d knew everything in the world.

We sat talkin' to this old feller till pretty near sundown, when we said
we must go. We threw the tools into Peter Lukins' cellar and started
off, leavin' the old feller standin'. When we got to the edge of the
hill which led down to the road by the river, we turned around and
looked, and saw the old feller standin' there still, black like against
the light of the sun. Mitch was awful serious.

"It must be awful to be old like that," said Mitch. "Did you hear what
he said--come back to Menard County to be buried with his folks--and all
his folks gone. How does a feller live when he comes to that? Nothin' to
do, nowhere really to go. Skeeters, sometimes I wisht I was dead. Even
this treasure business, as much fun as it is, is just a never endin'
trouble and worry. And I see everybody in the same fix, no matter who
they are, worryin' about somethin'. And while it seems I've lived for
ever and ever, and it looks thousands of miles back to the time I cut my
foot off, just the same, I seem to be close to the beginnin' too, and
sometimes I can just feel myself mixin' into the earth and bein'
nothin'."

"Don't you believe in heaven, Mitch?" says I.

"No," he says, "not very clear."

"And you a preacher's son!"

"That's just it," says Mitch. "A preacher's son is like a circus man's
son, young Robbins who was here. There's no mystery about it. Why, young
Robbins paid no attention to the horses, animals, the band--things we
went crazy about. And I see my father get ready for funerals and dig up
his old sermons for funerals and all that, till it looks just like any
trade to me. But besides, how can heaven be, and what's the use? No,
sir, I don't want to be buried with my folks--I want to be lost, like
your uncle was, and buried by the Indians way off where nobody knows."

Then Mitch switched and began to talk about Tom Sawyer again. He said
we're the age of Tom Sawyer; that Linkern was a grown man when he found
the books; that there was a time for everything, that as far as that's
concerned, Tom might be working on something else now, having found his
treasure. "Why, lookee, don't the book end up with Tom organizing a
robbers' gang to rob the rich--not harm anybody, mind you--but really do
good--take money away from them that got it wrong and don't need it, and
give it to the poor that can't get it and do need it?"

By this time we was clost to town. The road ran under a hill where there
w