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? ? ? ? Aunt Polly, she turns around slow and severe, and says:

? ? ? ? "You, Tom!"

? ? ? ? "Well- what?" he says, kind of pettish.

? ? ? ? "Don't you what me, you impudent thing- hand out them letters."

? ? ? ? "What letters?"

? ? ? ? "Them letters. I be bound, if I have to take aholt of you I'll-"

? ? ? ? "They're in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as they was when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, I hain't touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if you warn't in no hurry, I'd-"

? ? ? ? "Well, you do need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And I wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I spose he-"

? ? ? ? "No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but it's all right, I've got that one."

? ? ? ? I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.

Chapter The Last

? ? ? ? The first time I catched Tom, private, I asked him what was his idea, time of the evasion?- what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before? And he said, what he had planned in his head, from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river, on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brass band, and then he would be a hero, and so would we.


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