Mars Tom, is you tryin to let on dat de time aint de SAME everywheres?
No, it aint the same everywheres, by a long shot.
Jim looked distressed, and says:
It grieves me to hear you talk like dat, Mars Tom; Is right down ashamed to hear you talk like dat, arter de way yous been raised. Yassir, itd break yo Aunt Pollys heart to hear you.
Tom was astonished. He looked Jim over wondering, and didnt say nothing, and Jim went on:
Mars Tom, who put de people out yonder in St. Louis? De Lord done it. Who put de people here whar we is? De Lord done it. Ain dey bofe his children? Cose dey is. WELL, den! is he gwine to SCRIMINATE twixt em?
Scriminate! I never heard such ignorance. There aint no discriminating about it. When he makes you and some more of his children black, and makes the rest of us white, what do you call that?
Jim see the pint. He was stuck. He couldnt answer. Tom says:
He does discriminate, you see, when he wants to; but this case HERE aint no discrimination of his, its mans. The Lord made the day, and he made the night; but he didnt invent the hours, and he didnt distribute them around. Man did that.
Mars Tom, is dat so? Man done it?
Certainly.
Who tole him he could?
Nobody. He never asked.
Jim studied a minute, and says:
Well, dat do beat me. I wouldnt a tuck no sich resk. But some people aint scared o nothin. Dey bangs right ahead; DEY dont care what happens. So den deys allays an hours diffunce everywhah, Mars Tom?
An hour? No! Its four minutes difference for every degree of longitude, you know. Fifteen of ems an hour, thirty of ems two hours, and so on. When its one clock Tuesday morning in England, its eight oclock the night before in New York.
Jim moved a little way along the locker, and you could see he was insulted. He kept shaking his head and muttering, and so I slid along to him and patted him on the leg, and petted him up, and got him over the worst of his feelings, and then he says:
Mars Tom talkin sich talk as dat! Choosday in one place en Monday in tother, bofe in the same day! Huck, dis aint no place to joke up here whah we is. Two days in one day! How you gwine to get two days inter one day? Cant git two hours inter one hour, kin you? Cant git two niggers inter one nigger skin, kin you? Cant git two gallons of whisky inter a one-gallon jug, kin you? No, sir, twould strain de jug. Yes, en even den you couldnt, I dont believe. Why, looky here, Huck, sposen de Choosday was New Years now den! is you gwine to tell me its dis year in one place en las year in tother, bofe in de identical same minute? Its de beatenest rubbage! I cant stan it I cant stan to hear tell bout it. Then he begun to shiver and turn gray, and Tom says:
NOW whats the matter? Whats the trouble?
Jim could hardly speak, but he says:
Mars Tom, you aint jokin, en its SO?
No, Im not, and it is so.
Jim shivered again, and says:
Den dat Monday could be de las day, en dey wouldnt be no las day in England, en de dead wouldnt be called. We mustnt go over dah, Mars Tom. Please git him to turn back; I wants to be whah
All of a sudden we see something, and all jumped up, and forgot everything and begun to gaze. Tom says:
Aint that the He catched his breath, then says: It IS, sure as you live! Its the ocean!
That made me and Jim catch our breath, too. Then we all stood petrified but happy, for none of us had ever seen an ocean, or ever expected to. Tom kept muttering:
Atlantic Ocean Atlantic. Land, dont it sound great! And thats IT and WE are looking at it we! Why, its just too splendid to believe!
Then we see a big bank of black smoke; and when we got nearer, it was a city and a monster she was, too, with a thick fringe of ships around one edge; and we wondered if it was New York, and begun to jaw and dispute about it, and, first we knowed, it slid from under us and went flying behind, and here we was, out over the very ocean itself, and going like a cyclone. Then we woke up, I tell you!