{"id":"01KG1787CG5VQ9RW4D0N7KFJMR","cid":"bafkreibfilx22jmp4dubp6gmuee62v4kdgmmpmoi4unq5hn3ki6tg6hx74","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2876,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T02:34:49.968Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","start_line":2797,"text":"CHAPTER IX\r\n\r\n\r\nAt half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual.\r\nThey said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and\r\nwaited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be\r\nnearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He\r\nwould have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was\r\nafraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark.\r\nEverything was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little,\r\nscarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking\r\nof the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack\r\nmysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad.\r\nA measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly’s chamber. And now the\r\ntiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate,\r\nbegan. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the\r\nbed’s head made Tom shudder—it meant that somebody’s days were numbered.\r\nThen the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered\r\nby a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last\r\nhe was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to\r\ndoze, in spite of himself; the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear\r\nit. And then there came, mingling with his half-formed dreams, a most\r\nmelancholy caterwauling. The raising of a neighboring window disturbed\r\nhim. A cry of “Scat! you devil!” and the crash of an empty bottle\r\nagainst the back of his aunt’s woodshed brought him wide awake, and a\r\nsingle minute later he was dressed and out of the window and creeping\r\nalong the roof of the “ell” on all fours. He “meow’d” with caution once\r\nor twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof of the woodshed and thence\r\nto the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with his dead cat. The boys\r\nmoved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end of half an hour they\r\nwere wading through the tall grass of the graveyard.\r\n\r\nIt was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill,\r\nabout a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence\r\naround it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the\r\ntime, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the\r\nwhole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a\r\ntombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over\r\nthe graves, leaning for support and finding none. “Sacred to the memory\r\nof” So-and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer have\r\nbeen read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light.\r\n\r\nA faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the\r\nspirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked\r\nlittle, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the\r\npervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the\r\nsharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the\r\nprotection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of\r\nthe grave.\r\n\r\nThen they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of\r\na distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom’s\r\nreflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said in a\r\nwhisper:\r\n\r\n“Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?”\r\n\r\nHuckleberry whispered:\r\n\r\n“I wisht I knowed. It’s awful solemn like, _ain’t_ it?”\r\n\r\n“I bet it is.”\r\n\r\nThere was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter\r\ninwardly. Then Tom whispered:\r\n\r\n“Say, Hucky—do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?”\r\n\r\n“O’ course he does. Least his sperrit does.”\r\n\r\nTom, after a pause:\r\n\r\n“I wish I’d said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody\r\ncalls him Hoss.”\r\n\r\n“A body can’t be too partic’lar how they talk ’bout these-yer dead\r\npeople, Tom.”\r\n\r\nThis was a damper, and conversation died again.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG176GJ94C5X853W5FAB6W68","peer_label":"CHAPTER IX","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","peer_label":"tom_sawyer.txt","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG1787CHR8RWPJHFZ66PFSR6","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T02:34:50.325Z","ts":"2026-01-28T02:34:51.046Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}