chapter 8

    tom dodged hither and thither throughnes until he was well out of the track of returning schrs, and then fell into a moody jog. he crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. half an hourter he was disappearing behind the dous mansion on the summit of cardiff hill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in the valley behind him. he entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak. there was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds; naturey in a trance that was broken by no sound but the asional far-off hammering of a woodpecker, and this seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more profound. the boy''s soul was steeped in mncholy; his feelings were in happy ord with his surroundings. he sat long with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. it seemed to him that life was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied jimmy hodges, sotely released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve about, ever any more. if he only had a clean sunday-school record he could be willing to go, and be done with it all. now as to this girl. what had he done? nothing. he had meant the best in the world, and been treated like a dog -- like a very dog. she would be sorry some day -- maybe when it was toote. ah, if he could only die temporarily!


    but the stic heart of youth cannot bepressed into one constrained shape long at a time. tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. what if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? what if he went away -- ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas -- and never came back any more! how would she feel then! the idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust. for frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague august realm of the romantic. no, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious. no -- better still, he would join the indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in the mountain ranges and the trackless great ins of the far west, and away in the futuree back a great chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint, and prance into sunday-school, some drowsy summer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs of all hispanions with unappeasable envy. but no, there was something gaudier even than this. he would be a pirate! that was it! now his futurey in before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. how his name would fill the world, and make people shudder! how gloriously he would go plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, ck-hulled racer, the spirit of the storm, with his grisly g flying at the fore! and at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old vige and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his ck velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cuss at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his ck g unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, "it''s tom sawyer the pirate! -- the ck avenger of the spanish main!"


    yes, it was settled; his career was determined. he would run away from home and enter upon it. he would start the very next morning. therefore he must now begin to get ready. he would collect his resources together. he went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it with his barlow knife. he soon struck wood that sounded hollow. he put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:


    "what hasn''te here,e! what''s here, stay here!"


    then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. he took it up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides were of shingles. in ity a marble. tom''s astonishment was boundless! he scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:


    "well, that beats anything!"


    then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. the truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and all hisrades had always looked upon as infallible. if you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened the ce with the incantation he had just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated. but now, this thing had actually and unquestionably failed. tom''s whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations. he had many a time heard of this thing seeding but never of its failing before. it did not ur to him that he had tried it several times before, himself, but could never find the hiding-ces afterward. he puzzled over the matter some time, and finally decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm. he thought he would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in it. heid himself down and put his mouth close to this depression and called --


    "doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what i want to know! doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what i want to know!"


    the sand began to work, and presently a small ck bug appeared for a second and then darted under again in a fright.


    "he dasn''t tell! so it was a witch that done it. i just knowed it."


    he well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he gave up discouraged. but it urred to him that he might as well have the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient search for it. but he could not find it. now he went back to his treasure-house and carefully ced himself just as he had been standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:


    "brother, go find your brother!"


    he watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. but it must have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. thest repetition was sessful. the two marblesy within a foot of each other.


    just here the st of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green aisles of the forest. tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned a suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log, disclosing a rude bow and arrow, ath sword and a tin trumpet, and in a moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged, with fluttering shirt. he presently halted under a great elm, blew an answering st, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way and that. he said cautiously –to an imaginarypany:


    "hold, my merry men! keep hid till i blow."


    now appeared joe harper, as airily d and borately armed as tom. tom called:


    "hold! whoes here into sherwood forest without my pass?"


    "guy of guisborne wants no man''s pass. who art thou that -- that --"


    "dares to hold suchnguage," said tom, prompting -- for they talked "by the book," from memory.


    "who art thou that dares to hold suchnguage?"


    "i, indeed! i am robin hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know."


    "then art thou indeed that famous ouw? right dly will i dispute with thee the passes of the merry wood. have at thee!"


    they took theirth swords, dumped their other traps on the ground, struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, carefulbat, "two up and two down." presently tom said:


    "now, if you''ve got the hang, go it lively!"


    so they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. by and by tom shouted:


    "fall! fall! why don''t you fall?"


    "i sha''n''t! why don''t you fall yourself? you''re getting the worst of it."


    "why, that ain''t anything. i can''t fall; that ain''t the way it is in the book. the book says, ''then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor guy of guisborne.'' you''re to turn around and let me hit you in the back."


    there was no getting around the authorities, so joe turned, received the whack and fell.


    "now," said joe, getting up, "you got to let me kill you. that''s fair."


    "why, i can''t do that, it ain''t in the book."


    "well, it''s med mean -- that''s all."


    "well, say, joe, you can be friar tuck or much the miller''s son, andm me with a quarter-staff; or i''ll be the sheriff of nottingham and you be robin hood a little while and kill me."


    this was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. then tom became robin hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. and atst joe, representing a whole tribe of weeping ouws, dragged him sadly forth, gave his bow into his feeble hands, and tom said, "where this arrow falls, there bury poor robin hood under the greenwood tree." then he shot the arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on atle and sprang up too gaily for a corpse.


    the boys dressed themselves, hid their outrements, and went off grieving that there were no ouws any more, and wondering what modern civilization could im to have done topensate for their loss. they said they would rather be ouws a year in sherwood forest than president of the united states forever.