MINERVA

s, and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape ’ll go off perfectly flat; won’t amount to nothing—won’t be nothing _to_ it.” “Well, as for me, Tom, that’s the way I’d like.” “Shucks!” he says, and looked disgusted. So I says: “But I ain’t going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?” “You’ll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that yaller girl’s frock.” “Why, Tom, that’ll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she prob’bly hain’t got any but that one.” “I know; but you don’t want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door.” “All right, then, I’ll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my own togs.” “You wouldn’t look like a servant-girl _then_, would you?” “No, but there won’t be nobody to see what I look like, _anyway_.” “That ain’t got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just to do our _duty_, and not worry about whether anybody _sees_ us do it or not. Hain’t you got no principle at all?” “All right, I ain’t saying nothing; I’m the servant-girl. Who’s Jim’s mother?” “I’m his mother. I’ll hook a gown from Aunt Sally.” “Well, then, you’ll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves.” “Not much. I’ll stuff Jim’s clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim ’ll take the nigger woman’s gown off of me and wear it, and we’ll all evade together. When a prisoner of style escapes it’s called an evasion. It’s always called so when a king escapes, f’rinstance. And the same with a king’s son; it don’t make no difference whether he’s a natural one or an unnatural one.” So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench’s frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the way Tom told me to. It said: _Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout._ UNKNOWN FRIEND. Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a coffin on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They couldn’t a been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said “ouch!” if anything fell, she jumped and said “ouch!” if you happened to touch her, when she warn’t noticing, she done the same; she couldn’t face noway and be satisfied, because she allowed there was something behind her every time—so she was always a-whirling around sudden, and saying “ouch,” and before she’d got two-thirds around she’d whirl back again, and say it again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but she dasn’t set up. So the thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right. So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This letter said: Don’t betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gan