We went back in the other room after we had our dinner, and Mark read to us out of a book he had in his satchel. It was a dandy book, and the name of it was Kidnapped. There was a fellow in it by the name of Alan Breck who was a hummer. I liked him better than I did the real hero of the book, who seemed to me to be a dumb-headed sort of fellow. Maybe that was because he was Scotch. Plunk Smalley is Scotch, and sometimes we have the hardest time getting things into his head.
There wasn’t anything else to do, so we read all the afternoon, taking turns. Mark said the same man who wrote that book was the author of a lot more. Right there I made up my mind I’d read every one of them, and so did the other fellows.
You’d be surprised to hear how quickly the afternoon went past. If ever you have a dull day on your hands just get a book by that man; his name is Stevenson; and—well, there’s no use telling about it, you never will understand until you do it.
We didn’t even want to stop for supper, but Mark said it was our duty to eat. Maybe it was; anyhow, nobody ever heard of Mark Tidd shirking that particular sort of duty.
After we were through Mark had Tallow get on a chair and haul down a long cane fish-pole Uncle Hieronymous had laying across nails driven in the wall. He took his knife and cut off the small end.
“What you doin’?” I asked him. “Maybe uncle wants that pole.”
“Calc’late,” says he, “your uncle would want his mine worse. Wouldn’t he?”
I didn’t answer back, but stood and watched to see what he was up to. When he had the pole cut off he went into the kitchen and got the knife uncle used to clean fish. It was a heavy knife, and sharp. Why, you could have shaved with it, I bet.
“Git some st-st-strong twine,” says Mark to me.
I rummaged around until I found a whole ball of it. Mark took it as calm as could be without even saying “much obliged.” Then what should he do but begin to lash the fish-knife to the end of the fish-pole. All the time he never said a word. He was that way always—liked to get you all worked up and curious. If you asked a question he wouldn’t tell you a thing. He was almost mean about it.