over. But when she gets in, just ask the captain, and he'll
know for sure."

[Illustration: Looking Straight up into the Sky]

After supper, we walked out by the river. We waited till about eight
o'clock and then took a swim, and I was beginnin' to think where we was
goin' to sleep. But Mitch had decided that. There was a shed near the
shore with the slant away from the river, and Mitch says, "That's the
place. The water moccasins won't bother us there, and the mosquitoes
won't, after a bit, and we can see down the river for miles, and see
the _City of Peoria_ when she first turns the bend down there." So we
got up on the shed and lay down lookin' straight up into the sky at the
stars. It was a clear night and as quiet as a graveyard, only now and
then we heard a voice, or a dog bark, or the dip of an oar in the river.
And Mitch lay with his hands under his head lookin' up at the stars and
not sayin' anything. After a while he says: "Skeet, I told you there was
somethin' on my mind, and there is. There's more than one thing on my
mind, but I'm just wonderin' whether I'll tell you all of it or not."

"Why not?" says I.

"Because about one thing I don't know what I'm goin' to do myself, and
if I talk about it, I'm likely to say I'll do this or that, and then if
I don't you'll wonder; and I believe until I know just what I'm goin' to
do, I'd better keep still. And as far as that goes, this goin' to see
Tom Sawyer might have something to do with it. We might not come
back--or get back in time for this thing that's in my mind. Although it
don't take long to come back. And so, considerin' everything, I decided
I'd take a chance, for we must see Tom Sawyer, Skeet; it must be and it
has to be now. You see I'm a little mixed up after all; and ain't grown
folks mixed up? I never see anybody more mixed about what to do than my
pa sometimes. But I'll tell you this much, Skeet, we wouldn't be here
to-night, and we wouldn't be on our way now to see Tom Sawyer if it
warn't for one thing."

"What's that?" says I.

"Zueline," says Mitch. Then Mitch began to shake, and I knew he was
cryin', and he took his hands from under his head and put them over his
eyes, and everything was so still it scared me. Then Mitch quit shakin'
and took his hands off his eyes and looked straight up and was still for
a long while. I couldn't guess what was the matter. Had Zueline died,
maybe, or gone visitin', or quarreled with Mitch? So after a bit I s