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200 Tom Sawyer, Detective
" No — I done it; poor Jubiter, I done it! "
It was dreadful to hear him say it. Then he went on and told about it, and said it happened the day me and Tom come — along about sundown. He said Jubiter pestered him and aggravated him till he was so mad he just sort of lost his mind and grabbed up a stick and hit him over the head with all his might, and Jubiter dropped in his tracks. Then he was scared and sorry, and got down on his knees and lifted his head up, and begged him to speak and say he wasn't dead; and before long he come to, and when he see who it was holding his head, he jumped like he was 'most scared to death, and cleared the fence and tore into the woods, and was gone. So he hoped he wasn't hurt bad.
"But laws," he says, "it was only just fear that gave him that last little spurt of strength, and of course it soon played out and he laid down in the bush, and there wasn't anybody to help him, and he died.'
Then the old man cried and grieved, and said he was a murderer and the mark of Cain was on him, and he had disgraced his family and was going to be found out and hung. But Tom said :
" No, you ain't going to be found out. You didn't kill him. One lick wouldn't kill him. Somebody else done it."
"Oh, yes," he says, "I done it—nobody else. Who else had anything against him? Who else could have anything against him?"
He looked up kind of like he hoped some of us could |
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