t it's cracked up to be. You see I
ain't got my own money either. Aunt Polly is my guardeen,
and it's put away until I grow up and have some sense, as she
says. By that time, maybe I won't know what to do with it,
or we'll be dead or some thin'. You never can tell, and
everything is so blamed uncertain. But if I can help you and
Skeet any way, I'll do it, and so will Huck. Yours is the
first letter I ever got, because everybody I know lives here,
and I'm glad to hear from you. So come along, and if we
can't put you up here, we'll get the Widow Douglas to take
you in. And maybe if I can get you to give up this treasure
huntin', which ain't much after all, you'll want to join the
gang I'm formin'--that is if I really see that you and Skeet
are the right kind. I sign myself,

"Your Friend,
"Tom Sawyer."

"There," said Mitch--"how's that? And to show you it's Tom's writin',
I've brought the book along. Look here!" Mitch turned to where Tom wrote
on the shingle with blood, and sure enough the writin' was the same. Any
one could see it; and so Tom Sawyer was a real person, and it was
proved.

Then Mitch said: "Go out to your grandpa's and stay a week. That'll give
you time to get strong again. I'm ready to start now, but you ain't. We
may have to walk miles and miles, and you must be able to keep up a good
pace; for while we can hop some rides now and then, we'll have to do a
lot of walkin'. And then we'll have to sleep in barns, in hay-stacks,
and everywheres on the way, and pick up what we can eat by odd jobs,
maybe."

Says I, "I can get some money. My grandma will pay me for helpin' her.
And maybe I can have a couple of dollars by the time I'm fit to go."

Mitch says: "Charley King has the agency for the Springfield papers, and
he's goin' to divy with me for helpin' him deliver, and that way I can
get some money too. But shucks, as for that, we can turn tricks on the
way for money. All we need is hand-outs, and that's easy."

"Well, then," says I, "let me furnish the money. You just plan things
out and wait for me."

Mitch caught somethin' in my voice, and he said, "What makes you say
that? I'm square. I want to do my share on the money."

"Well," says I, "I don't like to have you goin' with Charley King. It
don't seem the thing to me. His folks