g his head, he jumped like he was 'most
scared to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the woods, and was
gone. So he hoped he wasn't hurt bad.

"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that last
little spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and he laid
down in the bush, and there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died."

Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the
mark of Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was going
to be found out and hung. But Tom said:

"No, you ain't going to be found out. You DIDN'T kill him. ONE lick
wouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it."

"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it--nobody else. Who else had anything
against him? Who else COULD have anything against him?"

He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could mention somebody
that could have a grudge against that harmless no-account, but of course
it warn't no use--he HAD us; we couldn't say a word. He noticed that,
and he saddened down again, and I never see a face so miserable and so
pitiful to see. Tom had a sudden idea, and says:

"But hold on!--somebody BURIED him. Now who--"

He shut off sudden. I knowed the reason. It give me the cold shudders
when he said them words, because right away I remembered about us seeing
Uncle Silas prowling around with a long-handled shovel away in the night
that night. And I knowed Benny seen him, too, because she was talking
about it one day. The minute Tom shut off he changed the subject and
went to begging Uncle Silas to keep mum, and the rest of us done the
same, and said he MUST, and said it wasn't his business to tell on
himself, and if he kept mum nobody would ever know; but if it was found
out and any harm come to him it would break the family's hearts and kill
them, and yet never do anybody any good. So at last he promised. We was
all of us more comfortable, then, and went to work to cheer up the old
man. We told him all he'd got to do was to keep still, and it wouldn't
be long till the whole thing would blow over and be forgot. We all said
there wouldn't anybody ever suspect Uncle Silas, nor ever dream of such
a thing, he being so good and kind, and having such a good character;
and Tom says, cordial and hearty, he says:

"Why, just look at it a minute; just consider. Here is Uncle Silas, all
these years a preacher--at his own expense; all these years doing good
with all his might and every way he can thi