So I give it a shake, and out drops a
little piece of paper with "_Half past two_" wrote on it with a
pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't
make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and
when I got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting
for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the
Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she
looked glad; and before a body could think she grabbed me and give me
a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell
anybody. She was mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes
lighted up, and it made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal
astonished, but when I got my breath I asked her what the paper was
about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked
me if I could read writing, and I told her "no, only coarse-hand," and
then she said the paper warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her
place, and I might go and play now.

I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty
soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we was
out of sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then
comes a-running, and says:

"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a whole
stack o' water-moccasins."

Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He oughter
know a body don't love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for
them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says:

"All right; trot ahead."

I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded
ankle-deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a little flat
piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and
vines, and he says:

"You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah's whah dey
is. I's seed 'm befo'; I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'."

Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees
hid him. I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch
as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying
there asleep--and, by jings, it was my old Jim!

I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to
him to see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried he was so glad,
but he warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and
heard me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he didn'