waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's
got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors."

"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't
you _see_ that _they'd_ go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to
not tell anybody at _all_."

"Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you _are_ right."

"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out awhile,
anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"

"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them
to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run
over the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what _is_ the name of that rich
family your uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one
that--"

"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"

"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to
remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run
over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and
buy this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they
had it than anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till they
say they'll come, and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home;
and if she is, she'll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don't
say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll
be perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their
buying the house; I know it, because she told me so herself."

"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and
give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.

Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because
they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther
Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of
Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty
neat--I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't 'a' done it no neater himself. Of
course he would 'a' throwed more style into it, but I can't do that
very handy, not being brung up to it.

Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the
end of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the
old man he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there
longside of the auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and
then, or a little goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was
around goo-gooing for sympathy all