Tom Sawyer Abroad | Page 6

"Why, the Holy Land -- there ain't but one."
"What do we want of it?"

"Why, can't you understand? It's in the hands of the paynim, and it's our
duty to take it away from them."
"How did we come to let them git hold of it?"
"We didn't come to let them git hold of it. They always had it."
"Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don't it?"
"Why of course it does. Who said it didn't?"
I studied over it, but couldn't seem to git at the right of it, no way. I
says:
"It's too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a farm and it was mine,
and another person wanted it, would it be right for him to --"
"Oh, shucks! you don't know enough to come in when it rains, Huck
Finn. It ain't a farm, it's entirely different. You see, it's like this. They
own the land, just the mere land, and that's all they DO own; but it was
our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they
haven't any business to be there defiling it. It's a shame, and we ought
not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it
away from them."
"Why, it does seem to me it's the most mixed-up thing I ever see! Now,
if I had a farm and another person --"
"Don't I tell you it hasn't got anything to do with farming? Farming is
business, just common low-down business: that's all it is, it's all you
can say for it; but this is higher, this is religious, and totally different."
"Religious to go and take the land away from people that owns it?"
"Certainly; it's always been considered so."
Jim he shook his head, and says:
"Mars Tom, I reckon dey's a mistake about it somers -- dey mos' sholy

is. I's religious myself, en I knows plenty religious people, but I hain't
run across none dat acts like dat."
It made Tom hot, and he says:
"Well, it's enough to make a body sick, such mullet-headed ignorance!
If either of you'd read any- thing about history, you'd know that
Richard Cur de Loon, and the Pope, and Godfrey de Bulleyn, and lots
more of the most noble-hearted and pious people in the world, hacked
and hammered at the paynims for more than two hundred years trying
to take their land away from them, and swum neck-deep in blood the
whole time -- and yet here's a couple of sap-headed country yahoos out
in the backwoods of Missouri set- ting themselves up to know more
about the rights and wrongs of it than they did! Talk about cheek!"
Well, of course, that put a more different light on it, and me and Jim
felt pretty cheap and ignorant, and wished we hadn't been quite so
chipper. I couldn't say nothing, and Jim he couldn't for a while; then he
says:
"Well, den, I reckon it's all right; beca'se ef dey didn't know, dey ain't
no use for po' ignorant folks like us to be trying to know; en so, ef it's
our duty, we got to go en tackle it en do de bes' we can. Same time, I
feel as sorry for dem paynims as Mars Tom. De hard part gwine to be
to kill folks dat a body hain't been 'quainted wid and dat hain't done
him no harm. Dat's it, you see. Ef we wuz to go 'mongst 'em, jist we
three, en say we's hungry, en ast 'em for a bite to eat, why, maybe dey's
jist like yuther people. Don't you reckon dey is? Why, DEY'D give it, I
know dey would, en den --"
"Then what?"
"Well, Mars Tom, my idea is like dis. It ain't no use, we CAN'T kill
dem po' strangers dat ain't doin' us no harm, till we've had practice -- I
knows it perfectly well, Mars Tom -- 'deed I knows it perfectly well.
But ef we takes a' axe or two, jist you en me en Huck, en slips acrost de
river to-night arter de moon's gone down, en kills dat sick fam'ly dat's
over on the Sny, en burns dey house down, en --"

"Oh, you make me tired!" says Tom. "I don't want to argue any more
with people like you and Huck Finn, that's always wandering from the
subject, and ain't got any more sense than to try to reason out a thing
that's pure theology by the laws that protect real estate!"
Now that's just where Tom Sawyer warn't fair. Jim didn't mean no harm,
and I didn't mean no harm. We knowed well enough that he was right
and we was wrong, and all we was after