as a +nigger," he felt as secret murderers are said to feel when the accuser +says, "Thou art the man!" Tom said he was not well, and left the table. + +His ostensible "aunt's" solicitudes and endearments were become a terror +to him, and he avoided them. + +And all the time, hatred of his ostensible "uncle" was steadily growing +in his heart; for he said to himself, "He is white; and I am his +chattel, his property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he could +his dog." + +For as much as a week after this, Tom imagined that his character had +undergone a pretty radical change. But that was because he did not know +himself. + +In several ways his opinions were totally changed, and would never go +back to what they were before, but the main structure of his character +was not changed, and could not be changed. One or two very important +features of it were altered, and in time effects would result from this, +if opportunity offered--effects of a quite serious nature, too. Under +the influence of a great mental and moral upheaval his character and +habits had taken on the appearance of complete change, but after a while +with the subsidence of the storm both began to settle toward their +former places. He dropped gradually back into his old frivolous and +easy-going ways and conditions of feeling and manner of speech, and no +familiar of his could have detected anything in him that differentiated +him from the weak and careless Tom of other days. + +The theft-raid which he had made upon the village turned out better than +he had ventured to hope. It produced the sum necessary to pay his +gaming-debts, and saved him from exposure to his uncle and another +smashing of the will. He and his mother learned to like each other +fairly well. She couldn't love him, as yet, because there "warn't +nothing to him," as she expressed it, but her nature needed something or +somebody to rule over, and he was better than nothing. Her strong +character and aggressive and commanding ways compelled Tom's admiration +in spite of the fact that he got more illustrations of them than he +needed for his comfort. However, as a rule her conversation was made up +of racy tattle about the privacies of the chief families of the town +(for she went harvesting among their kitchens every time she came to the +village), and Tom enjoyed this. It was just in his line. She always +collected her half of his pension punctually, and he was always at the +haunted house to have a chat with her on these occasions. Every now and +then she paid him a visit there on between-days also. + +Occasionally he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last +temptation caught him again. He won a lot of money, but lost it, and +with it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as soon as +possible. + +For this purpose he projected a new raid on his town. He never meddled +with any other town, for he was afraid to venture into houses whose ins +and outs he did not know and the habits of whose households he was not +acquainted with. He arrived at the haunted house in disguise on the +Wednesday before the advent of the twins--after writing his aunt Pratt +that he would not arrive until two days after--and lay in hiding there +with his mother until toward daylight Friday morning, when he went to +his uncle's house and entered by the back way with his own key, and +slipped up to his room, where he could have the use of the mirror and +toilet articles. He had a suit of girl's clothes with him in a bundle as +a disguise for his raid, and was wearing a suit of his mother's +clothing, with black gloves and veil. By dawn he was tricked out for his +raid, but he caught a glimpse of Pudd'nhead Wilson through the window +over the way, and knew that Pudd'nhead had caught a glimpse of him. So +he entertained Wilson with some airs and graces and attitudes for a +while, then stepped out of sight and resumed the other disguise, and by +and by went down and out the back way and started down town to +reconnoiter the scene of his intended labors. + +But he was ill at ease. He had changed back to Roxy's dress, with the +stoop of age added to the disguise, so that Wilson would not bother +himself about a humble old woman leaving a neighbor's house by the back +way in the early morning, in case he was still spying. But supposing +Wilson had seen him leave, and had thought it suspicious, and had also +followed him? The thought made Tom cold. He gave up the raid for the +day, and hurried back to the haunted house by the obscurest route he +knew. His mother was gone; but she came back, by and by, with the news +of the grand reception at Patsy Cooper's, and soon persuaded him that +the opportunity was like a special providence, it was so inviting and +perfect. So he went raiding, after all, and made a nice success of it +while everybody was gone to Patsy Cooper's. Success gave him nerve and +even actual intrepidity; insomuch, indeed, that after he had conveyed +his harvest to his mother in a back alley, he went to the reception +himself, and added several of the valuables of that house to his +takings. + +After this long digression we have now arrived once more at the point +where Pudd'nhead Wilson, while waiting for the arrival of the twins on +that same Friday evening, sat puzzling over the strange apparition of +that morning--a girl in young Tom Driscoll's bedroom; fretting, and +guessing, and puzzling over it, and wondering who the shameless creature +might be. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Pudd'nhead's Startling Discovery. + +There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three +form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of +his books; 2, to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him +to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you +to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you +clear into his heart.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's +Calendar. + +The twins arrived presently, and talk began. It flowed along chattily +and sociably, and under its influence the new friendship gathered ease +and strength. Wilson got out his Calendar, by request, and read a +passage or two from it, which the twins praised quite cordially. This +pleased the author so much that he complied gladly when they asked him +to lend them a batch of the work to read at home. In the course of their +wide travels they had found out that there are three sure ways of +pleasing an author; they were now working the best of the three. + +There was an interruption, now. Young Tom Driscoll appeared, and joined +the party. He pretended to be seeing the distinguished strangers for the +first time when they rose to shake hands; but this was only a blind, as +he had already had a glimpse of them, at the reception, while robbing +the house. The twins made mental note that he was smooth-faced and +rather handsome, and smooth and undulatory in his movements--graceful, +in fact. Angelo thought he had a good eye; Luigi thought there was +something veiled and sly about it. Angelo thought he had a pleasant +free-and-easy way of talking; Luigi thought it was more so than was +agreeable. Angelo thought he was a sufficiently nice young man; Luigi +reserved his decision. Tom's first contribution to the conversation was +a question which he had put to Wilson a hundred times before. It was +always cheerily and good-naturedly put, and always inflicted a little +pang, for it touched a secret sore; but this time the pang was sharp, +since strangers were present. + +"Well, how does the law come on? Had a case yet?" + +Wilson bit his lip, but answered, "No--not yet," with as much +indifference as he could assume. Judge Driscoll had generously left the +law feature out of the Wilson biography which he had furnished to the +twins. Young Tom laughed pleasantly, and said: + +"Wilson's a lawyer, gentlemen, but he doesn't practise now." + +The sarcasm bit, but Wilson kept himself under control, and said without +passion: + +"I don't practise, it is true. It is true that I have never had a case, +and have had to earn a poor living for twenty years as an expert +accountant in a town where I can't get hold of a set of books to +untangle as often as I should like. But it is also true that I did fit +myself well for the practice of the law. By the time I was your age, +Tom, I had chosen a profession, and was soon competent to enter upon +it." Tom winced. "I never got a chance to try my hand at it, and I may +never get a chance; and yet if I ever do get it I shall be found ready, +for I have kept up my law-studies all these years." + +"That's it; that's good grit! I like to see it. I've a notion to throw +all my business your way. My business and your law-practice ought to +make a pretty gay team, Dave," and the young fellow laughed again. + +"If you will throw--" Wilson had thought of the girl in Tom's bedroom, +and was going to say, "If you will throw the surreptitious and +disreputable part of your business my way, it may amount to something;" +but thought better of it and said, "However, this matter doesn't fit +well in a general conversation." + +"All right, we'll change the subject; I guess you were about to give me +another dig, anyway, so I'm willing to change. How's the Awful Mystery +flourishing these days? Wilson's got a scheme for driving plain +window-glass out of the market by decorating it with greasy +finger-marks, and getting rich by selling it at famine prices to the +crowned heads over in Europe to outfit their palaces with. Fetch it out, +Dave." + +Wilson brought three of his glass strips, and said-- + +"I get the subject to pass the fingers of his right hand through his +hair, so as to get a little coating of the natural oil on them, and then +press the balls of them on the glass. A fine and delicate print of the +lines in the skin results, and is permanent, if it doesn't come in +contact with something able to rub it off. You begin, Tom." + +"Why, I think you took my finger-marks once or twice before." + +"Yes; but you were a little boy the last time, only about twelve years +old." + +"That's so. Of course I've changed entirely since then, and variety is +what the crowned heads want, I guess." + +He passed his fingers through his crop of short hair, and pressed them +one at a time on the glass. Angelo made a print of his fingers on +another glass, and Luigi followed with the third. Wilson marked the +glasses with names and date, and put them away. Tom gave one of his +little laughs, and said-- + +"I thought I wouldn't say anything, but if variety is what you are +after, you have wasted a piece of glass. The hand-print of one twin is +the same as the hand-print of the fellow-twin." + +"Well, it's done now, and I like to have them both, anyway," said +Wilson, returning to his place. + +"But look here, Dave," said Tom, "you used to tell people's fortunes, +too, when you took their finger-marks. Dave's just an all-round +genius--a genius of the first water, gentlemen; a great scientist +running to seed here in this village, a prophet with the kind of honor +that prophets generally get at home--for here they don't give shucks for +his scientifics, and they call his skull a notion-factory--hey, Dave, +ain't it so? But never mind; he'll make his mark some day--finger-mark, +you know, he-he! But really, you want to let him take a shy at your +palms once; it's worth twice the price of admission or your money's +returned at the door. Why, he'll read your wrinkles as easy as a book, +and not only tell you fifty or sixty things that's going to happen to +you, but fifty or sixty thousand that ain't. Come, Dave, show the +gentlemen what an inspired Jack-at-all-science we've got in this town, +and don't know it." + +Wilson winced under this nagging and not very courteous chaff, and the +twins suffered with him and for him. They rightly judged, now, that the +best way to relieve him would be to take the thing in earnest and treat +it with respect, ignoring Tom's rather overdone raillery; so Luigi +said-- + +"We have seen something of palmistry in our wanderings, and know very +well what astonishing things it can do. If it isn't a science, and one +of the greatest of them, too, I don't know what its other name ought to +be. In the Orient--" + +Tom looked surprised and incredulous. He said-- + +"That juggling a science? But really, you ain't serious, are you?" + +"Yes, entirely so. Four years ago we had our hands read out to us as if +our palms had been covered with print." + +"Well, do you mean to say there was actually anything in it?" asked Tom, +his incredulity beginning to weaken a little. + +"There was this much in it," said Angelo: "what was told us of our +characters was minutely exact--we could not have bettered it ourselves. +Next, two or three memorable things that had happened to us were laid +bare--things which no one present but ourselves could have known about." + +"Why, it's rank sorcery!" exclaimed Tom, who was now becoming very much +interested. "And how did they make out with what was going to happen to +you in the future?" + +"On the whole, quite fairly," said Luigi. "Two or three of the most +striking things foretold have happened since; much the most striking one +of all happened within that same year. Some of the minor prophecies have +come true; some of the minor and some of the major ones have not been +fulfilled yet, and of course may never be: still, I should be more +surprised if they failed to arrive than if they didn't." + +Tom was entirely sobered, and profoundly impressed. He said, +apologetically-- + +"Dave, I wasn't meaning to belittle that science; I was only +chaffing--chattering, I reckon I'd better say. I wish you would look at +their palms. Come, won't you?" + +"Why certainly, if you want me to; but you know I've had no chance to +become an expert, and don't claim to be one. When a past event is +somewhat prominently recorded in the palm I can generally detect that, +but minor ones often escape me,--not always, of course, but often,--but +I haven't much confidence in myself when it comes to reading the future. +I am talking as if palmistry was a daily study with me, but that is not +so. I haven't examined half a dozen hands in the last half dozen years; +you see, the people got to joking about it, and I stopped to let the +talk die down. I'll tell you what we'll do, Count Luigi: I'll make a try +at your past, and if I have any success there--no, on the whole, I'll +let the future alone; that's really the affair of an expert." + +He took Luigi's hand. Tom said-- + +"Wait--don't look yet, Dave! Count Luigi, here's paper and pencil. Set +down that thing that you said was the most striking one that was +foretold to you, and happened less than a year afterward, and give it to +me so I can see if Dave finds it in your hand." + +Luigi wrote a line privately, and folded up the piece of paper, and +handed it to Tom, saying-- + +"I'll tell you when to look at it, if he finds it." + +Wilson began to study Luigi's palm, tracing life lines, heart lines, +head lines, and so on, and noting carefully their relations with the +cobweb of finer and more delicate marks and lines that enmeshed them on +all sides; he felt of the fleshy cushion at the base of the thumb, and +noted its shape; he felt of the fleshy side of the hand between the +wrist and the base of the little finger, and noted its shape also; he +painstakingly examined the fingers, observing their form, proportions, +and natural manner of disposing themselves when in repose. All this +process was watched by the three spectators with absorbing interest, +their heads bent together over Luigi's palm, and nobody disturbing the +stillness with a word. Wilson now entered upon a close survey of the +palm again, and his revelations began. + +He mapped out Luigi's character and disposition, his tastes, aversions, +proclivities, ambitions, and eccentricities in a way which sometimes +made Luigi wince and the others laugh, but both twins declared that the +chart was artistically drawn and was correct. + +Next, Wilson took up Luigi's history. He proceeded cautiously and with +hesitation, now, moving his finger slowly along the great lines of the +palm, and now and then halting it at a "star" or some such landmark, and +examining that neighborhood minutely. He proclaimed one or two past +events, Luigi confirmed his correctness, and the search went on. +Presently Wilson glanced up suddenly with a surprised expression-- + +"Here is a record of an incident which you would perhaps not wish me +to--" + +"Bring it out," said Luigi, good-naturedly; "I promise you it sha'n't +embarrass me." + +But Wilson still hesitated, and did not seem quite to know what to do. +Then he said-- + +"I think it is too delicate a matter to--to--I believe I would rather +write it or whisper it to you, and let you decide for yourself whether +you want it talked out or not." + +"That will answer," said Luigi; "write it." + +Wilson wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Luigi, who +read it to himself and said to Tom-- + +"Unfold your slip and read it, Mr. Driscoll." + +Tom read: + +"It was prophesied that I would kill a man. It came true before the year +was out." + +Tom added, "Great Scott!" + +Luigi handed Wilson's paper to Tom, and said-- + +"Now read this one." + +Tom read: + +"You have killed some one, but whether man, woman or child, I do not +make out." + +"Cæsar's ghost!" commented Tom, with astonishment. "It beats anything +that was ever heard of! Why, a man's own hand is his deadliest enemy! +Just think of that--a man's own hand keeps a record of the deepest and +fatalest secrets of his life, and is treacherously ready to expose him +to any black-magic stranger that comes along. But what do you let a +person look at your hand for, with that awful thing printed on it?" + +"Oh," said Luigi, reposefully, "I don't mind it. I killed the man for +good reasons, and I don't regret it." + +"What were the reasons?" + +"Well, he needed killing." + +"I'll tell you why he did it, since he won't say himself," said Angelo, +warmly. "He did it to save my life, that's what he did it for. So it was +a noble act, and not a thing to be hid in the dark." + +"So it was, so it was," said Wilson; "to do such a thing to save a +brother's life is a great and fine action." + +"Now come," said Luigi, "it is very pleasant to hear you say these +things, but for unselfishness, or heroism, or magnanimity, the +circumstances won't stand scrutiny. You overlook one detail; suppose I +hadn't saved Angelo's life, what would have become of mine? If I had let +the man kill him, wouldn't he have killed me, too? I saved my own life, +you see." + +"Yes, that is your way of talking," said Angelo, "but I know you--I +don't believe you thought of yourself at all. I keep that weapon yet +that Luigi killed the man with, and I'll show it to you sometime. That +incident makes it interesting, and it had a history before it came into +Luigi's hands which adds to its interest. It was given to Luigi by a +great Indian prince, the Gaikowar of Baroda, and it had been in his +family two or three centuries. It killed a good many disagreeable people +who troubled that hearthstone at one time and another. It isn't much too +look at, except that it isn't shaped like other knives, or dirks, or +whatever it may be called--here, I'll draw it for you." He took a sheet +of paper and made a rapid sketch. "There it is--a broad and murderous +blade, with edges like a razor for sharpness. The devices engraved on it +are the ciphers or names of its long line of possessors--I had Luigi's +name added in Roman letters myself with our coat of arms, as you see. +You notice what a curious handle the thing has. It is solid ivory, +polished like a mirror, and is four or five inches long--round, and as +thick as a large man's wrist, with the end squared off flat, for your +thumb to rest on; for you grasp it, with your thumb resting on the blunt +end--so--and lift it aloft and strike downward. The Gaikowar showed us +how the thing was done when he gave it to Luigi, and before that night +was ended Luigi had used the knife, and the Gaikowar was a man short by +reason of it. The sheath is magnificently ornamented with gems of great +value. You will find the sheath more worth looking at than the knife +itself, of course." + +Tom said to himself-- + +"It's lucky I came here. I would have sold that knife for a song; I +supposed the jewels were glass." + +"But go on; don't stop," said Wilson. "Our curiosity is up now, to hear +about the homicide. Tell us about that." + +"Well, briefly, the knife was to blame for that, all around. A native +servant slipped into our room in the palace in the night, to kill us and +steal the knife on account of the fortune incrusted on its sheath, +without a doubt. Luigi had it under his pillow; we were in bed together. +There was a dim night-light burning. I was asleep, but Luigi was awake, +and he thought he detected a vague form nearing the bed. He slipped the +knife out of the sheath and was ready, and unembarrassed by hampering +bed-clothes, for the weather was hot and we hadn't any. Suddenly that +native rose at the bedside, and bent over me with his right hand lifted +and a dirk in it aimed at my throat; but Luigi grabbed his wrist, pulled +him downward, and drove his own knife into the man's neck. That is the +whole story." + +Wilson and Tom drew deep breaths, and after some general chat about the +tragedy, Pudd'nhead said, taking Tom's hand-- + +"Now, Tom, I've never had a look at your palms, as it happens; perhaps +you've got some little questionable privacies that need--hel-lo!" + +Tom had snatched away his hand, and was looking a good deal confused. + +"Why, he's blushing!" said Luigi. + +Tom darted an ugly look at him, and said sharply-- + +"Well, if I am, it ain't because I'm a murderer!" Luigi's dark face +flushed, but before he could speak or move, Tom added with anxious +haste: "Oh, I beg a thousand pardons. I didn't mean that; it was out +before I thought, and I'm very, very sorry--you must forgive me!" + +Wilson came to the rescue, and smoothed things down as well as he could; +and in fact was entirely successful as far as the twins were concerned, +for they felt sorrier for the affront put upon him by his guest's +outburst of ill manners than for the insult offered to Luigi. But the +success was not so pronounced with the offender. Tom tried to seem at +his ease, and he went through the motions fairly well, but at bottom he +felt resentful toward all the three witnesses of his exhibition; in +fact, he felt so annoyed at them for having witnessed it and noticed it +that he almost forgot to feel annoyed at himself for placing it before +them. However, something presently happened which made him almost +comfortable, and brought him nearly back to a state of charity and +friendliness. This was a little spat between the twins; not much of a +spat, but still a spat; and before they got far with it they were in a +decided condition of irritation with each other. Tom was charmed; so +pleased, indeed, that he cautiously did what he could to increase the +irritation while pretending to be actuated by more respectable motives. +By his help the fire got warmed up to the blazing-point, and he might +have had the happiness of seeing the flames show up, in another moment, +but for the interruption of a knock on the door--an interruption which +fretted him as much as it gratified Wilson. Wilson opened the door. + +The visitor was a good-natured, ignorant, energetic, middle-aged +Irishman named John Buckstone, who was a great politician in a small +way, and always took a large share in public matters of every sort. One +of the town's chief excitements, just now, was over the matter of rum. +There was a strong rum party and a strong anti-rum party. Buckstone was +training with the rum party, and he had been sent to hunt up the twins +and invite them to attend a mass-meeting of that faction. He delivered +his errand, and said the clans were already gathering in the big hall +over the market-house. Luigi accepted the invitation cordially, Angelo +less cordially, since he disliked crowds, and did not drink the powerful +intoxicants of America. In fact, he was even a teetotaler +sometimes--when it was judicious to be one. + +The twins left with Buckstone, and Tom Driscoll joined company with them +uninvited. + +In the distance one could see a long wavering line of torches drifting +down the main street, and could hear the throbbing of the bass drum, the +clash of cymbals, the squeaking of a fife or two, and the faint roar of +remote hurrahs. The tail-end of this procession was climbing the +market-house stairs when the twins arrived in its neighborhood; when +they reached the hall it was full of people, torches, smoke, noise and +enthusiasm. They were conducted to the platform by Buckstone--Tom +Driscoll still following--and were delivered to the chairman in the +midst of a prodigious explosion of welcome. When the noise had moderated +a little, the chair proposed that "our illustrious guests be at once +elected, by complimentary acclamation, to membership in our +ever-glorious organization, the paradise of the free and the perdition +of the slave." + +This eloquent discharge opened the flood-gates of enthusiasm again, and +the election was carried with thundering unanimity. Then arose a storm +of cries: + +"Wet them down! Wet them down! Give them a drink!" + +Glasses of whisky were handed to the twins. Luigi waved his aloft, then +brought it to his lips; but Angelo set his down. There was another storm +of cries: + +"What's the matter with the other one?" "What is the blond one going +back on us for?" "Explain! Explain!" + +The chairman inquired, and then reported-- + +"We have made an unfortunate mistake, gentlemen. I find that the Count +Angelo Capello is opposed to our creed--is a teetotaler, in fact, and +was not intending to apply for membership with us. He desires that we +reconsider the vote by which he was elected. What is the pleasure of the +house?" + +There was a general burst of laughter, plentifully accented with +whistlings and cat-calls, but the energetic use of the gavel presently +restored something like order. Then a man spoke from the crowd, and said +that while he was very sorry that the mistake had been made, it would +not be possible to rectify it at the present meeting. According to the +by-laws it must go over to the next regular meeting for action. He would +not offer a motion, as none was required. He desired to apologize to the +gentleman in the name of the house, and begged to assure him that as far +as it might lie in the power of the Sons of Liberty, his temporary +membership in the order would be made pleasant to him. + +This speech was received with great applause, mixed with cries of-- + +"That's the talk!" "He's a good fellow, anyway, if he is a teetotaler!" +"Drink his health!" "Give him a rouser, and no heeltaps!" + +Glasses were handed around, and everybody on the platform drank Angelo's +health, while the house bellowed forth in song: + + For he's a jolly good fel-low, + For he's a jolly good fel-low, + For he's a jolly good fe-el-low,-- + Which nobody can deny. + +Tom Driscoll drank. It was his second glass, for he had drunk Angelo's +the moment that Angelo had set it down. The two drinks made him very +merry--almost idiotically so--and he began to take a most lively and +prominent part in the proceedings, particularly in the music and +cat-calls and side-remarks. + +The chairman was still standing at the front, the twins at his side. The +extraordinarily close resemblance of the brothers to each other +suggested a witticism to Tom Driscoll, and just as the chairman began a +speech he skipped forward and said with an air of tipsy confidence to +the audience-- + +"Boys, I move that he keeps still and lets this human philopena snip you +out a speech." + +The descriptive aptness of the phrase caught the house, and a mighty +burst of laughter followed. + +Luigi's southern blood leaped to the boiling-point in a moment under the +sharp humiliation of this insult delivered in the presence of four +hundred strangers. It was not in the young man's nature to let the +matter pass, or to delay the squaring of the account. He took a couple +of strides and halted behind the unsuspecting joker. Then he drew back +and delivered a kick of such titanic vigor that it lifted Tom clear over +the footlights and landed him on the heads of the front row of the Sons +of Liberty. + +Even a sober person does not like to have a human being emptied on him +when he is not doing any harm; a person who is not sober cannot endure +such an attention at all. The nest of Sons of Liberty that Driscoll +landed in had not a sober bird in it; in fact there was probably not an +entirely sober one in the auditorium. Driscoll was promptly and +indignantly flung on to the heads of Sons in the next row, and these +Sons passed him on toward the rear, and then immediately began to pummel +the front-row Sons who had passed him to them. This course was strictly +followed by bench after bench as Driscoll traveled in his tumultuous and +airy flight toward the door; so he left behind him an ever lengthening +wake of raging and plunging and fighting and swearing humanity. Down +went group after group of torches, and presently above the deafening +clatter of the gavel, roar of angry voices, and crash of succumbing +benches, rose the paralyzing cry of "Fire!" + +The fighting ceased instantly; the cursing ceased; for one distinctly +defined moment there was a dead hush, a motionless calm, where the +tempest had been; then with one impulse the multitude awoke to life and +energy again, and went surging and struggling and swaying, this way and +that, its outer edges melting away through windows and doors and +gradually lessening the pressure and relieving the mass. + +The fire-boys were never on hand so suddenly before; for there was no +distance to go, this time, their quarters being in the rear end of the +market-house. There was an engine company and a hook-and-ladder company. +Half of each was composed of rummies and the other half of anti-rummies, +after the moral and political share-and-share-alike fashion of the +frontier town of the period. Enough anti-rummies were loafing in +quarters to man the engine and the ladders. In two minutes they had +their red shirts and helmets on--they never stirred officially in +unofficial costume--and as the mass meeting overhead smashed through the +long row of windows and poured out upon the roof of the arcade, the +deliverers were ready for them with a powerful stream of water which +washed some of them off the roof and nearly drowned the rest. But water +was preferable to fire, and still the stampede from the windows +continued, and still the pitiless drenching assailed it until the +building was empty; then the fire-boys mounted to the hall and flooded +it with water enough to annihilate forty times as much fire as there was +there; for a village fire-company does not often get a chance to show +off, and so when it does get a chance it makes the most of it. Such +citizens of that village as were of a thoughtful and judicious +temperament did not insure against fire; they insured against the +fire-company. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +The Shame of Judge Driscoll. + +Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. +Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is +brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the +flea!--incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if +ignorance of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will +attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you +are to him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he +lives both day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of +peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid +than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by +an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and +Putnam as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add +the flea--and put him at the head of the procession.--Pudd'nhead +Wilson's Calendar. + +Judge Driscoll was in bed and asleep by ten o'clock on Friday night, and +he was up and gone a-fishing before daylight in the morning with his +friend Pembroke Howard. These two had been boys together in Virginia +when that State still ranked as the chief and most imposing member of +the Union, and they still coupled the proud and affectionate adjective +"old" with her name when they spoke of her. In Missouri a recognized +superiority attached to any person who hailed from Old Virginia; and +this superiority was exalted to supremacy when a person of such nativity +could also prove descent from the First Families of that great +commonwealth. The Howards and Driscolls were of this aristocracy. In +their eyes it was a nobility. It had its unwritten laws, and they were +as clearly defined and as strict as any that could be found among the +printed statutes of the land. The F. F. V. was born a gentleman; his +highest duty in life was to watch over that great inheritance and keep +it unsmirched. He must keep his honor spotless. Those laws were his +chart; his course was marked out on it; if he swerved from it by so much +as half a point of the compass it meant shipwreck to his honor; that is +to say, degradation from his rank as a gentleman. These laws required +certain things of him which his religion might forbid: then his religion +must yield--the laws could not be relaxed to accommodate religions or +anything else. Honor stood first; and the laws defined what it was and +wherein it differed in certain details from honor as defined by church +creeds and by the social laws and customs of some of the minor divisions +of the globe that had got crowded out when the sacred boundaries of +Virginia were staked out. + +If Judge Driscoll was the recognized first citizen of Dawson's Landing, +Pembroke Howard was easily its recognized second citizen. He was called +"the great lawyer"--an earned title. He and Driscoll were of the same +age--a year or two past sixty. + +Although Driscoll was a free-thinker and Howard a strong and determined +Presbyterian, their warm intimacy suffered no impairment in consequence. +They were men whose opinions were their own property and not subject to +revision and amendment, suggestion or criticism, by anybody, even their +friends. + +The day's fishing finished, they came floating down stream in their +skiff, talking national politics and other high matters, and presently +met a skiff coming up from town, with a man in it who said: + +"I reckon you know one of the new twins gave your nephew a kicking last +night, Judge?" + +"Did what?" + +"Gave him a kicking." + +The old Judge's lips paled, and his eyes began to flame. He choked with +anger for a moment, then he got out what he was trying to say-- + +"Well--well--go on! give me the details!" + +The man did it. At the finish the Judge was silent a minute, turning +over in his mind the shameful picture of Tom's flight over the +footlights; then he said, as if musing aloud--"H'm--I don't understand +it. I was asleep at home. He didn't wake me. Thought he was competent to +manage his affair without my help, I reckon." His face lit up with pride +and pleasure at that thought, and he said with a cheery complacency, "I +like that--it's the true old blood--hey, Pembroke?" + +Howard smiled an iron smile, and nodded his head approvingly. Then the +news-bringer spoke again-- + +"But Tom beat the twin on the trial." + +The Judge looked at the man wonderingly, and said-- + +"The trial? What trial?" + +"Why, Tom had him up before Judge Robinson for assault and battery." + +The old man shrank suddenly together like one who has received a +death-stroke. Howard sprang for him as he sank forward in a swoon, and +took him in his arms, and bedded him on his back in the boat. He +sprinkled water in his face, and said to the startled visitor-- + +"Go, now--don't let him come to and find you here. You see what an +effect your heedless speech has had; you ought to have been more +considerate than to blurt out such a cruel piece of slander as that." + +"I'm right down sorry I did it now, Mr. Howard, and I wouldn't have done +it if I had thought: but it ain't slander; it's perfectly true, just as +I told him." + +He rowed away. Presently the old Judge came out of his faint and looked +up piteously into the sympathetic face that was bent over him. + +"Say it ain't true, Pembroke; tell me it ain't true!" he said in a weak +voice. + +There was nothing weak in the deep organ-tones that responded-- + +"You know it's a lie as well as I do, old friend. He is of the best +blood of the Old Dominion." + +"God bless you for saying it!" said the old gentleman, fervently. "Ah, +Pembroke, it was such a blow!" + +Howard stayed by his friend, and saw him home, and entered the house +with him. It was dark, and past supper-time, but the Judge was not +thinking of supper; he was eager to hear the slander refuted from +headquarters, and as eager to have Howard hear it, too. Tom was sent +for, and he came immediately. He was bruised and lame, and was not a +happy-looking object. His uncle made him sit down, and said-- + +"We have been hearing about your adventure, Tom, with a handsome lie +added to it for embellishment. Now pulverize that lie to dust! What +measures have you taken? How does the thing stand?" + +Tom answered guilelessly: "It don't stand at all; it's all over. I had +him up in court and beat him. Pudd'nhead Wilson defended him--first case +he ever had, and lost it. The judge fined the miserable hound five +dollars for the assault." + +Howard and the Judge sprang to their feet with the opening +sentence--why, neither knew; then they stood gazing vacantly at each +other. Howard stood a moment, then sat mournfully down without saying +anything. The Judge's wrath began to kindle, and he burst out-- + +"You cur! You scum! You vermin! Do you mean to tell me that blood of my +race has suffered a blow and crawled to a court of law about it? Answer +me!" + +Tom's head drooped, and he answered with an eloquent silence. His uncle +stared at him with a mixed expression of amazement and shame and +incredulity that was sorrowful to see. At last he said-- + +"Which of the twins was it?" + +"Count Luigi." + +"You have challenged him?" + +"N--no," hesitated Tom, turning pale. + +"You will challenge him to-night. Howard will carry it." + +Tom began to turn sick, and to show it. He turned his hat round and +round in his hand, his uncle glowering blacker and blacker upon him as +the heavy seconds drifted by; then at last he began to stammer, and said +piteously-- + +"Oh, please don't ask me to do it, uncle! He is a murderous devil--I +never could--I--I'm afraid of him!" + +Old Driscoll's mouth opened and closed three times before he could get +it to perform its office; then he stormed out-- + +"A coward in my family! A Driscoll a coward! Oh, what have I done to +deserve this infamy!" He tottered to his secretary in the corner +repeating that lament again and again in heartbreaking tones, and got +out of a drawer a paper, which he slowly tore to bits scattering the +bits absently in his track as he walked up and down the room, still +grieving and lamenting. At last he said-- + +"There it is, shreds and fragments once more--my will. Once more you +have forced me to disinherit you, you base son of a most noble father! +Leave my sight! Go--before I spit on you!" + +The young man did not tarry. Then the Judge turned to Howard: + +"You will be my second, old friend?" + +"Of course." + +"There is pen and paper. Draft the cartel, and lose no time." + +"The Count shall have it in his hands in fifteen minutes," said Howard. + +Tom was very heavy-hearted. His appetite was gone with his property and +his self-respect. He went out the back way and wandered down the obscure +lane grieving, and wondering if any course of future conduct, however +discreet and carefully perfected and watched over, could win back his +uncle's favor and persuade him to reconstruct once more that generous +will which had just gone to ruin before his eyes. He finally concluded +that it could. He said to himself that he had accomplished this sort of +triumph once already, and that what had been done once could be done +again. He would set about it. He would bend every energy to the task, +and he would score that triumph once more, cost what it might to his +convenience, limit as it might his frivolous and liberty-loving life. + +"To begin," he said to himself, "I'll square up with the proceeds of my +raid, and then gambling has got to be stopped--and stopped short off. +It's the worst vice I've got--from my standpoint, anyway, because it's +the one he can most easily find out, through the impatience of my +creditors. He thought it expensive to have to pay two hundred dollars to +them for me once. Expensive--that! Why, it cost me the whole of his +fortune--but of course he never thought of that; some people can't think +of any but their own side of a case. If he had known how deep I am in, +now, the will would have gone to pot without waiting for a duel to help. +Three hundred dollars! It's a pile! But he'll never hear of it, I'm +thankful to say. The minute I've cleared it off, I'm safe; and I'll +never touch a card again. Anyway, I won't while he lives, I make oath to +that. I'm entering on my last reform--I know it--yes, and I'll win; but +after that, if I ever slip again I'm gone." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +Tom Stares at Ruin. + +When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have +gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.--Pudd'nhead +Wilson's Calendar. + +October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in +stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, +May, March, June, December, August, and February.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's +Calendar. + +Thus mournfully communing with himself Tom moped along the lane past +Pudd'nhead Wilson's house, and still on and on between fences inclosing +vacant country on each hand till he neared the haunted house, then he +came moping back again, with many sighs and heavy with trouble. He +sorely wanted cheerful company. Rowena! His heart gave a bound at the +thought, but the next thought quieted it--the detested twins would be +there. + +He was on the inhabited side of Wilson's house, and now as he approached +it he noticed that the sitting-room was lighted. This would do; others +made him feel unwelcome sometimes, but Wilson never failed in courtesy +toward him, and a kindly courtesy does at least save one's feelings, +even if it is not professing to stand for a welcome. Wilson heard +footsteps at his threshold, then the clearing of a throat. + +"It's that fickle-tempered, dissipated young goose--poor devil, he find +friends pretty scarce to-day, likely, after the disgrace of carrying a +personal-assault case into a law-court." + +A dejected knock. "Come in!" + +Tom entered, and drooped into a chair, without saying anything. Wilson +said kindly-- + +"Why, my boy, you look desolate. Don't take it so hard. Try and forget +you have been kicked." + +"Oh, dear," said Tom, wretchedly, "it's not that, Pudd'nhead--it's not +that. It's a thousand times worse than that--oh, yes, a million times +worse." + +"Why, Tom, what do you mean? Has Rowena--" + +"Flung me? No, but the old man has." + +Wilson said to himself, "Aha!" and thought of the mysterious girl in the +bedroom. "The Driscolls have been making discoveries!" Then he said +aloud, gravely: + +"Tom, there are some kinds of dissipation which--" + +"Oh, shucks, this hasn't got anything to do with dissipation. He wanted +me to challenge that derned Italian savage, and I wouldn't do it." + +"Yes, of course he would do that," said Wilson in a meditative +matter-of-course way, "but the thing that puzzled me was, why he didn't +look to that last night, for one thing, and why he let you carry such a +matter into a court of law at all, either before the duel or after it. +It's no place for it. It was not like him. I couldn't understand it. How +did it happen?" + +"It happened because he didn't know anything about it. He was asleep +when I got home last night." + +"And you didn't wake him? Tom, is that possible?" + +Tom was not getting much comfort here. He fidgeted a moment, then said: + +"I didn't choose to tell him--that's all. He was going a-fishing before +dawn, with Pembroke Howard, and if I got the twins into the common +calaboose--and I thought sure I could--I never dreamed of their slipping +out on a paltry fine for such an outrageous offense--well, once in the +calaboose they would be disgraced, and uncle wouldn't want any duels +with that sort of characters, and wouldn't allow any." + +"Tom, I am ashamed of you! I don't see how you could treat your good old +uncle so. I am a better friend of his than you are; for if I had known +the circumstances I would have kept that case out of court until I got +word to him and let him have a gentleman's chance." + +"You would?" exclaimed Tom, with lively surprise. "And it your first +case! And you know perfectly well there never would have been any case +if he had got that chance, don't you? And you'd have finished your days +a pauper nobody, instead of being an actually launched and recognized +lawyer to-day. And you would really have done that, would you?" + +"Certainly." + +Tom looked at him a moment or two, then shook his head sorrowfully and +said-- + +"I believe you--upon my word I do. I don't know why I do, but I do. +Pudd'nhead Wilson, I think you're the biggest fool I ever saw." + +"Thank you." + +"Don't mention it." + +"Well, he has been requiring you to fight the Italian and you have +refused. You degenerate remnant of an honorable line! I'm thoroughly +ashamed of you, Tom!" + +"Oh, that's nothing! I don't care for anything, now that the will's torn +up again." + +"Tom, tell me squarely--didn't he find any fault with you for anything +but those two things--carrying the case into court and refusing to +fight?" + +He watched the young fellow's face narrowly, but it was entirely +reposeful, and so also was the voice that answered: + +"No, he didn't find any other fault with me. If he had had any to find, +he would have begun yesterday, for he was just in the humor for it. He +drove that jack-pair around town and showed them the sights, and when he +came home he couldn't find his father's old silver watch that don't keep +time and he thinks so much of, and couldn't remember what he did with it +three or four days ago when he saw it last, and so when I arrived he was +all in a sweat about it, and when I suggested that it probably wasn't +lost but stolen, it put him in a regular passion and he said I was a +fool--which convinced me, without any trouble, that that was just what +he was afraid had happened, himself, but did not want to believe it, +because lost things stand a better chance of being found again than +stolen ones." + +"Whe-ew!" whistled Wilson; "score another on the list." + +"Another what?" + +"Another theft!" + +"Theft?" + +"Yes, theft. That watch isn't lost, it's stolen. There's been another +raid on the town--and just the same old mysterious sort of thing that +has happened once before, as you remember." + +"You don't mean it!" + +"It's as sure as you are born! Have you missed anything yourself?" + +"No. That is, I did miss a silver pencil-case that Aunt Mary Pratt gave +me last birthday--" + +"You'll find it stolen--that's what you'll find." + +"No, I sha'n't; for when I suggested theft about the watch and got such +a rap, I went and examined my room, and the pencil-case was missing, but +it was only mislaid, and I found it again." + +"You are sure you missed nothing else?" + +"Well, nothing of consequence. I missed a small plain gold ring worth +two or three dollars, but that will turn up. I'll look again." + +"In my opinion you'll not find it. There's been a raid, I tell you. Come +in!" + +Mr. Justice Robinson entered, followed by Buckstone and the +town-constable, Jim Blake. They sat down, and after some wandering and +aimless weather-conversation Wilson said-- + +"By the way, we've just added another to the list of thefts, maybe two. +Judge Driscoll's old silver watch is gone, and Tom here has missed a +gold ring." + +"Well, it is a bad business," said the Justice, "and gets worse the +further it goes. The Hankses, the Dobsons, the Pilligrews, the Ortons, +the Grangers, the Hales, the Fullers, the Holcombs, in fact everybody +that lives around about Patsy Cooper's has been robbed of little things +like trinkets and teaspoons and such-like small valuables that are +easily carried off. It's perfectly plain that the thief took advantage +of the reception at Patsy Cooper's when all the neighbors were in her +house and all their niggers hanging around her fence for a look at the +show, to raid the vacant houses undisturbed. Patsy is miserable about +it; miserable on account of the neighbors, and particularly miserable on +account of her foreigners, of course; so miserable on their account that +she hasn't any room to worry about her own little losses." + +"It's the same old raider," said Wilson. "I suppose there isn't any +doubt about that." + +"Constable Blake doesn't think so." + +"No, you're wrong there," said Blake; "the other times it was a man; +there was plenty of signs of that, as we know, in the profession, though +we never got hands on him; but this time it's a woman." + +Wilson thought of the mysterious girl straight off. She was always in +his mind now. But she failed him again. Blake continued: + +"She's a stoop-shouldered old woman with a covered basket on her arm, in +a black veil, dressed in mourning. I saw her going aboard the ferry-boat +yesterday. Lives in Illinois, I reckon; but I don't care where she +lives, I'm going to get her--she can make herself sure of that." + +"What makes you think she's the thief?" + +"Well, there ain't any other, for one thing; and for another, some +nigger draymen that happened to be driving along saw her coming out of +or going into houses, and told me so--and it just happens that they was +robbed houses, every time." + +It was granted that this was plenty good enough circumstantial evidence. +A pensive silence followed, which lasted some moments, then Wilson +said-- + +"There's one good thing, anyway. She can't either pawn or sell Count +Luigi's costly Indian dagger." + +"My!" said Tom, "is that gone?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, that was a haul! But why can't she pawn it or sell it?" + +"Because when the twins went home from the Sons of Liberty meeting last +night, news of the raid was sifting in from everywhere, and Aunt Patsy +was in distress to know if they had lost anything. They found that the +dagger was gone, and they notified the police and pawnbrokers +everywhere. It was a great haul, yes, but the old woman won't get +anything out of it, because she'll get caught." + +"Did they offer a reward?" asked Buckstone. + +"Yes; five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred more for the +thief." + +"What a leather-headed idea!" exclaimed the constable. "The thief +da'sn't go near them, nor send anybody. Whoever goes is going to get +himself nabbed, for their ain't any pawnbroker that's going to lose the +chance to--" + +If anybody had noticed Tom's face at that time, the gray-green color of +it might have provoked curiosity; but nobody did. He said to himself: +"I'm gone! I never can square up; the rest of the plunder won't pawn or +sell for half of the bill. Oh, I know it--I'm gone, I'm gone--and this +time it's for good. Oh, this is awful--I don't know what to do, nor +which way to turn!" + +"Softly, softly," said Wilson to Blake. "I planned their scheme for them +at midnight last night, and it was all finished up shipshape by two this +morning. They'll get their dagger back, and then I'll explain to you how +the thing was done." + +There were strong signs of a general curiosity, and Buckstone said-- + +"Well, you have whetted us up pretty sharp, Wilson, and I'm free to say +that if you don't mind telling us in confidence--" + +"Oh, I'd as soon tell as not, Buckstone, but as long as the twins and I +agreed to say nothing about it, we must let it stand so. But you can +take my word for it you won't be kept waiting three days. Somebody will +apply for that reward pretty promptly, and I'll show you the thief and +the dagger both very soon afterward." + +The constable was disappointed, and also perplexed. He said-- + +"It may all be--yes, and I hope it will, but I'm blamed if I can see my +way through it. It's too many for yours truly." + +The subject seemed about talked out. Nobody seemed to have anything +further to offer. After a silence the justice of the peace informed +Wilson that he and Buckstone and the constable had come as a committee, +on the part of the Democratic party, to ask him to run for mayor--for +the little town was about to become a city and the first charter +election was approaching. It was the first attention which Wilson had +ever received at the hands of any party; it was a sufficiently humble +one, but it was a recognition of his début into the town's life and +activities at last; it was a step upward, and he was deeply gratified. +He accepted, and the committee departed, followed by young Tom. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +Roxana Insists Upon Reform. + +The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned +with commoner things. It is chief of this world's luxuries, king by the +grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, +he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve +took: we know it because she repented.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +About the time that Wilson was bowing the committee out, Pembroke Howard +was entering the next house to report. He found the old Judge sitting +grim and straight in his chair, waiting. + +"Well, Howard--the news?" + +"The best in the world." + +"Accepts, does he?" and the light of battle gleamed joyously in the +Judge's eye. + +"Accepts? Why, he jumped at it." + +"Did, did he? Now that's fine--that's very fine. I like that. When is it +to be?" + +"Now! Straight off! To-night! An admirable fellow--admirable!" + +"Admirable? He's a darling! Why, it's an honor as well as a pleasure to +stand up before such a man. Come--off with you! Go and arrange +everything--and give him my heartiest compliments. A rare fellow, +indeed; an admirable fellow, as you have said!" + +Howard hurried away, saying-- + +"I'll have him in the vacant stretch between Wilson's and the haunted +house within the hour, and I'll bring my own pistols." + +Judge Driscoll began to walk the floor in a state of pleased excitement; +but presently he stopped, and began to think--began to think of Tom. +Twice he moved toward the secretary, and twice he turned away again; but +finally he said-- + +"This may be my last night in the world--I must not take the chance. He +is worthless and unworthy, but it is largely my fault. He was intrusted +to me by my brother on his dying bed, and I have indulged him to his +hurt, instead of training him up severely, and making a man of him. I +have violated my trust, and I must not add the sin of desertion to that. +I have forgiven him once already, and would subject him to a long and +hard trial before forgiving him again, if I could live; but I must not +run that risk. No, I must restore the will. But if I survive the duel, I +will hide it away, and he will not know, and I will not tell him until +he reforms, and I see that his reformation is going to be permanent." + +He re-drew the will, and his ostensible nephew was heir to a fortune +again. As he was finishing his task, Tom, wearied with another brooding +tramp, entered the house and went tiptoeing past the sitting-room door. +He glanced in, and hurried on, for the sight of his uncle had nothing +but terrors for him to-night. But his uncle was writing! That was +unusual at this late hour. What could he be writing? A chill of anxiety +settled down upon Tom's heart. Did that writing concern him? He was +afraid so. He reflected that when ill luck begins, it does not come in +sprinkles, but in showers. He said he would get a glimpse of that +document or know the reason why. He heard some one coming, and stepped +out of sight and hearing. It was Pembroke Howard. What could be +hatching? + +Howard said, with great satisfaction: + +"Everything's right and ready. He's gone to the battle-ground with his +second and the surgeon--also with his brother. I've arranged it all with +Wilson--Wilson's his second. We are to have three shots apiece." + +"Good! How is the moon?" + +"Bright as day, nearly. Perfect, for the distance--fifteen yards. No +wind--not a breath; hot and still." + +"All good; all first-rate. Here, Pembroke, read this, and witness it." + +Pembroke read and witnessed the will, then gave the old man's hand a +hearty shake and said: + +"Now that's right, York--but I knew you would do it. You couldn't leave +that poor chap to fight along without means or profession, with certain +defeat before him, and I knew you wouldn't, for his father's sake if not +for his own." + +"For his dead father's sake I couldn't, I know; for poor Percy--but you +know what Percy was to me. But mind--Tom is not to know of this unless I +fall to-night." + +"I understand. I'll keep the secret." + +The Judge put the will away, and the two started for the battle-ground. +In another minute the will was in Tom's hands. His misery vanished, his +feelings underwent a tremendous revulsion. He put the will carefully +back in its place, and spread his mouth and swung his hat once, twice, +three times around his head, in imitation of three rousing huzzas, no +sound issuing from his lips. He fell to communing with himself excitedly +and joyously, but every now and then he let off another volley of dumb +hurrahs. + +He said to himself: "I've got the fortune again, but I'll not let on +that I know about it. And this time I'm going to hang on to it. I take +no more risks. I'll gamble no more, I'll drink no more, because--well, +because I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, +again. It's the sure way, and the only sure way; I might have thought of +that sooner--well, yes, if I had wanted to. But now--dear me, I've had a +scare this time, and I'll take no more chances. Not a single chance +more. Land! I persuaded myself this evening that I could fetch him +around without any great amount of effort, but I've been getting more +and more heavy-hearted and doubtful straight along, ever since. If he +tells me about this thing, all right; but if he doesn't, I sha'n't let +on. I--well, I'd like to tell Pudd'nhead Wilson, but--no, I'll think +about that; perhaps I won't." He whirled off another dead huzza, and +said, "I'm reformed, and this time I'll stay so, sure!" + +He was about to close with a final grand silent demonstration, when he +suddenly recollected that Wilson had put it out of his power to pawn or +sell the Indian knife, and that he was once more in awful peril of +exposure by his creditors for that reason. His joy collapsed utterly, +and he turned away and moped toward the door moaning and lamenting over +the bitterness of his luck. He dragged himself up-stairs, and brooded in +his room a long time disconsolate and forlorn, with Luigi's Indian knife +for a text. At last he sighed and said: + +"When I supposed these stones were glass and this ivory bone, the thing +hadn't any interest for me because it hadn't any value, and couldn't +help me out of my trouble. But now--why, now it is full of interest; +yes, and of a sort to break a body's heart. It's a bag of gold that has +turned to dirt and ashes in my hands. It could save me, and save me so +easily, and yet I've got to go to ruin. It's like drowning with a +life-preserver in my reach. All the hard luck comes to me, and all the +good luck goes to other people--Pudd'nhead Wilson, for instance; even +his career has got a sort of a little start at last, and what has he +done to deserve it, I should like to know? Yes, he has opened his own +road, but he isn't content with that, but must block mine. It's a +sordid, selfish world, and I wish I was out of it." He allowed the light +of the candle to play upon the jewels of the sheath, but the flashings +and sparklings had no charm for his eye; they were only just so many +pangs to his heart. "I must not say anything to Roxy about this thing," +he said, "she is too daring. She would be for digging these stones out +and selling them, and then--why, she would be arrested and the stones +traced, and then--" The thought made him quake, and he hid the knife +away, trembling all over and glancing furtively about, like a criminal +who fancies that the accuser is already at hand. + +Should he try to sleep? Oh, no, sleep was not for him; his trouble was +too haunting, too afflicting for that. He must have somebody to mourn +with. He would carry his despair to Roxy. + +He had heard several distant gunshots, but that sort of thing was not +uncommon, and they had made no impression upon him. He went out at the +back door, and turned westward. He passed Wilson's house and proceeded +along the lane, and presently saw several figures approaching Wilson's +place through the vacant lots. These were the duelists returning from +the fight; he thought he recognized them, but as he had no desire for +white people's company, he stooped down behind the fence until they were +out of his way. + +Roxy was feeling fine. She said: + +"Whah was you, child? Warn't you in it?" + +"In what?" + +"In de duel." + +"Duel? Has there been a duel?" + +"'Co'se dey has. De ole Jedge has be'n havin' a duel wid one o' dem +twins." + +"Great Scott!" Then he added to himself: "That's what made him re-make +the will; he thought he might get killed, and it softened him toward me. +And that's what he and Howard were so busy about.... Oh dear, if the +twin had only killed him, I should be out of my--" + +"What is you mumblin' bout, Chambers? Whah was you? Didn't you know dey +was gwyne to be a duel?" + +"No, I didn't. The old man tried to get me to fight one with Count +Luigi, but he didn't succeed, so I reckon he concluded to patch up the +family honor himself." + +He laughed at the idea, and went rambling on with a detailed account of +his talk with the Judge, and how shocked and ashamed the Judge was to +find that he had a coward in his family. He glanced up at last, and got +a shock himself. Roxana's bosom was heaving with suppressed passion, and +she was glowering down upon him with measureless contempt written in her +face. + +"En you refuse' to fight a man dat kicked you, 'stid o' jumpin' at de +chance! En you ain't got no mo' feelin' den to come en tell me, dat +fetched sich a po' low-down ornery rabbit into de worl'! Pah! it make me +sick! It's de nigger in you, dat's what it is. Thirty-one parts o' you +is white, en on'y one part nigger, en dat po' little one part is yo' +soul. Tain't wuth savin'; tain't wuth totin' out on a shovel en throwin' +in de gutter. You has disgraced yo' birth. What would yo' pa think o' +you? It's enough to make him turn in his grave." + +The last three sentences stung Tom into a fury, and he said to himself +that if his father were only alive and in reach of assassination his +mother would soon find that he had a very clear notion of the size of +his indebtedness to that man, and was willing to pay it up in full, and +would do it too, even at risk of his life; but he kept this thought to +himself; that was safest in his mother's present state. + +"Whatever has come o' yo' Essex blood? Dat's what I can't understan'. En +it ain't on'y jist Essex blood dat's in you, not by a long sight--'deed +it ain't! My great-great-great-gran'father en yo' +great-great-great-great-gran'father was Ole Cap'n John Smith, de highest +blood dat Ole Virginny ever turned out, en his great-great-gran'mother +or somers along back dah, was Pocahontas de Injun queen, en her husbun' +was a nigger king outen Africa--en yit here you is, a slinkin' outen a +duel en disgracin' our whole line like a ornery low-down hound! Yes, +it's de nigger in you!" + +She sat down on her candle-box and fell into a reverie. Tom did not +disturb her; he sometimes lacked prudence, but it was not in +circumstances of this kind, Roxana's storm went gradually down, but it +died hard, and even when it seemed to be quite gone, it would now and +then break out in a distant rumble, so to speak, in the form of muttered +ejaculations. One of these was, "Ain't nigger enough in him to show in +his finger-nails, en dat takes mighty little--yit dey's enough to paint +his soul." + +Presently she muttered. "Yassir, enough to paint a whole thimbleful of +'em." At last her ramblings ceased altogether, and her countenance began +to clear--a welcome sign to Tom, who had learned her moods, and knew she +was on the threshold of good-humor, now. He noticed that from time to +time she unconsciously carried her finger to the end of her nose. He +looked closer and said: + +"Why, mammy, the end of your nose is skinned. How did that come?" + +She sent out the sort of whole-hearted peal of laughter which God had +vouchsafed in its perfection to none but the happy angels in heaven and +the bruised and broken black slave on the earth, and said: + +"Dad fetch dat duel, I be'n in it myself." + +"Gracious! did a bullet do that?" + +"Yassir, you bet it did!" + +"Well, I declare! Why, how did that happen?" + +"Happened dis-away. I 'uz a-sett'n' here kinder dozin' in de dark, en +che-bang! goes a gun, right out dah. I skips along out towards t'other +end o' de house to see what's gwyne on, en stops by de ole winder on de +side towards Pudd'nhead Wilson's house dat ain't got no sash in it,--but +dey ain't none of 'em got any sashes, fur as dat's concerned,--en I +stood dah in de dark en look out, en dar in de moonlight, right down +under me 'uz one o' de twins a-cussin'--not much, but jist a-cussin' +soft--it 'uz de brown one dat 'uz cussin', 'ca'se he 'uz hit in de +shoulder. En Doctor Claypool he 'uz a-workin' at him, en Pudd'nhead +Wilson he 'uz a-he'pin', en ole Jedge Driscoll en Pem Howard 'uz +a-standin' out yonder a little piece waitin' for 'em to git ready agin. +En treckly dey squared off en give de word, en bang-bang went de +pistols, en de twin he say, 'Ouch!'--hit him on de han' dis time,--en I +hear dat same bullet go spat! ag'in, de logs under de winder; en de nex' +time dey shoot, de twin say, 'Ouch!' ag'in, en I done it too, 'ca'se de +bullet glance' on his cheek-bone en skip up here en glance on de side o' +de winder en whiz right acrost my face en tuck de hide off'n my +nose--why, if I'd 'a' be'n jist a inch or a inch en a half furder 't +would 'a' tuck de whole nose en disfiggered me. Here's de bullet; I +hunted her up." + +"Did you stand there all the time?" + +"Dat's a question to ask, ain't it? What else would I do? Does I git a +chance to see a duel every day?" + +"Why, you were right in range! Weren't you afraid?" + +The woman gave a sniff of scorn. + +"'Fraid! De Smith-Pocahontases ain't 'fraid o' nothin', let alone +bullets." + +"They've got pluck enough, I suppose; what they lack is judgment. I +wouldn't have stood there." + +"Nobody's accusin' you!" + +"Did anybody else get hurt?" + +"Yes, we all got hit 'cep' de blon' twin en de doctor en de seconds. De +Jedge didn't git hurt, but I hear Pudd'nhead say de bullet snip some o' +his ha'r off." + +"'George!" said Tom to himself, "to come so near being out of my +trouble, and miss it by an inch. Oh dear, dear, he will live to find me +out and sell me to some nigger-trader yet--yes, and he would do it in a +minute." Then he said aloud, in a grave tone-- + +"Mother, we are in an awful fix." + +Roxana caught her breath with a spasm, and said-- + +"Chile! What you hit a body so sudden for, like dat? What's be'n en gone +en happen'?" + +"Well, there's one thing I didn't tell you. When I wouldn't fight, he +tore up the will again, and--" + +Roxana's face turned a dead white, and she said-- + +"Now you's done!--done forever! Dat's de end. Bofe un us is gwyne to +starve to--" + +"Wait and hear me through, can't you! I reckon that when he resolved to +fight, himself, he thought he might get killed and not have a chance to +forgive me any more in this life, so he made the will again, and I've +seen it, and it's all right. But--" + +"Oh, thank goodness, den we's safe ag'in!--safe! en so what did you want +to come here en talk sich dreadful--" + +"Hold on, I tell you, and let me finish. The swag I gathered won't half +square me up, and the first thing we know, my creditors--well, you know +what'll happen." + +Roxana dropped her chin, and told her son to leave her alone--she must +think this matter out. Presently she said impressively: + +"You got to go mighty keerful now, I tell you! En here's what you got to +do. He didn't git killed, en if you gives him de least reason, he'll +bust de will ag'in, en dat's de las' time, now you hear me! So--you's +got to show him what you kin do in de nex' few days. You's got to be +pison good, en let him see it; you got to do everything dat'll make him +b'lieve in you, en you got to sweeten aroun' ole Aunt Pratt, too,--she's +pow'ful strong wid de Jedge, en de bes' frien' you got. Nex', you'll go +'long away to Sent Louis, en dat'll keep him in yo' favor. Den you go en +make a bargain wid dem people. You tell 'em he ain't gwyne to live +long--en dat's de fac', too,--en tell 'em you'll pay 'em intrust, en big +intrust, too,--ten per--what you call it?" + +"Ten per cent. a month?" + +"Dat's it. Den you take and sell yo' truck aroun', a little at a time, +en pay de intrust. How long will it las'?" + +"I think there's enough to pay the interest five or six months." + +"Den you's all right. If he don't die in six months, dat don't make no +diff'rence--Providence'll provide. You's gwyne to be safe--if you +behaves." She bent an austere eye on him and added, "En you is gwyne to +behave--does you know dat?" + +He laughed and said he was going to try, anyway. She did not unbend. She +said gravely: + +"Tryin' ain't de thing. You's gwyne to do it. You ain't gwyne to steal a +pin--'ca'se it ain't safe no mo'; en you ain't gwyne into no bad +comp'ny--not even once, you understand; en you ain't gwyne to drink a +drop--nary single drop; en you ain't gwyne to gamble one single +gamble--not one! Dis ain't what you's gwyne to try to do, it's what +you's gwyne to do. En I'll tell you how I knows it. Dis is how. I's +gwyne to foller along to Sent Louis my own self; en you's gwyne to come +to me every day o' yo' life, en I'll look you over; en if you fails in +one single one o' dem things--jist one--I take my oath I'll come +straight down to dis town en tell de Jedge you's a nigger en a slave--en +prove it!" She paused to let her words sink home. Then she added, +"Chambers, does you b'lieve me when I says dat?" + +Tom was sober enough now. There was no levity in his voice when he +answered: + +"Yes, mother, I know, now, that I am reformed--and permanently. +Permanently--and beyond the reach of any human temptation." + +"Den g' long home en begin!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +The Robber Robbed. + +Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.--Pudd'nhead +Wilson's Calendar. + +Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one +basket"--which is but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your +attention;" but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket +and--watch that basket"--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +What a time of it Dawson's Landing was having! All its life it had been +asleep, but now it hardly got a chance for a nod, so swiftly did big +events and crashing surprises come along in one another's wake: Friday +morning, first glimpse of Real Nobility, also grand reception at Aunt +Patsy Cooper's, also great robber-raid; Friday evening, dramatic kicking +of the heir of the chief citizen in presence of four hundred people; +Saturday morning, emergence as practising lawyer of the long-submerged +Pudd'nhead Wilson; Saturday night, duel between chief citizen and titled +stranger. + +The people took more pride in the duel than in all the other events put +together, perhaps. It was a glory to their town to have such a thing +happen there. In their eyes the principals had reached the summit of +human honor. Everybody paid homage to their names; their praises were in +all mouths. Even the duelists' subordinates came in for a handsome share +of the public approbation: wherefore Pudd'nhead Wilson was suddenly +become a man of consequence. When asked to run for the mayoralty +Saturday night he was risking defeat, but Sunday morning found him a +made man and his success assured. + +The twins were prodigiously great, now; the town took them to its bosom +with enthusiasm. Day after day, and night after night, they went dining +and visiting from house to house, making friends, enlarging and +solidifying their popularity, and charming and surprising all with their +musical prodigies, and now and then heightening the effects with samples +of what they could do in other directions, out of their stock of rare +and curious accomplishments. They were so pleased that they gave the +regulation thirty days' notice, the required preparation for +citizenship, and resolved to finish their days in this pleasant place. +That was the climax. The delighted community rose as one man and +applauded; and when the twins were asked to stand for seats in the +forthcoming aldermanic board, and consented, the public contentment was +rounded and complete. + +Tom Driscoll was not happy over these things; they sunk deep, and hurt +all the way down. He hated the one twin for kicking him, and the other +one for being the kicker's brother. + +Now and then the people wondered why nothing was heard of the raider, or +of the stolen knife or the other plunder, but nobody was able to throw +any light on that matter. Nearly a week had drifted by, and still the +thing remained a vexed mystery. + +On Saturday Constable Blake and Pudd'nhead Wilson met on the street, and +Tom Driscoll joined them in time to open their conversation for them. He +said to Blake--"You are not looking well, Blake; you seem to be annoyed +about something. Has anything gone wrong in the detective business? I +believe you fairly and justifiably claim to have a pretty good +reputation in that line, isn't it so?"--which made Blake feel good, and +look it; but Tom added, "for a country detective"--which made Blake feel +the other way, and not only look it, but betray it in his voice-- + +"Yes, sir, I have got a reputation; and it's as good as anybody's in the +profession, too, country or no country." + +"Oh, I beg pardon; I didn't mean any offense. What I started out to ask +was only about the old woman that raided the town--the stoop-shouldered +old woman, you know, that you said you were going to catch; and I knew +you would, too, because you have the reputation of never boasting, +and--well, you--you've caught the old woman?" + +"D------ the old woman!" + +"Why, sho! you don't mean to say you haven't caught her?" + +"No; I haven't caught her. If anybody could have caught her, I could; +but nobody couldn't, I don't care who he is." + +"I am sorry, real sorry--for your sake; because, when it gets around +that a detective has expressed himself so confidently, and then--" + +"Don't you worry, that's all--don't you worry; and as for the town, the +town needn't worry, either. She's my meat--make yourself easy about +that. I'm on her track; I've got clues that--" + +"That's good! Now if you could get an old veteran detective down from +St. Louis to help you find out what the clues mean, and where they lead +to, and then--" + +"I'm plenty veteran enough myself, and I don't need anybody's help. I'll +have her inside of a we--inside of a month. That I'll swear to!" + +Tom said carelessly-- + +"I suppose that will answer--yes, that will answer. But I reckon she is +pretty old, and old people don't often outlive the cautious pace of the +professional detective when he has got his clues together and is out on +his still-hunt." + +Blake's dull face flushed under this gibe, but before he could set his +retort in order Tom had turned to Wilson, and was saying, with placid +indifference of manner and voice-- + +"Who got the reward, Pudd'nhead?" + +Wilson winced slightly, and saw that his own turn was come. + +"What reward?" + +"Why, the reward for the thief, and the other one for the knife." + +Wilson answered--and rather uncomfortably, to judge by his hesitating +fashion of delivering himself-- + +"Well, the--well, in fact, nobody has claimed it yet." + +Tom seemed surprised. + +"Why, is that so?" + +Wilson showed a trifle of irritation when he replied-- + +"Yes, it's so. And what of it?" + +"Oh, nothing. Only I thought you had struck out a new idea, and invented +a scheme that was going to revolutionize the time-worn and ineffectual +methods of the--" He stopped, and turned to Blake, who was happy now +that another had taken his place on the gridiron: "Blake, didn't you +understand him to intimate that it wouldn't be necessary for you to hunt +the old woman down?" + +"B'George, he said he'd have thief and swag both inside of three +days--he did, by hokey! and that's just about a week ago. Why, I said at +the time that no thief and no thief's pal was going to try to pawn or +sell a thing where he knowed the pawnbroker could get both rewards by +taking him into camp with the swag. It was the blessedest idea that ever +I struck!" + +"You'd change your mind," said Wilson, with irritated bluntness, "if you +knew the entire scheme instead of only part of it." + +"Well," said the constable, pensively, "I had the idea that it wouldn't +work, and up to now I'm right anyway." + +"Very well, then, let it stand at that, and give it a further show. It +has worked at least as well as your own methods, you perceive." + +The constable hadn't anything handy to hit back with, so he discharged a +discontented sniff, and said nothing. + +After the night that Wilson had partly revealed his scheme at his house, +Tom had tried for several days to guess out the secret of the rest of +it, but had failed. Then it occurred to him to give Roxana's smarter +head a chance at it. He made up a supposititious case, and laid it +before her. She thought it over, and delivered her verdict upon it. Tom +said to himself, "She's hit it, sure!" He thought he would test that +verdict, now, and watch Wilson's face; so he said reflectively-- + +"Wilson, you're not a fool--a fact of recent discovery. Whatever your +scheme was, it had sense in it, Blake's opinion to the contrary +notwithstanding. I don't ask you to reveal it, but I will suppose a +case--a case which will answer as a starting-point for the real thing I +am going to come at, and that's all I want. You offered five hundred +dollars for the knife, and five hundred for the thief. We will suppose, +for argument's sake, that the first reward is advertised and the second +offered by private letter to pawnbrokers and--" + +Blake slapped his thigh, and cried out-- + +"By Jackson, he's got you, Pudd'nhead! Now why couldn't I or any fool +have thought of that?" + +Wilson said to himself, "Anybody with a reasonably good head would have +thought of it. I am not surprised that Blake didn't detect it; I am only +surprised that Tom did. There is more to him than I supposed." He said +nothing aloud, and Tom went on: + +"Very well. The thief would not suspect that there was a trap, and he +would bring or send the knife, and say he bought it for a song, or found +it in the road, or something like that, and try to collect the reward, +and be arrested--wouldn't he?" + +"Yes," said Wilson. + +"I think so," said Tom. "There can't be any doubt of it. Have you ever +seen that knife?" + +"No." + +"Has any friend of yours?" + +"Not that I know of." + +"Well, I begin to think I understand why your scheme failed." + +"What do you mean, Tom? What are you driving at?" asked Wilson, with a +dawning sense of discomfort. + +"Why, that there isn't any such knife." + +"Look here, Wilson," said Blake, "Tom Driscoll's right, for a thousand +dollars--if I had it." + +Wilson's blood warmed a little, and he wondered if he had been played +upon by those strangers; it certainly had something of that look. But +what could they gain by it? He threw out that suggestion. Tom replied: + +"Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers +making their way in a new community. Is it nothing to them to appear as +pets of an Oriental prince--at no expense? Is it nothing to them to be +able to dazzle this poor little town with thousand-dollar rewards--at no +expense? Wilson, there isn't any such knife, or your scheme would have +fetched it to light. Or if there is any such knife, they've got it yet. +I believe, myself, that they've seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured +it out with his pencil too swiftly and handily for him to have been +inventing it, and of course I can't swear that they've never had it; but +this I'll go bail for--if they had it when they came to this town, +they've got it yet." + +Blake said-- + +"It looks mighty reasonable, the way Tom puts it; it most certainly +does." + +Tom responded, turning to leave-- + +"You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can't furnish the knife, go +and search the twins!" + +Tom sauntered away. Wilson felt a good deal depressed. He hardly knew +what to think. He was loath to withdraw his faith from the twins, and +was resolved not to do it on the present indecisive evidence; but--well, +he would think, and then decide how to act. + +"Blake, what do you think of this matter?" + +"Well, Pudd'nhead, I'm bound to say I put it up the way Tom does. They +hadn't the knife; or if they had it, they've got it yet." + +The men parted. Wilson said to himself: + +"I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have +restored it, that is certain. And so I believe they've got it yet." + +Tom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men. When +he began his talk he hoped to be able to gall them a little and get a +trifle of malicious entertainment out of it. But when he left, he left +in great spirits, for he perceived that just by pure luck and no +troublesome labor he had accomplished several delightful things: he had +touched both men on a raw spot and seen them squirm; he had modified +Wilson's sweetness for the twins with one small bitter taste that he +wouldn't be able to get out of his mouth right away; and, best of all, +he had taken the hated twins down a peg with the community; for Blake +would gossip around freely, after the manner of detectives, and within a +week the town would be laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a +gaudy reward for a bauble which they either never possessed or hadn't +lost. Tom was very well satisfied with himself. + +Tom's behavior at home had been perfect during the entire week. His +uncle and aunt had seen nothing like it before. They could find no fault +with him anywhere. + +Saturday evening he said to the Judge-- + +"I've had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away, +and might never see you again, I can't bear it any longer. I made you +believe I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer. I had to get out +of it on some pretext or other, and maybe I chose badly, being taken +unawares, but no honorable person could consent to meet him in the +field, knowing what I knew about him." + +"Indeed? What was that?" + +"Count Luigi is a confessed assassin." + +"Incredible!" + +"It's perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry, and +charged him with it, and cornered him up so close that he had to +confess; but both twins begged us on their knees to keep the secret, and +swore they would lead straight lives here; and it was all so pitiful +that we gave our word of honor never to expose them while they kept that +promise. You would have done it yourself, uncle." + +"You are right, my boy; I would. A man's secret is still his own +property, and sacred, when it has been surprised out of him like that. +You did well, and I am proud of you." Then he added mournfully, "But I +wish I could have been saved the shame of meeting an assassin on the +field of honor." + +"It couldn't be helped, uncle. If I had known you were going to +challenge him I should have felt obliged to sacrifice my pledged word in +order to stop it, but Wilson couldn't be expected to do otherwise than +keep silent." + +"Oh, no; Wilson did right, and is in no way to blame. Tom, Tom, you have +lifted a heavy load from my heart; I was stung to the very soul when I +seemed to have discovered that I had a coward in my family." + +"You may imagine what it cost me to assume such a part, uncle." + +"Oh, I know it, poor boy, I know it. And I can understand how much it +has cost you to remain under that unjust stigma to this time. But it is +all right now, and no harm is done. You have restored my comfort of +mind, and with it your own; and both of us had suffered enough." + +The old man sat awhile plunged in thought; then he looked up with a +satisfied light in his eye, and said: "That this assassin should have +put the affront upon me of letting me meet him on the field of honor as +if he were a gentleman is a matter which I will presently settle--but +not now. I will not shoot him until after election. I see a way to ruin +them both before; I will attend to that first. Neither of them shall be +elected, that I promise. You are sure that the fact that he is an +assassin has not got abroad?" + +"Perfectly certain of it, sir." + +"It will be a good card. I will fling a hint at it from the stump on the +polling-day. It will sweep the ground from under both of them." + +"There's not a doubt of it. It will finish them." + +"That and outside work among the voters will, to a certainty. I want you +to come down here by and by and work privately among the rag-tag and +bobtail. You shall spend money among them; I will furnish it." + +Another point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great +day for Tom. He was encouraged to chance a parting shot, now, at the +same target, and did it. + +"You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making +such a to-do about? Well, there's no track or trace of it yet; so the +town is beginning to sneer and gossip and laugh. Half the people believe +they never had any such knife, the other half believe they had it and +have got it still. I've heard twenty people talking like that to-day." + +Yes, Tom's blemishless week had restored him to the favor of his aunt +and uncle. + +His mother was satisfied with him, too. Privately, she believed she was +coming to love him, but she did not say so. She told him to go along to +St. Louis, now, and she would get ready and follow. Then she smashed her +whisky bottle and said-- + +"Dah now! I's a-gwyne to make you walk as straight as a string, +Chambers, en so I's bown' you ain't gwyne to git no bad example out o' +yo' mammy. I tole you you couldn't go into no bad comp'ny. Well, you's +gwyne into my comp'ny, en I's gwyne to fill de bill. Now, den, trot +along, trot along!" + +Tom went aboard one of the big transient boats that night with his heavy +satchel of miscellaneous plunder, and slept the sleep of the unjust, +which is serener and sounder than the other kind, as we know by the +hanging-eve history of a million rascals. But when he got up in the +morning, luck was against him again: A brother-thief had robbed him +while he slept, and gone ashore at some intermediate landing. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +Sold Down the River. + +If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite +you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a +man.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of +the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It +seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for +studying the oyster.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +When Roxana arrived, she found her son in such despair and misery that +her heart was touched and her motherhood rose up strong in her. He was +ruined past hope, now; his destruction would be immediate and sure, and +he would be an outcast and friendless. That was reason enough for a +mother to love a child; so she loved him, and told him so. It made him +wince, secretly--for she was a "nigger." That he was one himself was far +from reconciling him to that despised race. + +Roxana poured out endearments upon him, to which he responded +uncomfortably, but as well as he could. And she tried to comfort him, +but that was not possible. These intimacies quickly became horrible to +him, and within the hour he began to try to get up courage enough to +tell her so, and require that they be discontinued or very considerably +modified. But he was afraid of her; and besides, there came a lull, now, +for she had begun to think. She was trying to invent a saving plan. +Finally she started up, and said she had found a way out. Tom was almost +suffocated by the joy of this sudden good news. Roxana said: + +"Here is de plan, en she'll win, sure. I's a nigger, en nobody ain't +gwyne to doubt it dat hears me talk. I's wuth six hund'd dollahs. Take +en sell me, en pay off dese gamblers." + +Tom was dazed. He was not sure he had heard aright. He was dumb for a +moment; then he said: + +"Do you mean that you would be sold into slavery to save me?" + +"Ain't you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won't do for +her chile? Day ain't nothin' a white mother won't do for her chile. Who +made 'em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made 'em. +In de inside, mothers is all de same. De good Lord he made 'em so. I's +gwyne to be sole into slavery, en in a year you's gwyne to buy yo' ole +mammy free ag'in. I'll show you how. Dat's de plan." + +Tom's hopes began to rise, and his spirits along with them. He said-- + +"It's lovely of you, mammy--it's just--" + +"Say it ag'in! En keep on sayin' it! It's all de pay a body kin want in +dis worl', en it's mo' den enough. Laws bless you, honey, when I's +slavin' aroun', en dey 'buses me, if I knows you's a-sayin' dat, 'way +off yonder somers, it'll heal up all de sore places, en I kin stan' +'em." + +"I do say it again, mammy, and I'll keep on saying it, too. But how am I +going to sell you? You're free, you know." + +"Much diff'rence dat make! White folks ain't partic'lar. De law kin sell +me now if dey tell me to leave de State in six months en I don't go. You +draw up a paper--bill o' sale--en put it 'way off yonder, down in de +middle o' Kaintuck somers, en sign some names to it, en say you'll sell +me cheap 'ca'se you's hard up; you'll find you ain't gwyne to have no +trouble. You take me up de country a piece, en sell me on a farm; dem +people ain't gwyne to ask no questions if I's a bargain." + +Tom forged a bill of sale and sold his mother to an Arkansas +cotton-planter for a trifle over six hundred dollars. He did not want to +commit this treachery, but luck threw the man in his way, and this saved +him the necessity of going up country to hunt up a purchaser, with the +added risk of having to answer a lot of questions, whereas this planter +was so pleased with Roxy that he asked next to none at all. Besides, the +planter insisted that Roxy wouldn't know where she was, at first, and +that by the time she found out she would already have become contented. +And Tom argued with himself that it was an immense advantage for Roxy to +have a master who was so pleased with her, as this planter manifestly +was. In almost no time his flowing reasonings carried him to the point +of even half believing he was doing Roxy a splendid surreptitious +service in selling her "down the river." And then he kept diligently +saying to himself all the time: "It's for only a year. In a year I buy +her free again; she'll keep that in mind, and it'll reconcile her." Yes; +the little deception could do no harm, and everything would come out +right and pleasant in the end, any way. By agreement, the conversation +in Roxy's presence was all about the man's "upcountry" farm, and how +pleasant a place it was, and how happy the slaves were there; so poor +Roxy was entirely deceived; and easily, for she was not dreaming that +her own son could be guilty of treason to a mother who, in voluntarily +going into slavery--slavery of any kind, mild or severe, or of any +duration, brief or long--was making a sacrifice for him compared with +which death would have been a poor and commonplace one. She lavished +tears and loving caresses upon him privately, and then went away with +her owner--went away broken-hearted, and yet proud of what she was +doing, and glad it was in her power to do it. + +Tom squared his accounts, and resolved to keep to the very letter of his +reform, and never to put that will in jeopardy again. He had three +hundred dollars left. According to his mother's plan, he was to put that +safely away, and add her half of his pension to it monthly. In one year +this fund would buy her free again. + +For a whole week he was not able to sleep well, so much the villainy +which he had played upon his trusting mother preyed upon his rag of a +conscience; but after that he began to get comfortable again, and was +presently able to sleep like any other miscreant. + +The boat bore Roxy away from St. Louis at four in the afternoon, and she +stood on the lower guard abaft the paddle-box and watched Tom through a +blur of tears until he melted into the throng of people and disappeared; +then she looked no more, but sat there on a coil of cable crying till +far into the night. When she went to her foul steerage-bunk at last, +between the clashing engines, it was not to sleep, but only to wait for +the morning, and, waiting, grieve. + +It had been imagined that she "would not know," and would think she was +traveling up stream. She! Why, she had been steamboating for years. At +dawn she got up and went listlessly and sat down on the cable-coil +again. She passed many a snag whose "break" could have told her a thing +to break her heart, for it showed a current moving in the same direction +that the boat was going; but her thoughts were elsewhere, and she did +not notice. But at last the roar of a bigger and nearer break than usual +brought her out of her torpor, and she looked up, and her practised eye +fell upon that telltale rush of water. For one moment her petrified gaze +fixed itself there. Then her head dropped upon her breast, and she +said-- + +"Oh, de good Lord God have mercy on po' sinful me--I's sole down de +river!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +The Judge Utters Dire Prophecy. + +Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full +of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by you only regret that +you didn't see him do it.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all +the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left +in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the +country has grown so.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +The summer weeks dragged by, and then the political campaign +opened--opened in pretty warm fashion, and waxed hotter and hotter +daily. The twins threw themselves into it with their whole heart, for +their self-love was engaged. Their popularity, so general at first, had +suffered afterward; mainly because they had been too popular, and so a +natural reaction had followed. Besides, it had been diligently whispered +around that it was curious--indeed, very curious--that that wonderful +knife of theirs did not turn up--if it was so valuable, or if it had +ever existed. And with the whisperings went chucklings and nudgings and +winks, and such things have an effect. The twins considered that success +in the election would reinstate them, and that defeat would work them +irreparable damage. Therefore they worked hard, but not harder than +Judge Driscoll and Tom worked against them in the closing days of the +canvas. Tom's conduct had remained so letter-perfect during two whole +months, now, that his uncle not only trusted him with money with which +to persuade voters, but trusted him to go and get it himself out of the +safe in the private sitting-room. + +The closing speech of the campaign was made by Judge Driscoll, and he +made it against both of the foreigners. It was disastrously effective. +He poured out rivers of ridicule upon them, and forced the big +mass-meeting to laugh and applaud. He scoffed at them as adventurers, +mountebanks, side-show riff-raff, dime museum freaks; he assailed their +showy titles with measureless derision; he said they were back-alley +barbers disguised as nobilities, peanut peddlers masquerading as +gentlemen, organ-grinders bereft of their brother monkey. At last he +stopped and stood still. He waited until the place had become absolutely +silent and expectant, then he delivered his deadliest shot; delivered it +with ice-cold seriousness and deliberation, with a significant emphasis +upon the closing words: he said that he believed that the reward offered +for the lost knife was humbug and buncombe, and that its owner would +know where to find it whenever he should have occasion to assassinate +somebody. + +Then he stepped from the stand, leaving a startled and impressive hush +behind him instead of the customary explosion of cheers and party cries. + +The strange remark flew far and wide over the town and made an +extraordinary sensation. Everybody was asking, "What could he mean by +that?" And everybody went on asking that question, but in vain; for the +Judge only said he knew what he was talking about, and stopped there; +Tom said he hadn't any idea what his uncle meant, and Wilson, whenever +he was asked what he thought it meant, parried the question by asking +the questioner what he thought it meant. + +Wilson was elected, the twins were defeated--crushed, in fact, and left +forlorn and substantially friendless. Tom went back to St. Louis happy. + +Dawson's Landing had a week of repose, now, and it needed it. But it was +in an expectant state, for the air was full of rumors of a new duel. +Judge Driscoll's election labors had prostrated him, but it was said +that as soon as he was well enough to entertain a challenge he would get +one from Count Luigi. + +The brothers withdrew entirely from society, and nursed their +humiliation in privacy. They avoided the people, and went out for +exercise only late at night, when the streets were deserted. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +Roxana Commands. + +Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same +procession. You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the +band and the gaudy officials have gone by.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's +Calendar. + +Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, +but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use +plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.--Pudd'nhead +Wilson's Calendar. + +The Friday after the election was a rainy one in St. Louis. It rained +all day long, and rained hard, apparently trying its best to wash that +soot-blackened town white, but of course not succeeding. Toward midnight +Tom Driscoll arrived at his lodgings from the theatre in the heavy +downpour, and closed his umbrella and let himself in; but when he would +have shut the door, he found that there was another person +entering--doubtless another lodger; this person closed the door and +tramped up-stairs behind Tom. Tom found his door in the dark, and +entered it and turned up the gas. When he faced about, lightly +whistling, he saw the back of a man. The man was closing and locking his +door for him. His whistle faded out and he felt uneasy. The man turned +around, a wreck of shabby old clothes, sodden with rain and all a-drip, +and showed a black face under an old slouch hat. Tom was frightened. He +tried to order the man out, but the words refused to come, and the other +man got the start. He said, in a low voice-- + +"Keep still--I's yo' mother!" + +Tom sunk in a heap on a chair, and gasped out-- + +"It was mean of me, and base--I know it; but I meant it for the best, I +did indeed--I can swear it." + +Roxana stood awhile looking mutely down on him while he writhed in shame +and went on incoherently babbling self-accusations mixed with pitiful +attempts at explanation and palliation of his crime; then she seated +herself and took off her hat, and her unkept masses of long brown hair +tumbled down about her shoulders. + +"It ain't no fault o' yo'n dat dat ain't gray," she said sadly, noticing +the hair. + +"I know it, I know it! I'm a scoundrel. But I swear I meant it for the +best. It was a mistake, of course, but I thought it was for the best, I +truly did." + +Roxana began to cry softly, and presently words began to find their way +out between her sobs. They were uttered lamentingly, rather than +angrily-- + +"Sell a pusson down de river--down the river!--for de bes'! I wouldn't +treat a dog so! I is all broke down en wore out, now, en so I reckon it +ain't in me to storm aroun' no mo', like I used to when I 'uz trompled +on en 'bused. I don't know--but maybe it's so. Leastways, I's suffered +so much dat mournin' seem to come mo' handy to me now den stormin'." + +These words should have touched Tom Driscoll, but if they did, that +effect was obliterated by a stronger one--one which removed the heavy +weight of fear which lay upon him, and gave his crushed spirit a most +grateful rebound, and filled all his small soul with a deep sense of +relief. But he kept prudently still, and ventured no comment. There was +a voiceless interval of some duration, now, in which no sounds were +heard but the beating of the rain upon the panes, the sighing and +complaining of the winds, and now and then a muffled sob from Roxana. +The sobs became more and more infrequent, and at last ceased. Then the +refugee began to talk again: + +"Shet down dat light a little. More. More yit. A pusson dat is hunted +don't like de light. Dah--dat'll do. I kin see whah you is, en dat's +enough. I's gwine to tell you de tale, en cut it jes as short as I kin, +en den I'll tell you what you's got to do. Dat man dat bought me ain't a +bad man; he's good enough, as planters goes; en if he could 'a' had his +way I'd 'a' be'n a house servant in his fambly en be'n comfortable: but +his wife she was a Yank, en not right down good lookin', en she riz up +agin me straight off; so den dey sent me out to de quarter 'mongst de +common fiel' han's. Dat woman warn't satisfied even wid dat, but she +worked up de overseer ag'in' me, she 'uz dat jealous en hateful; so de +overseer he had me out befo' day in de mawnin's en worked me de whole +long day as long as dey 'uz any light to see by; en many's de lashin's I +got 'ca'se I couldn't come up to de work o' de stronges'. Dat overseer +wuz a Yank, too, outen New Englan', en anybody down South kin tell you +what dat mean. Dey knows how to work a nigger to death, en dey knows how +to whale 'em, too--whale 'em till dey backs is welted like a washboard. +'Long at fust my marster say de good word for me to de overseer, but dat +'uz bad for me; for de mistis she fine it out, en arter dat I jist +ketched it at every turn--dey warn't no mercy for me no mo'." + +Tom's heart was fired--with fury against the planter's wife; and he said +to himself, "But for that meddlesome fool, everything would have gone +all right." He added a deep and bitter curse against her. + +The expression of this sentiment was fiercely written in his face, and +stood thus revealed to Roxana by a white glare of lightning which turned +the somber dusk of the room into dazzling day at that moment. She was +pleased--pleased and grateful; for did not that expression show that her +child was capable of grieving for his mother's wrongs and of feeling +resentment toward her persecutors?--a thing which she had been doubting. +But her flash of happiness was only a flash, and went out again and left +her spirit dark; for she said to herself, "He sole me down de river--he +can't feel for a body long: dis'll pass en go." Then she took up her +tale again. + +"'Bout ten days ago I 'uz sayin' to myself dat I couldn't las' many mo' +weeks I 'uz so wore out wid de awful work en de lashin's, en so +downhearted en misable. En I didn't care no mo', nuther--life warn't +wuth noth'n' to me, if I got to go on like dat. Well, when a body is in +a frame o' mine like dat, what do a body care what a body do? Dey was a +little sickly nigger wench 'bout ten year ole dat 'uz good to me, en +hadn't no mammy, po' thing, en I loved her en she loved me; en she come +out whah I 'uz workin 'en she had a roasted tater, en tried to slip it +to me,--robbin' herself, you see, 'ca'se she knowed de overseer didn't +gimme enough to eat,--en he ketched her at it, en give her a lick acrost +de back wid his stick, which 'uz as thick as a broom-handle, en she +drop' screamin' on de groun', en squirmin' en wallerin' aroun' in de +dust like a spider dat's got crippled. I couldn't stan' it. All de +hell-fire dat 'uz ever in my heart flame' up, en I snatch de stick outen +his han' en laid him flat. He laid dah moanin' en cussin', en all out of +his head, you know, en de niggers 'uz plumb sk'yred to death. Dey +gathered roun' him to he'p him, en I jumped on his hoss en took out for +de river as tight as I could go. I knowed what dey would do wid me. Soon +as he got well he would start in en work me to death if marster let him; +en if dey didn't do dat, they'd sell me furder down de river, en dat's +de same thing. So I 'lowed to drown myself en git out o' my troubles. It +'uz gitt'n' towards dark. I 'uz at de river in two minutes. Den I see a +canoe, en I says dey ain't no use to drown myself tell I got to; so I +ties de hoss in de edge o' de timber en shove out down de river, keepin' +in under de shelter o' de bluff bank en prayin' for de dark to shet down +quick. I had a pow'ful good start, 'ca'se de big house 'uz three mile +back f'om de river en on'y de work-mules to ride dah on, en on'y niggers +to ride 'em, en dey warn't gwine to hurry--dey'd gimme all de chance dey +could. Befo' a body could go to de house en back it would be long pas' +dark, en dey couldn't track de hoss en fine out which way I went tell +mawnin', en de niggers would tell 'em all de lies dey could 'bout it. + +"Well, de dark come, en I went on a-spinnin' down de river. I paddled +mo'n two hours, den I warn't worried no mo', so I quit paddlin, en +floated down de current, considerin' what I 'uz gwine to do if I didn't +have to drown myself. I made up some plans, en floated along, turnin' +'em over in my mine. Well, when it 'uz a little pas' midnight, as I +reckoned, en I had come fifteen or twenty mile, I see de lights o' a +steamboat layin' at de bank, whah dey warn't no town en no woodyard, en +putty soon I ketched de shape o' de chimbly-tops ag'in' de stars, en den +good gracious me, I 'most jumped out o' my skin for joy! It 'uz de Gran' +Mogul--I 'uz chambermaid on her for eight seasons in de Cincinnati en +Orleans trade. I slid 'long pas'--don't see nobody stirrin' nowhah--hear +'em a-hammerin' away in de engine-room, den I knowed what de matter +was--some o' de machinery's broke. I got asho' below de boat and turn' +de canoe loose, den I goes 'long up, en dey 'uz jes one plank out, en I +step' 'board de boat. It 'uz pow'ful hot, deckhan's en roustabouts 'uz +sprawled aroun' asleep on de fo'cas'l', de second mate, Jim Bangs, he +sot dah on de bitts wid his head down, asleep--'ca'se dat's de way de +second mate stan' de cap'n's watch!--en de ole watchman, Billy Hatch, he +'uz a-noddin' on de companionway;--en I knowed 'em all; 'en, lan', but +dey did look good! I says to myself, I wished old marster'd come along +now en try to take me--bless yo' heart, I's 'mong frien's, I is. So I +tromped right along 'mongst 'em, en went up on de b'iler deck en 'way +back aft to de ladies' cabin guard, en sot down dah in de same cheer dat +I'd sot in 'mos' a hund'd million times, I reckon; en it 'uz jist home +ag'in, I tell you! + +"In 'bout an hour I heard de ready-bell jingle, en den de racket begin. +Putty soon I hear de gong strike. 'Set her back on de outside,' I says +to myself--'I reckon I knows dat music!' I hear de gong ag'in. 'Come +ahead on de inside,' I says. Gong ag'in. 'Stop de outside.' Gong ag'in. +'Come ahead on de outside--now we's pinted for Sent Louis, en I's outer +de woods en ain't got to drown myself at all.' I knowed de Mogul 'uz in +de Sent Louis trade now, you see. It 'uz jes fair daylight when we +passed our plantation, en I seed a gang o' niggers en white folks +huntin' up en down de sho', en troublin' deyselves a good deal 'bout me; +but I warn't troublin' myself none 'bout dem. + +"'Bout dat time Sally Jackson, dat used to be my second chambermaid en +'uz head chambermaid now, she come out on de guard, en 'uz pow'ful glad +to see me, en so 'uz all de officers; en I tole 'em I'd got kidnapped en +sole down de river, en dey made me up twenty dollahs en give it to me, +en Sally she rigged me out wid good clo'es, en when I got here I went +straight to whah you used to wuz, en den I come to dis house, en dey say +you's away but 'spected back every day; so I didn't dast to go down de +river to Dawson's, 'ca'se I might miss you. + +"Well, las' Monday I 'uz pass'n' by one o' dem places in Fourth street +whah deh sticks up runaway-nigger bills, en he'ps to ketch 'em, en I +seed my marster! I 'mos' flopped down on de groun', I felt so gone. He +had his back to me, en 'uz talkin' to de man en givin' him some +bills--nigger-bills, I reckon, en I'se de nigger. He's offerin' a +reward--dat's it. Ain't I right, don't you reckon?" + +Tom had been gradually sinking into a state of ghastly terror, and he +said to himself, now: "I'm lost, no matter what turn things take! This +man has said to me that he thinks there was something suspicious about +that sale. He said he had a letter from a passenger on the Grand Mogul +saying that Roxy came here on that boat and that everybody on board knew +all about the case; so he says that her coming here instead of flying to +a free State looks bad for me, and that if I don't find her for him, and +that pretty soon, he will make trouble for me. I never believed that +story; I couldn't believe she would be so dead to all motherly instincts +as to come here, knowing the risk she would run of getting me into +irremediable trouble. And after all, here she is! And I stupidly swore I +would help him find her, thinking it was a perfectly safe thing to +promise. If I venture to deliver her up, she--she--but how can I help +myself? I've got to do that or pay the money, and where's the money to +come from? I--I--well, I should think that if he would swear to treat +her kindly hereafter--and she says, herself, that he is a good man--and +if he would swear to never allow her to be overworked, or ill fed, or--" + +A flash of lightning exposed Tom's pallid face, drawn and rigid with +these worrying thoughts. Roxana spoke up sharply now, and there was +apprehension in her voice-- + +"Turn up dat light! I want to see yo' face better. Dah now--lemme look +at you. Chambers, you's as white as yo' shirt! Has you see dat man? Has +he be'n to see you?" + +"Ye-s." + +"When?" + +"Monday noon." + +"Monday noon! Was he on my track?" + +"He--well, he thought he was. That is, he hoped he was. This is the bill +you saw." He took it out of his pocket. + +"Read it to me!" + +She was panting with excitement, and there was a dusky glow in her eyes +that Tom could not translate with certainty, but there seemed to be +something threatening about it. The handbill had the usual rude woodcut +of a turbaned negro woman running, with the customary bundle on a stick +over her shoulder, and the heading in bold type, "$100 Reward." Tom read +the bill aloud--at least the part that described Roxana and named the +master and his St. Louis address and the address of the Fourth-street +agency; but he left out the item that applicants for the reward might +also apply to Mr. Thomas Driscoll. + +"Gimme de bill!" + +Tom had folded it and was putting it in his pocket. He felt a chilly +streak creeping down his back, but said as carelessly as he could-- + +"The bill? Why, it isn't any use to you, you can't read it. What do you +want with it?" + +"Gimme de bill!" Tom gave it to her, but with a reluctance which he +could not entirely disguise. "Did you read it all to me?" + +"Certainly I did." + +"Hole up yo' han' en swah to it." + +Tom did it. Roxana put the bill carefully away in her pocket, with her +eyes fixed upon Tom's face all the while; then she said-- + +"Yo's lyin'!" + +"What would I want to lie about it for?" + +"I don't know--but you is. Dat's my opinion, anyways. But nemmine 'bout +dat. When I seed dat man I 'uz dat sk'yerd dat I could sca'cely wobble +home. Den I give a nigger man a dollar for dese clo'es, en I ain't be'n +in a house sence, night ner day, till now. I blacked my face en laid hid +in de cellar of a ole house dat's burnt down, daytimes, en robbed de +sugar hogsheads en grain sacks on de wharf, nights, to git somethin' to +eat, en never dast to try to buy noth'n', en I's 'mos' starved. En I +never dast to come near dis place till dis rainy night, when dey ain't +no people roun' sca'cely. But to-night I be'n a-stannin' in de dark +alley ever sence night come, waitin' for you to go by. En here I is." + +She fell to thinking. Presently she said-- + +"You seed dat man at noon, las' Monday?" + +"Yes." + +"I seed him de middle o' dat arternoon. He hunted you up, didn't he?" + +"Yes." + +"Did he give you de bill dat time?" + +"No, he hadn't got it printed yet." + +Roxana darted a suspicious glance at him. + +"Did you he'p him fix up de bill?" + +Tom cursed himself for making that stupid blunder, and tried to rectify +it by saying he remembered, now, that it was at noon Monday that the man +gave him the bill. Roxana said-- + +"You's lyin' ag'in, sho." Then she straightened up and raised her +finger: + +"Now den! I's gwine to ask you a question, en I wants to know how you's +gwine to git aroun' it. You knowed he 'uz arter me; en if you run off, +'stid o' stayin' here to he'p him, he'd know dey 'uz somethin' wrong +'bout dis business, en den he would inquire 'bout you, en dat would take +him to yo' uncle, en yo' uncle would read de bill en see dat you be'n +sellin' a free nigger down de river, en you know him, I reckon! He'd +t'ar up de will en kick you outen de house. Now, den, you answer me dis +question: hain't you tole dat man dat I would be sho' to come here, en +den you would fix it so he could set a trap en ketch me?" + +Tom recognized that neither lies nor arguments could help him any +longer--he was in a vise, with the screw turned on, and out of it there +was no budging. His face began to take on an ugly look, and presently he +said, with a snarl-- + +"Well, what could I do? You see, yourself, that I was in his grip and +couldn't get out." + +Roxy scorched him with a scornful gaze awhile, then she said-- + +"What could you do? You could be Judas to yo' own mother to save yo' +wuthless hide! Would anybody b'lieve it? No--a dog couldn't! You is de +low-downest orneriest hound dat was ever pup'd into dis worl'--en I's +'sponsible for it!"--and she spat on him. + +He made no effort to resent this. Roxy reflected a moment, then she +said-- + +"Now I'll tell you what you's gwine to do. You's gwine to give dat man +de money dat you's got laid up, en make him wait till you kin go to de +Judge en git de res' en buy me free agin." + +"Thunder! what are you thinking of? Go and ask him for three hundred +dollars and odd? What would I tell him I want with it, pray?" + +Roxy's answer was delivered in a serene and level voice-- + +"You'll tell him you's sole me to pay yo' gamblin' debts en dat you lied +to me en was a villain, en dat I 'quires you to git dat money en buy me +back ag'in." + +"Why, you've gone stark mad! He would tear the will to shreds in a +minute--don't you know that?" + +"Yes, I does." + +"Then you don't believe I'm idiot enough to go to him, do you?" + +"I don't b'lieve nothin' 'bout it--I knows you's a-goin'. I knows it +'ca'se you knows dat if you don't raise dat money I'll go to him myself, +en den he'll sell you down de river, en you kin see how you like it!" + +Tom rose, trembling and excited, and there was an evil light in his eye. +He strode to the door and said he must get out of this suffocating place +for a moment and clear his brain in the fresh air so that he could +determine what to do. The door wouldn't open. Roxy smiled grimly, and +said-- + +"I's got de key, honey--set down. You needn't cle'r up yo' brain none to +fine out what you gwine to do--I knows what you's gwine to do." Tom sat +down and began to pass his hands through his hair with a helpless and +desperate air. Roxy said, "Is dat man in dis house?" + +Tom glanced up with a surprised expression, and asked-- + +"What gave you such an idea?" + +"You done it. Gwine out to cle'r yo' brain! In de fust place you ain't +got none to cle'r, en in de second place yo' ornery eye tole on you. +You's de low-downest hound dat ever--but I done tole you dat befo'. Now +den, dis is Friday. You kin fix it up wid dat man, en tell him you's +gwine away to git de res' o' de money, en dat you'll be back wid it nex' +Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday. You understan'?" + +Tom answered sullenly-- + +"Yes." + +"En when you gits de new bill o' sale dat sells me to my own self, take +en send it in de mail to Mr. Pudd'nhead Wilson, en write on de back dat +he's to keep it tell I come. You understan'?" + +"Yes." + +"Dat's all den. Take yo' umbreller, en put on yo' hat." + +"Why?" + +"Beca'se you's gwine to see me home to de wharf. You see dis knife? I's +toted it aroun' sence de day I seed dat man en bought dese clo'es en it. +If he ketch me, I's gwine to kill myself wid it. Now start along, en go +sof', en lead de way; en if you gives a sign in dis house, or if anybody +comes up to you in de street, I's gwine to jam it right into you. +Chambers, does you b'lieve me when I says dat?" + +"It's no use to bother me with that question. I know your word's good." + +"Yes, it's diff'rent from yo'n! Shet de light out en move along--here's +de key." + +They were not followed. Tom trembled every time a late straggler brushed +by them on the street, and half expected to feel the cold steel in his +back. Roxy was right at his heels and always in reach. After tramping a +mile they reached a wide vacancy on the deserted wharves, and in this +dark and rainy desert they parted. + +As Tom trudged home his mind was full of dreary thoughts and wild plans; +but at last he said to himself, wearily-- + +"There is but the one way out. I must follow her plan. But with a +variation--I will not ask for the money and ruin myself; I will rob the +old skinflint." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +The Prophecy Realized. + +Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good +example.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of +opinion that makes horse-races.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +Dawson's Landing was comfortably finishing its season of dull repose and +waiting patiently for the duel. Count Luigi was waiting, too; but not +patiently, rumor said. Sunday came, and Luigi insisted on having his +challenge conveyed. Wilson carried it. Judge Driscoll declined to fight +with an assassin--"that is," he added significantly, "in the field of +honor." + +Elsewhere, of course, he would be ready. Wilson tried to convince him +that if he had been present himself when Angelo told about the homicide +committed by Luigi, he would not have considered the act discreditable +to Luigi; but the obstinate old man was not to be moved. + +Wilson went back to his principal and reported the failure of his +mission. Luigi was incensed, and asked how it could be that the old +gentleman, who was by no means dull-witted, held his trifling nephew's +evidence and inferences to be of more value than Wilson's. But Wilson +laughed, and said-- + +"That is quite simple; that is easily explicable. I am not his doll--his +baby--his infatuation: his nephew is. The Judge and his late wife never +had any children. The Judge and his wife were past middle age when this +treasure fell into their lap. One must make allowances for a parental +instinct that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years. It is +famished, it is crazed with hunger by that time, and will be entirely +satisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied, it +can't tell mud-cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is +measurably recognizable by them as a devil before long, but a devil +adopted by an old couple is an angel to them, and remains so, through +thick and thin. Tom is this old man's angel; he is infatuated with him. +Tom can persuade him into things which other people can't--not all +things; I don't mean that, but a good many--particularly one class of +things: the things that create or abolish personal partialities or +prejudices in the old man's mind. The old man liked both of you. Tom +conceived a hatred for you. That was enough; it turned the old man +around at once. The oldest and strongest friendship must go to the +ground when one of these late-adopted darlings throws a brick at it." + +"It's a curious philosophy," said Luigi. + +"It ain't a philosophy at all--it's a fact. And there is something +pathetic and beautiful about it, too. I think there is nothing more +pathetic than to see one of these poor old childless couples taking a +menagerie of yelping little worthless dogs to their hearts; and then +adding some cursing and squawking parrots and a jackass-voiced macaw; +and next a couple of hundred screeching song-birds, and presently some +fetid guinea-pigs and rabbits, and a howling colony of cats. It is all a +groping and ignorant effort to construct out of base metal and brass +filings, so to speak, something to take the place of that golden +treasure denied them by Nature, a child. But this is a digression. The +unwritten law of this region requires you to kill Judge Driscoll on +sight, and he and the community will expect that attention at your +hands--though of course your own death by his bullet will answer every +purpose. Look out for him! Are you heeled--that is, fixed?" + +"Yes, he shall have his opportunity. If he attacks me I will respond." + +As Wilson was leaving, he said-- + +"The Judge is still a little used up by his campaign work, and will not +get out for a day or so; but when he does get out, you want to be on the +alert." + +About eleven at night the twins went out for exercise, and started on a +long stroll in the veiled moonlight. + +Tom Driscoll had landed at Hackett's Store, two miles below Dawson's, +just about half an hour earlier, the only passenger for that lonely +spot, and had walked up the shore road and entered Judge Driscoll's +house without having encountered any one either on the road or under the +roof. + +He pulled down his window-blinds and lighted his candle. He laid off his +coat and hat and began his preparations. He unlocked his trunk and got +his suit of girl's clothes out from under the male attire in it, and +laid it by. Then he blacked his face with burnt cork and put the cork in +his pocket. His plan was, to slip down to his uncle's private +sitting-room below, pass into the bedroom, steal the safe-key from the +old gentleman's clothes, and then go back and rob the safe. He took up +his candle to start. His courage and confidence were high, up to this +point, but both began to waver a little, now. Suppose he should make a +noise, by some accident, and get caught--say, in the act of opening the +safe? Perhaps it would be well to go armed. He took the Indian knife +from its hiding-place, and felt a pleasant return of his wandering +courage. He slipped stealthily down the narrow stair, his hair rising +and his pulses halting at the slightest creak. When he was half-way +down, he was disturbed to perceive that the landing below was touched by +a faint glow of light. What could that mean? Was his uncle still up? No, +that was not likely; he must have left his night-taper there when he +went to bed. Tom crept on down, pausing at every step to listen. He +found the door standing open, and glanced in. What he saw pleased him +beyond measure. His uncle was asleep on the sofa; on a small table at +the head of the sofa a lamp was burning low, and by it stood the old +man's small tin cash-box, closed. Near the box was a pile of bank-notes +and a piece of paper covered with figures in pencil. The safe-door was +not open. Evidently the sleeper had wearied himself with work upon his +finances, and was taking a rest. + +Tom set his candle on the stairs, and began to make his way toward the +pile of notes, stooping low as he went. When he was passing his uncle, +the old man stirred in his sleep, and Tom stopped instantly--stopped, +and softly drew the knife from its sheath, with his heart thumping, and +his eyes fastened upon his benefactor's face. After a moment or two he +ventured forward again--one step--reached for his prize and seized it, +dropping the knife-sheath. Then he felt the old man's strong grip upon +him, and a wild cry of "Help! help!" rang in his ear. Without hesitation +he drove the knife home--and was free. Some of the notes escaped from +his left hand and fell in the blood on the floor. He dropped the knife +and snatched them up and started to fly; transferred them to his left +hand, and seized the knife again, in his fright and confusion, but +remembered himself and flung it from him, as being a dangerous witness +to carry away with him. + +He jumped for the stair-foot, and closed the door behind him; and as he +snatched his candle and fled upward, the stillness of the night was +broken by the sound of urgent footsteps approaching the house. In +another moment he was in his room and the twins were standing aghast +over the body of the murdered man! + +Tom put on his coat, buttoned his hat under it, threw on his suit of +girl's clothes, dropped the veil, blew out his light, locked the room +door by which he had just entered, taking the key, passed through his +other door into the back hall, locked that door and kept the key, then +worked his way along in the dark and descended the back stairs. He was +not expecting to meet anybody, for all interest was centered in the +other part of the house, now; his calculation proved correct. By the +time he was passing through the back-yard, Mrs. Pratt, her servants, and +a dozen half-dressed neighbors had joined the twins and the dead, and +accessions were still arriving at the front door. + +As Tom, quaking as with a palsy, passed out at the gate, three women +came flying from the house on the opposite side of the lane. They rushed +by him and in at the gate, asking him what the trouble was there, but +not waiting for an answer. Tom said to himself, "Those old maids waited +to dress--they did the same thing the night Stevens's house burned down +next door." In a few minutes he was in the haunted house. He lighted a +candle and took off his girl-clothes. There was blood on him all down +his left side, and his right hand was red with the stains of the +blood-soaked notes which he had crushed in it; but otherwise he was free +from this sort of evidence. He cleansed his hand on the straw, and +cleaned most of the smut from his face. Then he burned his male and +female attire to ashes, scattered the ashes, and put on a disguise +proper for a tramp. He blew out his light, went below, and was soon +loafing down the river road with the intent to borrow and use one of +Roxy's devices. He found a canoe and paddled off down-stream, setting +the canoe adrift as dawn approached, and making his way by land to the +next village, where he kept out of sight till a transient steamer came +along, and then took deck passage for St. Louis. He was ill at ease +until Dawson's Landing was behind him; then he said to himself, "All the +detectives on earth couldn't trace me now; there's not a vestige of a +clue left in the world; that homicide will take its place with the +permanent mysteries, and people won't get done trying to guess out the +secret of it for fifty years." + +In St. Louis, next morning, he read this brief telegram in the +papers--dated at Dawson's Landing: + +Judge Driscoll, an old and respected citizen, was assassinated here +about midnight by a profligate Italian nobleman or barber on account of +a quarrel growing out of the recent election. The assassin will probably +be lynched. + +"One of the twins!" soliloquized Tom; "how lucky! It is the knife that +has done him this grace. We never know when fortune is trying to favor +us. I actually cursed Pudd'nhead Wilson in my heart for putting it out +of my power to sell that knife. I take it back, now." + +Tom was now rich and independent. He arranged with the planter, and +mailed to Wilson the new bill of sale which sold Roxana to herself; then +he telegraphed his Aunt Pratt: + +Have seen the awful news in the papers and am almost prostrated with +grief. Shall start by packet to-day. Try to bear up till I come. + +When Wilson reached the house of mourning and had gathered such details +as Mrs. Pratt and the rest of the crowd could tell him, he took command +as mayor, and gave orders that nothing should be touched, but everything +left as it was until Justice Robinson should arrive and take the proper +measures as coroner. He cleared everybody out of the room but the twins +and himself. The sheriff soon arrived and took the twins away to jail. +Wilson told them to keep heart, and promised to do his best in their +defense when the case should come to trial. Justice Robinson came +presently, and with him Constable Blake. They examined the room +thoroughly. They found the knife and the sheath. Wilson noticed that +there were finger-prints on the knife-handle. That pleased him, for the +twins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands +and clothes, and neither these people nor Wilson himself had found any +blood-stains upon them. Could there be a possibility that the twins had +spoken the truth when they said they found the man dead when they ran +into the house in answer to the cry for help? He thought of that +mysterious girl at once. But this was not the sort of work for a girl to +be engaged in. No matter; Tom Driscoll's room must be examined. + +After the coroner's jury had viewed the body and its surroundings, +Wilson suggested a search up-stairs, and he went along. The jury forced +an entrance to Tom's room, but found nothing, of course. + +The coroner's jury found that the homicide was committed by Luigi, and +that Angelo was accessory to it. + +The town was bitter against the unfortunates, and for the first few days +after the murder they were in constant danger of being lynched. The +grand jury presently indicted Luigi for murder in the first degree, and +Angelo as accessory before the fact. The twins were transferred from the +city jail to the county prison to await trial. + +Wilson examined the finger-marks on the knife-handle and said to +himself, "Neither of the twins made those marks." Then manifestly there +was another person concerned, either in his own interest or as hired +assassin. + +But who could it be? That, he must try to find out. The safe was not +open, the cash-box was closed, and had three thousand dollars in it. +Then robbery was not the motive, and revenge was. Where had the murdered +man an enemy except Luigi? There was but that one person in the world +with a deep grudge against him. + +The mysterious girl! The girl was a great trial to Wilson. If the motive +had been robbery, the girl might answer; but there wasn't any girl that +would want to take this old man's life for revenge. He had no quarrels +with girls; he was a gentleman. + +Wilson had perfect tracings of the finger-marks of the knife-handle; and +among his glass-records he had a great array of finger-prints of women +and girls, collected during the last fifteen or eighteen years, but he +scanned them in vain, they successfully withstood every test; among them +were no duplicates of the prints on the knife. + +The presence of the knife on the stage of the murder was a worrying +circumstance for Wilson. A week previously he had as good as admitted to +himself that he believed Luigi had possessed such a knife, and that he +still possessed it notwithstanding his pretense that it had been stolen. +And now here was the knife, and with it the twins. Half the town had +said the twins were humbugging when they claimed that they had lost +their knife, and now these people were joyful, and said, "I told you +so!" + +If their finger-prints had been on the handle--but it was useless to +bother any further about that; the finger-prints on the handle were not +theirs--that he knew perfectly. + +Wilson refused to suspect Tom; for first, Tom couldn't murder +anybody--he hadn't character enough; secondly, if he could murder a +person he wouldn't select his doting benefactor and nearest relative; +thirdly, self-interest was in the way; for while the uncle lived, Tom +was sure of a free support and a chance to get the destroyed will +revived again, but with the uncle gone, that chance was gone, too. It +was true the will had really been revived, as was now discovered, but +Tom could not have been aware of it, or he would have spoken of it, in +his native talky, unsecretive way. Finally, Tom was in St. Louis when +the murder was done, and got the news out of the morning journals, as +was shown by his telegram to his aunt. These speculations were +unemphasized sensations rather than articulated thoughts, for Wilson +would have laughed at the idea of seriously connecting Tom with the +murder. + +Wilson regarded the case of the twins as desperate--in fact, about +hopeless. For he argued that if a confederate was not found, an +enlightened Missouri jury would hang them, sure; if a confederate was +found, that would not improve the matter, but simply furnish one more +person for the sheriff to hang. Nothing could save the twins but the +discovery of a person who did the murder on his sole personal +account--an undertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible. +Still, the person who made the finger-prints must be sought. The twins +might have no case with him, but they certainly would have none without +him. + +So Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing, guessing, day and +night, and arriving nowhere. Whenever he ran across a girl or a woman he +was not acquainted with, he got her finger-prints, on one pretext or +another; and they always cost him a sigh when he got home, for they +never tallied with the finger-marks on the knife-handle. + +As to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such girl, and did not +remember ever seeing a girl wearing a dress like the one described by +Wilson. He admitted that he did not always lock his room, and that +sometimes the servants forgot to lock the house doors; still, in his +opinion the girl must have made but few visits or she would have been +discovered. When Wilson tried to connect her with the stealing-raid, and +thought she might have been the old woman's confederate, if not the very +thief herself disguised as an old woman, Tom seemed stuck, and also much +interested, and said he would keep a sharp eye out for this person or +persons, although he was afraid that she or they would be too smart to +venture again into a town where everybody would now be on the watch for +a good while to come. + +Everybody was pitying Tom, he looked so quiet and sorrowful, and seemed +to feel his great loss so deeply. He was playing a part, but it was not +all a part. The picture of his alleged uncle, as he had last seen him, +was before him in the dark pretty frequently, when he was awake, and +called again in his dreams, when he was asleep. He wouldn't go into the +room where the tragedy had happened. This charmed the doting Mrs. Pratt, +who realized now, "as she had never done before," she said, what a +sensitive and delicate nature her darling had, and how he adored his +poor uncle. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +The Murderer Chuckles. + +Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to +be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great +caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman: if you +have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take +simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say she did it with her +teeth.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +The weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed twins but their +counsel and Aunt Patsy Cooper, and the day of trial came at last--the +heaviest day in Wilson's life; for with all his tireless diligence he +had discovered no sign or trace of the missing confederate. +"Confederate" was the term he had long ago privately accepted for that +person--not as being unquestionably the right term, but as being at +least possibly the right one, though he was never able to understand why +the twins did not vanish and escape, as the confederate had done, +instead of remaining by the murdered man and getting caught there. + +The court-house was crowded, of course, and would remain so to the +finish, for not only in the town itself, but in the country for miles +around, the trial was the one topic of conversation among the people. +Mrs. Pratt, in deep mourning, and Tom with a weed on his hat, had seats +near Pembroke Howard, the public prosecutor, and back of them sat a +great array of friends of the family. The twins had but one friend +present to keep their counsel in countenance, their poor old sorrowing +landlady. She sat near Wilson, and looked her friendliest. In the +"nigger corner" sat Chambers; also Roxy, with good clothes on, and her +bill of sale in her pocket. It was her most precious possession, and she +never parted with it, day or night. Tom had allowed her thirty-five +dollars a month ever since he came into his property, and had said that +he and she ought to be grateful to the twins for making them rich; but +had roused such a temper in her by this speech that he did not repeat +the argument afterward. She said the old Judge had treated her child a +thousand times better than he deserved, and had never done her an +unkindness in his life; so she hated these outlandish devils for killing +him, and shouldn't ever sleep satisfied till she saw them hanged for it. +She was here to watch the trial, now, and was going to lift up just one +"hooraw" over it if the County Judge put her in jail a year for it. She +gave her turbaned head a toss and said, "When dat verdic' comes, I's +gwine to lif' dat roof, now, I tell you." + +Pembroke Howard briefly sketched the State's case. He said he would show +by a chain of circumstantial evidence without break or fault in it +anywhere, that the principal prisoner at the bar committed the murder; +that the motive was partly revenge, and partly a desire to take his own +life out of jeopardy, and that his brother, by his presence, was a +consenting accessory to the crime; a crime which was the basest known to +the calendar of human misdeeds--assassination; that it was conceived by +the blackest of hearts and consummated by the cowardliest of hands; a +crime which had broken a loving sister's heart, blighted the happiness +of a young nephew who was as dear as a son, brought inconsolable grief +to many friends, and sorrow and loss to the whole community. The utmost +penalty of the outraged law would be exacted, and upon the accused, now +present at the bar, that penalty would unquestionably be executed. He +would reserve further remark until his closing speech. + +He was strongly moved, and so also was the whole house; Mrs. Pratt and +several other women were weeping when he sat down, and many an eye that +was full of hate was riveted upon the unhappy prisoners. + +Witness after witness was called by the State, and questioned at length; +but the cross-questioning was brief. Wilson knew they could furnish +nothing valuable for his side. People were sorry for Pudd'nhead; his +budding career would get hurt by this trial. + +Several witnesses swore they heard Judge Driscoll say in his public +speech that the twins would be able to find their lost knife again when +they needed it to assassinate somebody with. This was not news, but now +it was seen to have been sorrowfully prophetic, and a profound sensation +quivered through the hushed court-room when those dismal words were +repeated. + +The public prosecutor rose and said that it was within his knowledge, +through a conversation held with Judge Driscoll on the last day of his +life, that counsel for the defense had brought him a challenge from the +person charged at this bar with murder; that he had refused to fight +with a confessed assassin--"that is, on the field of honor," but had +added significantly, that he would be ready for him elsewhere. +Presumably the person here charged with murder was warned that he must +kill or be killed the first time he should meet Judge Driscoll. If +counsel for the defense chose to let the statement stand so, he would +not call him to the witness stand. Mr. Wilson said he would offer no +denial. [Murmurs in the house--"It is getting worse and worse for +Wilson's case."] + +Mrs. Pratt testified that she heard no outcry, and did not know what +woke her up, unless it was the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the +front door. She jumped up and ran out in the hall just as she was, and +heard the footsteps flying up the front steps and then following behind +her as she ran to the sitting-room. There she found the accused standing +over her murdered brother. [Here she broke down and sobbed. Sensation in +the court.] Resuming, she said the persons entering behind her were Mr. +Rogers and Mr. Buckstone. + +Cross-examined by Wilson, she said the twins proclaimed their innocence; +declared that they had been taking a walk, and had hurried to the house +in response to a cry for help which was so loud and strong that they had +heard it at a considerable distance; that they begged her and the +gentlemen just mentioned to examine their hands and clothes--which was +done, and no blood stains found. + +Confirmatory evidence followed from Rogers and Buckstone. + +The finding of the knife was verified, the advertisement minutely +describing it and offering a reward for it was put in evidence, and its +exact correspondence with that description proved. Then followed a few +minor details, and the case for the State was closed. + +Wilson said that he had three witnesses, the Misses Clarkson, who would +testify that they met a veiled young woman leaving Judge Driscoll's +premises by the back gate a few minutes after the cries for help were +heard, and that their evidence, taken with certain circumstantial +evidence which he would call the court's attention to, would in his +opinion convince the court that there was still one person concerned in +this crime who had not yet been found, and also that a stay of +proceedings ought to be granted, in justice to his clients, until that +person should be discovered. As it was late, he would ask leave to defer +the examination of his three witnesses until the next morning. + +The crowd poured out of the place and went flocking away in excited +groups and couples, talking the events of the session over with vivacity +and consuming interest, and everybody seemed to have had a satisfactory +and enjoyable day except the accused, their counsel, and their old-lady +friend. There was no cheer among these, and no substantial hope. + +In parting with the twins Aunt Patsy did attempt a good-night with a gay +pretense of hope and cheer in it, but broke down without finishing. + +Absolutely secure as Tom considered himself to be, the opening +solemnities of the trial had nevertheless oppressed him with a vague +uneasiness, his being a nature sensitive to even the smallest alarms; +but from the moment that the poverty and weakness of Wilson's case lay +exposed to the court, he was comfortable once more, even jubilant. He +left the court-room sarcastically sorry for Wilson. "The Clarksons met +an unknown woman in the back lane," he said to himself--"that is his +case! I'll give him a century to find her in--a couple of them if he +likes. A woman who doesn't exist any longer, and the clothes that gave +her her sex burnt up and the ashes thrown away--oh, certainly, he'll +find her easy enough!" This reflection set him to admiring, for the +hundredth time, the shrewd ingenuities by which he had insured himself +against detection--more, against even suspicion. + +"Nearly always in cases like this there is some little detail or other +overlooked, some wee little track or trace left behind, and detection +follows; but here there's not even the faintest suggestion of a trace +left. No more than a bird leaves when it flies through the air--yes, +through the night, you may say. The man that can track a bird through +the air in the dark and find that bird is the man to track me out and +find the Judge's assassin--no other need apply. And that is the job that +has been laid out for poor Pudd'nhead Wilson, of all people in the +world! Lord, it will be pathetically funny to see him grubbing and +groping after that woman that don't exist, and the right person sitting +under his very nose all the time!" The more he thought the situation +over, the more the humor of it struck him. Finally he said, "I'll never +let him hear the last of that woman. Every time I catch him in company, +to his dying day, I'll ask him in the guileless affectionate way that +used to gravel him so when I inquired how his unborn law-business was +coming along, 'Got on her track yet--hey, Pudd'nhead?'" He wanted to +laugh, but that would not have answered; there were people about, and he +was mourning for his uncle. He made up his mind that it would be good +entertainment to look in on Wilson that night and watch him worry over +his barren law-case and goad him with an exasperating word or two of +sympathy and commiseration now and then. + +Wilson wanted no supper, he had no appetite. He got out all the +finger-prints of girls and women in his collection of records and pored +gloomily over them an hour or more, trying to convince himself that that +troublesome girl's marks were there somewhere and had been overlooked. +But it was not so. He drew back his chair, clasped his hands over his +head, and gave himself up to dull and arid musings. + +Tom Driscoll dropped in, an hour after dark, and said with a pleasant +laugh as he took a seat-- + +"Hello, we've gone back to the amusements of our days of neglect and +obscurity for consolation, have we?" and he took up one of the glass +strips and held it against the light to inspect it. "Come, cheer up, old +man; there's no use in losing your grip and going back to this +child's-play merely because this big sunspot is drifting across your +shiny new disk. It'll pass, and you'll be all right again,"--and he laid +the glass down. "Did you think you could win always?" + +"Oh, no," said Wilson, with a sigh, "I didn't expect that, but I can't +believe Luigi killed your uncle, and I feel very sorry for him. It makes +me blue. And you would feel as I do, Tom, if you were not prejudiced +against those young fellows." + +"I don't know about that," and Tom's countenance darkened, for his +memory reverted to his kicking; "I owe them no good will, considering +the brunette one's treatment of me that night. Prejudice or no +prejudice, Pudd'nhead, I don't like them, and when they get their +deserts you're not going to find me sitting on the mourner's bench." + +He took up another strip of glass, and exclaimed-- + +"Why, here's old Roxy's label! Are you going to ornament the royal +palaces with nigger paw-marks, too? By the date here, I was seven months +old when this was done, and she was nursing me and her little nigger +cub. There's a line straight across her thumb-print. How comes that?" +and Tom held out the piece of glass to Wilson. + +"That is common," said the bored man, wearily. "Scar of a cut or a +scratch, usually"--and he took the strip of glass indifferently, and +raised it toward the lamp. + +All the blood sunk suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he +gazed at the polished surface before him with the glassy stare of a +corpse. + +"Great Heavens, what's the matter with you, Wilson? Are you going to +faint?" + +Tom sprang for a glass of water and offered it, but Wilson shrank +shuddering from him and said-- + +"No, no!--take it away!" His breast was rising and falling, and he moved +his head about in a dull and wandering way, like a person who had been +stunned. Presently he said, "I shall feel better when I get to bed; I +have been overwrought to-day; yes, and over worked for many days." + +"Then I'll leave you and let you to get to your rest. Good-night, old +man." But as Tom went out he couldn't deny himself a small parting gibe: +"Don't take it so hard; a body can't win every time; you'll hang +somebody yet." + +Wilson muttered to himself, "It is no lie to say I am sorry I have to +begin with you, miserable dog though you are!" + +He braced himself up with a glass of cold whisky, and went to work +again. He did not compare the new finger-marks unintentionally left by +Tom a few minutes before on Roxy's glass with the tracings of the marks +left on the knife-handle, there being no need for that (for his trained +eye), but busied himself with another matter, muttering from time to +time, "Idiot that I was!--Nothing but a girl would do me--a man in +girl's clothes never occurred to me." First, he hunted out the plate +containing the finger-prints made by Tom when he was twelve years old, +and laid it by itself; then he brought forth the marks made by Tom's +baby fingers when he was a suckling of seven months, and placed these +two plates with the one containing this subject's newly (and +unconsciously) made record. + +"Now the series is complete," he said with satisfaction, and sat down to +inspect these things and enjoy them. + +But his enjoyment was brief. He stared a considerable time at the three +strips, and seemed stupefied with astonishment. At last he put them down +and said, "I can't make it out at all--hang it, the baby's don't tally +with the others!" + +He walked the floor for half an hour puzzling over his enigma, then he +hunted out two other glass plates. + +He sat down and puzzled over these things a good while, but kept +muttering, "It's no use; I can't understand it. They don't tally right, +and yet I'll swear the names and dates are right, and so of course they +ought to tally. I never labeled one of these thing carelessly in my +life. There is a most extraordinary mystery here." + +He was tired out, now, and his brains were beginning to clog. He said he +would sleep himself fresh, and then see what he could do with this +riddle. He slept through a troubled and unrestful hour, then +unconsciousness began to shred away, and presently he rose drowsily to a +sitting posture. "Now what was that dream?" he said, trying to recall +it; "what was that dream?--it seemed to unravel that puz--" + +He landed in the middle of the floor at a bound, without finishing the +sentence, and ran and turned up his light and seized his "records." He +took a single swift glance at them and cried out-- + +"It's so! Heavens, what a revelation! And for twenty-three years no man +has ever suspected it!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +Doom. + +He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring +the cabbages.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on +the other three hundred and sixty-four.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +Wilson put on enough clothes for business purposes and went to work +under a high pressure of steam. He was awake all over. All sense of +weariness had been swept away by the invigorating refreshment of the +great and hopeful discovery which he had made. He made fine and accurate +reproductions of a number of his "records," and then enlarged them on a +scale of ten to one with his pantograph. He did these pantograph +enlargements on sheets of white cardboard, and made each individual line +of the bewildering maze of whorls or curves or loops which constituted +the "pattern," of a "record" stand out bold and black by reinforcing it +with ink. To the untrained eye the collection of delicate originals made +by the human finger on the glass plates looked about alike; but when +enlarged ten times they resembled the markings of a block of wood that +has been sawed across the grain, and the dullest eye could detect at a +glance, and at a distance of many feet, that no two of the patterns were +alike. When Wilson had at last finished his tedious and difficult work, +he arranged its results according to a plan in which a progressive order +and sequence was a principal feature; then he added to the batch several +pantograph enlargements which he had made from time to time in bygone +years. + +The night was spent and the day well advanced, now. By the time he had +snatched a trifle of breakfast it was nine o'clock, and the court was +ready to begin its sitting. He was in his place twelve minutes later +with his "records." + +Tom Driscoll caught a slight glimpse of the records, and nudged his +nearest friend and said, with a wink, "Pudd'nhead's got a rare eye to +business--thinks that as long as he can't win his case it's at least a +noble good chance to advertise his palace-window decorations without any +expense." Wilson was informed that his witnesses had been delayed, but +would arrive presently; but he rose and said he should probably not have +occasion to make use of their testimony. [An amused murmur ran through +the room--"It's a clean backdown! he gives up without hitting a lick!"] +Wilson continued--"I have other testimony--and better. [This compelled +interest, and evoked murmurs of surprise that had a detectable +ingredient of disappointment in them.] If I seem to be springing this +evidence upon the court, I offer as my justification for this, that I +did not discover its existence until late last night, and have been +engaged in examining and classifying it ever since, until half an hour +ago. I shall offer it presently; but first I wish to say a few +preliminary words. + +"May it please the Court, the claim given the front place, the claim +most persistently urged, the claim most strenuously and I may even say +aggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the prosecution, is +this--that the person whose hand left the blood-stained finger-prints +upon the handle of the Indian knife is the person who committed the +murder." Wilson paused, during several moments, to give impressiveness +to what he was about to say, and then added tranquilly, "We grant that +claim." + +It was an electrical surprise. No one was prepared for such an +admission. A buzz of astonishment rose on all sides, and people were +heard to intimate that the overworked lawyer had lost his mind. Even the +veteran judge, accustomed as he was to legal ambushes and masked +batteries in criminal procedure, was not sure that his ears were not +deceiving him, and asked counsel what it was he had said. Howard's +impassive face betrayed no sign, but his attitude and bearing lost +something of their careless confidence for a moment. Wilson resumed: + +"We not only grant that claim, but we welcome it and strongly endorse +it. Leaving that matter for the present, we will now proceed to consider +other points in the case which we propose to establish by evidence, and +shall include that one in the chain in its proper place." + +He had made up his mind to try a few hardy guesses, in mapping out his +theory of the origin and motive of the murder--guesses designed to fill +up gaps in it--guesses which could help if they hit, and would probably +do no harm if they didn't. + +"To my mind, certain circumstances of the case before the court seem to +suggest a motive for the homicide quite different from the one insisted +on by the State. It is my conviction that the motive was not revenge, +but robbery. It has been urged that the presence of the accused brothers +in that fatal room, just after notification that one of them must take +the life of Judge Driscoll or lose his own the moment the parties should +meet, clearly signifies that the natural instinct of self-preservation +moved my clients to go there secretly and save Count Luigi by destroying +his adversary. + +"Then why did they stay there, after the deed was done? Mrs. Pratt had +time, although she did not hear the cry for help, but woke up some +moments later, to run to that room--and there she found these men +standing and making no effort to escape. If they were guilty, they ought +to have been running out of the house at the same time that she was +running to that room. If they had had such a strong instinct toward +self-preservation as to move them to kill that unarmed man, what had +become of it now, when it should have been more alert than ever? Would +any of us have remained there? Let us not slander our intelligence to +that degree. + +"Much stress has been laid upon the fact that the accused offered a very +large reward for the knife with which this murder was done; that no +thief came forward to claim that extraordinary reward; that the latter +fact was good circumstantial evidence that the claim that the knife had +been stolen was a vanity and a fraud; that these details taken in +connection with the memorable and apparently prophetic speech of the +deceased concerning that knife, and the final discovery of that very +knife in the fatal room where no living person was found present with +the slaughtered man but the owner of the knife and his brother, form an +indestructible chain of evidence which fixes the crime upon those +unfortunate strangers. + +"But I shall presently ask to be sworn, and shall testify that there was +a large reward offered for the thief, also; and it was offered secretly +and not advertised; that this fact was indiscreetly mentioned--or at +least tacitly admitted--in what was supposed to be safe circumstances, +but may not have been. The thief may have been present himself. [Tom +Driscoll had been looking at the speaker, but dropped his eyes at this +point.] In that case he would retain the knife in his possession, not +daring to offer it for sale, or for pledge in a pawn-shop. [There was a +nodding of heads among the audience by way of admission that this was +not a bad stroke.] I shall prove to the satisfaction of the jury that +there was a person in Judge Driscoll's room several minutes before the +accused entered it. [This produced a strong sensation; the last +drowsy-head in the court-room roused up, now, and made preparation to +listen.] If it shall seem necessary, I will prove by the Misses Clarkson +that they met a veiled person--ostensibly a woman--coming out of the +back gate a few minutes after the cry for help was heard. This person +was not a woman, but a man dressed in woman's clothes." Another +sensation. Wilson had his eye on Tom when he hazarded this guess, to see +what effect it would produce. He was satisfied with the result, and said +to himself, "It was a success--he's hit!" + +"The object of that person in that house was robbery, not murder. It is +true that the safe was not open, but there was an ordinary tin cash-box +on the table, with three thousand dollars in it. It is easily supposable +that the thief was concealed in the house; that he knew of this box, and +of its owner's habit of counting its contents and arranging his accounts +at night--if he had that habit, which I do not assert, of course;--that +he tried to take the box while its owner slept, but made a noise and was +seized, and had to use the knife to save himself from capture; and that +he fled without his booty because he heard help coming. + +"I have now done with my theory, and will proceed to the evidences by +which I propose to try to prove its soundness." Wilson took up several +of his strips of glass. When the audience recognized these familiar +mementoes of Pudd'nhead's old-time childish "puttering" and folly, the +tense and funereal interest vanished out of their faces, and the house +burst into volleys of relieving and refreshing laughter, and Tom chirked +up and joined in the fun himself; but Wilson was apparently not +disturbed. He arranged his records on the table before him, and said-- + +"I beg the indulgence of the court while I make a few remarks in +explanation of some evidence which I am about to introduce, and which I +shall presently ask to be allowed to verify under oath on the witness +stand. Every human being carries with him from his cradle to his grave +certain physical marks which do not change their character, and by which +he can always be identified--and that without shade of doubt or +question. These marks are his signature, his physiological autograph, so +to speak, and this autograph can not be counterfeited, nor can he +disguise it or hide it away, nor can it become illegible by the wear and +mutations of time. This signature is not his face--age can change that +beyond recognition; it is not his hair, for that can fall out; it is not +his height, for duplicates of that exist; it is not his form, for +duplicates of that exist also, whereas this signature is each man's very +own--there is no duplicate of it among the swarming populations of the +globe! [The audience were interested once more.] + +"This autograph consists of the delicate lines or corrugations with +which Nature marks the insides of the hands and the soles of the feet. +If you will look at the balls of your fingers,--you that have very sharp +eyesight,--you will observe that these dainty curving lines lie close +together, like those that indicate the borders of oceans in maps, and +that they form various clearly defined patterns, such as arches, +circles, long curves, whorls, etc., and that these patterns differ on +the different fingers. [Every man in the room had his hand up to the +light, now, and his head canted to one side, and was minutely +scrutinizing the balls of his fingers; there were whispered ejaculations +of 'Why, it's so--I never noticed that before!'] The patterns on the +right hand are not the same as those on the left. [Ejaculations of 'Why, +that's so, too!'] Taken finger for finger, your patterns differ from +your neighbor's. [Comparisons were made all over the house--even the +judge and jury were absorbed in this curious work.] The patterns of a +twin's right hand are not the same as those on his left. One twin's +patterns are never the same as his fellow-twin's patterns--the jury will +find that the patterns upon the finger-balls of the accused follow this +rule. [An examination of the twins' hands was begun at once.] You have +often heard of twins who were so exactly alike that when dressed alike +their own parents could not tell them apart. Yet there was never a twin +born into this world that did not carry from birth to death a sure +identifier in this mysterious and marvelous natal autograph. That once +known to you, his fellow-twin could never personate him and deceive +you." + +Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death +when a speaker does that. The stillness gives warning that something is +coming. All palms and finger-balls went down, now, all slouching forms +straightened, all heads came up, all eyes were fastened upon Wilson's +face. He waited yet one, two, three moments, to let his pause complete +and perfect its spell upon the house; then, when through the profound +hush he could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, he put out his +hand and took the Indian knife by the blade and held it aloft where all +could see the sinister spots upon its ivory handle; then he said, in a +level and passionless voice-- + +"Upon this haft stands the assassin's natal autograph, written in the +blood of that helpless and unoffending old man who loved you and whom +you all loved. There is but one man in the whole earth whose hand can +duplicate that crimson sign,"--he paused and raised his eyes to the +pendulum swinging back and forth,--"and please God we will produce that +man in this room before the clock strikes noon!" + +Stunned, distraught, unconscious of its own movement, the house half +rose, as if expecting to see the murderer appear at the door, and a +breeze of muttered ejaculations swept the place. "Order in the +court!--sit down!" This from the sheriff. He was obeyed, and quiet +reigned again. Wilson stole a glance at Tom, and said to himself, "He is +flying signals of distress, now; even people who despise him are pitying +him; they think this is a hard ordeal for a young fellow who has lost +his benefactor by so cruel a stroke--and they are right." He resumed his +speech: + +"For more than twenty years I have amused my compulsory leisure with +collecting these curious physical signatures in this town. At my house I +have hundreds upon hundreds of them. Each and every one is labelled with +name and date; not labelled the next day or even the next hour, but in +the very minute that the impression was taken. When I go upon the +witness stand I will repeat under oath the things which I am now saying. +I have the finger-prints of the court, the sheriff, and every member of +the jury. There is hardly a person in this room, white or black, whose +natal signature I cannot produce, and not one of them can so disguise +himself that I cannot pick him out from a multitude of his +fellow-creatures and unerringly identify him by his hands. And if he and +I should live to be a hundred I could still do it. [The interest of the +audience was steadily deepening, now.] + +"I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know them as +well as the bank cashier knows the autograph of his oldest customer. +While I turn my back now, I beg that several persons will be so good as +to pass their fingers through their hair, and then press them upon one +of the panes of the window near the jury, and that among them the +accused may set their finger-marks. Also, I beg that these +experimenters, or others, will set their finger-marks upon another pane, +and add again the marks of the accused, but not placing them in the same +order or relation to the other signatures as before--for, by one chance +in a million, a person might happen upon the right marks by pure +guess-work once, therefore I wish to be tested twice." + +He turned his back, and the two panes were quickly covered with +delicately-lined oval spots, but visible only to such persons as could +get a dark background for them--the foliage of a tree, outside, for +instance. Then, upon call, Wilson went to the window, made his +examination, and said-- + +"This is Count Luigi's right hand; this one, three signatures below, is +his left. Here is Count Angelo's right; down here is his left. Now for +the other pane: here and here are Count Luigi's, here and here are his +brother's." He faced about. "Am I right?" + +A deafening explosion of applause was the answer. The Bench said-- + +"This certainly approaches the miraculous!" + +Wilson turned to the window again and remarked, pointing with his +finger-- + +"This is the signature of Mr. Justice Robinson. [Applause.] This, of +Constable Blake. [Applause.] This, of John Mason, juryman. [Applause.] +This, of the sheriff. [Applause.] I cannot name the others, but I have +them all at home, named and dated, and could identify them all by my +finger-print records." + +He moved to his place through a storm of applause--which the sheriff +stopped, and also made the people sit down, for they were all standing +and struggling to see, of course. Court, jury, sheriff, and everybody +had been too absorbed in observing Wilson's performance to attend to the +audience earlier. + +"Now, then," said Wilson, "I have here the natal autographs of two +children--thrown up to ten times the natural size by the pantograph, so +that any one who can see at all can tell the markings apart at a glance. +We will call the children A and B. Here are A's finger-marks, taken at +the age of five months. Here they are again, taken at seven months. [Tom +started.] They are alike, you see. Here are B's at five months, and also +at seven months. They, too, exactly copy each other, but the patterns +are quite different from A's, you observe. I shall refer to these again +presently, but we will turn them face down, now. + +"Here, thrown up ten sizes, are the natal autographs of the two persons +who are here before you accused of murdering Judge Driscoll. I made +these pantograph copies last night, and will so swear when I go upon the +witness stand. I ask the jury to compare them with the finger-marks of +the accused upon the window panes, and tell the court if they are the +same." + +He passed a powerful magnifying-glass to the foreman. + +One juryman after another took the cardboard and the glass and made the +comparison. Then the foreman said to the judge-- + +"Your honor, we are all agreed that they are identical." + +Wilson said to the foreman-- + +"Please turn that cardboard face down, and take this one, and compare it +searchingly, by the magnifier, with the fatal signature upon the +knife-handle, and report your finding to the court." + +Again the jury made minute examinations, and again reported-- + +"We find them to be exactly identical, your honor." + +Wilson turned toward the counsel for the prosecution, and there was a +clearly recognizable note of warning in his voice when he said-- + +"May it please the court, the State has claimed, strenuously and +persistently, that the blood-stained finger-prints upon that +knife-handle were left there by the assassin of Judge Driscoll. You have +heard us grant that claim, and welcome it." He turned to the jury: +"Compare the finger-prints of the accused with the finger-prints left by +the assassin--and report." + +The comparison began. As it proceeded, all movement and all sound +ceased, and the deep silence of an absorbed and waiting suspense settled +upon the house; and when at last the words came-- + +"They do not even resemble," a thunder-crash of applause followed and +the house sprang to its feet, but was quickly repressed by official +force and brought to order again. Tom was altering his position every +few minutes, now, but none of his changes brought repose nor any small +trifle of comfort. When the house's attention was become fixed once +more, Wilson said gravely, indicating the twins with a gesture-- + +"These men are innocent--I have no further concern with them. [Another +outbreak of applause began, but was promptly checked.] We will now +proceed to find the guilty. [Tom's eyes were starting from their +sockets--yes, it was a cruel day for the bereaved youth, everybody +thought.] We will return to the infant autographs of A and B. I will ask +the jury to take these large pantograph facsimilies of A's marked five +months and seven months. Do they tally?" + +The foreman responded-- + +"Perfectly." + +"Now examine this pantograph, taken at eight months, and also marked A. +Does it tally with the other two?" + +The surprised response was-- + +"No--they differ widely!" + +"You are quite right. Now take these two pantographs of B's autograph, +marked five months and seven months. Do they tally with each other?" + +"Yes--perfectly." + +"Take this third pantograph marked B, eight months. Does it tally with +B's other two?" + +"By no means!" + +"Do you know how to account for those strange discrepancies? I will tell +you. For a purpose unknown to us, but probably a selfish one, somebody +changed those children in the cradle." + +This produced a vast sensation, naturally; Roxana was astonished at this +admirable guess, but not disturbed by it. To guess the exchange was one +thing, to guess who did it quite another. Pudd'nhead Wilson could do +wonderful things, no doubt, but he couldn't do impossible ones. Safe? +She was perfectly safe. She smiled privately. + +"Between the ages of seven months and eight months those children were +changed in the cradle"--he made one of his effect-collecting pauses, and +added--"and the person who did it is in this house!" + +Roxy's pulses stood still! The house was thrilled as with an electric +shock, and the people half rose as if to seek a glimpse of the person +who had made that exchange. Tom was growing limp; the life seemed oozing +out of him. Wilson resumed: + +"A was put into B's cradle in the nursery; B was transferred to the +kitchen and became a negro and a slave, [Sensation--confusion of angry +ejaculations]--but within a quarter of an hour he will stand before you +white and free! [Burst of applause, checked by the officers.] From seven +months onward until now, A has still been a usurper, and in my +finger-record he bears B's name. Here is his pantograph at the age of +twelve. Compare it with the assassin's signature upon the knife-handle. +Do they tally?" + +The foreman answered-- + +"To the minutest detail!" + +Wilson said, solemnly-- + +"The murderer of your friend and mine--York Driscoll of the generous +hand and the kindly spirit--sits in among you. Valet de Chambre, negro +and slave,--falsely called Thomas à Becket Driscoll,--make upon the +window the finger-prints that will hang you!" + +Tom turned his ashen face imploring toward the speaker, made some +impotent movements with his white lips, then slid limp and lifeless to +the floor. + +Wilson broke the awed silence with the words-- + +"There is no need. He has confessed." + +Roxy flung herself upon her knees, covered her face with her hands, and +out through her sobs the words struggled-- + +"De Lord have mercy on me, po' misable sinner dat I is!" + +The clock struck twelve. + +The court rose; the new prisoner, handcuffed, was removed. + + + + +Conclusion + +It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the +best judge of one.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar. + +October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it +would have been more wonderful to miss it.--Pudd'nhead Wilson's +Calendar. + +The town sat up all night to discuss the amazing events of the day and +swap guesses as to when Tom's trial would begin. Troop after troop of +citizens came to serenade Wilson, and require a speech, and shout +themselves hoarse over every sentence that fell from his lips--for all +his sentences were golden, now, all were marvelous. His long fight +against hard luck and prejudice was ended; he was a made man for good. + +And as each of these roaring gangs of enthusiasts marched away, some +remorseful member of it was quite sure to raise his voice and say-- + +"And this is the man the likes of us have called a pudd'nhead for more +than twenty years. He has resigned from that position, friends." + +"Yes, but it isn't vacant--we're elected." + +The twins were heroes of romance, now, and with rehabilitated +reputations. But they were weary of Western adventure, and straightway +retired to Europe. + +Roxy's heart was broken. The young fellow upon whom she had inflicted +twenty-three years of slavery continued the false heir's pension of +thirty-five dollars a month to her, but her hurts were too deep for +money to heal; the spirit in her eye was quenched, her martial bearing +departed with it, and the voice of her laughter ceased in the land. In +her church and its affairs she found her only solace. + +The real heir suddenly found himself rich and free, but in a most +embarrassing situation. He could neither read nor write, and his speech +was the basest dialect of the negro quarter. His gait, his attitudes, +his gestures, his bearing, his laugh--all were vulgar and uncouth; his +manners were the manners of a slave. Money and fine clothes could not +mend these defects or cover them up; they only made them the more +glaring and the more pathetic. The poor fellow could not endure the +terrors of the white man's parlor, and felt at home and at peace nowhere +but in the kitchen. The family pew was a misery to him, yet he could +nevermore enter into the solacing refuge of the "nigger gallery"--that +was closed to him for good and all. But we cannot follow his curious +fate further--that would be a long story. + +The false heir made a full confession and was sentenced to imprisonment +for life. But now a complication came up. The Percy Driscoll estate was +in such a crippled shape when its owner died that it could pay only +sixty per cent. of its great indebtedness, and was settled at that rate. +But the creditors came forward, now, and complained that inasmuch as +through an error for which they were in no way to blame the false heir +was not inventoried at the time with the rest of the property, great +wrong and loss had thereby been inflicted upon them. They rightly +claimed that "Tom" was lawfully their property and had been so for eight +years; that they had already lost sufficiently in being deprived of his +services during that long period, and ought not to be required to add +anything to that loss; that if he had been delivered up to them in the +first place, they would have sold him and he could not have murdered +Judge Driscoll; therefore it was not he that had really committed the +murder, the guilt lay with the erroneous inventory. Everybody saw that +there was reason in this. Everybody granted that if "Tom" were white and +free it would be unquestionably right to punish him--it would be no loss +to anybody; but to shut up a valuable slave for life--that was quite +another matter. + +As soon as the Governor understood the case, he pardoned Tom at once, +and the creditors sold him down the river. + +Transcriber's Notes + +Introduction: + +1. Background. + +Welcome to Project Gutenberg's presentation of Pudd'nhead Wilson. The +Italian twins in this novel, Luigi and Angelo, were inspired by a real +pair of Italian conjoined twins who toured America in the 1890s. These +were Giacomo and Giovanni Battista Tocci. + +Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in a whites-only passenger car on +June 7, 1892, and one month later he stood before Judge John Howard +Ferguson to plead his case. Plessy was an octaroon who could easily +"pass white." Four years later, the Supreme Court condoned "Separate but +Equal" laws in the famous Plessy vs. Ferguson case, which affirmed the +decision of Justice Ferguson in local court. These events in 1892 +unfolded as Twain wrote this story, and changed the tale that he ended +up telling. + +Arthur Conan Doyle released his best-selling collection of short +stories, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, on October 14, 1892. The +stories had already appeared in The Strand Magazine, one each month, +from July 1891 to June 1892. Holmes inspired Twain to add a component of +forensics to this story. + +2. Dialect. + +The soliloquies and conversations in the novel follow some general +rules. Twain introduced some variations in the spelling of dialect, and +sometimes the sound of dialect, but the end meaning seems to be the +same thing. Below is a table of some of these words, and alternatives +found in the text: + +Dialect used in Pudd'nhead Wilson + +English Dialect, Alternative, Another +and en +against agin, ag'in, ag'in' +because 'ca'se +going gwine, gwyne +more mo' +that dat +the de +then den +there dere, dah +these dese +they dey, deh +this dis +was 'uz +with wid +where whah + +The above table was presented as a foundation which played into the +decision to make some emendations, below, that were not authorized by +Twain in 1899. One curious notation is that there was sometimes +pronounced dere, but also dah. Along the same lines, they most often +became dey, but in one case, deh. + +3. This version. + +Our version is based on the 1894 publication of this novel in Hartford. +This was Twain's original American release of the novel in book form. A +scanned copy of this book is available through Hathitrust. The book +contained some spaces in contractions: I 'll, dat 'll, had n't, could +n't, dis 'll, 't ain't / t ain't, and dey 'll are some examples. These +spaces were not retained in our transcription, and are not identified. +We did make a few other emendations. These emendations were checked with +the 1899 version of Pudd'nhead Wilson published by Harper & Brothers. + +4. Notes on emendations. + +The errors on Page 233 and Page 288, were not changed in the 1899 book, +so the case for making those changes may be found in the Detailed Notes +section. The remaining errors were corrected in the 1899 publication, +presumably authorized by Twain, who essentially made the case for those +emendations. + +In the HTML version of this e-book, you can place your cursor over the +faint silver dotted lines below the changed text to discover the +original text. The Detailed Notes section of these notes describe these +emendations. + +5. Other versions. + +Please note that many print versions of Pudd'nhead Wilson include the +phrase 'spelling and usage have been brought into conformity with modern +usage,' and editors have been liberal with their renditions of Twain's +story. + +6. Detailed notes. + +The Detailed Notes Section also includes issues that have come up during +transcription. One common issue is that words are sometimes split into +two lines for spacing purposes in the original text. These words are +hyphenated in the physical book, but there is a question sometimes as to +whether the hyphen should be retained in transcription. The reasons +behind some of these decisions are itemized. + +Production Notes Section: + +1. Chapter Titles. + +The Chapter Titles, such as Doom in Chapter XXI., were not part of +Twain's book. They remain from another version of this book. The chapter +titles are used in PG's Mark Twain index, so we have retained them. + +2. The Author's Note. + +The Author's Note to Those Extraordinary Twins is actually the author's +introduction to the novella, Those Extraordinary Twins. Twain originally +produced this book with two parts: Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those +Extraordinary Twins. + +Project Gutenberg offers both stories, so we present the Author's Note +as the Introduction to Those Extraordinary Twins, as Twain intended. If +you want to read the Author's Note, please visit the Introduction of our +production of the novella, Those Extraordinary Twins. + +Detailed Notes Section: + +Chapter 1. + +On Page 19, barber-shop was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. +The 1899 Harper & Brothers version used "barber shop" in this spot. Even +though barber-shop cannot be transcribed as such, the assumption is that +the 1894 version put in the hyphen by mistake. We transcribed the word +barber shop. + +Chapter 2. + +On Page 34, changed ca'se to 'ca'se, used as dialect for because, in the +clause: "but dat's ca'se it's mine." The author used 'ca'se eighteen +other times as dialect for because, and did not use ca'se again. + +Chapter 3. + +On Page 43, insert missing period after tomb. + +Chapter 6. + +On Page 81, add a comma after door: "The twins took a position near the +door the widow stood at Luigi's side, Rowena stood beside Angelo,..." + +Chapter 7. + +On Page 88, add a period after fault in the sentence: The Judge laid +himself out hospitably to make them have a good time, and if there was a +defect anywhere it was not his fault. + +Chapter 9. + +On Page 114, there is a word missing before the semicolon in the clause: +Tom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised ; the 1899 Harper +& Brothers version provided the missing word, "it." + +Chapter 11. + +On Page 131, change dicision to decision in the clause: Luigi reserved +his dicision. + +On Page 133, change comma to a period after years in the sentence: "I +never got a chance to try my hand at it, and I may never get a chance; +and yet if I ever do get it I shall be found ready, for I have kept up +my law-studies all these years," + +On Page 149, Correct spelling of Cappello to Capello. The surname of the +twins was Capello in the letter on page 73, and two other times in +Chapter 6. + +Chapter 13. + +On Page 167, Change ' to " in the sentence: "Why, my boy, you look +desolate. Don't take it so hard. Try and forget you have been kicked.' + +On Page 176, ship-shape was hyphenated and split between two lines for +spacing. The 1899 Harper & Brothers version of the novel used shipshape, +and so will we. + +Chapter 14. + +On Page 182, changed period after hatching to question mark in the +sentence: What could be hatching. +On Page 184, remove comma after sha'n't, in the clause: but if he +doesn't, I sha'n't, let on. + +On Page 189, low-down is hyphenated and split between two lines for +spacing. On Page 188, low-down is spelled with a hyphen, and on pages +241 and 243 low-downest is also hyphenated. There is no occurrence of +lowdown. We transcribed low-down with a hyphen: like a ornery low-down +hound! + +Chapter 16. +On Page 216, Changed ? to ! in the sentence: En keep on sayin' it? + +Chapter 18. + +On Page 229, Changed 'against to against in the clause: with fury +'against the planter's wife. + +On Page 233, Changed de to den in the clause "en de good gracious me." +The author always used den for then, except in this case. De is dialect +for the. Twain did not correct this in the 1899 Harper & Brothers +version of the novel, but den makes more sense then de. Roxy was +floating on the river, and then she cried good gracious me, because she +spotted the Grand Mogul. + +Changed day to dey in two places. The novel used dey as dialect for they +regularly, and almost consistently, except in two cases. Both cases were +presumed errata: + +• On Page 232, en day warn't gwine to hurry +• On Page 229, en day knows how to whale 'em, too. + +Chapter 19. + +On Page 253, back-yard is hyphenated and split between two lines for +spacing. The 1899 Harper & Brothers version of the novel used back-yard, +and so will we. + +Chapter 20. + +On Page 273, changed countenence to countenance in the clause: "I don't +know about that," and Tom's countenence darkened,... + +Chapter 21. + +On Page 288, there are two quotes made by the crowd in double quotes. +Twain did not correct this in the 1899 version of the novel by Harper & +Brothers. But these lines are surrounded by Wilson's narrative, which is +already in double quotes. Therefore, we have used single quotes for the +two remarks from the gallery. + +• 'Why, it's so--I never noticed that before!' +• 'Why, that's so, too!' + +Conclusion. + +On Page 302, removed in from the sentence: "But we cannot follow his +curious fate further--that in would be a long story." + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 102 *** |