“That and outside work among the voters will, to a certainty. I want you to come down here by and by and work privately among the rag-tag and bobtail. You shall spend money among them; I will furnish it.”
Another point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great day for Tom. He was encouraged to chance a parting shot, now, at the same target, and did it.
“You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making such a to-do about? Well, there’s no track or trace of it yet; so the town is beginning to sneer and gossip and laugh. Half the people believe they never had any such knife, the other half believe they had it and have got it still. I’ve heard twenty people talking like that to-day.”
Yes, Tom’s blemishless week had restored him to the favor of his aunt and uncle.
His mother was satisfied with him, too. Privately, she believed she was coming to love him, but she did not say so. She told him to go along to St. Louis, now, and she would get ready and follow. Then she smashed her whisky bottle and said—
“Dah now! I’s a-gwyne to make you walk as straight as a string, Chambers, en so I’s bown’ you ain’t gwyne to git no bad example out o’ yo’ mammy. I tole you you couldn’t go into no bad comp’ny. Well, you’s gwyne into my comp’ny, en I’s gwyne to fill de bill. Now, den, trot along, trot along!”
Tom went aboard one of the big transient boats that night with his heavy satchel of miscellaneous plunder, and slept the sleep of the unjust, which is serener and sounder than the other kind, as we know by the hanging-eve history of a million rascals. But when he got up in the morning, luck was against him again: A brother-thief had robbed him while he slept, and gone ashore at some intermediate landing.