Mitch Miller Part 2

Mitch says, "Maybe, I don't know."

"Maybe," says he. "Well, don't you want to be certain to escape the condemnation?"

"I'd like to," says Mitch.

"This is the accepted time, and you can't afford to say maybe, you must say I am sure--I know it. What is your name?"

"Mitch Miller."

"Well, Mitch, have you had the advantages of a Bible training?"

"Yes, sir."

"You've read it a little?"

"All of it."

"Do you believe it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then, why don't you stand up right now and say I believe it and come into the church?"

"I'd like to hear more about it."

"What part of it?"

"Baptism."

"There's nothing more to say, Mitch. The Bible says believe and be baptized. Baptized means to be immersed. The Bible doesn't say believe and be sprinkled, or believe and be dipped. It says believe and be baptized. You have it plain, and the duty is plain. You can come in now while you are young and before the gra.s.shopper is a burden, or you can wait until the days of sin come about you, and your eyes are blinded with scales and then try to come in. And maybe by that time you will have lost interest and be hardened; or you may die in sin while saying 'maybe' and not 'I'm sure.' Now what do you say?"

And Mitch says, "I won't to-night anyway."

Then the revivalist said, "Do you remember the rich man to whom the Lord said, 'Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee'?"

Mitch says, "Yes, he was braggin' about his barns and that he had food laid up for many days. I'm not braggin' about anything; I'm not rich or grown up, and that part of the Bible don't apply to me."

"Ah," said the revivalist, just like that, "it all applies to you and to me--and it's Satan that tells it doesn't; and here you are a bright boy that has read the Bible and you hesitate and argue while Jesus is waitin'. But the time will come when Jesus won't wait--when the gates will be shut. And Jesus will be in heaven with His own, and all the rest will be in the pit, burning with eternal fire. Don't you believe this?"

Mitch says, "No."

"Then you don't believe the Bible. Who have you heard talk these subjects?"

"My pa."

"What does he do, Mitchie?"

"He's a preacher."

The revivalist was stunned, and he looked at Mitch and kind of started to get away from him. Then Mitch says: "My pa debated baptism with another preacher last winter and beat him. I believe in sprinklin'. I've been sprinkled, and I will let it stay that way until I'm convinced."

Then the revivalist says: "Take your chance, my little friend," and went away. The meeting ended and we went home. To-morrow was Sat.u.r.day, and we were going to dig for treasure.

CHAPTER IV

Mitch and I had dug under pretty near every dead limb in Montgomery's woods and hadn't found a trace of any treasure. We began in April when the winds sang as they did in March. There were blackbirds around then and that bird that sings "spring day." Mitch's father knew the names of all the birds; but outside of crows, robins, jay-birds and things like that we didn't know 'em--neither Mitch nor I. We didn't care, for what's the use of knowing names of things? You can't p.r.o.nounce 'em anyway, and I've noticed people get queer studying such things, like Homer Jones who gathered weeds and flowers and pinned long names on 'em.

When we began to dig, the sap was flowing out of the maple trees. And once George Montgomery saw us digging. He had come over to empty his buckets of sap to make some maple sugar. And he said, "What are you boys doing?" and laughed and said--"Don't bother my buckets. If you want a taste of sap take it, but don't get the buckets askew so they will spill."

Mitch called back to him, "What do you say, George, if we find a tea-kettle of money buried here sommers, buried by old Nancy Allen?" And George said, "Take it along--but you'll dig the whole world up before you do."

You see Mitch was foolin' because we didn't think Nancy Allen had left her money there, if she had any. But Mitch didn't want to say that we was followin' the direction of Tom Sawyer for treasure. We kept the book hid under a log, and every now and then would take it out and read it to see if we missed any of the points. If we had told George Montgomery what we was doin', he would have laughed at us and told everybody, and had the whole town laughin' at us. Because we knew n.o.body but us had any faith in such things. But Mitch had faith and so had I. We agreed that there was treasure to be found, and if we worked we believed we could get it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: George Montgomery]

It was a good thing that Nancy Allen died that winter and that Mitch said that, because it threw George off. n.o.body believed in Tom Sawyer as a real person but us--we did. We knew he was real. Mitch was going to write a letter to him and send it to Hannibal, Missouri, for Mitch's dad said there was no town of St. Petersburg in Missouri--and that Mark Twain had used that name as a blind.

And just about then this here Nancy Allen disappeared. She was a funny little woman about as big as a 'leven year old girl, and wore a shawl around her head, and carried a cane and smoked a pipe. She allus came to town with Old Bender and his wife which was a friend or somethin' of Nancy, and a boy with a mouth as big as a colt's and as trembly, which was Old Bender's boy. They all lived together near town, and used to come in, first Old Bender, then his wife, then Nancy, then this boy walkin' in file, and they'd go to the grocery store and set around all day, and go home with bacon, tobacco and things.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bender Family]

I said Nancy disappeared in the winter. But there was snow and they didn't come to town--so just when she died n.o.body knows. But as I said, Mitch and I found her body right near a creek in Montgomery's woods in April. The snow was gone, and there she lay, what was left of her, wrapped up in her shawl. And no one knew how she got there or anything about it.

Mitch was the most curious boy you ever saw. He had read sommers about a singing bone--that if you take the bone of a person that has died like this, and hollow it out so as to make it into kind of a horn, and blow through it, a voice will come out of it and tell you how the person died and where the money is that's left and everything. So when we found her, Mitch was just about to take her arm bone which was stickin' through her shawl to make a horn of when I says, "Don't, Mitch, you'll get into trouble. That body must lie right there 'till the Corner comes." You see my father was States Attorney and I'd heard him say that. So we left Nancy just as she was and ran into town. I told my father, and the Corner went out and took us along, and we told what we knew. Then they took her body into town and got a jury and Mitch and I told about it, and our names were printed in the paper.

There was a story around that Nancy Allen was a miser, and of course they wondered how she died. And my pa got Old Bender in and cross-questioned him a whole day, with Mitch and me hid on top of a closet in the room. But Old Bender stuck to his story, that Nancy had started out to visit one of the Watkinses near Montgomery's woods, and probably got cold, or fainted or somethin'. Anyway, they let Old Bender go, and after that he came into town walkin' first, then his wife, then their boy, and Nancy gone.

They didn't find any money or anything. But George Montgomery was threw clean off when Mitch said we're diggin' for Nancy's treasure. For Mitch went on and said: "What was she doin' here in the woods? Goin' to see the Watkinses? That's pretty thin. She was here to get her money, that's what it was. And she fainted and froze to death. It's as plain as day.

My pa thinks so, and that ain't all, the States Attorney thinks so too, doesn't he, Skeeters?" Of course I had to say yes, though I'd never heard my pa say any such thing. George left us and went about his buckets, and we went on diggin'. We saw George walk away and climb the rail fence and disappear. Then Mitch flung down his spade and sat on the log where we had "Tom Sawyer" hid and began to talk.

"Skeeters," he said, "just look how everything tallies. Tom's town was St. Petersburg, and ours here is Petersburg. His town was on a river. So is this town. We ain't got no Injun Joe, but how about Doc Lyon? Ain't he just as mysterious and dangerous as Injun Joe? Then if these woods don't look just like the woods Tom and Huck dug in, I'll eat my hat.

Look here!" Mitch pulled the book out and showed me, and sure enough they were alike. "Then look at Old Taylor, the school teacher--ain't he the livin' image of Tom's teacher? And our schoolhouses look alike. And we ain't got any Aunt Polly, but look at your grandmother--she's the livin' image of Aunt Polly and just like her. Things can't be just alike, if they was, they wouldn't be two things, but only one. And I can go through this town and pick out every character. I've thought it over.

The Welshman--that's George Montgomery's father. n.i.g.g.e.r Jim--how about n.i.g.g.e.r d.i.c.k? He's older and drinks, but you must expect some differences. And Mary--my sister Anne is just the same. m.u.f.f Potter--how about Joe Pink?--allus in trouble and in jail and looks like m.u.f.f. And the Sunday School's just the same, superintendent and all. And the circus comes to town just as it did in Tom's town. And the County Judge--no difference."

"Yes, but," I said, "your girl ain't the daughter of the County Judge like Becky Thatcher was. And her name is Zueline and that sounds like something beautiful not belonging to any town--but to some place I keep dreaming about."

"Skeeters," said Mitch, "you make me mad sometimes. As I told you, it can't be all alike. Now there's you--you ain't any more like Huckleberry Finn than the Sunday School superintendent is, not sayin' that you're him, for you're not. But it can't be all alike. I only say when it goes this far that it means something. And while I think I'm just like Tom Sawyer, for I can do everything he did, swim, fight, fish and hook sugar, and read detective stories, you're not Huck, and because you're not, it will be different in the end. We'll go along up to a certain point, and then it will be you, maybe, that'll give it a different turn.

Maybe we'll get bigger treasure or somethin' better."

"I don't want no better luck than Tom and Huck had," said I. "But I believe it will be different, for you're different from Tom, Mitch. For one thing, you've read different things: The Arabian Nights, and Grimm's Stories, and there's your father who's a preacher and all your sisters and your mother who's so good natured and fat. These things will count too. So I say, if I'm not Huck, you're not Tom, though we can go on for treasure, and I see your argument mostly and believe in it."

Mitch grew awful serious and was still for a long while. Finally he said: "Skeeters, I just live Tom Sawyer and dream about him. I don't seem to think of anything else--and somehow I act him, and before I die, I mean to see him. Yes, sir, this very summer you and I, if you're game, will look on Tom Sawyer's face and take him by the hand."

"Why, Mitch," I said, "how can you do it? It must be more'n a hundred miles from here to where Tom lives."