| Share page |
|
216 Tom Sawyer, Detective
trouble about, two of these witnesses here, Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, come along by where Uncle Silas and Jubiter Dunlap was at work — and that much of what they've said is true, the rest is lies. They didn't hear Uncle Silas say he would kill Jubiter; they didn't hear no blow struck; they didn't see no dead man, and they didn't see Uncle Silas hide anything in the bushes. Look at them now — how they set there, wishing they hadn't been so handy with their tongues; anyway, they'll wish it before I get done.
" That same Saturday evening Bill and Jack Withers did see one man lugging off another one. That much of what they said is true, and the rest is lies. First off they thought it was a nigger stealing Uncle Silas's corn — you notice it makes them look silly, now, to find out somebody overheard them say that. That's because they found out by and by who it was that was doing the lugging, and they know best why they swore here that they took it for Uncle Silas by the gait — which it wasn't, and they knowed it when they swore to that lie.
"A man out in the moonlight did see a murdered person put under ground in the tobacker field —- but it wasn't Uncle Silas that done the burying. He was in his bed at that very time.
"Now, then, before I go on, I want to ask you if you've ever noticed this: that people, when they're thinking deep, or when they're worried, are most always doing something with their hands, and they don't know it, and don't notice what it is their hands are doing. Some stroke their chins; some stroke their noses; some |
||