me all walkin' arm in arm down the streets here? Why, the town'd
go wild. And we'd go out to your grandmother's and stay all summer and
just roll in pie and cake and good things--and ride horses, and fly
kites. My--I just can't wait!"

So Mitch went on this way for quite a spell and then he switched and
said: "Skeeters, what do you dream about?" "Flyin'," says I. "No!" said
Mitch. "Do you really?" "As sure as you're livin'," I says. "Well, ain't
that funny," said Mitch, "so do I. But how do you do it, with wings or
how?" "No," I says, "I seem to reach up my hands and pull myself up, by
rounds on a ladder, ropes or somethin'; and I'm always trying to get
away from somethin'--like bears or sometimes it's a lion. But pa says
it means I'm an aspirin' nature and born to pull up in the world. But,"
says I to Mitch, "do you ever dream of the Judgment Day?"

[Illustration: The Judgment Day]

"Do I?" says Mitch. "You can better believe I do--and that's where my
flyin' comes in, only I drift like one of these here prairie chickens
about to light--I seem to be goin' down. And it was just last night I
dreamed of the Judgment Day. First everything was mixed: here was Injun
Joe and Doc Lyon, Joe Pink and Muff Potter, Aunt Polly and your
grandma--everybody in these two towns all together. And Tom Sawyer, Huck
Finn, Joe Harper, Becky, Zueline, and your folks and mine--all of us was
together. And then suddenly we seemed to be close to Bucky Gum's
pasture; the well became a kind of pipe stuck up out of the ground and
began to spout fire; and there was a great light in the sky and I saw
Jesus coming down out of the sky, and there was thunder. Then I began to
fly--drift down, and all of a sudden, kerplunk, I fell out of bed. And
pa says--'Hey, Mitch, what's the matter?' 'It's the Judgment Day,' I
says. 'Judgment nothin', says pa--'You've fallen out of bed. Get back in
bed and go to sleep--you were hollerin' like an Indian.' Then I heard
ma say to pa after a bit, 'Pa, you oughtn't to read so much of the Bible
before the children. It makes 'em nervous.' Now, Skeeters, what do you
dream about the Judgment Day?"

[Illustration: Whipping Kit O'Brien]

I was just about to tell him when I heard some one comin'. I looked up.
It was Kit O'Brien and Mike Kelly comin' from the slaughter house. They
had some liver and a bladder; and before we could square around Kit
O'Brien came up and knocked "Tom Sawyer" out of Mitch's hand. And then
it began.