CHAPTER XXVIIMitch was now a changed boy and every one could see it. He didn't come around as much as he used to. At first Mr. Miller set him to work to learn the printer's trade as I have told. That kept him away from me; but after he lost the job, still I didn't see him like I used to. I looked him up a good deal, but he was mostly quiet. He didn't want to fish, or to swim, or to go out to the farm--he just read, Shakespeare and other books; lying in the grass by his house....
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CHAPTER XXVIThere was days in here that I kind of forget. I remember Mr. Miller gave Mitch a watch which he had always promised him, and it looked good, but didn't run very well. So he was goin' to old Abe Zemple, which was a mechanic, to fix it. But it seemed to run worse, if anything. One thing that happened there was this: Old Zemple had a clock all apart, the wheels and springs scattered all over the bench. Mitch saw this and for fun he put a extra wheel on the bench with the rest. So when Old Zemple...
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CHAPTER XXVWe crossed the river and took the train. But the fun was over. Even our pas was quiet. Mitch fell asleep in his father's arms. I couldn't talk, somehow. The summer was fading, we could see that. We could hear the crickets in the grass whenever the train stopped. Sleep was falling on the earth. The fields were still and bare. No birds sang. And the train moved on. And we were going home; and to what? No more digging for treasure; no more belief in Tom Sawyer. School would commence soon. The end of the world seemed near. I...
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CHAPTER XXIVSo court bein' over, the town was dull again and all deserted. Watermelon rinds and newspapers was all over the court house yard. Hardly any farmers was in town. The stores seemed empty. And Mitch was quieter than I ever saw him. He didn't look well. He was reading Shakespeare; and I saw him go by with Charley King and George Heigold. I began to feel that I was losin' him. And one day my pa said, "How would you like to go to St. Louis on the boat? Your ma and Myrtle are goin' over to visit Aunt Fannie,...
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CHAPTER XXIIIThat's what had happened. She had died. Her heart went back on her. But my pa said they kept it away from the jury. And Mitch kept sittin' there lookin' pretty tired. The jury wasn't allowed to leave; but just sat there. And they passed 'em water. And the judge had gone out, probably to see Mrs. Rainey. My pa went too, and Major Abbott. Then they all came back together, and the judge got on the bench, and said to go on. Major Abbott stood up and took off his nose glasses and began to kind of shake 'em...
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CHAPTER XXIII got back to the court room about ten minutes to one and only a few was there. It was awful interestin' now, and I couldn't keep away or hardly wait for the next thing. Pretty soon Mitch came in and set by me. His hair was combed slick, and he acted terribly quiet. Then the judge came and my pa and court was opened. Pretty soon Mr. Miller came in and sat with Mitch and me and after a while Mrs. Miller, who hadn't been there before, and my ma was with her. The court room was so full...
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CHAPTER XXIEverything seemed changed now. My ma wasn't the same, the house wasn't the same; Myrtle was talkin' about girls and boys I didn't know. Maud Fisher had come back from Chicago where she had visited and Myrtle was goin' up the hill to see her. Maud lived in a great brick house that looked like a castle. Her pa was one of the richest men in town and they lived splendid. And Mitch was changed too. We hadn't found the treasure; we had been cheated out of our trip to St. Louis, for they wouldn't let us go back to...
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CHAPTER XVIIIt was only Tuesday, and the days just dragged by. It seemed Saturday was a year off, when I was to see Mitch. I was out in the front yard about nine o'clock and all the rest was in the house. My uncle came along and began to sharpen a scythe on the grinder and I was turnin' it for him. I was teasin' him to go to the river and fish and camp out over night. He said it was too hot, and besides we needed another man, and Willie Wallace was gone, and he couldn't get Bud Entrekin...
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CHAPTER XVI.When we got back to the farm, who do you suppose was there? My ma and Myrtle. She said she was just tired stayin' alone all the time--that pa was always away; and now that Little Billie was dead, she couldn't stand it. She said she never seed such a town as Petersburg was, that she had half a mind to go back to Boston where she was born and raised. That she didn't believe there was such characters in the whole world as Doc Lyon and dozens of others in Petersburg, Joe Pink, and the hoodlums and roughs, and...
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CHAPTER XVThe next mornin' when I got down to breakfast, everybody had et and grandpa had gone down the road where the tenant was buildin' a fence. So I took my kite and went way into the middle of the pasture and sent her up. Then I lay on the grass and watched her sail and drift and looked over at the Mason County Hills, that seemed so mysterious and quiet and never ending. By and by I thought I heard somebody callin' me--and there was. It was grandma. So I hollered back and drew in my kite, and went to...
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CHAPTER XIVWhile I was at my grandpa's this time, my Aunt Melissa and Uncle Lemuel came to visit on their way to Ohio. They lived in Iowa sommers and he was a preacher and awful smart. He had been married before and his wife died, and then he married my aunt. My pa said a preacher would never do without a wife, especially if he was a Methodist. Besides being lonely, my pa said Uncle Lemuel thought Aunt Melissa would inherit, and of course the time comes when a preacher can't preach and must either go to a preacher's home and...
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CHAPTER XIIII could hardly wait for Saturday to come, for there wasn't anything to do. And everywheres in the house I saw somethin' that made me think of Little Billie. There was his French harp, and the glass bank that Uncle Harvey had given him; and onct I went into a closet and saw his hat hangin' there yet, and I kept wonderin' if I had been a good brother to him always. Of course there was the time I wouldn't let him go when Old Bender's house was burned down, and that hurt me to think of it. But we...
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CHAPTER XIIMa brought Mitch in the room, and said: "Have a good visit now, for we're goin' to send Skeet to the farm. He needs it, and I'm worn out. Your grandpa is comin' on Saturday, and they want you out there for a while, and it will do you good." Mitch looked a minute and said: "I'll miss you, but there's nothing to do here." Then when ma went out of the room, he said: "The jig's up at Salem. I dug the Peter Lukins' cellar out, and there's nothing there, and nothing at Salem. So it's us for Tom...
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CHAPTER XISunday School bothered me terribly, for a lot of reasons. I had to dress up, for one thing, and in the summer time ma made me wear linen suits, which was starched stiff by Delia, our girl. They had sharp edges which scratched. And my hat was too small, and my shoes hurt. And the inside of the church smelt like stale coffee grounds, and the teacher looked hungry and kept parting her lips with a sound as if she was gettin' ready to eat, or wanted to, and she trickled inside like the sound of water or somethin'. Besides,...
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CHAPTER VIIThe next day was Sunday, and the wonderfulest day you ever saw. We had an early breakfast, for Mr. Miller was drivin' into the country that day to preach, and Mrs. Miller was goin' with him and the girls had to get the dinner. So nobody had to go to Sunday School, and I could keep out of it by not goin' home in time. A thought came to me and I said to Mitch, "You never saw my grandpa's farm--we can walk out there before noon and have dinner, and maybe get a lift on the way. And maybe...
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CHAPTER VIThe next morning Nigger Dick came to beat carpets, for ma was cleanin' house; and Mitch and me were makin' garden, and talkin' to Nigger Dick. He was the funniest nigger you ever saw and the best hearted, except when he was drunk, then he was cross and mumbled to himself. His wife was Dinah who wore circle ear-rings and used to cook for the Bransons when they had lots of company. The Bransons were the richest people in town and had lots of parrots and poodles, and Mrs. Branson et snuff. They was from Virginia, ma said; and Mitch...
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CHAPTER VIt warn't more'n a day or two after this that my pa said that Old Bender's house had burned down the night before, and he thought maybe the old feller had set it afire. You see the story still clung about Nancy Allen, and maybe he'd killed her, and my pa bein' the States Attorney started to look into it. Mitch and me and Little Billie were sittin' on the steps listenin' to Mitch readin' "Tom Sawyer," and my sister was there too. She always seemed in the way somehow, because she looked so steady with big eyes and every...
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CHAPTER IVMitch and I had dug under pretty near every dead limb in Montgomery's woods and hadn't found a trace of any treasure. We began in April when the winds sang as they did in March. There were blackbirds around then and that bird that sings "spring day." Mitch's father knew the names of all the birds; but outside of crows, robins, jay-birds and things like that we didn't know 'em--neither Mitch nor I. We didn't care, for what's the use of knowing names of things? You can't pronounce 'em anyway, and I've noticed people get queer studying such things, like...
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CHAPTER IIIAfter I met Mitch and after we saw the fight and the wedding, we went out to Montgomery's woods a few times in the afternoon when school was over. But we couldn't do much, because first we read "Tom Sawyer" along settin' on stumps and logs. We had to get the idea into our heads better; at least I did, because now we was about to carry out what Tom had done and wrote about--or what Mark Twain had wrote about for him. So we'd no sooner dig a few spadefuls than it would be gettin' dark, and we'd have...
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CHAPTER IINow Mr. Bennett had traded his farm for a store in town and was now a merchant prince, my pa said. And he had built him a wonderful stone house on a hill with a big yard around it. There was a house there before, and of course lots of trees, bushes around, and walks; and he had built a fine barn with lightning rods all over it with silver balls that just glittered. And he had a span of horses that cost $1000 and a wonderful carriage. He was awful rich. And Nellie was goin' to marry a man...
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Mitch Miller - Chapter 27
