Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and Sid had come all right and safe, she says to herself:

“Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off that way without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that creetur's up to this time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of you about it.”

“Why, I never heard nothing from you,” says Aunt Sally.

“Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean by Sid being here.”

“Well, I never got 'em, Sis.”

Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:

“You, Tom!”

“Well – what?” he says, kind of pettish.

“Don t you what me, you impudent thing – hand out them letters.”

“What letters?”

“Them letters. I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I'll –”

“They're in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as they was when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, I hain't touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if you warn't in no hurry, I'd –”

“Well, you do need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And I wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he –”

“No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but it's all right, I've got that one.”

I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.