THEM awful words froze us solid. We couldn't
move hand or foot for as much as half a minute.
Then we kind of come to, and lifted the old man up
and got him into his chair,
and Benny petted him and
kissed him and tried to comfort him, and poor old
Aunt Sally she done the same; but, poor things, they
was so broke up and scared and knocked out of their
right minds that they didn't hardly know what they was
about. With Tom it was awful; it 'most petrified him
to think maybe he had got his uncle into a thousand
times more trouble than ever, and maybe it wouldn't
ever happened if he hadn't been so ambitious to get
celebrated, and let the corpse alone the way the others
done. But pretty soon he sort of come to himself
again and says:
"Uncle Silas, don't you say another word like that.
It's dangerous, and there ain't a shadder of truth in it."
Aunt Sally and Benny was thankful to hear him say
that, and they said the same; but the old man he
wagged his head sorrowful and hopeless, and the tears
run down his face, and he says;
"No -- I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it!"
It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went
on and told about it, and said it happened the day
me and Tom come -- along about sundown. He said
Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so
mad he just sort of lost his mind and grabbed up a stick
and hit him over the head with all his might, and
Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared and
sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head
up, and begged him to speak and say he wasn't dead;
and before long he come to, and when he see who it
was holding his head, he jumped like he was 'most
scared to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the
woods, and was gone. So he hoped he wasn't hurt
bad.
"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that
gave him that last little spurt of strength, and of course
it soon played out and he laid down in the bush, and
there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died."
Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was
a murderer and the mark of Cain was on him, and he
had disgraced his family and was going to be found
out and hung. But Tom said:
"No, you ain't going to be found out. You DIDN'T
kill him. ONE lick wouldn't kill him. Somebody else
done it."
"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it -- nobody else.
Who else had anything against him? Who else COULD
have anything against him?"
He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could
mention somebody that could have a grudge against
that harmless no-account, but of course it warn't no
use -- he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He
noticed that, and he saddened down again, and I never
see a face so miserable and so pitiful to see. Tom
had a sudden idea, and says:
"But hold on! -- somebody BURIED him. Now
who --"
He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give
me the cold shudders when he said them words, because
right away I remembered about us seeing Uncle Silas
prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in
the night that night. And I knowed Benny seen him,
too, because she was talking about it one day. The
minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and went
to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us
done the same, and said he MUST, and said it wasn't his
business to tell on himself, and if he kept mum nobody
would ever know; but if it was found out and any
harm come to him it would break the family's hearts
and kill them, and yet never do anybody any good.
So at last he promised. We was all of us more com-
fortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old
man. We told him all he'd got to do was to keep still,
and it wouldn't be long till the whole thing would blow
over and be forgot. We all said there wouldn't any-
body ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such
a thing, he being so good and kind, and having such a
good character; and Tom says, cordial and hearty, he
says:
"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider.
Here is Uncle Silas, all these years a preacher -- at his
own expense; all these years doing good with all his
might and every way he can think of -- at his own ex-
pense, all the time; always been loved by everybody,
and respected; always been peaceable and minding his
own business, the very last man in this whole deestrict
to touch a person, and everybody knows it. Suspect
HIM? Why, it ain't any more possible than --"
"By authority of the State of Arkansaw, I arrest
you for the murder of Jubiter Dunlap!" shouts the
sheriff at the door.
It was awful. Aunt Sally and Benny flung themselves
at Uncle Silas, screaming and crying, and hugged him
and hung to him, and Aunt Sally said go away, she
wouldn't ever give him up, they shouldn't have him,
and the niggers they come crowding and crying to the
door and -- well, I couldn't stand it; it was enough to
break a person's heart; so I got out.
They took him up to the little one-horse jail in the
village, and we all went along to tell him good-bye;
and Tom was feeling elegant, and says to me, "We'll
have a most noble good time and heaps of danger some
dark night getting him out of there, Huck, and it'll be
talked about everywheres and we will be celebrated;"
but the old man busted that scheme up the minute he
whispered to him about it. He said no, it was his duty
to stand whatever the law done to him, and he would
stick to the jail plumb through to the end, even if
there warn't no door to it. It disappointed Tom
and graveled him a good deal, but he had to put up
with it.
But he felt responsible and bound to get his uncle
Silas free; and he told Aunt Sally, the last thing, not
to worry, because he was going to turn in and work
night and day and beat this game and fetch Uncle Silas
out innocent; and she was very loving to him and
thanked him and said she knowed he would do his very
best. And she told us to help Benny take care of the
house and the children, and then we had a good-bye
cry all around and went back to the farm, and left her
there to live with the jailer's wife a month till the trial
in October.