Does anyone know some information about the superstitions used by Mark
Twain in Tom Sawyer.  One may not really consider these things true
superstitions, but they were listed in an assignment given to my 7th grader
by his advanced English teacher--and we spent hours trying to find the
origins and meanings of some of these.

A dead cat
burying a marble
tossing a marble
doodlebugs
hearing a ghost


We found that Twain used the superstitions he had heard in his own
childhood in this novel, but finding out exactly where they came from was
difficult. Perhaps in all your studies of Twain someone has come across
this!!!!