ave
off this load that was more than he could bear, and he WOULDN'T bear
it another hour! And then he raged right along with his awful tale,
everybody a-staring and gasping, judge, jury, lawyers, and everybody,
and Benny and Aunt Sally crying their hearts out. And by George, Tom
Sawyer never looked at him once! Never once--just set there gazing with
all his eyes at something else, I couldn't tell what. And so the old man
raged right along, pouring his words out like a stream of fire:

"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life to
hurt him or harm him, spite of all them lies about my threatening him,
till the very minute I raised the club--then my heart went cold!--then the
pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all
my wrongs come into my mind; all the insults that that man and the
scoundrel his brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in
together to ruin me with the people, and take away my good name, and
DRIVE me to some deed that would destroy me and my family that hadn't
ever done THEM no harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean
revenge--for why? Because my innocent pure girl here at my side wouldn't
marry that rich, insolent, ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who's been
sniveling here over a brother he never cared a brass farthing for--" [I
see Tom give a jump and look glad THIS time, to a dead certainty] "--and
in that moment I've told you about, I forgot my God and remembered only
my heart's bitterness, God forgive me, and I struck to kill. In one
second I was miserably sorry--oh, filled with remorse; but I thought of
my poor family, and I MUST hide what I'd done for their sakes; and I
did hide that corpse in the bushes; and presently I carried it to the
tobacker field; and in the deep night I went with my shovel and buried
it where--"

Up jumps Tom and shouts:

"NOW, I've got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever so fine and starchy,
towards the old man, and says:

"Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never had no hand in it!"

Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk down
kind of bewildered in his seat and Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it,
because they was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open
and not knowing what they was about. And the whole house the same. I
never seen people look so helpless and tangled up, and I hain't ever
seen eyes bug out and gaze without a blink the way theirn did. Tom says,