Table of Contents

Chapter 19

The Cruelty of “I Didn’t Think”

TOM ARRIVED AT HOME in a dreary mood, and the first thing his aunt said to
him showed him that he had brought his sorrows to an unpromising market:
“Tom, I’ve a notion to skin you alive!” “Auntie, what have I done?” “Well,
you’ve done enough. Here I go over to Sereny Harper, like an old softy,
expecting I’m going to make her believe all that rubbage about that dream, when
lo and behold you she’d found out from Joe that you was over here and heard all
the talk we had that night. Tom I don’t know what is to become of a boy that
will act like that. It makes me feel so bad to think you could let me go to Sereny
Harper and make such a fool of myself and never say a word.” This was a new
aspect of the thing. His smartness of the morning had seemed to Tom a good
joke before, and very ingenious. It merely looked mean and shabby now. He
hung his head and could not think of anything to say for a moment. Then he
said: “Auntie, I wish I hadn’t done it-but I didn’t think.”

“O, child you never think. You never think of anything but your own selfishness.
You could think to come all the way over here from Jackson’s Island in the night
to laugh at our troubles, and you could think to fool me with a lie about a
dream; but you couldn’t ever think to pity us and save us from sorrow.”
“Auntie, I know now it was mean, but I didn’t mean to be mean. I didn’t, honest.
And besides I didn’t come over here to laugh at you that night.” “What did you
come for, then?” “It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn’t
got drownded.” “Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I
could believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never
did-and I know it, Tom.” “Indeed and ‘deed I did, auntie-I wish I may never
stir if I didn’t.” “O, Tom, don’t lie-don’t do it. It only makes things a hundred
times worse.” “It ain’t a lie, auntie, it’s the truth. I wanted to keep you from
grieving-that was all that made me come.” “I’d give the whole world to believe
that-it would cover up a power of sins, Tom. I’d most be glad you’d run off and
acted so bad. But it ain’t reasonable; because, why didn’t you tell me, child?”
“Why, you see, auntie, when you got to talking about the funeral, I just got all
full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the church, and I couldn’t somehow
bear to spoil it. So I just put the bark back in my pocket and kept mum.” “What
bark?” “The bark I had wrote on to tell you we’d gone pirating. I wish, now,
you’d waked up when I kissed you-I do, honest.” The hard lines in his aunt’s
face relaxed and a sudden tenderness dawned in her eyes.

“Did you kiss me, Tom?” “Why yes I did.” “Are you sure you did, Tom?” “Why
yes I did, auntie-certain sure.” “What did you kiss me for, Tom?” “Because I
loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry.” The words
sounded like truth. The old lady could not hide a tremor in her voice when she
said: “Kiss me again, Tom!- and be off with you to school, now, and don’t bother
me any more.”