of them. It was
just the same way it is when a person is munching along on a hunk of
corn-pone, and not thinking about anything, and all of a sudden bites
into a di'mond. Now all that HE knows first off is that it's some kind of
gravel he's bit into; but he don't find out it's a di'mond till he gits
it out and brushes off the sand and crumbs and one thing or another, and
has a look at it, and then he's surprised and glad--yes, and proud too;
though when you come to look the thing straight in the eye, he ain't
entitled to as much credit as he would 'a' been if he'd been HUNTING
di'monds. You can see the difference easy if you think it over. You see,
an accident, that way, ain't fairly as big a thing as a thing that's done
a-purpose. Anybody could find that di'mond in that corn-pone; but mind
you, it's got to be somebody that's got THAT KIND OF A CORN-PONE. That's
where that feller's credit comes in, you see; and that's where mine comes
in. I don't claim no great things--I don't reckon I could 'a' done it
again--but I done it that time; that's all I claim. And I hadn't no more
idea I could do such a thing, and warn't any more thinking about it or
trying to, than you be this minute. Why, I was just as ca'm, a body
couldn't be any ca'mer, and yet, all of a sudden, out it come. I've often
thought of that time, and I can remember just the way everything looked,
same as if it was only last week. I can see it all: beautiful rolling
country with woods and fields and lakes for hundreds and hundreds of
miles all around, and towns and villages scattered everywheres under us,
here and there and yonder; and the professor mooning over a chart on his
little table, and Tom's cap flopping in the rigging where it was hung up
to dry. And one thing in particular was a bird right alongside, not ten
foot off, going our way and trying to keep up, but losing ground all the
time; and a railroad train doing the same thing down there, sliding among
the trees and farms, and pouring out a long cloud of black smoke and now
and then a little puff of white; and when the white was gone so long you
had almost forgot it, you would hear a little faint toot, and that was
the whistle. And we left the bird and the train both behind, 'WAY behind,
and done it easy, too.

But Tom he was huffy, and said me and Jim was a couple of ignorant
blatherskites, and then he says:

"Suppose there's a brown calf and a big brown dog, and an artist is
making a picture of the