Tom Sawyer Abroad | Page 5

and
so did the crowds along the street, for they could see his legs spinning
along under the coach, and his head and shoulders bobbing inside
through the windows, and he was in awful danger; but the more they all

shouted the more the nigger whooped and yelled and lashed the horses
and shouted, "Don't you fret, I'se gwine to git you dah in time, boss; I's
gwine to do it, sho'!" for you see he thought they were all hurrying him
up, and, of course, he couldn't hear any- thing for the racket he was
making. And so they went ripping along, and everybody just petrified
to see it; and when they got to the Capitol at last it was the quickest trip
that ever was made, and everybody said so. The horses laid down, and
Nat dropped, all tuck- ered out, and he was all dust and rags and
barefooted; but he was in time and just in time, and caught the
President and give him the letter, and everything was all right, and the
President give him a free pardon on the spot, and Nat give the nigger
two extra quarters instead of one, because he could see that if he hadn't
had the hack he wouldn't'a' got there in time, nor anywhere near it.
It WAS a powerful good adventure, and Tom Sawyer had to work his
bullet-wound mighty lively to hold his own against it.
Well, by and by Tom's glory got to paling down gradu'ly, on account of
other things turning up for the people to talk about -- first a horse-race,
and on top of that a house afire, and on top of that the circus, and on
top of that the eclipse; and that started a revival, same as it always does,
and by that time there wasn't any more talk about Tom, so to speak, and
you never see a person so sick and disgusted.
Pretty soon he got to worrying and fretting right along day in and day
out, and when I asked him what WAS he in such a state about, he said
it 'most broke his heart to think how time was slipping away, and him
getting older and older, and no wars breaking out and no way of
making a name for himself that he could see. Now that is the way boys
is always thinking, but he was the first one I ever heard come out and
say it.
So then he set to work to get up a plan to make him celebrated; and
pretty soon he struck it, and offered to take me and Jim in. Tom Sawyer
was always free and generous that way. There's a-plenty of boys that's
mighty good and friendly when YOU'VE got a good thing, but when a
good thing happens to come their way they don't say a word to you, and
try to hog it all. That warn't ever Tom Sawyer's way, I can say that for

him. There's plenty of boys that will come hankering and groveling
around you when you've got an apple and beg the core off of you; but
when they've got one, and you beg for the core and remind them how
you give them a core one time, they say thank you 'most to death, but
there ain't a-going to be no core. But I notice they always git come up
with; all you got to do is to wait.
Well, we went out in the woods on the hill, and Tom told us what it
was. It was a crusade.
"What's a crusade?" I says.
He looked scornful, the way he's always done when he was ashamed of
a person, and says:
"Huck Finn, do you mean to tell me you don't know what a crusade is?"
"No," says I, "I don't. And I don't care to, nuther. I've lived till now and
done without it, and had my health, too. But as soon as you tell me, I'll
know, and that's soon enough. I don't see any use in finding out things
and clogging up my head with them when I mayn't ever have any
occasion to use 'em. There was Lance Williams, he learned how to talk
Choctaw here till one come and dug his grave for him. Now, then,
what's a crusade? But I can tell you one thing before you begin; if it's a
patent-right, there's no money in it. Bill Thompson he --"
"Patent-right!" says he. "I never see such an idiot. Why, a crusade is a
kind of war."
I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he was in real earnest,
and went right on, perfectly ca'm.
"A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from the paynim."
"Which Holy Land?"