"
"My lan', Mars Tom, I never knowed dey was so much TO de beas'. No, sir,
I never had no idea of it, and dat's de fac'."
"There's more to him, by a long sight, than there is to any other cretur,
man or beast, in proportion to size. He's the interestingest of them all.
People have so much to say about an ant's strength, and an elephant's,
and a locomotive's. Shucks, they don't begin with a flea. He can lift two
or three hundred times his own weight. And none of them can come anywhere
near it. And, moreover, he has got notions of his own, and is very
particular, and you can't fool him; his instinct, or his judgment, or
whatever it is, is perfectly sound and clear, and don't ever make a
mistake. People think all humans are alike to a flea. It ain't so.
There's folks that he won't go near, hungry or not hungry, and I'm one of
them. I've never had one of them on me in my life."
"Mars Tom!"
"It's so; I ain't joking."
"Well, sah, I hain't ever heard de likes o' dat befo'." Jim couldn't
believe it, and I couldn't; so we had to drop down to the sand and git a
supply and see. Tom was right. They went for me and Jim by the thousand,
but not a one of them lit on Tom. There warn't no explaining it, but
there it was and there warn't no getting around it. He said it had always
been just so, and he'd just as soon be where there was a million of them
as not; they'd never touch him nor bother him.
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