under an insect like himself.
By and by the tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing its
object. The boy s first impulse was to be grateful, and reform. His
second was to wait for there might not be any more storms.
The next day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weeks he
spent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroad
at last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering how
lonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He drifted
listlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in a
juvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of her
victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating a
stolen melon. Poor lads! they like Tom had suffered a relapse.
CHAPTER XXIII
At last the sleepy atmosphere was stirred and vigorously: the murder
trial came on in the court. It became the absorbing topic of village
talk immediately. Tom could not get away from it. Every reference to
the murder sent a shudder to his heart, for his troubled conscience
and fears almost persuaded him that these remarks were put forth in
his hearing as feelers ; he did not see how he could be suspected of
knowing anything about the murder, but still he could not be comfortable
in the midst of this gossip. It kept him in a cold shiver all the time.
He took Huck to a lonely place to have a talk with him. It would be some
relief to unseal his tongue for a little while; to divide his burden of
distress with another sufferer. Moreover, he wanted to assure himself
that Huck had remained discreet.
Huck, have you ever told anybody about that?
Bout what?
You know what.
146