Part 8 (1/2)

”Same way it does in de courts en everywheres, Mars Toht be drunk, or dreaht, , drunk er sober, it's SO Dey ain't no gittin' aroun' dat, en you knows it, Mars To of the kind There used to be forty thousand million people that seen the sun move from one side of the sky to the other every day Did that prove that the sun DONE it?”

”Course it did En besides, dey warn't no 'casion to prove it A body 'at's got any sense ain't gwine to doubt it Dah she is now--a sailin'

thoo de sky, like she allays done”

Tom turned on me, then, and says:

”What do YOU say--is the sun standing still?”

”Tom Sawyer, what's the use to ask such a jackass question? Anybody that ain't blind can see it don't stand still”

”Well,” he says, ”I'm lost in the sky with no company but a passel of lon animals that don't know no more than the head boss of a university did three or four hundred years ago”

It warn't fair play, and I let hiuin', Toracious, dah's de lake agi'n!” yelled Jiwine to say?”

Yes, sir, there was the lake again, away yonder across the desert, perfectly plain, trees and all, just the same as it was before I says:

”I reckon you're satisfied now, Tom Sawyer”

But he says, perfectly ca'm:

”Yes, satisfied there ain't no lake there”

Jim says:

”DON'T talk so, Mars Tom--it sk'yers me to hear you It's so hot, en you's so thirsty, dat you ain't in yo' right ood! 'clah I doan' kno I's gwine to wait tell we gits dah, I's SO thirsty”

”Well, you'll have to wait; and it won't do you no good, either, because there ain't no lake there, I tell you”

I says:

”Jim, don't you take your eye off of it, and I won't, either”

”'Deed I won't; en bless you, honey, I couldn't ef I wanted to”

We went a-tearing along toward it, piling thean inch on it--and all of a sudden it was gone again! Jiot his breath he says, gasping like a fish:

”Mars Tooodness we ain't gwine to see it no mo' Dey's BEEN a lake, en suthin's happened, en de lake's dead, en we's seen its ghos'; we's seen it twiste, en dat's proof De desert's ha'nted, it's ha'nted, sho; oh, Mars Toht ketch us in it ag'in en de ghos' er dat lake coer we's in”

”Ghost, you gander! It ain't anything but air and heat and thirstiness pasted together by a person's irabbed it and begun to gaze off to the right

”It's a flock of birds,” he says ”It's getting toward sundown, and they'rea bee-line across our track for so for food or water, or both Let her go to starboard!--Port your helluo”

We shut down some of the power, so as not to outspeed the a quarter of a mile behind theetting pretty discouraged, and was thirsty clean to unendurableness, Tolass, one of you, and see what that is, away ahead of the birds”