“Mars Tom, ain’t de blessin’ o’ de Lord de mos’ valuable thing dey is?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Don’t de preacher stan’ up in de pulpit en call it down on de people?”
“Yes.”
“Whah do it come from?”
“From heaven.”
“Yassir! you’s jes’ right, ’deed you is, honey—it come from heaven, en dat’s a foreign country. Now, den! do dey put a tax on dat blessin’?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Course dey don’t; en so it stan’ to reason dat you’s mistaken, Mars Tom. Dey wouldn’t put de tax on po’ truck like san’, dat everybody ain’t ’bleeged to have, en leave it off’n de bes’ thing dey is, which nobody can’t git along widout.”
Tom Sawyer was stumped; he see Jim had got him where he couldn’t budge. He tried to wiggle out by saying they had forgot to put on that tax, but they’d be sure to remember about it, next session of Congress, and then they’d put it on, but that was a poor lame come-off, and he knowed it. He said there warn’t nothing foreign that warn’t taxed but just that one, and so they couldn’t be consistent without taxing it, and to be consistent was the first law of politics. So he stuck to it that they’d left it out unintentional and would be certain to do their best to fix it before they got caught and laughed at.