Mitch Miller. Edgar Lee MastersЧитать онлайн книгу.
said, "just look how everything tallies. Tom's town was St. Petersburg, and ours here is Petersburg. His town was on a river. So is this town. We ain't got no Injun Joe, but how about Doc Lyon? Ain't he just as mysterious and dangerous as Injun Joe? Then if these woods don't look just like the woods Tom and Huck dug in, I'll eat my hat. Look here!" Mitch pulled the book out and showed me, and sure enough they were alike. "Then look at Old Taylor, the school teacher—ain't he the livin' image of Tom's teacher? And our schoolhouses look alike. And we ain't got any Aunt Polly, but look at your grandmother—she's the livin' image of Aunt Polly and just like her. Things can't be just alike, if they was, they wouldn't be two things, but only one. And I can go through this town and pick out every character. I've thought it over. The Welshman—that's George Montgomery's father. Nigger Jim—how about Nigger Dick? He's older and drinks, but you must expect some differences. And Mary—my sister Anne is just the same. Muff Potter—how about Joe Pink?—allus in trouble and in jail and looks like Muff. And the Sunday School's just the same, superintendent and all. And the circus comes to town just as it did in Tom's town. And the County Judge—no difference."
"Yes, but," I said, "your girl ain't the daughter of the County Judge like Becky Thatcher was. And her name is Zueline and that sounds like something beautiful not belonging to any town—but to some place I keep dreaming about."
"Skeeters," said Mitch, "you make me mad sometimes. As I told you, it can't be all alike. Now there's you—you ain't any more like Huckleberry Finn than the Sunday School superintendent is, not sayin' that you're him, for you're not. But it can't be all alike. I only say when it goes this far that it means something. And while I think I'm just like Tom Sawyer, for I can do everything he did, swim, fight, fish and hook sugar, and read detective stories, you're not Huck, and because you're not, it will be different in the end. We'll go along up to a certain point, and then it will be you, maybe, that'll give it a different turn. Maybe we'll get bigger treasure or somethin' better."
"I don't want no better luck than Tom and Huck had," said I. "But I believe it will be different, for you're different from Tom, Mitch. For one thing, you've read different things: The Arabian Nights, and Grimm's Stories, and there's your father who's a preacher and all your sisters and your mother who's so good natured and fat. These things will count too. So I say, if I'm not Huck, you're not Tom, though we can go on for treasure, and I see your argument mostly and believe in it."
Mitch grew awful serious and was still for a long while. Finally he said: "Skeeters, I just live Tom Sawyer and dream about him. I don't seem to think of anything else—and somehow I act him, and before I die, I mean to see him. Yes, sir, this very summer you and I, if you're game, will look on Tom Sawyer's face and take him by the hand."
"Why, Mitch," I said, "how can you do it? It must be more'n a hundred miles from here to where Tom lives."
"You bet it is," said Mitch. "It's near two hundred miles. I looked it up. But it's as easy as pie to get there. Look here—we can bum our way or walk to Havaner—then we can get a job on a steamboat and go to St. Louis—then we can bum or walk our way to Hannibal—and some fine mornin' you and I will be standin' on the shore of the Mississippi—and there'll be Tom and Huck, and you and me. And I'll say, 'Tom Sawyer, I'm Mitch Miller, and this here is Skeeters Kirby.' How's that for fun? Just think of it. I dream about this every night. And we'll strip and go swimmin', and fish and all go up to McDougal's Cave. And what would you say if we persuaded them to come back with us for a visit? Tom and Huck, you and me all walkin' arm in arm down the streets here? Why, the town'd go wild. And we'd go out to your grandmother's and stay all summer and just roll in pie and cake and good things—and ride horses, and fly kites. My—I just can't wait!"
So Mitch went on this way for quite a spell and then he switched and said: "Skeeters, what do you dream about?" "Flyin'," says I. "No!" said Mitch. "Do you really?" "As sure as you're livin'," I says. "Well, ain't that funny," said Mitch, "so do I. But how do you do it, with wings or how?" "No," I says, "I seem to reach up my hands and pull myself up, by rounds on a ladder, ropes or somethin'; and I'm always trying to get away from somethin'—like bears or sometimes it's a lion. But pa says it means I'm an aspirin' nature and born to pull up in the world. But," says I to Mitch, "do you ever dream of the Judgment Day?"
"Do I?" says Mitch. "You can better believe I do—and that's where my flyin' comes in, only I drift like one of these here prairie chickens about to light—I seem to be goin' down. And it was just last night I dreamed of the Judgment Day. First everything was mixed: here was Injun Joe and Doc Lyon, Joe Pink and Muff Potter, Aunt Polly and your grandma—everybody in these two towns all together. And Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Joe Harper, Becky, Zueline, and your folks and mine—all of us was together. And then suddenly we seemed to be close to Bucky Gum's pasture; the well became a kind of pipe stuck up out of the ground and began to spout fire; and there was a great light in the sky and I saw Jesus coming down out of the sky, and there was thunder. Then I began to fly—drift down, and all of a sudden, kerplunk, I fell out of bed. And pa says—'Hey, Mitch, what's the matter?' 'It's the Judgment Day,' I says. 'Judgment nothin', says pa—'You've fallen out of bed. Get back in bed and go to sleep—you were hollerin' like an Indian.' Then I heard ma say to pa after a bit, 'Pa, you oughtn't to read so much of the Bible before the children. It makes 'em nervous.' Now, Skeeters, what do you dream about the Judgment Day?"
I was just about to tell him when I heard some one comin'. I looked up. It was Kit O'Brien and Mike Kelly comin' from the slaughter house. They had some liver and a bladder; and before we could square around Kit O'Brien came up and knocked "Tom Sawyer" out of Mitch's hand. And then it began. These boys belonged to a gang over the hill back of where, old Moody lived, and we was always fightin'. Mitch and Kit had fit before—and so had Mike and me. Mike licked me once and I licked him once. But Mitch had given Kit an awful lickin' with no come back. So now he thought his chance had come with Mike to help after disposin' of me. So what did they do, both of 'em, but go quick for Mitch, thinkin', I guess, to get rid of him and then lick me.
"No, you don't," says I; and I grabbed both of Mike's arms with my arms and held him out for to wrestle. I was awful strong in the back and arms and rangy, and nobody could trip me, and I could back up until I got a feller comin' good and then give a swing and land him. So there we was at it—I holdin' Mike, and Mitch and Kit squared off boxin' like mad. I gave Mike the swing and tumbled him, and then lay on him and held him down. But it was awful hard and he was gradually gettin' away from me, and strikin' me in the chest and sometimes in the face. He had big fists and an awful punch. Meantime I was watchin' Mitch and Kit as much as I could and neither of 'em seemed to have much the best of it, when all of a sudden I heard a voice say, "Stop that," and there was Henry Hill, the town marshal, drivin' a lot of kids ahead of him. Well, we all stopped fightin'. And what do you suppose? Jerry Sharp who had a garden near Fillmore Creek had complained about the boys goin' in swimmin' where his girls settin' out tomato plants could see. So the marshal had come down and arrested 'em and was drivin' 'em into town.
He just added Mitch and me and Kit and Mike to the crowd and took us all in. When we got to the calaboose, he unlocked the door and started to put us in. Then he laughed and said, "Now go home." And so we hustled away.
CHAPTER V
It 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 now and then would ask questions that