By and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder and started for the steps; but as I come to the girls’ room the door was open, and I seen Mary Jane sitting by her big old chest, which was open and she’d been putting things in it -- getting ready to go to England. But she had stopped now with a folded dress in her lap, and had her face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; anybody would. I went in there and says: "Miss Mary Jane, it hurts you to see people in trouble, and it does me too -- most always. Tell me about it."
So she done it. And it was the slaves -- I just knew it. She said the trip to England was about destroyed for her; she didn’t know how she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and the children weren’t ever going to see each other no more -- and then she broke out sadder than ever, and threw up her hands, and says:
"Oh, those sweet people, to think they ain’t ever going to see each other any more!"
"But they will -- inside of two weeks -- and I know it!" says I.
Rats! It was out before I could think! And before I could move she throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it again, say it again, say it again!
I see I had spoke too fast and said too much, and was in a close place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she sat there, not being at all patient, her being so filled with interest and looking beautiful, and kind of happy and easy, like a person that’s had a tooth pulled out. So I went to studying it out. I says to myself, I think a body that goes and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is facing a lot of danger, but I ain’t ever done that, so I can’t say for sure; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here’s a place where it looks to me like the truth is better and maybe even safer than a lie. I must think it over for a while, it’s so kind of strange and not right for me. I never seen nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last, I’m a-going to do it; I’ll up and tell the truth this one time, even if it does seem most like sitting down on a barrel of gun powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go.
Then I says: "Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you could go and stay three or four days?"
"Yes; Mr. Lothrop’s. Why?"
"Don’t worry about why just yet. If I tell you how I know the servants will see each other again inside of two weeks -- here in this house -- and prove how I know it -- will you go to Mr. Lothrop’s and stay four days?"
"Four days!" she says; "I’ll stay a year!"
"All right," I says, "I don’t want nothing more out of you than just your word -- I would take it more than another man’s kiss-the-Bible." She smiled and turned red very sweetly, and I says, "If you don’t mind it, I’ll shut the door -- and lock it."
Then I come back and sat down again, and says: "Don’t you shout. Just sit quiet and take it like a man. I got to tell the truth, and you want to be strong, Miss Mary, because it’s a bad kind, and it's going to be hard to take, but there ain’t no help for it. These uncles of yours ain’t no uncles at all; they’re both robbers -- real devils. There, now we’re over the worst of it, you can take the rest pretty easy."
It surprised her like everything, as I knew it would; but I was over the rough water now, so I went right along and told her every last thing, from where we first met that foolish young man going up to the river boat, clear through to where she threw herself on to the king’s breast at the front door and he kissed her sixteen or seventeen times -- and then up she jumps, with her face burning like the sun, and says: "That animal! Come, don’t waste a minute -- not a second -- we’ll have them tarred and feathered, and thrown in the river!"
Says I: "Sure. But do you mean before you go to Mr. Lothrop’s, or -- "
"Oh," she says, "What am I thinking about!" and sat down again. "Don’t listen to what I said -- please don’t -- you won’t now, will you?" putting her soft hand on mine in that kind of way that I said I would die first.
"I never thought, I was so worked up," she says; "now go on, and I won’t do so any more. You tell me what to do, and what you say I’ll do it."
"Well," I says, "it’s a rough gang, them two snakes, and I’m fixed so I have to travel with them a while longer, if I want to or not -- Don’t ask me to tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would get me out of their claws, and I’d be all right; but there’d be another person that you don’t know about who’d be in big trouble. Well, we got to save him ain’t we? I see you agree. Well, then, we won’t blow on them."
Saying them words put a plan in my head. I see how maybe I could get me and Jim away from the two of them and get them put in prison. But I didn’t want to run the raft in the light without anyone on it to answer questions but me; so I didn’t want the plan to start working until pretty late that night.
I says: "Miss Mary Jane, I’ll tell you what to do, and you won’t have to stay at Mr. Lothrop’s so long, either. How far is it?"
"A little short of four miles -- right out in the country."
"Well, that’ll do. Now you go there, and keep low until nine or half-past tonight, and then get them to take you home again -- tell them you’ve thought of something. If you get here before eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don’t turn up until eleven, then it means I’m gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and pass the news around, and get these men locked up."
"Good," she says, "I’ll do it."
"And if it just happens so that I don’t get away, but get took up along with them, you must say I told you the whole thing before it happened, and you must stand by me all you can."
"Stand by you! Oh I will. They shall not touch a hair of your head!" she says, and I seen her nose go wide and her eyes light up when she said it, too.
"If I get away I shall not be here," I says, "to prove these snakes ain’t your uncles, and I couldn’t do it if I was here. I could say they was counterfeits, that’s all, and that’s worth something. But there’s others can do that better than me, and they’re people that will be trusted more than I’d be. I’ll tell you how to find them. Give me a pencil and a piece of paper. There -- ‘The King’s Foolishness, Bricksville.’
"Put it away, and don’t lose it. When the court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say they’ve got the men that played The King’s Foolishness, and ask for some witnesses -- You’ll have that whole town down here before you can even wink, Miss Mary. And they’ll come red-hot, too."
I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says: "Just let the sale go right along, and don’t worry. Nobody don’t have to pay for the things they buy until a whole day after the sale because it is happening so soon after the funeral, and they ain’t going to leave until they get that money; and the way we’ve fixed it the sale ain’t going to count, and they ain’t going to get no money. It’s just like the way it was with the slaves -- it weren’t no sale, and your servants will be back before long. Why, they can’t even get the money for the slaves yet -- they’re in the worst kind of a place, Miss Mary."
"Well," she says, "I’ll run down to breakfast now, and then I’ll start straight for Mr. Lothrop’s."
"I’m afraid that ain’t the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "not by a long ways; go before breakfast."
"Why?"
"Why'd you think I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?"
"Well, I never thought -- and come to think, I don’t know. What was it?"
"Why, it’s because you ain’t one of these leather-face people. I don’t want no better book than what your face is. A body can sit down and read it off like big print. Do you think you can go and face your uncles when they come to kiss you good morning, and never -- "
"There, there, don’t! Yes, I’ll go before breakfast -- I’ll be glad to. And leave my sisters with them?"
"Yes; don’t worry about them. They’ve got to put up with it yet a while. They might think something was up if all of you was to go. I don’t want you to see them, or your sisters, or nobody in this town; if a neighbour was to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell it all. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I’ll fix it with all of them. I’ll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you’ve went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a friend, and you’ll be back tonight or early in the morning."
"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won’t have my love given to them."
"Well, then, it shall not be." It was well enough to tell her so -- that wouldn’t hurt no one. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it’s the little things that smooths people’s roads the most, down here below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn’t cost nothing. Then I says: "There’s one more thing -- that bag of money."
"Well, they’ve got that," says Mary Jane, "and it makes me feel pretty stupid to think how they got it."
"No, you’re out, there. They ain’t got it."
"Why, who’s got it?"
"I wish I knowed, but I don’t. I had it, because I robbed it from them; and I robbed it to give to you; and I know where it’s hiding, but I’m afraid it ain’t there no more. I’m awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I’m just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I come close to getting caught, and I had to put it into the first place I come to, and run -- and it weren’t a good place."
"Oh, stop blaming yourself -- it’s too bad to do that, and I won’t let you -- you couldn’t help it; you’re not to blame. Where did you hide it?"
I didn’t want to start her thinking about her troubles again; and I couldn’t seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that dead body lying in the box with that bag of money on its stomach. So for a minute I didn’t say nothing; then I says: "I don’t want to tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you can let me off on that one; but I’ll write it for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop’s, if you want to. Do you think that’ll do?"
"Oh, yes."
So I wrote: "I put it in the box with your uncle’s body. It was in there when you was crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was very sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."
It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by herself in the night, and them devils sleeping there right under her own roof, tricking her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her I seen the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says: "Goodbye. I’m going to do everything just as you’ve told me; and if I don’t ever see you again, I shall not ever forget you. and I’ll think of you many a time, and I’ll pray for you, too!" -- and she was gone.
Pray for me! I thought if she knowed me she’d a taken a job that was more nearer her size. But I believe she done it, just the same -- she was just that kind. She had the ability to pray for Judas if she believed it was the right thing -- there weren’t no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but to my way of thinking she had more spiritual strength in her than any girl I ever seen; as I see it, she was just full of it. It sounds like I’m just flattering her, but I ain't. And when it comes to good looks -- and a good spirit, too -- she has ‘em over them all. I ain’t ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I ain’t ever seen her since, but I think I’ve thought of her a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I’d a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or died trying.
Well, Mary Jane she ran out the back way, I think; because nobody seen her go. When I met Susan and Joanna, I says: "What’s the name of them people over on t’other side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?"
They says: "There’s a few; but it’s the Proctors, mostly."
"That’s the name," I says; "I couldn’t remember it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she’s gone over there in a big hurry -- one of them’s sick."
"Which one?"
"I don’t know; at least I can’t remember; but I thinks it’s -- "
"Lord help us, I hope it ain’t Hanner?"
"I’m sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner’s the very one."
"Oh my, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"
"Bad is only the start of it. They sat up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane said, and they don’t think she’ll last many hours."
"Only think of that, now! What’s wrong with her?"
I couldn’t think of anything good, right off that way, so I says: "Mumps."
"Mumps your grandmother! They don’t sit up with people that’s got the mumps."
"They don’t, don’t they? You better know they do with these mumps. These mumps is different. It’s a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."
"How’s it a new kind?"
"Because it’s mixed up with other things."
"What other things?"
"Well, skin spots, and water in the lungs, and vomiting, and yellow eyes, and brain-heat, and I don’t know what all."
"My land! And they call it the mumps? "
"That’s what Miss Mary Jane said."
"Well, what in the world do they call it the mumps for?"
"Why, because it is the mumps. That’s what it starts with."
"Well, there ain’t no good reason for it. A body might hit his toe, and take poison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and knock his brains out, and someone come along and ask what killed him, and some stupid person would up and say, ‘Well, he hit his toe.’ Would there be any good reason for saying that? No. And there ain’t no good reason in this, either. Is it catching?"
"Is it catching? Why, how you talk. Is a rake catching -- in the dark? If you don’t catch on one tooth, you will on another, won’t you? And you can’t get away with that tooth without bringing the whole rake along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a rake, as you may say -- and it ain’t no little rake either."
"Well, it’s awful, I think," says the young one. "I’ll go to Uncle Harvey and -- "
"Oh, yes," I says like she was stupid, "I would. For sure I would. I wouldn’t lose no time."
"Well, why wouldn’t you?"
"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Ain’t your uncles needed in England as fast as they can? And do you think they’d be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that way by yourselves? You know they’ll wait for you. So far, so good. Your uncle Harvey’s a preacher, ain’t he? Very well, then; is a preacher going to lie to a river boat ticket seller? -- so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go on the boat? Now you know he ain’t. What will he do, then? Why, he’ll say, ‘It’s too bad, but my church business has got to get along the best way it can without me; for my brother’s daughter has been near to someone with the awful this-and-that mumps, and so it’s only right for me to sit down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she’s got it.’ But go ahead, if you think it’s best to tell your uncle Harvey -- "
"And stay wasting time around here waiting to find out if Mary Jane’s got it or not, when we could all be having good times in England instead? Why, don’t be so foolish."
"Well, maybe you’d better tell some of the neighbours."
"Listen at that, now. You do come in first for being stupid. Can’t you see that they’d go and tell? There ain’t no way but just to not tell anyone at all."
"Well," I says, "maybe you’re right -- yes, I judge you are."
"But I think we should tell Uncle Harvey she’s gone out a while, anyway, so he won’t be worried about her?"
"Yes, Miss Mary Jane wanted you to do that. She says, ‘Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I’ve run over the river to see Mr.’ -- Mr. -- what is the name of that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much of? -- I mean the one that -- "
"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain’t it?"
"That’s it; I hate them kind of names, a body can’t ever seem to remember them, half the time. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the sale and buy this house, because she believed her uncle Peter would want them to have it more than anyone else; and she’s going to stick to them until they say they’ll come, and then, if she ain’t too tired, she’s coming home; and if she is tired, she’ll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don’t say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps -- which’ll be perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know it, because she told me so herself."
"All right," they said, and left to look for their uncles, and give them love and kisses, and tell them what we had agreed on.
Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn’t say nothing because they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would be happier to know Mary Jane was off working for the sale than around in reach of Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat -- I think Tom Sawyer couldn’t a done it no neater himself. He would a throwed more quality into it, but I can’t do that very well, not being brought up to it.
Well, they held the sale in the centre of town, along toward the end of the afternoon, and it went on and on, and the old man he was on hand and looking as evil as I ever seen him, up there beside the man who was doing the selling, and putting in a Bible verse now and then, or a little goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing, for he knowed how to get people to feel sorry for him.
But by and by the thing finished, and everything was sold -- everything but a little old piece of land for burying a body. So they’d got to work that off too -- I never did see anyone as greedy as the king for wanting to take everything. Well, while they was at it a river boat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-shouting and laughing and carrying on, and singing out: "Here’s something to choose from! Here’s another two brothers to old Peter Wilks. Bring your money and take your choice over who you’ll give it to!"