And by George, Tom Sawyer never
looked at him once! Never once -- just set there
gazing with all his eyes at something else, I couldn't
tell what. And so the old man raged right along,
pouring his words out like a stream of fire:
"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the
notion in my life to hurt him or harm him, spite of all
them lies about my threatening him, till the very
minute I raised the club -- then my heart went cold! --
then the pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In
that one moment all my wrongs come into my mind;
all the insults that that man and the scoundrel his
brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in
together to ruin me with the people, and take away
my good name, and DRIVE me to some deed that would
destroy me and my family that hadn't ever done THEM
no harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean
revenge -- for why? Because my innocent pure girl
here at my side wouldn't marry that rich, insolent,
ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who's been sniveling
here over a brother he never cared a brass farthing
for -- "[I see Tom give a jump and look glad THIS time,
to a dead certainty]" -- and in that moment I've told
you about, I forgot my God and remembered only my
heart's bitterness, God forgive me, and I struck to kill.
In one second I was miserably sorry -- oh, filled with
remorse; but I thought of my poor family, and I MUST
hide what I'd done for their sakes; and I did hide that
corpse in the bushes; and presently I carried it to the
tobacker field; and in the deep night I went with my
shovel and buried it where --"
Up jumps Tom and shouts:
"NOW, I've got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever
so fine and starchy, towards the old man, and says:
"Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never
had no hand in it!"
Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop.
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