Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the tenth chapter of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

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Today we'll be continuing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Chapter Ten the two boys flew on and on toward the village.

Speechless with horror, they glanced backward over their shoulders from time to time, apprehensively as if they feared they might be followed.

Every stump that started up in their path seemed a man and an enemy and made them catch their breath.

And as they sped by some outlying cottages that lay near the village, the barking of the aroused watchdogs seemed to give wings to their feet.

If we can only get to the old tannery before we break down, whispered Tom in short catches between breaths.

I can't stand it much longer.

Huckleberry's.

Hard pantings were his only reply, and the boys fixed their eyes on the goal of their hopes and bent their work to win it.

They gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast, they burst through the open door and fell grateful and exhausted in the sheltering shadows beyond.

By and by their pulses slowed down, and Tom whispered, huckleberry.

What do you reckon will come of this if Dr.

Robinson dies?

I reckon hanging will come of it.

Do you though?

Why, I know it Tom.

Tom thought a while.

Then he said, who will tell?

We?

What are you talking about?

Suppose something happened and Joe didn't hang.

Why, he'd kill us sometime or other, just as dead shirts were laying here.

That's just what I was thinking to myself, huck, if anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it.

If he's full enough.

He's generally drunk enough.

Tom said nothing, went on thinking.

Presently he whispered, huck, Muff Potter don't know it.

How can he tell?

What's the reason?

He don't know it because he just got that whack when Joe done it.

Do you reckon he could see anything?

Do you reckon he knowed anything by hokey?

That's so, Tom.

And besides, look at here.

Maybe that whack done for him.

No taint likely, Tom.

He had liquor in him, I could see that.

And besides, he always has.

Well, when Paps full, you might take and belt him over the head with a church and you couldn't phase him.

He says so his own self.

So it's the same with Muff Potter, of course.

But if a man was dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack might fetch him.

I don't know.

After another reflective silence, Tom said Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?

Tom, we got to keep mum.

You know that.

That devil wouldn't make any more of drowning us than a couple of cats if we was to squeak about this and they didn't hang him.

Now.

Look at here, Tom.

Let's take and swear to one another.

That's what we got to do.

Swear to keep mum.

I'm agreed.

It's the best thing.

Would you just hold hands and swear that we oh, no, that wouldn't do for this.

That's good enough for little rubbishy common things, especially with gals, because they go back on you anyway, and blab if they get in a huff.

But their order be riding about a big thing like this and blood pumps hole bing applauded this idea.

It was deep and dark and awful the hour the circumstances of surroundings were in keeping with it.

He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the moonlight, took a little fragment of red keel out of his pocket, got the moon on his work and painfully scrawled these lines, emphasizing each slow downstroke by clamping his tongue between his teeth and letting up the pressure on the upstrokes.

Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will keep mum about this, and they wish they may drop down dead in their tracks if they ever tell in rot.

Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's faculty in writing and the sublimity of his language.

He at once took a pin from his lapel and was going to p**** his flesh.

But Tom said hold on.

Don't do that.

A pin's brass.

It might have vertigrease on it.

What's vertigrease?

It's poison, that's what it is.

You just swallow some of it once, you'll see.

So Tom unwound the thread from one of his needles and each boy pricked the ball of his thumb and squeezed out a drop of blood.

In time, after many squeezes, Tom managed to sign his initials using the ball of his little finger for a pen.

Then he showed Huckleberry how to make an H and an F, and the oath was complete.

They buried the shingle close to the wall with some dismal ceremonies and incantations and the fetters that bound their tongues were considered to be locked and the key thrown away.

A figure crept stealthily through a break in the other end of the ruined building.

Now.

But they did not notice it.

Tom whispered huckleberry.

Does this keep us from ever telling?

Always?

Of course it does.

It don't make any difference what happens.

We got to keep mum.

We dropped down dead.

Don't you know that?

Yes, I reckon that's so.

They continued to whisper for some little time.

Presently a dog set up a long, lugubrious howl just outside.

Within 10ft of them.

The boys clasped each other suddenly in an agony of fright.

Which of us does he mean?

Gasped Huckleberry.

I don't know.

Peep through the crack, quick.

No, you tom.

I can't.

I can't do it, Huck.

Please, Tom.

There tis again.

Oh, Lordy, I'm thankful.

Whispered Tom.

I know his voice.

It's bull.

Harbison.

If Mr Harbison owned a slave named Bull, tom would have spoken of him as Harbison's Bull.

But a son or a dog of that name was Bull Harbison.

Oh, that's good.

I tell you, Tom, I'm most scared to death.

I'd have bet anything it was a stray dog.

The dog howled again.

The boy's heart sank once more.

Oh, my.

That ain't no bull.

Harbison.

Whispered Huckleberry.

Do Tom.

Tom, quaking with fear, yielded and put his eye to the crack.

His whisper was hardly audible when he said oh, Huck, it's a stray dog.

Quick, Tom, quick.

What does he mean, Huck?

He must mean us both.

We're right together.

Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners.

I reckon there ain't no mistake about where I'll go to.

I've been so wicked.

Dad, fetch it.

This comes of playing hooky and doing everything a feller's told not to do.

I might have been good like Sid if I'd tried, but no, I wouldn't, of course.

But if I ever get off this time, I lay I'll just waller in Sunday schools.

And Tom began to snuffle a little.

You bad.

And Huckleberry began to snuffle too.

Can sound it, Tom Sawyer.

You're just old pie.

Long side of what I am.

Oh, Lordy, lordy, Lordy.

I wished I only had half your chance.

Tom choked off and whispered, Look, Hucky, look.

He's got his back to us.

Hucky looked with joy in his heart.

Well, he has, by jingos.

Did he before?

Yes, he did.

But I, like a fool, never thought, oh, this is Bully, you know.

Now, who can he mean?

The howling stopped.

Tom pricked up his ears.

Shh.

What's that?

He whispered.

Sounds like hog scunting.

No, it's somebody snoring tom.

That is it.

Whereabouts is it, Hug?

I believe it's down at the other end.

Sounds so, anyway.

PAP used to sleep there sometimes long with the hogs but laws bless you, he just lifts things when he snores.

Besides, I reckon he ain't ever coming back to this town anymore.

The spirit of adventure rose in the boys souls once more.

Hucky.

Do you dast to go if I lead?

I don't like too much, Tom.

Suppose it's Joe.

Tom quailed.

But presently the temptation rose up strong again, and the boys agreed to try with the understanding that they would take to their heels if the snoring stopped.

So they went, tiptoeing stealthily down the one behind the other.

When they had got to within five steps of the snore, tom stepped on a stick and it broke with a sharp snap.

The man moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight.

It was Muff Potter.

The boy's hearts had stood still, and their hopes too, when the man moved.

But their fears passed away.

Now they tiptoed out through the broken weatherboarding and stopped at a little distance to exchange a parting word.

That long lugubrious howl rose on the night air again.

They turned and saw the strange dog standing within a few feet of where Potter was lying and facing Potter with his nose pointing heavenward.

Oh, Geeny.

It's him.

Exclaimed both boys in a breath.

Say, Tom, they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's house about midnight as much as two weeks ago, and a whipper will come in and lit on the banisters and sung the very same evening.

And there ain't anybody dead there yet.

Well, I know that.

And suppose there ain't?

Didn't Gracie Miller fall in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?

Yes, but she ain't dead.

And what's more, she's getting better too.

All right.

You wait and see.

She's a goner, just as dead sure as must Potter's.

A goner?

That's what they say.

And they all know about these kinds of things.

Huck.

Then they separated cogitating when Tom crept in at his bedroom window, the night was almost spent.

He undressed with excessive caution and fell asleep, congratulating himself that nobody knew of his escapade.

He was not aware that the gently snoring Sid was awake and had been so for an hour.

When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone.

There was a late look in the light, a late sense in the atmosphere.

He was startled.

Why had he not been called persecuted till he was up?

As usual, the thought filled him with boatings.

Within five minutes he was dressed and downstairs, feeling sore and drowsy.

The family were still at table, but they had finished breakfast.

There was no voice of rebuke, but there were averted eyes.

Then there was a silence and an air of solemn tea that struck a chill to the culprit's heart.

He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it was uphill work.

It roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into silence and let his heart sink down to the depths.

After breakfast, his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in the hope that he was going to be flogged, but it was not so.

His aunt wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so and finally told him to go on and ruin himself and bring her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try anymore.

This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's heart was sore now than his body.

He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised to reform over and over again, and then received his dismissal feeling that he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a feeble confidence.

He left the presence too miserable to even feel revengeful towards Sid, and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was unnecessary.

He moped to school, gloomy and sad, and took his flogging along with Joe Harper for playing hooky the day before with the air of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to trifles.

Then he betook himself to his seat, rested his elbows on his desk and his jaws in his hands, and stared at the wall with a stony stare of suffering that has reached the limit and can no further go.

His elbow was pressing against some hard substance.

After a long time, he slowly and sadly changed his position and took up this object with a sigh.

It was in a paper.

He unrolled it.

A long, lingering, colossal sigh followed, and his heart broke.

It was his brass and iron knob.

This final feather broke the camel's back.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

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