If he could only tell it to some one, he felt that it would be easier for him to bear; but then there was no one to whom he dared tell it; he could not tell it even to his foster-mother.
There was something especially trying to his troubled soul in his having to go out fishing with old Abrahamson that day, and it seemed to him that he suffered far more in the narrow, confined space of the little boat than he would have done upon the wide land, where he could walk about. His thoughts did not quit him for an instant. Even when he was hauling in his wet and dripping line with a struggling fish at the end of it a recurrent memory of what he had seen would suddenly come upon him, and he would writhe and twist in spirit at the recollection. If he could only tell about it, even to old Abrahamson, it would be some relief. But when he looked at the old man's leathery face, at his lantern jaws cavernously and stolidly chewing at a tobacco leaf, he felt that it was not possible for him to confide his terrible secret to him.
When the boat touched the shore again he leaped scrambling to the beach, with a feeling of unutterable relief.
As soon as his dinner was eaten he ran away to find the Dominie Jones, and to pour out his troubles to those friendly ears.
He ran on, all the way from the hut to the parson's house, hardly stopping once in all the way, and when he knocked at the door he was panting and sobbing for breath.
The good man was sitting on the back-kitchen door-step smoking his long pipe of tobacco out into the sunlight, while his wife within was rattling around among the pans and dishes in preparation of their supper, of which a strong porky smell already filled the air.
Tom Chist never could tell how he got his story told, but somehow, in convulsive fits and starts, panting and gasping for breath, he did manage to tell it all.
Parson Jones listened with breathless and perfect silence, broken only now and then by inarticulate ejaculations.
"And I don't know why they should have killed the poor black man," said Tom, as he finished his narrative.
"Why, that is very easy enough to understand," said the good reverend man. "'Twas a treasure-box they buried, Tom. A treasure-box! A treasure-box!"