“All right, then; if it don’t, there ain’t no two States the same color. You git around _that_ if you can, Tom Sawyer.” He see I had him, and Jim see it too; and I tell you, I felt pretty good, for Tom Sawyer was always a hard person to git ahead of. Jim slapped his leg and says: “I tell _you!_ dat’s smart, dat’s right down smart. Ain’t no use, Mars Tom; he got you _dis_ time, sho’!” He slapped his leg again, and says, “My _lan_’, but it was smart one!” I never felt so good in my life; and yet I didn’t know I was saying anything much till it was out. I was just mooning along, perfectly careless, and not expecting anything was going to happen, and never _thinking_ of such a thing at all, when, all of a sudden, out it came. Why, it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to any of them. It was just the same way it is when a person is munching along on a hunk of corn-pone, and not thinking about anything, and all of a sudden bites into a di’mond. Now all that _he_ knows first off is that it’s some kind of gravel he’s bit into; but he don’t find out it’s a di’mond till he gits it out and brushes off the sand and crumbs and one thing or another, and has a look at it, and then he’s surprised and glad—yes, and proud too; though when you come to look the thing straight in the eye, he ain’t entitled to as much credit as he would ’a’ been if he’d been _hunting_ di’monds. You can see the difference easy if you think it over. You see, an accident, that way, ain’t fairly as big a thing as a thing that’s done a-purpose. Anybody could find that di’mond in that corn-pone; but mind you, it’s got to be somebody that’s got _that kind of a corn-pone_. That’s where that feller’s credit comes in, you see; and that’s where mine comes in. I don’t claim no great things—I don’t reckon I could ’a’ done it again—but I done it that time; that’s all I claim. And I hadn’t no more idea I could do such a thing, and warn’t any more thinking about it or trying to, than you be this minute. Why, I was just as ca’m, a body couldn’t be any ca’mer, and yet, all of a sudden, out it come. I’ve often thought of that time, and I can remember just the way everything looked, same as if it was only last week. I can see it all: beautiful rolling country with woods and fields and lakes for hundreds and hundreds of miles all around, and towns and villages scattered everywheres under us, here and there and yonder; and the professor mooning over a chart on his little table, and Tom’s cap flopping in the rigging where it was hung up to dry. And one thing in particular was a bird right alongside, not ten foot off, going our way and trying to keep up, but losing ground all the time; and a railroad train doing the same thing down there, sliding among the trees and farms, and pouring out a long cloud of black smoke and now and then a little puff of white; and when the white was gone so long you had almost forgot it, you would hear a little faint toot, and that was the whistle.