Read The Complete Novels of Mark Twain and the Complete Biography of Mark Twain Online
Authors: A. B. Paine (pulitzer Prize Committee),Mark Twain,The Complete Works Collection
"Why didn't you go and tell what you saw?"
"We was afraid we would get mixed up in it ourselves. And we was just starting down the river a-hunting for all the week besides; but as soon as we come back we found out they'd been searching for the body, so then we went and told Brace Dunlap all about it."
"When was that?"
"Saturday night, September 9th."
The judge he spoke up and says:
"Mr. Sheriff, arrest these two witnesses on suspicions of being accessionary after the fact to the murder."
The lawyer for the prostitution jumps up all excited, and says:
"Your honor! I protest against this extraordi—"
"Set down!" says the judge, pulling his bowie and laying it on his pulpit. "I beg you to respect the Court."
So he done it. Then he called Bill Withers.
BILL WITHERS, sworn, said: "I was coming along about sundown,
Saturday, September 2d, by the prisoner's field, and my
brother Jack was with me and we seen a man toting off
something heavy on his back and allowed it was a nigger
stealing corn; we couldn't see distinct; next we made out that
it was one man carrying another; and the way it hung, so kind
of limp, we judged it was somebody that was drunk; and by the
man's walk we said it was Parson Silas, and we judged he had
found Sam Cooper drunk in the road, which he was always trying
to reform him, and was toting him out of danger."
It made the people shiver to think of poor old Uncle Silas toting off the diseased down to the place in his tobacker field where the dog dug up the body, but there warn't much sympathy around amongst the faces, and I heard one cuss say "'Tis the coldest blooded work I ever struck, lugging a murdered man around like that, and going to bury him like a animal, and him a preacher at that."
Tom he went on thinking, and never took no notice; so our lawyer took the witness and done the best he could, and it was plenty poor enough.
Then Jack Withers he come on the stand and told the same tale, just like Bill done.
And after him comes Brace Dunlap, and he was looking very mournful, and most crying; and there was a rustle and a stir all around, and everybody got ready to listen, and lost of the women folks said, "Poor cretur, poor cretur," and you could see a many of them wiping their eyes.
BRACE DUNLAP, sworn, said: "I was in considerable trouble a
long time about my poor brother, but I reckoned things warn't
near so bad as he made out, and I couldn't make myself believe
anybody would have the heart to hurt a poor harmless cretur
like that"—[by jings, I was sure I seen Tom give a kind of a
faint little start, and then look disappointed again]—"and
you know I COULDN'T think a preacher would hurt him—it warn't
natural to think such an onlikely thing—so I never paid much
attention, and now I sha'n't ever, ever forgive myself; for if
I had a done different, my poor brother would be with me this
day, and not laying yonder murdered, and him so harmless." He
kind of broke down there and choked up, and waited to get his
voice; and people all around said the most pitiful things, and
women cried; and it was very still in there, and solemn, and
old Uncle Silas, poor thing, he give a groan right out so
everybody heard him. Then Brace he went on, "Saturday,
September 2d, he didn't come home to supper. By-and-by I got a
little uneasy, and one of my niggers went over to this
prisoner's place, but come back and said he warn't there. So
I got uneasier and uneasier, and couldn't rest. I went to
bed, but I couldn't sleep; and turned out, away late in the
night, and went wandering over to this prisoner's place and
all around about there a good while, hoping I would run across
my poor brother, and never knowing he was out of his troubles
and gone to a better shore—" So he broke down and choked up
again, and most all the women was crying now. Pretty soon he
got another start and says: "But it warn't no use; so at last
I went home and tried to get some sleep, but couldn't. Well,
in a day or two everybody was uneasy, and they got to talking
about this prisoner's threats, and took to the idea, which I
didn't take no stock in, that my brother was murdered so they
hunted around and tried to find his body, but couldn't and
give it up. And so I reckoned he was gone off somers to have
a little peace, and would come back to us when his troubles
was kind of healed. But late Saturday night, the 9th, Lem
Beebe and Jim Lane come to my house and told me all—told me
the whole awful 'sassination, and my heart was broke. And THEN
I remembered something that hadn't took no hold of me at the
time, because reports said this prisoner had took to walking
in his sleep and doing all kind of things of no consequence,
not knowing what he was about. I will tell you what that
thing was that come back into my memory. Away late that awful
Saturday night when I was wandering around about this
prisoner's place, grieving and troubled, I was down by the
corner of the tobacker-field and I heard a sound like digging
in a gritty soil; and I crope nearer and peeped through the
vines that hung on the rail fence and seen this prisoner
SHOVELING—shoveling with a long-handled shovel—heaving earth
into a big hole that was most filled up; his back was to me,
but it was bright moonlight and I knowed him by his old green
baize work-gown with a splattery white patch in the middle of
the back like somebody had hit him with a snowball. HE WAS
BURYING THE MAN HE'D MURDERED!"
And he slumped down in his chair crying and sobbing, and 'most everybody in the house busted out wailing, and crying, and saying, "Oh, it's awful—awful—horrible! and there was a most tremendous excitement, and you couldn't hear yourself think; and right in the midst of it up jumps old Uncle Silas, white as a sheet, and sings out:
"IT'S TRUE, EVERY WORD—I MURDERED HIM IN COLD BLOOD!"
By Jackson, it petrified them! People rose up wild all over the house, straining and staring for a better look at him, and the judge was hammering with his mallet and the sheriff yelling "Order—order in the court—order!"
And all the while the old man stood there a-quaking and his eyes a-burning, and not looking at his wife and daughter, which was clinging to him and begging him to keep still, but pawing them off with his hands and saying he WOULD clear his black soul from crime, he WOULD heave off this load that was more than he could bear, and he WOULDN'T bear it another hour! And then he raged right along with his awful tale, everybody a-staring and gasping, judge, jury, lawyers, and everybody, and Benny and Aunt Sally crying their hearts out. And by George, Tom Sawyer never looked at him once! Never once—just set there gazing with all his eyes at something else, I couldn't tell what. And so the old man raged right along, pouring his words out like a stream of fire:
"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life to hurt him or harm him, spite of all them lies about my threatening him, till the very minute I raised the club—then my heart went cold!—then the pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all my wrongs come into my mind; all the insults that that man and the scoundrel his brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in together to ruin me with the people, and take away my good name, and DRIVE me to some deed that would destroy me and my family that hadn't ever done THEM no harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean revenge—for why? Because my innocent pure girl here at my side wouldn't marry that rich, insolent, ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who's been sniveling here over a brother he never cared a brass farthing for—" [I see Tom give a jump and look glad THIS time, to a dead certainty] "—and in that moment I've told you about, I forgot my God and remembered only my heart's bitterness, God forgive me, and I struck to kill. In one second I was miserably sorry—oh, filled with remorse; but I thought of my poor family, and I MUST hide what I'd done for their sakes; and I did hide that corpse in the bushes; and presently I carried it to the tobacker field; and in the deep night I went with my shovel and buried it where—"
Up jumps Tom and shouts:
"NOW, I've got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever so fine and starchy, towards the old man, and says:
"Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never had no hand in it!"
Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk down kind of bewildered in his seat and Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it, because they was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open and not knowing what they was about. And the whole house the same. I never seen people look so helpless and tangled up, and I hain't ever seen eyes bug out and gaze without a blink the way theirn did. Tom says, perfectly ca'm:
"Your honor, may I speak?"
"For God's sake, yes—go on!" says the judge, so astonished and mixed up he didn't know what he was about hardly.
Then Tom he stood there and waited a second or two—that was for to work up an "effect," as he calls it—then he started in just as ca'm as ever, and says:
"For about two weeks now there's been a little bill sticking on the front of this courthouse offering two thousand dollars reward for a couple of big di'monds—stole at St. Louis. Them di'monds is worth twelve thousand dollars. But never mind about that till I get to it. Now about this murder. I will tell you all about it—how it happened—who done it—every DEtail."
You could see everybody nestle now, and begin to listen for all they was worth.
"This man here, Brace Dunlap, that's been sniveling so about his dead brother that YOU know he never cared a straw for, wanted to marry that young girl there, and she wouldn't have him. So he told Uncle Silas he would make him sorry. Uncle Silas knowed how powerful he was, and how little chance he had against such a man, and he was scared and worried, and done everything he could think of to smooth him over and get him to be good to him: he even took his no-account brother Jubiter on the farm and give him wages and stinted his own family to pay them; and Jubiter done everything his brother could contrive to insult Uncle Silas, and fret and worry him, and try to drive Uncle Silas into doing him a hurt, so as to injure Uncle Silas with the people. And it done it. Everybody turned against him and said the meanest kind of things about him, and it graduly broke his heart—yes, and he was so worried and distressed that often he warn't hardly in his right mind.
"Well, on that Saturday that we've had so much trouble about, two of these witnesses here, Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, come along by where Uncle Silas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work—and that much of what they've said is true, the rest is lies. They didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill Jubiter; they didn't hear no blow struck; they didn't see no dead man, and they didn't see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes. Look at them now—how they set there, wishing they hadn't been so handy with their tongues; anyway, they'll wish it before I get done.
"That same Saturday evening Bill and Jack Withers DID see one man lugging off another one. That much of what they said is true, and the rest is lies. First off they thought it was a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn—you notice it makes them look silly, now, to find out somebody overheard them say that. That's because they found out by and by who it was that was doing the lugging, and THEY know best why they swore here that they took it for Uncle Silas by the gait—which it WASN'T, and they knowed it when they swore to that lie.