“Why, lawsamercy, it’s most night, and Sid not come yet! What has become of that boy?”
I see my chance; so I skips up and says:
“I’ll run right up to town and get him,” I says.
“No you won’t,” she says. “You’ll stay right wher’ you are; one’s enough to be lost at a time. If he ain’t here to supper, your uncle’ll go.”
Well, he warn’t there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.
He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn’t run across Tom’s track. Aunt Sally was a good deal uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said there warn’t no occasion to be—boys will be boys, he said, and you’ll see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right. So she had to be satisfied. But she said she’d set up for him a while anyway, and keep a light burning so he could see it.
And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like I couldn’t look her in the face; and she set down on the bed and talked with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and didn’t seem to want to ever stop talking about him; and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres suffering or dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in the morning, sure; and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me, and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her good, and she was in so much trouble. And when she was going away she looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and says:
“The door ain’t going to be locked, Tom, and there’s the window and the rod; but you’ll be good, won’t you? And you won’t go? For my sake.”
Laws knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all intending to go; but after that I wouldn’t a went, not for kingdoms.
But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless. And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them; and I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn’t, only to swear that I wouldn’t never do nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep.
XLII
The old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn’t get no track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not eating anything. And by and by the old man says:
“Did I give you the letter?”
“What letter?”
“The one I got yesterday out of the post-office.”
“No, you didn’t give me no letter.”
“Well, I must a forgot it.”
So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:
“Why, it’s from St. Petersburg—it’s from Sis.”
I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn’t stir. But before she could break it open she dropped it and run—for she see something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old doctor; and Jim, in her calico dress, with his hands tied behind him; and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:
“Oh, he’s dead, he’s dead, I know he’s dead!”
And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other, which showed he warn’t in his right mind; then she flung up her hands, and says:
“He’s alive, thank God! And that’s enough!” and she snatched a kiss of him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her
