Persons attempting
          to find a motive
               in this narrative
        will be prosecuted;
           persons attempting
              to find a moral in
             it will be banished;
        persons attempting
              to find a plot in
             it will be shot.

                                          By Order of the Author
                                         Per G. G., Chief Ordnance
 
  EXPLANATORY

    In this
          book a number of dialects
        are used,
           to wit:
        the Missouri negro dialect;
           the extremest form
               of the backwoods South-Western dialect;
        the ordinary
         "Pike-County"
            dialect;
        and four
              modified varieties of this last.

    The shadings
        have not
            been done
                   in a hap-hazard fashion,
           or by guess-work;
        but painstakingly,
           and with the trustworthy guidance
               and support of personal familiarity
                   with these
              several forms of speech.

    I make this explanation
           for the reason that
         without it many readers
            would suppose
             that all these characters
                were trying
                      to talk alike
                           and not succeeding.

                                                   The Author
 
  CHAPTER ONE

    You don't know about me,
           without you
              have read a book
                   by the name of
         "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,"
            but that ain't no matter.

    That book
        was made
               by Mr. Mark Twain,
           and he told the truth,
         mainly.

    There was things which
         he stretched,
           but mainly
             he told the truth.

    That is nothing.

    I never seen anybody
         but lied,
           one time or another,
         without it was Aunt Polly,
           or the widow,
         or maybe Mary.

    Aunt Polly- Tom's Aunt Polly,
           she is- and Mary,
         and the Widow Douglas,
           is all told about in
             that book-
                  which is mostly
                       a true book;
        with some stretchers,
           as I said before.

    Now the way
         that the book winds up,
           is this:
        Tom and me
              found the money
             that the robbers
                hid in the cave,
           and it made us rich.

    We got
        six thousand dollars
             apiece- all gold.

    It was an awful sight
           of money
         when it was piled up.

    Well,
           Judge Thatcher,
         he took it and
              put it out at interest,
           and it
              fetched us
                   a dollar
                 a day apiece,
         all the year round-
               more than a body
            could tell
             what to do with.

    The Widow Douglas,
           she took me
               for her son,
         and allowed
             she would sivilize me;
        but it
            was rough
                  living in the house
                       all the time,
           considering how dismal regular
               and decent the widow
            was in all her ways;
        and so
             when I
                couldn't stand it no longer,
           I lit out.

    I got
           into my old rags,
         and my sugar-hogshead again,
         and was free and satisfied.

    But Tom Sawyer,
           he hunted me
               up and said
             he was
                  going to start a band
                       of robbers and
             I might join
               if I
                would go back
                       to the widow
                      and be respectable.

    So I went back.

    The widow
         she cried over me,
           and called me a poor
              lost lamb,
         and she called
               me a lot of
                   other names,
           too,
         but she never
              meant no harm by it.

    She put me
           in them new clothes again,
         and I couldn't do nothing
             but sweat and sweat,
         and feel all cramped up.

    Well,
           then,
         the old thing commenced again.

    The widow
          rung a bell for supper,
           and you
            had to come to time.

    When you
        got to the table you
           couldn't go
         right to eating,
           but you
            had to wait
                   for the widow
                  to tuck down her head
                      and grumble a little
                           over the victuals,