and that sounds like
something beautiful not belonging to any town--but to some place I keep
dreaming about."

"Skeeters," said Mitch, "you make me mad sometimes. As I told you, it
can't be all alike. Now there's you--you ain't any more like Huckleberry
Finn than the Sunday School superintendent is, not sayin' that you're
him, for you're not. But it can't be all alike. I only say when it goes
this far that it means something. And while I think I'm just like Tom
Sawyer, for I can do everything he did, swim, fight, fish and hook
sugar, and read detective stories, you're not Huck, and because you're
not, it will be different in the end. We'll go along up to a certain
point, and then it will be you, maybe, that'll give it a different turn.
Maybe we'll get bigger treasure or somethin' better."

"I don't want no better luck than Tom and Huck had," said I. "But I
believe it will be different, for you're different from Tom, Mitch. For
one thing, you've read different things: The Arabian Nights, and Grimm's
Stories, and there's your father who's a preacher and all your sisters
and your mother who's so good natured and fat. These things will count
too. So I say, if I'm not Huck, you're not Tom, though we can go on for
treasure, and I see your argument mostly and believe in it."

Mitch grew awful serious and was still for a long while. Finally he
said: "Skeeters, I just live Tom Sawyer and dream about him. I don't
seem to think of anything else--and somehow I act him, and before I die,
I mean to see him. Yes, sir, this very summer you and I, if you're
game, will look on Tom Sawyer's face and take him by the hand."

"Why, Mitch," I said, "how can you do it? It must be more'n a hundred
miles from here to where Tom lives."

"You bet it is," said Mitch. "It's near two hundred miles. I looked it
up. But it's as easy as pie to get there. Look here--we can bum our way
or walk to Havaner--then we can get a job on a steamboat and go to St.
Louis--then we can bum or walk our way to Hannibal--and some fine
mornin' you and I will be standin' on the shore of the Mississippi--and
there'll be Tom and Huck, and you and me. And I'll say, 'Tom Sawyer, I'm
Mitch Miller, and this here is Skeeters Kirby.' How's that for fun? Just
think of it. I dream about this every night. And we'll strip and go
swimmin', and fish and all go up to McDougal's Cave. And what would you
say if we persuaded them to come back with us for a visit? Tom and Huck,
you and