st melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a
neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the
crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed
brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and
out of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all
fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped
to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn
was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the
gloom. At the end of half an hour they were wading through the tall
grass of the graveyard.

It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a
hill, about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board
fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of
the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the
whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a
tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over
the graves, leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory
of" So-and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer
have been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light.

A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the
spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked
little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the
pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the
sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the
protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet
of the grave.

Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting
of a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness.
Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said
in a whisper:

"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?"

Huckleberry whispered:

"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, AIN'T it?"

"I bet it is."

There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter
inwardly. Then Tom whispered:

"Say, Hucky--do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"

"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."

Tom, after a pause:

"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm.
Everybody calls him Hoss."

"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout