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as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long

time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it -- except for the other people --

so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go.

Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way

to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take

hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two

Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's

Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more.

I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's, if he wanted

me, though I couldn't make out how he was agoing to be any better off then

than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant and so kind of low-down

and ornery. ssssssssss

Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for

me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he

was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods

most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in

the river drowned, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged

it was him, anyway; said this drowned man was just his size, and was ragged,

and had uncommon long hair -- which was all like pap -- but they couldn't make

nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warn't much

like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They

took him and buried him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because

I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man

don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't

pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again.

I judged the old man would turn up again by-and-by, though I wished he

wouldn't. ssssssssss

We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned.

All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, we hadn't killed any people,

but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charg-

ing down on hog-drovers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market,

but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots,"

and he called the turnips and stuff "julery" and we would go to the cave

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