LITMIR.BIZ

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and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an audience—and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn’t no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn’t a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca’m and important, like the ram. When he got a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn’t want to disturb them, and says:

      “Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”

      “No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I’m sorry to say ‘t your driver has deceived you; Nichols’s place is down a matter of three mile more. Come in, come in.”

      Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late—he’s out of sight.”

      “Yes, he’s gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us; and then we’ll hitch up and take you down to Nichols’s.”

      “Oh, I can’t make you so much trouble; I couldn’t think of it. I’ll walk—I don’t mind the distance.”

      “But we won’t let you walk—it wouldn’t be Southern hospitality to do it. Come right in.”

      “Oh, do,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain’t a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world. You must stay. It’s a long, dusty three mile, and we can’t let you walk. And, besides, I’ve already told ‘em to put on another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn’t disappoint us. Come right in and make yourself at home.”

      So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson—and he made another bow.

      Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand, and says:

      “You owdacious puppy!”

      He looked kind of hurt, and says:

      “I’m surprised at you, m’am.”

      “You’re s’rp—Why, what do you reckon I am? I’ve a good notion to take and—Say, what do you mean by kissing me?”

      He looked kind of humble, and says:

      “I didn’t mean nothing, m’am. I didn’t mean no harm. I—I—thought you’d like it.”

      “Why, you born fool!” She took up the spinning stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. "What made you think I’d like it?”

      “Well, I don’t know. Only, they—they—told me you would.”

      “They told you I would. Whoever told you’s another lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who’s they?”

      “Why, everybody. They all said so, m’am.”

      It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:

      “Who’s ‘everybody’? Out with their names, or ther’ll be an idiot short.”

      He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:

      “I’m sorry, and I warn’t expecting it. They told me to. They all told me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she’d like it. They all said it—every one of them. But I’m sorry, m’am, and I won’t do it no more—I won’t, honest.”

      “You won’t, won’t you? Well, I sh’d reckon you won’t!”

      “No’m, I’m honest about it; I won’t ever do it again—till you ask me.”

      “Till I ask you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I lay you’ll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask you—or the likes of you.”

      “Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so. I can’t make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But—” He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman’s, and says, “Didn’t you think she’d like me to kiss her, sir?”

      “Why, no; I—I—well, no, I b’lieve I didn’t.”

      Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:

      “Tom, didn’t you think Aunt Sally ‘d open out her arms and say, ‘Sid Sawyer—‘”

      “My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you impudent young rascal, to fool a body so—” and was going to hug him, but he fended her off, and says:

      “No, not till you’ve asked me first.”

      So she didn’t lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says:

      “Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn’t looking for you at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but him.”

      “It’s because it warn’t intended for any of us to come but Tom,” he says; “but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain’t no healthy place for a stranger to come.”

      “No—not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I hain’t been so put out since I don’t know when. But I don’t care, I don’t mind the terms—I’d be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don’t deny it, I was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack.”

      We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven families—and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that’s laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn’t cool it a bit, neither, the way I’ve seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times. There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn’t no use, they didn’t happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the little boys says:

      “Pa, mayn’t Tom and Sid and me go to the show?”

      “No,” says the old man, “I reckon there ain’t going to be any; and you couldn’t go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the people; so I reckon they’ve drove the owdacious loafers out of town before this time.”

      So there it was!—but I couldn’t help it. Tom and me was to sleep in the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night and went up to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn’t believe anybody was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn’t hurry up and give them one they’d get into trouble sure.

      On

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