Tom Sawyer Abroad: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

LAND

WE tried to make some plans, but we couldn't come to no agreement. Me and
Jim was for turning around and going back home, but Tom allowed that by
the time daylight come, so we could see our way, we would be so far
toward England that we might as well go there, and come back in a ship,
and have the glory of saying we done it.

About midnight the storm quit and the moon come out and lit up the ocean,
and we begun to feel comfortable and drowsy; so we stretched out on the
lockers and went to sleep, and never woke up again till sun-up. The sea
was sparkling like di'monds, and it was nice weather, and pretty soon our
things was all dry again.

We went aft to find some breakfast, and the first thing we noticed was
that there was a dim light burning in a compass back there under a hood.
Then Tom was disturbed. He says:

"You know what that means, easy enough. It means that somebody has got to
stay on watch and steer this thing the same as he would a ship, or she'll
wander around and go wherever the wind wants her to."

"Well," I says, "what's she been doing since--er--since we had the
accident?"

"Wandering," he says, kinder troubled--"wandering, without any doubt.
She's in a wind now that's blowing her south of east. We don't know how
long that's been going on, either."

So then he p'inted her east, and said he would hold her there till we
rousted out the breakfast. The professor had laid in everything a body
could want; he couldn't 'a' been better fixed. There wasn't no milk for
the coffee, but there was water, and everything else you could want, and
a charcoal stove and the fixings for it, and pipes and cigars and
matches; and wine and liquor, which warn't in our line; and books, and
maps, and charts, and an accordion; and furs, and blankets, and no end of
rubbish, like brass beads and brass jewelry, which Tom said was a sure
sign that he had an idea of visiting among savages. There was money, too.
Yes, the professor was well enough fixed.

After breakfast Tom learned me and Jim how to steer, and divided us all
up into four-hour watches, turn and turn about; and when his watch was
out I took his place, and he got out the professor's papers and pens and
wrote a letter home to his aunt Polly, telling her everything that had
happened to us, and dated it "IN THE WELKIN, APPROACHING ENGLAND," and
folded it together and stuck it fast with a red wafer, and directed it,
and wrote above the direction, in big writing, "FROM TOM SAWYER, THE
ERRONORT," and said it would stump old Nat Parsons, the postmaster, when
it come along in the mail. I says:

"Tom Sawyer, this ain't no welkin, it's a balloon."

"Well, now, who SAID it was a welkin, smarty?"

"You've wrote it on the letter, anyway."

"What of it? That don't mean that the balloon's the welkin."

"Oh, I thought it did. Well, then, what is a welkin?"

I see in a minute he was stuck. He raked and scraped around in his mind,
but he couldn't find nothing, so he had to say:

"I don't know, and nobody don't know. It's just a word, and it's a mighty
good word, too. There ain't many that lays over it. I don't believe
there's ANY that does."

"Shucks!" I says. "But what does it MEAN?--that's the p'int."

"I don't know what it means, I tell you. It's a word that people uses
for--for--well, it's ornamental. They don't put ruffles on a shirt to
keep a person warm, do they?"

"Course they don't."

"But they put them ON, don't they?"

"Yes."

"All right, then; that letter I wrote is a shirt, and the welkin's the
ruffle on it."

I judged that that would gravel Jim, and it did.

"Now, Mars Tom, it ain't no use to talk like dat; en, moreover, it's
sinful. You knows a letter ain't no shirt, en dey ain't no ruffles on it,
nuther. Dey ain't no place to put 'em on; you can't put em on, and dey
wouldn't stay ef you did."

"Oh DO shut up, and wait till something's started that you know something
about."

"Why, Mars Tom, sholy you can't mean to say I don't know about shirts,
when, goodness knows, I's toted home de washin' ever sence--"

"I tell you, this hasn't got anything to do with shirts. I only--"

"Why, Mars Tom, you said yo'self dat a letter--"

"Do you want to drive me crazy? Keep still. I only used it as a
metaphor."

That word kinder bricked us up for a minute. Then Jim says--rather timid,
because he see Tom was getting pretty tetchy:

"Mars Tom, what is a metaphor?"

"A metaphor's a--well, it's a--a--a metaphor's an illustration." He see
THAT didn't git home, so he tried again. "When I say birds of a feather
flocks together, it's a metaphorical way of saying--"

"But dey DON'T, Mars Tom. No, sir, 'deed dey don't. Dey ain't no feathers
dat's more alike den a bluebird en a jaybird, but ef you waits till you
catches dem birds together, you'll--"

"Oh, give us a rest! You can't get the simplest little thing through your
thick skull. Now don't bother me any more."

Jim was satisfied to stop. He was dreadful pleased with himself for
catching Tom out. The minute Tom begun to talk about birds I judged he
was a goner, because Jim knowed more about birds than both of us put
together. You see, he had killed hundreds and hundreds of them, and
that's the way to find out about birds. That's the way people does that
writes books about birds, and loves them so that they'll go hungry and
tired and take any amount of trouble to find a new bird and kill it.
Their name is ornithologers, and I could have been an ornithologer
myself, because I always loved birds and creatures; and I started out to
learn how to be one, and I see a bird setting on a limb of a high tree,
singing with its head tilted back and its mouth open, and before I
thought I fired, and his song stopped and he fell straight down from the
limb, all limp like a rag, and I run and picked him up and he was dead,
and his body was warm in my hand, and his head rolled about this way and
that, like his neck was broke, and there was a little white skin over his
eyes, and one little drop of blood on the side of his head; and, laws! I
couldn't see nothing more for the tears; and I hain't never murdered no
creature since that warn't doing me no harm, and I ain't going to.

But I was aggravated about that welkin. I wanted to know. I got the
subject up again, and then Tom explained, the best he could. He said when
a person made a big speech the newspapers said the shouts of the people
made the welkin ring. He said they always said that, but none of them
ever told what it was, so he allowed it just meant outdoors and up high.
Well, that seemed sensible enough, so I was satisfied, and said so. That
pleased Tom and put him in a good humor again, and he says:

"Well, it's all right, then; and we'll let bygones be bygones. I don't
know for certain what a welkin is, but when we land in London we'll make
it ring, anyway, and don't you forget it."

He said an erronort was a person who sailed around in balloons; and said
it was a mighty sight finer to be Tom Sawyer the Erronort than to be Tom
Sawyer the Traveler, and we would be heard of all round the world, if we
pulled through all right, and so he wouldn't give shucks to be a traveler
now.

Toward the middle of the afternoon we got everything ready to land, and
we felt pretty good, too, and proud; and we kept watching with the
glasses, like Columbus discovering America. But we couldn't see nothing
but ocean. The afternoon wasted out and the sun shut down, and still
there warn't no land anywheres. We wondered what was the matter, but
reckoned it would come out all right, so we went on steering east, but
went up on a higher level so we wouldn't hit any steeples or mountains in
the dark.

It was my watch till midnight, and then it was Jim's; but Tom stayed up,
because he said ship captains done that when they was making the land,
and didn't stand no regular watch.

Well, when daylight come, Jim give a shout, and we jumped up and looked
over, and there was the land sure enough--land all around, as far as you
could see, and perfectly level and yaller. We didn't know how long we'd
been over it. There warn't no trees, nor hills, nor rocks, nor towns, and
Tom and Jim had took it for the sea. They took it for the sea in a dead
ca'm; but we was so high up, anyway, that if it had been the sea and
rough, it would 'a' looked smooth, all the same, in the night, that way.

We was all in a powerful excitement now, and grabbed the glasses and
hunted everywheres for London, but couldn't find hair nor hide of it, nor
any other settlement--nor any sign of a lake or a river, either. Tom was
clean beat. He said it warn't his notion of England; he thought England
looked like America, and always had that idea. So he said we better have
breakfast, and then drop down and inquire the quickest way to London. We
cut the breakfast pretty short, we was so impatient. As we slanted along
down, the weather began to moderate, and pretty soon we shed our furs.
But it kept ON moderating, and in a precious little while it was 'most
too moderate. We was close down now, and just blistering!

We settled down to within thirty foot of the land--that is, it was land
if sand is land; for this wasn't anything but pure sand. Tom and me clumb
down the ladder and took a run to stretch our legs, and it felt amazing
good--that is, the stretching did, but the sand scorched our feet like
hot embers. Next, we see somebody coming, and started to meet him; but we
heard Jim shout, and looked around and he was fairly dancing, and making
signs, and yelling. We couldn't make out what he said, but we was scared
anyway, and begun to heel it back to the balloon. When we got close
enough, we understood the words, and they made me sick:

"Run! Run fo' yo' life! Hit's a lion; I kin see him thoo de glass! Run,
boys; do please heel it de bes' you kin. He's bu'sted outen de menagerie,
en dey ain't nobody to stop him!"

It made Tom fly, but it took the stiffening all out of my legs. I could
only just gasp along the way you do in a dream when there's a ghost
gaining on you.

Tom got to the ladder and shinned up it a piece and waited for me; and as
soon as I got a foothold on it he shouted to Jim to soar away. But Jim
had clean lost his head, and said he had forgot how. So Tom shinned along
up and told me to follow; but the lion was arriving, fetching a most
ghastly roar with every lope, and my legs shook so I dasn't try to take
one of them out of the rounds for fear the other one would give way under
me.

But Tom was aboard by this time, and he started the balloon up a little,
and stopped it again as soon as the end of the ladder was ten or twelve
feet above ground. And there was the lion, a-ripping around under me, and
roaring and springing up in the air at the ladder, and only missing it
about a quarter of an inch, it seemed to me. It was delicious to be out
of his reach, perfectly delicious, and made me feel good and thankful all
up one side; but I was hanging there helpless and couldn't climb, and
that made me feel perfectly wretched and miserable all down the other. It
is most seldom that a person feels so mixed like that; and it is not to
be recommended, either.

Tom asked me what he'd better do, but I didn't know. He asked me if I
could hold on whilst he sailed away to a safe place and left the lion
behind. I said I could if he didn't go no higher than he was now; but if
he went higher I would lose my head and fall, sure. So he said, "Take a
good grip," and he started.

"Don't go so fast," I shouted. "It makes my head swim."

He had started like a lightning express. He slowed down, and we glided
over the sand slower, but still in a kind of sickening way; for it IS
uncomfortable to see things sliding and gliding under you like that, and
not a sound.

But pretty soon there was plenty of sound, for the lion was catching up.
His noise fetched others. You could see them coming on the lope from
every direction, and pretty soon there was a couple of dozen of them
under me, jumping up at the ladder and snarling and snapping at each
other; and so we went skimming along over the sand, and these fellers
doing what they could to help us to not forgit the occasion; and then
some other beasts come, without an invite, and they started a regular
riot down there.

We see this plan was a mistake. We couldn't ever git away from them at
this gait, and I couldn't hold on forever. So Tom took a think, and
struck another idea. That was, to kill a lion with the pepper-box
revolver, and then sail away while the others stopped to fight over the
carcass. So he stopped the balloon still, and done it, and then we sailed
off while the fuss was going on, and come down a quarter of a mile off,
and they helped me aboard; but by the time we was out of reach again,
that gang was on hand once more. And when they see we was really gone and
they couldn't get us, they sat down on their hams and looked up at us so
kind of disappointed that it was as much as a person could do not to see
THEIR side of the matter.

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