Tom Sawyer, Detective

Chapter 9

FINDING OF JUBITER DUNLAP

IN the next two or three days Dummy he got to be powerful popular. He

went associating around with the neighbors, and they made much of him,

and was proud to have such a rattling curiosity among them. They had him

to breakfast, they had him to dinner, they had him to supper; they kept

him loaded up with hog and hominy, and warn't ever tired staring at him

and wondering over him, and wishing they knowed more about him, he was so

uncommon and romantic. His signs warn't no good; people couldn't

understand them and he prob'ly couldn't himself, but he done a sight of

goo-gooing, and so everybody was satisfied, and admired to hear him go

it. He toted a piece of slate around, and a pencil; and people wrote

questions on it and he wrote answers; but there warn't anybody could read

his writing but Brace Dunlap. Brace said he couldn't read it very good,

but he could manage to dig out the meaning most of the time. He said

Dummy said he belonged away off somers and used to be well off, but got

busted by swindlers which he had trusted, and was poor now, and hadn't

any way to make a living.

Everybody praised Brace Dunlap for being so good to that stranger. He

let him have a little log-cabin all to himself, and had his n*****s take

care of it, and fetch him all the vittles he wanted.

Dummy was at our house some, because old Uncle Silas was so afflicted

himself, these days, that anybody else that was afflicted was a comfort

to him. Me and Tom didn't let on that we had knowed him before, and he

didn't let on that he had knowed us before. The family talked their

troubles out before him the same as if he wasn't there, but we reckoned

it wasn't any harm for him to hear what they said. Generly he didn't seem

to notice, but sometimes he did.

Well, two or three days went along, and everybody got to getting uneasy

about Jubiter Dunlap. Everybody was asking everybody if they had any

idea what had become of him. No, they hadn't, they said: and they shook

their heads and said there was something powerful strange about it.

Another and another day went by; then there was a report got around that

praps he was murdered. You bet it made a big stir! Everybody's tongue

was clacking away after that. Saturday two or three gangs turned out and

hunted the woods to see if they could run across his remainders. Me and

Tom helped, and it was noble good times and exciting. Tom he was so

brimful of it he couldn't eat nor rest. He said if we could find that

corpse we would be celebrated, and more talked about than if we got

drownded.

The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom Sawyer--that warn't his

style. Saturday night he didn't sleep any, hardly, trying to think up a

plan; and towards daylight in the morning he struck it. He snaked me out

of bed and was all excited, and says:

"Quick, Huck, snatch on your clothes--I've got it! Bloodhound!"

In two minutes we was tearing up the river road in the dark towards the

village. Old Jeff Hooker had a bloodhound, and Tom was going to borrow

him. I says:

"The trail's too old, Tom--and besides, it's rained, you know."

"It don't make any difference, Huck. If the body's hid in the woods

anywhere around the hound will find it. If he's been murdered and buried,

they wouldn't bury him deep, it ain't likely, and if the dog goes over

the spot he'll scent him, sure. Huck, we're going to be celebrated, sure

as you're born!"

He was just a-blazing; and whenever he got afire he was most likely to

get afire all over. That was the way this time. In two minutes he had

got it all ciphered out, and wasn't only just going to find the

corpse--no, he was going to get on the track of that murderer and hunt

HIM down, too; and not only that, but he was going to stick to him till

--"Well," I says, "you better find the corpse first; I reckon that's

a-plenty for to-day. For all we know, there AIN'T any corpse and nobody

hain't been murdered. That cuss could 'a' gone off somers and not been

killed at all."

That graveled him, and he says:

"Huck Finn, I never see such a person as you to want to spoil everything.

As long as YOU can't see anything hopeful in a thing, you won't let

anybody else. What good can it do you to throw cold water on that corpse

and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been any murder? None in

the world. I don't see how you can act so. I wouldn't treat you like

that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble good opportunity to make a

ruputation, and--"

"Oh, go ahead," I says. "I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn't

mean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. HE ain't any consequence to

me. If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are; and if he--"

"I never said anything about being glad; I only--"

"Well, then, I'm as SORRY as you are. Any way you druther have it, that

is the way I druther have it. He--"

"There ain't any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything about

druthers. And as for--"

He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun to

get excited again, and pretty soon he says:

"Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find the body

after everybody else has quit looking, and then go ahead and hunt up the

murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honor to

Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It'll set him up again, you

see if it don't."

But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we

got to his blacksmith shop and told him what we come for.

"You can take the dog," he says, "but you ain't a-going to find any

corpse, because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit looking,

and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed there warn't

no corpse. And I'll tell you for why. What does a person kill another

person for, Tom Sawyer?--answer me that."

"Why, he--er--"

"Answer up! You ain't no fool. What does he kill him FOR?"

"Well, sometimes it's for revenge, and--"

"Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Now

who ever had anything agin that poor trifling no-account? Who do you

reckon would want to kill HIM?--that rabbit!"

Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn't thought of a person having to have a

REASON for killing a person before, and now he sees it warn't likely

anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter

Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:

"The revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next? Robbery?

B'gosh, that must 'a' been it, Tom! Yes, sirree, I reckon we've struck it

this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and so he--"

But it was so funny he busted out laughing, and just went on laughing and

laughing and laughing till he was 'most dead, and Tom looked so put out

and cheap that I knowed he was ashamed he had come, and he wished he

hadn't. But old Hooker never let up on him. He raked up everything a

person ever could want to kill another person about, and any fool could

see they didn't any of them fit this case, and he just made no end of fun

of the whole business and of the people that had been hunting the body;

and he said:

"If they'd had any sense they'd 'a' knowed the lazy cuss slid out because

he wanted a loafing spell after all this work. He'll come pottering back

in a couple of weeks, and then how'll you fellers feel? But, laws bless

you, take the dog, and go and hunt his remainders. Do, Tom."

Then he busted out, and had another of them forty-rod laughs of hisn.

Tom couldn't back down after all this, so he said, "All right, unchain

him;" and the blacksmith done it, and we started home and left that old

man laughing yet.

It was a lovely dog. There ain't any dog that's got a lovelier

disposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He

capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free

and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn't take any intrust in

him, and said he wished he'd stopped and thought a minute before he ever

started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell

everybody, and we'd never hear the last of it.

So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and not

talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we

heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and

he was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then

canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.

It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink

down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at

one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few

inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a

sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says:

"Come away, Huck--it's found."

I just felt awful. We struck for the road and fetched the first men that

come along. They got a spade at the crib and dug out the body, and you

never see such an excitement. You couldn't make anything out of the

face, but you didn't need to. Everybody said:

"Poor Jubiter; it's his clothes, to the last rag!"

Some rushed off to spread the news and tell the justice of the peace and

have an inquest, and me and Tom lit out for the house. Tom was all afire

and 'most out of breath when we come tearing in where Uncle Silas and

Aunt Sally and Benny was. Tom sung out:

"Me and Huck's found Jubiter Dunlap's corpse all by ourselves with a

bloodhound, after everybody else had quit hunting and given it up; and if

it hadn't a been for us it never WOULD 'a' been found; and he WAS

murdered too--they done it with a club or something like that; and I'm

going to start in and find the murderer, next, and I bet I'll do it!"

Aunt Sally and Benny sprung up pale and astonished, but Uncle Silas fell

right forward out of his chair on to the floor and groans out:

"Oh, my God, you've found him NOW!"