ey asked
us to go with them blackberrying to-night, and said they could borrow
Jubiter Dunlap's dog, because he had told them just that minute--"

"Where did they see him?" says the old man; and when I looked up to see
how HE come to take an intrust in a little thing like that, his eyes was
just burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind of
throwed me off, but I pulled myself together again and says:

"It was when he was spading up some ground along with you, towards
sundown or along there."

He only said, "Um," in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn't take no
more intrust. So I went on. I says:

"Well, then, as I was a-saying--"

"That'll do, you needn't go no furder." It was Aunt Sally. She was
boring right into me with her eyes, and very indignant. "Huck Finn,"
she says, "how'd them men come to talk about going a-black-berrying in
September--in THIS region?"

I see I had slipped up, and I couldn't say a word. She waited, still
a-gazing at me, then she says:

"And how'd they come to strike that idiot idea of going a-blackberrying
in the night?"

"Well, m'm, they--er--they told us they had a lantern, and--"

"Oh, SHET up--do! Looky here; what was they going to do with a dog?--hunt
blackberries with it?"

"I think, m'm, they--"

"Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing YOUR mouth to
contribit to this mess of rubbage? Speak out--and I warn you before you
begin, that I don't believe a word of it. You and Huck's been up to
something you no business to--I know it perfectly well; I know you,
BOTH of you. Now you explain that dog, and them blackberries, and the
lantern, and the rest of that rot--and mind you talk as straight as a
string--do you hear?"

Tom he looked considerable hurt, and says, very dignified:

"It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just for making a
little bit of a mistake that anybody could make."

"What mistake has he made?"

"Why, only the mistake of saying blackberries when of course he meant
strawberries."

"Tom Sawyer, I lay if you aggravate me a little more, I'll--"

"Aunt Sally, without knowing it--and of course without intending it--you
are in the wrong. If you'd 'a' studied natural history the way you
ought, you would know that all over the world except just here in
Arkansaw they ALWAYS hunt strawberries with a dog--and a lantern--"

But she busted in on him there and just piled into him and snowed him
under. She was so mad she c