"The search for the drowned." From "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain (1876). First Printing
“They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town. They parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water. The little steam ferry boat was about a mile below the village, drifting with the current. Her broad deck seemed crowded with people. There were a great many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the neighborhood of the ferry boat, but the boys could not determine what the men in them were doing. Presently a great jet of white smoke burst from the ferry boat’s side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud, that same dull throb of sound was borne to the listeners again.
“I know now!” exclaimed Tom; “somebody’s drownded!”
“That’s it!” said Huck; “they done that last summer, when Bill Turner got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes him come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put quicksilver in ‘em and set ‘em afloat, and wherever there’s anybody that’s drownded, they’ll float right there and stop.” [From “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” pp. 125-126]
The illustration is by True W. Williams,
(Little do the boys realize that the town folk are searching for them.)
"The search for the drowned." From "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain (1876). First Printing
“They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town. They parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water. The little steam ferry boat was about a mile below the village, drifting with the current. Her broad deck seemed crowded with people. There were a great many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the neighborhood of the ferry boat, but the boys could not determine what the men in them were doing. Presently a great jet of white smoke burst from the ferry boat’s side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud, that same dull throb of sound was borne to the listeners again.
“I know now!” exclaimed Tom; “somebody’s drownded!”
“That’s it!” said Huck; “they done that last summer, when Bill Turner got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes him come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put quicksilver in ‘em and set ‘em afloat, and wherever there’s anybody that’s drownded, they’ll float right there and stop.” [From “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” pp. 125-126]
The illustration is by True W. Williams,
(Little do the boys realize that the town folk are searching for them.)