The next mornin' Aunt Caroline had the wonderfulest breakfast you ever saw: waffles, honey, bacon, eggs, and John just et and talked and kept swearin'. And Aunt Caroline sat lookin' down at her plate eatin' and didn't say nothin'--just looked calm and happy. John seemed to have some kind of business that mornin'. Anyway he went away for a bit and left us to ourselves lookin' about the place and goin' over some photographs Aunt Caroline had. By and by Vangy came in and John. And John got out the fiddle again, to play a piece he called "Injun Puddin'" and so the fun was startin' all over again. There was a knock at the door and Aunt Caroline went and opened it, and there stood my pa and Mr. Miller. "Well, you young pirates," said my pa, as he came in the room, "you're goin' down to see Tom Sawyer, are you, and run away from your home?" "They got a job on the steamboat, Hard," said John. "You can't interfere with that, you know." And he laughed and swore. "I'll get a switch to you, young man," my pa went on. "Mitchie, what makes you do this?" asked Mr. Miller. "It does beat the world. Your mother is worried almost to death." Mitch looked down. I was still because I was scared. Pretty soon everything got jolly again. John fiddled some more. They all told stories, the funniest you ever heard, and everybody laughed. I saw Aunt Caroline smile clear across her face. Then we had a grand dinner. And when the train came in, my pa and Mr. Miller put us on and took us back to Petersburg. Of course John Armstrong tricked us, but when did he do it--and how? I don't know. CHAPTER XXI Everything seemed changed now. My ma wasn't the same, the house wasn't the same; Myrtle was talkin' about girls and boys I didn't know. Maud Fisher had come back from Chicago where she had visited and Myrtle was goin' up the hill to see her. Maud lived in a great brick house that looked like a castle. Her pa was one of the richest men in town and they lived splendid. And Mitch was changed too. We hadn't found the treasure; we had been cheated out of our trip to St. Louis, for they wouldn't let us go back to Havaner to get the boat; we hadn't seen Tom Sawyer. And Mr. Miller had told Mitch a lot of stories of Shakespeare and had set him to readin', and Mitch had read a lot of it, and told me about Hamlet who lost his father, and killed his step-father, and saw his mother drink poison; and had lost his girl too, and lost everything. And Mitch says, "Pa says that is about the way. This life is sorrow, you always lose, you never win, and if you do, it's worse'n if you lost; and you're just bein' put through a kind of schoolin' for somethin' else. For if you have trouble, then you are made wise and kind, maybe, or at least you can be; and so there's something after this life where you can use your mind as it has been made better by this life."