|
CHAPTER XIX
TOM arrived at home in a dreary mood, and the first thing his aunt said to him showed him that he had brought his sorrows to an unpromising market: "Tom, I`ve a notion to skin you alive!" "Auntie, what have I done?" "Well, you`ve done enough. Here I go over to Sereny Harper, like an old softy, expecting I`m going to make her believe all that rubbage about that dream, when lo and behold you she`d found out from Joe that you was over here and heard all the talk we had that night. Tom, I don`t know what is to become of a boy that will act like that. It makes me feel so bad to think you could let me go to Sereny Harper and make such a fool of myself and never say a word." This was a new aspect of the thing. His smartness of the morning had seemed to Tom a good joke before, and very ingenious. It merely looked mean and shabby now. He hung his head and could not think of anything to say for a moment. Then he said: "Auntie, I wish I hadn`t done it -- but I didn`t think." "Oh, child, you never think. You never think of anything but your own selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from Jackson`s Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you could think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn`t ever think to pity us and save us from sorrow." "Auntie, I know now it was mean, but I didn`t mean to be mean. I didn`t, honest. And besides, I didn`t come over here to laugh at you that night." "What did you come for, then?" "It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn`t got drownded." "Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I could believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never did -- and I know it, Tom." "Indeed and `deed I did, auntie -- I wish I may never stir if I didn`t." "Oh, Tom, don`t lie -- don`t do it. It only makes things a hundred times worse." "It ain`t a lie, auntie; it`s the truth. I wanted to keep you from grieving -- that was all that made me come." "I`d give the whole world to believe that -- it would cover up a power of sins, Tom. I`d `most be glad you`d run off and acted so bad. But it ain`t reasonable; because, why didn`t you tell me, child?" "Why, you see, when you got to talking about the funeral, I just got all full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the church, and I couldn`t somehow bear to spoil it. So I just put the bark back in my pocket and kept mum." "What bark?" "The bark I had wrote on to tell you we`d gone pirating. I wish, now, you`d waked up when I kissed you -- I do, honest." The hard lines in his aunt`s face relaxed and a sudden tenderness dawned in her eyes. "DID you kiss me, Tom?" "Why, yes, I did." "Are you sure you did, Tom?" "Why, yes, I did, auntie -- certain sure." "What did you kiss me for, Tom?" "Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry." The words sounded like truth. The old lady could not hide a tremor in her voice when she said: "Kiss me again, Tom! -- and be off with you to school, now, and don`t bother me any more." The moment he was gone, she ran to a closet and got out the ruin of a jacket which Tom had gone pirating in. Then she stopped, with it in her hand, and said to herself: "No, I don`t dare. Poor boy, I reckon he`s lied about it -- but it`s a blessed, blessed lie, there`s such a comfort come from it. I hope the Lord -- I KNOW the Lord will forgive him, because it was such good- heartedness in him to tell it. But I don`t want to find out it`s a lie. I won`t look." She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. Twice she put out her hand to take the garment again, and twice she refrained. Once more she ventured, and this time she fortified herself with the thought: "It`s a good lie -- it`s a good lie -- I won`t let it grieve me." So she sought the jacket pocket. A moment later she was reading Tom`s piece of bark through flowing tears and saying: "I could forgive the boy, now, if he`d committed a million sins!"
|
