Tom Sawyer Abroad | Page 8

can't all be sound: we've got to be the way we're
made. As near as I can make out, geniuses think they know it all, and
so they won't take people's advice, but always go their own way, which
makes everybody forsake them and despise them, and that is perfectly
natural. If they was humbler, and listened and tried to learn, it would be
better for them.
The part the professor was in was like a boat, and was big and roomy,
and had water-tight lockers around the inside to keep all sorts of things
in, and a body could sit on them, and make beds on them, too. We went
aboard, and there was twenty people there, snoop- ing around and
examining, and old Nat Parsons was there, too. The professor kept
fussing around getting ready, and the people went ashore, drifting out
one at a time, and old Nat he was the last. Of course it wouldn't do to
let him go out behind US. We mustn't budge till he was gone, so we
could be last ourselves.
But he was gone now, so it was time for us to follow. I heard a big
shout, and turned around -- the city was dropping from under us like a
shot! It made me sick all through, I was so scared. Jim turned gray and
couldn't say a word, and Tom didn't say nothing, but looked excited.
The city went on dropping down, and down, and down; but we didn't
seem to be doing nothing but just hang in the air and stand still. The
houses got smaller and smaller, and the city pulled itself together,
closer and closer, and the men and wagons got to looking like ants and
bugs crawling around, and the streets like threads and cracks; and then
it all kind of melted together, and there wasn't any city any more it was
only a big scar on the earth, and it seemed to me a body could see up
the river and down the river about a thousand miles, though of course it
wasn't so much. By and by the earth was a ball -- just a round ball, of a
dull color, with shiny stripes wriggling and winding around over it,
which was rivers. The Widder Douglas always told me the earth was
round like a ball, but I never took any stock in a lot of them
superstitions o' hers, and of course I paid no attention to that one,
because I could see my- self that the world was the shape of a plate,
and flat. I used to go up on the hill, and take a look around and prove it

for myself, because I reckon the best way to get a sure thing on a fact is
to go and examine for yourself, and not take anybody's say-so. But I
had to give in now that the widder was right. That is, she was right as to
the rest of the world, but she warn't right about the part our village is in;
that part is the shape of a plate, and flat, I take my oath!
The professor had been quiet all this time, as if he was asleep; but he
broke loose now, and he was mighty bitter. He says something like this:
"Idiots! They said it wouldn't go; and they wanted to examine it, and
spy around and get the secret of it out of me. But I beat them. Nobody
knows the secret but me. Nobody knows what makes it move but me;
and it's a new power -- a new power, and a thousand times the strongest
in the earth! Steam's foolishness to it! They said I couldn't go to Europe.
To Europe! Why, there's power aboard to last five years, and feed for
three months. They are fools! What do they know about it? Yes, and
they said my air-ship was flimsy. Why, she's good for fifty years! I can
sail the skies all my life if I want to, and steer where I please, though
they laughed at that, and said I couldn't. Couldn't steer! Come here, boy;
we'll see. You press these buttons as I tell you."
He made Tom steer the ship all about and every which way, and learnt
him the whole thing in nearly no time; and Tom said it was perfectly
easy. He made him fetch the ship down 'most to the earth, and had him
spin her along so close to the Illinois prairies that a body could talk to
the farmers, and hear every- thing they said perfectly plain; and he
flung out printed bills to them that told about the balloon, and said it
was going to Europe. Tom got so he could steer straight