ed we hadn't been quite so
chipper. I couldn't say nothing, and Jim he couldn't for a while; then
he says:

"Well, den, I reckon it's all right; beca'se ef dey didn't know, dey
ain't no use for po' ignorant folks like us to be trying to know; en so,
ef it's our duty, we got to go en tackle it en do de bes' we can. Same
time, I feel as sorry for dem paynims as Mars Tom. De hard part gwine
to be to kill folks dat a body hain't been 'quainted wid and dat hain't
done him no harm. Dat's it, you see. Ef we wuz to go 'mongst 'em, jist
we three, en say we's hungry, en ast 'em for a bite to eat, why, maybe
dey's jist like yuther people. Don't you reckon dey is? Why, DEY'D give
it, I know dey would, en den--"

"Then what?"

"Well, Mars Tom, my idea is like dis. It ain't no use, we CAN'T kill
dem po' strangers dat ain't doin' us no harm, till we've had practice--I
knows it perfectly well, Mars Tom--'deed I knows it perfectly well. But
ef we takes a' axe or two, jist you en me en Huck, en slips acrost de
river to-night arter de moon's gone down, en kills dat sick fam'ly dat's
over on the Sny, en burns dey house down, en--"

"Oh, you make me tired!" says Tom. "I don't want to argue any more with
people like you and Huck Finn, that's always wandering from the subject,
and ain't got any more sense than to try to reason out a thing that's
pure theology by the laws that protect real estate!"

Now that's just where Tom Sawyer warn't fair. Jim didn't mean no harm,
and I didn't mean no harm. We knowed well enough that he was right and
we was wrong, and all we was after was to get at the HOW of it, and
that was all; and the only reason he couldn't explain it so we could
understand it was because we was ignorant--yes, and pretty dull, too, I
ain't denying that; but, land! that ain't no crime, I should think.

But he wouldn't hear no more about it--just said if we had tackled the
thing in the proper spirit, he would 'a' raised a couple of thousand
knights and put them in steel armor from head to heel, and made me a
lieutenant and Jim a sutler, and took the command himself and brushed
the whole paynim outfit into the sea like flies and come back across the
world in a glory like sunset. But he said we didn't know enough to take
the chance when we had it, and he wouldn't ever offer it again. And he
didn't. When he once got set, you couldn't budge him.

But I didn't care much. I am peaceable, and don't get up rows with
people that ain't d