CHAPTEK TWO

We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards

the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches
wouldn’t scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen | fell
over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss
Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we
could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He
got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he
says:

“Who dah?”

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood

right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was
minutes and minutes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so
close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but
I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back,
right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if | couldn't scratch,
Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the
quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't
sleepy—if you are anywheres where it wont do for you to scratch,
why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty
soon Jim says:

“Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sum-
f'n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do: I’s gwyne to set down here
and listen tell I hears it agin.”

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his

back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he

had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the
band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done any-
thing to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that
person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't
sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts,
which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn’t belong to
the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if
he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to
the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have
his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name
blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the
gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.

Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it
out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of pirate-
books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.

Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told
the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and
wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
“Here's Huck Finn, he hain’t gor no family; what you going to do
‘bout him?”

“Well, hain’t he got a father?” says Tom Sawyer.

“Yes, he’s got a father, but you can’t never find him these days. He
used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been
seen in these parts for a year or more.”

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because
they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn’t be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think
of anything to do—everybody was stumped, and set still. | was most
ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so | offered them
Miss Watson—they could kill her. Everybody said:

“Oh, she'll do. Thar's all right. Huck can come in.”

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,
and I made my mark on the paper.

“Now,” says Ben Rogers, “what's the line of business of this Gang?”

“Nothing only robbery and murder,” Tom said.

Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all
over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about
witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking
and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in
and say, “Hm! What you know ‘bout witches?” and that nigger was
corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-cen-
ter piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the
devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure
anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by say-
ing something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it.
Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything
they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldn’t
touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most
ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having
seen the devil and been rode by witches.

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill-top we looked
away down into the village and could see three or four lights rwin-
kling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was
sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole
mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and
found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys,
hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the
river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went
ashore,

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to

keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the
thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in
on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and
then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages,
and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldnt a noticed
that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a
kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped.
Tom says:

“Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s
Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and
write his name in blood.”
most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. Ir itched till the
tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it begun to itch
on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know how I
was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or
seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. | was itching
in eleven different places now. I reckoned | couldn't stand it more'n a
minute longer, but I ser my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then
Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore—and then I was
pretty soon comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his

mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When
we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to
the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a distur-
bance, and then they’d find out I warn’ in. Then Tom said he hadn’t
got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some
more. I didn’t want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come.
But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles,
and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I
was in a sweat to get away; bur nothing would do Tom bur he must
crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something
on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still
and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden
fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other
side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and
hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he did-
n’t wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him
in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under
the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done tr. And
next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans;
and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till
by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him
most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was mon-
strous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the
other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it,

and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country.

by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the reg-
ular way.”

“All right. I don’t mind; but I say it’s a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we
kill the women, too?”

“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you | wouldn't let on. Kill
the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.
You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them;
and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home
any more.”

“Well, if that’s the way I’m agreed, but I don’t take no stock in it.
Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fel-
lows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the
robbers. But go ahead, I aint got nothing to say.”

Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him
up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his
ma, and didnt want to be a robber any more.

So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that
made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the
secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would
all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some
people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he
wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be
wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to
get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected
Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang,
and so started home.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
dog-tired.