“You got to go mighty keerful now, I tell you!
En here’s what you got to do. He didn’t
git killed, en if you gives him de least reason, he’ll
bust de will ag’in, en dat’s de las’
time, now you hear me! So—you’s
got to show him what you kin do in de nex’ few
days. You got to be pison good, en let him see
it; you got to do everything dat’ll make him
b’lieve in you, en you got to sweeten aroun’
ole Aunt Pratt, too—she’s pow’ful
strong with de Jedge, en de bes’ frien’
you got. Nex’, you’ll go ’long
away to Sent Louis, en dat’ll keep him
in yo’ favor. Den you go en make a bargain
wid dem people. You tell ’em he ain’t
gwine to live long—en dat’s de fac’,
too—en tell ’em you’ll pay ’em
intrust, en big intrust, too—ten per—what
you call it?”
“Ten percent a month?”
“Dat’s it. Den you take and sell
yo’ truck aroun’, a little at a time,
en pay de intrust. How long will it las’?”
“I think there’s enough to pay the interest
five or six months.” “Den you’s
all right. If he don’t die in six months,
dat don’t make no diff’rence—Providence’ll
provide. You’s gwine to be safe—if
you behaves.” She bent an austere eye on
him and added, “En you IS gwine to behave—does
you know dat?”
He laughed and said he was going to try, anyway.
She did not unbend. She said gravely:
“Tryin’ ain’t de thing. You’s
gwine to do it. You ain’t gwine to
steal a pin—’ca’se it ain’t
safe no mo’; en you ain’t gwine into no
bad comp’ny—not even once, you understand;
en you ain’t gwine to drink a drop—nary
a single drop; en you ain’t gwine to gamble one
single gamble—not one! Dis ain’t
what you’s gwine to try to do, it’s what
you’s gwine to DO. En I’ll tell you
how I knows it. Dis is how. I’s gwine
to foller along to Sent Louis my own self; en you’s
gwine to come to me every day o’ your life,
en I’ll look you over; en if you fails in one
single one o’ dem things—jist one—I
take my oath I’ll come straight down to dis
town en tell de Jedge you’s a nigger en a slave—en
prove it!” She paused to let her words
sink home. Then she added, “Chambers, does
you b’lieve me when I says dat?”
Tom was sober enough now. There was no levity
in his voice when he answered:
“Yes, Mother, I know, now, that I am reformed—and
permanently. Permanently—and beyond
the reach of any human temptation.”
“Den g’long home en begin!”
Nothing so needs
reforming as other people’s habits. —
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s
Calendar
Behold, the fool saith, “Put
not all thine eggs in the one basket” —which
is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money
and your attention”; but the wise man saith,
“Put all your eggs in the one basket and—WATCH
THAT BASKET!" — Pudd’nhead
Wilson’s Calendar
What a time of it Dawson’s Landing was having!
