ere law and testifyin'. And if they knew how I
hated it, they'd never ask me if I didn't like it, and like makin' a
sensation and actin' the part of Tom Sawyer."

"Pinafore" was played at last, and we all went, but when my pa sang the
"Merry, Merry Maiden and the Tar," Mitch got up and left the hall,
because, as he said to me afterward, it brought back that awful night
when Joe Rainey was killed. It must have affected others that way too;
that and the death of Mrs. Rainey, who had a part in the show. For they
only played two nights, instead of three, which they intended. Not
enough came to make it worth while.

Then one night I went up to see Mitch and the house seemed quieter. The
girls was playin' as before, but not so wild. Mr. Miller was readin' to
Mrs. Miller, English history or somethin'; but Mrs. Miller looked kind
of like she was tryin' to pay attention. She didn't act interested and
happy like she used to. Mitch told me then that his pa had been let out
of the church; that while we was gone to St. Louis the trustees met and
decided that they wanted a minister who would put a lot of go into the
church and get converts and make things hum; that the mortgage on the
church had to be met and they couldn't meet it without gettin' more
people interested in the church and church work. That may have been all
true; but just the same everybody said that Mr. Miller was let go
because he preached that sermon about God bein' in everything, which he
didn't mean except just as a person talks to hisself. He was dreamin',
like Mitch, when he said it.

So Mr. Miller was goin' to Springfield to see what he could do about
gettin' to sell books or maps or atlases, and quit preachin' till a
church turned up, or preach a little now and then, and marry folks when
he could, and preach at funerals. I heard Mr. Miller say to my pa that
he was worried about Mitch; that Mitch talked in his sleep and ground
his teeth, and talked about engines and horses and findin' pistols and
treasure, and ridin' on steamboats, and about Zueline and Tom Sawyer.
And he said he'd tried to get him to go out to the farm with me and ride
horses and get a change, but he wouldn't. He just read Shakespeare until
they hid the book; and then they found him readin' Burns; and once
Ingersoll's Lectures, which they also took away, because Mr. Miller
thought Mitch was too young.

About this time I was about a third through readin' the Bible to earn
that five dollars