"I killed him! I am guilty! But I never had the notion in my life to hurt
him or harm him, spite of all them lies about my threatening him, till
the very minute I raised the club--then my heart went cold!--then the
pity all went out of it, and I struck to kill! In that one moment all my
wrongs come into my mind; all the insults that that man and the scoundrel
his brother, there, had put upon me, and how they laid in together to
ruin me with the people, and take away my good name, and DRIVE me to some
deed that would destroy me and my family that hadn't ever done THEM no
harm, so help me God! And they done it in a mean revenge--for why?
Because my innocent pure girl here at my side wouldn't marry that rich,
insolent, ignorant coward, Brace Dunlap, who's been sniveling here over a
brother he never cared a brass farthing for--"[I see Tom give a jump and
look glad THIS time, to a dead certainty]"--and in that moment I've told
you about, I forgot my God and remembered only my heart's bitterness, God
forgive me, and I struck to kill. In one second I was miserably
sorry--oh, filled with remorse; but I thought of my poor family, and I
MUST hide what I'd done for their sakes; and I did hide that corpse in
the bushes; and presently I carried it to the tobacker field; and in the
deep night I went with my shovel and buried it where--"

Up jumps Tom and shouts:

"NOW, I've got it!" and waves his hand, oh, ever so fine and starchy,
towards the old man, and says:

"Set down! A murder WAS done, but you never had no hand in it!"

Well, sir, you could a heard a pin drop. And the old man he sunk down
kind of bewildered in his seat and Aunt Sally and Benny didn't know it,
because they was so astonished and staring at Tom with their mouths open