“Well, me and Tom allowed we would come along afoot and take a smell of the woods, and we run across Lem Beebe and Jim Lane, and they asked us to go with them blackberrying to-night, and said they could borrow Jubiter Dunlap’s dog, because he had told them just that minute—” “Where did they see him?” says the old man; and when I looked up to see how _he_ come to take an intrust in a little thing like that, his eyes was just burning into me, he was that eager. It surprised me so it kind of throwed me off, but I pulled myself together again and says: “It was when he was spading up some ground along with you, towards sundown or along there.” He only said, “Um,” in a kind of a disappointed way, and didn’t take no more intrust. So I went on. I says: “Well, then, as I was a-saying—” “That’ll do, you needn’t go no furder.” It was Aunt Sally. She was boring right into me with her eyes, and very indignant. “Huck Finn,” she says, “how’d them men come to talk about going a-black-berrying in September—in _this_ region?” I see I had slipped up, and I couldn’t say a word. She waited, still a-gazing at me, then she says: “And how’d they come to strike that idiot idea of going a-blackberrying in the night?” “Well, m’m, they—er—they told us they had a lantern, and—” “Oh, _shet_ up—do! Looky here; what was they going to do with a dog?—hunt blackberries with it?” “I think, m’m, they—” “Now, Tom Sawyer, what kind of a lie are you fixing _your_ mouth to contribit to this mess of rubbage? Speak out—and I warn you before you begin, that I don’t believe a word of it. You and Huck’s been up to something you no business to—I know it perfectly well; I know you, _both_ of you. Now you explain that dog, and them blackberries, and the lantern, and the rest of that rot—and mind you talk as straight as a string—do you hear?” Tom he looked considerable hurt, and says, very dignified: “It is a pity if Huck is to be talked to that way, just for making a little bit of a mistake that anybody could make.” “What mistake has he made?” “Why, only the mistake of saying blackberries when of course he meant strawberries.” “Tom Sawyer, I lay if you aggravate me a little more, I’ll—” “Aunt Sally, without knowing it—and of course without intending it—you are in the wrong. If you’d ’a’ studied natural history the way you ought, you would know that all over the world except just here in Arkansaw they _always_ hunt strawberries with a dog—and a lantern—”