hich he unwrapped and found inside a breast pin
with the initials N. A. on it, which showed that the money was Nancy
Allen's, saved from sellin' rags and paper. For we remembered when she
used to go about with a gunny sack pickin' up old rags, bottles and
things.

I was just puttin' the cans into the kettle when pa came up and saw me,
and says, "What you got?" Then he saw what it was. And Nigger Dick came
up and says, "Bless my soul!" And pa took the kettle up on the ground
and began to count the money. "That's mine," I said to pa; but he didn't
notice me, just went on countin' till he found out there was about
$2000.00. Then he said, "This money goes to the county. Nancy Allen
didn't have any relatives, and it goes to the county." Well, I began to
perk up and I said, "Ain't Mrs. Bender her sister--and if it ain't mine
for findin' it, why don't it go to her sister?" Pa said: "No, Mrs.
Bender ain't her sister, and I know she didn't have any relatives.
Anyway, we'll advertise and if no relatives claim the money, it goes to
the county."

I began to sniffle. And Mitch says: "Tell me, then, how Tom Sawyer and
Huck Finn got to keep what they found. Injun Joe had no relatives, and
Judge Thatcher knew the law, or was supposed to; and why didn't that
money go to the county?"

"Why, Mitch," said pa, "don't you know that's just a story? You don't
take that for true. You mustn't let a yarn like that get into your head
and fix your ideas about things. And it's a good lesson to both of you.
You'll find when you grow up that there'll be lots of prizes that are
just about to fall in your hands when some superior right takes 'em
away. And you'll find that everything that happens in boyhood and on the
school yard happens when you grow up, only on a bigger scale, and hurts
more. And you'll see that everything in life when you're grown is just a
repetition of what happens on the school yard--friendship, games,
battles, politics, everything."

By this time Nigger Dick had come up again and he said he'd found some
footprints coming to and going away from the house. It had rained the
night before and the marks had staid. So pa got Old Bender and made him
walk and compared the prints, but they wasn't the same. And pa said that
was a clew. For Old Bender claimed he woke up and found the house on
fire. So they took a box and turned it upside down over some of the
prints and then pa took the kettle and put it in the rig, and Old Bender
came