"The Long Walk Home"

Jaden adjusted the straps of his backpack as the sun dipped below the rooftops. The shortcut through the empty lot had seemed like a good idea earlier, but now the shadows stretched longer than he expected. He reminded himself that he walked this route every day.

Halfway across the lot, a sudden noise made him stop. A stray cat darted past, knocking over an old can. Jaden let out a shaky laugh, embarrassed by his reaction. Still, he picked up his pace.

As he reached the sidewalk, the streetlights flickered on. Jaden felt a sense of relief wash over him. By the time he reached his front door, the fear he’d felt earlier had faded, replaced by pride. He had faced his nerves—and won.

Three miles below town the ferryboat stopped at the mouth of a woody hollow and tied up. The crowd swarmed ashore and soon the forest distances and craggy heights echoed far and near with shoutings and laughter. All the different ways of getting hot and tired were gone through with, and by-and-by the rovers straggled back to camp fortified with responsible appetites, and then the destruction of the good things began. After the feast there was a refreshing season of rest and chat in the shade of spreading oaks. By-and-by somebody shouted: “Who’s ready for the cave?”

Everybody was. Bundles of candles were procured, and straightway there was a general scamper up the hill. The mouth of the cave was up the hillside—an opening shaped like a letter A. Its massive oaken door stood unbarred. Within was a small chamber, chilly as an icehouse, and walled by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat. It was romantic and mysterious to stand here in the deep gloom and look out upon the green valley shining in the sun. But the impressiveness of the situation quickly wore off, and the romping began again. The moment a candle was lighted there was a general rush upon the owner of it; a struggle and a gallant defense followed, but the candle was soon knocked down or blown out, and then there was a glad clamor of laughter and a new chase.

But all things have an end. By-and-by the procession went filing down the steep descent of the main avenue, the flickering rank of lights dimly revealing the lofty walls of rock almost to their point of junction sixty feet overhead. This main avenue was not more than eight or ten feet wide. Every few steps other lofty and still narrower crevices branched from it on either hand—for McDougal’s cave was but a vast labyrinth of crooked aisles that ran into each other and out again and led nowhere.

It was said that one might wander days and nights together through its intricate tangle of rifts and chasms, and never find the end of the cave; and that he might go down, and down, and still down, into the earth, and it was just the same—labyrinth under labyrinth, and no end to any of them.

No man knew the cave. That was an impossible thing. Most of the young men knew a portion of it, and it was not customary to venture much beyond this known portion. Tom Sawyer knew as much of the cave as any one.