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- 3331
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T02:26:29.299Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3261
- text
- “That _is_ it! Where ’bouts is it, Huck?”
“I bleeve it’s down at ’tother end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to sleep
there, sometimes, ’long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he just lifts
things when _he_ snores. Besides, I reckon he ain’t ever coming back to
this town any more.”
The spirit of adventure rose in the boys’ souls once more.
“Hucky, do you das’t to go if I lead?”
“I don’t like to, much. Tom, s’pose it’s Injun Joe!”
Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the
boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to their
heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily down,
the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps of the
snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap. The man
moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight. It was
Muff Potter. The boys’ hearts had stood still, and their hopes too,
when the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tip-toed out,
through the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little distance
to exchange a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on the night
air again! They turned and saw the strange dog standing within a few
feet of where Potter was lying, and _facing_ Potter, with his nose
pointing heavenward.
“Oh, geeminy, it’s _him_!” exclaimed both boys, in a breath.
“Say, Tom—they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller’s
house, ’bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come
in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there
ain’t anybody dead there yet.”
“Well, I know that. And suppose there ain’t. Didn’t Gracie Miller fall
in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?”
“Yes, but she ain’t _dead_. And what’s more, she’s getting better, too.”
“All right, you wait and see. She’s a goner, just as dead sure as Muff
Potter’s a goner. That’s what the niggers say, and they know all about
these kind of things, Huck.”
Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom window
the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution, and
fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of his escapade. He
was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was awake, and had been so for
an hour.
When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in the
light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he not
been called—persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought filled
him with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down-stairs,
feeling sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but they had
finished breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there were averted
eyes; there was a silence and an air of solemnity that struck a chill
to the culprit’s heart. He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it
was up-hill work; it roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into
silence and let his heart sink down to the depths.
After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in
the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His aunt
wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so;
and finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray hairs
with sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try any more.
This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom’s heart was sorer now
than his body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised to reform
over and over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling that
he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a feeble
confidence.
- title
- Chunk 3