"Well, if I was such a numbskull as you, Huck Finn, I would jump over.
Seen it on the map! Huck Finn, did you reckon the States was the same
color out-of-doors as they are on the map?"
"Tom Sawyer, what's a map for? Ain't it to learn you facts?"
"Of course."
"Well, then, how's it going to do that if it tells lies? That's what I
want to know."
"Shucks, you muggins! It don't tell lies."
"It don't, don't it?"
"No, it don't."
"All right, then; if it don't, there ain't no two States the same color.
You git around THAT if you can, Tom Sawyer."
He see I had him, and Jim see it too; and I tell you, I felt pretty
good, for Tom Sawyer was always a hard person to git ahead of. Jim
slapped his leg and says:
"I tell YOU! dat's smart, dat's right down smart. Ain't no use, Mars
Tom; he got you DIS time, sho'!" He slapped his leg again, and says, "My
LAN', but it was smart one!"
I never felt so good in my life; and yet I didn't know I was saying
anything much till it was out. I was just mooning along, perfectly
careless, and not expecting anything was going to happen, and never
THINKING of such a thing at all, when, all of a sudden, out it came.
Why, it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to any of them. It
was just the same way it is when a person is munching along on a hunk
of corn-pone, and not thinking about anything, and all of a sudden bites
into a di'mond. Now all that HE knows first off is that it's some kind
of gravel he's bit into; but he don't find out it's a di'mond till
he gits it out and brushes off the sand and crumbs and one thing or
another, and has a look at it, and then he's surprised and glad--yes,
and proud too; though when you come to look the thing straight in the
eye, he ain't entitled to as much credit as he would 'a' been if he'd
been HUNTING di'monds. You can see the difference easy if you think it
over. You see, an accident, that way, ain't fairly as big a thing as
a thing that's done a-purpose. Anybody could find that di'mond in that
corn-pone; but mind you, it's got to be somebody that's got THAT KIND
OF A CORN-PONE. That's where that feller's credit comes in, you see;
and that's where mine comes in. I don't claim no great things--I don't
reckon I could 'a' done it again--but I done it that time; that's all I
claim. And I hadn't no more idea I could do such a thing, and warn't any
more thinking about it or trying to, than you be this minute. Why, I was
just as ca'm, a body
|