I thought I had fixed up a little surprise for this occasion, but it
don t amount to anything now. This one makes it sing mighty small, I m
willing to allow.
The money was counted. The sum amounted to a little over twelve thousand
dollars. It was more than any one present had ever seen at one time
before, though several persons were there who were worth considerably
more than that in property.
CHAPTER XXXV
The reader may rest satisfied that Tom s and Huck s windfall made a
mighty stir in the poor little village of St. Petersburg. So vast a
sum, all in actual cash, seemed next to incredible. It was talked
about, gloated over, glorified, until the reason of many of the citizens
tottered under the strain of the unhealthy excitement. Every haunted
house in St. Petersburg and the neighboring villages was dissected,
plank by plank, and its foundations dug up and ransacked for hidden
treasure and not by boys, but men pretty grave, unromantic men, too,
some of them. Wherever Tom and Huck appeared they were courted, admired,
stared at. The boys were not able to remember that their remarks had
possessed weight before; but now their sayings were treasured and
repeated; everything they did seemed somehow to be regarded as
remarkable; they had evidently lost the power of doing and saying
commonplace things; moreover, their past history was raked up and
discovered to bear marks of conspicuous originality. The village paper
published biographical sketches of the boys.
The Widow Douglas put Huck s money out at six per cent., and Judge
Thatcher did the same with Tom s at Aunt Polly s request. Each lad had
an income, now, that was simply prodigious a dollar for every weekday in
the year and half of the Sundays. It was just what the minister got no,
it was what he was promised he generally couldn t collect it. A dollar
and a quarter a week would board, lodge, and school a boy in those old
simple days and clothe him and wash him, too, for that matter.
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