THE SAND-STORM

WE went a-fooling along for a day or two, and then

just as the full moon was touching the ground

on the other side of the desert, we see a string of little

black figgers moving across its big silver face. You

could see them as plain as if they was painted on the

moon with ink. It was another caravan. We cooled

down our speed and tagged along after it, just to have

company, though it warn’t going our way. It was a

rattler, that caravan, and a most bully sight to look at

next morning when the sun come a-streaming across

the desert and flung the long shadders of the camels

on the gold sand like a thousand grand-daddy-long-legses marching in procession. We never went very

near it, because we knowed better now than to act like

that and scare people’s camels and break up their caravans. It was the gayest outfit you ever see, for rich

clothes and nobby style. Some of the chiefs rode on

dromedaries, the first we ever see, and very tall, and

they go plunging along like they was on stilts, and

they rock the man that is on them pretty violent and

churn up his dinner considerable, I bet you, but they

make noble good time, and a camel ain’t nowheres with

them for speed.

The caravan camped, during the middle part of the

day, and then started again about the middle of the

afternoon. Before long the sun begun to look very

curious. First it kind of turned to brass, and then to

copper, and after that it begun to look like a blood-red ball, and the air got hot and close, and pretty soon

all the sky in the west darkened up and looked thick

and foggy, but fiery and dreadful — like it looks

through a piece of red glass, you know. We looked

down and see a big confusion going on in the caravan,

and a rushing every which way like they was scared;

and then they all flopped down flat in the sand and

laid there perfectly still.

Pretty soon we see something coming that stood up

like an amazing wide wall, and reached from the Desert

up into the sky and hid the sun, and it was coming

like the nation, too. Then a little faint breeze struck

us, and then it come harder, and grains of sand begun

to sift against our faces and sting like fire, and Tom

sung out:

“It’s a sand-storm — turn your backs to it!”

We done it; and in another minute it was blowing a

gale, and the sand beat against us by the shovelful, and

the air was so thick with it we couldn’t see a thing. In

five minutes the boat was level full, and we was setting

on the lockers buried up to the chin in sand, and only

our heads out and could hardly breathe.

Then the storm thinned, and we see that monstrous

wall go a-sailing off across the desert, awful to look at,

I tell you. We dug ourselves out and looked down,

and where the caravan was before there wasn’t anything but just the sand ocean now, and all still and

quiet. All them people and camels was smothered and

dead and buried — buried under ten foot of sand, we

reckoned, and Tom allowed it might be years before

the wind uncovered them, and all that time their friends

wouldn’t ever know what become of that caravan.

Tom said:

“NOW we know what it was that happened to the

people we got the swords and pistols from.”

Yes, sir, that was just it. It was as plain as day

now. They got buried in a sand-storm, and the wild

animals couldn’t get at them, and the wind never uncovered them again until they was dried to leather and

warn’t fit to eat. It seemed to me we had felt as sorry

for them poor people as a person could for anybody,

and as mournful, too, but we was mistaken; this last

caravan’s death went harder with us, a good deal

harder. You see, the others was total strangers, and

we never got to feeling acquainted with them at all,

except, maybe, a little with the man that was watching

the girl, but it was different with this last caravan. We

was huvvering around them a whole night and ‘most a

whole day, and had got to feeling real friendly with

them, and acquainted. I have found out that there

ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people

or hate them than to travel with them. Just so with

these. We kind of liked them from the start, and

traveling with them put on the finisher. The longer

we traveled with them, and the more we got used to

their ways, the better and better we liked them, and

the gladder and gladder we was that we run across

them. We had come to know some of them so well

that we called them by name when we was talking

about them, and soon got so familiar and sociable that

we even dropped the Miss and Mister and just used

their plain names without any handle, and it did not

seem unpolite, but just the right thing. Of course, it

wasn’t their own names, but names we give them.

There was Mr. Elexander Robinson and Miss Adaline

Robinson, and Colonel Jacob McDougal and Miss

Harryet McDougal, and Judge Jeremiah Butler and

young Bushrod Butler, and these was big chiefs mostly

that wore splendid great turbans and simmeters, and

dressed like the Grand Mogul, and their families. But

as soon as we come to know them good, and like them

very much, it warn’t Mister, nor Judge, nor nothing,

any more, but only Elleck, and Addy, and Jake, and

Hattie, and Jerry, and Buck, and so on.

And you know the more you join in with people in

their joys and their sorrows, the more nearer and

dearer they come to be to you. Now we warn’t cold

and indifferent, the way most travelers is, we was right

down friendly and sociable, and took a chance in everything that was going, and the caravan could depend on

us to be on hand every time, it didn’t make no difference what it was.

When they camped, we camped right over them, ten

or twelve hundred feet up in the air. When they et a

meal, we et ourn, and it made it ever so much home-liker to have their company. When they had a wedding that night, and Buck and Addy got married, we

got ourselves up in the very starchiest of the professor’s

duds for the blow-out, and when they danced we jined

in and shook a foot up there.

But it is sorrow and trouble that brings you the

nearest, and it was a funeral that done it with us. It

was next morning, just in the still dawn. We didn’t

know the diseased, and he warn’t in our set, but that

never made no difference; he belonged to the caravan,

and that was enough, and there warn’t no more sincerer

tears shed over him than the ones we dripped on him

from up there eleven hundred foot on high.

Yes, parting with this caravan was much more

bitterer than it was to part with them others, which was

comparative strangers, and been dead so long, anyway.

We had knowed these in their lives, and was fond of

them, too, and now to have death snatch them from

right before our faces while we was looking, and leave

us so lonesome and friendless in the middle of that big

desert, it did hurt so, and we wished we mightn’t ever

make any more friends on that voyage if we was

going to lose them again like that.

We couldn’t keep from talking about them, and

they was all the time coming up in our memory, and

looking just the way they looked when we was all alive

and happy together. We could see the line marching,

and the shiny spearheads a-winking in the sun; we

could see the dromedaries lumbering along; we could

see the wedding and the funeral; and more oftener

than anything else we could see them praying, because

they don’t allow nothing to prevent that; whenever

the call come, several times a day, they would stop

right there, and stand up and face to the east, and lift

back their heads, and spread out their arms and begin,

and four or five times they would go down on their

knees, and then fall forward and touch their forehead

to the ground.

Well, it warn’t good to go on talking about them,

lovely as they was in their life, and dear to us in their

life and death both, because it didn’t do no good, and

made us too downhearted. Jim allowed he was going

to live as good a life as he could, so he could see them

again in a better world; and Tom kept still and didn’t

tell him they was only Mohammedans; it warn’t no

use to disappoint him, he was feeling bad enough just

as it was.

When we woke up next morning we was feeling a

little cheerfuller, and had had a most powerful good

sleep, because sand is the comfortablest bed there is,

and I don’t see why people that can afford it don’t

have it more. And it’s terrible good ballast, too; I

never see the balloon so steady before.

Tom allowed we had twenty tons of it, and wondered

what we better do with it; it was good sand, and it

didn’t seem good sense to throw it away. Jim says:

“Mars Tom, can’t we tote it back home en sell it?

How long’ll it take?”

“Depends on the way we go.”

“Well, sah, she’s wuth a quarter of a dollar a load

at home, en I reckon we’s got as much as twenty

loads, hain’t we? How much would dat be?”

“Five dollars.”

“By jings, Mars Tom, le’s shove for home right on

de spot! Hit’s more’n a dollar en a half apiece, hain’t

it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, ef dat ain’t makin’ money de easiest ever I

struck! She jes’ rained in — never cos’ us a lick o’

work. Le’s mosey right along, Mars Tom.”

But Tom was thinking and ciphering away so busy

and excited he never heard him. Pretty soon he says:

“Five dollars — sho! Look here, this sand’s worth

— worth — why, it’s worth no end of money.”

“How is dat, Mars Tom? Go on, honey, go on!”

“Well, the minute people knows it’s genuwyne sand

from the genuwyne Desert of Sahara, they’ll just be in

a perfect state of mind to git hold of some of it to

keep on the what-not in a vial with a label on it for a

curiosity. All we got to do is to put it up in vials and

float around all over the United States and peddle them

out at ten cents apiece. We’ve got all of ten thousand

dollars’ worth of sand in this boat.”

Me and Jim went all to pieces with joy, and begun

to shout whoopjamboreehoo, and Tom says:

“And we can keep on coming back and fetching

sand, and coming back and fetching more sand, and

just keep it a-going till we’ve carted this whole Desert

over there and sold it out; and there ain’t ever going

to be any opposition, either, because we’ll take out a

patent.”

“My goodness,” I says, “we’ll be as rich as Creo-sote, won’t we, Tom?”

“Yes — Creesus, you mean. Why, that dervish was

hunting in that little hill for the treasures of the earth,

and didn’t know he was walking over the real ones for

a thousand miles. He was blinder than he made the

driver.”

“Mars Tom, how much is we gwyne to be worth?”

“Well, I don’t know yet. It’s got to be ciphered,

and it ain’t the easiest job to do, either, because it’s

over four million square miles of sand at ten cents a

vial.”

Jim was awful excited, but this faded it out considerable, and he shook his head and says:

“Mars Tom, we can’t ‘ford all dem vials — a king

couldn’t. We better not try to take de whole Desert,

Mars Tom, de vials gwyne to bust us, sho’.”

Tom’s excitement died out, too, now, and I reckoned it was on account of the vials, but it wasn’t. He

set there thinking, and got bluer and bluer, and at last

he says:

“Boys, it won’t work; we got to give it up.”

“Why, Tom?”

“On account of the duties.”

I couldn’t make nothing out of that, neither could

Jim. I says:

“What IS our duty, Tom? Because if we can’t git

around it, why can’t we just DO it? People often has

to.”

But he says:

“Oh, it ain’t that kind of duty. The kind I mean

is a tax. Whenever you strike a frontier — that’s the

border of a country, you know — you find a custom-house there, and the gov’ment officers comes and rum-mages among your things and charges a big tax, which

they call a duty because it’s their duty to bust you if

they can, and if you don’t pay the duty they’ll hog

your sand. They call it confiscating, but that don’t

deceive nobody, it’s just hogging, and that’s all it is.

Now if we try to carry this sand home the way we’re

pointed now, we got to climb fences till we git tired —

just frontier after frontier — Egypt, Arabia, Hindostan,

and so on, and they’ll all whack on a duty, and so you

see, easy enough, we CAN’T go THAT road.”

“Why, Tom,” I says, “we can sail right over their

old frontiers; how are THEY going to stop us?”

He looked sorrowful at me, and says, very grave:

“Huck Finn, do you think that would be honest?”

I hate them kind of interruptions. I never said

nothing, and he went on:

“Well, we’re shut off the other way, too. If we go

back the way we’ve come, there’s the New York

custom-house, and that is worse than all of them others

put together, on account of the kind of cargo we’ve

got.”

“Why?”

“Well, they can’t raise Sahara sand in America, of

course, and when they can’t raise a thing there, the

duty is fourteen hundred thousand per cent. on it if

you try to fetch it in from where they do raise it.”

“There ain’t no sense in that, Tom Sawyer.”

“Who said there WAS? What do you talk to me

like that for, Huck Finn? You wait till I say a thing’s

got sense in it before you go to accusing me of saying it.”

“All right, consider me crying about it, and sorry.

Go on.”

Jim says:

“Mars Tom, do dey jam dat duty onto everything

we can’t raise in America, en don’t make no ‘stinction

‘twix’ anything?”

“Yes, that’s what they do.”

“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 Con-gress, 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.

But I didn’t feel no more interest in such things, as

long as we couldn’t git our sand through, and it made

me low-spirited, and Jim the same. Tom he tried to

cheer us up by saying he would think up another

speculation for us that would be just as good as this

one and better, but it didn’t do no good, we didn’t

believe there was any as big as this. It was mighty

hard; such a little while ago we was so rich, and could

‘a’ bought a country and started a kingdom and been

celebrated and happy, and now we was so poor and

ornery again, and had our sand left on our hands.

The sand was looking so lovely before, just like gold

and di’monds, and the feel of it was so soft and so

silky and nice, but now I couldn’t bear the sight of it,

it made me sick to look at it, and I knowed I wouldn’t

ever feel comfortable again till we got shut of it, and I

didn’t have it there no more to remind us of what we

had been and what we had got degraded down to.

The others was feeling the same way about it that I

was. I knowed it, because they cheered up so, the

minute I says le’s throw this truck overboard.

Well, it was going to be work, you know, and pretty

solid work, too; so Tom he divided it up according to

fairness and strength. He said me and him would

clear out a fifth apiece of the sand, and Jim three-fifths. Jim he didn’t quite like that arrangement. He

says:

“Course I’s de stronges’, en I’s willin’ to do a share

accordin’, but by jings you’s kinder pilin’ it onto ole

Jim, Mars Tom, hain’t you?”

“Well, I didn’t think so, Jim, but you try your hand

at fixing it, and let’s see.”

So Jim reckoned it wouldn’t be no more than fair if

me and Tom done a TENTH apiece. Tom he turned his

back to git room and be private, and then he smole a

smile that spread around and covered the whole Sahara

to the westward, back to the Atlantic edge of it where

we come from. Then he turned around again and

said it was a good enough arrangement, and we was

satisfied if Jim was. Jim said he was.

So then Tom measured off our two-tenths in the

bow and left the rest for Jim, and it surprised Jim a

good deal to see how much difference there was and

what a raging lot of sand his share come to, and said

he was powerful glad now that he had spoke up in time

and got the first arrangement altered, for he said that

even the way it was now, there was more sand than

enjoyment in his end of the contract, he believed.

Then we laid into it. It was mighty hot work, and

tough; so hot we had to move up into cooler weather

or we couldn’t ‘a’ stood it. Me and Tom took turn

about, and one worked while t’other rested, but there

warn’t nobody to spell poor old Jim, and he made all

that part of Africa damp, he sweated so. We couldn’t

work good, we was so full of laugh, and Jim he kept

fretting and wanting to know what tickled us so, and

we had to keep making up things to account for it, and

they was pretty poor inventions, but they done well

enough, Jim didn’t see through them. At last when

we got done we was ‘most dead, but not with work

but with laughing. By and by Jim was ‘most dead,

too, but: it was with work; then we took turns and

spelled him, and he was as thankfull as he could be,

and would set on the gunnel and swab the sweat, and

heave and pant, and say how good we was to a poor

old nigger, and he wouldn’t ever forgit us. He was

always the gratefulest nigger I ever see, for any little

thing you done for him. He was only nigger outside;

inside he was as white as you be.

CHAPTER XII.