The doctor was a very nice, kind-looking man. I told him me and my brother was over on the Island hunting yesterday, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and hit him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, and not let anybody know, because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise our parents.
"Who are your parents?" he says.
"The Phelpses."
"Oh," he says.
After a minute, he says: "How'd you say the shooting happened?"
"He had a dream," I says, "and it put a bullet in his leg."
"Strange dream," he says.
So he got his lantern and his saddle-bags, and we started.
But when he saw the canoe he didn’t like the look of her -- said she was big enough for one, but didn’t look safe for two.
I says: "Oh, you needn’t be afraid, sir, she carried the three of us easy enough yesterday."
"What three?"
"Why, me and Sid, and -- and the guns; that’s what I mean."
"Oh," he says. But he put his foot on the side of it and gave it a push. He shook his head, and said he’d look around for a bigger one. But they was all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait until he come back, or I could go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted. But I said I didn’t; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he started.
Pretty soon I says to myself, what if he can’t fix that leg in three shakes of a lamb's tail, as the saying is? What if it takes three or four days? What're we going to do? We can’t wait until he lets the cat out of the bag. No, sir. I know what I’ll do. I’ll wait, and when he comes back if he says he’s got to go out there again I’ll get down there, too, if I have to swim; and we’ll take and tie him up, and keep him on the raft, and head down the river; and when Tom’s done with him we’ll give him what it’s worth, or all we got, and then let him get back to land.
So then I found a good hiding place and got some sleep. Next I knew the sun was away up over my head! I raced out of my hiding place and went for the doctor’s house, but they said he’d gone away in the night some time, and weren’t back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad for Tom, and I’ll dig out for the island right off. So away I ran, and turned the corner, and nearly banged my head into Uncle Silas’s stomach! He says: "Why, Tom! Where you been all this time, you little rabbit?"
"I ain’t been nowhere," I says, "only just hunting for the runaway slave -- me and Sid."
"Why, where ever did you go?" he says. "Your aunt’s been mighty worried."
"She needn’t," I says, "because we was all right. We followed the men and the dogs, but they was too fast for us, and we lost them; but we heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over, but couldn’t find nothing; we was too tired to make the crossing a second time, so we tied up the canoe and went to sleep, and never waked up until an hour ago; then we come over to hear the news. Sid’s down the road to see what he can hear, and I’m a-looking for something to eat, and then we’re going home."
So then we went down the street to get "Sid"; but as I knew it would be, he weren’t there; so we waited a little longer, but Sid didn’t come; so the old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, when he's finished playing around -- but we would ride. I couldn’t get him to let me stay and wait for Sid; he said there weren’t no use in it, and I must come along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all right.
When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them hits of hers that don’t mean anything, and said she’d serve Sid the same when he come.
The place was full of farmers and farmers’ wives, come to dinner; and so much talk a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the worst; her tongue was a-going all the time. She says: "Well, Sister Phelps, I’ve gone over that shack and I believe that slave was crazy. I says to Sister Damrell -- didn’t I, Sister Damrell? -- I says he’s crazy -- them’s the very words I said. You all heard me: he’s crazy, I says, everything shows it. Look at that big old stone, says I; want to tell me’that anyone that’s in his right mind is a going to scratch all them crazy things onto a stone, says I? Here such and such a person broke his heart; and here so and so went along for thirty-seven years, and all that son of Louis somebody, and such eternal foolishness. He’s real crazy, says I; it’s what I said in the first place, it’s what I says in the middle, and it’s what I’ll say last and for all time -- the man’s crazy -- crazy as Nebuchadnezer, says I."
"And look at that there ladder made out of clothes, Sister Hotchkiss," says old Mrs. Damrell. "What in the name of all that’s good could he ever want of -- "
"The very words I was a-saying no longer ago than this minute to Sister Utterback; she’ll tell you so herself. Look at that there cloth ladder, says she; and says I, Yes, look at it, says I -- what could he a-wanted of it, says I. Sister Hotchkiss, says she -- "
"But how in the world did they ever get that stone in there, anyway? And who made that there hole? and who -- "
"My very words, Brother Penrod! I was a-sayin’ -- pass that there cup of sugar, won’t you? -- I was a-saying to Sister Dunlap, just this minute, how did they get that stone in there, says I. Without help, mind you -- without help! There’s where it is. Don’t tell me, says I; there was help, and there was a lot of help, too, says I; there’s been at least ten or twelve a-helping that slave, and I’d skin every last slave on this place but I’d find out who done it, says I; and on top of that -- "
"Ten or twelve says you? -- forty couldn’t a done everything that’s been done. Look at them table-knife saws and things, how carefully they’ve been made; look at that bed leg sawed off with ‘em, a week’s work for six men; look at that man made out of dry grass on the bed; and look at -- "
"You may well say it, Brother Hightower! It’s just as I was a- saying to Brother Phelps, his own self. Says he, what do you think of it, Sister Hotchkiss, says he? Think of what, Brother Phelps? says I. Think of that bed leg sawed off that a way, says he? Think of it, says I? I can tell you it never sawed itself off, says I -- someone sawed it, says I; that’s my thinking, take it or leave it, it may not be, says I, but such as it is, it’s my think- ing, says I, and if anyone can start a better one, let him do it, says I, that’s all. I says to Sister Dunlap, -- "
"Why, dog my cats, they must a been a house full of blacks in there every night for four weeks to a done all that work, Sister Phelps. Look at that shirt -- every last inch of it covered over with secret African writing done with blood! Must a been a raft of ‘em at it right along, all the time, almost. Why, I’d give two dollars to have it read to me; and as for the blacks that wrote it, I think I’d take and whip ‘em until -- "
"People to help him, Brother Marples? Well, I say you’d think so if you’d a been in this house for a while back. Why, they’ve robbed everything they could put their hands on -- and we a-watching all the time, mind you. They robbed that shirt right off of the line! and as for that sheet they made the rope ladder out of, there ain’t no telling how many times they didn’t rob that; and flour, and candles, and candle-sticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and most a thousand things that I can think of now, and my new dress; and me and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the watch day and night, as I was a-telling you, and not a one of us could catch a look or a sound of them; and here at the last minute, look and see, they come right in under our noses and tricked us, and not only tricked us but tricked the Indian country robbers too, and got away with that slave safe and sound, and that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs right on their very heels at that very time! I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever heard of. Why, spirits couldn’t a done it better and been no smarter. And I think they must a been spirits -- because, you know our dogs, and there ain’t no better; well, them dogs never even got the smell of ‘em once! You tell me how that could be, if you can -- any of you!"
"Well, it does go -- "
"Laws alive, I never -- "
"So help me, I wouldn’t a been -- "
"House-robbers as well as -- "
"For the love of Pete, I’d a been afraid to live in such a -- "
"Afraid to live! -- why, I was that scared I could hardly go to bed, or get up, or lie down, or sit down, Sister Ridgeway. Why, they’d rob the very -- why, just think what kind of a worry I was in by the time midnight come last night. I hope to die if I weren’t afraid they’d rob some of the family! I was just to that point I didn’t have no ability to think no more. It looks foolish enough now, in the day; but I says to myself, there’s my two poor boys asleep, way up in that room by themselves, and I tell the truth I was that worried that I went up there and locked ‘em in! I did. And anyone would. Because, you know, when you get scared that way, and it keeps running on, and getting worse and worse all the time, and your mind gets confused, you get to doing all kinds of wild things, and by and by you think to yourself, what if I was a boy, and was away up there, and the door ain’t locked, and you -- "
She stopped, looking kind of confused, and then she turned her head around slow, and when her eye landed on me -- I got up and took a walk.
Says I to myself, I can tell it better how we come to not be in that room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little. So I done it. But I couldn’t go too far, or she’d a sent for me. And when it was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and told her the noise and shooting waked up me and "Sid," and the door was locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the lightning-rod, and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn’t never want to try that no more. And then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before; and then she said she’d forgive us, and maybe it was right enough any- way, and about what boys do, for all boys was a rough lot as far as she could see; and so, as long as no hurt had come of it, she judged she better put in her time being thankful we was alive and well and she had us still, instead of worrying over what was past and done. So then she kissed me, and rubbed my head in a nice way, and dropped into a kind of a brown study; and pretty soon jumps up, and says: "Why, lord have mercy, it’s almost night, and Sid not come yet! What has become of that boy?"
I see the opening; so I jumps up and says: "I’ll run right up to town and get him."
"No you won’t," she says. "You’ll stay right where you are; one’s enough to be lost at a time. If he ain’t here to dinner, your uncle will go."
Well, he weren’t there to dinner; so after dinner uncle went.
He come back about ten a little worried; hadn’t run across word of Tom. Aunt Sally was a lot worried; but Uncle Silas he said there weren’t no reason to be -- boys will be boys, he said, and you’ll see this one turn up in the morning all safe and right. So she had to go with that. But she said she’d sit 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 brought her candle, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like I couldn’t look her in the face; and she sat down on the bed and talked with me a long time, and said what a good 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 thought he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe drowned, and might be lying at this minute somewhere in pain or dead, and she not being by him to help him, and so the tears would start falling quietly, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in the morning, for 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 serious and kind, 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 me?"
Lord knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was planning to go; but after that I wouldn’t a went, not for countries.
But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I didn’t sleep well. And two times I went down the rod away in the night, and around to the front, and seen her sitting there by her candle in the window with her eyes toward the road and the tears in them; and I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn’t, only to promise myself that I wouldn’t never do nothing to make her sad any more. And the third time I waked up with the sun, and went down, and she was there yet, and her candle was almost out, and her old grey head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep.