just
then along comes a darky driving an old ramshackly hack, and he see his
chance. He rushes out and shouts: "A half a dollar if you git me to
the Capitol in half an hour, and a quarter extra if you do it in twenty
minutes!"

"Done!" says the darky.

Nat he jumped in and slammed the door, and away they went a-ripping and
a-tearing over the roughest road a body ever see, and the racket of it
was something awful. Nat passed his arms through the loops and hung on
for life and death, but pretty soon the hack hit a rock and flew up in
the air, and the bottom fell out, and when it come down Nat's feet was
on the ground, and he see he was in the most desperate danger if he
couldn't keep up with the hack. He was horrible scared, but he laid into
his work for all he was worth, and hung tight to the arm-loops and made
his legs fairly fly. He yelled and shouted to the driver to stop, and
so did the crowds along the street, for they could see his legs spinning
along under the coach, and his head and shoulders bobbing inside through
the windows, and he was in awful danger; but the more they all shouted
the more the nigger whooped and yelled and lashed the horses and
shouted, "Don't you fret, I'se gwine to git you dah in time, boss; I's
gwine to do it, sho'!" for you see he thought they were all hurrying
him up, and, of course, he couldn't hear anything for the racket he was
making. And so they went ripping along, and everybody just petrified
to see it; and when they got to the Capitol at last it was the quickest
trip that ever was made, and everybody said so. The horses laid down,
and Nat dropped, all tuckered out, and he was all dust and rags
and barefooted; but he was in time and just in time, and caught the
President and give him the letter, and everything was all right, and the
President give him a free pardon on the spot, and Nat give the nigger
two extra quarters instead of one, because he could see that if he
hadn't had the hack he wouldn't'a' got there in time, nor anywhere near
it.

It WAS a powerful good adventure, and Tom Sawyer had to work his
bullet-wound mighty lively to hold his own against it.

Well, by and by Tom's glory got to paling down gradu'ly, on account
of other things turning up for the people to talk about--first a
horse-race, and on top of that a house afire, and on top of that the
circus, and on top of that the eclipse; and that started a revival, same
as it always does, and by that time there wasn