"Then what on earth did YOU want to set him free for, seeing he was already free?"

      "Well, that IS a question, I must say; and just like women! Why, I wanted the ADVENTURE of it; and I'd a waded neck-deep in blood to --goodness alive, AUNT POLLY!"

     If she warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!

     Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed, for it was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me. And I peeped out, and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles--kind of grinding him into the earth, you know. And then she says:

     "Yes, you BETTER turn y'r head away--I would if I was you, Tom."

     "Oh, deary me!" says Aunt Sally; "IS he changed so? Why, that ain't TOM, it's Sid; Tom's--Tom's--why, where is Tom? He was here a minute ago."