Chapter 42 Chapter Forty-One

The doctor was an elderly man; I realized he was a very nice old gentleman when I called him up.I told him that yesterday afternoon my brother and I went hunting on the opposite Spanish island, and we found a piece of raft and camped on it.At midnight, he must have kicked the gun in his dream, and it went off, hitting him right in the calf, and we asked him to come over there for a round, but we asked him not to say anything about it. And don't tell anyone else about it, because we're going to go home tonight and surprise the whole family. "Whose family are you from?" asked the doctor.

"It's the Phelps's, over there." "Oh." He said, and after a while, he said again: "Just now you said how he was shot?" "He had a dream," I said, "and he got shot in the dream." "What a strange dream," he said. So saying, he lit his lantern, took his bag, and we set off together.But as soon as he saw the small boat, he seemed to dismiss it—he said that this small boat was just big enough to carry one person, but it might not be enough for two people.I just say: "Well, you needn't be afraid, sir, it's light enough for the three of us."

"Which three are they?" "Look, me and Sid, and--and--and our guns; that's all I'm going to say." "Oh," he said. But he put his foot on the gunwale and shook the canoe hard, then shook his head and said that it seemed to him that he had to touch a slightly bigger boat.Reluctantly, those ships were all locked with iron chains.So he got in my canoe, and told me to wait for him to come back, or go get another one around here, or I might as well go home first, and let 'em get ready for a surprise, if I like it.But I said I didn't intend to do that.So I told him how to find the raft, and off he went.

Not long after, I suddenly came up with an idea.I thought to myself, what if he couldn't heal his leg right away?What if he needs three or four days?So what are we going to do? —Does it mean to just lie there all the time, waiting for him to reveal our secret?No, sir, I have a trick of my own.Anyway, I'll wait here, and when he comes back, if he says he has to go again, then I'll go with him, even if I float; then we'll tie him up Get up and watch, and float down the river till he heals Tom's leg, and we'll pay him what he does, or we'll give him all we have, and put him back on shore.

So I crawled into a log pile and slept for a while; when I awoke the sun was almost over my head!I rushed out and went straight to the doctor's house, but his family said that he had gone out to the doctor about midnight and hadn't come back yet. Oh, I thought to myself, it seems that Tom is seriously injured , I have to rush back to that small island immediately.So I ran off, almost hitting my head on Uncle Silas' stomach when I turned the corner.He said: "Why, Tom! Where have you been all this time, you rascal?" "I ain't gone nowhere," I said, "just groped that black person on the run—me and Sid."

"Oh, where the hell are you looking?" he said. "Your aunt is dying of anxiety." "She's not going to die," I said, "because we're all all right. We're always running after the men and the dogs, but they're running so fast that we're far behind; but we I thought I heard them running up the river, so we got a small canoe and ran after them, and rowed across the river to see, but there was no sign of them; so we had to paddle up. Been, terribly exhausted, and fell asleep as soon as the canoe was hitched, and just woke up an hour ago; and we rowed this way again, trying to get some news. Sid went to the post office for information, and I Just come here separately, give us both a little something to eat, and then we will go home together."

So we went together to the post office to find Sid; but, as I expected, he hadn't been here.The old gentleman took a letter out of the post office, and we waited a while longer, but Sid still didn't come; so the old gentleman said let's go together, after Sid is too tired to hang around anymore. Well, it doesn't matter if he likes to walk home or take a canoe, as he pleases--but we'll have to take a carriage.I couldn't get him to let me stay here and wait for Sid; he said it was no use waiting any longer, and I had to get back as soon as possible so Aunt Sally knew we were all safe.

When we got home, when Aunt Sally saw me, she laughed and cried with joy, first hugged me tightly, and then beat me up, which was nothing more than nothing. and she said that when Sid came back, she would teach him the same thing. Now the living room is full of people; those farmers are taking their wives to have lunch here; coupled with the noise of talking, no one has ever seen it.That old Mrs. Hotchkiss was more instigating than anyone else; she kept wagging her lips and saying: "Why, Miss Phelps, I've searched the cabin over there, and I'm sure that black person is crazy. I told Miss Darrell--did I, Darrell? Miss Er?—I said, he must be crazy, I said—that's what I said, exactly, and every word is right. Listen, all of you: he must be crazy, I said; anyhow you All it takes is one look, I said. Just look at the big millstone, I said; and a man with the right nerves wouldn't chisel so much madness in a big millstone, I said; and What: Here's a so-and-so's heart broken; here's a so-and-so who's been in captivity for thirty-seven years;--and there's a son named Louis or something, and so on and so forth Talked a lot of shit, he must be downright crazy, I said; I said it at the beginning, I said it in the middle, and I said it in the end—the black person must Crazy--as crazy as Nebo is, I said."

"That's right, Miss Hotchkiss, look at that rope ladder with strips of rags on it," said old Mrs. Derrell. —” "These things you said are exactly the same as what I just said to Miss Utterbuck. If you don't believe me, you can ask her. She said, look at the rope ladder made of strips of rags, she Said; so I said, yeah, look you all, and I said—what the hell did he want it for? I said. And she said, Miss Hotchkiss, she said—” "But then again, how did they get that big millstone in? Who dug that hole? And who—" "That's exactly what I'm going to say, Brother Penrod! I just said to—pass me that little saucer, will you?—I was just telling Miss Dunlap how they got that big millstone Been there, I said. And there's no helper, please hear me--no helper! That's strange. Don't be too rare, I said; helpers are always necessary, I said; and there must be plenty of them , I said; there were at least a dozen or so helpers for that black man, I really want to peel off the skin of all the black people here, I must find out who did those things, I said; and, I also said—"

"You said there were at least a dozen of them!—forty people might not be able to do those things. Look at that little knife and saw, and other odds and ends, how tiresome it must be to do; and then Look at the leg of the bed that's been sawed off, it's a job that's going to take six men a week; and look at the fake black person on top of the bed; and look at—" "Everything you say is true, Brother Hightower! Just like what I said to Brother Phelps himself just now. He said, Miss Hotchkiss, what do you think about this matter? I said, yes What's your idea of ​​what, Brother Phelps? He said, Come to think of it, what's in your mind when the leg is sawed off like that? I dare say it's not the bed leg itself. Saw it off, I said—someone sawed it off anyway, I said. That's my opinion, believe it or not, I don't care, I said. That's always my opinion though, I said. If anyone can say anything better, let him do it, and I've said it all anyway, I said. And I said to Miss Dunlap--"

"Bah, damn it, that cabin must be full of niggers every night, and it takes four weeks to get that much work done, Miss Phelps. And look at that shirt— -It is full of African characters dipped in blood, which is very strange, who can understand it! According to my opinion, there must be a large group of people who wrote it almost day and night. Hey, who gave that thing? I'll give him two guineas if I read it out. If I catch niggers scribbling, I'll whip 'em till they—" "Of course, he's helped, Brother Phipples! Hey, if you've been in this house the other day, I reckon you'd have thought that. Anyway, they steal everything they touch. What—and, you gotta listen, we're watching all the time. That shirt they stole off the clothesline! And that sheet—that's what they used for a rope ladder A sheet—probably no one can tell how many times they stole it all together—and flour, and candles, and candlesticks, and spoons, and that old antique stove, and a thousand other things, anyway, now I can't remember too; oh, and my new calico slip; and, besides, Silas and I, and my Sid and Tom, had eyes on Look, just as I told you just now. In the end, we didn't pull a hair on them, we didn't see a shadow, and we didn't hear a sound. In the end, you might as well see, They sneaked under our noses all at once, fooling us, anyway, not only us, but also a gang of robbers from the Indian reservation. They really gave the black man to him safe and sound. They were robbed, and when they left, there were sixteen big men and twenty-two bulldogs chasing after them! I'll tell you the truth, I've never heard of such a thing. Oh, Even if ghosts and gods do this kind of thing, they may not be able to do it better and more beautifully. But I reckon they must be ghosts and gods—because, our dogs, you all know, there is no one more capable than them What? But it is strange that the dogs have not even found their tracks, not even once! The mystery, can any of you explain it to me--no matter which one of you! " "Gee, this really overwhelms—" "God knows, I haven't in my life—" "As God bears witness, I hadn't—" "Must be the bones of a wall-digger, and—" "My God, I wouldn't dare live in a—" "Don't you dare!—Oh, Miss Ridgway, I've been so frightened that I almost shudder every day when I get up, sleep, lie down, or sit down. Maybe they'll steal— Oh my gosh, guess what, it was just past midnight yesterday and I was literally freaking out of my wits if I wasn't worried about them stealing a few of my family as well Well, I was so frightened that my mind was almost out of my head at the time. It seems foolish for me to say that now in broad daylight; but then I thought to myself that my poor children, Sleeping in that deserted room upstairs, and to tell you the truth, I was so pissed that I crept upstairs and locked them all in! That's what I did. Either way Anyone, I suppose, would do that too. Anyway, you know, when you've been frightened like that, and it's getting worse, and it's always getting more and more frightened, then of course your head gets all messed up, You can do anything absurd; and after a while you think to yourself, if I'm a kid and I sleep in that room at the end upstairs with the door unlocked, then you--" Here she goes She paused, looking a bit puzzled, and then slowly turned her head around. When she saw me in both eyes - I immediately stood up and walked outside. I thought to myself that if I were somewhere outside and thought about the matter a little, maybe I could explain better why we weren't in the room this morning.Later, I really did.Still I dare not go too far, or she will send for me.By late afternoon, when they were all gone, I went home and told her it was the noise and the gunshots that woke me and Sid up, but the door was locked and we We had to go out and watch the action, so we slid down the lightning rod, and we both got a little bit hurt.Anyway, we will never dare to do that again in the future.Then I repeated to her what I had said to Uncle Silas.She said she'd spare us, and she said maybe it was the luck of the misfortune; and she said no one ever thought the kids would do that because, she thought, they were a bunch of dumbass Qing, so as long as nothing goes wrong, she feels that she needs to take a little more time to thank God, after all, we are still alive and well, and she has not been abandoned by her, so naturally there is no need to worry about the past.So she kissed me, patted me on the head again, and then seemed to be lost in thought again.But after a while, she jumped up suddenly and said: "Oh, oh, it's almost dark, and Sid hasn't come back! What's the matter with the boy!" As soon as I saw the opportunity, I jumped up and said: "I'll run to town right away and get him back," I said. "No, you can't go," she said. "You just stay here. It's hard enough to lose one. If he doesn't come back to supper, your uncle will go and find him." Hey, he didn't come back for dinner, so my uncle went out after dinner. My uncle didn't come back until about ten o'clock, and seemed a little worried because he hadn't found out where Tom was.Aunt Sally was really worried, but Uncle Silas said why she was in such a hurry—he said a child was a child after all, and he would come back safe and sound in the morning.As a result, she also felt a lot of relief.But she said she'd have to stay up all night anyway, waiting for him, and light a candle so he could be seen from a distance. When I went upstairs to sleep, she also went upstairs with me. She held a candle, covered me with a quilt, and took care of me like a real mother. I dare not look at it.She sat on the edge of the bed and talked to me for a long time, saying what a wonderful boy Sid was; it seemed she couldn't stop talking about him.She questioned me now and then if I thought he was lost, or wounded, or maybe drowned, and maybe he was lying somewhere suffering right now, or was he dead already, but But she couldn't take care of him by his side, so her tears dripped down quietly.I told her Sid was all right, and he'd be home in the morning.She immediately shook my hand vigorously, or kissed my face, and asked me to say that sentence again, and she had to keep saying it, because she was really in pain, and that sentence made her listen happy happy.Before leaving, she looked down into my eyes with infinite tenderness and said: "Tom, I'm not going to lock the door any more. There's a window and a lightning-rod anyway; you'll always be good, won't you? You won't go away, will you? For my sake." God knows how anxious I was to see Tom, which I've been dreaming of going all the time.But after hearing what she said, I didn't want to go, no matter what I said, I didn't want to go. Neither she nor Tom was on my mind at all times, so that night I kept tossing and turning and couldn't sleep.Twice at midnight, I slid down close to the lightning rod and went to the front quietly. I saw her sitting by the candlelight by the window, her eyes filled with tears, gazing at the road.I really wish I could comfort her, but I have no choice but to swear to God that I will never mess around again in the future, and don't make her cry.The third time I woke up, it was just dawn, I slid down and looked again, she was still sitting there, the candle was almost finished, her white-haired head was knocking on my hand, probably She has fallen asleep.