CHAPTER XXIV
So court bein' over, the town was dull again and all deserted. Watermelon rinds and newspapers was all over the court house yard. Hardly any farmers was in town. The stores seemed empty. And Mitch was quieter than I ever saw him. He didn't look well. He was reading Shakespeare; and I saw him go by with Charley King and George Heigold. I began to feel that I was losin' him.
And one day my pa said, "How would you like to go to St. Louis on the boat? Your ma and Myrtle are goin' over to visit Aunt Fannie, and Delia is goin' to take a vacation, and I think I'll take you to St. Louis. I need a rest too. Mitch and his pa are going along. Colonel Lambkin has made up a party and John Armstrong will be along. It's theCity of Peoria, the same boat you boys tried to run away on. So we're goin'. Come down town this afternoon and I'll get you a new suit and some shoes and a hat. Get Mitch too, and I'll fit him out for the trip."
So I got Mitch and he was almost beside himself, he was that happy. And we both got suits and shoes and hats. And the next morning took the passenger train for Havaner. When we got to Oakford, John Armstrong got in, and my pa was tickled to death to see him. John says: "They didn't convict that feller?" Pa says, "No." "Wal," says John, "are you goin' to tryhim again?" My pa says, "I don't know. It costs the county, and the board may lay down on me. But I'll prosecute him if they stand for the appropriation."
We were all sittin' together, for we turned the seats that a way. Mr. Miller and Mitch facin' us, my pa and me in one of the seats, and John Armstrong across the aisle, after he got on. And John says, "Wal, how about that boy down that a way? Whar does he live?"
"Who?" says I.
"That boy you was runnin' away to see. Tom Sawyer, warn't it?"
And Mr. Miller said, "If he's at home, we'll see him—but he's away a lot."
"He lives in St. Louis?" says John.
"No," says Mr. Miller, "but not far from there. That's right, ain't it, Mitchie?"
Mitch says, "It's not very far, just up the river maybe a hundred miles, at Hannibal."
"Are you goin' up thar?" says John.
"No," says my pa, "we expect to see him in St. Louis."
Then John says: "You had a big court this time with that murder trial and all." Pa says, "Yes." "It does beat the world about the murders and things around here. More'n what there used to be, 'pears to me."
Then Mr. Miller began to talk about the Civil War and he said: "It's a bad thing for the country and will be for a long time. We got rid of slavery, but we took on a lot of bad things while doin' it. You see it killed off so many real Americans, the old stock, and in a few years with all these foreigners brought in to work at the mines and mills, the blood'll get mixed. And ideas about America will get mixed; and the country will forgetwhat it was, and what it was meant to be; and they'll pass new laws to take care of changes. And pretty soon you won't know the country. During the war we had to part with liberties to carry on the war; and pretty soon we'll part with liberties in order to manage these new stocks. And there's a lot of corruption in the country, people gettin' rich off'n the tariff, and that'll make trouble."
John Armstrong was a Republican, and he didn't agree with Mr. Miller; but my pa says, "We'll elect Cleveland this fall and then we'll save the country."
My pa and Mr. Miller was both Democrats, but John was a Republican and they had the best of him, bein' two to one. But John says, "Why, they tell me that Cleveland wears a 6-7/8 hat and a eighteen collar and can drink more whisky than Joe Pink."
"Well," says my pa, "if you elect Harrison, who'll be President—will he be President or will Blaine? It will be Blaine, and why didn't you nominate him and be done with it? It's because you dassent"—Then he began to sing:
"In Washington City, oh, what a great pity,There'll be no Harrison there."
Then we kind of changed seats around and Mr. Miller and my pa began to talk together, while John was talkin' to Mitch and me, and pointin' out the places of interest along the way. "Over thar," he says, "is whar Slicky Bill Wilson used to live." "Thar's the Widow Watkins' farm." "Right down thar is whar they held a camp meetin' onct and converted more'n 80." And pretty soon we went over a bridge over a clear blue stream, and John says: "That's Salt Creek, and just down tharabout a mile old Tom Giles used to live who raised quarter horses," and so on.
Then I heard Mr. Miller tell my pa that he was goin' to lose his church for preachin' that sermon about God bein' in everything; that he was sure of it. And he didn't know what to do. He couldn't teach school and walk into the country, and he couldn't get a school to teach in town. And he was worried and said with a big family like he had on his hands, he was worried to death. That his father had had a big family and was poor and worried too, and that he could see his own children poor and havin' big families. And it looked just like the same story over and over, world without end.
By and by we got to Kilburn and the engine broke down or somethin' and we waited and waited. The conductor came in and said we'd better eat here, because he didn't know when we'd get started. So we all got off and went into the station where Mrs. Ruddy, the wife of the ticket agent, had a restaurant. She looked like a hen in the early morning. Her eyes were so quick and bright, and she kept goin' around askin' us to have things. There was a jar of jelly on the table all sealed up, and she said, "Won't you have some of the jell?" Mr. Miller said, "No, thank you." But Mitch took up the jar and tried to get the top off. It would have took a monkey wrench to get it off; so after tuggin' at it and not bein' able to budge it, he put it down. Just then she came up and said, "Do have some of the jell." Mitch began to laugh. Then pa took the jar and he couldn't get the top off either, and he put it down. She came back again and said, "Won't you have some of the jell, Mr. Armstrong?" "I don't mind if I do," says John, and he took hold of the jar. Findin' the topon, he tried to get it off. Then Mrs. Ruddy says, "Oh, the top ain't off." I believe she knew it all the time. The remark sounded just like a woman. So she went into the kitchen for an opener and came back and said she couldn't find none. Then she took the jar and got her apron about it and screwed up her face and tried her best. But the top wouldn't budge. Mitch picked up the poker by the stove and says, "Hit it with this, Mrs. Ruddy." And she says, "I'll break the jar. Just wait, I'll set it in some hot water for a bit and then it'll come off." So she disappeared with the jar. And while she was gone the conductor came in and yelled, "All aboard." And pa laid down some money and we ran for the train. Just as we was all on the platform and the train begin to move, Mrs. Ruddy came to the station door and said somethin'. John began to snicker and laugh, and says to pa, "Did you hear what she said—by God, she says it's off—let's go back and have some jell."
This time when we got to Havaner we rode in the bus, Mitch with the driver in front; and we rode pretty near down to the river's edge. And there was theCity of Peoria, all steamed up, smoke comin' out of her stacks, and ready to go. We got on and there was Colonel Lambkin, talking to the captain and the same fat man. And when the Colonel see my pa, he smiled all over his face and got up and came over and shook his hand, and put his arm around him and says, "You look a little peaked, Hardy. We'll give you some rations that'll fatten you up. Whar's your fiddle?" he says to John. John hadn't brought it; but by and by an orchestra came on board, a man with a guitar and another with a fiddle, and so we had music all the way. Colonel Lambkinseemed to just own the boat. We steamed off after a bit and it was moonlight, and Mitch and me sat on deck and watched the river, and the shores and everything we could see. By and by Mitch said: "Do you remember when we were here and lay on top of that shed and I told you about losin' Zueline, and that there was somethin' else in my mind?"
"Yes," says I.
"Well," says Mitch, "you know what it was now, don't you?"
"I think so," says I.
"Of course it was that Rainey murder and findin' that pistol. And I'd like to ask you, Skeet, if you think I dreamed that."
"No," says I.
"Well," says Mitch, "that lawyer did twist me around and he did make a wonderful speech agin me. It sounded like the characters in Shakespeare where one says something and you think that ends it; and then the other says something and it has a different look altogether and seems truer than what the other one said. But I hope to drop dead this minute, Skeet, and fall into the river and be et by the fish if every word I said ain't as true as the gospel."
"I know it," says I. And Mitchie says: "I wanted to tell you that night what was on my mind; but somehow I couldn't."
Just then we became aware of voices near us, around a kind of corner. And one voice was a woman's and another was a man's who was talkin' kind of thick and kept repeatin' hisself. And Mitch says, "Wait—listen." So we listened. And this man's voice said:
"What can I do, Gwen? I'll leave it to you. Ain'tI done the right thing? Have I harmed any one? But I might have, I know myself, and I might have harmed some one as easy as that. I know what's what, and even now I do, and when I have no drinks, I know better, and you'll see I done the right thing. Why look at it—they rush on me there in all that hurry and scare and say go out where it is—where his pistol is—right by theside of the porch and you or some of you pick it up and bring it back in the house. What did that mean? It meant some one knew where the pistol was before anybody seen it—and you can't make me believe that kind of a story would wash."
We Got up and Walked Past 'EmWe Got up and Walked Past 'Em
Then the woman said, "It did wash."
"It washed because they didn't have me there and try to fetch in this story. I couldn't a stood cross-questioning a minute. That's why I say I know what I can do."
Then the woman says: "He's goin' to be tried again and you'd better go back and be a man. Mrs. Rainey died and it's time Temple Scott was dead too."
"Listen," says Mitch, "did you hear that—that's Harold Carman. Come."
We got up and walked past 'em—there he was huddled close to a woman, the moon almost shining in their faces. We heard the orchestra and went around and found Colonel Lambkin dancing and everybody havin' a wonderful time. My pa sat there so big and powerful and I was proud to death of him.
Well, we had wonderful sleeps on board and we all sat at the captain's table and had the most splendid meals—fish all the time if we wanted it; and beefsteak, and all kinds of pie and everything. Mitch and me went into the kitchen; but just to call and say "howdy" to Susie and the cook.
It was on a morning when we hove in sight of St. Louis. There she was stretched further than you could see, smoke all over her, rumblin', a scary looking monster, seemed alive, seemed full of all kinds of terrible things, but also awful beautiful, too. We got off the boat and there was two or three policemen there. My paand Colonel Lambkin talked to 'em, and then just as Harold Carman came along, the policemen took him. He scolded and made a fuss at first, but finally went along. Of course we had told pa what we heard. But pa had seen him on the boat anyway. So they just shipped him by train back to Petersburg and jailed him—I think it was for forgin' a note, but anyway it was to testify.
We got over into town, and such a sight—sloughs of people, wagons, carriages, street cars; sloughs of niggers—an awful noise everywheres. Everybody in a hurry. And Mitch says: "Tom Sawyer lives near here, and yet he was never in this town, at least if he was he writes nothing about it. And look at us. We're here. I told you everything couldn't be the same with me and you as it was with Tom and Huck. But just look, Skeet. You could take Petersburg and set it down right here in this square and nobody could find it. Why, I'll bet you this town is five miles long, as far as from Petersburg to your grandpa's farm—just think, five miles of houses." Mitch was terribly excited. And you can't imagine how funny John Armstrong looked walkin' along in St. Louis. He seemed out of place and looked strange. But my pa and Colonel Lambkin was the same as the St. Louis people, and even Mitchie's pa in a general way.
Well, we went around different places, and finally we went to a hotel about a thousand times bigger than the hotel at Havaner. The office had gilt all over it and marble pillars and a dome of blue and red glass. It must have cost millions. When we went into the dining room John Armstrong looked shamed a little like a boy standin' up to recite. And we sat down at a table.Everybody said Colonel to Colonel Lambkin, and seemed to know him and was awful polite to him; and the waiters laughed at Mitch and me. And one of 'em stood by John and says: "Baked fish, corn beef and cabbage, brisket of beef, pork tenderloin, roast goose and turkey and cranberry sauce." John looked stunned like, and as if he couldn't remember what the waiter said, and the waiter stood there waitin' for John to speak, and finally John says, "Wal, bring me whatever's the handiest for you."
My pa broke into the biggest laugh I ever heard him and turned to the Colonel and said: "That story you told me keeps goin' through my mind." And the Colonel laughed and said, "Ain't that a good one?" By this time the waiter had repeated to John what they had and John said, "Wal, bring me the pork tenderloin," and so the rest of us had our orders in and pretty soon we had dinner and went out.
They took us to a ball game. You had to pay to get in. Nobody could look over or look through the fence. It was all different from what it was at home. And there was a pitcher there who looked like the pictures of Edgar Allan Poe, and he could throw a curve clear around the batter right into the catcher's hand. I saw him. And the score was three to nothin,' not 18 to 25 as I had seen it at home.
And in the evening there was a torchlight procession for Cleveland, and bands, and banners, and big pictures of Cleveland. "Look at him," said John, "can't you see he wears a 18 collar?"
"Yes," says pa, "but no 6-7/8 hat."
"Wal," says John, "they've fixed the picture up." So then we went to where a man made a speech. Iforget his name, but he was a great man. And he talked for more'n an hour, and finally got down to the fall of Rome. And he says, "What made Rome fall? They tariff." And John says, "That ain't the way they tell it to me. They say Caesar made Rome fall. That's what I've always heard. And I don't believe it was the tariff. It couldn't be." So pa says, "Listen to him, John." But John was kind of restless and seemed to get a little mad. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed. And the next night the Colonel took all of us to a minstrel show where they sang "Angel Gabriel." And the next morning we got on the boat and pulled out. For where do you suppose? Why, up the Mississippi. Yes, we saw her when we came in, but now we saw her for miles and miles—wonderful, more'n a mile wide. And Mitch could hardly speak, nor could I. And where do you suppose we was going? Why, to Hannibal, to Tom's town. After all our waitin', after trying to run away to see Tom Sawyer, here we was actually goin' there with our pas, and John Armstrong, and the Colonel.
It turned out this way. We got to Hannibal, and the Colonel stayed with the boat and John; and we said good-by and went over into town. The plan was for us to cross the river from Hannibal over to Illinois, and there take the Wabash train to Jacksonville and then home from there.
Mitch's pa began to make some inquiries and then we started for some place. And pretty soon I looked up and saw a big sign "Tom Sawyer." "Look, Mitch," says I. And he looked and stopped and our pas went on. This sign was over a butcher shop. And I said: "Can it be true, Mitch, that Tom Sawyer is keepin' a butchershop? Is he old enough? And would he do it? Is it in his line? He's rich and gettin' higher and higher up in the world. What does this mean?"
Tom SawyerTom Sawyer
We followed our pas into the shop. And Mr. Miller asked a boy, "Where's Mr. Sawyer?" And the boy says, "He's in the back room." Just then a door opened and a man came in, red-faced and plump and friendly. And Mitch's pa says: "Are you Tom Sawyer?" And the man says, "That's me." And Mitch's pa says: "I'm Mr. Miller from Petersburg and this is my boy Mitchie, who wrote to you. And this is Mr. Kirby and his boy." And Tom Sawyer laughed and says: "I hope I didn't make you any trouble. I kind a heard I did. But this letter came to me from your boy, and I showed it to the postmaster, and he laughed; and so I thought I'd have a little fun, and I had it answered. You don't mind, do you, Mitchie?" And he kind of put his hand on Mitchie's head. "Oh," says Mitch, "there might be two persons with the same names." Tom Sawyer laughed and said, "Not in this town—anyway I had that letter written you, Mitchie, and I'm sorry now, since you took it in earnest. I meant no harm. There never was any boy here of that name, and noHuckleberry Finn. It was all made up, even though it does sound real and boys believe it. How'd you like to have some bologna?" He gave both of us some. Then we talked a bit and left.
After that Mitch wasn't interested in anything. He didn't want to see the town; he just sat in front of the hotel, and our pas went around lookin' up the places where Mark Twain had been, and talkin' to folks who knew where Mark Twain got this character and the other for his book. And finally Mitch said to me: "I had a dream last night, and now I know what it means. I dreamed the engines on the trains wouldn't work any more, or wouldn't work very well, and they had to hitch horses to the engines to pull the trains. So everywhere you'd see an engine and a train and at the head of the engine a team of horses, pullin' it and the train. And it means that what was so beautiful and wonderful ain't true and won't work and after all, you're just where you were, back with horses, so to speak, and no engines; back in Petersburg, with all the wonder of Tom Sawyer gone forever." And Mitch began to cry. I didn't know what to say or to do. It was all true. There wasn't any Tom Sawyer; and this town—why we couldn't find a thing like it was in the book.
Pretty soon our pas came back and Mitch says, "When you goin' to leave?" "This afternoon," says my pa. Then Mitch says: "Let's go. I don't feel well. I want to go home."
Then Mr. Miller tried to comfort Mitch and tell him that life was full of disappointments; that everything that happens when you're a boy, happens over when you're a man, just like it, but hurts worse. And that people must dis-cip-line themselves to stand it, andmake the most of life, and do for others, and love God and keep His commandments. Mitch didn't say nothin'. He just set quiet, every now and then brushin' a tear out of his eye.
When our pas had walked away, Mitch says: "Now you see the whole thing, Skeet. You've lost Tom as much as I have; but I've lost more'n you. I've lost Zueline. Both in the same summer. I don't know what I'm goin' to do. I want to go home."
And then Mitch said: "I'm mad at my pa. He ought not to brought me here. He ought not to have showed us that butcher. It's too much. He ought to have left us still believin' in the book."
CHAPTER XXV
We crossed the river and took the train. But the fun was over. Even our pas was quiet. Mitch fell asleep in his father's arms. I couldn't talk, somehow. The summer was fading, we could see that. We could hear the crickets in the grass whenever the train stopped. Sleep was falling on the earth. The fields were still and bare. No birds sang. And the train moved on. And we were going home; and to what? No more digging for treasure; no more belief in Tom Sawyer. School would commence soon. The end of the world seemed near. I myself wanted to die; for if Mitch and me had to keep goin' through this same thing until we was old like our pas, what was the use? We got back to Petersburg; and Mitch and his pa stepped off the train and started on before we got off. They stopped after a little bit and waited for us. Then they went on; and when we got to the square, they said good-by and started for home. And my pa went to his office and took me.
When we got there we found a man in the hall, walkin' up and down. He'd been there for three days waitin' for my pa. And so pa unlocked the office and went in. The man follered and sat down. He was an old, farmer-like feller, but it seemed he lived in a town down in Pike County. He'd come up to get Nancy Allen's money, the treasure Mitch and me had found. He said he wasa third cousin of Nancy Allen's, and her only livin' relative. Well, the advertisement that pa had put in the paper for relatives had expired, and no one had turned up to claim the money but this man. His name was Joe Allen, and he had his proofs with him that he was Nancy Allen's third cousin. He said his wife was dead; that he had no children; that he did a little draying in his town; that he wanted to get a new wagon and a span of mules, cost about four hundred dollars; and this money came in awful handy for him. Then he looked around the room and saw pa's books. And he said that he never had much schoolin', that he wanted schoolin' and never had it; and that if he'd had it, he'd been a lawyer too, maybe, instead of running a dray. And thenpa went over to the safe and got the money, for he hadn't turned it in to the treasury yet. He counted the money and left it on the table. And then the man was interested in how it was found. And pa told him and says: "This is one of the boys that found it; this is my boy. And the other boy is preacher Miller's boy, one of our best citizens," meaning Mr. Miller, of course, and not Mitch. "And they're poor, and Mitch is one of the most wonderful boys you ever saw—very smart and reads all kinds of books."
Counting the TreasureCounting the Treasure
Then the man took the money and counted it and put it in his pocket. But my pa says, "We'll have to do a lot of things about papers and receipts and things before you can have the money." So the man took it out and put it on the table; and then he counted it again. And finally he separated it and handed part of it to my pa and says, "Count it." So pa did. And the man says, "Is that a thousand dollars? I don't reckon very well." "Yes," says pa. "It's a thousand dollars and ten dollars more." And the man took the ten-dollar bill and put it on the other pile.
"Here," says the man, "take this thousand dollars and take your fee out of it."
My pa says, "No—you don't owe me nothin'. The county pays me for my work, and it wouldn't be right, and you need it more than I do."
"Well," says the man, "what I meant was for you to take your fee out of it, and then split the difference between these two boys."
"No, you don't owe them nothing," says pa. My heart sank. I said "I—," and was about to say something, I don't know what; but pa waved at me to keep still and says, "This money is yours, and if you'll comewith me, we'll attend to everything, and you can take it and go home."
Then the man said: "But you say one of these boys is poor and is smart. And I know what it is to be poor when you're a boy, even if you're not smart, as I warn't; and to want to get up in the world and not be able to, as I have. And I know what it is to feel it all your life, what you didn't have when a boy. And, as I said, I have no one in the world but myself, and I don't need nothin'; and after I buy this wagon and span of mules then I'll have more'n six hundred dollars to lend out. It's enough for me. It makes me well fixed, with my house, which I own. And here I have a good chance to do good to a couple of boys who found the money, and may use their sheer to make men of 'em—and you just take this $1,000 and if you don't want any of it, give it all to 'em."
Then he said, "Where is this boy, Mitch Miller? I'd like to see him. You say he's a smart boy." So my pa says, "Run up and get him." And I ran—ran all the way—breathless to tell Mitch that we had struck it at last. When I got to his house, no one was there but a woman doin' the washin'. She didn't know where any of the family was. That she saw Mitch go away with his fishin' pole. So I ran back and told pa, and he says, "Never mind—let it go—it's just as well." While I was gone, the man and pa seemed to have come to terms. Pa was goin' to take the thousand dollars. He did and gave the rest to the man and he said good-by and went.
Then pa turned to me and says: "I'll put this in the safe. But mind you, you're not to say a thing to Mitch or any one about it. It will be a Christmas gift, which ain't far off. And if you tell, I'll keep your half for myfee. I'll find it out, sure, if you tell. Promise me now not to tell." And I promised.
Then pa locked the money up in the safe. And he said: "Go home, now; and tell your ma I'll be home for supper. She's back from her visit and will be glad to see you."
So I went home.
CHAPTER XXVI
There was days in here that I kind of forget. I remember Mr. Miller gave Mitch a watch which he had always promised him, and it looked good, but didn't run very well. So he was goin' to old Abe Zemple, which was a mechanic, to fix it. But it seemed to run worse, if anything. One thing that happened there was this: Old Zemple had a clock all apart, the wheels and springs scattered all over the bench. Mitch saw this and for fun he put a extra wheel on the bench with the rest. So when Old Zemple was puttin' the clock together again he couldn't find no place for this wheel; and finally he just left it out, and of course the clock run, havin' all the wheels back in it that really belonged to it. He went around town braggin' about puttin' a clock together with one wheel left out, and it was just as good as if it had all the wheels,and that showed that the factory didn't know about clocks.
Abe ZempleAbe Zemple
But it happened that in fixin' Mitch's watch, old Zemple had left out a little pin, just a little pin that you could hardly see, and Old Zemple found it out and put the pin in, and then the watch run. Old Zemple told Mr. Miller about leavin' the wheel out of the clock, and Mr. Miller said, "How do you explain it, Abe? You leave a big wheel out of a clock and it runs; and you leave a little pin out of a watch and it won't run? Somethin's wrong. Look into it, Abe. For I've noticed about people that when they try to get somethin' extra into their lives, and fuss around like you did with this wheel, tryin' to find a place for it, that they don't need it, and do all right without it; and on the other hand, other people lose somethin' so little it don't seem to count, and yet they can't get along without it. But also sometimes a man thinks he's improved on creation by leavin' somethin' out of his life, or gettin' rid of somethin' in society, and it turns out that it didn't belong there, just like this wheel. We get fooled a good deal; for you know, my boy put that extra wheel on your bench." And then Old Zemple said, gettin' mad—"Some boys have lost pins, or never had any. Their fathers don't raise 'em up right." And Mr. Miller said: "This town is just full of wheels that have nothin' to do with the clock. They either belong somewhere else, or they are left-overs of other times—like Henry Bannerman," referring to the man that spent all day every day walkin' up and down on the stone floor back of the pillars of the court house.
I want to come back to Mitch's watch. But first I remember it was about now that a troupe came totown playin' Rip Van Winkle, and Mr. Miller and my pa took Mitch and me to see it. And as we came back home, pa said to Mr. Miller: "Henry Bannerman is a kind of Rip Van Winkle—a extra wheel—he's been asleep ten years, anyway." So Mitch and me began to beg for the story about Henry Bannerman, which was that he drank until he had a fever and when he came out of the fever, he was blurred like and not keen like when he could recite Shakespeare and practice law fine. So pa said that once when Henry first began to practice law again after comin' out of the fever, he had a little office in the court house and Alcibiades Watkins came in to see him about a boundary fence, and sat down and told Henry about it, takin' about an hour. When Alcibiades finished, Henry says, "Tell it to me over; it's a long story and important and I want to get it right." So Alcibiades told it over. And then Henry says, "You came to consult me, did you?" Alcibiades said "yes." "Well," says Henry, "I'll have to charge you—I'll have to charge you two dollars for the advice." And so Alcibiades took out two dollars and handed it to Henry and waited for the advice. And Henry said: "Well, Alcibiades, I have listened to you for two hours about this boundary, and the boundary fence, and I don't know a thing about it, and my advice to you is to go and see Mr. Kirby who can understand it and is a good lawyer." So Alcibiades said, "Well, I know, but I came to you for advice." "Yes," said Henry, "I know you did, and I have give it to you—go and see Mr. Kirby—he's a good lawyer and will tell you what more to do and how to do it. You see I'm not a barrister—I'm just a solicitor."
So Mr. Miller and my pa talked, which was as muchfun almost as the show. They seemed to know everything and to kind of stand back of Mitch and me, next to God, or somethin' strong that could keep any harm away.
But to come back to Mitch's watch. George Heigold had a piece of lead with printing letters on one side, in copper. They called it a stereotype, and it would print. And he wanted to trade Mitch for the watch, so he offered his stereotype; and as Mitch was crazy about printin' and books, Mitch traded and was glad of the chance. But when Mr. Miller found it out, he said: "What did you do that for? That lead stereotype ain't worth nothin'—and here you have traded off your watch which I gave you. You know, I think you are goin' to be a author—for authors give their time and everything they have to print things—and this looks like the key to your life, and a sign of what your life is goin' to be. So I think I'll begin with you and put you in the office of theObserverto learn the printer's trade, like Franklin."
Of course this stereotype would print; and Mitch printed with it a good deal, but as it always printed the same thing, the fun soon died down, and Mitch really wished he had his watch back.
So that's how Mitch began to set type and help run a newspaper. The editor was Cassius Wilkinson, and a good deal of the time he was in Springfield, and the rest he was talkin' politics or gettin' drunk. So that the paper just run itself. The foreman was Dutchie Bale, who used to go to the farm papers or the Chicago papers and just cut great pieces out of 'em and set 'em in type for the paper; and as the editor didn't care, and Dutchie didn't care what went into the paper, Mitch had a chance to write for the paper himself; and also Mr.Miller slipped in some wonderful things; and people began to say that the paper was lookin' up. While Mr. Wilkinson, the editor, smiled and took the compliments give him just like he deserved 'em. And onct Mitch printed one of his poems about Salem, where one of the verses was:
Down by the mill where Linkern lived,Where the waters whirl and swish,I love to sit when school is out,Catchin' a nice cat fish.
I don't believe Mitch worked on the newspaper more'n a week or ten days, but lots happened; and I went down to see him a good deal to hear Dutchie Bale talk and swear. He swore awful, especially on press day; for the press nearly always broke down just as they started to print. Then Dutchie would turn loose:
"Look at the old corn-sheller, look at the old cider mill, look at the junk (all the time puttin' in the awfulest profanity). Here he's over at Springfield, and me runnin' the paper and tryin' to print a paper on a grindstone like this. I'm goin' to quit—I've had enough of this (more terrible profanity)."
Mitch would be standin' there half scared and half laughin', and another printer named Sandy Bill would be sayin': "Why don't you tighten that bolt, Dutchie?" Then Dutchie would crawl under the press and start to do what Sandy said, but findin' that the bolt was all right, he'd crawl out again and maybe see Sandy kind of laughin'. So thinkin' Sandy was foolin' him, they'd begin to quarrel; and maybe, it would end with Dutchie throwin' a monkey wrench at Sandy and rushin' out of the room. He'd come back later, for you couldn't reallydrive him off the place; and maybe after a hour or two the paper would be printed.
Well, Mr. Miller had wrote a long poem about the Indians, and he began to print it, and then somethin' happened. A man named Pemberton, which they called the Jack of Clubs, and a man named Hockey, which they called "Whistlin' Dick," had an awful fight by the corner store; and Mitch wrote up the fight for the paper, the editor bein' in Springfield, and Dutchie not carin' what was printed. Mitch called 'em human wind-mills; and when the paper came out, everybody in town began to laugh and the papers sold like hot cakes. Mr. Wilkinson was in Springfield and had nothin' to do with it; but Whistlin' Dick thought Mr. Wilkinson had wrote the piece and put it in. So he kept goin' to the depot waitin' for Mr. Wilkinson to get off the train from Springfield. When he did, which was in a day or two, he went right up to Mr. Wilkinson and hit him, and then proceeded to lick him until he had enough, and got up and ran; though he was sayin' all the time that he didn't write the piece and didn't know nothin' about it. Then Mr. Wilkinson came to the office and read the piece and Dutchie told him that Mitch wrote it. And that ended Mitch as an editor. He was afraid to go back to the office anyway, in addition to bein' fired.
CHAPTER XXVII
Mitch was now a changed boy and every one could see it. He didn't come around as much as he used to. At first Mr. Miller set him to work to learn the printer's trade as I have told. That kept him away from me; but after he lost the job, still I didn't see him like I used to. I looked him up a good deal, but he was mostly quiet. He didn't want to fish, or to swim, or to go out to the farm—he just read, Shakespeare and other books; lying in the grass by his house. And he wouldn't come down to see me much, because he said it made him think of Little Billie. And Zueline had gone away with her mother, they said to Springfield; and if she'd been home, Mitch couldn't have seen her anyway. I was terrible lonesome without Mitch and the days dragged, and I kept hearin' of him bein' off with Charley King and George Heigold and it worried me.
Harold Carman had been put in jail, and then let out on bond, which held him to testify in the Rainey case. And one day Mitch came to me and says: "I'm really caught in this law. I've been to see your pa. I thought I'd told my story once and that would do; but he says there'll be a new jury that never has heard about the case or what I know; and I'll have to tell it all over again. And with Harold Carman to tell about their tryin' to get him to say he found a pistol, and my story,they can convict Temple Scott. So I'm caught; and if we had ever so much to do, and ever so much treasure to find, or trips to take, I'd have to put it aside for this here law and testifyin'. And if they knew how I hated it, they'd never ask me if I didn't like it, and like makin' a sensation and actin' the part of Tom Sawyer."
"Pinafore" was played at last, and we all went, but when my pa sang the "Merry, Merry Maiden and the Tar," Mitch got up and left the hall, because, as he said to me afterward, it brought back that awful night when Joe Rainey was killed. It must have affected others that way too; that and the death of Mrs. Rainey, who had a part in the show. For they only played two nights, instead of three, which they intended. Not enough came to make it worth while.
Then one night I went up to see Mitch and the house seemed quieter. The girls was playin' as before, but not so wild. Mr. Miller was readin' to Mrs. Miller, English history or somethin'; but Mrs. Miller looked kind of like she was tryin' to pay attention. She didn't act interested and happy like she used to. Mitch told me then that his pa had been let out of the church; that while we was gone to St. Louis the trustees met and decided that they wanted a minister who would put a lot of go into the church and get converts and make things hum; that the mortgage on the church had to be met and they couldn't meet it without gettin' more people interested in the church and church work. That may have been all true; but just the same everybody said that Mr. Miller was let go because he preached that sermon about God bein' in everything, which he didn't mean except just as a person talks to hisself. He was dreamin', like Mitch, when he said it.
So Mr. Miller was goin' to Springfield to see what he could do about gettin' to sell books or maps or atlases, and quit preachin' till a church turned up, or preach a little now and then, and marry folks when he could, and preach at funerals. I heard Mr. Miller say to my pa that he was worried about Mitch; that Mitch talked in his sleep and ground his teeth, and talked about engines and horses and findin' pistols and treasure, and ridin' on steamboats, and about Zueline and Tom Sawyer. And he said he'd tried to get him to go out to the farm with me and ride horses and get a change, but he wouldn't. He just read Shakespeare until they hid the book; and then they found him readin' Burns; and once Ingersoll's Lectures, which they also took away, because Mr. Miller thought Mitch was too young.
About this time I was about a third through readin' the Bible to earn that five dollars that grandma had promised me. And Mitch asked me what I thought, and I said I didn't understand it much; but in parts it was as wonderful as any book. And Mitch says, "Do you know what the Bible is?" "No," I says; "what is it?" "Why," he says, "the Bible is the 'Tom Sawyer' of grown folks. I know that now; so I don't have to go through the trouble of findin' it out after I'm grown up and depended upon it for a long while. There's the sky and the earth, and there are folks, and we're more or less real to each other, and there's something back of it. But I believe when you die, you're asleep—sound asleep—I almost know it. And why we should wake up a bit and then go to sleep forever is more than my pa knows or any person in the world knows."
Mitch scared me with his talk. He was so earnest and solemn and seemed so sure.
One night when I was up to Mr. Miller's, it came up somehow what we was goin' to do when we was grown up—Mitch and me—and Mrs. Miller thought we should be taught somethin' to earn a livin' by; and that the schools instead of teachin' so much, and teachin' Latin and Greek, which nobody used, should teach practical things.
And Mr. Miller said, "Look out! That's comin' fast enough; it's on us already. For back of the schools are the factories and places that always want workers, and they're already usin' the schools to turn out workers, boys who don't know much, or boys who know one thing. And it makes no difference what happens to me—it's just as much or more to know how to enjoy life and to enjoy it, as it is to be able to earn a livin'. If you earn a livin' and don't know how to enjoy life, you're as bad off as if you know how to enjoy life, but can't make a livin', or not much of one. Look here, you boys: Anything that gives you pleasure, like Greek and Latin, stories, history, doin' things, whatever they are, for the sake of livin', are worth while. And you let yourselves go. And don't be molded into a tool for somebody's use, and lose your own individuality."
And that's the way he talked. And then he said it was all right to dig for treasure if we wanted to, and to want to see the Mississippi River and see Tom Sawyer, and he didn't blame us a bit for anything we had done. "Yes," he says, "I'll take you to Springfield to-morrow; ask your pa, Skeet, and come along."
I did; and the next morning we took the train for Springfield; and here was a big town, not as big as St. Louis, but awful big. The capitol was bigger'n any building in St. Louis, with a great dome and a flag.And Mr. Miller took us out to see Lincoln's monument. Just when we got there, two men in overalls came runnin' from the back of the tomb and said a man—an old soldier—had just killed himself with a knife. So we ran around and found him lyin' in a lot of blood. The men came back and took a bottle of whisky out of his pocket, and a writing which said that the prohibition party had been defeated, and if it had won he couldn't have got whisky; and so he killed himself because the prohibition party had been defeated. And Mitch says, "What a fool idea! If he wanted the prohibition party defeated, why did he drink and buy whisky; and if he drank and carried whisky in his pocket, why did he want the prohibition party to win, and kill himself because it lost? He was crazy, wasn't he, pa?"
And Mr. Miller said, "Not necessarily—that's sense as things go in the world. Some people want whisky done away with so they can't get it their own selves, and when they can't get a law for that, it disappoints 'em, and they keep on drinkin' because they're disappointed, or kill themselves because their disappointment is too much. For you can depend upon it that any man that gets his mind too much fixed on any idea is like a cross-eyed man killin' a steer with a sledgehammer; he hits whar he's lookin', and hits wrong. Lincoln had a way of holdin' to an idea without the idea draggin' him down and away from everything else."
They had carried the dead man off, so we went into the tomb to see the curiosities. And there was more things than you could see: All kinds of flags and framed things, pictures and writing and showcases with pistols, and all sorts of trinkets, bullets, and knives; and a pair of spectacles which Linkern had wore, and a piece of arail he had split, and books he'd read, and a piece of ribbon with his blood on it the night he died, and a theater program and lots of other things.
Then we went out-doors and looked up at the monument, and it made me dizzy to see the clouds sail over the top of it. And there was a figure of Linkern in iron, and of soldiers in iron charging, and horses in iron; besides mottoes cut in the stone and in iron. Then we went around to the back again where the old soldier had killed himself. They had the blood wiped up now. So we looked through the iron bars where a stone coffin was, but Linkern wasn't in there, Mr. Miller said. For once they had tried to steal him, and got the lead coffin out, and clear down the hill that we could see; but they caught 'em. And after that they dug way down and put Linkern there, and then poured mortar or concrete all over him, clear up to the top; then laid the floor again and put this marble coffin there, which was a dummy and had nothin' in it. So now nobody could get Linkern forever and ever.
And then we came around in front again, and Mr. Miller looked up at the statue of Linkern and began to study it, and he says: "I brought you boys to Springfield and out here to learn and to get things into your mind. You'll remember this trip as long as you live. It's the first time you've ever been here, and you'll be here lots of times again, maybe; but you'll always remember this time. Now, just look at Lincoln's face and his body and tell me how anybody could see him and not see that he was different from other men. Look how his face comes out in the bronze and becomes wonderful, and then think if you can how a handsome face would look in bronze—just the difference betweena wonderful cliff or mountain side, and a great, smooth, perfect bowlder. And yet, boys, that man went right around here for twenty years, yes and more, all around this town, all around Petersburg, up at Old Salem, all over the country, practicing law, walking along the streets with people, talkin' with 'em on the corners, sittin' by 'em by the cannon stove in the offices of the hotels, sleepin' in the same rooms with 'em, as he did up at Petersburg at the Menard House, when the grand jury had the loft and they put Lincoln up there too, because there was no other place to put him."
"The Menard House," says Mitch; "do you mean that hotel there now?"
"The very same," said Mr. Miller; "didn't you know that?"
"No," says Mitch.