Tom Sawyer Abroad | Page 7

was to get at the HOW of it,
and that was all; and the only reason he couldn't explain it so we could
understand it was because we was ignorant -- yes, and pretty dull, too, I
ain't deny- ing that; but, land! that ain't no crime, I should think.
But he wouldn't hear no more about it -- just said if we had tackled the
thing in the proper spirit, he would 'a' raised a couple of thousand
knights and put them in steel armor from head to heel, and made me a
lieu- tenant and Jim a sutler, and took the command himself and
brushed the whole paynim outfit into the sea like flies and come back
across the world in a glory like sunset. But he said we didn't know
enough to take the chance when we had it, and he wouldn't ever offer it
again. And he didn't. When he once got set, you couldn't budge him.
But I didn't care much. I am peaceable, and don't get up rows with
people that ain't doing nothing to me. I allowed if the paynim was
satisfied I was, and we would let it stand at that.
Now Tom he got all that notion out of Walter Scott's book, which he
was always reading. And it WAS a wild notion, because in my opinion
he never could've raised the men, and if he did, as like as not he
would've got licked. I took the book and read all about it, and as near as
I could make it out, most of the folks that shook farming to go
crusading had a mighty rocky time of it.

CHAPTER II.
THE BALLOON ASCENSION

WELL, Tom got up one thing after another, but they all had tender
spots about 'em somewheres, and he had to shove 'em aside. So at last
he was about in despair. Then the St. Louis papers begun to talk a good
deal about the balloon that was going to sail to Europe, and Tom sort of
thought he wanted to go down and see what it looked like, but couldn't
make up his mind. But the papers went on talking, and so he allowed
that maybe if he didn't go he mightn't ever have another chance to see a
balloon; and next, he found out that Nat Parsons was going down to see
it, and that decided him, of course. He wasn't going to have Nat Parsons
coming back brag- ging about seeing the balloon, and him having to
listen to it and keep quiet. So he wanted me and Jim to go too, and we
went.
It was a noble big balloon, and had wings and fans and all sorts of
things, and wasn't like any balloon you see in pictures. It was away out
toward the edge of town, in a vacant lot, corner of Twelfth street; and
there was a big crowd around it, making fun of it, and making fun of
the man, -- a lean pale feller with that soft kind of moonlight in his eyes,
you know, -- and they kept saying it wouldn't go. It made him hot to
hear them, and he would turn on them and shake his fist and say they
was animals and blind, but some day they would find they had stood
face to face with one of the men that lifts up nations and makes
civilizations, and was too dull to know it; and right here on this spot
their own children and grandchildren would build a monument to him
that would outlast a thousand years, but his name would outlast the
monument. And then the crowd would burst out in a laugh again, and
yell at him, and ask him what was his name before he was married, and
what he would take to not do it, and what was his sister's cat's
grandmother's name, and all the things that a crowd says when they've
got hold of a feller that they see they can plague. Well, some things
they said WAS funny, -- yes, and mighty witty too, I ain't denying that,
-- but all the same it warn't fair nor brave, all them people pitching on
one, and they so glib and sharp, and him without any gift of talk to
answer back with. But, good land! what did he want to sass back for?
You see, it couldn't do him no good, and it was just nuts for them. They
HAD him, you know. But that was his way. I reckon he couldn't help it;
he was made so, I judge. He was a good enough sort of cretur, and

hadn't no harm in him, and was just a genius, as the papers said, which
wasn't his fault. We