"What do you think of this?" says I.
"Why, Skeet," says Mitch, "did Tom Sawyer ever have anything like this? He never did. And come to think of it, was there a railroad in Tom's town? He never speaks of one. And nobody ever goes anywhere, except to Coonville, which maybe was as far from Tom's town as Atterberry from your grandpa's farm. Say, this is wonderful."
Willie Wallace Lets Us Ride
And Mitch took off his hat and let the wind blow through his sweaty hair. It was a wonderful day, and here we was, whizzin' right through the country, lookin' down on the fields, and goin' so fast that blackbirds flyin' alongside of us got way behind and couldn't keep up. Then we could whirl around in our chairs and look through the windows of the cupola all around the country.
We got to Oakford by and by and looked down on the men and boys standing by the depot, their hands in their pockets, chewin' tobacco, whittlin', jostlin' each other, laughin' and all that. Then the conductor came out of the depot with tissue papers in his hand and gave the signal and we started off. At Kilburn we did some switchin', put on a car with cattle in it. And here the conductor saw us for the first time.
He started to come up in the cupola and the first thing he says was, "Fares, please." "How much?" says I. "Where you goin'?" says he. "To Havaner," I says. "Where did you get on?" "At Atterberry," I says. I began to look for Willie Wallace, but he warn't anywhere around. Then the conductor says, "One dollar." I pulled a dollar out and handed it to him. Then he turned to Mitch and says, "You goin' to Havaner, too?" Mitch says, "Yes, sir." "One dollar, please," says the conductor. Mitch didn't have it—he only had 80 cents. So I gave my other dollar to the conductor, and he climbed into the cupola and stayed a bit and then climbed down and went away sommers.
Mitch says, "Well, that about cleans us out. We've got just 80 cents now between us. I thought Willie Wallace was your friend."
"He is," says I, "but I never met this here conductor before."