I
could have had it with Mitch, if we could have spent it together for
velocipedes--and dogs, and sets of tools, for scroll saws, watches and
whatever we wanted, and soda water, when we wanted it, and bananas,
which we never had much because they cost ten cents apiece--for
anything, that would have been different. But now it's just so much rags
or paper, and I haven't got any use for it whatever. I am Huck Finn at
last--the money means nothing to me. It meant nothing to Huck, because
when he got it, he had to put on shoes and dress up. And now I've got
it, I've lost the only thing that made it worth while. I've lost Mitch
who made it interestin' to get, and would have made it interestin' to
spend."

Then I told pa I wanted to give it to the Miller girls, barrin' just a
few dollars to buy a present for ma and grandma and Myrtle, maybe--and I
wanted them to take enough to put up a stone at Mitch's grave with some
words on it, suitable to him.

So pa said he thought that was all right. And I took out $20 and we put
the rest in the bank in the names of the Miller girls--and that ended
the treasure.

So next Monday school commenced, and I sat in my seat lookin' out of the
window. Zueline had been taken to a girls' school in Springfield so as
to get her out of the common schools; and her mother had gone with her
to stay all winter. And every day the train came through that Mitch was
killed on. The days went by; the fall went by; the winter came. The snow
began to fall on Mitch's grave and Little Billie's; and still we went
on. Delia got the meals as before; the washwoman came and did the
washing on Monday; pa was buying wood for the stoves; we had to be
fitted out for winter. Grandma and grandpa came in to see us, cheerful
and kind as they always were. Once he carried a half a pig up the hill
and brought it to us; and they were always giving us things; and grandma
was always knitting me mittens and socks. They had lost a lot of
children, two little girls the same summer, a daughter who was grown, a
grown son who was drowned. They seemed to take Mitchie's death and
Little Billie's death as natural and to be stood. And they said it
wouldn't be long before we'd all be together, never to be separated; and
then we'd all be really happy.

And finally the December court came around and they tried Temple Scott.
Harold Carman testified to what he had said to the woman on the boat.
And Major Abbott was kerflummoxed and lost the c