AIN'T it gay?" said Joe.

It's NUTS!" said Tom. "What would the boys say if they could see us?"

Say? Well, they'd just die to be here--hey, Hucky!"

I reckon so," said Huckleberry; "anyways, I'm suited. I don't want

nothing better'n this. I don't ever get enough to eat, gen'ally--and

here they can't come and pick at a feller and bullyrag him so."

"It's just the life for me," said Tom. "You don't have to get up,

mornings, and you don't have to go to school, and wash, and all that

blame foolishness. You see a pirate don't have to do ANYTHING, Joe,

when he's ashore, but a hermit HE has to be praying considerable, and

then he don't have any fun, anyway, all by himself that way."

"Oh yes, that's so," said Joe, "but I hadn't thought much about it,

you know. I'd a good deal rather be a pirate, now that I've tried it."

"You see," said Tom, "people don't go much on hermits, nowadays, like

they used to in old times, but a pirate's always respected. And a

hermit's got to sleep on the hardest place he can find, and put

sackcloth and ashes on his head, and stand out in the rain, and--"

"What does he put sackcloth and ashes on his head for?" inquired Huck.

139

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer