n in the grass and began to make traps out of
timothy to catch crickets. Somebody had taught him that. His face began
to change. He began to look friendlier and like himself again, except he
looked older and like he knew more. And then he began to talk:

"Skeet," he says, "I'm not Tom Sawyer, and I never was; never any more
than you was Huckleberry Finn. I know who I am now. Do you?"

"No," says I. "Who are you?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Skeet--I'm Hamlet."

"Hamlet--who was he?"

"Well," says Mitch, "he was a prince."

"Well, you ain't," says I.

"No, I ain't. But Hamlet could be just like me and not be the preacher's
son; and because he wasn't wouldn't make him different. Yes, sir, I'm
Hamlet. I've read the play and thought about it a lot. And I know now
who I am. And you, Skeet, are Horatio."

"Who was he?" says I.

"He was Hamlet's friend, just as you are my friend. And as far as that
goes, there was never any persons more alike in this world than you and
Horatio. You are good and steady, and don't change, and you are a good
friend, you have got sense, and you have no troubles of your own, and so
you can listen to mine, as Horatio listened to Hamlet's."

"What troubles have you?" says I.

"Lots," says Mitch, "that is general troubles--of course Zueline and
this here court worries. I've got to testify again. I'm tangled up just
like Hamlet was, and I want to get away like he did, and I can't. And it
teaches me that it ain't because I'm a boy that I can't get away, for
Hamlet was a man and he couldn't. He was getting old, most thirty, and
he couldn't do any more with his life than I can with mine--not as much,
maybe."

"And yet you say he was a prince."

"Yes, but what difference did that make? Did you ever see a chip get
caught in a little shallow in the river in the reeds; and then see it
get out of the shallow by the current changing or somethin', and then
see it start down the river all gay and free, and run into some brush
floatin', or get thrown against the logs to one side of the dam and held
there? Well, Hamlet was a prince, and he was just a chip caught by the
dam and couldn't budge and kept tryin' to and couldn't. This is what my
pa says the play means; but also I can see it for myself. I keep readin'
it and it gets clearer. And pa says it will never make any difference
how old I get, the play will be wonderfuler and wonderfuler, and is to
him; and that finally I'll wonder how any man could eve