:

"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I had it, because I stole it from them and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did, honest. I come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I come to, and run-and it warn't a good place."

"Oh, stop blaming yourself-it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow it--you couldn't help it; it wasn't you fault. Where did you hide it?"

I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what

would make her see that corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So for a minute I didn't say nothing-then I says:

"I'd ruther not tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you reckon that'll do?"

"Oh, yes."

So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."

It made my eyes water a little, to remember her crying

HUCK PARTING WITH MARY JANE.

289

there all by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her, I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says: Good-bye-I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I don't ever see you again I sha'n't ever forget you, and I'll think of you a many and a many a time, and I'll pray you, too!"—and she was gone.

for

66

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same-she was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion-there warn't no backdown to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty-and goodness too-she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I

says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?"

They says:

“There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry-one of them's sick."

"I don't know; leastways I kinder forget; but I think it's

99

"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't Hanner?"

"I'm sorry to say it," I says,

"but Hanner's the very one." "My goodness and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night,

Miss Mary Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

So I

"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?" I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way,

says:

"Mumps."

"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the mumps."

"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with. these mumps. These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said.”

"How's it a new kind?"

"Because it's mixed up with other things."

"What other things?"

"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysipelas, and consumption, and yaller janders, and brain fever, and I don't know what all."

"My land! And they call it the mumps
"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

“Well, what in the nation do they call it the mumps for?" "Why, because it is the mumps. That's what it starts with." "Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his toe.' Would ther' be any sense in that? No. And ther' ain't no sense in this, nuther. Is it ketching?

"Is it ketching? Why, how you talk. Is a harrow catching?-in the dark? If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, aint you? ? And And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you may say-and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to get it hitched on good."

“Well, it's awful, I think,” says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle Harvey and

99

"Oh, yes," I says, "I would. Of course I would. I wouldn't lose no time."

"Well, why wouldn't you?"

Hain't

"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. your uncles obleeged to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that journey by yourselves? You know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a preacher going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a ship-clerk?—so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now you know he ain't. What will he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to tell your Uncle Harvey

“Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

"Well, anyway, maybe you better tell some of the neighbours."

"Listen at that, now. You do beat all, for natural stupidness. Can't you see that they'd go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell anybody at all."

"Well, maybe you're right—yes, I judge you are right." "But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while, anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"

"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over the river to see Mr.-Mr.-what is the name of that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much of?-I mean the one that

66

'Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"