e after erronorts
for dinner. We was going to leave the next day, but couldn't, it was too
lovely.

The day after, when we rose up toward the sky and sailed off eastward,
we looked back and watched that place till it warn't nothing but just
a speck in the Desert, and I tell you it was like saying good-bye to a
friend that you ain't ever going to see any more.

Jim was thinking to himself, and at last he says:

"Mars Tom, we's mos' to de end er de Desert now, I speck."

"Why?"

"Well, hit stan' to reason we is. You knows how long we's been
a-skimmin' over it. Mus' be mos' out o' san'. Hit's a wonder to me dat
it's hilt out as long as it has."

"Shucks, there's plenty sand, you needn't worry."

"Oh, I ain't a-worryin', Mars Tom, only wonderin', dat's all. De Lord's
got plenty san', I ain't doubtin' dat; but nemmine, He ain't gwyne to
WAS'E it jist on dat account; en I allows dat dis Desert's plenty big
enough now, jist de way she is, en you can't spread her out no mo' 'dout
was'in' san'."

"Oh, go 'long! we ain't much more than fairly STARTED across this Desert
yet. The United States is a pretty big country, ain't it? Ain't it,
Huck?"

"Yes," I says, "there ain't no bigger one, I don't reckon."

"Well," he says, "this Desert is about the shape of the United States,
and if you was to lay it down on top of the United States, it would
cover the land of the free out of sight like a blanket. There'd be
a little corner sticking out, up at Maine and away up northwest, and
Florida sticking out like a turtle's tail, and that's all. We've took
California away from the Mexicans two or three years ago, so that part
of the Pacific coast is ours now, and if you laid the Great Sahara down
with her edge on the Pacific, she would cover the United States and
stick out past New York six hundred miles into the Atlantic ocean."

I say:

"Good land! have you got the documents for that, Tom Sawyer?"

"Yes, and they're right here, and I've been studying them. You can look
for yourself. From New York to the Pacific is 2,600 miles. From one end
of the Great Desert to the other is 3,200. The United States contains
3,600,000 square miles, the Desert contains 4,162,000. With the Desert's
bulk you could cover up every last inch of the United States, and in
under where the edges projected out, you could tuck England, Scotland,
Ireland, France, Denmark, and all Germany. Yes, sir, you could hide the
home of the brave and all of them coun