Part 9 (2/2)
”Yes, I reckon”
”Hain't it so, Mars Toood, it's made in vain, ain't it?”
”Yes”
”NOW, den! Do de Lordin vain? You answer me dat”
”Well--no, He don't”
”Den how coo on How DID He come to make it?”
”Mars Tom, I b'lieve it uz jes like when you's buildin' a house; dey's allays a lot o' truck en rubbish lef' over What does you do wid it?
Doan' you take en k'yart it off en dump it into a ole vacant back lot?
'Course Now, den, it's my opinion hit was jes like dat--dat de Great Sahara warn't ood argument, and I believed it was the best one Jim ever u but THEORIES, after all, and theories don't prove nothing, they only give you a place to rest on, a spell, when you are tuckered out butting around and around trying to find out so there ain't no way TO find out And he says:
”There's another trouble about theories: there's always a hole in theh It's just so with this one of Jim's Look what billions and billions of stars there is How does it coh star-stuff, and none left over?
How does it come there ain't no sand-pile up there?”
But Jim was fixed for him and says:
”What's de Milky Way?--dat's what I want to know What's de Milky Way?
Answer er It's only an opinion, it's only MY opinion and others may think different; but I said it then and I stand to it now--it was a sockdologer And moreover, besides, it landed Tom Sawyer He couldn't say a word He had that stunned look of a person that's been shot in the back with a kag of nails All he said was, as for people like me and Jim, he'd just as soon have intellectual intercourse with a catfish But anybody can say that--and I notice they always do, when somebody has fetched them a lifter Toot back to talking about the size of the Desert again, and the , the ht along And so, hunting aers, Tom found, by and by, that it was just the same size as the Empire of China Then he showed us the spread the Empire of China made on the map, and the room she took up in the world
Well, it onderful to think of, and I says:
”Why, I've heard talk about this Desert plenty of times, but I never knowed before how important she was”
Then Tom says:
”Important! Sahara i's big, it's iot All they can see is SIZE Why, look at England It's the most important country in the world; and yet you could put it in China's vest-pocket; and not only that, but you'd have the dickens's own tiain the next time you wanted it And look at Russia It spreads all around and everywhere, and yet ain't no more iot half as ”
Away off noe see a little hill, a-standing up just on the edge of the world Tolass very much excited, and took a look, and says:
”That's it--it's the one I've been looking for, sure If I'ht, it's the one the dervish took the un to gaze, and he begun to tell about it out of the Arabian Nights
CHAPTER X THE TREASURE-HILL