And all this time the lions and tigers was sorting
out the clothes, and trying to divide them up so there
would be some for all, but there was a misunderstanding
about it somewheres, on account of some of them trying
to hog more than their share; so there was another
insurrection, and you never see anything like it in
the world. There must ‘a’ been fifty
of them, all mixed up together, snorting and roaring
and snapping and biting and tearing, legs and tails
in the air, and you couldn’t tell which was
which, and the sand and fur a-flying. And when
they got done, some was dead and some was limping
off crippled, and the rest was setting around on the
battlefield, some of them licking their sore places
and the others looking up at us and seemed to be kind
of inviting us to come down and have some fun, but
which we didn’t want any.
As for the clothes, they warn’t any, any more.
Every last rag of them was inside of the animals;
and not agreeing with them very well, I don’t
reckon, for there was considerable many brass buttons
on them, and there was knives in the pockets, too,
and smoking tobacco, and nails and chalk and marbles
and fishhooks and things. But I wasn’t caring.
All that was bothering me was, that all we had now
was the professor’s clothes, a big enough assortment,
but not suitable to go into company with, if we came
across any, because the britches was as long as tunnels,
and the coats and things according. Still, there
was everything a tailor needed, and Jim was a kind
of jack legged tailor, and he allowed he could soon
trim a suit or two down for us that would answer.
CHAPTER IX. TOM DISCOURSES ON THE DESERT
Still, we thought we would drop down there a
minute, but on another errand. Most of the professor’s
cargo of food was put up in cans, in the new way that
somebody had just invented; the rest was fresh.
When you fetch Missouri beefsteak to the Great Sahara,
you want to be particular and stay up in the coolish
weather. So we reckoned we would drop down into
the lion market and see how we could make out there.
We hauled in the ladder and dropped down till we was
just above the reach of the animals, then we let down
a rope with a slip-knot in it and hauled up a dead
lion, a small tender one, then yanked up a cub tiger.
We had to keep the congregation off with the revolver,
or they would ‘a’ took a hand in the proceedings
and helped.
We carved off a supply from both, and saved the skins,
and hove the rest overboard. Then we baited some
of the professor’s hooks with the fresh meat
and went a-fishing. We stood over the lake just
a convenient distance above the water, and catched
a lot of the nicest fish you ever see. It was
a most amazing good supper we had; lion steak, tiger
steak, fried fish, and hot corn-pone. I don’t
want nothing better than that.
Copyrights
Tom Sawyer Abroad from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
