He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very
different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he
warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was
that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that,
when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made
me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for.
Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we NEEDED. Well,
I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn't need it to get out
of prison with; there's where the difference was. He said if I'd a
wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal
with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I
couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set
down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I
see a chance to hog a watermelon.
Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled
down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he
carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep
watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile
to talk. He says:
"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed.
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