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Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn



Author: Mark Twain



Illustrator: E. W. Kemble



Release date: June 29, 2004 [eBook #76]

                Most recently updated: June 14, 2025



Language: English



Credits: David Widger





*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN ***









ADVENTURES

OF

HUCKLEBERRY FINN



(Tom Sawyer’s Comrade)



By Mark Twain









CONTENTS.



CHAPTER I.

Civilizing Huck.—Miss Watson.—Tom Sawyer Waits.



CHAPTER II.

The Boys Escape Jim.—Torn Sawyer’s Gang.—Deep-laid Plans.



CHAPTER III.

A Good Going-over.—Grace Triumphant.—“One of Tom Sawyers’s Lies”.



CHAPTER IV.

Huck and the Judge.—Superstition.



CHAPTER V.

Huck’s Father.—The Fond Parent.—Reform.



CHAPTER VI.

He Went for Judge Thatcher.—Huck Decided to Leave.—Political

Economy.—Thrashing Around.



CHAPTER VII.

Laying for Him.—Locked in the Cabin.—Sinking the Body.—Resting.



CHAPTER VIII.

Sleeping in the Woods.—Raising the Dead.—Exploring the Island.—Finding

Jim.—Jim’s Escape.—Signs.—Balum.



CHAPTER IX.

The Cave.—The Floating House.



CHAPTER X.

The Find.—Old Hank Bunker.—In Disguise.



CHAPTER XI.

Huck and the Woman.—The Search.—Prevarication.—Going to Goshen.



CHAPTER XII.

Slow Navigation.—Borrowing Things.—Boarding the Wreck.—The

Plotters.—Hunting for the Boat.



CHAPTER XIII.

Escaping from the Wreck.—The Watchman.—Sinking.



CHAPTER XIV.

A General Good Time.—The Harem.—French.



CHAPTER XV.

Huck Loses the Raft.—In the Fog.—Huck Finds the Raft.—Trash.



CHAPTER XVI.

Expectation.—A White Lie.—Floating Currency.—Running by Cairo.—Swimming

Ashore.



CHAPTER XVII.

An Evening Call.—The Farm in Arkansaw.—Interior Decorations.—Stephen

Dowling Bots.—Poetical Effusions.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Col. Grangerford.—Aristocracy.—Feuds.—The Testament.—Recovering the

Raft.—The Wood—pile.—Pork and Cabbage.



CHAPTER XIX.

Tying Up Day—times.—An Astronomical Theory.—Running a Temperance

Revival.—The Duke of Bridgewater.—The Troubles of Royalty.



CHAPTER XX.

Huck Explains.—Laying Out a Campaign.—Working the Camp—meeting.—A

Pirate at the Camp—meeting.—The Duke as a Printer.



CHAPTER XXI.

Sword Exercise.—Hamlet’s Soliloquy.—They Loafed Around Town.—A Lazy

Town.—Old Boggs.—Dead.



CHAPTER XXII.

Sherburn.—Attending the Circus.—Intoxication in the Ring.—The Thrilling

Tragedy.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Sold.—Royal Comparisons.—Jim Gets Home-sick.



CHAPTER XXIV.

Jim in Royal Robes.—They Take a Passenger.—Getting Information.—Family

Grief.



CHAPTER XXV.

Is It Them?—Singing the “Doxologer.”—Awful Square—Funeral Orgies.—A Bad

Investment .



CHAPTER XXVI.

A Pious King.—The King’s Clergy.—She Asked His Pardon.—Hiding in the

Room.—Huck Takes the Money.



CHAPTER XXVII.

The Funeral.—Satisfying Curiosity.—Suspicious of Huck,—Quick Sales and

Small.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Trip to England.—“The Brute!”—Mary Jane Decides to Leave.—Huck

Parting with Mary Jane.—Mumps.—The Opposition Line.



CHAPTER XXIX.

Contested Relationship.—The King Explains the Loss.—A Question of

Handwriting.—Digging up the Corpse.—Huck Escapes.



CHAPTER XXX.

The King Went for Him.—A Royal Row.—Powerful Mellow.



CHAPTER XXXI.

Ominous Plans.—News from Jim.—Old Recollections.—A Sheep

Story.—Valuable Information.



CHAPTER XXXII.

Still and Sunday—like.—Mistaken Identity.—Up a Stump.—In a Dilemma.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

A Nigger Stealer.—Southern Hospitality.—A Pretty Long Blessing.—Tar and

Feathers.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Hut by the Ash Hopper.—Outrageous.—Climbing the Lightning

Rod.—Troubled with Witches.



CHAPTER XXXV.

Escaping Properly.—Dark Schemes.—Discrimination in Stealing.—A Deep

Hole.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Lightning Rod.—His Level Best.—A Bequest to Posterity.—A High

Figure.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

The Last Shirt.—Mooning Around.—Sailing Orders.—The Witch Pie.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The Coat of Arms.—A Skilled Superintendent.—Unpleasant Glory.—A Tearful

Subject.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

Rats.—Lively Bed—fellows.—The Straw Dummy.



CHAPTER XL.

Fishing.—The Vigilance Committee.—A Lively Run.—Jim Advises a Doctor.



CHAPTER XLI.

The Doctor.—Uncle Silas.—Sister Hotchkiss.—Aunt Sally in Trouble.



CHAPTER XLII.

Tom Sawyer Wounded.—The Doctor’s Story.—Tom Confesses.—Aunt Polly

Arrives.—Hand Out Them Letters.



CHAPTER THE LAST.

Out of Bondage.—Paying the Captive.—Yours Truly, Huck Finn.









ILLUSTRATIONS.



 The Widows

 Moses and the “Bulrushers”

 Miss Watson

 Huck Stealing Away

 They Tip-toed Along

 Jim

 Tom Sawyer’s Band of Robbers

 Huck Creeps into his Window

 Miss Watson’s Lecture

 The Robbers Dispersed

 Rubbing the Lamp

 ! ! ! !

 Judge Thatcher surprised

 Jim Listening

 “Pap”

 Huck and his Father

 Reforming the Drunkard

 Falling from Grace

 Getting out of the Way

 Solid Comfort

 Thinking it Over

 Raising a Howl

 “Git Up”

 The Shanty

 Shooting the Pig

 Taking a Rest

 In the Woods

 Watching the Boat

 Discovering the Camp Fire

 Jim and the Ghost

 Misto Bradish’s Nigger

 Exploring the Cave

 In the Cave

 Jim sees a Dead Man

 They Found Eight Dollars

 Jim and the Snake

 Old Hank Bunker

 “A Fair Fit”

 “Come In”

 “Him and another Man”

 She puts up a Snack

 “Hump Yourself”

 On the Raft

 He sometimes Lifted a Chicken

 “Please don’t, Bill”

 “It ain’t Good Morals”

 “Oh! Lordy, Lordy!”

 In a Fix

 “Hello, What’s Up?”

 The Wreck

 We turned in and Slept

 Turning over the Truck

 Solomon and his Million Wives

 The story of “Sollermun”

 “We Would Sell the Raft”

 Among the Snags

 Asleep on the Raft

 “Something being Raftsman”

 “Boy, that’s a Lie”

 “Here I is, Huck”

 Climbing up the Bank

 “Who’s There?”

 “Buck”

 “It made Her look Spidery”

 “They got him out and emptied Him”

 The House

 Col. Grangerford

 Young Harney Shepherdson

 Miss Charlotte

 “And asked me if I Liked Her”

 “Behind the Wood-pile”

 Hiding Day-times

 “And Dogs a-Coming”

 “By rights I am a Duke!”

 “I am the Late Dauphin”

 Tail Piece

 On the Raft

 The King as Juliet

 “Courting on the Sly”

 “A Pirate for Thirty Years”

 Another little Job

 Practizing

 Hamlet’s Soliloquy

 “Gimme a Chaw”

 A Little Monthly Drunk

 The Death of Boggs

 Sherburn steps out

 A Dead Head

 He shed Seventeen Suits

 Tragedy

 Their Pockets Bulged

 Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor

 Harmless

 Adolphus

 He fairly emptied that Young Fellow

 “Alas, our Poor Brother”

 “You Bet it is”

 Leaking

 Making up the “Deffisit”

 Going for him

 The Doctor

 The Bag of Money

 The Cubby

 Supper with the Hare-Lip

 Honest Injun

 The Duke looks under the Bed

 Huck takes the Money

 A Crack in the Dining-room Door

 The Undertaker

 “He had a Rat!”

 “Was you in my Room?”

 Jawing

 In Trouble

 Indignation

 How to Find Them

 He Wrote

 Hannah with the Mumps

 The Auction

 The True Brothers

 The Doctor leads Huck

 The Duke Wrote

 “Gentlemen, Gentlemen!”

 “Jim Lit Out”

 The King shakes Huck

 The Duke went for Him

 Spanish Moss

 “Who Nailed Him?”

 Thinking

 He gave him Ten Cents

 Striking for the Back Country

 Still and Sunday-like

 She hugged him tight

 “Who do you reckon it is?”

 “It was Tom Sawyer”

 “Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”

 A pretty long Blessing

 Traveling By Rail

 Vittles

 A Simple Job

 Witches

 Getting Wood

 One of the Best Authorities

 The Breakfast-Horn

 Smouching the Knives

 Going down the Lightning-Rod

 Stealing spoons

 Tom advises a Witch Pie

 The Rubbage-Pile

 “Missus, dey’s a Sheet Gone”

 In a Tearing Way

 One of his Ancestors

 Jim’s Coat of Arms

 A Tough Job

 Buttons on their Tails

 Irrigation

 Keeping off Dull Times

 Sawdust Diet

 Trouble is Brewing

 Fishing

 Every one had a Gun

 Tom caught on a Splinter

 Jim advises a Doctor

 The Doctor

 Uncle Silas in Danger

 Old Mrs. Hotchkiss

 Aunt Sally talks to Huck

 Tom Sawyer wounded

 The Doctor speaks for Jim

 Tom rose square up in Bed

 “Hand out them Letters”

 Out of Bondage

 Tom’s Liberality

 Yours Truly









NOTICE.



Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be

prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;

persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.



BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR

PER G. G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE.









EXPLANATORY



In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro

dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the

ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this

last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by

guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and

support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.



I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers

would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and

not succeeding.



THE AUTHOR.









HUCKLEBERRY FINN



Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago









CHAPTER I.





You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The

Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made

by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things

which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I

never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt

Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she

is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book,

which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.



Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money

that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six

thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when

it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at

interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year

round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas

she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was

rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular

and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand

it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead

again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and

said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I

would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.



The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she

called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.

She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but

sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing

commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come

to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but

you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a

little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the

matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by

itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed

up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.



After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the

Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but

by-and-by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long

time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no

stock in dead people.



Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she

wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must

try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They

get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was

a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to

anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for

doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of

course that was all right, because she done it herself.



Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on,

had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a

spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then

the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for

an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say,

“Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t scrunch up like

that, Huckleberry—set up straight;” and pretty soon she would say,

“Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don’t you try to

behave?” Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished

I was there. She got mad then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted

was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular.

She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn’t say it for

the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place.

Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I

made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it

would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.



Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good

place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all

day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much

of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer

would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad

about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.



Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome.

By-and-by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then

everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle,

and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and

tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so

lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the

leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away

off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a

dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was

trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was,

and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods

I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell

about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood,

and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every

night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some

company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I

flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it

was all shriveled up. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that was an

awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and

most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my

tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up

a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I

hadn’t no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that

you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever

heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d killed

a spider.



I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;

for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn’t

know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go

boom—boom—boom—twelve licks; and all still again—stiller than ever.

Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the

trees—something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I

could just barely hear a “_me-yow! me-yow!_” down there. That was good!

Says I, “_me-yow! me-yow!_” as soft as I could, and then I put out the

light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped

down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough,

there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.









CHAPTER II.





We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end

of the widow’s garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn’t scrape

our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and

made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson’s big

nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him

pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and

stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:



“Who dah?”



He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right

between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes

and minutes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so close

together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I

dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back,

right between my shoulders. Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch.

Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the

quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t

sleepy—if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why

you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim

says:



“Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n.

Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do: I’s gwyne to set down here and

listen tell I hears it agin.”



So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up

against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most

touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears

come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it begun to itch on the

inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know how I was going

to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven

minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in

eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a

minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then

Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore—and then I was

pretty soon comfortable again.



Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we

went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom

whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said

no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I

warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would

slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t want him to try. I said

Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in

there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for

pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing

would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and

knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while,

everything was so still and lonesome.



As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence,

and by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of

the house. Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on

a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake.

Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance,

and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees

again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time

Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that,

every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by-and-by he

said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and

his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it,

and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers

would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up

to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with

their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.

Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen

fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about

such things, Jim would happen in and say, “Hm! What you know ’bout

witches?” and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.

Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string,

and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and

told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he

wanted to just by saying something to it; but he never told what it was

he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim

anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they

wouldn’t touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was

most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having

seen the devil and been rode by witches.



Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away

down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling,

where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling

ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile

broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo

Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the

old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile

and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.



We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the

secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest

part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our

hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave

opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked

under a wall where you wouldn’t a noticed that there was a hole. We

went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and

sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:



“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang.

Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his

name in blood.”



Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had

wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the

band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything

to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person

and his family must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he mustn’t sleep till

he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the

sign of the band. And nobody that didn’t belong to the band could use

that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he

must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the

secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt

up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the

list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse

put on it and be forgot forever.



Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it

out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of

pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had

it.



Some thought it would be good to kill the _families_ of boys that told

the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote

it in. Then Ben Rogers says:



“Here’s Huck Finn, he hain’t got no family; what you going to do ’bout

him?”



“Well, hain’t he got a father?” says Tom Sawyer.



“Yes, he’s got a father, but you can’t never find him these days. He

used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain’t been seen

in these parts for a year or more.”



They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they

said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it

wouldn’t be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of

anything to do—everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready

to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss

Watson—they could kill her. Everybody said:



“Oh, she’ll do. That’s all right. Huck can come in.”



Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,

and I made my mark on the paper.



“Now,” says Ben Rogers, “what’s the line of business of this Gang?”



“Nothing only robbery and murder,” Tom said.



“But who are we going to rob?—houses, or cattle, or—”



“Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain’t robbery; it’s burglary,”

says Tom Sawyer. “We ain’t burglars. That ain’t no sort of style. We

are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks

on, and kill the people and take their watches and money.”



“Must we always kill the people?”



“Oh, certainly. It’s best. Some authorities think different, but mostly

it’s considered best to kill them—except some that you bring to the

cave here, and keep them till they’re ransomed.”



“Ransomed? What’s that?”



“I don’t know. But that’s what they do. I’ve seen it in books; and so

of course that’s what we’ve got to do.”



“But how can we do it if we don’t know what it is?”



“Why, blame it all, we’ve _got_ to do it. Don’t I tell you it’s in the

books? Do you want to go to doing different from what’s in the books,

and get things all muddled up?”



“Oh, that’s all very fine to _say_, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation

are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don’t know how to do it to

them?—that’s the thing _I_ want to get at. Now, what do you _reckon_ it

is?”



“Well, I don’t know. But per’aps if we keep them till they’re ransomed,

it means that we keep them till they’re dead.”



“Now, that’s something _like_. That’ll answer. Why couldn’t you said

that before? We’ll keep them till they’re ransomed to death; and a

bothersome lot they’ll be, too—eating up everything, and always trying

to get loose.”



“How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there’s a guard

over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?”



“A guard! Well, that _is_ good. So somebody’s got to set up all night

and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that’s

foolishness. Why can’t a body take a club and ransom them as soon as

they get here?”



“Because it ain’t in the books so—that’s why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you

want to do things regular, or don’t you?—that’s the idea. Don’t you

reckon that the people that made the books knows what’s the correct

thing to do? Do you reckon _you_ can learn ’em anything? Not by a good

deal. No, sir, we’ll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.”



“All right. I don’t mind; but I say it’s a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we

kill the women, too?”



“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn’t let on. Kill

the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You

fetch them to the cave, and you’re always as polite as pie to them; and

by-and-by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any

more.”



“Well, if that’s the way I’m agreed, but I don’t take no stock in it.

Mighty soon we’ll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows

waiting to be ransomed, that there won’t be no place for the robbers.

But go ahead, I ain’t got nothing to say.”



Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was

scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn’t

want to be a robber any more.



So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him

mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom

give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and

meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.



Ben Rogers said he couldn’t get out much, only Sundays, and so he

wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked

to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get

together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom

Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so

started home.



I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was

breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was

dog-tired.









CHAPTER III.





Well, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on

account of my clothes; but the widow she didn’t scold, but only cleaned

off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would

behave a while if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet

and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and

whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once

I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without

hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I

couldn’t make it work. By-and-by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try

for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I

couldn’t make it out no way.



I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I

says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t

Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get

back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson fat up?

No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothing in it. I went and told the

widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for

it was “spiritual gifts.” This was too many for me, but she told me

what she meant—I must help other people, and do everything I could for

other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about

myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the

woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn’t see no

advantage about it—except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I

wouldn’t worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the

widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make

a body’s mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold

and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two

Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the

widow’s Providence, but if Miss Watson’s got him there warn’t no help

for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to

the widow’s if he wanted me, though I couldn’t make out how he was

a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was

so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.



Pap he hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable

for me; I didn’t want to see him no more. He used to always whale me

when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take

to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time

he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so

people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was

just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was

all like pap; but they couldn’t make nothing out of the face, because

it had been in the water so long it warn’t much like a face at all.

They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and

buried him on the bank. But I warn’t comfortable long, because I

happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded

man don’t float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that

this warn’t pap, but a woman dressed up in a man’s clothes. So I was

uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again

by-and-by, though I wished he wouldn’t.



We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All

the boys did. We hadn’t robbed nobody, hadn’t killed any people, but

only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging

down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market,

but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs “ingots,”

and he called the turnips and stuff “julery,” and we would go to the

cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had

killed and marked. But I couldn’t see no profit in it. One time Tom

sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a

slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he

said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel

of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow

with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand

“sumter” mules, all loaded down with di’monds, and they didn’t have

only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in

ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He

said we must slick up our swords and guns, and get ready. He never

could go after even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns

all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and

you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn’t worth a

mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn’t believe we

could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see

the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the

ambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down

the hill. But there warn’t no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn’t no

camels nor no elephants. It warn’t anything but a Sunday-school picnic,

and only a primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the

children up the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts

and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a

hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us

drop everything and cut.



I didn’t see no di’monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was

loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too,

and elephants and things. I said, why couldn’t we see them, then? He

said if I warn’t so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I

would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He

said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure,

and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had

turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite.

I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the

magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.



“Why,” said he, “a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they

would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They

are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.”



“Well,” I says, “s’pose we got some genies to help _us_—can’t we lick

the other crowd then?”



“How you going to get them?”



“I don’t know. How do _they_ get them?”



“Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies

come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and

the smoke a-rolling, and everything they’re told to do they up and do

it. They don’t think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots,

and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it—or any

other man.”



“Who makes them tear around so?”



“Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs

the lamp or the ring, and they’ve got to do whatever he says. If he

tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di’monds, and fill

it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor’s

daughter from China for you to marry, they’ve got to do it—and they’ve

got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they’ve got to

waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you

understand.”



“Well,” says I, “I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping

the palace themselves ’stead of fooling them away like that. And what’s

more—if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would

drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.”



“How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you’d _have_ to come when he rubbed it,

whether you wanted to or not.”



“What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then;

I _would_ come; but I lay I’d make that man climb the highest tree

there was in the country.”



“Shucks, it ain’t no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don’t seem to

know anything, somehow—perfect saphead.”



I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I

would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an

iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat

like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn’t

no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff

was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies. I reckoned he believed in the

A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all

the marks of a Sunday-school.









CHAPTER IV.





Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter

now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read

and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to

six times seven is thirty-five, and I don’t reckon I could ever get any

further than that if I was to live forever. I don’t take no stock in

mathematics, anyway.



At first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand it.

Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got

next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school

the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow’s

ways, too, and they warn’t so raspy on me. Living in a house and

sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold

weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so

that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so

I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming

along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn’t

ashamed of me.



One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I

reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left

shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me,

and crossed me off. She says, “Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what

a mess you are always making!” The widow put in a good word for me, but

that warn’t going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.

I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and

wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to

be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn’t

one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along

low-spirited and on the watch-out.



I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go

through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the

ground, and I seen somebody’s tracks. They had come up from the quarry

and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden

fence. It was funny they hadn’t come in, after standing around so. I

couldn’t make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to

follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn’t

notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left

boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.



I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my

shoulder every now and then, but I didn’t see nobody. I was at Judge

Thatcher’s as quick as I could get there. He said:



“Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your

interest?”



“No, sir,” I says; “is there some for me?”



“Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in, last night—over a hundred and fifty

dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along

with your six thousand, because if you take it you’ll spend it.”



“No, sir,” I says, “I don’t want to spend it. I don’t want it at

all—nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give

it to you—the six thousand and all.”



He looked surprised. He couldn’t seem to make it out. He says:



“Why, what can you mean, my boy?”



I says, “Don’t you ask me no questions about it, please. You’ll take

it—won’t you?”



He says:



“Well, I’m puzzled. Is something the matter?”



“Please take it,” says I, “and don’t ask me nothing—then I won’t have

to tell no lies.”



He studied a while, and then he says:



“Oho-o! I think I see. You want to _sell_ all your property to me—not

give it. That’s the correct idea.”



Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:



“There; you see it says ‘for a consideration.’ That means I have bought

it of you and paid you for it. Here’s a dollar for you. Now you sign

it.”



So I signed it, and left.



Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which

had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do

magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed

everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here

again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was,

what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his

hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and

dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an

inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the

same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and

listened. But it warn’t no use; he said it wouldn’t talk. He said

sometimes it wouldn’t talk without money. I told him I had an old slick

counterfeit quarter that warn’t no good because the brass showed

through the silver a little, and it wouldn’t pass nohow, even if the

brass didn’t show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that

would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn’t say nothing about

the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but

maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn’t know the

difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would

manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split

open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it

there all night, and next morning you couldn’t see no brass, and it

wouldn’t feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a

minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that

before, but I had forgot it.



Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened

again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would

tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the

hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:



“Yo’ ole father doan’ know yit what he’s a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he

spec he’ll go ’way, en den agin he spec he’ll stay. De bes’ way is to

res’ easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey’s two angels hoverin’

roun’ ’bout him. One uv ’em is white en shiny, en t’other one is black.

De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail

in en bust it all up. A body can’t tell yit which one gwyne to fetch

him at de las’. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable

trouble in yo’ life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git

hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to

git well agin. Dey’s two gals flyin’ ’bout you in yo’ life. One uv

’em’s light en t’other one is dark. One is rich en t’other is po’.

You’s gwyne to marry de po’ one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants

to keep ’way fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no resk,

’kase it’s down in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung.”



When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap

his own self!









CHAPTER V.





I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used

to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I

was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken—that is,

after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched,

he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn’t scared of

him worth bothring about.



He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and

greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like

he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long,

mixed-up whiskers. There warn’t no color in his face, where his face

showed; it was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make

a body sick, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a

fish-belly white. As for his clothes—just rags, that was all. He had

one ankle resting on t’other knee; the boot on that foot was busted,

and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His

hat was laying on the floor—an old black slouch with the top caved in,

like a lid.



I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair

tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was

up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over.

By-and-by he says:



“Starchy clothes—very. You think you’re a good deal of a big-bug,

_don’t_ you?”



“Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t,” I says.



“Don’t you give me none o’ your lip,” says he. “You’ve put on

considerable many frills since I been away. I’ll take you down a peg

before I get done with you. You’re educated, too, they say—can read and

write. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because

he can’t? _I’ll_ take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with

such hifalut’n foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?”



“The widow. She told me.”



“The widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel

about a thing that ain’t none of her business?”



“Nobody never told her.”



“Well, I’ll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that

school, you hear? I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs

over his own father and let on to be better’n what _he_ is. You lemme

catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother

couldn’t read, and she couldn’t write, nuther, before she died. None of

the family couldn’t before _they_ died. _I_ can’t; and here you’re

a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain’t the man to stand it—you hear?

Say, lemme hear you read.”



I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the

wars. When I’d read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack

with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:



“It’s so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky

here; you stop that putting on frills. I won’t have it. I’ll lay for

you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I’ll tan you good.

First you know you’ll get religion, too. I never see such a son.”



He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and

says:



“What’s this?”



“It’s something they give me for learning my lessons good.”



He tore it up, and says:



“I’ll give you something better—I’ll give you a cowhide.”



He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:



“_Ain’t_ you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and

a look’n’-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own father

got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I

bet I’ll take some o’ these frills out o’ you before I’m done with you.

Why, there ain’t no end to your airs—they say you’re rich. Hey?—how’s

that?”



“They lie—that’s how.”



“Looky here—mind how you talk to me; I’m a-standing about all I can

stand now—so don’t gimme no sass. I’ve been in town two days, and I

hain’t heard nothing but about you bein’ rich. I heard about it away

down the river, too. That’s why I come. You git me that money

to-morrow—I want it.”



“I hain’t got no money.”



“It’s a lie. Judge Thatcher’s got it. You git it. I want it.”



“I hain’t got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he’ll tell

you the same.”



“All right. I’ll ask him; and I’ll make him pungle, too, or I’ll know

the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it.”



“I hain’t got only a dollar, and I want that to—”



“It don’t make no difference what you want it for—you just shell it

out.”



He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was

going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn’t had a drink all day.

When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me

for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I

reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told

me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and

lick me if I didn’t drop that.



Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher’s and bullyragged

him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn’t, and then

he swore he’d make the law force him.



The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away

from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge

that had just come, and he didn’t know the old man; so he said courts

mustn’t interfere and separate families if they could help it; said

he’d druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher

and the widow had to quit on the business.



That pleased the old man till he couldn’t rest. He said he’d cowhide me

till I was black and blue if I didn’t raise some money for him. I

borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got

drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying

on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most

midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court,

and jailed him again for a week. But he said _he_ was satisfied; said

he was boss of his son, and he’d make it warm for _him_.



When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him.

So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and

had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was

just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him

about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he’d

been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn

over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn’t be ashamed of, and he

hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said

he could hug him for them words; so _he_ cried, and his wife she cried

again; pap said he’d been a man that had always been misunderstood

before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a

man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so

they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held

out his hand, and says:



“Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.

There’s a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain’t so no more;

it’s the hand of a man that’s started in on a new life, and’ll die

before he’ll go back. You mark them words—don’t forget I said them.

It’s a clean hand now; shake it—don’t be afeard.”



So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The

judge’s wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge—made

his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or

something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful

room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got

powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a

stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb

back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out

again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left

arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him

after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to

take soundings before they could navigate it.



The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform

the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn’t know no other way.









CHAPTER VI.





Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went

for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he

went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of

times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged

him or outrun him most of the time. I didn’t want to go to school much

before, but I reckoned I’d go now to spite pap. That law trial was a

slow business—appeared like they warn’t ever going to get started on

it; so every now and then I’d borrow two or three dollars off of the

judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got

money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around

town; and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just

suited—this kind of thing was right in his line.



He got to hanging around the widow’s too much and so she told him at

last that if he didn’t quit using around there she would make trouble

for him. Well, _wasn’t_ he mad? He said he would show who was Huck

Finn’s boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and

catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and

crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn’t

no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick

you couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it was.



He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.

We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the

key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon,

and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little

while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the

ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got

drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where

I was by-and-by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but

pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn’t long after that till I

was used to being where I was, and liked it—all but the cowhide part.



It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking

and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and

my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn’t see how I’d ever

got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat

on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be

forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you

all the time. I didn’t want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing,

because the widow didn’t like it; but now I took to it again because

pap hadn’t no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods

there, take it all around.



But by-and-by pap got too handy with his hick’ry, and I couldn’t stand

it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and

locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was

dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn’t ever

going to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix

up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a

time, but I couldn’t find no way. There warn’t a window to it big

enough for a dog to get through. I couldn’t get up the chimbly; it was

too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful

not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away; I

reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I

was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put

in the time. But this time I found something at last; I found an old

rusty wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a rafter and

the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work. There was

an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the

cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the

chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the

blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log

out—big enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I

was getting towards the end of it when I heard pap’s gun in the woods.

I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my

saw, and pretty soon pap come in.



Pap warn’t in a good humor—so he was his natural self. He said he was

down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned

he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on

the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge

Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there’d be

another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my

guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up

considerable, because I didn’t want to go back to the widow’s any more

and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man

got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of,

and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn’t skipped any,

and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round,

including a considerable parcel of people which he didn’t know the

names of, and so called them what’s-his-name when he got to them, and

went right along with his cussing.



He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch

out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a

place six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till

they dropped and they couldn’t find me. That made me pretty uneasy

again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn’t stay on hand till

he got that chance.



The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got.

There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,

ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two

newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went

back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all

over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and

take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn’t stay in one

place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and

hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man

nor the widow couldn’t ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out

and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would.

I got so full of it I didn’t notice how long I was staying till the old

man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.



I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While

I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of

warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town,

and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body

would a thought he was Adam—he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor

begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says:



“Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it’s like.

Here’s the law a-standing ready to take a man’s son away from him—a

man’s own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and

all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son

raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin’ for

_him_ and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call

_that_ govment! That ain’t all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge

Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o’ my property. Here’s what

the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and

up’ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets

him go round in clothes that ain’t fitten for a hog. They call that

govment! A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes

I’ve a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes,

and I _told_ ’em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of ’em

heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I’d leave the

blamed country and never come a-near it agin. Them’s the very words. I

says look at my hat—if you call it a hat—but the lid raises up and the

rest of it goes down till it’s below my chin, and then it ain’t rightly

a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o’

stove-pipe. Look at it, says I—such a hat for me to wear—one of the

wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights.



“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here.

There was a free nigger there from Ohio—a mulatter, most as white as a

white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the

shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in that town that’s got as fine

clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a

silver-headed cane—the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And

what do you think? They said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could

talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the

wust. They said he could _vote_ when he was at home. Well, that let me

out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was ’lection day,

and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get

there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where

they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I’ll never vote agin.

Them’s the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may

rot for all me—I’ll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the

cool way of that nigger—why, he wouldn’t a give me the road if I hadn’t

shoved him out o’ the way. I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger

put up at auction and sold?—that’s what I want to know. And what do you

reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn’t be sold till he’d been in

the State six months, and he hadn’t been there that long yet. There,

now—that’s a specimen. They call that a govment that can’t sell a free

nigger till he’s been in the State six months. Here’s a govment that

calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a

govment, and yet’s got to set stock-still for six whole months before

it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted

free nigger, and—”



Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was

taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and

barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind

of language—mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give

the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the

cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding

first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his

left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it

warn’t good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of

his toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he raised a howl

that fairly made a body’s hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and

rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he done then laid over

anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards.

He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid

over him, too; but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.



After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for

two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged

he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the

key, or saw myself out, one or t’other. He drank and drank, and tumbled

down on his blankets by-and-by; but luck didn’t run my way. He didn’t

go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed

around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I

couldn’t keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what

I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.



I don’t know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an

awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping

around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was

crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say

one had bit him on the cheek—but I couldn’t see no snakes. He started

and run round and round the cabin, hollering “Take him off! take him

off! he’s biting me on the neck!” I never see a man look so wild in the

eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he

rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way,

and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and

saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by-and-by, and laid

still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn’t make a sound.

I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it

seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By-and-by he

raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says,

very low:



“Tramp—tramp—tramp; that’s the dead; tramp—tramp—tramp; they’re coming

after me; but I won’t go. Oh, they’re here! don’t touch me—don’t! hands

off—they’re cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!”



Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him

alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under

the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I

could hear him through the blanket.



By-and-by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he

see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a

clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill

me, and then I couldn’t come for him no more. I begged, and told him I

was only Huck; but he laughed _such_ a screechy laugh, and roared and

cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and dodged

under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my

shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket quick

as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and

dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a

minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, and said he would

sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who.



So he dozed off pretty soon. By-and-by I got the old split-bottom chair

and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down

the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, then

I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down

behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did

drag along.









CHAPTER VII.





“Git up! What you ’bout?”



I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. It

was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over me

looking sour and sick, too. He says:



“What you doin’ with this gun?”



I judged he didn’t know nothing about what he had been doing, so I

says:



“Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him.”



“Why didn’t you roust me out?”



“Well, I tried to, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t budge you.”



“Well, all right. Don’t stand there palavering all day, but out with

you and see if there’s a fish on the lines for breakfast. I’ll be along

in a minute.”



He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed

some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of

bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have

great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be

always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes

cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts—sometimes a dozen logs

together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the

wood-yards and the sawmill.



I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t’other one out

for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a

canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding

high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog,

clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected

there’d be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that

to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they’d

raise up and laugh at him. But it warn’t so this time. It was a

drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore. Thinks

I, the old man will be glad when he sees this—she’s worth ten dollars.

But when I got to shore pap wasn’t in sight yet, and as I was running

her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and

willows, I struck another idea: I judged I’d hide her good, and then,

’stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I’d go down the river

about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a

rough time tramping on foot.



It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man

coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked

around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a

piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn’t seen

anything.



When he got along I was hard at it taking up a “trot” line. He abused

me a little for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, and

that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and

then he would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the lines

and went home.



While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about

wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap

and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing

than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me; you

see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn’t see no way for a

while, but by-and-by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of

water, and he says:



“Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you

hear? That man warn’t here for no good. I’d a shot him. Next time you

roust me out, you hear?”



Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but what he had been

saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it

now so nobody won’t think of following me.



About twelve o’clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The

river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the

rise. By-and-by along comes part of a log raft—nine logs fast together.

We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner.

Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch

more stuff; but that warn’t pap’s style. Nine logs was enough for one

time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and

took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three.

I judged he wouldn’t come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he

had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that

log again. Before he was t’other side of the river I was out of the

hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.



I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid,

and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the

same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee

and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took

the bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and

two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and

matches and other things—everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned

out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn’t any, only the one out

at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched

out the gun, and now I was done.



I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging

out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside

by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and

the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put

two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent

up at that place and didn’t quite touch ground. If you stood four or

five foot away and didn’t know it was sawed, you wouldn’t never notice

it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn’t likely

anybody would go fooling around there.



It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn’t left a track. I

followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the

river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods,

and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon

went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie

farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.



I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it

considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly

to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down

on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it _was_ ground—hard

packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of

big rocks in it—all I could drag—and I started it from the pig, and

dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and

dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that

something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was

there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and

throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer

in such a thing as that.



Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and

stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took

up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn’t

drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into

the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag

of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house.

I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the

bottom of it with the saw, for there warn’t no knives and forks on the

place—pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then

I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through

the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile

wide and full of rushes—and ducks too, you might say, in the season.

There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that

went miles away, I don’t know where, but it didn’t go to the river. The

meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I

dropped pap’s whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done

by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so

it wouldn’t leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.



It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some

willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I

made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by-and-by laid

down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself,

they’ll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then

drag the river for me. And they’ll follow that meal track to the lake

and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers

that killed me and took the things. They won’t ever hunt the river for

anything but my dead carcass. They’ll soon get tired of that, and won’t

bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to.

Jackson’s Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well,

and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights,

and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson’s Island’s the

place.



I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I

woke up I didn’t know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked

around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and

miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs

that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from

shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and _smelt_ late.

You know what I mean—I don’t know the words to put it in.



I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and

start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon

I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from

oars working in rowlocks when it’s a still night. I peeped out through

the willow branches, and there it was—a skiff, away across the water. I

couldn’t tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it was

abreast of me I see there warn’t but one man in it. Think’s I, maybe

it’s pap, though I warn’t expecting him. He dropped below me with the

current, and by-and-by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water,

and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him.

Well, it _was_ pap, sure enough—and sober, too, by the way he laid his

oars.



I didn’t lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down stream

soft but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half,

and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of

the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing,

and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood,

and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float.



I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking

away into the sky; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when

you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before.

And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people

talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too—every word of

it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short

nights now. T’other one said _this_ warn’t one of the short ones, he

reckoned—and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they

laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and

laughed, but he didn’t laugh; he ripped out something brisk, and said

let him alone. The first fellow said he ’lowed to tell it to his old

woman—she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn’t

nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it

was nearly three o’clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn’t wait more than

about a week longer. After that the talk got further and further away,

and I couldn’t make out the words any more; but I could hear the

mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.



I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson’s

Island, about two mile and a half down stream, heavy timbered and

standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid,

like a steamboat without any lights. There warn’t any signs of the bar

at the head—it was all under water now.



It didn’t take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping

rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and

landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a

deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow

branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen the canoe

from the outside.



I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked

out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town,

three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A

monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile up stream, coming along

down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping

down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say,

“Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!” I heard that just as

plain as if the man was by my side.



There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods,

and laid down for a nap before breakfast.









CHAPTER VIII.





The sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight

o’clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about

things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I

could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees

all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places

on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the

freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little

breeze up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me

very friendly.



I was powerful lazy and comfortable—didn’t want to get up and cook

breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep

sound of “boom!” away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow

and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and

looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying

on the water a long ways up—about abreast the ferry. And there was the

ferry-boat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the

matter now. “Boom!” I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferry-boat’s

side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my

carcass come to the top.



I was pretty hungry, but it warn’t going to do for me to start a fire,

because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the

cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there,

and it always looks pretty on a summer morning—so I was having a good

enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to

eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in

loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the

drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I’ll keep a lookout, and

if any of them’s floating around after me I’ll give them a show. I

changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could

have, and I warn’t disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I

most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out

further. Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the

shore—I knowed enough for that. But by-and-by along comes another one,

and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab

of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was “baker’s bread”—what the

quality eat; none of your low-down corn-pone.



I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching

the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied. And

then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson

or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone

and done it. So there ain’t no doubt but there is something in that

thing—that is, there’s something in it when a body like the widow or

the parson prays, but it don’t work for me, and I reckon it don’t work

for only just the right kind.



I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The

ferry-boat was floating with the current, and I allowed I’d have a

chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would

come in close, where the bread did. When she’d got pretty well along

down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the

bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place.

Where the log forked I could peep through.



By-and-by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a

run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap,

and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer,

and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody

was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says:



“Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he’s

washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water’s edge. I

hope so, anyway.”



I didn’t hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly

in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see

them first-rate, but they couldn’t see me. Then the captain sung out:



“Stand away!” and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that

it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke,

and I judged I was gone. If they’d a had some bullets in, I reckon

they’d a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn’t hurt,

thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around

the shoulder of the island. I could hear the booming now and then,

further and further off, and by-and-by, after an hour, I didn’t hear it

no more. The island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the

foot, and was giving it up. But they didn’t yet a while. They turned

around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the

Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I

crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the

head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri

shore and went home to the town.



I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after

me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the

thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my

things under so the rain couldn’t get at them. I catched a catfish and

haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp

fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for

breakfast.



When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well

satisfied; but by-and-by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set

on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the

stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed;

there ain’t no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you

can’t stay so, you soon get over it.



And so for three days and nights. No difference—just the same thing.

But the next day I went exploring around down through the island. I was

boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all

about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty

strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green

razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They

would all come handy by-and-by, I judged.



Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn’t far

from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn’t shot

nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh

home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and

it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it,

trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I

bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.



My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look

further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as

fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the

thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn’t hear

nothing else. I slunk along another piece further, then listened again;

and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod

on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of

my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too.



When I got to camp I warn’t feeling very brash, there warn’t much sand

in my craw; but I says, this ain’t no time to be fooling around. So I

got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight,

and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an

old last year’s camp, and then clumb a tree.



I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn’t see nothing, I

didn’t hear nothing—I only _thought_ I heard and seen as much as a

thousand things. Well, I couldn’t stay up there forever; so at last I

got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the

time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from

breakfast.



By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and

dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the

Illinois bank—about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and

cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all

night when I hear a _plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk_, and says to

myself, horses coming; and next I hear people’s voices. I got

everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping

through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn’t got far when I

hear a man say:



“We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about

beat out. Let’s look around.”



I didn’t wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the

old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.



I didn’t sleep much. I couldn’t, somehow, for thinking. And every time

I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn’t

do me no good. By-and-by I says to myself, I can’t live this way; I’m

a-going to find out who it is that’s here on the island with me; I’ll

find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off.



So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and

then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was

shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I

poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound

asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A

little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as

saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and

brung her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out and into the

edge of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through

the leaves. I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to

blanket the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the

treetops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped

off towards where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every

minute or two to listen. But I hadn’t no luck somehow; I couldn’t seem

to find the place. But by-and-by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of

fire away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow.

By-and-by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on

the ground. It most give me the fan-tods. He had a blanket around his

head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I set there behind a clump

of bushes, in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It

was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched

himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson’s Jim! I bet I

was glad to see him. I says:



“Hello, Jim!” and skipped out.



He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees,

and puts his hands together and says:



“Doan’ hurt me—don’t! I hain’t ever done no harm to a ghos’. I alwuz

liked dead people, en done all I could for ’em. You go en git in de

river agin, whah you b’longs, en doan’ do nuffn to Ole Jim, ’at ’uz

awluz yo’ fren’.”



Well, I warn’t long making him understand I warn’t dead. I was ever so

glad to see Jim. I warn’t lonesome now. I told him I warn’t afraid of

_him_ telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he only set

there and looked at me; never said nothing. Then I says:



“It’s good daylight. Le’s get breakfast. Make up your camp fire good.”



“What’s de use er makin’ up de camp fire to cook strawbries en sich

truck? But you got a gun, hain’t you? Den we kin git sumfn better den

strawbries.”



“Strawberries and such truck,” I says. “Is that what you live on?”



“I couldn’ git nuffn else,” he says.



“Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?”



“I come heah de night arter you’s killed.”



“What, all that time?”



“Yes—indeedy.”



“And ain’t you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?”



“No, sah—nuffn else.”



“Well, you must be most starved, ain’t you?”



“I reck’n I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on de

islan’?”



“Since the night I got killed.”



“No! W’y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a

gun. Dat’s good. Now you kill sumfn en I’ll make up de fire.”



So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a

grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and

coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the

nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done

with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him

with his knife, and fried him.



When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot.

Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then

when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By-and-by

Jim says:



“But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat ’uz killed in dat shanty ef it

warn’t you?”



Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom

Sawyer couldn’t get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says:



“How do you come to be here, Jim, and how’d you get here?”



He looked pretty uneasy, and didn’t say nothing for a minute. Then he

says:



“Maybe I better not tell.”



“Why, Jim?”



“Well, dey’s reasons. But you wouldn’ tell on me ef I uz to tell you,

would you, Huck?”



“Blamed if I would, Jim.”



“Well, I b’lieve you, Huck. I—I _run off_.”



“Jim!”



“But mind, you said you wouldn’ tell—you know you said you wouldn’

tell, Huck.”



“Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest _injun_,

I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for

keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t a-going to tell,

and I ain’t a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le’s know all about

it.”



“Well, you see, it ’uz dis way. Ole missus—dat’s Miss Watson—she pecks

on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she

wouldn’ sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader

roun’ de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one

night I creeps to de do’ pooty late, en de do’ warn’t quite shet, en I

hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans,

but she didn’ want to, but she could git eight hund’d dollars for me,

en it ’uz sich a big stack o’ money she couldn’ resis’. De widder she

try to git her to say she wouldn’ do it, but I never waited to hear de

res’. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.



“I tuck out en shin down de hill, en ’spec to steal a skift ’long de

sho’ som’ers ’bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid

in de ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to

go ’way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun’ all de time.

’Long ’bout six in de mawnin’ skifts begin to go by, en ’bout eight er

nine every skift dat went ’long wuz talkin’ ’bout how yo’ pap come over

to de town en say you’s killed. Dese las’ skifts wuz full o’ ladies en

genlmen a-goin’ over for to see de place. Sometimes dey’d pull up at de

sho’ en take a res’ b’fo’ dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to

know all ’bout de killin’. I ’uz powerful sorry you’s killed, Huck, but

I ain’t no mo’ now.



“I laid dah under de shavin’s all day. I ’uz hungry, but I warn’t

afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin’ to start to

de camp-meet’n’ right arter breakfas’ en be gone all day, en dey knows

I goes off wid de cattle ’bout daylight, so dey wouldn’ ’spec to see me

roun’ de place, en so dey wouldn’ miss me tell arter dark in de

evenin’. De yuther servants wouldn’ miss me, kase dey’d shin out en

take holiday soon as de ole folks ’uz out’n de way.



“Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went ’bout two

mile er more to whah dey warn’t no houses. I’d made up my mine ’bout

what I’s agwyne to do. You see, ef I kep’ on tryin’ to git away afoot,

de dogs ’ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey’d miss dat

skift, you see, en dey’d know ’bout whah I’d lan’ on de yuther side, en

whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I’s arter; it doan’

_make_ no track.



“I see a light a-comin’ roun’ de p’int bymeby, so I wade’ in en shove’

a log ahead o’ me en swum more’n half way acrost de river, en got in

’mongst de drift-wood, en kep’ my head down low, en kinder swum agin de

current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck

a-holt. It clouded up en ’uz pooty dark for a little while. So I clumb

up en laid down on de planks. De men ’uz all ’way yonder in de middle,

whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz a-risin’, en dey wuz a good current;

so I reck’n’d ’at by fo’ in de mawnin’ I’d be twenty-five mile down de

river, en den I’d slip in jis b’fo’ daylight en swim asho’, en take to

de woods on de Illinois side.



“But I didn’ have no luck. When we ’uz mos’ down to de head er de

islan’ a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn’t no use

fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan’. Well, I

had a notion I could lan’ mos’ anywhers, but I couldn’t—bank too bluff.

I ’uz mos’ to de foot er de islan’ b’fo’ I found’ a good place. I went

into de woods en jedged I wouldn’ fool wid raffs no mo’, long as dey

move de lantern roun’ so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some

matches in my cap, en dey warn’t wet, so I ’uz all right.”



“And so you ain’t had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why

didn’t you get mud-turkles?”



“How you gwyne to git ’m? You can’t slip up on um en grab um; en how’s

a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in de night?

En I warn’t gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime.”



“Well, that’s so. You’ve had to keep in the woods all the time, of

course. Did you hear ’em shooting the cannon?”



“Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah—watched um

thoo de bushes.”



Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and

lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a

sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the

same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them,

but Jim wouldn’t let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid

mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny

said his father would die, and he did.



And Jim said you mustn’t count the things you are going to cook for

dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the

table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and

that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next

morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die.

Jim said bees wouldn’t sting idiots; but I didn’t believe that, because

I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn’t sting me.



I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them. Jim

knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I said it

looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him

if there warn’t any good-luck signs. He says:



“Mighty few—an’ _dey_ ain’t no use to a body. What you want to know

when good luck’s a-comin’ for? Want to keep it off?” And he said: “Ef

you’s got hairy arms en a hairy breas’, it’s a sign dat you’s agwyne to

be rich. Well, dey’s some use in a sign like dat, ’kase it’s so fur

ahead. You see, maybe you’s got to be po’ a long time fust, en so you

might git discourage’ en kill yo’sef ’f you didn’ know by de sign dat

you gwyne to be rich bymeby.”



“Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?”



“What’s de use to ax dat question? Don’t you see I has?”



“Well, are you rich?”



“No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin. Wunst I had

foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat’n’, en got busted out.”



“What did you speculate in, Jim?”



“Well, fust I tackled stock.”



“What kind of stock?”



“Why, live stock—cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I

ain’ gwyne to resk no mo’ money in stock. De cow up ’n’ died on my

han’s.”



“So you lost the ten dollars.”



“No, I didn’t lose it all. I on’y los’ ’bout nine of it. I sole de hide

en taller for a dollar en ten cents.”



“You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more?”



“Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b’longs to old Misto

Bradish? Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar

would git fo’ dollars mo’ at de en’ er de year. Well, all de niggers

went in, but dey didn’t have much. I wuz de on’y one dat had much. So I

stuck out for mo’ dan fo’ dollars, en I said ’f I didn’ git it I’d

start a bank mysef. Well, o’ course dat nigger want’ to keep me out er

de business, bekase he says dey warn’t business ’nough for two banks,

so he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de

en’ er de year.



“So I done it. Den I reck’n’d I’d inves’ de thirty-five dollars right

off en keep things a-movin’. Dey wuz a nigger name’ Bob, dat had

ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn’ know it; en I bought it off’n

him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en’ er de year

come; but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex day de

one-laigged nigger say de bank’s busted. So dey didn’ none uv us git no

money.”



“What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?”



“Well, I ’uz gwyne to spen’ it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me

to give it to a nigger name’ Balum—Balum’s Ass dey call him for short;

he’s one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But he’s lucky, dey say, en I

see I warn’t lucky. De dream say let Balum inves’ de ten cents en he’d

make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in

church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po’ len’ to de

Lord, en boun’ to git his money back a hund’d times. So Balum he tuck

en give de ten cents to de po’, en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to

come of it.”



“Well, what did come of it, Jim?”



“Nuffn never come of it. I couldn’ manage to k’leck dat money no way;

en Balum he couldn’. I ain’ gwyne to len’ no mo’ money ’dout I see de

security. Boun’ to git yo’ money back a hund’d times, de preacher says!

Ef I could git de ten _cents_ back, I’d call it squah, en be glad er de

chanst.”



“Well, it’s all right anyway, Jim, long as you’re going to be rich

again some time or other.”



“Yes; en I’s rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I’s wuth

eight hund’d dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn’ want no mo’.”









CHAPTER IX.





I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island

that I’d found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got to it,

because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile

wide.



This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot

high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep

and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it, and

by-and-by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on

the side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two or three rooms

bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool in

there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we

didn’t want to be climbing up and down there all the time.



Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps

in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the

island, and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he

said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want

the things to get wet?



So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern,

and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by

to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off

of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.



The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one

side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a

good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner.



We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in

there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern.

Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the

birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like

all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these

regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all

blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so

thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and

here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn

up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a

gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as

if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and

blackest—_fst!_ it was as bright as glory, and you’d have a little

glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm,

hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again

in a second, and now you’d hear the thunder let go with an awful crash,

and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the

under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs—where

it’s long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.



“Jim, this is nice,” I says. “I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but

here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread.”



“Well, you wouldn’t a ben here ’f it hadn’t a ben for Jim. You’d a ben

down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn’ mos’ drownded, too;

dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it’s gwyne to rain, en so do

de birds, chile.”



The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at

last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on

the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side

it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same

old distance across—a half a mile—because the Missouri shore was just a

wall of high bluffs.



Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty

cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside.

We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines

hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every

old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things;

and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame,

on account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your

hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles—they

would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of

them. We could a had pets enough if we’d wanted them.



One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft—nice pine

planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long,

and the top stood above water six or seven inches—a solid, level floor.

We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them

go; we didn’t show ourselves in daylight.



Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before

daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was a

two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out and got

aboard—clumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark to see yet,

so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.



The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then

we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and

two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there

was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something laying on the

floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim says:



“Hello, you!”



But it didn’t budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:



“De man ain’t asleep—he’s dead. You hold still—I’ll go en see.”



He went, and bent down and looked, and says:



“It’s a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He’s ben shot in de back. I

reck’n he’s ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan’ look

at his face—it’s too gashly.”



I didn’t look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he

needn’t done it; I didn’t want to see him. There was heaps of old

greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles,

and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls

was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.

There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some

women’s underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men’s clothing,

too. We put the lot into the canoe—it might come good. There was a

boy’s old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too. And there

was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a

baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was broke. There was a

seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. They

stood open, but there warn’t nothing left in them that was any account.

The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a

hurry, and warn’t fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff.



We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, and

a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of

tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and

a ratty old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins

and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a

hatchet and some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger

with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather

dog-collar, and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn’t

have no label on them; and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable

good curry-comb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden

leg. The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good

enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim,

and we couldn’t find the other one, though we hunted all around.



And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to

shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was

pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with

the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a

good ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down

most a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the bank,

and hadn’t no accidents and didn’t see nobody. We got home all safe.









CHAPTER X.





After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how

he come to be killed, but Jim didn’t want to. He said it would fetch

bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha’nt us; he said a

man that warn’t buried was more likely to go a-ha’nting around than one

that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I

didn’t say no more; but I couldn’t keep from studying over it and

wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.



We rummaged the clothes we’d got, and found eight dollars in silver

sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said he reckoned

the people in that house stole the coat, because if they’d a knowed the

money was there they wouldn’t a left it. I said I reckoned they killed

him, too; but Jim didn’t want to talk about that. I says:



“Now you think it’s bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in

the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before

yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a

snake-skin with my hands. Well, here’s your bad luck! We’ve raked in

all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some bad

luck like this every day, Jim.”



“Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don’t you git too peart. It’s

a-comin’. Mind I tell you, it’s a-comin’.”



It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after

dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the

ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and

found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on the

foot of Jim’s blanket, ever so natural, thinking there’d be some fun

when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all about the snake,

and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light

the snake’s mate was there, and bit him.



He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the

varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a

second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap’s whisky-jug and begun to pour

it down.



He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all

comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you

leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it. Jim

told me to chop off the snake’s head and throw it away, and then skin

the body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it

would help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them

around his wrist, too. He said that that would help. Then I slid out

quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I

warn’t going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could

help it.



Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his

head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself

he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big,

and so did his leg; but by-and-by the drunk begun to come, and so I

judged he was all right; but I’d druther been bit with a snake than

pap’s whisky.



Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all

gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn’t ever take

a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had

come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he

said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we

hadn’t got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon

over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a

snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself,

though I’ve always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left

shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do.

Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than

two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread

himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and

they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried

him so, so they say, but I didn’t see it. Pap told me. But anyway it

all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool.



Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks

again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big

hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as

big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two

hundred pounds. We couldn’t handle him, of course; he would a flung us

into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around

till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round

ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and

there was a spool in it. Jim said he’d had it there a long time, to

coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever

catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn’t ever seen a

bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They

peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there;

everybody buys some of him; his meat’s as white as snow and makes a

good fry.



Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a

stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and

find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must

go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said,

couldn’t I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl?

That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico

gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it. Jim

hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the

sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in

and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim said

nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around

all day to get the hang of the things, and by-and-by I could do pretty

well in them, only Jim said I didn’t walk like a girl; and he said I

must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket. I took

notice, and done better.



I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.



I started across to the town from a little below the ferry-landing, and

the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I

tied up and started along the bank. There was a light burning in a

little shanty that hadn’t been lived in for a long time, and I wondered

who had took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped in at the

window. There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by a

candle that was on a pine table. I didn’t know her face; she was a

stranger, for you couldn’t start a face in that town that I didn’t

know. Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid

I had come; people might know my voice and find me out. But if this

woman had been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I

wanted to know; so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I

wouldn’t forget I was a girl.









CHAPTER XI.





“Come in,” says the woman, and I did. She says: “Take a cheer.”



I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says:



“What might your name be?”



“Sarah Williams.”



“Where ’bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?”



“No’m. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I’ve walked all the way and

I’m all tired out.”



“Hungry, too, I reckon. I’ll find you something.”



“No’m, I ain’t hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below

here at a farm; so I ain’t hungry no more. It’s what makes me so late.

My mother’s down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to

tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the town, she

says. I hain’t ever been here before. Do you know him?”



“No; but I don’t know everybody yet. I haven’t lived here quite two

weeks. It’s a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You

better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet.”



“No,” I says; “I’ll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain’t afeared

of the dark.”



She said she wouldn’t let me go by myself, but her husband would be in

by-and-by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she’d send him along with

me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations

up the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much

better off they used to was, and how they didn’t know but they’d made a

mistake coming to our town, instead of letting well alone—and so on and

so on, till I was afeard _I_ had made a mistake coming to her to find

out what was going on in the town; but by-and-by she dropped on to pap

and the murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right

along. She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand

dollars (only she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he

was, and what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was

murdered. I says:



“Who done it? We’ve heard considerable about these goings on down in

Hookerville, but we don’t know who ’twas that killed Huck Finn.”



“Well, I reckon there’s a right smart chance of people _here_ that’d

like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself.”



“No—is that so?”



“Most everybody thought it at first. He’ll never know how nigh he come

to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it

was done by a runaway nigger named Jim.”



“Why _he_—”



I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never

noticed I had put in at all:



“The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there’s a

reward out for him—three hundred dollars. And there’s a reward out for

old Finn, too—two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning

after the murder, and told about it, and was out with ’em on the

ferry-boat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they

wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they

found out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn’t ben seen sence

ten o’clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him,

you see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn,

and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the

nigger all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that

evening he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple

of mighty hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he

hain’t come back sence, and they ain’t looking for him back till this

thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy

and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he’d

get Huck’s money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit.

People do say he warn’t any too good to do it. Oh, he’s sly, I reckon.

If he don’t come back for a year he’ll be all right. You can’t prove

anything on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and

he’ll walk in Huck’s money as easy as nothing.”



“Yes, I reckon so, ’m. I don’t see nothing in the way of it. Has

everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?”



“Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they’ll get

the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him.”



“Why, are they after him yet?”



“Well, you’re innocent, ain’t you! Does three hundred dollars lay

around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger

ain’t far from here. I’m one of them—but I hain’t talked it around. A

few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in

the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to

that island over yonder that they call Jackson’s Island. Don’t anybody

live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn’t say any more, but I

done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I’d seen smoke over

there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I

says to myself, like as not that nigger’s hiding over there; anyway,

says I, it’s worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain’t seen

any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he’s gone, if it was him; but

husband’s going over to see—him and another man. He was gone up the

river; but he got back to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here

two hours ago.”



I had got so uneasy I couldn’t set still. I had to do something with my

hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it.

My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman

stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious

and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to

be interested—and I was, too—and says:



“Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get

it. Is your husband going over there to-night?”



“Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a

boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They’ll go over after

midnight.”



“Couldn’t they see better if they was to wait till daytime?”



“Yes. And couldn’t the nigger see better, too? After midnight he’ll

likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt

up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he’s got one.”



“I didn’t think of that.”



The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn’t feel a bit

comfortable. Pretty soon she says,



“What did you say your name was, honey?”



“M—Mary Williams.”



Somehow it didn’t seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I

didn’t look up—seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of

cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the

woman would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I

was. But now she says:



“Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?”



“Oh, yes’m, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah’s my first name. Some

calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary.”



“Oh, that’s the way of it?”



“Yes’m.”



I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I

couldn’t look up yet.



Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor

they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the

place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right

about the rats. You’d see one stick his nose out of a hole in the

corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy to

throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn’t give her no peace.

She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a

good shot with it generly, but she’d wrenched her arm a day or two ago,

and didn’t know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a

chance, and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and

said “Ouch!” it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next

one. I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of

course I didn’t let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed

his nose I let drive, and if he’d a stayed where he was he’d a been a

tolerable sick rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I

would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched

it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help

her with. I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and

went on talking about her and her husband’s matters. But she broke off

to say:



“Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,

handy.”



So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped

my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a

minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face,

and very pleasant, and says:



“Come, now, what’s your real name?”



“Wh—what, mum?”



“What’s your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?—or what is it?”



I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn’t know hardly what to do. But

I says:



“Please to don’t poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I’m in the

way here, I’ll—”



“No, you won’t. Set down and stay where you are. I ain’t going to hurt

you, and I ain’t going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your

secret, and trust me. I’ll keep it; and, what’s more, I’ll help you.

So’ll my old man if you want him to. You see, you’re a runaway

’prentice, that’s all. It ain’t anything. There ain’t no harm in it.

You’ve been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you,

child, I wouldn’t tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that’s a good

boy.”



So I said it wouldn’t be no use to try to play it any longer, and I

would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn’t

go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead,

and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty

mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn’t stand it

no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my

chance and stole some of his daughter’s old clothes and cleared out,

and I had been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights,

and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried

from home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed

my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I

struck out for this town of Goshen.



“Goshen, child? This ain’t Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen’s ten

mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?”



“Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn

into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I

must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen.”



“He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong.”



“Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain’t no matter now. I got

to be moving along. I’ll fetch Goshen before daylight.”



“Hold on a minute. I’ll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it.”



So she put me up a snack, and says:



“Say, when a cow’s laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer

up prompt now—don’t stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?”



“The hind end, mum.”



“Well, then, a horse?”



“The for’rard end, mum.”



“Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?”



“North side.”



“If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with

their heads pointed the same direction?”



“The whole fifteen, mum.”



“Well, I reckon you _have_ lived in the country. I thought maybe you

was trying to hocus me again. What’s your real name, now?”



“George Peters, mum.”



“Well, try to remember it, George. Don’t forget and tell me it’s

Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it’s George

Elexander when I catch you. And don’t go about women in that old

calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe.

Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don’t hold the

thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and

poke the thread at it; that’s the way a woman most always does, but a

man always does t’other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything,

hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as

awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw

stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to

turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out

to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when a girl tries to catch

anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she don’t clap them

together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead. Why, I

spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I

contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your

uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into

trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I’ll do

what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and

next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road’s a

rocky one, and your feet’ll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I

reckon.”



I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks

and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I

jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up-stream far enough to make

the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the

sun-bonnet, for I didn’t want no blinders on then. When I was about the

middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens; the

sound come faint over the water but clear—eleven. When I struck the

head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded,

but I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and

started a good fire there on a high and dry spot.



Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile and a half

below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the timber

and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound asleep on

the ground. I roused him out and says:



“Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose. They’re

after us!”



Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he

worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By

that time everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was

ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We put

out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn’t show a

candle outside after that.



I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece, and took a look;

but if there was a boat around I couldn’t see it, for stars and shadows

ain’t good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped along down

in the shade, past the foot of the island dead still—never saying a

word.









CHAPTER XII.





It must a been close on to one o’clock when we got below the island at

last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to come

along we was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinois

shore; and it was well a boat didn’t come, for we hadn’t ever thought

to put the gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to eat. We

was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things. It warn’t

good judgment to put _everything_ on the raft.



If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp fire I

built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayed

away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn’t

no fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as I could.



When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a tow-head in a

big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches with

the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like there

had been a cave-in in the bank there. A tow-head is a sandbar that has

cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.



We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinois

side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we

warn’t afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there all day, and

watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and

up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I told Jim all

about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim said she was a

smart one, and if she was to start after us herself _she_ wouldn’t set

down and watch a camp fire—no, sir, she’d fetch a dog. Well, then, I

said, why couldn’t she tell her husband to fetch a dog? Jim said he bet

she did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and he

believed they must a gone up-town to get a dog and so they lost all

that time, or else we wouldn’t be here on a tow-head sixteen or

seventeen mile below the village—no, indeedy, we would be in that same

old town again. So I said I didn’t care what was the reason they didn’t

get us as long as they didn’t.



When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the

cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing in

sight; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a

snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the

things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or

more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps

was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam

we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame

around it for to hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in

sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We

made an extra steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get

broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang

the old lantern on, because we must always light the lantern whenever

we see a steamboat coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over;

but we wouldn’t have to light it for up-stream boats unless we see we

was in what they call a “crossing”; for the river was pretty high yet,

very low banks being still a little under water; so up-bound boats

didn’t always run the channel, but hunted easy water.



This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current

that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, and

we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of

solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking

up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it

warn’t often that we laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle. We

had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened

to us at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next.



Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides,

nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The

fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit

up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty

thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that

wonderful spread of lights at two o’clock that still night. There

warn’t a sound there; everybody was asleep.



Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o’clock at some

little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents’ worth of meal or bacon or

other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn’t

roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a

chicken when you get a chance, because if you don’t want him yourself

you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain’t ever

forgot. I never see pap when he didn’t want the chicken himself, but

that is what he used to say, anyway.



Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a

watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of

that kind. Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things if you

was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn’t

anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it.

Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly

right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things

from the list and say we wouldn’t borrow them any more—then he reckoned

it wouldn’t be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all

one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds

whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons,

or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and

concluded to drop crabapples and p’simmons. We warn’t feeling just

right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way

it come out, too, because crabapples ain’t ever good, and the p’simmons

wouldn’t be ripe for two or three months yet.



We shot a water-fowl, now and, then that got up too early in the morning

or didn’t go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we

lived pretty high.



The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight, with

a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solid

sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of itself.

When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight river ahead,

and high, rocky bluffs on both sides. By-and-by says I, “Hel-_lo_, Jim,

looky yonder!” It was a steamboat that had killed herself on a rock. We

was drifting straight down for her. The lightning showed her very

distinct. She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck above

water, and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and clear, and

a chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging on the back of

it, when the flashes come.



Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all so

mysterious-like, I felt just the way any other boy would a felt when I

see that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of

the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little, and

see what there was there. So I says:



“Le’s land on her, Jim.”



But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:



“I doan’ want to go fool’n ’long er no wrack. We’s doin’ blame’ well,

en we better let blame’ well alone, as de good book says. Like as not

dey’s a watchman on dat wrack.”



“Watchman your grandmother,” I says; “there ain’t nothing to watch but

the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody’s going to

resk his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when

it’s likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?” Jim

couldn’t say nothing to that, so he didn’t try. “And besides,” I says,

“we might borrow something worth having out of the captain’s stateroom.

Seegars, _I_ bet you—and cost five cents apiece, solid cash. Steamboat

captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and _they_

don’t care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it.

Stick a candle in your pocket; I can’t rest, Jim, till we give her a

rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not

for pie, he wouldn’t. He’d call it an adventure—that’s what he’d call

it; and he’d land on that wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn’t he

throw style into it?—wouldn’t he spread himself, nor nothing? Why,

you’d think it was Christopher C’lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come. I

wish Tom Sawyer _was_ here.”



Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn’t talk any more

than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning showed us

the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard derrick, and

made fast there.



The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope of it to

labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with our

feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was so

dark we couldn’t see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the forward

end of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next step fetched us

in front of the captain’s door, which was open, and by Jimminy, away

down through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in the same second

we seem to hear low voices in yonder!



Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to

come along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft; but

just then I heard a voice wail out and say:



“Oh, please don’t, boys; I swear I won’t ever tell!”



Another voice said, pretty loud:



“It’s a lie, Jim Turner. You’ve acted this way before. You always want

more’n your share of the truck, and you’ve always got it, too, because

you’ve swore ’t if you didn’t you’d tell. But this time you’ve said it

jest one time too many. You’re the meanest, treacherousest hound in

this country.”



By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with

curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn’t back out now, and

so I won’t either; I’m a-going to see what’s going on here. So I

dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in

the dark till there warn’t but one stateroom betwixt me and the

cross-hall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the

floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of

them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol.

This one kept pointing the pistol at the man’s head on the floor, and

saying:



“I’d _like_ to! And I orter, too—a mean skunk!”



The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, “Oh, please don’t, Bill;

I hain’t ever goin’ to tell.”



And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and

say:



“’Deed you _ain’t!_ You never said no truer thing ’n that, you bet

you.” And once he said: “Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn’t got the

best of him and tied him he’d a killed us both. And what _for?_ Jist

for noth’n. Jist because we stood on our _rights_—that’s what for. But

I lay you ain’t a-goin’ to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put

_up_ that pistol, Bill.”



Bill says:



“I don’t want to, Jake Packard. I’m for killin’ him—and didn’t he kill

old Hatfield jist the same way—and don’t he deserve it?”



“But I don’t _want_ him killed, and I’ve got my reasons for it.”



“Bless yo’ heart for them words, Jake Packard! I’ll never forgit you

long’s I live!” says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.



Packard didn’t take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a

nail and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned

Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the

boat slanted so that I couldn’t make very good time; so to keep from

getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper

side. The man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to

my stateroom, he says:



“Here—come in here.”



And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in

the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there,

with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn’t see

them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky they’d been having.

I was glad I didn’t drink whisky; but it wouldn’t made much difference

anyway, because most of the time they couldn’t a treed me because I

didn’t breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body _couldn’t_

breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to

kill Turner. He says:



“He’s said he’ll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares

to him _now_ it wouldn’t make no difference after the row and the way

we’ve served him. Shore’s you’re born, he’ll turn State’s evidence; now

you hear _me_. I’m for putting him out of his troubles.”



“So’m I,” says Packard, very quiet.



“Blame it, I’d sorter begun to think you wasn’t. Well, then, that’s all

right. Le’s go and do it.”



“Hold on a minute; I hain’t had my say yit. You listen to me.

Shooting’s good, but there’s quieter ways if the thing’s _got_ to be

done. But what _I_ say is this: it ain’t good sense to go court’n

around after a halter if you can git at what you’re up to in some way

that’s jist as good and at the same time don’t bring you into no resks.

Ain’t that so?”



“You bet it is. But how you goin’ to manage it this time?”



“Well, my idea is this: we’ll rustle around and gather up whatever

pickins we’ve overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and

hide the truck. Then we’ll wait. Now I say it ain’t a-goin’ to be

more’n two hours befo’ this wrack breaks up and washes off down the

river. See? He’ll be drownded, and won’t have nobody to blame for it

but his own self. I reckon that’s a considerble sight better ’n killin’

of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’

it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals. Ain’t I right?”



“Yes, I reck’n you are. But s’pose she _don’t_ break up and wash off?”



“Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can’t we?”



“All right, then; come along.”



So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled

forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse

whisper, “Jim!” and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a

moan, and I says:



“Quick, Jim, it ain’t no time for fooling around and moaning; there’s a

gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don’t hunt up their boat and set

her drifting down the river so these fellows can’t get away from the

wreck there’s one of ’em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their

boat we can put _all_ of ’em in a bad fix—for the Sheriff ’ll get ’em.

Quick—hurry! I’ll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You

start at the raft, and—”



“Oh, my lordy, lordy! _Raf’?_ Dey ain’ no raf’ no mo’; she done broke

loose en gone I—en here we is!”









CHAPTER XIII.





Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with

such a gang as that! But it warn’t no time to be sentimentering. We’d

_got_ to find that boat now—had to have it for ourselves. So we went

a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was,

too—seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim

said he didn’t believe he could go any further—so scared he hadn’t

hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left

on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck

for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along

forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the

edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the

cross-hall door, there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely

see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been

aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his

head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone;

but he jerked it in again, and says:



“Heave that blame lantern out o’ sight, Bill!”



He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and

set down. It was Packard. Then Bill _he_ come out and got in. Packard

says, in a low voice:



“All ready—shove off!”



I couldn’t hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill

says:



“Hold on—’d you go through him?”



“No. Didn’t you?”



“No. So he’s got his share o’ the cash yet.”



“Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money.”



“Say, won’t he suspicion what we’re up to?”



“Maybe he won’t. But we got to have it anyway. Come along.”



So they got out and went in.



The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half

second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my

knife and cut the rope, and away we went!



We didn’t touch an oar, and we didn’t speak nor whisper, nor hardly

even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of

the paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was

a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every

last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.



When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern

show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed

by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to

understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.



Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the

first time that I begun to worry about the men—I reckon I hadn’t had

time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for

murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain’t no

telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how

would _I_ like it? So says I to Jim:



“The first light we see we’ll land a hundred yards below it or above

it, in a place where it’s a good hiding-place for you and the skiff,

and then I’ll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go

for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung

when their time comes.”



But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again,

and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light

showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river,

watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the

rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering,

and by-and-by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we

made for it.



It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We

seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go

for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole

there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told

Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone

about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars

and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it, three or four more

showed—up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore

light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by, I see it was a

lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferry-boat. I skimmed

around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and

by-and-by I found him roosting on the bitts, forward, with his head

down between his knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves,

and begun to cry.



He stirred up, in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only

me, he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:



“Hello, what’s up? Don’t cry, bub. What’s the trouble?”



I says:



“Pap, and mam, and sis, and—”



Then I broke down. He says:



“Oh, dang it now, _don’t_ take on so; we all has to have our troubles,

and this’n ’ll come out all right. What’s the matter with ’em?”



“They’re—they’re—are you the watchman of the boat?”



“Yes,” he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. “I’m the captain

and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head

deck-hand; and sometimes I’m the freight and passengers. I ain’t as

rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can’t be so blame’ generous and good to

Tom, Dick and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he

does; but I’ve told him a many a time ’t I wouldn’t trade places with

him; for, says I, a sailor’s life’s the life for me, and I’m derned if

_I’d_ live two mile out o’ town, where there ain’t nothing ever goin’

on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I—”



I broke in and says:



“They’re in an awful peck of trouble, and—”



“_Who_ is?”



“Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you’d take your

ferry-boat and go up there—”



“Up where? Where are they?”



“On the wreck.”



“What wreck?”



“Why, there ain’t but one.”



“What, you don’t mean the _Walter Scott?_”



“Yes.”



“Good land! what are they doin’ _there_, for gracious sakes?”



“Well, they didn’t go there a-purpose.”



“I bet they didn’t! Why, great goodness, there ain’t no chance for ’em

if they don’t git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they

ever git into such a scrape?”



“Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town—”



“Yes, Booth’s Landing—go on.”



“She was a-visiting there at Booth’s Landing, and just in the edge of

the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry

to stay all night at her friend’s house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I

disremember her name—and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around

and went a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and

saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and

the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard

the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our

trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn’t notice the wreck till we was

right on it; and so _we_ saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but

Bill Whipple—and oh, he _was_ the best cretur!—I most wish’t it had

been me, I do.”



“My George! It’s the beatenest thing I ever struck. And _then_ what did

you all do?”



“Well, we hollered and took on, but it’s so wide there we couldn’t make

nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help

somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it,

and Miss Hooker she said if I didn’t strike help sooner, come here and

hunt up her uncle, and he’d fix the thing. I made the land about a mile

below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do

something, but they said, ‘What, in such a night and such a current?

There ain’t no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.’ Now if you’ll go

and—”



“By Jackson, I’d _like_ to, and, blame it, I don’t know but I will; but

who in the dingnation’s a-going’ to _pay_ for it? Do you reckon your

pap—”



“Why _that’s_ all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, _particular_, that

her uncle Hornback—”



“Great guns! is _he_ her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light

over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a

quarter of a mile out you’ll come to the tavern; tell ’em to dart you

out to Jim Hornback’s, and he’ll foot the bill. And don’t you fool

around any, because he’ll want to know the news. Tell him I’ll have his

niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I’m

a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer.”



I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back

and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in

the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some

woodboats; for I couldn’t rest easy till I could see the ferry-boat

start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on

accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a

done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be

proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and

dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most

interest in.



Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along

down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for

her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn’t much chance

for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a

little, but there wasn’t any answer; all dead still. I felt a little

bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they

could stand it, I could.



Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of the river

on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach, I

laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the

wreck for Miss Hooker’s remainders, because the captain would know her

uncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferry-boat give

it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went

a-booming down the river.



It did seem a powerful long time before Jim’s light showed up; and when

it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I

got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we

struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned

in and slept like dead people.









CHAPTER XIV.





By-and-by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole

off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all

sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three

boxes of seegars. We hadn’t ever been this rich before in neither of

our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the

woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good

time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the

ferry-boat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said

he didn’t want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the

texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone, he

nearly died; because he judged it was all up with _him_, anyway it could

be fixed; for if he didn’t get saved he would get drownded; and if he

did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get

the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he

was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head, for

a nigger.



I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such,

and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called

each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on,

’stead of mister; and Jim’s eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He

says:



“I didn’ know dey was so many un um. I hain’t hearn ’bout none un um,

skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat’s in a

pack er k’yards. How much do a king git?”



“Get?” I says; “why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want

it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to

them.”



“_Ain’_ dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?”



“_They_ don’t do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around.”



“No; is dat so?”



“Of course it is. They just set around—except, maybe, when there’s a

war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or

go hawking—just hawking and sp— Sh!—d’ you hear a noise?”



We skipped out and looked; but it warn’t nothing but the flutter of a

steamboat’s wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.



“Yes,” says I, “and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with

the parlyment; and if everybody don’t go just so he whacks their heads

off. But mostly they hang round the harem.”



“Roun’ de which?”



“Harem.”



“What’s de harem?”



“The place where he keeps his wives. Don’t you know about the harem?

Solomon had one; he had about a million wives.”



“Why, yes, dat’s so; I—I’d done forgot it. A harem’s a bo’d’n-house, I

reck’n. Mos’ likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck’n de

wives quarrels considable; en dat ’crease de racket. Yit dey say

Sollermun de wises’ man dat ever live’. I doan’ take no stock in dat.

Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids’ er sich a

blim-blammin’ all de time? No—’deed he wouldn’t. A wise man ’ud take en

buil’ a biler-factry; en den he could shet _down_ de biler-factry when

he want to res’.”



“Well, but he _was_ the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told

me so, her own self.”



“I doan k’yer what de widder say, he _warn’t_ no wise man nuther. He

had some er de dad-fetchedes’ ways I ever see. Does you know ’bout dat

chile dat he ’uz gwyne to chop in two?”



“Yes, the widow told me all about it.”



“_Well_, den! Warn’ dat de beatenes’ notion in de worl’? You jes’ take

en look at it a minute. Dah’s de stump, dah—dat’s one er de women;

heah’s you—dat’s de yuther one; I’s Sollermun; en dish yer dollar

bill’s de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin

aroun’ mongs’ de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill _do_ b’long

to, en han’ it over to de right one, all safe en soun’, de way dat

anybody dat had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in

_two_, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman.

Dat’s de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast

you: what’s de use er dat half a bill?—can’t buy noth’n wid it. En what

use is a half a chile? I wouldn’ give a dern for a million un um.”



“But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point—blame it, you’ve

missed it a thousand mile.”



“Who? Me? Go ’long. Doan’ talk to _me_ ’bout yo’ pints. I reck’n I

knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as dat.

De ’spute warn’t ’bout a half a chile, de ’spute was ’bout a whole

chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a ’spute ’bout a whole chile

wid a half a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain. Doan’

talk to me ’bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”



“But I tell you you don’t get the point.”



“Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de _real_

pint is down furder—it’s down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was

raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two chillen; is dat man

gwyne to be waseful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; he can’t ’ford it. _He_

know how to value ’em. But you take a man dat’s got ’bout five million

chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s diffunt. _He_ as soon chop a

chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. A chile er two, mo’ er less,

warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!”



I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there

warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any

nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let

Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off

in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that

would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some

say he died there.



“Po’ little chap.”



“But some says he got out and got away, and come to America.”



“Dat’s good! But he’ll be pooty lonesome—dey ain’ no kings here, is

dey, Huck?”



“No.”



“Den he cain’t git no situation. What he gwyne to do?”



“Well, I don’t know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them

learns people how to talk French.”



“Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we does?”



“_No_, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said—not a single

word.”



“Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?”



“_I_ don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.

S’pose a man was to come to you and say _Polly-voo-franzy_—what would

you think?”



“I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head—dat is, if

he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ’low no nigger to call me dat.”



“Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know

how to talk French?”



“Well, den, why couldn’t he _say_ it?”



“Why, he _is_ a-saying it. That’s a Frenchman’s _way_ of saying it.”



“Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’

’bout it. Dey ain’ no sense in it.”



“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”



“No, a cat don’t.”



“Well, does a cow?”



“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”



“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”



“No, dey don’t.”



“It’s natural and right for ’em to talk different from each other,

ain’t it?”



“’Course.”



“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different

from _us?_”



“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”



“Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a _Frenchman_ to talk

different from us? You answer me that.”



“Is a cat a man, Huck?”



“No.”



“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a

man?—er is a cow a cat?”



“No, she ain’t either of them.”



“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the

yuther of ’em. Is a Frenchman a man?”



“Yes.”



“_Well_, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he _talk_ like a man? You answer

me _dat!_”



I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue.

So I quit.









CHAPTER XV.





We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom

of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was

after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the

Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.



Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a

tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in a fog; but when

I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn’t

anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of

them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current,

and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots

and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick

and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half a minute it seemed to

me—and then there warn’t no raft in sight; you couldn’t see twenty

yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed

the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn’t come. I was in

such a hurry I hadn’t untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but

I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn’t hardly do anything with

them.



As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy,

right down the tow-head. That was all right as far as it went, but the

tow-head warn’t sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of

it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn’t no more idea which

way I was going than a dead man.



Thinks I, it won’t do to paddle; first I know I’ll run into the bank or

a tow-head or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it’s

mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a

time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a

small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it,

listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come, I see I warn’t

heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time

I was heading away to the left of it—and not gaining on it much either,

for I was flying around, this way and that and t’other, but it was

going straight ahead all the time.



I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the

time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops

that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly

I hears the whoop _behind_ me. I was tangled good now. That was

somebody else’s whoop, or else I was turned around.



I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me

yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its

place, and I kept answering, till by-and-by it was in front of me

again, and I knowed the current had swung the canoe’s head down-stream,

and I was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman

hollering. I couldn’t tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing

don’t look natural nor sound natural in a fog.



The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a

cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed

me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly

roared, the current was tearing by them so swift.



In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set

perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I

didn’t draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.



I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an

island, and Jim had gone down t’other side of it. It warn’t no tow-head

that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a

regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half a

mile wide.



I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I

was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you

don’t ever think of that. No, you _feel_ like you are laying dead still

on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don’t

think to yourself how fast _you’re_ going, but you catch your breath

and think, my! how that snag’s tearing along. If you think it ain’t

dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you

try it once—you’ll see.



Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears

the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn’t do

it, and directly I judged I’d got into a nest of tow-heads, for I had

little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me—sometimes just a narrow

channel between, and some that I couldn’t see I knowed was there

because I’d hear the wash of the current against the old dead brush and

trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warn’t long loosing the whoops

down amongst the tow-heads; and I only tried to chase them a little

while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack-o’-lantern. You

never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so

much.



I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to

keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the

raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would

get further ahead and clear out of hearing—it was floating a little

faster than what I was.



Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by-and-by, but I couldn’t

hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a

snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I

laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t bother no more. I didn’t

want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn’t help it;

so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.



But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars

was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big

bend stern first. First I didn’t know where I was; I thought I was

dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come

up dim out of last week.



It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest

kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see

by the stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the

water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn’t nothing but a

couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and

chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.



When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his

knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The

other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and

branches and dirt. So she’d had a rough time.



I made fast and laid down under Jim’s nose on the raft, and began to

gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:



“Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you stir me up?”



“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead—you ain’

drownded—you’s back agin? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good

for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you. No, you ain’

dead! you’s back agin, ’live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck—de same ole

Huck, thanks to goodness!”



“What’s the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?”



“Drinkin’? Has I ben a-drinkin’? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin’?”



“Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”



“How does I talk wild?”



“_How?_ Why, hain’t you been talking about my coming back, and all that

stuff, as if I’d been gone away?”



“Huck—Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. _Hain’t_ you

ben gone away?”



“Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? _I_ hain’t been gone

anywheres. Where would I go to?”



“Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is. Is I _me_, or who

_is_ I? Is I heah, or whah _is_ I? Now dat’s what I wants to know.”



“Well, I think you’re here, plain enough, but I think you’re a

tangle-headed old fool, Jim.”



“I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn’t you tote out de line in de

canoe fer to make fas’ to de tow-head?”



“No, I didn’t. What tow-head? I hain’t see no tow-head.”



“You hain’t seen no tow-head? Looky here, didn’t de line pull loose en

de raf’ go a-hummin’ down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in

de fog?”



“What fog?”



“Why, _de_ fog!—de fog dat’s been aroun’ all night. En didn’t you

whoop, en didn’t I whoop, tell we got mix’ up in de islands en one un

us got los’ en t’other one was jis’ as good as los’, ’kase he didn’

know whah he wuz? En didn’t I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have

a turrible time en mos’ git drownded? Now ain’ dat so, boss—ain’t it

so? You answer me dat.”



“Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain’t seen no fog, nor no

islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with

you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I

reckon I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in that time, so of

course you’ve been dreaming.”



“Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”



“Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’t any of it

happen.”



“But, Huck, it’s all jis’ as plain to me as—”



“It don’t make no difference how plain it is; there ain’t nothing in

it. I know, because I’ve been here all the time.”



Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying

over it. Then he says:



“Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain’t

de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t ever had no dream b’fo’

dat’s tired me like dis one.”



“Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body like

everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all

about it, Jim.”



So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as

it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must

start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning. He said

the first tow-head stood for a man that would try to do us some good,

but the current was another man that would get us away from him. The

whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we

didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into

bad luck, ’stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of tow-heads was

troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds

of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and

aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into

the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t have no

more trouble.



It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it

was clearing up again now.



“Oh, well, that’s all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim,”

I says; “but what does _these_ things stand for?”



It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You

could see them first-rate now.



Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash

again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he

couldn’t seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place

again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he

looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:



“What do dey stan’ for? I’se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out

wid work, en wid de callin’ for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz

mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er

me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en

soun’, de tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo’

foot, I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ’bout wuz how you could

make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is _trash;_ en trash is

what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ’em

ashamed.”



Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without

saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean

I could almost kissed _his_ foot to get him to take it back.



It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble

myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it

afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I

wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.









CHAPTER XVI.





We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a

monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had

four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as

thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an

open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There

was a power of style about her. It _amounted_ to something being a

raftsman on such a craft as that.



We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got

hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both

sides; you couldn’t see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We

talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got

to it. I said likely we wouldn’t, because I had heard say there warn’t

but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn’t happen to have them

lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the

two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe

we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the

same old river again. That disturbed Jim—and me too. So the question

was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed,

and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was

a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to

Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and

waited.



There warn’t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and

not pass it without seeing it. He said he’d be mighty sure to see it,

because he’d be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it

he’d be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every

little while he jumps up and says:



“Dah she is?”



But it warn’t. It was Jack-o’-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set

down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him

all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can

tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him,

because I begun to get it through my head that he _was_ most free—and

who was to blame for it? Why, _me_. I couldn’t get that out of my

conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t

rest; I couldn’t stay still in one place. It hadn’t ever come home to

me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it

stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to

myself that _I_ warn’t to blame, because _I_ didn’t run Jim off from

his rightful owner; but it warn’t no use, conscience up and says, every

time, “But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a

paddled ashore and told somebody.” That was so—I couldn’t get around

that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, “What had

poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right

under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old

woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to

learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to

be good to you every way she knowed how. _That’s_ what she done.”



I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I

fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was

fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every

time he danced around and says, “Dah’s Cairo!” it went through me like

a shot, and I thought if it _was_ Cairo I reckoned I would die of

miserableness.



Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was

saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he

would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he

got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to

where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two

children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an

Ab’litionist to go and steal them.



It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared to talk such

talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the

minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying,

“Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.” Thinks I, this is what

comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as

helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would

steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know;

a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm.



I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My

conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says

to it, “Let up on me—it ain’t too late yet—I’ll paddle ashore at the

first light and tell.” I felt easy and happy and light as a feather

right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a

light, and sort of singing to myself. By-and-by one showed. Jim sings

out:



“We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels! Dat’s de good

ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!”



I says:



“I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.”



He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom

for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:



“Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on

accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it

hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck;

you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de _only_ fren’ ole Jim’s

got now.”



I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says

this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along

slow then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started

or whether I warn’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:



“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlman dat ever kep’

his promise to ole Jim.”



Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I _got_ to do it—I can’t get _out_

of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and

they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:



“What’s that yonder?”



“A piece of a raft,” I says.



“Do you belong on it?”



“Yes, sir.”



“Any men on it?”



“Only one, sir.”



“Well, there’s five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head

of the bend. Is your man white or black?”



I didn’t answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come. I

tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn’t man

enough—hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I just

give up trying, and up and says:



“He’s white.”



“I reckon we’ll go and see for ourselves.”



“I wish you would,” says I, “because it’s pap that’s there, and maybe

you’d help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He’s sick—and so

is mam and Mary Ann.”



“Oh, the devil! we’re in a hurry, boy. But I s’pose we’ve got to. Come,

buckle to your paddle, and let’s get along.”



I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a

stroke or two, I says:



“Pap’ll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes

away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can’t do it

by myself.”



“Well, that’s infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what’s the matter with

your father?”



“It’s the—a—the—well, it ain’t anything much.”



They stopped pulling. It warn’t but a mighty little ways to the raft

now. One says:



“Boy, that’s a lie. What _is_ the matter with your pap? Answer up

square now, and it’ll be the better for you.”



“I will, sir, I will, honest—but don’t leave us, please. It’s

the—the—gentlemen, if you’ll only pull ahead, and let me heave you the

headline, you won’t have to come a-near the raft—please do.”



“Set her back, John, set her back!” says one. They backed water. “Keep

away, boy—keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has

blowed it to us. Your pap’s got the small-pox, and you know it precious

well. Why didn’t you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all

over?”



“Well,” says I, a-blubbering, “I’ve told everybody before, and they

just went away and left us.”



“Poor devil, there’s something in that. We are right down sorry for

you, but we—well, hang it, we don’t want the small-pox, you see. Look

here, I’ll tell you what to do. Don’t you try to land by yourself, or

you’ll smash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty

miles, and you’ll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It

will be long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell them

your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don’t be a fool again,

and let people guess what is the matter. Now we’re trying to do you a

kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us, that’s a good boy.

It wouldn’t do any good to land yonder where the light is—it’s only a

wood-yard. Say, I reckon your father’s poor, and I’m bound to say he’s

in pretty hard luck. Here, I’ll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this

board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave

you; but my kingdom! it won’t do to fool with small-pox, don’t you

see?”



“Hold on, Parker,” says the other man, “here’s a twenty to put on the

board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you’ll

be all right.”



“That’s so, my boy—good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers

you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it.”



“Good-bye, sir,” says I; “I won’t let no runaway niggers get by me if I

can help it.”



They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I

knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to

try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get _started_ right when

he’s little ain’t got no show—when the pinch comes there ain’t nothing

to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I

thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s’pose you’d a done

right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No,

says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then,

says I, what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome

to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the

same? I was stuck. I couldn’t answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn’t

bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come

handiest at the time.



I went into the wigwam; Jim warn’t there. I looked all around; he

warn’t anywhere. I says:



“Jim!”



“Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o’ sight yit? Don’t talk loud.”



He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I told

him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:



“I was a-listenin’ to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was

gwyne to shove for sho’ if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to

de raf’ agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool ’em, Huck!

Dat _wuz_ de smartes’ dodge! I tell you, chile, I ’speck it save’ ole

Jim—ole Jim ain’t going to forgit you for dat, honey.”



Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise—twenty

dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat now,

and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free

States. He said twenty mile more warn’t far for the raft to go, but he

wished we was already there.



Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about hiding

the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles, and

getting all ready to quit rafting.



That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away down

in a left-hand bend.



I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man out

in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and says:



“Mister, is that town Cairo?”



“Cairo? no. You must be a blame’ fool.”



“What town is it, mister?”



“If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin’

around me for about a half a minute longer you’ll get something you

won’t want.”



I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never

mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.



We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but

it was high ground, so I didn’t go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim

said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a tow-head tolerable

close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something. So did

Jim. I says:



“Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night.”



He says:



“Doan’ le’s talk about it, Huck. Po’ niggers can’t have no luck. I

awluz ’spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn’t done wid its work.”



“I wish I’d never seen that snake-skin, Jim—I do wish I’d never laid

eyes on it.”



“It ain’t yo’ fault, Huck; you didn’ know. Don’t you blame yo’self

’bout it.”



When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure

enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with

Cairo.



We talked it all over. It wouldn’t do to take to the shore; we couldn’t

take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn’t no way but to wait

for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the chances. So we slept

all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as to be fresh for the work,

and when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone!



We didn’t say a word for a good while. There warn’t anything to say. We

both knowed well enough it was some more work of the rattlesnake-skin;

so what was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we was

finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more bad luck—and keep

on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep still.



By-and-by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn’t no

way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to buy

a canoe to go back in. We warn’t going to borrow it when there warn’t

anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set people after

us.



So we shoved out after dark on the raft.



Anybody that don’t believe yet that it’s foolishness to handle a

snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe it

now if they read on and see what more it done for us.



The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we

didn’t see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and

more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next

meanest thing to fog. You can’t tell the shape of the river, and you

can’t see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then along

comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she

would see it. Up-stream boats didn’t generly come close to us; they go

out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the reefs; but

nights like this they bull right up the channel against the whole

river.



We could hear her pounding along, but we didn’t see her good till she

was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see

how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off

a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and thinks

he’s mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to

try and shave us; but she didn’t seem to be sheering off a bit. She was

a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black

cloud with rows of glow-worms around it; but all of a sudden she bulged

out, big and scary, with a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining

like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right

over us. There was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the

engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of steam—and as Jim went

overboard on one side and I on the other, she come smashing straight

through the raft.



I dived—and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel

had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I could

always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under a

minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was

nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out of

my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current; and

of course that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she

stopped them, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she was

churning along up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though

I could hear her.



I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn’t get any answer; so

I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was “treading water,” and

struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see

that the drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which

meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.



It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a good

long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb up the

bank. I couldn’t see but a little ways, but I went poking along over

rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across a

big old-fashioned double log-house before I noticed it. I was going to

rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howling

and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another peg.









CHAPTER XVII.





In about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his

head out, and says:



“Be done, boys! Who’s there?”



I says:



“It’s me.”



“Who’s me?”



“George Jackson, sir.”



“What do you want?”



“I don’t want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs

won’t let me.”



“What are you prowling around here this time of night for—hey?”



“I warn’t prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat.”



“Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did you say

your name was?”



“George Jackson, sir. I’m only a boy.”



“Look here, if you’re telling the truth you needn’t be afraid—nobody’ll

hurt you. But don’t try to budge; stand right where you are. Rouse out

Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is there

anybody with you?”



“No, sir, nobody.”



I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light.

The man sung out:



“Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool—ain’t you got any sense?

Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and Tom are

ready, take your places.”



“All ready.”



“Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?”



“No, sir; I never heard of them.”



“Well, that may be so, and it mayn’t. Now, all ready. Step forward,

George Jackson. And mind, don’t you hurry—come mighty slow. If there’s

anybody with you, let him keep back—if he shows himself he’ll be shot.

Come along now. Come slow; push the door open yourself—just enough to

squeeze in, d’ you hear?”



I didn’t hurry; I couldn’t if I’d a wanted to. I took one slow step at

a time and there warn’t a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart.

The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind

me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them unlocking and

unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door and pushed it a

little and a little more till somebody said, “There, that’s enough—put

your head in.” I done it, but I judged they would take it off.



The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and

me at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big men with guns

pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray and

about sixty, the other two thirty or more—all of them fine and

handsome—and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and back of her two

young women which I couldn’t see right well. The old gentleman says:



“There; I reckon it’s all right. Come in.”



As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it

and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and

they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor,

and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front

windows—there warn’t none on the side. They held the candle, and took a

good look at me, and all said, “Why, _he_ ain’t a Shepherdson—no, there

ain’t any Shepherdson about him.” Then the old man said he hoped I

wouldn’t mind being searched for arms, because he didn’t mean no harm

by it—it was only to make sure. So he didn’t pry into my pockets, but

only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me

to make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but the old

lady says:



“Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing’s as wet as he can be; and don’t

you reckon it may be he’s hungry?”



“True for you, Rachel—I forgot.”



So the old lady says:



“Betsy” (this was a nigger woman), “you fly around and get him

something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls

go and wake up Buck and tell him—oh, here he is himself. Buck, take

this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him

up in some of yours that’s dry.”



Buck looked about as old as me—thirteen or fourteen or along there,

though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn’t on anything but a

shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging one

fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one.

He says:



“Ain’t they no Shepherdsons around?”



They said, no, ’twas a false alarm.



“Well,” he says, “if they’d a ben some, I reckon I’d a got one.”



They all laughed, and Bob says:



“Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you’ve been so slow in

coming.”



“Well, nobody come after me, and it ain’t right I’m always kept down; I

don’t get no show.”



“Never mind, Buck, my boy,” says the old man, “you’ll have show enough,

all in good time, don’t you fret about that. Go ’long with you now, and

do as your mother told you.”



When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a

roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he

asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to

tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods

day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle

went out. I said I didn’t know; I hadn’t heard about it before, no way.



“Well, guess,” he says.



“How’m I going to guess,” says I, “when I never heard tell of it

before?”



“But you can guess, can’t you? It’s just as easy.”



“_Which_ candle?” I says.



“Why, any candle,” he says.



“I don’t know where he was,” says I; “where was he?”



“Why, he was in the _dark!_ That’s where he was!”



“Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?”



“Why, blame it, it’s a riddle, don’t you see? Say, how long are you

going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming

times—they don’t have no school now. Do you own a dog? I’ve got a

dog—and he’ll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do

you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet

I don’t, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I reckon I’d

better put ’em on, but I’d ruther not, it’s so warm. Are you all ready?

All right. Come along, old hoss.”



Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk—that is what they

had for me down there, and there ain’t nothing better that ever I’ve

come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes,

except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They

all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The young women had quilts

around them, and their hair down their backs. They all asked me

questions, and I told them how pap and me and all the family was living

on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann

run off and got married and never was heard of no more, and Bill went

to hunt them and he warn’t heard of no more, and Tom and Mort died, and

then there warn’t nobody but just me and pap left, and he was just

trimmed down to nothing, on account of his troubles; so when he died I

took what there was left, because the farm didn’t belong to us, and

started up the river, deck passage, and fell overboard; and that was

how I come to be here. So they said I could have a home there as long

as I wanted it. Then it was most daylight and everybody went to bed,

and I went to bed with Buck, and when I waked up in the morning, drat

it all, I had forgot what my name was. So I laid there about an hour

trying to think, and when Buck waked up I says:



“Can you spell, Buck?”



“Yes,” he says.



“I bet you can’t spell my name,” says I.



“I bet you what you dare I can,” says he.



“All right,” says I, “go ahead.”



“G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n—there now,” he says.



“Well,” says I, “you done it, but I didn’t think you could. It ain’t no

slouch of a name to spell—right off without studying.”



I set it down, private, because somebody might want _me_ to spell it

next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was

used to it.



It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I hadn’t

seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so

much style. It didn’t have an iron latch on the front door, nor a

wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same

as houses in town. There warn’t no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a

bed; but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a big

fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept clean

and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another brick;

sometimes they wash them over with red water-paint that they call

Spanish-brown, same as they do in town. They had big brass dog-irons

that could hold up a saw-log. There was a clock on the middle of the

mantelpiece, with a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the

glass front, and a round place in the middle of it for the sun, and you

could see the pendulum swinging behind it. It was beautiful to hear

that clock tick; and sometimes when one of these peddlers had been

along and scoured her up and got her in good shape, she would start in

and strike a hundred and fifty before she got tuckered out. They

wouldn’t took any money for her.



Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, made

out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the

parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other;

and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn’t open their

mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked through

underneath. There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out

behind those things. On the table in the middle of the room was a kind

of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and

grapes piled up in it, which was much redder and yellower and prettier

than real ones is, but they warn’t real because you could see where

pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk, or whatever it

was, underneath.



This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red and

blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all around. It

come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was some books,

too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a

big family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim’s Progress, about a

man that left his family, it didn’t say why. I read considerable in it

now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Another was

Friendship’s Offering, full of beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn’t

read the poetry. Another was Henry Clay’s Speeches, and another was Dr.

Gunn’s Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body

was sick or dead. There was a hymn book, and a lot of other books. And

there was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too—not bagged

down in the middle and busted, like an old basket.



They had pictures hung on the walls—mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes,

and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called “Signing the

Declaration.” There was some that they called crayons, which one of the

daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only fifteen

years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see

before—blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim black

dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in

the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with a

black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and

very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on

a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other

hand hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule,

and underneath the picture it said “Shall I Never See Thee More Alas.”

Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight to

the top of her head, and knotted there in front of a comb like a

chair-back, and she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird

laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up, and underneath

the picture it said “I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas.”

There was one where a young lady was at a window looking up at the

moon, and tears running down her cheeks; and she had an open letter in

one hand with black sealing wax showing on one edge of it, and she was

mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath

the picture it said “And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas.” These

was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn’t somehow seem to take to

them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the

fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot

more of these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done

what they had lost. But I reckoned that with her disposition she was

having a better time in the graveyard. She was at work on what they

said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and

every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it

done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture of a young woman

in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to

jump off, with her hair all down her back, and looking up to the moon,

with the tears running down her face, and she had two arms folded

across her breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two more

reaching up towards the moon—and the idea was to see which pair would

look best, and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was

saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now they kept

this picture over the head of the bed in her room, and every time her

birthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with a

little curtain. The young woman in the picture had a kind of a nice

sweet face, but there was so many arms it made her look too spidery,

seemed to me.



This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste

obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of

the _Presbyterian Observer_, and write poetry after them out of her own

head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by

the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was

drownded:



ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC’D



And did young Stephen sicken,

    And did young Stephen die?

And did the sad hearts thicken,

    And did the mourners cry?



No; such was not the fate of

    Young Stephen Dowling Bots;

Though sad hearts round him thickened,

    ’Twas not from sickness’ shots.



No whooping-cough did rack his frame,

    Nor measles drear with spots;

Not these impaired the sacred name

    Of Stephen Dowling Bots.



Despised love struck not with woe

    That head of curly knots,

Nor stomach troubles laid him low,

    Young Stephen Dowling Bots.



O no. Then list with tearful eye,

    Whilst I his fate do tell.

His soul did from this cold world fly

    By falling down a well.



They got him out and emptied him;

    Alas it was too late;

His spirit was gone for to sport aloft

    In the realms of the good and great.



If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was

fourteen, there ain’t no telling what she could a done by-and-by. Buck

said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn’t ever have to

stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn’t

find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down

another one, and go ahead. She warn’t particular; she could write about

anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful.

Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be

on hand with her “tribute” before he was cold. She called them

tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline,

then the undertaker—the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but

once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person’s name,

which was Whistler. She warn’t ever the same after that; she never

complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor

thing, many’s the time I made myself go up to the little room that used

to be hers and get out her poor old scrap-book and read in it when her

pictures had been aggravating me and I had soured on her a little. I

liked all that family, dead ones and all, and warn’t going to let

anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead

people when she was alive, and it didn’t seem right that there warn’t

nobody to make some about her now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out

a verse or two myself, but I couldn’t seem to make it go somehow. They

kept Emmeline’s room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just

the way she liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever

slept there. The old lady took care of the room herself, though there

was plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a good deal and read her

Bible there mostly.



Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on

the windows: white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vines

all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a little

old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was ever

so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing “The Last Link is Broken”

and play “The Battle of Prague” on it. The walls of all the rooms was

plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house was

whitewashed on the outside.



It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed

and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the

day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn’t be better.

And warn’t the cooking good, and just bushels of it too!









CHAPTER XVIII.





Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all over;

and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and that’s

worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas said,

and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our

town; and pap he always said it, too, though he warn’t no more quality

than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and very slim,

and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres;

he was clean shaved every morning all over his thin face, and he had

the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a

high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so

deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you,

as you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and

straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and

every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head

to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it; and

on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He

carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it. There warn’t no

frivolishness about him, not a bit, and he warn’t ever loud. He was as

kind as he could be—you could feel that, you know, and so you had

confidence. Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he

straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to

flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first,

and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn’t ever have to

tell anybody to mind their manners—everybody was always good-mannered

where he was. Everybody loved to have him around, too; he was sunshine

most always—I mean he made it seem like good weather. When he turned

into a cloudbank it was awful dark for half a minute, and that was

enough; there wouldn’t nothing go wrong again for a week.



When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got

up out of their chairs and give them good-day, and didn’t set down

again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard

where the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to

him, and he held it in his hand and waited till Tom’s and Bob’s was

mixed, and then they bowed and said, “Our duty to you, sir, and madam;”

and _they_ bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so

they drank, all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on

the sugar and the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their

tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old people

too.



Bob was the oldest and Tom next—tall, beautiful men with very broad

shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They

dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and

wore broad Panama hats.



Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud

and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn’t stirred up; but

when she was, she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks,

like her father. She was beautiful.



So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was

gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty.



Each person had their own nigger to wait on them—Buck too. My nigger

had a monstrous easy time, because I warn’t used to having anybody do

anything for me, but Buck’s was on the jump most of the time.



This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be

more—three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.



The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers.

Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or

fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such

junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the

woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly

kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a

handsome lot of quality, I tell you.



There was another clan of aristocracy around there—five or six

families—mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned and

well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The

Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing, which

was about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went up there

with a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there

on their fine horses.



One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a

horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:



“Quick! Jump for the woods!”



We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Pretty

soon a splendid young man come galloping down the road, setting his

horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his

pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I heard

Buck’s gun go off at my ear, and Harney’s hat tumbled off from his

head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was

hid. But we didn’t wait. We started through the woods on a run. The

woods warn’t thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet,

and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he rode away

the way he come—to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn’t see. We never

stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman’s eyes blazed a

minute—’twas pleasure, mainly, I judged—then his face sort of smoothed

down, and he says, kind of gentle:



“I don’t like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn’t you step

into the road, my boy?”



“The Shepherdsons don’t, father. They always take advantage.”



Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling

his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two young

men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned pale,

but the color come back when she found the man warn’t hurt.



Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by

ourselves, I says:



“Did you want to kill him, Buck?”



“Well, I bet I did.”



“What did he do to you?”



“Him? He never done nothing to me.”



“Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?”



“Why, nothing—only it’s on account of the feud.”



“What’s a feud?”



“Why, where was you raised? Don’t you know what a feud is?”



“Never heard of it before—tell me about it.”



“Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way. A man has a quarrel with

another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills _him;_

then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the

_cousins_ chip in—and by-and-by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t

no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.”



“Has this one been going on long, Buck?”



“Well, I should _reckon!_ It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along

there. There was trouble ’bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle

it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the

man that won the suit—which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody

would.”



“What was the trouble about, Buck?—land?”



“I reckon maybe—I don’t know.”



“Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?”



“Laws, how do _I_ know? It was so long ago.”



“Don’t anybody know?”



“Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but

they don’t know now what the row was about in the first place.”



“Has there been many killed, Buck?”



“Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don’t always kill. Pa’s

got a few buckshot in him; but he don’t mind it ’cuz he don’t weigh

much, anyway. Bob’s been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom’s been

hurt once or twice.”



“Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?”



“Yes; we got one and they got one. ’Bout three months ago my cousin

Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on t’other side of

the river, and didn’t have no weapon with him, which was blame’

foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming behind

him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin’ after him with his gun in

his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and ’stead of jumping

off and taking to the brush, Bud ’lowed he could out-run him; so they

had it, nip and tuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining all

the time; so at last Bud seen it warn’t any use, so he stopped and

faced around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know, and the

old man he rode up and shot him down. But he didn’t git much chance to

enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our folks laid _him_ out.”



“I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck.”



“I reckon he _warn’t_ a coward. Not by a blame’ sight. There ain’t a

coward amongst them Shepherdsons—not a one. And there ain’t no cowards

amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep’ up his end in a

fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come out

winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got

behind a little woodpile, and kep’ his horse before him to stop the

bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and capered around

the old man, and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them.

Him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the

Grangerfords had to be _fetched_ home—and one of ’em was dead, and

another died the next day. No, sir; if a body’s out hunting for cowards

he don’t want to fool away any time amongst them Shepherdsons, becuz

they don’t breed any of that _kind_.”



Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody

a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them

between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The

Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—all about

brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a

good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a

powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and

preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me

to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.



About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their

chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and

a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went up

to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I found that sweet

Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took

me in her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I liked

her, and I said I did; and she asked me if I would do something for her

and not tell anybody, and I said I would. Then she said she’d forgot

her Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two other

books, and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and

not say nothing to nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped

off up the road, and there warn’t anybody at the church, except maybe a

hog or two, for there warn’t any lock on the door, and hogs likes a

puncheon floor in summer-time because it’s cool. If you notice, most

folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to; but a hog is

different.



Says I to myself, something’s up; it ain’t natural for a girl to be in

such a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out drops a

little piece of paper with “_Half-past two_” wrote on it with a pencil.

I ransacked it, but couldn’t find anything else. I couldn’t make

anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I

got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me.

She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Testament

till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad;

and before a body could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze, and

said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anybody. She was

mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it

made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal astonished, but when I got

my breath I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I

had read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could read writing,

and I told her “no, only coarse-hand,” and then she said the paper

warn’t anything but a book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and

play now.



I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon

I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we was out of

sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comes

a-running, and says:



“Mars Jawge, if you’ll come down into de swamp I’ll show you a whole

stack o’ water-moccasins.”



Thinks I, that’s mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He oughter

know a body don’t love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for

them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says:



“All right; trot ahead.”



I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded

ankle deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a little flat piece

of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines,

and he says:



“You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah’s whah dey

is. I’s seed ’m befo’; I don’t k’yer to see ’em no mo’.”



Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees

hid him. I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch

as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying

there asleep—and, by jings, it was my old Jim!



I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to

him to see me again, but it warn’t. He nearly cried he was so glad, but

he warn’t surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard

me yell every time, but dasn’t answer, because he didn’t want nobody to

pick _him_ up and take him into slavery again. Says he:



“I got hurt a little, en couldn’t swim fas’, so I wuz a considable ways

behine you towards de las’; when you landed I reck’ned I could ketch up

wid you on de lan’ ’dout havin’ to shout at you, but when I see dat

house I begin to go slow. I ’uz off too fur to hear what dey say to

you—I wuz ’fraid o’ de dogs; but when it ’uz all quiet agin, I knowed

you’s in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for day. Early

in de mawnin’ some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de fields, en dey

tuk me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can’t track me on accounts

o’ de water, en dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how

you’s a-gitt’n along.”



“Why didn’t you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?”



“Well, ’twarn’t no use to ’sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn—but

we’s all right now. I ben a-buyin’ pots en pans en vittles, as I got a

chanst, en a-patchin’ up de raf’ nights when—”



“_What_ raft, Jim?”



“Our ole raf’.”



“You mean to say our old raft warn’t smashed all to flinders?”



“No, she warn’t. She was tore up a good deal—one en’ of her was; but

dey warn’t no great harm done, on’y our traps was mos’ all los’. Ef we

hadn’ dive’ so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn’ ben

so dark, en we warn’t so sk’yerd, en ben sich punkin-heads, as de

sayin’ is, we’d a seed de raf’. But it’s jis’ as well we didn’t, ’kase

now she’s all fixed up agin mos’ as good as new, en we’s got a new lot

o’ stuff, in de place o’ what ’uz los’.”



“Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim—did you catch her?”



“How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No; some er de niggers

foun’ her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben’, en dey hid her in a

crick ’mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin’ ’bout which un ’um

she b’long to de mos’ dat I come to heah ’bout it pooty soon, so I ups

en settles de trouble by tellin’ ’um she don’t b’long to none uv um,

but to you en me; en I ast ’m if dey gwyne to grab a young white

genlman’s propaty, en git a hid’n for it? Den I gin ’m ten cents

apiece, en dey ’uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo’ raf’s ’ud

come along en make ’m rich agin. Dey’s mighty good to me, dese niggers

is, en whatever I wants ’m to do fur me, I doan’ have to ast ’m twice,

honey. Dat Jack’s a good nigger, en pooty smart.”



“Yes, he is. He ain’t ever told me you was here; told me to come, and

he’d show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens _he_ ain’t

mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it’ll be the

truth.”



I don’t want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I’ll cut it

pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and

go to sleep again, when I noticed how still it was—didn’t seem to be

anybody stirring. That warn’t usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up

and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs—nobody

around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks

I, what does it mean? Down by the wood-pile I comes across my Jack, and

says:



“What’s it all about?”



Says he:



“Don’t you know, Mars Jawge?”



“No,” says I, “I don’t.”



“Well, den, Miss Sophia’s run off! ’deed she has. She run off in de

night some time—nobody don’t know jis’ when; run off to get married to

dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know—leastways, so dey ’spec. De

fambly foun’ it out ’bout half an hour ago—maybe a little mo’—en’ I

_tell_ you dey warn’t no time los’. Sich another hurryin’ up guns en

hosses _you_ never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up de

relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de

river road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him ’fo’ he kin

git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck’n dey’s gwyne to be mighty

rough times.”



“Buck went off ’thout waking me up.”



“Well, I reck’n he _did!_ Dey warn’t gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars

Buck he loaded up his gun en ’lowed he’s gwyne to fetch home a

Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey’ll be plenty un ’m dah, I reck’n, en you

bet you he’ll fetch one ef he gits a chanst.”



I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By-and-by I begin to

hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log store and

the woodpile where the steamboats lands, I worked along under the trees

and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the

forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a

wood-rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first

I was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn’t.



There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open

place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to get at a

couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside of the

steamboat landing; but they couldn’t come it. Every time one of them

showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at. The

two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could

watch both ways.



By-and-by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started

riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady

bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All

the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started

to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys started on the

run. They got half way to the tree I was in before the men noticed.

Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and took out after

them. They gained on the boys, but it didn’t do no good, the boys had

too good a start; they got to the woodpile that was in front of my

tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men

again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap

about nineteen years old.



The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was

out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn’t know what to

make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful

surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men

come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or

other—wouldn’t be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I

dasn’t come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and ’lowed that him and

his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this

day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or

three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck

said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations—the

Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of

young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they’d got across the river and

was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he

didn’t manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him—I hain’t ever

heard anything like it.



All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns—the men had

slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their

horses! The boys jumped for the river—both of them hurt—and as they

swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and

singing out, “Kill them, kill them!” It made me so sick I most fell out

of the tree. I ain’t a-going to tell _all_ that happened—it would make

me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore

that night to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of

them—lots of times I dream about them.



I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.

Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little

gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the

trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my

mind I wouldn’t ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I

was to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that

Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off;

and I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the

curious way she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and

this awful mess wouldn’t ever happened.



When I got down out of the tree, I crept along down the river bank a

piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and

tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces,

and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering

up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.



It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck through

the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn’t on his island, so I

tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows,

red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was

gone! My souls, but I was scared! I couldn’t get my breath for most a

minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot from me

says:



“Good lan’! is dat you, honey? Doan’ make no noise.”



It was Jim’s voice—nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the

bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he

was so glad to see me. He says:



“Laws bless you, chile, I ’uz right down sho’ you’s dead agin. Jack’s

been heah; he say he reck’n you’s ben shot, kase you didn’ come home no

mo’; so I’s jes’ dis minute a startin’ de raf’ down towards de mouf er

de crick, so’s to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack

comes agin en tells me for certain you _is_ dead. Lawsy, I’s mighty

glad to git you back agin, honey.”



I says:



“All right—that’s mighty good; they won’t find me, and they’ll think

I’ve been killed, and floated down the river—there’s something up there

that’ll help them think so—so don’t you lose no time, Jim, but just

shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can.”



I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the

middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and

judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn’t had a bite to eat

since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk,

and pork and cabbage and greens—there ain’t nothing in the world so

good when it’s cooked right—and whilst I eat my supper we talked, and

had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so

was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’t no home like a

raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a

raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.









CHAPTER XIX.





Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum

by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we

put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there—sometimes a

mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon

as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up—nearly always

in the dead water under a tow-head; and then cut young cottonwoods and

willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we

slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off;

then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee

deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly

still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the

bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away

over the water, was a kind of dull line—that was the woods on t’other

side; you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky;

then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away

off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark

spots drifting along ever so far away—trading scows, and such things;

and long black streaks—rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep

screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so

far; and by-and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know

by the look of the streak that there’s a snag there in a swift current

which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the

mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river,

and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank

on t’other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by

them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice

breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and

fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but

sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish laying around,

gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you’ve got the

full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just

going it!



A little smoke couldn’t be noticed now, so we would take some fish off

of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch

the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by-and-by

lazy off to sleep. Wake up by-and-by, and look to see what done it, and

maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the

other side you couldn’t tell nothing about her only whether she was a

stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn’t be

nothing to hear nor nothing to see—just solid lonesomeness. Next you’d

see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it

chopping, because they’re most always doing it on a raft; you’d see the

axe flash and come down—you don’t hear nothing; you see that axe go up

again, and by the time it’s above the man’s head then you hear the

_k’chunk!_—it had took all that time to come over the water. So we

would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness. Once

there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by was

beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn’t run over them. A scow or a

raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and

laughing—heard them plain; but we couldn’t see no sign of them; it made

you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air.

Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says:



“No; spirits wouldn’t say, ‘Dern the dern fog.’”



Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the

middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted

her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and

talked about all kinds of things—we was always naked, day and night,

whenever the mosquitoes would let us—the new clothes Buck’s folks made

for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn’t go much on

clothes, nohow.



Sometimes we’d have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest

time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe

a spark—which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the

water you could see a spark or two—on a raft or a scow, you know; and

maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them

crafts. It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all

speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at

them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it

would have took too long to _make_ so many. Jim said the moon could a

_laid_ them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn’t say

nothing against it, because I’ve seen a frog lay most as many, so of

course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and

see them streak down. Jim allowed they’d got spoiled and was hove out

of the nest.



Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the

dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out

of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful

pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and

her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by-and-by her

waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the

raft a bit, and after that you wouldn’t hear nothing for you couldn’t

tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.



After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or

three hours the shores was black—no more sparks in the cabin windows.

These sparks was our clock—the first one that showed again meant

morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.



One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to

the main shore—it was only two hundred yards—and paddled about a mile

up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn’t get some

berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath

crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as

tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever

anybody was after anybody I judged it was _me_—or maybe Jim. I was

about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me

then, and sung out and begged me to save their lives—said they hadn’t

been doing nothing, and was being chased for it—said there was men and

dogs a-coming. They wanted to jump right in, but I says:



“Don’t you do it. I don’t hear the dogs and horses yet; you’ve got time

to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you

take to the water and wade down to me and get in—that’ll throw the dogs

off the scent.”



They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our tow-head,

and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away

off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn’t

see them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got

further and further away all the time, we couldn’t hardly hear them at

all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the

river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the tow-head and hid

in the cottonwoods and was safe.



One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head

and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a

greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed

into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses—no, he only had one. He had

an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over

his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.



The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After

breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out

was that these chaps didn’t know one another.



“What got you into trouble?” says the baldhead to t’other chap.



“Well, I’d been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth—and

it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it—but I

stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act

of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town,

and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off.

So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out

_with_ you. That’s the whole yarn—what’s yourn?



“Well, I’d ben a-runnin’ a little temperance revival thar, ’bout a

week, and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was

makin’ it mighty warm for the rummies, I _tell_ you, and takin’ as much

as five or six dollars a night—ten cents a head, children and niggers

free—and business a-growin’ all the time, when somehow or another a

little report got around last night that I had a way of puttin’ in my

time with a private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this

mornin’, and told me the people was getherin’ on the quiet with their

dogs and horses, and they’d be along pretty soon and give me ’bout half

an hour’s start, and then run me down if they could; and if they got me

they’d tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn’t wait

for no breakfast—I warn’t hungry.”



“Old man,” said the young one, “I reckon we might double-team it

together; what do you think?”



“I ain’t undisposed. What’s your line—mainly?”



“Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines;

theater-actor—tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and

phrenology when there’s a chance; teach singing-geography school for a

change; sling a lecture sometimes—oh, I do lots of things—most anything

that comes handy, so it ain’t work. What’s your lay?”



“I’ve done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin’ on o’

hands is my best holt—for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I

k’n tell a fortune pretty good when I’ve got somebody along to find out

the facts for me. Preachin’s my line, too, and workin’ camp-meetin’s,

and missionaryin’ around.”



Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh

and says:



“Alas!”



“What ’re you alassin’ about?” says the baldhead.



“To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be

degraded down into such company.” And he begun to wipe the corner of

his eye with a rag.



“Dern your skin, ain’t the company good enough for you?” says the

baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.



“Yes, it _is_ good enough for me; it’s as good as I deserve; for who

fetched me so low when I was so high? _I_ did myself. I don’t blame

_you_, gentlemen—far from it; I don’t blame anybody. I deserve it all.

Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know—there’s a grave

somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it’s always done, and

take everything from me—loved ones, property, everything; but it can’t

take that. Some day I’ll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor

broken heart will be at rest.” He went on a-wiping.



“Drot your pore broken heart,” says the baldhead; “what are you heaving

your pore broken heart at _us_ f’r? _We_ hain’t done nothing.”



“No, I know you haven’t. I ain’t blaming you, gentlemen. I brought

myself down—yes, I did it myself. It’s right I should suffer—perfectly

right—I don’t make any moan.”



“Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?”



“Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes—let it

pass—’tis no matter. The secret of my birth—”



“The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say—”



“Gentlemen,” says the young man, very solemn, “I will reveal it to you,

for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!”



Jim’s eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.

Then the baldhead says: “No! you can’t mean it?”



“Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled

to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure

air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father

dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the

titles and estates—the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal

descendant of that infant—I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and

here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised

by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the

companionship of felons on a raft!”



Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but

he said it warn’t much use, he couldn’t be much comforted; said if we

was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most

anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we

ought to bow when we spoke to him, and say “Your Grace,” or “My Lord,”

or “Your Lordship”—and he wouldn’t mind it if we called him plain

“Bridgewater,” which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and

one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for

him he wanted done.



Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood

around and waited on him, and says, “Will yo’ Grace have some o’ dis or

some o’ dat?” and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to

him.



But the old man got pretty silent by-and-by—didn’t have much to say,

and didn’t look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going

on around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along

in the afternoon, he says:



“Looky here, Bilgewater,” he says, “I’m nation sorry for you, but you

ain’t the only person that’s had troubles like that.”



“No?”



“No you ain’t. You ain’t the only person that’s ben snaked down

wrongfully out’n a high place.”



“Alas!”



“No, you ain’t the only person that’s had a secret of his birth.” And,

by jings, _he_ begins to cry.



“Hold! What do you mean?”



“Bilgewater, kin I trust you?” says the old man, still sort of sobbing.



“To the bitter death!” He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,

and says, “That secret of your being: speak!”



“Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!”



You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:



“You are what?”



“Yes, my friend, it is too true—your eyes is lookin’ at this very

moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy

the Sixteen and Marry Antonette.”



“You! At your age! No! You mean you’re the late Charlemagne; you must

be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least.”



“Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has

brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen,

you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin’, exiled,

trampled-on, and sufferin’ rightful King of France.”



Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn’t know hardly what

to do, we was so sorry—and so glad and proud we’d got him with us, too.

So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort

_him_. But he said it warn’t no use, nothing but to be dead and done

with it all could do him any good; though he said it often made him

feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to

his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called

him “Your Majesty,” and waited on him first at meals, and didn’t set

down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to

majestying him, and doing this and that and t’other for him, and

standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of

good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of

soured on him, and didn’t look a bit satisfied with the way things was

going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the

duke’s great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a

good deal thought of by _his_ father, and was allowed to come to the

palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till

by-and-by the king says:



“Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer

raft, Bilgewater, and so what’s the use o’ your bein’ sour? It’ll only

make things oncomfortable. It ain’t my fault I warn’t born a duke, it

ain’t your fault you warn’t born a king—so what’s the use to worry?

Make the best o’ things the way you find ’em, says I—that’s my motto.

This ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here—plenty grub and an easy

life—come, give us your hand, Duke, and le’s all be friends.”



The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took

away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because

it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the

raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody

to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.



It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no

kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I

never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it’s the best way;

then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble. If they

wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn’t no objections, ’long

as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use to tell Jim,

so I didn’t tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I

learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let

them have their own way.









CHAPTER XX.





They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we

covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of

running—was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:



“Goodness sakes, would a runaway nigger run _south?_”



No, they allowed he wouldn’t. I had to account for things some way, so

I says:



“My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and

they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he ’lowed he’d

break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who’s got a little

one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was

pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he’d squared up there warn’t

nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn’t

enough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way.

Well, when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketched

this piece of a raft; so we reckoned we’d go down to Orleans on it.

Pa’s luck didn’t hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner of

the raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel;

Jim and me come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four

years old, so they never come up no more. Well, for the next day or two

we had considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in

skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was

a runaway nigger. We don’t run daytimes no more now; nights they don’t

bother us.”



The duke says:



“Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we

want to. I’ll think the thing over—I’ll invent a plan that’ll fix it.

We’ll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don’t want to go by

that town yonder in daylight—it mightn’t be healthy.”



Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat

lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was

beginning to shiver—it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see

that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see

what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick better than Jim’s,

which was a corn-shuck tick; there’s always cobs around about in a

shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the

dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it

makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke allowed he would

take my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn’t. He says:



“I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you

that a corn-shuck bed warn’t just fitten for me to sleep on. Your

Grace’ll take the shuck bed yourself.”



Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was

going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when

the duke says:



“’Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of

oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I

submit; ’tis my fate. I am alone in the world—let me suffer; I can bear

it.”



We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand

well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we

got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch of

lights by-and-by—that was the town, you know—and slid by, about a half

a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below we

hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o’clock it come on to rain

and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told us

to both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the

duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It was my

watch below till twelve, but I wouldn’t a turned in anyway if I’d had a

bed, because a body don’t see such a storm as that every day in the

week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And

every second or two there’d come a glare that lit up the white-caps for

a half a mile around, and you’d see the islands looking dusty through

the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a

_h-whack!_—bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum—and the thunder

would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit—and then _rip_ comes

another flash and another sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the

raft sometimes, but I hadn’t any clothes on, and didn’t mind. We didn’t

have no trouble about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering

around so constant that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw

her head this way or that and miss them.



I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,

so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was

always mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but

the king and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn’t no

show for me; so I laid outside—I didn’t mind the rain, because it was

warm, and the waves warn’t running so high now. About two they come up

again, though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind,

because he reckoned they warn’t high enough yet to do any harm; but he

was mistaken about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a

regular ripper and washed me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing.

He was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.



I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by-and-by

the storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that

showed, I rousted him out and we slid the raft into hiding quarters

for the day.



The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him

and the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then they got

tired of it, and allowed they would “lay out a campaign,” as they

called it. The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot

of little printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said, “The

celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris,” would “lecture on the

Science of Phrenology” at such and such a place, on the blank day of

blank, at ten cents admission, and “furnish charts of character at

twenty-five cents apiece.” The duke said that was _him_. In another

bill he was the “world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the

Younger, of Drury Lane, London.” In other bills he had a lot of other

names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold with

a “divining-rod,” “dissipating witch spells,” and so on. By-and-by he

says:



“But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the boards,

Royalty?”



“No,” says the king.



“You shall, then, before you’re three days older, Fallen Grandeur,”

says the duke. “The first good town we come to we’ll hire a hall and do

the sword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and

Juliet. How does that strike you?”



“I’m in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but,

you see, I don’t know nothing about play-actin’, and hain’t ever seen

much of it. I was too small when pap used to have ’em at the palace. Do

you reckon you can learn me?”



“Easy!”



“All right. I’m jist a-freezn’ for something fresh, anyway. Le’s

commence right away.”



So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was, and

said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.



“But if Juliet’s such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my white

whiskers is goin’ to look oncommon odd on her, maybe.”



“No, don’t you worry; these country jakes won’t ever think of that.

Besides, you know, you’ll be in costume, and that makes all the

difference in the world; Juliet’s in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight

before she goes to bed, and she’s got on her night-gown and her ruffled

nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts.”



He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was

meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t’other chap, and a long white

cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was

satisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the

most splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same

time, to show how it had got to be done; then he give the book to the

king and told him to get his part by heart.



There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and

after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to

run in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he

would go down to the town and fix that thing. The king allowed he would

go, too, and see if he couldn’t strike something. We was out of coffee,

so Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some.



When we got there there warn’t nobody stirring; streets empty, and

perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger sunning

himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn’t too young or

too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in

the woods. The king got the directions, and allowed he’d go and work

that camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.



The duke said what he was after was a printing-office. We found it; a

little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop—carpenters and

printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty,

littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures of

horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. The duke shed

his coat and said he was all right now. So me and the king lit out for

the camp-meeting.



We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a most

awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there from twenty

mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched

everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep off

the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with

branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of

watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.



The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was

bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of outside

slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into

for legs. They didn’t have no backs. The preachers had high platforms

to stand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on sun-bonnets; and

some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the

young ones had on calico. Some of the young men was barefooted, and

some of the children didn’t have on any clothes but just a tow-linen

shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks

was courting on the sly.



The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined

out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,

there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then

he lined out two more for them to sing—and so on. The people woke up

more and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some

begun to groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to

preach, and begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side

of the platform and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the

front of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and

shouting his words out with all his might; and every now and then he

would hold up his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around

this way and that, shouting, “It’s the brazen serpent in the

wilderness! Look upon it and live!” And people would shout out,

“Glory!—A-a-_men!_” And so he went on, and the people groaning and

crying and saying amen:



“Oh, come to the mourners’ bench! come, black with sin! (_amen!_) come,

sick and sore! (_amen!_) come, lame and halt and blind! (_amen!_) come,

pore and needy, sunk in shame! (_a-a-men!_) come, all that’s worn and

soiled and suffering!—come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite

heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is

free, the door of heaven stands open—oh, enter in and be at rest!”

(_a-a-men!_ _glory, glory hallelujah!_)



And so on. You couldn’t make out what the preacher said any more, on

account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in the

crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners’

bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all the

mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung

and shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and

wild.



Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him

over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, and

the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He

told them he was a pirate—been a pirate for thirty years out in the

Indian Ocean—and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in a

fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to

goodness he’d been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat

without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that

ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for

the first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start

right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the

rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he

could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate

crews in that ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get

there without money, he would get there anyway, and every time he

convinced a pirate he would say to him, “Don’t you thank me, don’t you

give me no credit; it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville

camp-meeting, natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that

dear preacher there, the truest friend a pirate ever had!”



And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody

sings out, “Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!” Well,

a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, “Let _him_

pass the hat around!” Then everybody said it, the preacher too.



So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes,

and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being

so good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while the

prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks,

would up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by;

and he always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as

five or six times—and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody

wanted him to live in their houses, and said they’d think it was an

honor; but he said as this was the last day of the camp-meeting he

couldn’t do no good, and besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian

Ocean right off and go to work on the pirates.



When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had

collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he had

fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a

wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, take

it all around, it laid over any day he’d ever put in in the

missionarying line. He said it warn’t no use talking, heathens don’t

amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.



The duke was thinking _he’d_ been doing pretty well till the king come

to show up, but after that he didn’t think so so much. He had set up

and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that

printing-office—horse bills—and took the money, four dollars. And he

had got in ten dollars’ worth of advertisements for the paper, which he

said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance—so

they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he

took in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of

them paying him in advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and

onions as usual, but he said he had just bought the concern and knocked

down the price as low as he could afford it, and was going to run it

for cash. He set up a little piece of poetry, which he made, himself,

out of his own head—three verses—kind of sweet and saddish—the name of

it was, “Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heart”—and he left that

all set up and ready to print in the paper, and didn’t charge nothing

for it. Well, he took in nine dollars and a half, and said he’d done a

pretty square day’s work for it.



Then he showed us another little job he’d printed and hadn’t charged

for, because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with a

bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and “$200 reward” under it. The

reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It said he

run away from St. Jacques’ plantation, forty mile below New Orleans,

last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and

send him back he could have the reward and expenses.



“Now,” says the duke, “after to-night we can run in the daytime if we

want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot

with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say

we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a

steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and

are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still

better on Jim, but it wouldn’t go well with the story of us being so

poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing—we must

preserve the unities, as we say on the boards.”



We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn’t be no trouble

about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough that night

to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke’s work in

the printing office was going to make in that little town; then we

could boom right along if we wanted to.



We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten

o’clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn’t

hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.



When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:



“Huck, does you reck’n we gwyne to run acrost any mo’ kings on dis

trip?”



“No,” I says, “I reckon not.”



“Well,” says he, “dat’s all right, den. I doan’ mine one er two kings,

but dat’s enough. Dis one’s powerful drunk, en de duke ain’ much

better.”



I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hear

what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so long, and

had so much trouble, he’d forgot it.









CHAPTER XXI.





It was after sun-up now, but we went right on and didn’t tie up. The

king and the duke turned out by-and-by looking pretty rusty; but after

they’d jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a good

deal. After breakfast the king he took a seat on the corner of the

raft, and pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let his

legs dangle in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe,

and went to getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart. When he had got it

pretty good, him and the duke begun to practice it together. The duke

had to learn him over and over again how to say every speech; and he

made him sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said

he done it pretty well; “only,” he says, “you mustn’t bellow out

_Romeo!_ that way, like a bull—you must say it soft and sick and

languishy, so—R-o-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet’s a dear sweet

mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn’t bray like a jackass.”



Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out

of oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight—the duke called

himself Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around the

raft was grand to see. But by-and-by the king tripped and fell

overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all

kinds of adventures they’d had in other times along the river.



After dinner the duke says:



“Well, Capet, we’ll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so

I guess we’ll add a little more to it. We want a little something to

answer encores with, anyway.”



“What’s onkores, Bilgewater?”



The duke told him, and then says:



“I’ll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor’s hornpipe; and

you—well, let me see—oh, I’ve got it—you can do Hamlet’s soliloquy.”



“Hamlet’s which?”



“Hamlet’s soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in

Shakespeare. Ah, it’s sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I

haven’t got it in the book—I’ve only got one volume—but I reckon I can

piece it out from memory. I’ll just walk up and down a minute, and see

if I can call it back from recollection’s vaults.”



So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible

every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would

squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan;

next he would sigh, and next he’d let on to drop a tear. It was

beautiful to see him. By-and-by he got it. He told us to give

attention. Then he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved

forwards, and his arms stretched away up, and his head tilted back,

looking up at the sky; and then he begins to rip and rave and grit his

teeth; and after that, all through his speech, he howled, and spread

around, and swelled up his chest, and just knocked the spots out of any

acting ever _I_ see before. This is the speech—I learned it, easy

enough, while he was learning it to the king:



To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,

But that the fear of something after death

Murders the innocent sleep,

Great nature’s second course,

And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune

Than fly to others that we know not of.

There’s the respect must give us pause:

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The law’s delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take.

In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn

In customary suits of solemn black,

But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler

returns,

Breathes forth contagion on the world,

And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i’ the adage,

Is sicklied o’er with care.

And all the clouds that lowered o’er our housetops,

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But soft you, the fair Ophelia:

Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws.

But get thee to a nunnery—go!



Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he

could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and

when he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the

way he would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it

off.



The first chance we got, the duke he had some show bills printed; and

after that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft was a

most uncommon lively place, for there warn’t nothing but sword-fighting

and rehearsing—as the duke called it—going on all the time. One

morning, when we was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw, we come in

sight of a little one-horse town in a big bend; so we tied up about

three-quarters of a mile above it, in the mouth of a crick which was

shut in like a tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took

the canoe and went down there to see if there was any chance in that

place for our show.



We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there that

afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in

all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave

before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he

hired the court house, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They

read like this:



Shaksperean Revival!!!

Wonderful Attraction!

For One Night Only!

The world renowned tragedians,

David Garrick the younger, of Drury Lane Theatre, London,

and

Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre,

Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the

Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime

Shaksperean Spectacle entitled

The Balcony Scene

in

Romeo and Juliet!!!



Romeo...................................... Mr. Garrick.

Juliet..................................... Mr. Kean.



Assisted by the whole strength of the company!

New costumes, new scenery, new appointments!



Also:

The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling

Broad-sword conflict

In Richard III.!!!



Richard III................................ Mr. Garrick.

Richmond................................... Mr. Kean.



also:

(by special request,)

Hamlet’s Immortal Soliloquy!!

By the Illustrious Kean!

Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!

For One Night Only,

On account of imperative European engagements!

Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.



Then we went loafing around the town. The stores and houses was most

all old shackly dried-up frame concerns that hadn’t ever been painted;

they was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be

out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had

little gardens around them, but they didn’t seem to raise hardly

anything in them but jimpson weeds, and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and

old curled-up boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and

played-out tin-ware. The fences was made of different kinds of boards,

nailed on at different times; and they leaned every which-way, and had

gates that didn’t generly have but one hinge—a leather one. Some of the

fences had been whitewashed, some time or another, but the duke said it

was in Clumbus’s time, like enough. There was generly hogs in the

garden, and people driving them out.



All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in

front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awning-posts.

There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting

on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and

chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretching—a mighty ornery

lot. They generly had on yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella,

but didn’t wear no coats nor waistcoats, they called one another Bill,

and Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and

used considerable many cuss words. There was as many as one loafer

leaning up against every awning-post, and he most always had his hands

in his britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw

of tobacco or scratch. What a body was hearing amongst them all the

time was:



“Gimme a chaw ’v tobacker, Hank.”



“Cain’t; I hain’t got but one chaw left. Ask Bill.”



Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain’t got

none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor

a chaw of tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by

borrowing; they say to a fellow, “I wisht you’d len’ me a chaw, Jack, I

jist this minute give Ben Thompson the last chaw I had”—which is a lie

pretty much everytime; it don’t fool nobody but a stranger; but Jack

ain’t no stranger, so he says:



“_You_ give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister’s cat’s

grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you’ve awready borry’d off’n me,

Lafe Buckner, then I’ll loan you one or two ton of it, and won’t charge

you no back intrust, nuther.”



“Well, I _did_ pay you back some of it wunst.”



“Yes, you did—’bout six chaws. You borry’d store tobacker and paid back

nigger-head.”



Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the

natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw they don’t generly cut it

off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw

with their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it

in two; then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at

it when it’s handed back, and says, sarcastic:



“Here, gimme the _chaw_, and you take the _plug_.”



All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn’t nothing else _but_

mud—mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and

two or three inches deep in _all_ the places. The hogs loafed and

grunted around everywheres. You’d see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs

come lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in the

way, where folks had to walk around her, and she’d stretch out and shut

her eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as

happy as if she was on salary. And pretty soon you’d hear a loafer sing

out, “Hi! _so_ boy! sick him, Tige!” and away the sow would go,

squealing most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and

three or four dozen more a-coming; and then you would see all the

loafers get up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at the fun

and look grateful for the noise. Then they’d settle back again till

there was a dog fight. There couldn’t anything wake them up all over,

and make them happy all over, like a dog fight—unless it might be

putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a

tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death.



On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank,

and they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in. The people

had moved out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of some

others, and that corner was hanging over. People lived in them yet, but

it was dangersome, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house

caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep

will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the

river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back,

and back, and back, because the river’s always gnawing at it.



The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the

wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time.

Families fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them

in the wagons. There was considerable whisky drinking going on, and I

seen three fights. By-and-by somebody sings out:



“Here comes old Boggs!—in from the country for his little old monthly

drunk; here he comes, boys!”



All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having fun out

of Boggs. One of them says:



“Wonder who he’s a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If he’d a-chawed up all

the men he’s ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he’d have

considerable ruputation now.”



Another one says, “I wisht old Boggs ’d threaten me, ’cuz then I’d know

I warn’t gwyne to die for a thousan’ year.”



Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an

Injun, and singing out:



“Cler the track, thar. I’m on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins is

a-gwyne to raise.”



He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year

old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him and laughed at

him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he’d attend to them

and lay them out in their regular turns, but he couldn’t wait now

because he’d come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto

was, “Meat first, and spoon vittles to top off on.”



He see me, and rode up and says:



“Whar’d you come f’m, boy? You prepared to die?”



Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says:



“He don’t mean nothing; he’s always a-carryin’ on like that when he’s

drunk. He’s the best naturedest old fool in Arkansaw—never hurt nobody,

drunk nor sober.”



Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down

so he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells:



“Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you’ve swindled.

You’re the houn’ I’m after, and I’m a-gwyne to have you, too!”



And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue

to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and

going on. By-and-by a proud-looking man about fifty-five—and he was a

heap the best dressed man in that town, too—steps out of the store, and

the crowd drops back on each side to let him come. He says to Boggs,

mighty ca’m and slow—he says:



“I’m tired of this, but I’ll endure it till one o’clock. Till one

o’clock, mind—no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once

after that time you can’t travel so far but I will find you.”



Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody

stirred, and there warn’t no more laughing. Boggs rode off

blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street;

and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping

it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but

he wouldn’t; they told him it would be one o’clock in about fifteen

minutes, and so he _must_ go home—he must go right away. But it didn’t

do no good. He cussed away with all his might, and throwed his hat down

in the mud and rode over it, and pretty soon away he went a-raging down

the street again, with his gray hair a-flying. Everybody that could get

a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they

could lock him up and get him sober; but it warn’t no use—up the street

he would tear again, and give Sherburn another cussing. By-and-by

somebody says:



“Go for his daughter!—quick, go for his daughter; sometimes he’ll

listen to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can.”



So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a ways and stopped.

In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his

horse. He was a-reeling across the street towards me, bare-headed, with

a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him

along. He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn’t hanging back any,

but was doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody sings out:



“Boggs!”



I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel

Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a

pistol raised in his right hand—not aiming it, but holding it out with

the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same second I see a young

girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Boggs and the men turned

round to see who called him, and when they see the pistol the men

jumped to one side, and the pistol-barrel come down slow and steady to

a level—both barrels cocked. Boggs throws up both of his hands and

says, “O Lord, don’t shoot!” Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers

back, clawing at the air—bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles

backwards onto the ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out.

That young girl screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws

herself on her father, crying, and saying, “Oh, he’s killed him, he’s

killed him!” The crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed

one another, with their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on

the inside trying to shove them back and shouting, “Back, back! give

him air, give him air!”



Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol onto the ground, and turned

around on his heels and walked off.



They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just

the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good

place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They

laid him on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and

opened another one and spread it on his breast; but they tore open his

shirt first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made about

a dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in

his breath, and letting it down again when he breathed it out—and after

that he laid still; he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away

from him, screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about

sixteen, and very sweet and gentle-looking, but awful pale and scared.



Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and

pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people

that had the places wouldn’t give them up, and folks behind them was

saying all the time, “Say, now, you’ve looked enough, you fellows;

’tain’t right and ’tain’t fair for you to stay thar all the time, and

never give nobody a chance; other folks has their rights as well as

you.”



There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there

was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was

excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened,

and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows,

stretching their necks and listening. One long, lanky man, with long

hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a

crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs

stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around

from one place to t’other and watching everything he done, and bobbing

their heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting

their hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground

with his cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn

had stood, frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes, and

sung out, “Boggs!” and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and

says “Bang!” staggered backwards, says “Bang!” again, and fell down

flat on his back. The people that had seen the thing said he done it

perfect; said it was just exactly the way it all happened. Then as much

as a dozen people got out their bottles and treated him.



Well, by-and-by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a

minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and

snatching down every clothes-line they come to, to do the hanging with.









CHAPTER XXII.





They swarmed up towards Sherburn’s house, a-whooping and raging like

Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromped

to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the

mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way; and every window along

the road was full of women’s heads, and there was nigger boys in every

tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as

the mob would get nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out

of reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared

most to death.



They swarmed up in front of Sherburn’s palings as thick as they could

jam together, and you couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise. It

was a little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out “Tear down the fence! tear

down the fence!” Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and

smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to

roll in like a wave.



Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front porch,

with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly

ca’m and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the

wave sucked back.



Sherburn never said a word—just stood there, looking down. The

stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eye slow

along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people tried a little to

out-gaze him, but they couldn’t; they dropped their eyes and looked

sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not the pleasant

kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread

that’s got sand in it.



Then he says, slow and scornful:



“The idea of _you_ lynching anybody! It’s amusing. The idea of you

thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a _man!_ Because you’re brave

enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come

along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your

hands on a _man?_ Why, a _man’s_ safe in the hands of ten thousand of

your kind—as long as it’s daytime and you’re not behind him.



“Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the

South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the average all around.

The average man’s a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him

that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it.

In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in

the daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave

people so much that you think you _are_ braver than any other

people—whereas you’re just _as_ brave, and no braver. Why don’t your

juries hang murderers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will

shoot them in the back, in the dark—and it’s just what they _would_ do.



“So they always acquit; and then a _man_ goes in the night, with a

hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake

is, that you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one mistake, and the

other is that you didn’t come in the dark and fetch your masks. You

brought _part_ of a man—Buck Harkness, there—and if you hadn’t had him

to start you, you’d a taken it out in blowing.



“You didn’t want to come. The average man don’t like trouble and

danger. _You_ don’t like trouble and danger. But if only _half_ a

man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts ‘Lynch him! lynch him!’ you’re

afraid to back down—afraid you’ll be found out to be what you

are—_cowards_—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that

half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big

things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s

what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in

them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their

officers. But a mob without any _man_ at the head of it is _beneath_

pitifulness. Now the thing for _you_ to do is to droop your tails and

go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching’s going to be done, it

will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they’ll

bring their masks, and fetch a _man_ along. Now _leave_—and take your

half-a-man with you”—tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking

it when he says this.



The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went

tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them,

looking tolerable cheap. I could a staid if I wanted to, but I didn’t

want to.



I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchman

went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold

piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because

there ain’t no telling how soon you are going to need it, away from

home and amongst strangers that way. You can’t be too careful. I ain’t

opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain’t no other way,

but there ain’t no use in _wasting_ it on them.



It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever was

when they all come riding in, two and two, a gentleman and lady, side

by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes

nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and

comfortable—there must a been twenty of them—and every lady with a

lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a

gang of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost

millions of dollars, and just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful

fine sight; I never see anything so lovely. And then one by one they

got up and stood, and went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy

and graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with

their heads bobbing and skimming along, away up there under the

tent-roof, and every lady’s rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky

around her hips, and she looking like the most loveliest parasol.



And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one

foot out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and

more, and the ring-master going round and round the center-pole,

cracking his whip and shouting “Hi!—hi!” and the clown cracking jokes

behind him; and by-and-by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady

put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and

then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves! And so one after

the other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow

I ever see, and then scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands

and went just about wild.



Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing things; and

all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people. The

ring-master couldn’t ever say a word to him but he was back at him quick

as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said; and how he ever

_could_ think of so many of them, and so sudden and so pat, was what I

couldn’t noway understand. Why, I couldn’t a thought of them in a year.

And by-and-by a drunk man tried to get into the ring—said he wanted to

ride; said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued

and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn’t listen, and the whole show

come to a standstill. Then the people begun to holler at him and make

fun of him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip and tear; so

that stirred up the people, and a lot of men begun to pile down off of

the benches and swarm towards the ring, saying, “Knock him down! throw

him out!” and one or two women begun to scream. So, then, the

ring-master he made a little speech, and said he hoped there wouldn’t be

no disturbance, and if the man would promise he wouldn’t make no more

trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on the horse.

So everybody laughed and said all right, and the man got on. The minute

he was on, the horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort around,

with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and

the drunk man hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air

every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and

laughing till tears rolled down. And at last, sure enough, all the

circus men could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went like the

very nation, round and round the ring, with that sot laying down on him

and hanging to his neck, with first one leg hanging most to the ground

on one side, and then t’other one on t’other side, and the people just

crazy. It warn’t funny to me, though; I was all of a tremble to see his

danger. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle and grabbed the

bridle, a-reeling this way and that; and the next minute he sprung up

and dropped the bridle and stood! and the horse a-going like a house

afire too. He just stood up there, a-sailing around as easy and

comfortable as if he warn’t ever drunk in his life—and then he begun to

pull off his clothes and sling them. He shed them so thick they kind of

clogged up the air, and altogether he shed seventeen suits. And, then,

there he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest

you ever saw, and he lit into that horse with his whip and made him

fairly hum—and finally skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to

the dressing-room, and everybody just a-howling with pleasure and

astonishment.



Then the ring-master he see how he had been fooled, and he _was_ the

sickest ring-master you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his own

men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on

to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I

wouldn’t a been in that ring-master’s place, not for a thousand dollars.

I don’t know; there may be bullier circuses than what that one was, but

I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good enough for _me;_

and wherever I run across it, it can have all of _my_ custom every

time.



Well, that night we had _our_ show; but there warn’t only about twelve

people there—just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the

time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before

the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these

Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted

was low comedy—and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he

reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got

some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off

some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said:



AT THE COURT HOUSE!

FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!

_The World-Renowned Tragedians_

DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!

AND

EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!

_Of the London and Continental

Theatres_,

In their Thrilling Tragedy of

THE KING’S CAMELOPARD

OR

THE ROYAL NONESUCH!!!

_Admission 50 cents_.



Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all—which said:



LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.



“There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I dont know

Arkansaw!”









CHAPTER XXIII.





Well, all day him and the king was hard at it, rigging up a stage and a

curtain and a row of candles for footlights; and that night the house

was jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn’t hold no more,

the duke he quit tending door and went around the back way and come on

to the stage and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech,

and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most thrillingest one

that ever was; and so he went on a-bragging about the tragedy, and

about Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main principal part

in it; and at last when he’d got everybody’s expectations up high

enough, he rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the king come

a-prancing out on all fours, naked; and he was painted all over,

ring-streaked-and-striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a

rainbow. And—but never mind the rest of his outfit; it was just wild,

but it was awful funny. The people most killed themselves laughing; and

when the king got done capering and capered off behind the scenes, they

roared and clapped and stormed and haw-hawed till he come back and done

it over again, and after that they made him do it another time. Well,

it would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut.



Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and

says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on

accounts of pressing London engagements, where the seats is all sold

already for it in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another bow, and

says if he has succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them, he will

be deeply obleeged if they will mention it to their friends and get

them to come and see it.



Twenty people sings out:



“What, is it over? Is that _all?_”



The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody sings out,

“Sold!” and rose up mad, and was a-going for that stage and them

tragedians. But a big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts:



“Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen.” They stopped to listen. “We are

sold—mighty badly sold. But we don’t want to be the laughing stock of

this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as

long as we live. _No_. What we want is to go out of here quiet, and

talk this show up, and sell the _rest_ of the town! Then we’ll all be

in the same boat. Ain’t that sensible?” (“You bet it is!—the jedge is

right!” everybody sings out.) “All right, then—not a word about any

sell. Go along home, and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy.”



Next day you couldn’t hear nothing around that town but how splendid

that show was. House was jammed again that night, and we sold this

crowd the same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the

raft we all had a supper; and by-and-by, about midnight, they made Jim

and me back her out and float her down the middle of the river, and

fetch her in and hide her about two mile below town.



The third night the house was crammed again—and they warn’t new-comers

this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I

stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in

had his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat—and I

see it warn’t no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt

sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if

I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was

sixty-four of them went in. I shoved in there for a minute, but it was

too various for me; I couldn’t stand it. Well, when the place couldn’t

hold no more people the duke he give a fellow a quarter and told him to

tend door for him a minute, and then he started around for the stage

door, I after him; but the minute we turned the corner and was in the

dark he says:



“Walk fast now till you get away from the houses, and then shin for the

raft like the dickens was after you!”



I done it, and he done the same. We struck the raft at the same time,

and in less than two seconds we was gliding down stream, all dark and

still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a

word. I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the

audience, but nothing of the sort; pretty soon he crawls out from under

the wigwam, and says:



“Well, how’d the old thing pan out this time, duke?”



He hadn’t been up town at all.



We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the village.

Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke fairly

laughed their bones loose over the way they’d served them people. The

duke says:



“Greenhorns, flatheads! _I_ knew the first house would keep mum and let

the rest of the town get roped in; and I knew they’d lay for us the

third night, and consider it was _their_ turn now. Well, it _is_ their

turn, and I’d give something to know how much they’d take for it. I

_would_ just like to know how they’re putting in their opportunity.

They can turn it into a picnic if they want to—they brought plenty

provisions.”



Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in that

three nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagon-load like that

before. By-and-by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says:



“Don’t it s’prise you de way dem kings carries on, Huck?”



“No,” I says, “it don’t.”



“Why don’t it, Huck?”



“Well, it don’t, because it’s in the breed. I reckon they’re all

alike.”



“But, Huck, dese kings o’ ourn is reglar rapscallions; dat’s jist what

dey is; dey’s reglar rapscallions.”



“Well, that’s what I’m a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions, as

fur as I can make out.”



“Is dat so?”



“You read about them once—you’ll see. Look at Henry the Eight; this’n

’s a Sunday-school Superintendent to _him_. And look at Charles Second,

and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward

Second, and Richard Third, and forty more; besides all them Saxon

heptarchies that used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain. My,

you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He _was_ a

blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head

next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was

ordering up eggs. ‘Fetch up Nell Gwynn,’ he says. They fetch her up.

Next morning, ‘Chop off her head!’ And they chop it off. ‘Fetch up Jane

Shore,’ he says; and up she comes. Next morning, ‘Chop off her

head’—and they chop it off. ‘Ring up Fair Rosamun.’ Fair Rosamun

answers the bell. Next morning, ‘Chop off her head.’ And he made every

one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he

had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all

in a book, and called it Domesday Book—which was a good name and stated

the case. You don’t know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip

of ourn is one of the cleanest I’ve struck in history. Well, Henry he

takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How

does he go at it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a

sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out

a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was

_his_ style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his

father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show

up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S’pose people left

money laying around where he was—what did he do? He collared it. S’pose

he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn’t set down

there and see that he done it—what did he do? He always done the other

thing. S’pose he opened his mouth—what then? If he didn’t shut it up

powerful quick he’d lose a lie every time. That’s the kind of a bug

Henry was; and if we’d a had him along ’stead of our kings he’d a

fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don’t say that ourn is

lambs, because they ain’t, when you come right down to the cold facts;

but they ain’t nothing to _that_ old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings

is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they’re

a mighty ornery lot. It’s the way they’re raised.”



“But dis one do _smell_ so like de nation, Huck.”



“Well, they all do, Jim. _We_ can’t help the way a king smells; history

don’t tell no way.”



“Now de duke, he’s a tolerble likely man in some ways.”



“Yes, a duke’s different. But not very different. This one’s a middling

hard lot for a duke. When he’s drunk, there ain’t no near-sighted man

could tell him from a king.”



“Well, anyways, I doan’ hanker for no mo’ un um, Huck. Dese is all I

kin stan’.”



“It’s the way I feel, too, Jim. But we’ve got them on our hands, and we

got to remember what they are, and make allowances. Sometimes I wish we

could hear of a country that’s out of kings.”



What was the use to tell Jim these warn’t real kings and dukes? It

wouldn’t a done no good; and, besides, it was just as I said: you

couldn’t tell them from the real kind.



I went to sleep, and Jim didn’t call me when it was my turn. He often

done that. When I waked up just at daybreak, he was sitting there with

his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I

didn’t take notice nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was

thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was

low and homesick; because he hadn’t ever been away from home before in

his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as

white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s

so. He was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I

was asleep, and saying, “Po’ little ’Lizabeth! po’ little Johnny! it’s

mighty hard; I spec’ I ain’t ever gwyne to see you no mo’, no mo’!” He

was a mighty good nigger, Jim was.



But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young

ones; and by-and-by he says:



“What makes me feel so bad dis time ’uz bekase I hear sumpn over yonder

on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time

I treat my little ’Lizabeth so ornery. She warn’t on’y ’bout fo’ year

ole, en she tuck de sk’yarlet fever, en had a powful rough spell; but

she got well, en one day she was a-stannin’ aroun’, en I says to her, I

says:



“‘Shet de do’.’



“She never done it; jis’ stood dah, kiner smilin’ up at me. It make me

mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says:



“‘Doan’ you hear me?—shet de do’!’



“She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin’ up. I was a-bilin’! I says:



“‘I lay I _make_ you mine!’



“En wid dat I fetch’ her a slap side de head dat sont her a-sprawlin’.

Den I went into de yuther room, en ’uz gone ’bout ten minutes; en when

I come back dah was dat do’ a-stannin’ open _yit_, en dat chile

stannin’ mos’ right in it, a-lookin’ down and mournin’, en de tears

runnin’ down. My, but I _wuz_ mad! I was a-gwyne for de chile, but jis’

den—it was a do’ dat open innerds—jis’ den, ’long come de wind en slam

it to, behine de chile, ker-_blam!_—en my lan’, de chile never move’!

My breff mos’ hop outer me; en I feel so—so—I doan’ know _how_ I feel.

I crope out, all a-tremblin’, en crope aroun’ en open de do’ easy en

slow, en poke my head in behine de chile, sof’ en still, en all uv a

sudden I says _pow!_ jis’ as loud as I could yell. _She never budge!_

Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin’ en grab her up in my arms, en say, ‘Oh,

de po’ little thing! De Lord God Amighty fogive po’ ole Jim, kaze he

never gwyne to fogive hisself as long’s he live!’ Oh, she was plumb

deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb—en I’d ben a-treat’n her so!”









CHAPTER XXIV.





Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow tow-head out

in the middle, where there was a village on each side of the river, and

the duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for working them towns.

Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn’t take but a few

hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to

lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we left him

all alone we had to tie him, because if anybody happened on to him all

by himself and not tied it wouldn’t look much like he was a runaway

nigger, you know. So the duke said it _was_ kind of hard to have to lay

roped all day, and he’d cipher out some way to get around it.



He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He dressed

Jim up in King Lear’s outfit—it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a

white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his theater paint

and painted Jim’s face and hands and ears and neck all over a dead,

dull, solid blue, like a man that’s been drownded nine days. Blamed if

he warn’t the horriblest looking outrage I ever see. Then the duke took

and wrote out a sign on a shingle so:



    _Sick Arab—but harmless when not out of his head._



And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or

five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a

sight better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and trembling

all over every time there was a sound. The duke told him to make

himself free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling around, he

must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or

two like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out and leave

him alone. Which was sound enough judgment; but you take the average

man, and he wouldn’t wait for him to howl. Why, he didn’t only look

like he was dead, he looked considerable more than that.



These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there was

so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn’t be safe, because maybe

the news might a worked along down by this time. They couldn’t hit no

project that suited exactly; so at last the duke said he reckoned he’d

lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn’t put

up something on the Arkansaw village; and the king he allowed he would

drop over to t’other village without any plan, but just trust in

Providence to lead him the profitable way—meaning the devil, I reckon.

We had all bought store clothes where we stopped last; and now the king

put his’n on, and he told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. The

king’s duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I

never knowed how clothes could change a body before. Why, before, he

looked like the orneriest old rip that ever was; but now, when he’d

take off his new white beaver and make a bow and do a smile, he looked

that grand and good and pious that you’d say he had walked right out of

the ark, and maybe was old Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe,

and I got my paddle ready. There was a big steamboat laying at the

shore away up under the point, about three mile above the town—been

there a couple of hours, taking on freight. Says the king:



“Seein’ how I’m dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St.

Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the steamboat,

Huckleberry; we’ll come down to the village on her.”



I didn’t have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride. I

fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went

scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to

a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on a log swabbing

the sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm weather; and he had

a couple of big carpet-bags by him.



“Run her nose in shore,” says the king. I done it. “Wher’ you bound

for, young man?”



“For the steamboat; going to Orleans.”



“Git aboard,” says the king. “Hold on a minute, my servant ’ll he’p you

with them bags. Jump out and he’p the gentleman, Adolphus”—meaning me,

I see.



I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap was

mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage such

weather. He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him

he’d come down the river and landed at the other village this morning,

and now he was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up

there. The young fellow says:



“When I first see you I says to myself, ‘It’s Mr. Wilks, sure, and he

come mighty near getting here in time.’ But then I says again, ‘No, I

reckon it ain’t him, or else he wouldn’t be paddling up the river.’ You

_ain’t_ him, are you?”



“No, my name’s Blodgett—Elexander Blodgett—_Reverend_ Elexander

Blodgett, I s’pose I must say, as I’m one o’ the Lord’s poor servants.

But still I’m jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving

in time, all the same, if he’s missed anything by it—which I hope he

hasn’t.”



“Well, he don’t miss any property by it, because he’ll get that all

right; but he’s missed seeing his brother Peter die—which he mayn’t

mind, nobody can tell as to that—but his brother would a give anything

in this world to see _him_ before he died; never talked about nothing

else all these three weeks; hadn’t seen him since they was boys

together—and hadn’t ever seen his brother William at all—that’s the

deef and dumb one—William ain’t more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter

and George were the only ones that come out here; George was the

married brother; him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and

William’s the only ones that’s left now; and, as I was saying, they

haven’t got here in time.”



“Did anybody send ’em word?”



“Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter

said then that he sorter felt like he warn’t going to get well this

time. You see, he was pretty old, and George’s g’yirls was too young to

be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and so

he was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn’t seem

to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see Harvey—and

William, too, for that matter—because he was one of them kind that

can’t bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said

he’d told in it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of

the property divided up so George’s g’yirls would be all right—for

George didn’t leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get him

to put a pen to.”



“Why do you reckon Harvey don’t come? Wher’ does he live?”



“Oh, he lives in England—Sheffield—preaches there—hasn’t ever been in

this country. He hasn’t had any too much time—and besides he mightn’t a

got the letter at all, you know.”



“Too bad, too bad he couldn’t a lived to see his brothers, poor soul.

You going to Orleans, you say?”



“Yes, but that ain’t only a part of it. I’m going in a ship, next

Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives.”



“It’s a pretty long journey. But it’ll be lovely; wisht I was a-going.

Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?”



“Mary Jane’s nineteen, Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s about

fourteen—that’s the one that gives herself to good works and has a

hare-lip.”



“Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so.”



“Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they ain’t

going to let them come to no harm. There’s Hobson, the Babtis’

preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford,

and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the

widow Bartley, and—well, there’s a lot of them; but these are the ones

that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes, when

he wrote home; so Harvey ’ll know where to look for friends when he

gets here.”



Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied

that young fellow. Blamed if he didn’t inquire about everybody and

everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about

Peter’s business—which was a tanner; and about George’s—which was a

carpenter; and about Harvey’s—which was a dissentering minister; and so

on, and so on. Then he says:



“What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?”



“Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn’t stop

there. When they’re deep they won’t stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat

will, but this is a St. Louis one.”



“Was Peter Wilks well off?”



“Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it’s reckoned he

left three or four thousand in cash hid up som’ers.”



“When did you say he died?”



“I didn’t say, but it was last night.”



“Funeral to-morrow, likely?”



“Yes, ’bout the middle of the day.”



“Well, it’s all terrible sad; but we’ve all got to go, one time or

another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we’re all

right.”



“Yes, sir, it’s the best way. Ma used to always say that.”



When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she

got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my

ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up

another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says:



“Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new

carpet-bags. And if he’s gone over to t’other side, go over there and

git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now.”



I see what _he_ was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I

got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a

log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had

said it—every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he

tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for

a slouch. I can’t imitate him, and so I ain’t a-going to try to; but he

really done it pretty good. Then he says:



“How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?”



The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and

dumb person on the histronic boards. So then they waited for a

steamboat.



About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along,

but they didn’t come from high enough up the river; but at last there

was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went

aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted

to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing,

and said they wouldn’t land us. But the king was ca’m. He says:



“If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on

and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry ’em, can’t it?”



So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the

village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when

they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says:



“Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they

give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to

say, “What d’ I tell you?” Then one of them says, kind of soft and

gentle:



“I’m sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he _did_

live yesterday evening.”



Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went all to smash, and fell up

against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his

back, and says:



“Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see him; oh,

it’s too, _too_ hard!”



Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to

the duke on his hands, and blamed if _he_ didn’t drop a carpet-bag and

bust out a-crying. If they warn’t the beatenest lot, them two frauds,

that ever I struck.



Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all

sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill

for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all

about his brother’s last moments, and the king he told it all over

again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that

dead tanner like they’d lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I

struck anything like it, I’m a nigger. It was enough to make a body

ashamed of the human race.









CHAPTER XXV.





The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people

tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on

their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd,

and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and

dooryards was full; and every minute somebody would say, over a fence:



“Is it _them?_”



And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say:



“You bet it is.”



When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the

three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane _was_ red-headed, but

that don’t make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her

face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles

was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for

them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they _had_ it!

Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again

at last and have such good times.



Then the king he hunched the duke private—I see him do it—and then he

looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so

then him and the duke, with a hand across each other’s shoulder, and

t’other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there,

everybody dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise

stopping, people saying “Sh!” and all the men taking their hats off and

drooping their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall. And when they

got there they bent over and looked in the coffin, and took one sight,

and then they bust out a-crying so you could a heard them to Orleans,

most; and then they put their arms around each other’s necks, and hung

their chins over each other’s shoulders; and then for three minutes, or

maybe four, I never see two men leak the way they done. And, mind you,

everybody was doing the same; and the place was that damp I never see

anything like it. Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and

t’other on t’other side, and they kneeled down and rested their

foreheads on the coffin, and let on to pray all to themselves. Well,

when it come to that it worked the crowd like you never see anything

like it, and everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out

loud—the poor girls, too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the

girls, without saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead,

and then put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky,

with the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing

and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so

disgusting.



Well, by-and-by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and

works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and

flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to

lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long

journey of four thousand mile, but it’s a trial that’s sweetened and

sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he

thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother’s heart, because

out of their mouths they can’t, words being too weak and cold, and all

that kind of rot and slush, till it was just sickening; and then he

blubbers out a pious goody-goody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes

to crying fit to bust.



And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the

crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their

might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church

letting out. Music _is_ a good thing; and after all that soul-butter

and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest

and bully.



Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his

nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the

family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up

with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying

yonder could speak he knows who he would name, for they was names that

was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and so he

will name the same, to wit, as follows, vizz.:—Rev. Mr. Hobson, and

Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi

Bell, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley.



Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town a-hunting

together—that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t’other

world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell was away up

to Louisville on business. But the rest was on hand, and so they all

come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him;

and then they shook hands with the duke and didn’t say nothing, but

just kept a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads

whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands and said

“Goo-goo—goo-goo-goo” all the time, like a baby that can’t talk.



So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty

much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts of

little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to

George’s family, or to Peter. And he always let on that Peter wrote him

the things; but that was a lie: he got every blessed one of them out of

that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.



Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the

king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-house

and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard

(which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and

land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold

to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid

down cellar. So these two frauds said they’d go and fetch it up, and

have everything square and above-board; and told me to come with a

candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag

they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them

yaller-boys. My, the way the king’s eyes did shine! He slaps the duke

on the shoulder and says:



“Oh, _this_ ain’t bully nor noth’n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Bilji,

it beats the Nonesuch, _don’t_ it?”



The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them

through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the

king says:



“It ain’t no use talkin’; bein’ brothers to a rich dead man and

representatives of furrin heirs that’s got left is the line for you and

me, Bilge. Thish yer comes of trust’n to Providence. It’s the best way,

in the long run. I’ve tried ’em all, and ther’ ain’t no better way.”



Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on

trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out

four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king:



“Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen

dollars?”



They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it. Then

the duke says:



“Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake—I reckon

that’s the way of it. The best way’s to let it go, and keep still about

it. We can spare it.”



“Oh, shucks, yes, we can _spare_ it. I don’t k’yer noth’n ’bout

that—it’s the _count_ I’m thinkin’ about. We want to be awful square

and open and above-board here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer

money up stairs and count it before everybody—then ther’ ain’t noth’n

suspicious. But when the dead man says ther’s six thous’n dollars, you

know, we don’t want to—”



“Hold on,” says the duke. “Le’s make up the deffisit,” and he begun to

haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.



“It’s a most amaz’n’ good idea, duke—you _have_ got a rattlin’ clever

head on you,” says the king. “Blest if the old Nonesuch ain’t a heppin’

us out agin,” and _he_ begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them

up.



It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear.



“Say,” says the duke, “I got another idea. Le’s go up stairs and count

this money, and then take and _give it to the girls_.”



“Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It’s the most dazzling idea ’at ever a

man struck. You have cert’nly got the most astonishin’ head I ever see.

Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther’ ain’t no mistake ’bout it. Let ’em

fetch along their suspicions now if they want to—this’ll lay ’em out.”



When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king

he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pile—twenty

elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their

chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin

to swell himself up for another speech. He says:



“Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by

them that’s left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by

these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that’s

left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that

he would a done _more_ generous by ’em if he hadn’t ben afeard o’

woundin’ his dear William and me. Now, _wouldn’t_ he? Ther’ ain’t no

question ’bout it in _my_ mind. Well, then, what kind o’ brothers would

it be that ’d stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o’ uncles

would it be that ’d rob—yes, _rob_—sech poor sweet lambs as these ’at

he loved so at sech a time? If I know William—and I _think_ I

do—he—well, I’ll jest ask him.” He turns around and begins to make a

lot of signs to the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him

stupid and leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to

catch his meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his

might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then

the king says, “I knowed it; I reckon _that_’ll convince anybody the

way _he_ feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the

money—take it _all_. It’s the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but

joyful.”



Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the duke,

and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And

everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the

hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:



“You _dear_ good souls!—how _lovely!_—how _could_ you!”



Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased

again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and

before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside,

and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody

saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they

was all busy listening. The king was saying—in the middle of something

he’d started in on—



“—they bein’ partickler friends o’ the diseased. That’s why they’re

invited here this evenin’; but tomorrow we want _all_ to

come—everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so

it’s fitten that his funeral orgies sh’d be public.”



And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and

every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the

duke he couldn’t stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of

paper, “_obsequies_, you old fool,” and folds it up, and goes to

goo-gooing and reaching it over people’s heads to him. The king he

reads it and puts it in his pocket, and says:



“Poor William, afflicted as he is, his _heart’s_ aluz right. Asks me to

invite everybody to come to the funeral—wants me to make ’em all

welcome. But he needn’t a worried—it was jest what I was at.”



Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca’m, and goes to dropping in his

funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And

when he done it the third time he says:



“I say orgies, not because it’s the common term, because it

ain’t—obsequies bein’ the common term—but because orgies is the right

term. Obsequies ain’t used in England no more now—it’s gone out. We say

orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing

you’re after more exact. It’s a word that’s made up out’n the Greek

_orgo_, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew _jeesum_, to plant, cover

up; hence in_ter._ So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public

funeral.”



He was the _worst_ I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed

right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, “Why,

_doctor!_” and Abner Shackleford says:



“Why, Robinson, hain’t you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks.”



The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:



“_Is_ it my poor brother’s dear good friend and physician? I—”



“Keep your hands off of me!” says the doctor. “_You_ talk like an

Englishman, _don’t_ you? It’s the worst imitation I ever heard. _You_

Peter Wilks’s brother! You’re a fraud, that’s what you are!”



Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to

quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey ’d

showed in forty ways that he _was_ Harvey, and knowed everybody by

name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and _begged_ him not

to hurt Harvey’s feelings and the poor girl’s feelings, and all that.

But it warn’t no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that

pretended to be an Englishman and couldn’t imitate the lingo no better

than what he did was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to

the king and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on

_them_. He says:



“I was your father’s friend, and I’m your friend; and I warn you _as_ a

friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of

harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing

to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew,

as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an impostor—has come here

with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and

you take them for _proofs_, and are helped to fool yourselves by these

foolish friends here, who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you

know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen

to me; turn this pitiful rascal out—I _beg_ you to do it. Will you?”



Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She

says:



“_Here_ is my answer.” She hove up the bag of money and put it in the

king’s hands, and says, “Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for

me and my sisters any way you want to, and don’t give us no receipt for

it.”



Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the

hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands and

stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his

head and smiled proud. The doctor says:



“All right; I wash _my_ hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a

time ’s coming when you’re going to feel sick whenever you think of

this day.” And away he went.



“All right, doctor,” says the king, kinder mocking him; “we’ll try and

get ’em to send for you;” which made them all laugh, and they said it

was a prime good hit.









CHAPTER XXVI.





Well, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was

off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would

do for Uncle William, and she’d give her own room to Uncle Harvey,

which was a little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her

sisters and sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a

pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his valley—meaning

me.



So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was

plain but nice. She said she’d have her frocks and a lot of other traps

took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey’s way, but he said

they warn’t. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was a

curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There was an

old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all

sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up

a room with. The king said it was all the more homely and more

pleasanter for these fixings, and so don’t disturb them. The duke’s

room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby.



That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there,

and I stood behind the king and the duke’s chairs and waited on them,

and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of

the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits

was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried

chickens was—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to

force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop,

and said so—said “How _do_ you get biscuits to brown so nice?” and

“Where, for the land’s sake, _did_ you get these amaz’n pickles?” and

all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at

a supper, you know.



And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen

off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up

the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest

if I didn’t think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says:



“Did you ever see the king?”



“Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have—he goes to our church.” I

knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he

goes to our church, she says:



“What—regular?”



“Yes—regular. His pew’s right over opposite ourn—on t’other side the

pulpit.”



“I thought he lived in London?”



“Well, he does. Where _would_ he live?”



“But I thought _you_ lived in Sheffield?”



I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken

bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:



“I mean he goes to our church regular when he’s in Sheffield. That’s

only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths.”



“Why, how you talk—Sheffield ain’t on the sea.”



“Well, who said it was?”



“Why, you did.”



“I _didn’t_ nuther.”



“You did!”



“I didn’t.”



“You did.”



“I never said nothing of the kind.”



“Well, what _did_ you say, then?”



“Said he come to take the sea _baths_—that’s what I said.”



“Well, then, how’s he going to take the sea baths if it ain’t on the

sea?”



“Looky here,” I says; “did you ever see any Congress-water?”



“Yes.”



“Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?”



“Why, no.”



“Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea

bath.”



“How does he get it, then?”



“Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water—in barrels. There

in the palace at Sheffield they’ve got furnaces, and he wants his water

hot. They can’t bile that amount of water away off there at the sea.

They haven’t got no conveniences for it.”



“Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved

time.”



When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was

comfortable and glad. Next, she says:



“Do you go to church, too?”



“Yes—regular.”



“Where do you set?”



“Why, in our pew.”



“_Whose_ pew?”



“Why, _ourn_—your Uncle Harvey’s.”



“His’n? What does _he_ want with a pew?”



“Wants it to set in. What did you _reckon_ he wanted with it?”



“Why, I thought he’d be in the pulpit.”



Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I

played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says:



“Blame it, do you suppose there ain’t but one preacher to a church?”



“Why, what do they want with more?”



“What!—to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you.

They don’t have no less than seventeen.”



“Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn’t set out such a string as that, not

if I _never_ got to glory. It must take ’em a week.”



“Shucks, they don’t _all_ of ’em preach the same day—only _one_ of

’em.”



“Well, then, what does the rest of ’em do?”



“Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate—and one thing or

another. But mainly they don’t do nothing.”



“Well, then, what are they _for?_”



“Why, they’re for _style_. Don’t you know nothing?”



“Well, I don’t _want_ to know no such foolishness as that. How is

servants treated in England? Do they treat ’em better ’n we treat our

niggers?”



“_No!_ A servant ain’t nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs.”



“Don’t they give ’em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year’s

week, and Fourth of July?”



“Oh, just listen! A body could tell _you_ hain’t ever been to England

by that. Why, Hare-l—why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year’s

end to year’s end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger

shows, nor nowheres.”



“Nor church?”



“Nor church.”



“But _you_ always went to church.”



Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man’s servant. But

next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was

different from a common servant and _had_ to go to church whether he

wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the

law. But I didn’t do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she

warn’t satisfied. She says:



“Honest injun, now, hain’t you been telling me a lot of lies?”



“Honest injun,” says I.



“None of it at all?”



“None of it at all. Not a lie in it,” says I.



“Lay your hand on this book and say it.”



I see it warn’t nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and

said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:



“Well, then, I’ll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I’ll

believe the rest.”



“What is it you won’t believe, Joe?” says Mary Jane, stepping in with

Susan behind her. “It ain’t right nor kind for you to talk so to him,

and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be

treated so?”



“That’s always your way, Maim—always sailing in to help somebody before

they’re hurt. I hain’t done nothing to him. He’s told some stretchers,

I reckon, and I said I wouldn’t swallow it all; and that’s every bit

and grain I _did_ say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like that,

can’t he?”



“I don’t care whether ’twas little or whether ’twas big; he’s here in

our house and a stranger, and it wasn’t good of you to say it. If you

was in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn’t to

say a thing to another person that will make _them_ feel ashamed.”



“Why, Mam, he said—”



“It don’t make no difference what he _said_—that ain’t the thing. The

thing is for you to treat him _kind_, and not be saying things to make

him remember he ain’t in his own country and amongst his own folks.”



I says to myself, _this_ is a girl that I’m letting that old reptile

rob her of her money!



Then Susan _she_ waltzed in; and if you’ll believe me, she did give

Hare-lip hark from the tomb!



Says I to myself, and this is _another_ one that I’m letting him rob

her of her money!



Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely

again—which was her way; but when she got done there warn’t hardly

anything left o’ poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.



“All right, then,” says the other girls; “you just ask his pardon.”



She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful

it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so

she could do it again.



I says to myself, this is _another_ one that I’m letting him rob her of

her money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves out

to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so

ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind’s made up;

I’ll hive that money for them or bust.



So then I lit out—for bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When I

got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself,

shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds? No—that

won’t do. He might tell who told him; then the king and the duke would

make it warm for me. Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? No—I

dasn’t do it. Her face would give them a hint, sure; they’ve got the

money, and they’d slide right out and get away with it. If she was to

fetch in help I’d get mixed up in the business before it was done with,

I judge. No; there ain’t no good way but one. I got to steal that

money, somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they won’t

suspicion that I done it. They’ve got a good thing here, and they ain’t

a-going to leave till they’ve played this family and this town for all

they’re worth, so I’ll find a chance time enough. I’ll steal it and

hide it; and by-and-by, when I’m away down the river, I’ll write a

letter and tell Mary Jane where it’s hid. But I better hive it tonight

if I can, because the doctor maybe hasn’t let up as much as he lets on

he has; he might scare them out of here yet.



So, thinks I, I’ll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the hall was

dark, but I found the duke’s room, and started to paw around it with my

hands; but I recollected it wouldn’t be much like the king to let

anybody else take care of that money but his own self; so then I went

to his room and begun to paw around there. But I see I couldn’t do

nothing without a candle, and I dasn’t light one, of course. So I

judged I’d got to do the other thing—lay for them and eavesdrop. About

that time I hears their footsteps coming, and was going to skip under

the bed; I reached for it, but it wasn’t where I thought it would be;

but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane’s frocks, so I jumped in

behind that and snuggled in amongst the gowns, and stood there

perfectly still.



They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done was

to get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn’t found the

bed when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it’s kind of natural to hide

under the bed when you are up to anything private. They sets down then,

and the king says:



“Well, what is it? And cut it middlin’ short, because it’s better for

us to be down there a-whoopin’ up the mournin’ than up here givin’ ’em

a chance to talk us over.”



“Well, this is it, Capet. I ain’t easy; I ain’t comfortable. That

doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I’ve got a notion,

and I think it’s a sound one.”



“What is it, duke?”



“That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, and clip

it down the river with what we’ve got. Specially, seeing we got it so

easy—_given_ back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of

course we allowed to have to steal it back. I’m for knocking off and

lighting out.”



That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it would a been

a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed. The

king rips out and says:



“What! And not sell out the rest o’ the property? March off like a

passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous’n’ dollars’ worth o’

property layin’ around jest sufferin’ to be scooped in?—and all good,

salable stuff, too.”



The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn’t

want to go no deeper—didn’t want to rob a lot of orphans of

_everything_ they had.



“Why, how you talk!” says the king. “We sha’n’t rob ’em of nothing at

all but jest this money. The people that _buys_ the property is the

suff’rers; because as soon ’s it’s found out ’at we didn’t own it—which

won’t be long after we’ve slid—the sale won’t be valid, and it’ll all

go back to the estate. These yer orphans ’ll git their house back agin,

and that’s enough for _them;_ they’re young and spry, and k’n easy earn

a livin’. _They_ ain’t a-goin to suffer. Why, jest think—there’s

thous’n’s and thous’n’s that ain’t nigh so well off. Bless you, _they_

ain’t got noth’n’ to complain of.”



Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said all

right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and that

doctor hanging over them. But the king says:



“Cuss the doctor! What do we k’yer for _him?_ Hain’t we got all the

fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any

town?”



So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says:



“I don’t think we put that money in a good place.”



That cheered me up. I’d begun to think I warn’t going to get a hint of

no kind to help me. The king says:



“Why?”



“Because Mary Jane ’ll be in mourning from this out; and first you know

the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds

up and put ’em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money

and not borrow some of it?”



“Your head’s level agin, duke,” says the king; and he comes a-fumbling

under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck tight to

the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what

them fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I tried to think

what I’d better do if they did catch me. But the king he got the bag

before I could think more than about a half a thought, and he never

suspicioned I was around. They took and shoved the bag through a rip in

the straw tick that was under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot

or two amongst the straw and said it was all right now, because a

nigger only makes up the feather-bed, and don’t turn over the straw

tick only about twice a year, and so it warn’t in no danger of getting

stole now.



But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-way

down stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I

could get a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of

the house somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the

house a good ransacking: I knowed that very well. Then I turned in,

with my clothes all on; but I couldn’t a gone to sleep if I’d a wanted

to, I was in such a sweat to get through with the business. By-and-by I

heard the king and the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid

with my chin at the top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was

going to happen. But nothing did.



So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones

hadn’t begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.









CHAPTER XXVII.





I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed

along, and got down stairs all right. There warn’t a sound anywheres. I

peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that

was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door was

open into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a

candle in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but

I see there warn’t nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I

shoved on by; but the front door was locked, and the key wasn’t there.

Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I

run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I

see to hide the bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a

foot, showing the dead man’s face down in there, with a wet cloth over

it, and his shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just

down beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was

so cold, and then I run back across the room and in behind the door.



The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and

kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see

she begun to cry, though I couldn’t hear her, and her back was to me. I

slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I’d make sure them

watchers hadn’t seen me; so I looked through the crack, and everything

was all right. They hadn’t stirred.



I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing

playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much

resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right; because

when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to

Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but that ain’t

the thing that’s going to happen; the thing that’s going to happen is,

the money ’ll be found when they come to screw on the lid. Then the

king ’ll get it again, and it ’ll be a long day before he gives anybody

another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I _wanted_ to slide

down and get it out of there, but I dasn’t try it. Every minute it was

getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin

to stir, and I might get catched—catched with six thousand dollars in

my hands that nobody hadn’t hired me to take care of. I don’t wish to

be mixed up in no such business as that, I says to myself.



When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the

watchers was gone. There warn’t nobody around but the family and the

widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything

had been happening, but I couldn’t tell.



Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and

they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs,

and then set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the

neighbors till the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was full. I

see the coffin lid was the way it was before, but I dasn’t go to look

in under it, with folks around.



Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took

seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an

hour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down at

the dead man’s face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was

all very still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holding

handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a

little. There warn’t no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the

floor and blowing noses—because people always blows them more at a

funeral than they do at other places except church.



When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his

black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last

touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable,

and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved people

around, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and done it

with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took his place over

against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I

ever see; and there warn’t no more smile to him than there is to a ham.



They had borrowed a melodeum—a sick one; and when everything was ready

a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and

colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one

that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson

opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the

most outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was

only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up

right along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and

wait—you couldn’t hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and

nobody didn’t seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see that

long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say,

“Don’t you worry—just depend on me.” Then he stooped down and begun to

glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people’s

heads. So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and

more outrageous all the time; and at last, when he had gone around two

sides of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds

we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl

or two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his

solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this

undertaker’s back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he

glided and glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and

shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the

preacher, over the people’s heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse

whisper, “_He had a rat!_” Then he drooped down and glided along the

wall again to his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to

the people, because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like

that don’t cost nothing, and it’s just the little things that makes a

man to be looked up to and liked. There warn’t no more popular man in

town than what that undertaker was.



Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome;

and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage,

and at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up

on the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched

him pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along

as soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I

didn’t know whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s’pose

somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?—now how do _I_ know whether to

write to Mary Jane or not? S’pose she dug him up and didn’t find

nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get

hunted up and jailed; I’d better lay low and keep dark, and not write

at all; the thing’s awful mixed now; trying to better it, I’ve worsened

it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I’d just let it alone, dad

fetch the whole business!



They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces

again—I couldn’t help it, and I couldn’t rest easy. But nothing come of

it; the faces didn’t tell me nothing.



The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up,

and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his

congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must

hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He was

very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could

stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn’t be done. And he

said of course him and William would take the girls home with them; and

that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed

and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too—tickled

them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and

told him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready.

Them poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see

them getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn’t see no safe way for me

to chip in and change the general tune.



Well, blamed if the king didn’t bill the house and the niggers and all

the property for auction straight off—sale two days after the funeral;

but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.



So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls’

joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the

king sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they

called it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis,

and their mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls

and them niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around

each other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The

girls said they hadn’t ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or

sold away from the town. I can’t ever get it out of my memory, the

sight of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each

other’s necks and crying; and I reckon I couldn’t a stood it all, but

would a had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn’t knowed the

sale warn’t no account and the niggers would be back home in a week or

two.



The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out

flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the

children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he

bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell

you the duke was powerful uneasy.



Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and

the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look

that there was trouble. The king says:



“Was you in my room night before last?”



“No, your majesty”—which was the way I always called him when nobody

but our gang warn’t around.



“Was you in there yisterday er last night?”



“No, your majesty.”



“Honor bright, now—no lies.”



“Honor bright, your majesty, I’m telling you the truth. I hain’t been

a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed

it to you.”



The duke says:



“Have you seen anybody else go in there?”



“No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe.”



“Stop and think.”



I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:



“Well, I see the niggers go in there several times.”



Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn’t ever

expected it, and then like they _had_. Then the duke says:



“What, _all_ of them?”



“No—leastways, not all at once—that is, I don’t think I ever see them

all come _out_ at once but just one time.”



“Hello! When was that?”



“It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn’t early,

because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see

them.”



“Well, go on, _go_ on! What did they do? How’d they act?”



“They didn’t do nothing. And they didn’t act anyway much, as fur as I

see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they’d shoved in

there to do up your majesty’s room, or something, s’posing you was up;

and found you _warn’t_ up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the

way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn’t already waked you

up.”



“Great guns, _this_ is a go!” says the king; and both of them looked

pretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and

scratching their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a

little raspy chuckle, and says:



“It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let on

to be _sorry_ they was going out of this region! And I believed they

_was_ sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don’t ever tell _me_

any more that a nigger ain’t got any histrionic talent. Why, the way

they played that thing it would fool _anybody_. In my opinion, there’s

a fortune in ’em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn’t want a

better lay-out than that—and here we’ve gone and sold ’em for a song.

Yes, and ain’t privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where _is_ that

song—that draft?”



“In the bank for to be collected. Where _would_ it be?”



“Well, _that’s_ all right then, thank goodness.”



Says I, kind of timid-like:



“Is something gone wrong?”



The king whirls on me and rips out:



“None o’ your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y’r own

affairs—if you got any. Long as you’re in this town don’t you forgit

_that_—you hear?” Then he says to the duke, “We got to jest swaller it

and say noth’n’: mum’s the word for _us_.”



As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and

says:



“Quick sales _and_ small profits! It’s a good business—yes.”



v



The king snarls around on him and says:



“I was trying to do for the best in sellin’ ’em out so quick. If the

profits has turned out to be none, lackin’ considable, and none to

carry, is it my fault any more’n it’s yourn?”



“Well, _they’d_ be in this house yet and we _wouldn’t_ if I could a got

my advice listened to.”



The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped

around and lit into _me_ again. He give me down the banks for not

coming and _telling_ him I see the niggers come out of his room acting

that way—said any fool would a _knowed_ something was up. And then

waltzed in and cussed _himself_ awhile, and said it all come of him not

laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he’d be

blamed if he’d ever do it again. So they went off a-jawing; and I felt

dreadful glad I’d worked it all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn’t

done the niggers no harm by it.









CHAPTER XXVIII.





By-and-by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder and started

for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls’ room the door was open,

and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and

she’d been packing things in it—getting ready to go to England. But she

had stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her

hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I

went in there and says:



“Miss Mary Jane, you can’t a-bear to see people in trouble, and _I_

can’t—most always. Tell me about it.”



So she done it. And it was the niggers—I just expected it. She said the

beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she didn’t

know _how_ she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and

the children warn’t ever going to see each other no more—and then

busted out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:



“Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain’t _ever_ going to see each other any

more!”



“But they _will_—and inside of two weeks—and I _know_ it!” says I.



Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could budge she

throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it _again_, say it

_again_, say it _again!_



I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close

place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very

impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and

eased-up, like a person that’s had a tooth pulled out. So I went to

studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells

the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable many

resks, though I ain’t had no experience, and can’t say for certain; but

it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here’s a case where I’m blest if it

don’t look to me like the truth is better and actuly _safer_ than a

lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and think it over some time or other,

it’s so kind of strange and unregular. I never see nothing like it.

Well, I says to myself at last, I’m a-going to chance it; I’ll up and

tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on

a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go to.

Then I says:



“Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you

could go and stay three or four days?”



“Yes; Mr. Lothrop’s. Why?”



“Never mind why yet. If I’ll tell you how I know the niggers will see

each other again inside of two weeks—here in this house—and _prove_ how

I know it—will you go to Mr. Lothrop’s and stay four days?”



“Four days!” she says; “I’ll stay a year!”



“All right,” I says, “I don’t want nothing more out of _you_ than just

your word—I druther have it than another man’s kiss-the-Bible.” She

smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, “If you don’t mind it,

I’ll shut the door—and bolt it.”



Then I come back and set down again, and says:



“Don’t you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell

the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it’s a bad

kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain’t no help for it.

These uncles of yourn ain’t no uncles at all; they’re a couple of

frauds—regular dead-beats. There, now we’re over the worst of it, you

can stand the rest middling easy.”



It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal

water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher

all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first

struck that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to

where she flung herself on to the king’s breast at the front door and

he kissed her sixteen or seventeen times—and then up she jumps, with

her face afire like sunset, and says:



“The brute! Come, don’t waste a minute—not a _second_—we’ll have them

tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!”



Says I:



“Cert’nly. But do you mean _before_ you go to Mr. Lothrop’s, or—”



“Oh,” she says, “what am I _thinking_ about!” she says, and set right

down again. “Don’t mind what I said—please don’t—you _won’t,_ now,

_will_ you?” Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I

said I would die first. “I never thought, I was so stirred up,” she

says; “now go on, and I won’t do so any more. You tell me what to do,

and whatever you say I’ll do it.”



“Well,” I says, “it’s a rough gang, them two frauds, and I’m fixed so I

got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not—I

druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town

would get me out of their claws, and _I_’d be all right; but there’d be

another person that you don’t know about who’d be in big trouble. Well,

we got to save _him_, hain’t we? Of course. Well, then, we won’t blow

on them.”



Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I could

get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave.

But I didn’t want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard

to answer questions but me; so I didn’t want the plan to begin working

till pretty late to-night. I says:



“Miss Mary Jane, I’ll tell you what we’ll do, and you won’t have to

stay at Mr. Lothrop’s so long, nuther. How fur is it?”



“A little short of four miles—right out in the country, back here.”



“Well, that’ll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till

nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home

again—tell them you’ve thought of something. If you get here before

eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don’t turn up wait _till_

eleven, and _then_ if I don’t turn up it means I’m gone, and out of the

way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news around, and get

these beats jailed.”



“Good,” she says, “I’ll do it.”



“And if it just happens so that I don’t get away, but get took up along

with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand,

and you must stand by me all you can.”



“Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha’n’t touch a hair of your head!”

she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said

it, too.



“If I get away I sha’n’t be here,” I says, “to prove these rapscallions

ain’t your uncles, and I couldn’t do it if I _was_ here. I could swear

they was beats and bummers, that’s all, though that’s worth something.

Well, there’s others can do that better than what I can, and they’re

people that ain’t going to be doubted as quick as I’d be. I’ll tell you

how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There—‘_Royal

Nonesuch, Bricksville_.’ Put it away, and don’t lose it. When the court

wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to

Bricksville and say they’ve got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch,

and ask for some witnesses—why, you’ll have that entire town down here

before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they’ll come a-biling, too.”



I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:



“Just let the auction go right along, and don’t worry. Nobody don’t

have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction

on accounts of the short notice, and they ain’t going out of this till

they get that money; and the way we’ve fixed it the sale ain’t going to

count, and they ain’t going to _get_ no money. It’s just like the way

it was with the niggers—it warn’t no sale, and the niggers will be back

before long. Why, they can’t collect the money for the _niggers_

yet—they’re in the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary.”



“Well,” she says, “I’ll run down to breakfast now, and then I’ll start

straight for Mr. Lothrop’s.”



“’Deed, _that_ ain’t the ticket, Miss Mary Jane,” I says, “by no manner

of means; go _before_ breakfast.”



“Why?”



“What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?”



“Well, I never thought—and come to think, I don’t know. What was it?”



“Why, it’s because you ain’t one of these leather-face people. I don’t

want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and

read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your

uncles when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never—”



“There, there, don’t! Yes, I’ll go before breakfast—I’ll be glad to.

And leave my sisters with them?”



“Yes; never mind about them. They’ve got to stand it yet a while. They

might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don’t want you to

see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was

to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something.

No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I’ll fix it with all of

them. I’ll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say

you’ve went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change,

or to see a friend, and you’ll be back to-night or early in the

morning.”



“Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won’t have my love given to

them.”



“Well, then, it sha’n’t be.” It was well enough to tell _her_ so—no

harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it’s

the little things that smooths people’s roads the most, down here

below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn’t cost

nothing. Then I says: “There’s one more thing—that bag of money.”



“Well, they’ve got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think

_how_ they got it.”



“No, you’re out, there. They hain’t got it.”



“Why, who’s got it?”



“I wish I knowed, but I don’t. I _had_ it, because I stole it from

them; and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I’m

afraid it ain’t there no more. I’m awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I’m

just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I

come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I

come to, and run—and it warn’t a good place.”



“Oh, stop blaming yourself—it’s too bad to do it, and I won’t allow

it—you couldn’t help it; it wasn’t your fault. Where did you hide it?”



I didn’t want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I

couldn’t seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that

corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So

for a minute I didn’t say nothing; then I says:



“I’d ruther not _tell_ you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don’t

mind letting me off; but I’ll write it for you on a piece of paper, and

you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop’s, if you want to. Do you

reckon that’ll do?”



“Oh, yes.”



So I wrote: “I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was

crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was

mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane.”



It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by

herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own

roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it

to her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the

hand, hard, and says:



“_Good_-bye. I’m going to do everything just as you’ve told me; and if

I don’t ever see you again, I sha’n’t ever forget you and I’ll think of

you a many and a many a time, and I’ll _pray_ for you, too!”—and she

was gone.



Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she’d take a job that was more

nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same—she was just that

kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion—there

warn’t no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but

in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my

opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it

ain’t no flattery. And when it comes to beauty—and goodness, too—she

lays over them all. I hain’t ever seen her since that time that I see

her go out of that door; no, I hain’t ever seen her since, but I reckon

I’ve thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her

saying she would pray for me; and if ever I’d a thought it would do any

good for me to pray for _her_, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or bust.



Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see

her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:



“What’s the name of them people over on t’other side of the river that

you all goes to see sometimes?”



They says:



“There’s several; but it’s the Proctors, mainly.”



“That’s the name,” I says; “I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she

told me to tell you she’s gone over there in a dreadful hurry—one of

them’s sick.”



“Which one?”



“I don’t know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it’s—”



“Sakes alive, I hope it ain’t _Hanner?_”



“I’m sorry to say it,” I says, “but Hanner’s the very one.”



“My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?”



“It ain’t no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary

Jane said, and they don’t think she’ll last many hours.”



“Only think of that, now! What’s the matter with her?”



I couldn’t think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:



“Mumps.”



“Mumps your granny! They don’t set up with people that’s got the

mumps.”



“They don’t, don’t they? You better bet they do with _these_ mumps.

These mumps is different. It’s a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said.”



“How’s it a new kind?”



“Because it’s mixed up with other things.”



“What other things?”



“Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and

yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don’t know what all.”



“My land! And they call it the _mumps?_”



“That’s what Miss Mary Jane said.”



“Well, what in the nation do they call it the _mumps_ for?”



“Why, because it _is_ the mumps. That’s what it starts with.”



“Well, ther’ ain’t no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take

pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains

out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull

up and say, ‘Why, he stumped his _toe_.’ Would ther’ be any sense in

that? _No_. And ther’ ain’t no sense in _this_, nuther. Is it

ketching?”



“Is it _ketching?_ Why, how you talk. Is a _harrow_ catching—in the

dark? If you don’t hitch on to one tooth, you’re bound to on another,

ain’t you? And you can’t get away with that tooth without fetching the

whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a

harrow, as you may say—and it ain’t no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you

come to get it hitched on good.”



“Well, it’s awful, _I_ think,” says the hare-lip. “I’ll go to Uncle

Harvey and—”



“Oh, yes,” I says, “I _would_. Of _course_ I would. I wouldn’t lose no

time.”



“Well, why wouldn’t you?”



“Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain’t your uncles

obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you

reckon they’d be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that

journey by yourselves? _You_ know they’ll wait for you. So fur, so

good. Your uncle Harvey’s a preacher, ain’t he? Very well, then; is a

_preacher_ going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a

_ship clerk?_—so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now

_you_ know he ain’t. What _will_ he do, then? Why, he’ll say, ‘It’s a

great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the best way

they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum

mumps, and so it’s my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three

months it takes to show on her if she’s got it.’ But never mind, if you

think it’s best to tell your uncle Harvey—”



“Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good

times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane’s

got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins.”



“Well, anyway, maybe you’d better tell some of the neighbors.”



“Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can’t you

_see_ that _they’d_ go and tell? Ther’ ain’t no way but just to not

tell anybody at _all_.”



“Well, maybe you’re right—yes, I judge you _are_ right.”



“But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she’s gone out a while,

anyway, so he won’t be uneasy about her?”



“Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, ‘Tell them to

give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I’ve run over

the river to see Mr.’—Mr.—what _is_ the name of that rich family your

uncle Peter used to think so much of?—I mean the one that—”



“Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain’t it?”



“Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can’t ever seem to

remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run

over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy

this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had

it than anybody else; and she’s going to stick to them till they say

they’ll come, and then, if she ain’t too tired, she’s coming home; and

if she is, she’ll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don’t say

nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps—which’ll be

perfectly true, because she _is_ going there to speak about their

buying the house; I know it, because she told me so herself.”



“All right,” they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and

give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.



Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn’t say nothing because

they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther

Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of

Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat—I

reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn’t a done it no neater himself. Of course he

would a throwed more style into it, but I can’t do that very handy, not

being brung up to it.



Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the end

of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the old

man he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of

the auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and then, or a

little goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around

goo-gooing for sympathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself

generly.



But by-and-by the thing dragged through, and everything was

sold—everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So

they’d got to work _that_ off—I never see such a girafft as the king

was for wanting to swallow _everything_. Well, whilst they was at it a

steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-whooping

and yelling and laughing and carrying on, and singing out:



“_Here’s_ your opposition line! here’s your two sets o’ heirs to old

Peter Wilks—and you pays your money and you takes your choice!”









CHAPTER XXIX.





They was fetching a very nice-looking old gentleman along, and a

nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my souls,

how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But I didn’t see no

joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke and the king some

to see any. I reckoned they’d turn pale. But no, nary a pale did _they_

turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but just

went a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that’s

googling out buttermilk; and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed

down sorrowful on them new-comers like it give him the stomach-ache in

his very heart to think there could be such frauds and rascals in the

world. Oh, he done it admirable. Lots of the principal people gethered

around the king, to let him see they was on his side. That old

gentleman that had just come looked all puzzled to death. Pretty soon

he begun to speak, and I see straight off he pronounced _like_ an

Englishman—not the king’s way, though the king’s _was_ pretty good for

an imitation. I can’t give the old gent’s words, nor I can’t imitate

him; but he turned around to the crowd, and says, about like this:



“This is a surprise to me which I wasn’t looking for; and I’ll

acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain’t very well fixed to meet it and

answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he’s broke his

arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here last night in the

night by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks’ brother Harvey, and this is his

brother William, which can’t hear nor speak—and can’t even make signs

to amount to much, now’t he’s only got one hand to work them with. We

are who we say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I

can prove it. But up till then I won’t say nothing more, but go to the

hotel and wait.”



So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, and

blethers out:



“Broke his arm—_very_ likely, _ain’t_ it?—and very convenient, too, for

a fraud that’s got to make signs, and ain’t learnt how. Lost their

baggage! That’s _mighty_ good!—and mighty ingenious—under the

_circumstances!_”



So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or four,

or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; another one was a

sharp-looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old-fashioned kind

made out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of the steamboat and

was talking to him in a low voice, and glancing towards the king now

and then and nodding their heads—it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was

gone up to Louisville; and another one was a big rough husky that come

along and listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to

the king now. And when the king got done this husky up and says:



“Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when’d you come to this

town?”



“The day before the funeral, friend,” says the king.



“But what time o’ day?”



“In the evenin’—’bout an hour er two before sundown.”



“_How’d_ you come?”



“I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati.”



“Well, then, how’d you come to be up at the Pint in the _mornin_’—in a

canoe?”



“I warn’t up at the Pint in the mornin’.”



“It’s a lie.”



Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to

an old man and a preacher.



“Preacher be hanged, he’s a fraud and a liar. He was up at the Pint

that mornin’. I live up there, don’t I? Well, I was up there, and he

was up there. I _see_ him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim

Collins and a boy.”



The doctor he up and says:



“Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?”



“I reckon I would, but I don’t know. Why, yonder he is, now. I know him

perfectly easy.”



It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:



“Neighbors, I don’t know whether the new couple is frauds or not; but

if _these_ two ain’t frauds, I am an idiot, that’s all. I think it’s

our duty to see that they don’t get away from here till we’ve looked

into this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you. We’ll

take these fellows to the tavern and affront them with t’other couple,

and I reckon we’ll find out _something_ before we get through.”



It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king’s friends; so

we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led me along by the

hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let _go_ my hand.



We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles, and

fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor says:



“I don’t wish to be too hard on these two men, but _I_ think they’re

frauds, and they may have complices that we don’t know nothing about.

If they have, won’t the complices get away with that bag of gold Peter

Wilks left? It ain’t unlikely. If these men ain’t frauds, they won’t

object to sending for that money and letting us keep it till they prove

they’re all right—ain’t that so?”



Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a pretty

tight place right at the outstart. But the king he only looked

sorrowful, and says:



“Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain’t got no disposition

to throw anything in the way of a fair, open, out-and-out investigation

o’ this misable business; but, alas, the money ain’t there; you k’n

send and see, if you want to.”



“Where is it, then?”



“Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her I took and hid it

inside o’ the straw tick o’ my bed, not wishin’ to bank it for the few

days we’d be here, and considerin’ the bed a safe place, we not bein’

used to niggers, and suppos’n’ ’em honest, like servants in England.

The niggers stole it the very next mornin’ after I had went down

stairs; and when I sold ’em I hadn’t missed the money yit, so they got

clean away with it. My servant here k’n tell you ’bout it, gentlemen.”



The doctor and several said “Shucks!” and I see nobody didn’t

altogether believe him. One man asked me if I see the niggers steal it.

I said no, but I see them sneaking out of the room and hustling away,

and I never thought nothing, only I reckoned they was afraid they had

waked up my master and was trying to get away before he made trouble

with them. That was all they asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me and

says:



“Are _you_ English, too?”



I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, “Stuff!”



Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we

had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word

about supper, nor ever seemed to think about it—and so they kept it up,

and kept it up; and it _was_ the worst mixed-up thing you ever see.

They made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell

his’n; and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a _seen_

that the old gentleman was spinning truth and t’other one lies. And

by-and-by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a

left-handed look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough

to talk on the right side. I begun to tell about Sheffield, and how we

lived there, and all about the English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn’t

get pretty fur till the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the

lawyer, says:



“Set down, my boy; I wouldn’t strain myself if I was you. I reckon you

ain’t used to lying, it don’t seem to come handy; what you want is

practice. You do it pretty awkward.”



I didn’t care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let off,

anyway.



The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says:



“If you’d been in town at first, Levi Bell—” The king broke in and

reached out his hand, and says:



“Why, is this my poor dead brother’s old friend that he’s wrote so

often about?”



The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked

pleased, and they talked right along awhile, and then got to one side

and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and says:



“That’ll fix it. I’ll take the order and send it, along with your

brother’s, and then they’ll know it’s all right.”



So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and twisted

his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off

something; and then they give the pen to the duke—and then for the

first time the duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote. So then

the lawyer turns to the new old gentleman and says:



“You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your names.”



The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn’t read it. The lawyer looked

powerful astonished, and says:



“Well, it beats _me_”—and snaked a lot of old letters out of his

pocket, and examined them, and then examined the old man’s writing, and

then _them_ again; and then says: “These old letters is from Harvey

Wilks; and here’s _these_ two handwritings, and anybody can see _they_

didn’t write them” (the king and the duke looked sold and foolish, I

tell you, to see how the lawyer had took them in), “and here’s _this_

old gentleman’s hand writing, and anybody can tell, easy enough, _he_

didn’t write them—fact is, the scratches he makes ain’t properly

_writing_ at all. Now, here’s some letters from—”



The new old gentleman says:



“If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my hand but my brother

there—so he copies for me. It’s _his_ hand you’ve got there, not mine.”



“_Well!_” says the lawyer, “this _is_ a state of things. I’ve got some

of William’s letters, too; so if you’ll get him to write a line or so

we can com—”



“He _can’t_ write with his left hand,” says the old gentleman. “If he

could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his own letters

and mine too. Look at both, please—they’re by the same hand.”



The lawyer done it, and says:



“I believe it’s so—and if it ain’t so, there’s a heap stronger

resemblance than I’d noticed before, anyway. Well, well, well! I

thought we was right on the track of a solution, but it’s gone to

grass, partly. But anyway, _one_ thing is proved—_these_ two ain’t

either of ’em Wilkses”—and he wagged his head towards the king and the

duke.



Well, what do you think? That muleheaded old fool wouldn’t give in

_then!_ Indeed he wouldn’t. Said it warn’t no fair test. Said his

brother William was the cussedest joker in the world, and hadn’t

_tried_ to write—_he_ see William was going to play one of his jokes

the minute he put the pen to paper. And so he warmed up and went

warbling and warbling right along till he was actuly beginning to

believe what he was saying _himself;_ but pretty soon the new gentleman

broke in, and says:



“I’ve thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped to lay

out my br—helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying?”



“Yes,” says somebody, “me and Ab Turner done it. We’re both here.”



Then the old man turns towards the king, and says:



“Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his breast?”



Blamed if the king didn’t have to brace up mighty quick, or he’d a

squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut under, it took

him so sudden; and, mind you, it was a thing that was calculated to

make most _anybody_ sqush to get fetched such a solid one as that

without any notice, because how was _he_ going to know what was

tattooed on the man? He whitened a little; he couldn’t help it; and it

was mighty still in there, and everybody bending a little forwards and

gazing at him. Says I to myself, _Now_ he’ll throw up the sponge—there

ain’t no more use. Well, did he? A body can’t hardly believe it, but he

didn’t. I reckon he thought he’d keep the thing up till he tired them

people out, so they’d thin out, and him and the duke could break loose

and get away. Anyway, he set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile,

and says:



“Mf! It’s a _very_ tough question, _ain’t_ it! _Yes_, sir, I k’n tell

you what’s tattooed on his breast. It’s jest a small, thin, blue

arrow—that’s what it is; and if you don’t look clost, you can’t see it.

_Now_ what do you say—hey?”



Well, _I_ never see anything like that old blister for clean

out-and-out cheek.



The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard, and

his eye lights up like he judged he’d got the king _this_ time, and

says:



“There—you’ve heard what he said! Was there any such mark on Peter

Wilks’ breast?”



Both of them spoke up and says:



“We didn’t see no such mark.”



“Good!” says the old gentleman. “Now, what you _did_ see on his breast

was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was

young), and a W, with dashes between them, so: P—B—W”—and he marked

them that way on a piece of paper. “Come, ain’t that what you saw?”



Both of them spoke up again, and says:



“No, we _didn’t_. We never seen any marks at all.”



Well, everybody _was_ in a state of mind now, and they sings out:



“The whole _bilin_’ of ’m ’s frauds! Le’s duck ’em! le’s drown ’em!

le’s ride ’em on a rail!” and everybody was whooping at once, and there

was a rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table and yells,

and says:



“Gentlemen—gentle_men!_ Hear me just a word—just a _single_ word—if you

PLEASE! There’s one way yet—let’s go and dig up the corpse and look.”



That took them.



“Hooray!” they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the lawyer

and the doctor sung out:



“Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and fetch

_them_ along, too!”



“We’ll do it!” they all shouted; “and if we don’t find them marks we’ll

lynch the whole gang!”



I _was_ scared, now, I tell you. But there warn’t no getting away, you

know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for the

graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole

town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only nine in

the evening.



As we went by our house I wished I hadn’t sent Mary Jane out of town;

because now if I could tip her the wink she’d light out and save me,

and blow on our dead-beats.



Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like

wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the

lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst

the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most dangersome I ever

was in; and I was kinder stunned; everything was going so different

from what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed so I could take my

own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my

back to save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was

nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden death but just them

tattoo-marks. If they didn’t find them—



I couldn’t bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn’t think

about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful

time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me by the

wrist—Hines—and a body might as well try to give Goliar the slip. He

dragged me right along, he was so excited, and I had to run to keep up.



When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed over it

like an overflow. And when they got to the grave they found they had

about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody hadn’t

thought to fetch a lantern. But they sailed into digging anyway by the

flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a

mile off, to borrow one.



So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, and the

rain started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the lightning

come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them people never

took no notice of it, they was so full of this business; and one minute

you could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the

shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second the

dark wiped it all out, and you couldn’t see nothing at all.



At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then

such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to

scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark, that way,

it was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and tugging so,

and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and

panting.



All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare,

and somebody sings out:



“By the living jingo, here’s the bag of gold on his breast!”



Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and

give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit

out and shinned for the road in the dark there ain’t nobody can tell.



I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew—leastways, I had it all

to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then glares, and the

buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting

of the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it along!



When I struck the town I see there warn’t nobody out in the storm, so I

never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight through the

main one; and when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my eye and

set it. No light there; the house all dark—which made me feel sorry and

disappointed, I didn’t know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by,

_flash_ comes the light in Mary Jane’s window! and my heart swelled up

sudden, like to bust; and the same second the house and all was behind

me in the dark, and wasn’t ever going to be before me no more in this

world. She _was_ the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand.



The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the

tow-head, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first time

the lightning showed me one that wasn’t chained I snatched it and

shoved. It was a canoe, and warn’t fastened with nothing but a rope.

The tow-head was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the

middle of the river, but I didn’t lose no time; and when I struck the

raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp

if I could afforded it. But I didn’t. As I sprung aboard I sung out:



“Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, we’re shut

of them!”



Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he was so

full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot up

in my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he was old

King Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and it most scared the

livers and lights out of me. But Jim fished me out, and was going to

hug me and bless me, and so on, he was so glad I was back and we was

shut of the king and the duke, but I says:



“Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose and

let her slide!”



So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it _did_

seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river,

and nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and

crack my heels a few times—I couldn’t help it; but about the third

crack I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well, and held my breath

and listened and waited; and sure enough, when the next flash busted

out over the water, here they come!—and just a-laying to their oars and

making their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke.



So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and it was

all I could do to keep from crying.









CHAPTER XXX.





When they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar,

and says:



“Tryin’ to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company,

hey?”



I says:



“No, your majesty, we warn’t—_please_ don’t, your majesty!”



“Quick, then, and tell us what _was_ your idea, or I’ll shake the

insides out o’ you!”



“Honest, I’ll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty.

The man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he

had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to

see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when they was all took by

surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets

go of me and whispers, ‘Heel it now, or they’ll hang ye, sure!’ and I

lit out. It didn’t seem no good for _me_ to stay—_I_ couldn’t do

nothing, and I didn’t want to be hung if I could get away. So I never

stopped running till I found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim

to hurry, or they’d catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you

and the duke wasn’t alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim,

and was awful glad when we see you coming; you may ask Jim if I

didn’t.”



Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said, “Oh,

yes, it’s _mighty_ likely!” and shook me up again, and said he reckoned

he’d drownd me. But the duke says:



“Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would _you_ a done any different? Did

you inquire around for _him_ when you got loose? _I_ don’t remember

it.”



So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in

it. But the duke says:



“You better a blame sight give _yourself_ a good cussing, for you’re

the one that’s entitled to it most. You hain’t done a thing from the

start that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky

with that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That _was_ bright—it was right

down bully; and it was the thing that saved us. For if it hadn’t been

for that, they’d a jailed us till them Englishmen’s baggage come—and

then—the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took ’em to the

graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the

excited fools hadn’t let go all holts and made that rush to get a look,

we’d a slept in our cravats to-night—cravats warranted to _wear_,

too—longer than _we’d_ need ’em.”



They was still a minute—thinking; then the king says, kind of

absent-minded like:



“Mf! And we reckoned the _niggers_ stole it!”



That made me squirm!



“Yes,” says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, “_We_

did.”



After about a half a minute the king drawls out:



“Leastways, _I_ did.”



The duke says, the same way:



“On the contrary, _I_ did.”



The king kind of ruffles up, and says:



“Looky here, Bilgewater, what’r you referrin’ to?”



The duke says, pretty brisk:



“When it comes to that, maybe you’ll let me ask, what was _you_

referring to?”



“Shucks!” says the king, very sarcastic; “but _I_ don’t know—maybe you

was asleep, and didn’t know what you was about.”



The duke bristles up now, and says:



“Oh, let _up_ on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame’

fool? Don’t you reckon _I_ know who hid that money in that coffin?”



“_Yes_, sir! I know you _do_ know, because you done it yourself!”



“It’s a lie!”—and the duke went for him. The king sings out:



“Take y’r hands off!—leggo my throat!—I take it all back!”



The duke says:



“Well, you just own up, first, that you _did_ hide that money there,

intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig

it up, and have it all to yourself.”



“Wait jest a minute, duke—answer me this one question, honest and fair;

if you didn’t put the money there, say it, and I’ll b’lieve you, and

take back everything I said.”



“You old scoundrel, I didn’t, and you know I didn’t. There, now!”



“Well, then, I b’lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more—now

_don’t_ git mad; didn’t you have it in your mind to hook the money and

hide it?”



The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:



“Well, I don’t care if I _did_, I didn’t _do_ it, anyway. But you not

only had it in mind to do it, but you _done_ it.”



“I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that’s honest. I won’t say

I warn’t _goin_’ to do it, because I _was;_ but you—I mean somebody—got

in ahead o’ me.”



“It’s a lie! You done it, and you got to _say_ you done it, or—”



The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:



“’Nough!—_I own up!_”



I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier

than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and

says:



“If you ever deny it again I’ll drown you. It’s _well_ for you to set

there and blubber like a baby—it’s fitten for you, after the way you’ve

acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble

everything—and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own

father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it

saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for ’em.

It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to _believe_

that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up

the deffisit—you wanted to get what money I’d got out of the Nonesuch

and one thing or another, and scoop it _all!_”



The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:



“Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn’t me.”



“Dry up! I don’t want to hear no more _out_ of you!” says the duke.

“And _now_ you see what you _got_ by it. They’ve got all their own

money back, and all of _ourn_ but a shekel or two _besides_. G’long to

bed, and don’t you deffersit _me_ no more deffersits, long ’s _you_

live!”



So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort,

and before long the duke tackled _his_ bottle; and so in about a half

an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got,

the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other’s arms.

They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn’t get mellow

enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag

again. That made me feel easy and satisfied. Of course when they got to

snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything.









CHAPTER XXXI.





We dasn’t stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along

down the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty

long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on

them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the

first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and

dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they

begun to work the villages again.



First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn’t make enough

for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a

dancing-school; but they didn’t know no more how to dance than a

kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped

in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at

yellocution; but they didn’t yellocute long till the audience got up

and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. They

tackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling

fortunes, and a little of everything; but they couldn’t seem to have no

luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the

raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying

nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.



And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in

the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time.

Jim and me got uneasy. We didn’t like the look of it. We judged they

was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it

over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break

into somebody’s house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-money

business, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an

agreement that we wouldn’t have nothing in the world to do with such

actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold

shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we

hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of

a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told

us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if

anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. (“House to

rob, you _mean_,” says I to myself; “and when you get through robbing

it you’ll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and

the raft—and you’ll have to take it out in wondering.”) And he said if

he warn’t back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right,

and we was to come along.



So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and

was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn’t

seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing.

Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and

no king; we could have a change, anyway—and maybe a chance for _the_

change on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the village, and

hunted around there for the king, and by-and-by we found him in the

back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers

bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all

his might, and so tight he couldn’t walk, and couldn’t do nothing to

them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king

begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and

shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like

a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a

long day before they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all

out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:



“Set her loose, Jim! we’re all right now!”



But there warn’t no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was

gone! I set up a shout—and then another—and then another one; and run

this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn’t

no use—old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn’t help it.

But I couldn’t set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road,

trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and

asked him if he’d seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:



“Yes.”



“Whereabouts?” says I.



“Down to Silas Phelps’ place, two mile below here. He’s a runaway

nigger, and they’ve got him. Was you looking for him?”



“You bet I ain’t! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two

ago, and he said if I hollered he’d cut my livers out—and told me to

lay down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since;

afeard to come out.”



“Well,” he says, “you needn’t be afeard no more, becuz they’ve got him.

He run off f’m down South, som’ers.”



“It’s a good job they got him.”



“Well, I _reckon!_ There’s two hunderd dollars reward on him. It’s like

picking up money out’n the road.”



“Yes, it is—and _I_ could a had it if I’d been big enough; I see him

_first_. Who nailed him?”



“It was an old fellow—a stranger—and he sold out his chance in him for

forty dollars, becuz he’s got to go up the river and can’t wait. Think

o’ that, now! You bet _I’d_ wait, if it was seven year.”



“That’s me, every time,” says I. “But maybe his chance ain’t worth no

more than that, if he’ll sell it so cheap. Maybe there’s something

ain’t straight about it.”



“But it _is_, though—straight as a string. I see the handbill myself.

It tells all about him, to a dot—paints him like a picture, and tells

the plantation he’s frum, below Newr_leans_. No-sirree-_bob_, they

ain’t no trouble ’bout _that_ speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a

chaw tobacker, won’t ye?”



I didn’t have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the

wigwam to think. But I couldn’t come to nothing. I thought till I wore

my head sore, but I couldn’t see no way out of the trouble. After all

this long journey, and after all we’d done for them scoundrels, here it

was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because

they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make

him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty

dirty dollars.



Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be

a slave at home where his family was, as long as he’d _got_ to be a

slave, and so I’d better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to

tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two

things: she’d be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness

for leaving her, and so she’d sell him straight down the river again;

and if she didn’t, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger,

and they’d make Jim feel it all the time, and so he’d feel ornery and

disgraced. And then think of _me!_ It would get all around that Huck

Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see

anybody from that town again I’d be ready to get down and lick his

boots for shame. That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing,

and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as

he can hide it, it ain’t no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more

I studied about this, the more my conscience went to grinding me, and

the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last,

when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of

Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness

was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was

stealing a poor old woman’s nigger that hadn’t ever done me no harm,

and now was showing me there’s One that’s always on the lookout, and

ain’t a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur

and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I

tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by

saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn’t so much to blame; but

something inside of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you

could a gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d a learnt you there

that people that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to

everlasting fire.”



It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I

couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I

kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t

no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from _me_, neither. I knowed

very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right;

it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I

was letting _on_ to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on

to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth _say_ I would

do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that

nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it

was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie—I found that out.



So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to

do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter—and

_then_ see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as

light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I

got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down

and wrote:



Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below

Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the

reward if you send.



_Huck Finn._



I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever

felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it

straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking

how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost

and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our

trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day

and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we

a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I

couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only

the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ’stead

of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was

when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the

swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would

always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of

for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I

saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so

grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world,

and the _only_ one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and

see that paper.



It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was

a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things,

and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and

then says to myself:



“All right, then, I’ll _go_ to hell”—and tore it up.



It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let

them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the

whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again,

which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And

for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again;

and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because

as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.



Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some

considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that

suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down

the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with

my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept

the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my

breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one

thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore.

I landed below where I judged was Phelps’s place, and hid my bundle in

the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks

into her and sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her,

about a quarter of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the

bank.



Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on

it, “Phelps’s Sawmill,” and when I come to the farm-houses, two or

three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn’t

see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn’t mind,

because I didn’t want to see nobody just yet—I only wanted to get the

lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there

from the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved

along, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got

there was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal

Nonesuch—three-night performance—like that other time. _They_ had the

cheek, them frauds! I was right on him before I could shirk. He looked

astonished, and says:



“Hel-_lo!_ Where’d _you_ come from?” Then he says, kind of glad and

eager, “Where’s the raft?—got her in a good place?”



I says:



“Why, that’s just what I was going to ask your grace.”



Then he didn’t look so joyful, and says:



“What was your idea for asking _me?_” he says.



“Well,” I says, “when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says

to myself, we can’t get him home for hours, till he’s soberer; so I

went a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and

offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back

to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to

the boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to

shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and

we after him. We didn’t have no dog, and so we had to chase him all

over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark;

then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got

there and see it was gone, I says to myself, ‘they’ve got into trouble

and had to leave; and they’ve took my nigger, which is the only nigger

I’ve got in the world, and now I’m in a strange country, and ain’t got

no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;’ so I

set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what _did_

become of the raft, then?—and Jim—poor Jim!”



“Blamed if _I_ know—that is, what’s become of the raft. That old fool

had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the

doggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every

cent but what he’d spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last

night and found the raft gone, we said, ‘That little rascal has stole

our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.’”



“I wouldn’t shake my _nigger_, would I?—the only nigger I had in the

world, and the only property.”



“We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we’d come to consider him

_our_ nigger; yes, we did consider him so—goodness knows we had trouble

enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke,

there warn’t anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another

shake. And I’ve pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where’s

that ten cents? Give it here.”



I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to

spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the

money I had, and I hadn’t had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never

said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:



“Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We’d skin him if he done

that!”



“How can he blow? Hain’t he run off?”



“No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money’s

gone.”



“_Sold_ him?” I says, and begun to cry; “why, he was _my_ nigger, and

that was my money. Where is he?—I want my nigger.”



“Well, you can’t _get_ your nigger, that’s all—so dry up your

blubbering. Looky here—do you think _you’d_ venture to blow on us?

Blamed if I think I’d trust you. Why, if you _was_ to blow on us—”



He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes

before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:



“I don’t want to blow on nobody; and I ain’t got no time to blow,

nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger.”



He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on

his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:



“I’ll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you’ll

promise you won’t blow, and won’t let the nigger blow, I’ll tell you

where to find him.”



So I promised, and he says:



“A farmer by the name of Silas Ph—” and then he stopped. You see, he

started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun

to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so

he was. He wouldn’t trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out

of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:



“The man that bought him is named Abram Foster—Abram G. Foster—and he

lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette.”



“All right,” I says, “I can walk it in three days. And I’ll start this

very afternoon.”



“No you wont, you’ll start _now;_ and don’t you lose any time about it,

neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in

your head and move right along, and then you won’t get into trouble

with _us_, d’ye hear?”



That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I

wanted to be left free to work my plans.



“So clear out,” he says; “and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want

to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim _is_ your nigger—some

idiots don’t require documents—leastways I’ve heard there’s such down

South here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward’s bogus,

maybe he’ll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for

getting ’em out. Go ’long now, and tell him anything you want to; but

mind you don’t work your jaw any _between_ here and there.”



So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn’t look around, but I

kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out

at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I

stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps’. I

reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling

around, because I wanted to stop Jim’s mouth till these fellows could

get away. I didn’t want no trouble with their kind. I’d seen all I

wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.









CHAPTER XXXII.





When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and

sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of

faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so

lonesome and like everybody’s dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along

and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel

like it’s spirits whispering—spirits that’s been dead ever so many

years—and you always think they’re talking about _you_. As a general

thing it makes a body wish _he_ was dead, too, and done with it all.



Phelps’ was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they

all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of

logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different

length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on

when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in

the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with

the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks—hewed

logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these

mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen,

with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log

smoke-house back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a

row t’other side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away

down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the

other side; ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little

hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound

asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three

shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry

bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a

watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields

the woods.



I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and

started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum

of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and

then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead—for that _is_ the

lonesomest sound in the whole world.



I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just

trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time

come; for I’d noticed that Providence always did put the right words in

my mouth if I left it alone.



When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went

for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And

such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind

of a hub of a wheel, as you may say—spokes made out of dogs—circle of

fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses

stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you

could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.



A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in

her hand, singing out, “Begone _you_ Tige! you Spot! begone sah!” and

she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them

howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them

come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me.

There ain’t no harm in a hound, nohow.



And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger

boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to

their mother’s gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the

way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the

house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her

spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white

children, acting the same way the little niggers was doing. She was

smiling all over so she could hardly stand—and says:



“It’s _you_, at last!—_ain’t_ it?”



I out with a “Yes’m” before I thought.



She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands

and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over;

and she couldn’t seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, “You

don’t look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law

sakes, I don’t care for that, I’m _so_ glad to see you! Dear, dear, it

does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it’s your cousin Tom!—tell

him howdy.”



But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and

hid behind her. So she run on:



“Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away—or did you get

your breakfast on the boat?”



I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house,

leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got

there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down

on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and

says:



“Now I can have a _good_ look at you; and, laws-a-me, I’ve been hungry

for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it’s come at

last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep’

you?—boat get aground?”



“Yes’m—she—”



“Don’t say yes’m—say Aunt Sally. Where’d she get aground?”



I didn’t rightly know what to say, because I didn’t know whether the

boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on

instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up—from down towards

Orleans. That didn’t help me much, though; for I didn’t know the names

of bars down that way. I see I’d got to invent a bar, or forget the

name of the one we got aground on—or—Now I struck an idea, and fetched

it out:



“It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We

blowed out a cylinder-head.”



“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”



“No’m. Killed a nigger.”



“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago

last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old

_Lally Rook_, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man.

And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas

knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I

remember now, he _did_ die. Mortification set in, and they had to

amputate him. But it didn’t save him. Yes, it was mortification—that

was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious

resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle’s been up

to the town every day to fetch you. And he’s gone again, not more’n an

hour ago; he’ll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road,

didn’t you?—oldish man, with a—”



“No, I didn’t see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight,

and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the

town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get

here too soon; and so I come down the back way.”



“Who’d you give the baggage to?”



“Nobody.”



“Why, child, it’ll be stole!”



“Not where _I_ hid it I reckon it won’t,” I says.



“How’d you get your breakfast so early on the boat?”



It was kinder thin ice, but I says:



“The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have

something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to

the officers’ lunch, and give me all I wanted.”



I was getting so uneasy I couldn’t listen good. I had my mind on the

children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump

them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn’t get no show, Mrs.

Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills

streak all down my back, because she says:



“But here we’re a-running on this way, and you hain’t told me a word

about Sis, nor any of them. Now I’ll rest my works a little, and you

start up yourn; just tell me _everything_—tell me all about ’m all

every one of ’m; and how they are, and what they’re doing, and what

they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of.”



Well, I see I was up a stump—and up it good. Providence had stood by me

this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it

warn’t a bit of use to try to go ahead—I’d _got_ to throw up my hand.

So I says to myself, here’s another place where I got to resk the

truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in

behind the bed, and says:



“Here he comes! Stick your head down lower—there, that’ll do; you can’t

be seen now. Don’t you let on you’re here. I’ll play a joke on him.

Children, don’t you say a word.”



I see I was in a fix now. But it warn’t no use to worry; there warn’t

nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from

under when the lightning struck.



I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in;

then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:



“Has he come?”



“No,” says her husband.



“Good-_ness_ gracious!” she says, “what in the warld can have become of

him?”



“I can’t imagine,” says the old gentleman; “and I must say it makes me

dreadful uneasy.”



“Uneasy!” she says; “I’m ready to go distracted! He _must_ a come; and

you’ve missed him along the road. I _know_ it’s so—something tells me

so.”



“Why, Sally, I _couldn’t_ miss him along the road—_you_ know that.”



“But oh, dear, dear, what _will_ Sis say! He must a come! You must a

missed him. He—”



“Oh, don’t distress me any more’n I’m already distressed. I don’t know

what in the world to make of it. I’m at my wit’s end, and I don’t mind

acknowledging ’t I’m right down scared. But there’s no hope that he’s

come; for he _couldn’t_ come and me miss him. Sally, it’s terrible—just

terrible—something’s happened to the boat, sure!”



“Why, Silas! Look yonder!—up the road!—ain’t that somebody coming?”



He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs.

Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the

bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from

the window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire,

and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman

stared, and says:



“Why, who’s that?”



“Who do you reckon ’t is?”



“I hain’t no idea. Who _is_ it?”



“It’s _Tom Sawyer!_”



By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn’t no time to

swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on

shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and

cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary,

and the rest of the tribe.



But if they was joyful, it warn’t nothing to what I was; for it was

like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they

froze to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it

couldn’t hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family—I

mean the Sawyer family—than ever happened to any six Sawyer families.

And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the

mouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was

all right, and worked first-rate; because _they_ didn’t know but what

it would take three days to fix it. If I’d a called it a bolthead it

would a done just as well.



Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty

uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and

comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by-and-by I hear a

steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, s’pose

Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s’pose he steps in here any

minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep

quiet? Well, I couldn’t _have_ it that way; it wouldn’t do at all. I

must go up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I

would go up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman

was for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse

myself, and I druther he wouldn’t take no trouble about me.









CHAPTER XXXIII.





So I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a

wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and

waited till he come along. I says “Hold on!” and it stopped alongside,

and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed

two or three times like a person that’s got a dry throat, and then

says:



“I hain’t ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you want

to come back and ha’nt _me_ for?”



I says:



“I hain’t come back—I hain’t been _gone_.”



When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn’t quite

satisfied yet. He says:



“Don’t you play nothing on me, because I wouldn’t on you. Honest injun

now, you ain’t a ghost?”



“Honest injun, I ain’t,” I says.



“Well—I—I—well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can’t somehow

seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn’t you ever murdered _at

all?_”



“No. I warn’t ever murdered at all—I played it on them. You come in

here and feel of me if you don’t believe me.”



So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me

again he didn’t know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it

right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it

hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by-and-by; and

told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told

him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He

said, let him alone a minute, and don’t disturb him. So he thought and

thought, and pretty soon he says:



“It’s all right; I’ve got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on

it’s your’n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the

house about the time you ought to; and I’ll go towards town a piece,

and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after

you; and you needn’t let on to know me at first.”



I says:



“All right; but wait a minute. There’s one more thing—a thing that

_nobody_ don’t know but me. And that is, there’s a nigger here that I’m

a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is _Jim_—old Miss

Watson’s Jim.”



He says:



“What! Why, Jim is—”



He stopped and went to studying. I says:



“_I_ know what you’ll say. You’ll say it’s dirty, low-down business;

but what if it is? _I_’m low down; and I’m a-going to steal him, and I

want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?”



His eye lit up, and he says:



“I’ll _help_ you steal him!”



Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most

astonishing speech I ever heard—and I’m bound to say Tom Sawyer fell

considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn’t believe it. Tom Sawyer a

_nigger stealer!_



“Oh, shucks!” I says; “you’re joking.”



“I ain’t joking, either.”



“Well, then,” I says, “joking or no joking, if you hear anything said

about a runaway nigger, don’t forget to remember that _you_ don’t know

nothing about him, and _I_ don’t know nothing about him.”



Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way

and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on

accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too

quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and

he says:



“Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in that mare to

do it? I wish we’d a timed her. And she hain’t sweated a hair—not a

hair. It’s wonderful. Why, I wouldn’t take a hundred dollars for that

horse now—I wouldn’t, honest; and yet I’d a sold her for fifteen

before, and thought ’twas all she was worth.”



That’s all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see.

But it warn’t surprising; because he warn’t only just a farmer, he was

a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the

plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church

and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it

was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that,

and done the same way, down South.



In about half an hour Tom’s wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt

Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty

yards, and says:



“Why, there’s somebody come! I wonder who ’tis? Why, I do believe it’s

a stranger. Jimmy” (that’s one of the children) “run and tell Lize to

put on another plate for dinner.”



Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a

stranger don’t come _every_ year, and so he lays over the yaller-fever,

for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting

for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and

we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and

an audience—and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them

circumstances it warn’t no trouble to him to throw in an amount of

style that was suitable. He warn’t a boy to meeky along up that yard

like a sheep; no, he come ca’m and important, like the ram. When he got

a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was

the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn’t want

to disturb them, and says:



“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”



“No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I’m sorry to say ’t your driver

has deceived you; Nichols’s place is down a matter of three mile more.

Come in, come in.”



Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late—he’s out

of sight.”



“Yes, he’s gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with

us; and then we’ll hitch up and take you down to Nichols’s.”



“Oh, I _can’t_ make you so much trouble; I couldn’t think of it. I’ll

walk—I don’t mind the distance.”



“But we won’t _let_ you walk—it wouldn’t be Southern hospitality to do

it. Come right in.”



“Oh, _do_,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain’t a bit of trouble to us, not a

bit in the world. You _must_ stay. It’s a long, dusty three mile, and

we _can’t_ let you walk. And, besides, I’ve already told ’em to put on

another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn’t disappoint us. Come

right in and make yourself at home.”



So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be

persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger

from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson—and he made

another bow.



Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and

everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and

wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last,

still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the

mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was

going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of

her hand, and says:



“You owdacious puppy!”



He looked kind of hurt, and says:



“I’m surprised at you, m’am.”



“You’re s’rp—Why, what do you reckon I am? I’ve a good notion to take

and—Say, what do you mean by kissing me?”



He looked kind of humble, and says:



“I didn’t mean nothing, m’am. I didn’t mean no harm. I—I—thought you’d

like it.”



“Why, you born fool!” She took up the spinning stick, and it looked

like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it.

“What made you think I’d like it?”



“Well, I don’t know. Only, they—they—told me you would.”



“_They_ told you I would. Whoever told you’s _another_ lunatic. I never

heard the beat of it. Who’s _they?_”



“Why, everybody. They all said so, m’am.”



It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her

fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:



“Who’s ‘everybody’? Out with their names, or ther’ll be an idiot

short.”



He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:



“I’m sorry, and I warn’t expecting it. They told me to. They all told

me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she’d like it. They all said

it—every one of them. But I’m sorry, m’am, and I won’t do it no more—I

won’t, honest.”



“You won’t, won’t you? Well, I sh’d _reckon_ you won’t!”



“No’m, I’m honest about it; I won’t ever do it again—till you ask me.”



“Till I _ask_ you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I

lay you’ll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask

you—or the likes of you.”



“Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so. I can’t make it out, somehow.

They said you would, and I thought you would. But—” He stopped and

looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye

somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman’s, and says, “Didn’t

_you_ think she’d like me to kiss her, sir?”



“Why, no; I—I—well, no, I b’lieve I didn’t.”



Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:



“Tom, didn’t _you_ think Aunt Sally ’d open out her arms and say, ‘Sid

Sawyer—’”



“My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you impudent

young rascal, to fool a body so—” and was going to hug him, but he

fended her off, and says:



“No, not till you’ve asked me first.”



So she didn’t lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed

him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and

he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she

says:



“Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn’t looking for _you_

at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but

him.”



“It’s because it warn’t _intended_ for any of us to come but Tom,” he

says; “but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come,

too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a

first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me

to by-and-by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it

was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain’t no healthy place for a stranger

to come.”



“No—not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I

hain’t been so put out since I don’t know when. But I don’t care, I

don’t mind the terms—I’d be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to

have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don’t deny it, I

was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack.”



We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the

kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven

families—and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that’s laid

in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old

cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long

blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn’t cool it a bit,

neither, the way I’ve seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times.

There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me

and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn’t no use, they

didn’t happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was

afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the

little boys says:



“Pa, mayn’t Tom and Sid and me go to the show?”



“No,” says the old man, “I reckon there ain’t going to be any; and you

couldn’t go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and me

all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the

people; so I reckon they’ve drove the owdacious loafers out of town

before this time.”



So there it was!—but _I_ couldn’t help it. Tom and me was to sleep in

the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night and went up

to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the

lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn’t believe anybody

was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn’t

hurry up and give them one they’d get into trouble sure.



On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was

murdered, and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn’t come back no

more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all

about our Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much of the raft voyage

as I had time to; and as we struck into the town and up through the

middle of it—it was as much as half-after eight, then—here comes a

raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling,

and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to

let them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king and the

duke astraddle of a rail—that is, I knowed it _was_ the king and the

duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn’t look like

nothing in the world that was human—just looked like a couple of

monstrous big soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I

was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever

feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful

thing to see. Human beings _can_ be awful cruel to one another.



We see we was too late—couldn’t do no good. We asked some stragglers

about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very

innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the

middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody give a signal, and

the house rose up and went for them.



So we poked along back home, and I warn’t feeling so brash as I was

before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow—though

_I_ hadn’t done nothing. But that’s always the way; it don’t make no

difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t

got no sense, and just goes for him _anyway_. If I had a yaller dog

that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison

him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and

yet ain’t no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.









CHAPTER XXXIV.





We stopped talking, and got to thinking. By-and-by Tom says:



“Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before! I bet I

know where Jim is.”



“No! Where?”



“In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we was at

dinner, didn’t you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles?”



“Yes.”



“What did you think the vittles was for?”



“For a dog.”



“So’d I. Well, it wasn’t for a dog.”



“Why?”



“Because part of it was watermelon.”



“So it was—I noticed it. Well, it does beat all that I never thought

about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see and

don’t see at the same time.”



“Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked

it again when he came out. He fetched uncle a key about the time we got

up from table—same key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock shows

prisoner; and it ain’t likely there’s two prisoners on such a little

plantation, and where the people’s all so kind and good. Jim’s the

prisoner. All right—I’m glad we found it out detective fashion; I

wouldn’t give shucks for any other way. Now you work your mind, and

study out a plan to steal Jim, and I will study out one, too; and we’ll

take the one we like the best.”



What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer’s head I

wouldn’t trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown

in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan,

but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right

plan was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says:



“Ready?”



“Yes,” I says.



“All right—bring it out.”



“My plan is this,” I says. “We can easy find out if it’s Jim in there.

Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the

island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the

old man’s britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river

on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me

and Jim used to do before. Wouldn’t that plan work?”



“_Work?_ Why, cert’nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it’s

too blame’ simple; there ain’t nothing _to_ it. What’s the good of a

plan that ain’t no more trouble than that? It’s as mild as goose-milk.

Why, Huck, it wouldn’t make no more talk than breaking into a soap

factory.”



I never said nothing, because I warn’t expecting nothing different; but

I knowed mighty well that whenever he got _his_ plan ready it wouldn’t

have none of them objections to it.



And it didn’t. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was

worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man

as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied,

and said we would waltz in on it. I needn’t tell what it was here,

because I knowed it wouldn’t stay the way, it was. I knowed he would be

changing it around every which way as we went along, and heaving in new

bullinesses wherever he got a chance. And that is what he done.



Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in

earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of slavery.

That was the thing that was too many for me. Here was a boy that was

respectable and well brung up; and had a character to lose; and folks

at home that had characters; and he was bright and not leather-headed;

and knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but kind; and yet here he

was, without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to

this business, and make himself a shame, and his family a shame, before

everybody. I _couldn’t_ understand it no way at all. It was outrageous,

and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so; and so be his true

friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save himself.

And I _did_ start to tell him; but he shut me up, and says:



“Don’t you reckon I know what I’m about? Don’t I generly know what I’m

about?”



“Yes.”



“Didn’t I _say_ I was going to help steal the nigger?”



“Yes.”



“_Well_, then.”



That’s all he said, and that’s all I said. It warn’t no use to say any

more; because when he said he’d do a thing, he always done it. But _I_

couldn’t make out how he was willing to go into this thing; so I just

let it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound to have

it so, _I_ couldn’t help it.



When we got home the house was all dark and still; so we went on down

to the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it. We went through the

yard so as to see what the hounds would do. They knowed us, and didn’t

make no more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything

comes by in the night. When we got to the cabin we took a look at the

front and the two sides; and on the side I warn’t acquainted with—which

was the north side—we found a square window-hole, up tolerable high,

with just one stout board nailed across it. I says:



“Here’s the ticket. This hole’s big enough for Jim to get through if we

wrench off the board.”



Tom says:



“It’s as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as playing

hooky. I should _hope_ we can find a way that’s a little more

complicated than _that_, Huck Finn.”



“Well, then,” I says, “how’ll it do to saw him out, the way I done

before I was murdered that time?”



“That’s more _like_,” he says. “It’s real mysterious, and troublesome,

and good,” he says; “but I bet we can find a way that’s twice as long.

There ain’t no hurry; le’s keep on looking around.”



Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a lean-to that

joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was as long

as the hut, but narrow—only about six foot wide. The door to it was at

the south end, and was padlocked. Tom he went to the soap-kettle and

searched around, and fetched back the iron thing they lift the lid

with; so he took it and prized out one of the staples. The chain fell

down, and we opened the door and went in, and shut it, and struck a

match, and see the shed was only built against a cabin and hadn’t no

connection with it; and there warn’t no floor to the shed, nor nothing

in it but some old rusty played-out hoes and spades and picks and a

crippled plow. The match went out, and so did we, and shoved in the

staple again, and the door was locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful.

He says;



“Now we’re all right. We’ll _dig_ him out. It’ll take about a week!”



Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door—you only

have to pull a buckskin latch-string, they don’t fasten the doors—but

that warn’t romantical enough for Tom Sawyer; no way would do him but

he must climb up the lightning-rod. But after he got up half way about

three times, and missed fire and fell every time, and the last time

most busted his brains out, he thought he’d got to give it up; but

after he was rested he allowed he would give her one more turn for

luck, and this time he made the trip.



In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger cabins

to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jim—if it

_was_ Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting through

breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim’s nigger was piling up a

tin pan with bread and meat and things; and whilst the others was

leaving, the key come from the house.



This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his wool was

all tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep witches

off. He said the witches was pestering him awful these nights, and

making him see all kinds of strange things, and hear all kinds of

strange words and noises, and he didn’t believe he was ever witched so

long before in his life. He got so worked up, and got to running on so

about his troubles, he forgot all about what he’d been a-going to do.

So Tom says:



“What’s the vittles for? Going to feed the dogs?”



The nigger kind of smiled around gradually over his face, like when you

heave a brickbat in a mud-puddle, and he says:



“Yes, Mars Sid, _a_ dog. Cur’us dog, too. Does you want to go en look

at ’im?”



“Yes.”



I hunched Tom, and whispers:



“You going, right here in the daybreak? _That_ warn’t the plan.”



“No, it warn’t; but it’s the plan _now_.”



So, drat him, we went along, but I didn’t like it much. When we got in

we couldn’t hardly see anything, it was so dark; but Jim was there,

sure enough, and could see us; and he sings out:



“Why, _Huck!_ En good _lan_’! ain’ dat Misto Tom?”



I just knowed how it would be; I just expected it. _I_ didn’t know

nothing to do; and if I had I couldn’t a done it, because that nigger

busted in and says:



“Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen?”



We could see pretty well now. Tom he looked at the nigger, steady and

kind of wondering, and says:



“Does _who_ know us?”



“Why, dis-yer runaway nigger.”



“I don’t reckon he does; but what put that into your head?”



“What _put_ it dar? Didn’ he jis’ dis minute sing out like he knowed

you?”



Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way:



“Well, that’s mighty curious. _Who_ sung out? _When_ did he sing out?

_what_ did he sing out?” And turns to me, perfectly ca’m, and says,

“Did _you_ hear anybody sing out?”



Of course there warn’t nothing to be said but the one thing; so I says:



“No; _I_ ain’t heard nobody say nothing.”



Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him before,

and says:



“Did you sing out?”



“No, sah,” says Jim; “_I_ hain’t said nothing, sah.”



“Not a word?”



“No, sah, I hain’t said a word.”



“Did you ever see us before?”



“No, sah; not as _I_ knows on.”



So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and

says, kind of severe:



“What do you reckon’s the matter with you, anyway? What made you think

somebody sung out?”



“Oh, it’s de dad-blame’ witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do.

Dey’s awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos’ kill me, dey sk’yers me so.

Please to don’t tell nobody ’bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he’ll scole

me; ’kase he say dey _ain’t_ no witches. I jis’ wish to goodness he was

heah now—_den_ what would he say! I jis’ bet he couldn’ fine no way to

git aroun’ it _dis_ time. But it’s awluz jis’ so; people dat’s _sot_,

stays sot; dey won’t look into noth’n’en fine it out f’r deyselves, en

when _you_ fine it out en tell um ’bout it, dey doan’ b’lieve you.”



Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn’t tell nobody; and told him to

buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then looks at Jim,

and says:



“I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to

catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, _I_ wouldn’t

give him up, I’d hang him.” And whilst the nigger stepped to the door

to look at the dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to

Jim and says:



“Don’t ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging going on

nights, it’s us; we’re going to set you free.”



Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it; then the

nigger come back, and we said we’d come again some time if the nigger

wanted us to; and he said he would, more particular if it was dark,

because the witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it was good to

have folks around then.









CHAPTER XXXV.





It would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down

into the woods; because Tom said we got to have _some_ light to see how

to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble;

what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that’s called

fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a

dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down

to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied:



“Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be.

And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan.

There ain’t no watchman to be drugged—now there _ought_ to be a

watchman. There ain’t even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. And

there’s Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of

his bed: why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off

the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the

punkin-headed nigger, and don’t send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim

could a got out of that window-hole before this, only there wouldn’t be

no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on his leg. Why, drat it,

Huck, it’s the stupidest arrangement I ever see. You got to invent

_all_ the difficulties. Well, we can’t help it; we got to do the best

we can with the materials we’ve got. Anyhow, there’s one thing—there’s

more honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties and

dangers, where there warn’t one of them furnished to you by the people

who it was their duty to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all

out of your own head. Now look at just that one thing of the lantern.

When you come down to the cold facts, we simply got to _let on_ that a

lantern’s resky. Why, we could work with a torchlight procession if we

wanted to, _I_ believe. Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt up

something to make a saw out of the first chance we get.”



“What do we want of a saw?”



“What do we _want_ of it? Hain’t we got to saw the leg of Jim’s bed

off, so as to get the chain loose?”



“Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the

chain off.”



“Well, if that ain’t just like you, Huck Finn. You _can_ get up the

infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain’t you ever read

any books at all?—Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny,

nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of getting a

prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; the way all the

best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just

so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can’t be found, and put some dirt

and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can’t

see no sign of it’s being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly

sound. Then, the night you’re ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she

goes; slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch

your rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in

the moat—because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know—and

there’s your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and

fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or

Navarre, or wherever it is. It’s gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat

to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, we’ll dig one.”



I says:



“What do we want of a moat when we’re going to snake him out from under

the cabin?”



But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had his

chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head;

then sighs again, and says:



“No, it wouldn’t do—there ain’t necessity enough for it.”



“For what?” I says.



“Why, to saw Jim’s leg off,” he says.



“Good land!” I says; “why, there ain’t _no_ necessity for it. And what

would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?”



“Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn’t get the

chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would

be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain’t necessity

enough in this case; and, besides, Jim’s a nigger, and wouldn’t

understand the reasons for it, and how it’s the custom in Europe; so

we’ll let it go. But there’s one thing—he can have a rope ladder; we

can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we

can send it to him in a pie; it’s mostly done that way. And I’ve et

worse pies.”



“Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk,” I says; “Jim ain’t got no use for a

rope ladder.”



“He _has_ got use for it. How _you_ talk, you better say; you don’t

know nothing about it. He’s _got_ to have a rope ladder; they all do.”



“What in the nation can he _do_ with it?”



“_Do_ with it? He can hide it in his bed, can’t he? That’s what they all

do; and _he’s_ got to, too. Huck, you don’t ever seem to want to do

anything that’s regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the

time. S’pose he _don’t_ do nothing with it? ain’t it there in his bed,

for a clew, after he’s gone? and don’t you reckon they’ll want clews? Of

course they will. And you wouldn’t leave them any? That would be a

_pretty_ howdy-do, _wouldn’t_ it! I never heard of such a thing.”



“Well,” I says, “if it’s in the regulations, and he’s got to have it,

all right, let him have it; because I don’t wish to go back on no

regulations; but there’s one thing, Tom Sawyer—if we go to tearing up

our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we’re going to get into trouble

with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you’re born. Now, the way I look at

it, a hickry-bark ladder don’t cost nothing, and don’t waste nothing,

and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as

any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain’t had no

experience, and so _he_ don’t care what kind of a—”



“Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I’d keep

still—that’s what _I’d_ do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping

by a hickry-bark ladder? Why, it’s perfectly ridiculous.”



“Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you’ll take my

advice, you’ll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline.”



He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:



“Borrow a shirt, too.”



“What do we want of a shirt, Tom?”



“Want it for Jim to keep a journal on.”



“Journal your granny—_Jim_ can’t write.”



“S’pose he _can’t_ write—he can make marks on the shirt, can’t he, if

we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron

barrel-hoop?”



“Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better

one; and quicker, too.”



“_Prisoners_ don’t have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull

pens out of, you muggins. They _always_ make their pens out of the

hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or

something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes them

weeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because

they’ve got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. _They_ wouldn’t use a

goose-quill if they had it. It ain’t regular.”



“Well, then, what’ll we make him the ink out of?”



“Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that’s the common sort

and women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that;

and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message

to let the world know where he’s captivated, he can write it on the

bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The

Iron Mask always done that, and it’s a blame’ good way, too.”



“Jim ain’t got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan.”



“That ain’t nothing; we can get him some.”



“Can’t nobody _read_ his plates.”



“That ain’t got anything to _do_ with it, Huck Finn. All _he’s_ got to

do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don’t _have_ to be

able to read it. Why, half the time you can’t read anything a prisoner

writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else.”



“Well, then, what’s the sense in wasting the plates?”



“Why, blame it all, it ain’t the _prisoner’s_ plates.”



“But it’s _somebody’s_ plates, ain’t it?”



“Well, spos’n it is? What does the _prisoner_ care whose—”



He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we

cleared out for the house.



Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of

the clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we

went down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it

borrowing, because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it

warn’t borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing

prisoners; and prisoners don’t care how they get a thing so they get

it, and nobody don’t blame them for it, either. It ain’t no crime in a

prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it’s

his right; and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a

perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for

to get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we warn’t prisoners it

would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person

would steal when he warn’t a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal

everything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss,

one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch

and eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without

telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could

steal anything we _needed_. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But

he said I didn’t need it to get out of prison with; there’s where the

difference was. He said if I’d a wanted it to hide a knife in, and

smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would a been all right.

So I let it go at that, though I couldn’t see no advantage in my

representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of

gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see a chance to hog a

watermelon.



Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was

settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom

he carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep

watch. By-and-by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile

to talk. He says:



“Everything’s all right now except tools; and that’s easy fixed.”



“Tools?” I says.



“Yes.”



“Tools for what?”



“Why, to dig with. We ain’t a-going to _gnaw_ him out, are we?”



“Ain’t them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a

nigger out with?” I says.



He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:



“Huck Finn, did you _ever_ hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels,

and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out

with? Now I want to ask you—if you got any reasonableness in you at

all—what kind of a show would _that_ give him to be a hero? Why, they

might as well lend him the key and done with it. Picks and shovels—why,

they wouldn’t furnish ’em to a king.”



“Well, then,” I says, “if we don’t want the picks and shovels, what do

we want?”



“A couple of case-knives.”



“To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?”



“Yes.”



“Confound it, it’s foolish, Tom.”



“It don’t make no difference how foolish it is, it’s the _right_

way—and it’s the regular way. And there ain’t no _other_ way, that ever

_I_ heard of, and I’ve read all the books that gives any information

about these things. They always dig out with a case-knife—and not

through dirt, mind you; generly it’s through solid rock. And it takes

them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one

of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the

harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that way; how long was _he_

at it, you reckon?”



“I don’t know.”



“Well, guess.”



“I don’t know. A month and a half.”



“_Thirty-seven year_—and he come out in China. _That’s_ the kind. I

wish the bottom of _this_ fortress was solid rock.”



“_Jim_ don’t know nobody in China.”



“What’s _that_ got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But

you’re always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can’t you stick to

the main point?”



“All right—_I_ don’t care where he comes out, so he _comes_ out; and

Jim don’t, either, I reckon. But there’s one thing, anyway—Jim’s too

old to be dug out with a case-knife. He won’t last.”



“Yes he will _last_, too. You don’t reckon it’s going to take

thirty-seven years to dig out through a _dirt_ foundation, do you?”



“How long will it take, Tom?”



“Well, we can’t resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn’t

take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans.

He’ll hear Jim ain’t from there. Then his next move will be to

advertise Jim, or something like that. So we can’t resk being as long

digging him out as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a

couple of years; but we can’t. Things being so uncertain, what I

recommend is this: that we really dig right in, as quick as we can; and

after that, we can _let on_, to ourselves, that we was at it

thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush him away the

first time there’s an alarm. Yes, I reckon that’ll be the best way.”



“Now, there’s _sense_ in that,” I says. “Letting on don’t cost nothing;

letting on ain’t no trouble; and if it’s any object, I don’t mind

letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn’t strain me

none, after I got my hand in. So I’ll mosey along now, and smouch a

couple of case-knives.”



“Smouch three,” he says; “we want one to make a saw out of.”



“Tom, if it ain’t unregular and irreligious to sejest it,” I says,

“there’s an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the

weather-boarding behind the smoke-house.”



He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:



“It ain’t no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and

smouch the knives—three of them.” So I done it.









CHAPTER XXXVI.





As soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the

lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our

pile of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the

way, about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom

said he was right behind Jim’s bed now, and we’d dig in under it, and

when we got through there couldn’t nobody in the cabin ever know there

was any hole there, because Jim’s counter-pin hung down most to the

ground, and you’d have to raise it up and look under to see the hole.

So we dug and dug with the case-knives till most midnight; and then we

was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn’t see

we’d done anything hardly. At last I says:



“This ain’t no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year job,

Tom Sawyer.”



He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped

digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was

thinking. Then he says:



“It ain’t no use, Huck, it ain’t a-going to work. If we was prisoners

it would, because then we’d have as many years as we wanted, and no

hurry; and we wouldn’t get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while

they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn’t get blistered, and

we could keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right,

and the way it ought to be done. But _we_ can’t fool along; we got to

rush; we ain’t got no time to spare. If we was to put in another night

this way we’d have to knock off for a week to let our hands get

well—couldn’t touch a case-knife with them sooner.”



“Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?”



“I’ll tell you. It ain’t right, and it ain’t moral, and I wouldn’t like

it to get out; but there ain’t only just the one way: we got to dig him

out with the picks, and _let on_ it’s case-knives.”



“_Now_ you’re _talking!_” I says; “your head gets leveler and leveler

all the time, Tom Sawyer,” I says. “Picks is the thing, moral or no

moral; and as for me, I don’t care shucks for the morality of it,

nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a

Sunday-school book, I ain’t no ways particular how it’s done so it’s

done. What I want is my nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or

what I want is my Sunday-school book; and if a pick’s the handiest

thing, that’s the thing I’m a-going to dig that nigger or that

watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with; and I don’t give a dead

rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther.”



“Well,” he says, “there’s excuse for picks and letting-on in a case

like this; if it warn’t so, I wouldn’t approve of it, nor I wouldn’t

stand by and see the rules broke—because right is right, and wrong is

wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t

ignorant and knows better. It might answer for _you_ to dig Jim out

with a pick, _without_ any letting on, because you don’t know no

better; but it wouldn’t for me, because I do know better. Gimme a

case-knife.”



He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and

says:



“Gimme a _case-knife_.”



I didn’t know just what to do—but then I thought. I scratched around

amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he

took it and went to work, and never said a word.



He was always just that particular. Full of principle.



So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about,

and made the fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as

long as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for

it. When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing

his level best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn’t come it, his

hands was so sore. At last he says:



“It ain’t no use, it can’t be done. What you reckon I better do? Can’t

you think of no way?”



“Yes,” I says, “but I reckon it ain’t regular. Come up the stairs, and

let on it’s a lightning-rod.”



So he done it.



Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house,

for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I

hung around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three

tin plates. Tom says it wasn’t enough; but I said nobody wouldn’t ever

see the plates that Jim throwed out, because they’d fall in the

dog-fennel and jimpson weeds under the window-hole—then we could tote

them back and he could use them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then

he says:



“Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim.”



“Take them in through the hole,” I says, “when we get it done.”



He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever

heard of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By-and-by

he said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn’t no need

to decide on any of them yet. Said we’d got to post Jim first.



That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took

one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard

Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn’t wake him. Then we

whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half

the job was done. We crept in under Jim’s bed and into the cabin, and

pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim

awhile, and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him

up gentle and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried; and

called us honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was for

having us hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with

right away, and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he showed

him how unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our

plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an

alarm; and not to be the least afraid, because we would see he got

away, _sure_. So Jim he said it was all right, and we set there and

talked over old times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions,

and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with

him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty

to eat, and both of them was kind as they could be, Tom says:



“_Now_ I know how to fix it. We’ll send you some things by them.”



I said, “Don’t do nothing of the kind; it’s one of the most jackass

ideas I ever struck;” but he never paid no attention to me; went right

on. It was his way when he’d got his plans set.



So he told Jim how we’d have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and

other large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on

the lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them;

and we would put small things in uncle’s coat-pockets and he must steal

them out; and we would tie things to aunt’s apron-strings or put them

in her apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and told him what they would

be and what they was for. And told him how to keep a journal on the

shirt with his blood, and all that. He told him everything. Jim he

couldn’t see no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white

folks and knowed better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he

would do it all just as Tom said.



Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good

sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to

bed, with hands that looked like they’d been chawed. Tom was in high

spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the

most intellectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we

would keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our

children to get out; for he believed Jim would come to like it better

and better the more he got used to it. He said that in that way it

could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the best

time on record. And he said it would make us all celebrated that had a

hand in it.



In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass

candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in

his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat’s

notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a

corn-pone that was in Jim’s pan, and we went along with Nat to see how

it would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most

mashed all his teeth out; and there warn’t ever anything could a worked

better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it was only

just a piece of rock or something like that that’s always getting into

bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing but what he

jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first.



And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a

couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim’s bed; and they kept on

piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn’t hardly room

in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to

door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered “Witches” once, and keeled

over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was

dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim’s meat, and

the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back

again and shut the door, and I knowed he’d fixed the other door too.

Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and

asking him if he’d been imagining he saw something again. He raised up,

and blinked his eyes around, and says:



“Mars Sid, you’ll say I’s a fool, but if I didn’t b’lieve I see most a

million dogs, er devils, er some’n, I wisht I may die right heah in

dese tracks. I did, mos’ sholy. Mars Sid, I _felt_ um—I _felt_ um, sah;

dey was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jis’ wisht I could git my han’s on

one er dem witches jis’ wunst—on’y jis’ wunst—it’s all _I_’d ast. But

mos’ly I wisht dey’d lemme ’lone, I does.”



Tom says:



“Well, I tell you what _I_ think. What makes them come here just at

this runaway nigger’s breakfast-time? It’s because they’re hungry;

that’s the reason. You make them a witch pie; that’s the thing for

_you_ to do.”



“But my lan’, Mars Sid, how’s _I_ gwyne to make ’m a witch pie? I doan’

know how to make it. I hain’t ever hearn er sich a thing b’fo’.”



“Well, then, I’ll have to make it myself.”



“Will you do it, honey?—will you? I’ll wusshup de groun’ und’ yo’ foot,

I will!”



“All right, I’ll do it, seeing it’s you, and you’ve been good to us and

showed us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful. When we

come around, you turn your back; and then whatever we’ve put in the

pan, don’t you let on you see it at all. And don’t you look when Jim

unloads the pan—something might happen, I don’t know what. And above

all, don’t you _handle_ the witch-things.”



“_Hannel_ ’m, Mars Sid? What _is_ you a-talkin’ ’bout? I wouldn’ lay de

weight er my finger on um, not f’r ten hund’d thous’n billion dollars,

I wouldn’t.”









CHAPTER XXXVII.





That was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pile

in the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces

of bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched

around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well

as we could, to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it

full of flour and started for breakfast, and found a couple of

shingle-nails that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble

his name and sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them

in Aunt Sally’s apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and t’other

we stuck in the band of Uncle Silas’s hat, which was on the bureau,

because we heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the

runaway nigger’s house this morning, and then went to breakfast, and

Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle Silas’s coat-pocket, and Aunt

Sally wasn’t come yet, so we had to wait a little while.



And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn’t hardly

wait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with

one hand and cracking the handiest child’s head with her thimble with

the other, and says:



“I’ve hunted high and I’ve hunted low, and it does beat all what _has_

become of your other shirt.”



My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard

piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the

road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the

children in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a

cry out of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue

around the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things

for about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold

out for half price if there was a bidder. But after that we was all

right again—it was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of

cold. Uncle Silas he says:



“It’s most uncommon curious, I can’t understand it. I know perfectly

well I took it _off_, because—”



“Because you hain’t got but one _on_. Just _listen_ at the man! _I_

know you took it off, and know it by a better way than your

wool-gethering memory, too, because it was on the clo’s-line

yesterday—I see it there myself. But it’s gone, that’s the long and the

short of it, and you’ll just have to change to a red flann’l one till I

can get time to make a new one. And it’ll be the third I’ve made in

two years. It just keeps a body on the jump to keep you in shirts; and

whatever you do manage to _do_ with ’m all is more’n _I_ can make out.

A body ’d think you _would_ learn to take some sort of care of ’em at

your time of life.”



“I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn’t to be

altogether my fault, because, you know, I don’t see them nor have

nothing to do with them except when they’re on me; and I don’t believe

I’ve ever lost one of them _off_ of me.”



“Well, it ain’t _your_ fault if you haven’t, Silas; you’d a done it if

you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain’t all that’s gone, nuther.

Ther’s a spoon gone; and _that_ ain’t all. There was ten, and now

ther’s only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never

took the spoon, _that’s_ certain.”



“Why, what else is gone, Sally?”



“Ther’s six _candles_ gone—that’s what. The rats could a got the

candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don’t walk off with the

whole place, the way you’re always going to stop their holes and don’t

do it; and if they warn’t fools they’d sleep in your hair,

Silas—_you’d_ never find it out; but you can’t lay the _spoon_ on the

rats, and that I _know_.”



“Well, Sally, I’m in fault, and I acknowledge it; I’ve been remiss; but

I won’t let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes.”



“Oh, I wouldn’t hurry; next year’ll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta

_Phelps!_”



Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the

sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps

on to the passage, and says:



“Missus, dey’s a sheet gone.”



“A _sheet_ gone! Well, for the land’s sake!”



“I’ll stop up them holes _to-day_,” says Uncle Silas, looking

sorrowful.



“Oh, _do_ shet up!—s’pose the rats took the _sheet? Where’s_ it gone,

Lize?”



“Clah to goodness I hain’t no notion, Miss’ Sally. She wuz on de

clo’sline yistiddy, but she done gone: she ain’ dah no mo’ now.”



“I reckon the world _is_ coming to an end. I _never_ see the beat of it

in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can—”



“Missus,” comes a young yaller wench, “dey’s a brass cannelstick

miss’n.”



“Cler out from here, you hussy, er I’ll take a skillet to ye!”



Well, she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned I

would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She

kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and

everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking

kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She stopped,

with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was in

Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says:



“It’s _just_ as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time;

and like as not you’ve got the other things there, too. How’d it get

there?”



“I reely don’t know, Sally,” he says, kind of apologizing, “or you know

I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen before

breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put

my Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ain’t in; but

I’ll go and see; and if the Testament is where I had it, I’ll know I

didn’t put it in, and that will show that I laid the Testament down and

took up the spoon, and—”



“Oh, for the land’s sake! Give a body a rest! Go ’long now, the whole

kit and biling of ye; and don’t come nigh me again till I’ve got back

my peace of mind.”



_I’d_ a heard her if she’d a said it to herself, let alone speaking it

out; and I’d a got up and obeyed her if I’d a been dead. As we was

passing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and

the shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up

and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out.

Tom see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says:



“Well, it ain’t no use to send things by _him_ no more, he ain’t

reliable.” Then he says: “But he done us a good turn with the spoon,

anyway, without knowing it, and so we’ll go and do him one without

_him_ knowing it—stop up his rat-holes.”



There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole

hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape. Then we heard

steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes

the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in

t’other, looking as absent-minded as year before last. He went a

mooning around, first to one rat-hole and then another, till he’d been

to them all. Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off

of his candle and thinking. Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards

the stairs, saying:



“Well, for the life of me I can’t remember when I done it. I could show

her now that I warn’t to blame on account of the rats. But never

mind—let it go. I reckon it wouldn’t do no good.”



And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a

mighty nice old man. And always is.



Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said

we’d got to have it; so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out he

told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the

spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to

counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of

them up my sleeve, and Tom says:



“Why, Aunt Sally, there ain’t but nine spoons _yet_.”



She says:



“Go ’long to your play, and don’t bother me. I know better, I counted

’m myself.”



“Well, I’ve counted them twice, Aunty, and _I_ can’t make but nine.”



She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count—anybody

would.



“I declare to gracious ther’ _ain’t_ but nine!” she says. “Why, what in

the world—plague _take_ the things, I’ll count ’m again.”



So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she

says:



“Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther’s _ten_ now!” and she looked huffy

and bothered both. But Tom says:



“Why, Aunty, _I_ don’t think there’s ten.”



“You numskull, didn’t you see me _count_ ’m?”



“I know, but—”



“Well, I’ll count ’m _again_.”



So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time.

Well, she _was_ in a tearing way—just a-trembling all over, she was so

mad. But she counted and counted till she got that addled she’d start

to count in the _basket_ for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times

they come out right, and three times they come out wrong. Then she

grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the

cat galley-west; and she said cle’r out and let her have some peace,

and if we come bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she’d

skin us. So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apron-pocket

whilst she was a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all

right, along with her shingle nail, before noon. We was very well

satisfied with this business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the

trouble it took, because he said _now_ she couldn’t ever count them

spoons twice alike again to save her life; and wouldn’t believe she’d

counted them right if she _did;_ and said that after she’d about

counted her head off for the next three days he judged she’d give it up

and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them any more.



So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of

her closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a

couple of days till she didn’t know how many sheets she had any more,

and she didn’t _care_, and warn’t a-going to bullyrag the rest of her

soul out about it, and wouldn’t count them again not to save her life;

she druther die first.



So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon

and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up

counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn’t no consequence, it would

blow over by-and-by.



But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. We

fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it

done at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and

we had to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through,

and we got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out with

the smoke; because, you see, we didn’t want nothing but a crust, and we

couldn’t prop it up right, and she would always cave in. But of course

we thought of the right way at last—which was to cook the ladder, too,

in the pie. So then we laid in with Jim the second night, and tore up

the sheet all in little strings and twisted them together, and long

before daylight we had a lovely rope that you could a hung a person

with. We let on it took nine months to make it.



And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn’t go

into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope

enough for forty pies if we’d a wanted them, and plenty left over for

soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We could a had a whole

dinner.



But we didn’t need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie, and

so we throwed the rest away. We didn’t cook none of the pies in the

wash-pan—afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a noble

brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged

to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over from

England with William the Conqueror in the _Mayflower_ or one of them

early ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old pots and

things that was valuable, not on account of being any account, because

they warn’t, but on account of them being relicts, you know, and we

snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on the

first pies, because we didn’t know how, but she come up smiling on the

last one. We took and lined her with dough, and set her in the coals,

and loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut down

the lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot, with the

long handle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned

out a pie that was a satisfaction to look at. But the person that et it

would want to fetch a couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that

rope ladder wouldn’t cramp him down to business I don’t know nothing

what I’m talking about, and lay him in enough stomach-ache to last him

till next time, too.



Nat didn’t look when we put the witch pie in Jim’s pan; and we put the

three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jim

got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted

into the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick, and

scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the

window-hole.









CHAPTER XXXVIII.





Making them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and

Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all. That’s

the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to

have it; Tom said he’d _got_ to; there warn’t no case of a state

prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat

of arms.



“Look at Lady Jane Grey,” he says; “look at Gilford Dudley; look at old

Northumberland! Why, Huck, s’pose it _is_ considerble trouble?—what you

going to do?—how you going to get around it? Jim’s _got_ to do his

inscription and coat of arms. They all do.”



Jim says:



“Why, Mars Tom, I hain’t got no coat o’ arm; I hain’t got nuffn but

dish yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat.”



“Oh, you don’t understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different.”



“Well,” I says, “Jim’s right, anyway, when he says he ain’t got no coat

of arms, because he hain’t.”



“I reckon _I_ knowed that,” Tom says, “but you bet he’ll have one

before he goes out of this—because he’s going out _right_, and there

ain’t going to be no flaws in his record.”



So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim

a-making his’n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon, Tom

set to work to think out the coat of arms. By-and-by he said he’d

struck so many good ones he didn’t hardly know which to take, but there

was one which he reckoned he’d decide on. He says:



“On the scutcheon we’ll have a bend _or_ in the dexter base, a saltire

_murrey_ in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and

under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron _vert_ in

a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field _azure_, with

the nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway

nigger, _sable_, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister;

and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me; motto,

_Maggiore fretta, minore atto._ Got it out of a book—means the more

haste, the less speed.”



“Geewhillikins,” I says, “but what does the rest of it mean?”



“We ain’t got no time to bother over that,” he says; “we got to dig in

like all git-out.”



“Well, anyway,” I says, “what’s _some_ of it? What’s a fess?”



“A fess—a fess is—_you_ don’t need to know what a fess is. I’ll show

him how to make it when he gets to it.”



“Shucks, Tom,” I says, “I think you might tell a person. What’s a bar

sinister?”



“Oh, _I_ don’t know. But he’s got to have it. All the nobility does.”



That was just his way. If it didn’t suit him to explain a thing to you,

he wouldn’t do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn’t make no

difference.



He’d got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to

finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a

mournful inscription—said Jim got to have one, like they all done. He

made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so:



1. _Here a captive heart busted._



2. _Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends, fretted out

his sorrowful life._



3. _Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest,

after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity._



4. _Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter

captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV._





Tom’s voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke

down. When he got done he couldn’t no way make up his mind which one

for Jim to scrabble on to the wall, they was all so good; but at last

he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said it would

take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a

nail, and he didn’t know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he

would block them out for him, and then he wouldn’t have nothing to do

but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says:



“Come to think, the logs ain’t a-going to do; they don’t have log walls

in a dungeon: we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We’ll fetch a

rock.”



Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him

such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn’t ever get

out. But Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he took a look

to see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was most

pesky tedious hard work and slow, and didn’t give my hands no show to

get well of the sores, and we didn’t seem to make no headway, hardly;

so Tom says:



“I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and

mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock.

There’s a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we’ll smouch it,

and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it,

too.”



It warn’t no slouch of an idea; and it warn’t no slouch of a grindstone

nuther; but we allowed we’d tackle it. It warn’t quite midnight yet, so

we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smouched the

grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation

tough job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn’t keep her from

falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time. Tom said

she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got through. We got her

half way; and then we was plumb played out, and most drownded with

sweat. We see it warn’t no use; we got to go and fetch Jim. So he

raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the bed-leg, and wrapt it

round and round his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down

there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along

like nothing; and Tom superintended. He could out-superintend any boy I

ever see. He knowed how to do everything.



Our hole was pretty big, but it warn’t big enough to get the grindstone

through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough. Then Tom

marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on

them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in

the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his

candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the

grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it. Then we helped him fix

his chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom

thought of something, and says:



“You got any spiders in here, Jim?”



“No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain’t, Mars Tom.”



“All right, we’ll get you some.”



“But bless you, honey, I doan’ _want_ none. I’s afeard un um. I jis’ ’s

soon have rattlesnakes aroun’.”



Tom thought a minute or two, and says:



“It’s a good idea. And I reckon it’s been done. It _must_ a been done;

it stands to reason. Yes, it’s a prime good idea. Where could you keep

it?”



“Keep what, Mars Tom?”



“Why, a rattlesnake.”



“De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to

come in heah I’d take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid

my head.”



“Why, Jim, you wouldn’t be afraid of it after a little. You could tame

it.”



“_Tame_ it!”



“Yes—easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting,

and they wouldn’t _think_ of hurting a person that pets them. Any book

will tell you that. You try—that’s all I ask; just try for two or three

days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that he’ll love you;

and sleep with you; and won’t stay away from you a minute; and will let

you wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth.”



“_Please_, Mars Tom—_doan_’ talk so! I can’t _stan_’ it! He’d _let_ me

shove his head in my mouf—fer a favor, hain’t it? I lay he’d wait a

pow’ful long time ’fo’ I _ast_ him. En mo’ en dat, I doan’ _want_ him

to sleep wid me.”



“Jim, don’t act so foolish. A prisoner’s _got_ to have some kind of a

dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain’t ever been tried, why, there’s

more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any

other way you could ever think of to save your life.”



“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ _want_ no sich glory. Snake take ’n bite Jim’s

chin off, den _whah_ is de glory? No, sah, I doan’ want no sich

doin’s.”



“Blame it, can’t you _try?_ I only _want_ you to try—you needn’t keep

it up if it don’t work.”



“But de trouble all _done_ ef de snake bite me while I’s a tryin’ him.

Mars Tom, I’s willin’ to tackle mos’ anything ’at ain’t onreasonable,

but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I’s

gwyne to _leave_, dat’s _shore_.”



“Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you’re so bull-headed about it.

We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on

their tails, and let on they’re rattlesnakes, and I reckon that’ll

have to do.”



“I k’n stan’ _dem_, Mars Tom, but blame’ ’f I couldn’ get along widout

um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b’fo’ ’t was so much bother and

trouble to be a prisoner.”



“Well, it _always_ is when it’s done right. You got any rats around

here?”



“No, sah, I hain’t seed none.”



“Well, we’ll get you some rats.”



“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ _want_ no rats. Dey’s de dadblamedest creturs

to ’sturb a body, en rustle roun’ over ’im, en bite his feet, when he’s

tryin’ to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g’yarter-snakes, ’f I’s got

to have ’m, but doan’ gimme no rats; I hain’ got no use f’r um,

skasely.”



“But, Jim, you _got_ to have ’em—they all do. So don’t make no more

fuss about it. Prisoners ain’t ever without rats. There ain’t no

instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them

tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play

music to them. You got anything to play music on?”



“I ain’ got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o’ paper, en a

juice-harp; but I reck’n dey wouldn’ take no stock in a juice-harp.”



“Yes they would. _They_ don’t care what kind of music ’tis. A

jews-harp’s plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music—in a

prison they dote on it. Specially, painful music; and you can’t get no

other kind out of a jews-harp. It always interests them; they come out

to see what’s the matter with you. Yes, you’re all right; you’re fixed

very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep,

and early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp; play ‘The Last Link

is Broken’—that’s the thing that’ll scoop a rat quicker ’n anything

else; and when you’ve played about two minutes you’ll see all the rats,

and the snakes, and spiders, and things begin to feel worried about

you, and come. And they’ll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble

good time.”



“Yes, _dey_ will, I reck’n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is _Jim_

havin’? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I’ll do it ef I got to. I

reck’n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de

house.”



Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn’t nothing else; and

pretty soon he says:



“Oh, there’s one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you

reckon?”



“I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it’s tolable dark in

heah, en I ain’ got no use f’r no flower, nohow, en she’d be a pow’ful

sight o’ trouble.”



“Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it.”



“One er dem big cat-tail-lookin’ mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars

Tom, I reck’n, but she wouldn’t be wuth half de trouble she’d coss.”



“Don’t you believe it. We’ll fetch you a little one and you plant it in

the corner over there, and raise it. And don’t call it mullen, call it

Pitchiola—that’s its right name when it’s in a prison. And you want to

water it with your tears.”



“Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom.”



“You don’t _want_ spring water; you want to water it with your tears.

It’s the way they always do.”



“Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid

spring water whiles another man’s a _start’n_ one wid tears.”



“That ain’t the idea. You _got_ to do it with tears.”



“She’ll die on my han’s, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan’ skasely

ever cry.”



So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would

have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he

would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim’s

coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would “jis’ ’s soon have

tobacker in his coffee;” and found so much fault with it, and with the

work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping the rats, and

petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on top of

all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and

journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and

responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that

Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened down

with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make

a name for himself, and yet he didn’t know enough to appreciate them,

and they was just about wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he

wouldn’t behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.









CHAPTER XXXIX.





In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and

fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour

we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and

put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally’s bed. But while we was gone

for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps

found it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come

out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she

was a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing

what they could to keep off the dull times for her. So she took and

dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours

catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they

warn’t the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of

the flock. I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul

was.



We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and

caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet’s

nest, but we didn’t. The family was at home. We didn’t give it right

up, but stayed with them as long as we could; because we allowed we’d

tire them out or they’d got to tire us out, and they done it. Then we

got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right

again, but couldn’t set down convenient. And so we went for the snakes,

and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in

a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was supper-time, and

a rattling good honest day’s work: and hungry?—oh, no, I reckon not!

And there warn’t a blessed snake up there when we went back—we didn’t

half tie the sack, and they worked out somehow, and left. But it didn’t

matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres. So we

judged we could get some of them again. No, there warn’t no real

scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell. You’d see

them dripping from the rafters and places every now and then; and they

generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck, and most

of the time where you didn’t want them. Well, they was handsome and

striped, and there warn’t no harm in a million of them; but that never

made no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed

what they might, and she couldn’t stand them no way you could fix it;

and every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn’t make no

difference what she was doing, she would just lay that work down and

light out. I never see such a woman. And you could hear her whoop to

Jericho. You couldn’t get her to take a-holt of one of them with the

tongs. And if she turned over and found one in bed she would scramble

out and lift a howl that you would think the house was afire. She

disturbed the old man so that he said he could most wish there hadn’t

ever been no snakes created. Why, after every last snake had been gone

clear out of the house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn’t over it

yet; she warn’t near over it; when she was setting thinking about

something you could touch her on the back of her neck with a feather

and she would jump right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But

Tom said all women was just so. He said they was made that way for some

reason or other.



We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she

allowed these lickings warn’t nothing to what she would do if we ever

loaded up the place again with them. I didn’t mind the lickings,

because they didn’t amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had

to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in, and all the other

things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim’s was when

they’d all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn’t like the

spiders, and the spiders didn’t like Jim; and so they’d lay for him,

and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats and

the snakes and the grindstone there warn’t no room in bed for him,

skasely; and when there was, a body couldn’t sleep, it was so lively,

and it was always lively, he said, because _they_ never all slept at

one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats

was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so

he always had one gang under him, in his way, and t’other gang having a

circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would

take a chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out

this time he wouldn’t ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.



Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape.

The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he

would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was

fresh; the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on

the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the

sawdust, and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache. We reckoned we was

all going to die, but didn’t. It was the most undigestible sawdust I

ever see; and Tom said the same.



But as I was saying, we’d got all the work done now, at last; and we

was all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim. The old man had

wrote a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get

their runaway nigger, but hadn’t got no answer, because there warn’t no

such plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis

and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it

give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn’t no time to lose. So Tom

said, now for the nonnamous letters.



“What’s them?” I says.



“Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it’s done one

way, sometimes another. But there’s always somebody spying around that

gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going

to light out of the Tooleries, a servant-girl done it. It’s a very good

way, and so is the nonnamous letters. We’ll use them both. And it’s

usual for the prisoner’s mother to change clothes with him, and she

stays in, and he slides out in her clothes. We’ll do that, too.”



“But looky here, Tom, what do we want to _warn_ anybody for that

something’s up? Let them find it out for themselves—it’s their

lookout.”



“Yes, I know; but you can’t depend on them. It’s the way they’ve acted

from the very start—left us to do _everything_. They’re so confiding

and mullet-headed they don’t take notice of nothing at all. So if we

don’t _give_ them notice there won’t be nobody nor nothing to interfere

with us, and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape ’ll go

off perfectly flat; won’t amount to nothing—won’t be nothing _to_ it.”



“Well, as for me, Tom, that’s the way I’d like.”



“Shucks!” he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:



“But I ain’t going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits

me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?”



“You’ll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that

yaller girl’s frock.”



“Why, Tom, that’ll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she

prob’bly hain’t got any but that one.”



“I know; but you don’t want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the

nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door.”



“All right, then, I’ll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my

own togs.”



“You wouldn’t look like a servant-girl _then_, would you?”



“No, but there won’t be nobody to see what I look like, _anyway_.”



“That ain’t got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just

to do our _duty_, and not worry about whether anybody _sees_ us do it

or not. Hain’t you got no principle at all?”



“All right, I ain’t saying nothing; I’m the servant-girl. Who’s Jim’s

mother?”



“I’m his mother. I’ll hook a gown from Aunt Sally.”



“Well, then, you’ll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves.”



“Not much. I’ll stuff Jim’s clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed

to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim ’ll take the nigger

woman’s gown off of me and wear it, and we’ll all evade together. When

a prisoner of style escapes it’s called an evasion. It’s always called

so when a king escapes, f’rinstance. And the same with a king’s son; it

don’t make no difference whether he’s a natural one or an unnatural

one.”



So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench’s

frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door,

the way Tom told me to. It said:



_Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout._ UNKNOWN FRIEND.



Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull

and crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a

coffin on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They

couldn’t a been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts

laying for them behind everything and under the beds and shivering

through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said

“ouch!” if anything fell, she jumped and said “ouch!” if you happened

to touch her, when she warn’t noticing, she done the same; she couldn’t

face noway and be satisfied, because she allowed there was something

behind her every time—so she was always a-whirling around sudden, and

saying “ouch,” and before she’d got two-thirds around she’d whirl back

again, and say it again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but she

dasn’t set up. So the thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he

never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done

right.



So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the

streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we

better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going

to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the

lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was

asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This

letter said:



Don’t betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang of

cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your

runaway nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as

you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang,

but have got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life

again, and will betray the helish design. They will sneak down from

northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go

in the nigger’s cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin

horn if I see any danger; but stead of that I will BA like a sheep

soon as they get in and not blow at all; then whilst they are getting

his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them at

your leasure. Don’t do anything but just the way I am telling you, if

you do they will suspicion something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I do

not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.



                                          UNKNOWN FRIEND









CHAPTER XL.





We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went

over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a

look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper,

and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn’t know which end

they was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was

done supper, and wouldn’t tell us what the trouble was, and never let

on a word about the new letter, but didn’t need to, because we knowed

as much about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs

and her back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a

good lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about

half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally’s dress that he stole and

was going to start with the lunch, but says:



“Where’s the butter?”



“I laid out a hunk of it,” I says, “on a piece of a corn-pone.”



“Well, you _left_ it laid out, then—it ain’t here.”



“We can get along without it,” I says.



“We can get along _with_ it, too,” he says; “just you slide down cellar

and fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come

along. I’ll go and stuff the straw into Jim’s clothes to represent his

mother in disguise, and be ready to _ba_ like a sheep and shove soon

as you get there.”



So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a

person’s fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of

corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs

very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes

Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and

clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she

says:



“You been down cellar?”



“Yes’m.”



“What you been doing down there?”



“Noth’n.”



“_Noth’n!_”



“No’m.”



“Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?”



“I don’t know ’m.”



“You don’t _know?_ Don’t answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what

you been _doing_ down there.”



“I hain’t been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if

I have.”



I reckoned she’d let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I

s’pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a

sweat about every little thing that warn’t yard-stick straight; so she

says, very decided:



“You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You

been up to something you no business to, and I lay I’ll find out what

it is before _I’m_ done with you.”



So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room.

My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of them

had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down.

They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice,

and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they

warn’t; but I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their

hats, and putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing

their seats, and fumbling with their buttons. I warn’t easy myself, but

I didn’t take my hat off, all the same.



I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if

she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we’d overdone this

thing, and what a thundering hornet’s-nest we’d got ourselves into, so

we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim

before these rips got out of patience and come for us.



At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I _couldn’t_ answer

them straight, I didn’t know which end of me was up; because these men

was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right _now_ and

lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn’t but a few minutes to

midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the

sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me

a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that

scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter

beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty

soon, when one of them says, “_I’m_ for going and getting in the cabin

_first_ and right _now_, and catching them when they come,” I most

dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and

Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says:



“For the land’s sake, what _is_ the matter with the child? He’s got the

brain-fever as shore as you’re born, and they’re oozing out!”



And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes

the bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and

hugged me, and says:



“Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it

ain’t no worse; for luck’s against us, and it never rains but it pours,

and when I see that truck I thought we’d lost you, for I knowed by the

color and all it was just like your brains would be if—Dear, dear,

whyd’nt you _tell_ me that was what you’d been down there for, _I_

wouldn’t a cared. Now cler out to bed, and don’t lemme see no more of

you till morning!”



I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one,

and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn’t hardly get my

words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must

jump for it now, and not a minute to lose—the house full of men,

yonder, with guns!



His eyes just blazed; and he says:



“No!—is that so? _Ain’t_ it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over

again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till—”



“Hurry! _hurry!_” I says. “Where’s Jim?”



“Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him. He’s

dressed, and everything’s ready. Now we’ll slide out and give the

sheep-signal.”



But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them

begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say:



“I _told_ you we’d be too soon; they haven’t come—the door is locked.

Here, I’ll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for ’em in the

dark and kill ’em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece,

and listen if you can hear ’em coming.”



So in they come, but couldn’t see us in the dark, and most trod on us

whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all

right, and out through the hole, swift but soft—Jim first, me next, and

Tom last, which was according to Tom’s orders. Now we was in the

lean-to, and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to the door,

and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn’t

make out nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he would

listen for the steps to get further, and when he nudged us Jim must

glide out first, and him last. So he set his ear to the crack and

listened, and listened, and listened, and the steps a-scraping around

out there all the time; and at last he nudged us, and we slid out, and

stooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise, and

slipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all

right, and me and Jim over it; but Tom’s britches catched fast on a

splinter on the top rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he had

to pull loose, which snapped the splinter and made a noise; and as he

dropped in our tracks and started somebody sings out:



“Who’s that? Answer, or I’ll shoot!”



But we didn’t answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there

was a rush, and a _bang, bang, bang!_ and the bullets fairly whizzed

around us! We heard them sing out:



“Here they are! They’ve broke for the river! After ’em, boys, and turn

loose the dogs!”



So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore

boots and yelled, but we didn’t wear no boots and didn’t yell. We was

in the path to the mill; and when they got pretty close on to us we

dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind

them. They’d had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn’t scare off the

robbers; but by this time somebody had let them loose, and here they

come, making powwow enough for a million; but they was our dogs; so we

stopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when they see it warn’t

nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only just said

howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering; and

then we up-steam again, and whizzed along after them till we was nearly

to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was

tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the

river, but didn’t make no more noise than we was obleeged to. Then we

struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island where my raft was; and

we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down

the bank, till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out. And

when we stepped onto the raft I says:



“_Now_, old Jim, you’re a free man _again_, and I bet you won’t ever be

a slave no more.”



“En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It ’uz planned beautiful, en

it ’uz _done_ beautiful; en dey ain’t _nobody_ kin git up a plan dat’s

mo’ mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz.”



We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because

he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.



When me and Jim heard that we didn’t feel so brash as what we did

before. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him

in the wigwam and tore up one of the duke’s shirts for to bandage him,

but he says:



“Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don’t stop now; don’t fool around

here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and

set her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!—’deed we did. I wish _we’d_ a

had the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn’t a been no ‘Son of Saint

Louis, ascend to heaven!’ wrote down in _his_ biography; no, sir, we’d

a whooped him over the _border_—that’s what we’d a done with _him_—and

done it just as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps—man the

sweeps!”



But me and Jim was consulting—and thinking. And after we’d thought a

minute, I says:



“Say it, Jim.”



So he says:



“Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz _him_ dat ’uz

bein’ sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, ‘Go on

en save me, nemmine ’bout a doctor f’r to save dis one?’ Is dat like

Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You _bet_ he wouldn’t! _Well_, den,

is _Jim_ gywne to say it? No, sah—I doan’ budge a step out’n dis place

’dout a _doctor;_ not if it’s forty year!”



I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he did

say—so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor.

He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and

wouldn’t budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose

himself; but we wouldn’t let him. Then he give us a piece of his mind,

but it didn’t do no good.



So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:



“Well, then, if you’re bound to go, I’ll tell you the way to do when

you get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight

and fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse

full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the

back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the

canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him and take

his chalk away from him, and don’t give it back to him till you get him

back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it

again. It’s the way they all do.”



So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he

see the doctor coming till he was gone again.









CHAPTER XLI.





The doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I got

him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting

yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and

about midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off

and shot him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it

and not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because we wanted

to come home this evening and surprise the folks.



“Who is your folks?” he says.



“The Phelpses, down yonder.”



“Oh,” he says. And after a minute, he says:



“How’d you say he got shot?”



“He had a dream,” I says, “and it shot him.”



“Singular dream,” he says.



So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But

when he sees the canoe he didn’t like the look of her—said she was big

enough for one, but didn’t look pretty safe for two. I says:



“Oh, you needn’t be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy

enough.”



“What three?”



“Why, me and Sid, and—and—and _the guns;_ that’s what I mean.”



“Oh,” he says.



But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head,

and said he reckoned he’d look around for a bigger one. But they was

all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait

till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better go

down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to. But I

said I didn’t; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he

started.



I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos’n he can’t fix

that leg just in three shakes of a sheep’s tail, as the saying is?

spos’n it takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?—lay

around there till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know what

_I’ll_ do. I’ll wait, and when he comes back if he says he’s got to go

any more I’ll get down there, too, if I swim; and we’ll take and tie

him, and keep him, and shove out down the river; and when Tom’s done

with him we’ll give him what it’s worth, or all we got, and then let

him get ashore.



So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I

waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot out and went for the

doctor’s house, but they told me he’d gone away in the night some time

or other, and warn’t back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad

for Tom, and I’ll dig out for the island right off. So away I shoved,

and turned the corner, and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas’s

stomach! He says:



“Why, _Tom!_ Where you been all this time, you rascal?”



“_I_ hain’t been nowheres,” I says, “only just hunting for the runaway

nigger—me and Sid.”



“Why, where ever did you go?” he says. “Your aunt’s been mighty

uneasy.”



“She needn’t,” I says, “because we was all right. We followed the men

and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we thought we

heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and

crossed over, but couldn’t find nothing of them; so we cruised along

up-shore till we got kind of tired and beat out; and tied up the canoe

and went to sleep, and never waked up till about an hour ago; then we

paddled over here to hear the news, and Sid’s at the post-office to see

what he can hear, and I’m a-branching out to get something to eat for

us, and then we’re going home.”



So then we went to the post-office to get “Sid”; but just as I

suspicioned, he warn’t there; so the old man he got a letter out of the

office, and we waited a while longer, but Sid didn’t come; so the old

man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it, when he got

done fooling around—but we would ride. I couldn’t get him to let me

stay and wait for Sid; and he said there warn’t no use in it, and I

must come along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all right.



When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and

cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of hern

that don’t amount to shucks, and said she’d serve Sid the same when he

come.



And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers’ wives, to dinner;

and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the

worst; her tongue was a-going all the time. She says:



“Well, Sister Phelps, I’ve ransacked that-air cabin over, an’ I b’lieve

the nigger was crazy. I says to Sister Damrell—didn’t I, Sister

Damrell?—s’I, he’s crazy, s’I—them’s the very words I said. You all

hearn me: he’s crazy, s’I; everything shows it, s’I. Look at that-air

grindstone, s’I; want to tell _me_’t any cretur ’t’s in his right mind

’s a goin’ to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone, s’I?

Here sich ’n’ sich a person busted his heart; ’n’ here so ’n’ so pegged

along for thirty-seven year, ’n’ all that—natcherl son o’ Louis

somebody, ’n’ sich everlast’n rubbage. He’s plumb crazy, s’I; it’s what

I says in the fust place, it’s what I says in the middle, ’n’ it’s what

I says last ’n’ all the time—the nigger’s crazy—crazy ’s

Nebokoodneezer, s’I.”



“An’ look at that-air ladder made out’n rags, Sister Hotchkiss,” says

old Mrs. Damrell; “what in the name o’ goodness _could_ he ever want

of—”



“The very words I was a-sayin’ no longer ago th’n this minute to Sister

Utterback, ’n’ she’ll tell you so herself. Sh-she, look at that-air rag

ladder, sh-she; ’n’ s’I, yes, _look_ at it, s’I—what _could_ he

a-wanted of it, s’I. Sh-she, Sister Hotchkiss, sh-she—”



“But how in the nation’d they ever _git_ that grindstone _in_ there,

_any_way? ’n’ who dug that-air _hole?_ ’n’ who—”



“My very _words_, Brer Penrod! I was a-sayin’—pass that-air sasser o’

m’lasses, won’t ye?—I was a-sayin’ to Sister Dunlap, jist this minute,

how _did_ they git that grindstone in there, s’I. Without _help_, mind

you—’thout _help! Thar’s_ wher ’tis. Don’t tell _me_, s’I; there

_wuz_ help, s’I; ’n’ ther’ wuz a _plenty_ help, too, s’I; ther’s ben a

_dozen_ a-helpin’ that nigger, ’n’ I lay I’d skin every last nigger on

this place but _I’d_ find out who done it, s’I; ’n’ moreover, s’I—”



“A _dozen_ says you!—_forty_ couldn’t a done every thing that’s been

done. Look at them case-knife saws and things, how tedious they’ve been

made; look at that bed-leg sawed off with ’m, a week’s work for six

men; look at that nigger made out’n straw on the bed; and look at—”



“You may _well_ say it, Brer Hightower! It’s jist as I was a-sayin’ to

Brer Phelps, his own self. S’e, what do _you_ think of it, Sister

Hotchkiss, s’e? Think o’ what, Brer Phelps, s’I? Think o’ that bed-leg

sawed off that a way, s’e? _think_ of it, s’I? I lay it never sawed

_itself_ off, s’I—somebody _sawed_ it, s’I; that’s my opinion, take it

or leave it, it mayn’t be no ’count, s’I, but sich as ’t is, it’s my

opinion, s’I, ’n’ if any body k’n start a better one, s’I, let him _do_

it, s’I, that’s all. I says to Sister Dunlap, s’I—”



“Why, dog my cats, they must a ben a house-full o’ niggers in there

every night for four weeks to a done all that work, Sister Phelps. Look

at that shirt—every last inch of it kivered over with secret African

writ’n done with blood! Must a ben a raft uv ’m at it right along, all

the time, amost. Why, I’d give two dollars to have it read to me; ’n’

as for the niggers that wrote it, I ’low I’d take ’n’ lash ’m t’ll—”



“People to _help_ him, Brother Marples! Well, I reckon you’d _think_ so

if you’d a been in this house for a while back. Why, they’ve stole

everything they could lay their hands on—and we a-watching all the

time, mind you. They stole that shirt right off o’ the line! and as for

that sheet they made the rag ladder out of, ther’ ain’t no telling how

many times they _didn’t_ steal that; and flour, and candles, and

candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and most a thousand

things that I disremember now, and my new calico dress; and me and

Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day _and_ night, as I

was a-telling you, and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor

sight nor sound of them; and here at the last minute, lo and behold

you, they slides right in under our noses and fools us, and not only

fools _us_ but the Injun Territory robbers too, and actuly gets _away_

with that nigger safe and sound, and that with sixteen men and

twenty-two dogs right on their very heels at that very time! I tell

you, it just bangs anything I ever _heard_ of. Why, _sperits_ couldn’t

a done better and been no smarter. And I reckon they must a _been_

sperits—because, _you_ know our dogs, and ther’ ain’t no better; well,

them dogs never even got on the _track_ of ’m once! You explain _that_

to me if you can!—_any_ of you!”



“Well, it does beat—”



“Laws alive, I never—”



“So help me, I wouldn’t a be—”



“_House_-thieves as well as—”



“Goodnessgracioussakes, I’d a ben afeard to _live_ in sich a—”



“’Fraid to _live!_—why, I was that scared I dasn’t hardly go to bed, or

get up, or lay down, or _set_ down, Sister Ridgeway. Why, they’d steal

the very—why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster _I_

was in by the time midnight come last night. I hope to gracious if I

warn’t afraid they’d steal some o’ the family! I was just to that pass

I didn’t have no reasoning faculties no more. It looks foolish enough

_now_, in the daytime; but I says to myself, there’s my two poor boys

asleep, ’way up stairs in that lonesome room, and I declare to goodness

I was that uneasy ’t I crep’ up there and locked ’em in! I _did_. And

anybody would. Because, you know, when you get scared that way, and it

keeps running on, and getting worse and worse all the time, and your

wits gets to addling, and you get to doing all sorts o’ wild things,

and by-and-by you think to yourself, spos’n _I_ was a boy, and was away

up there, and the door ain’t locked, and you—” She stopped, looking

kind of wondering, and then she turned her head around slow, and when

her eye lit on me—I got up and took a walk.



Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that

room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little.

So I done it. But I dasn’t go fur, or she’d a sent for me. And when it

was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and told

her the noise and shooting waked up me and “Sid,” and the door was

locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the

lightning-rod, and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn’t never

want to try _that_ no more. And then I went on and told her all what I

told Uncle Silas before; and then she said she’d forgive us, and maybe

it was all right enough anyway, and about what a body might expect of

boys, for all boys was a pretty harum-scarum lot as fur as she could

see; and so, as long as no harm hadn’t come of it, she judged she

better put in her time being grateful we was alive and well and she had

us still, stead of fretting over what was past and done. So then she

kissed me, and patted me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a

brown study; and pretty soon jumps up, and says:



“Why, lawsamercy, it’s most night, and Sid not come yet! What _has_

become of that boy?”



I see my chance; so I skips up and says:



“I’ll run right up to town and get him,” I says.



“No you won’t,” she says. “You’ll stay right wher’ you are; _one’s_

enough to be lost at a time. If he ain’t here to supper, your uncle ’ll

go.”



Well, he warn’t there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.



He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn’t run across Tom’s

track. Aunt Sally was a good _deal_ uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said

there warn’t no occasion to be—boys will be boys, he said, and you’ll

see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right. So she had to

be satisfied. But she said she’d set up for him a while anyway, and

keep a light burning so he could see it.



And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her

candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like

I couldn’t look her in the face; and she set down on the bed and talked

with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and didn’t

seem to want to ever stop talking about him; and kept asking me every

now and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe

drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres suffering or

dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down

silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home

in the morning, sure; and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me,

and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her

good, and she was in so much trouble. And when she was going away she

looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and says:



“The door ain’t going to be locked, Tom, and there’s the window and the

rod; but you’ll be good, _won’t_ you? And you won’t go? For _my_ sake.”



Laws knows I _wanted_ to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all

intending to go; but after that I wouldn’t a went, not for kingdoms.



But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very

restless. And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped

around front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window

with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them; and I wished I

could do something for her, but I couldn’t, only to swear that I

wouldn’t never do nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I

waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle

was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she

was asleep.









CHAPTER XLII.





The old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn’t get no

track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not

saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold,

and not eating anything. And by-and-by the old man says:



“Did I give you the letter?”



“What letter?”



“The one I got yesterday out of the post-office.”



“No, you didn’t give me no letter.”



“Well, I must a forgot it.”



So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had

laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:



“Why, it’s from St. Petersburg—it’s from Sis.”



I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn’t stir. But

before she could break it open she dropped it and run—for she see

something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old

doctor; and Jim, in _her_ calico dress, with his hands tied behind him;

and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come

handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:



“Oh, he’s dead, he’s dead, I know he’s dead!”



And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other,

which showed he warn’t in his right mind; then she flung up her hands,

and says:



“He’s alive, thank God! And that’s enough!” and she snatched a kiss of

him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders

right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue

could go, every jump of the way.



I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the

old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men

was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to

all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn’t be trying to run

away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a

whole family scared most to death for days and nights. But the others

said, don’t do it, it wouldn’t answer at all; he ain’t our nigger, and

his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled

them down a little, because the people that’s always the most anxious

for to hang a nigger that hain’t done just right is always the very

ones that ain’t the most anxious to pay for him when they’ve got their

satisfaction out of him.



They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side

the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let

on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own

clothes on him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time,

but to a big staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands,

too, and both legs, and said he warn’t to have nothing but bread and

water to eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold at auction

because he didn’t come in a certain length of time, and filled up our

hole, and said a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around

about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the

daytime; and about this time they was through with the job and was

tapering off with a kind of generl good-bye cussing, and then the old

doctor comes and takes a look, and says:



“Don’t be no rougher on him than you’re obleeged to, because he ain’t a

bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn’t cut

the bullet out without some help, and he warn’t in no condition for me

to leave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little

worse, and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn’t let

me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he’d kill

me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn’t do

anything at all with him; so I says, I got to have _help_ somehow; and

the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says

he’ll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I

judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I _was!_ and there I had

to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night. It

was a fix, I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills, and

of course I’d of liked to run up to town and see them, but I dasn’t,

because the nigger might get away, and then I’d be to blame; and yet

never a skiff come close enough for me to hail. So there I had to stick

plumb until daylight this morning; and I never see a nigger that was a

better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he was risking his freedom to do

it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough he’d been worked

main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a

nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars—and kind treatment, too. I

had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he

would a done at home—better, maybe, because it was so quiet; but there

I _was_, with both of ’m on my hands, and there I had to stick till

about dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by, and as good

luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head

propped on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and

they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed

what he was about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a

kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft

on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and the nigger never made

the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain’t no bad nigger,

gentlemen; that’s what I think about him.”



Somebody says:



“Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I’m obleeged to say.”



Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful to

that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was

according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good

heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they all

agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some

notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised, right out

and hearty, that they wouldn’t cuss him no more.



Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he

could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten

heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but they

didn’t think of it, and I reckoned it warn’t best for me to mix in, but

I judged I’d get the doctor’s yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as

soon as I’d got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of

me—explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being

shot when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night

paddling around hunting the runaway nigger.



But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day

and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged

him.



Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt

Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I

found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that

would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and

pale, not fire-faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and

laid for him to wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding

in, and there I was, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still, and

set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be joyful

now, because all the symptoms was first-rate, and he’d been sleeping

like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuller all the

time, and ten to one he’d wake up in his right mind.



So we set there watching, and by-and-by he stirs a bit, and opened his

eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says:



“Hello!—why, I’m at _home!_ How’s that? Where’s the raft?”



“It’s all right,” I says.



“And _Jim?_”



“The same,” I says, but couldn’t say it pretty brash. But he never

noticed, but says:



“Good! Splendid! _Now_ we’re all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?”



I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says: “About what, Sid?”



“Why, about the way the whole thing was done.”



“What whole thing?”



“Why, _the_ whole thing. There ain’t but one; how we set the runaway

nigger free—me and Tom.”



“Good land! Set the run— What _is_ the child talking about! Dear, dear,

out of his head again!”



“_No_, I ain’t out of my HEAD; I know all what I’m talking about. We

_did_ set him free—me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we _done_ it.

And we done it elegant, too.” He’d got a start, and she never checked

him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and I

see it warn’t no use for _me_ to put in. “Why, Aunty, it cost us a

power of work—weeks of it—hours and hours, every night, whilst you was

all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt,

and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the

warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things,

and you can’t think what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and

inscriptions, and one thing or another, and you can’t think _half_ the

fun it was. And we had to make up the pictures of coffins and things,

and nonnamous letters from the robbers, and get up and down the

lightning-rod, and dig the hole into the cabin, and made the rope

ladder and send it in cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and things

to work with in your apron pocket—”



“Mercy sakes!”



“—and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company for

Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that

you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before

we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let

drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let

them go by, and when the dogs come they warn’t interested in us, but

went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft,

and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by

ourselves, and _wasn’t_ it bully, Aunty!”



“Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was

_you_, you little rapscallions, that’s been making all this trouble,

and turned everybody’s wits clean inside out and scared us all most to

death. I’ve as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out o’

you this very minute. To think, here I’ve been, night after night,

a—_you_ just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I’ll tan the Old

Harry out o’ both o’ ye!”



But Tom, he _was_ so proud and joyful, he just _couldn’t_ hold in, and

his tongue just _went_ it—she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all

along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and

she says:



“_Well_, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it _now_, for mind I

tell you if I catch you meddling with him again—”



“Meddling with _who?_” Tom says, dropping his smile and looking

surprised.



“With _who?_ Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who’d you reckon?”



Tom looks at me very grave, and says:



“Tom, didn’t you just tell me he was all right? Hasn’t he got away?”



“_Him?_” says Aunt Sally; “the runaway nigger? ’Deed he hasn’t. They’ve

got him back, safe and sound, and he’s in that cabin again, on bread

and water, and loaded down with chains, till he’s claimed or sold!”



Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening

and shutting like gills, and sings out to me:



“They hain’t no _right_ to shut him up! _Shove!_—and don’t you lose a

minute. Turn him loose! he ain’t no slave; he’s as free as any cretur

that walks this earth!”



“What _does_ the child mean?”



“I mean every word I _say_, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don’t go,

_I’ll_ go. I’ve knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old

Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going

to sell him down the river, and _said_ so; and she set him free in her

will.”



“Then what on earth did _you_ want to set him free for, seeing he was

already free?”



“Well, that _is_ a question, I must say; and _just_ like women! Why, I

wanted the _adventure_ of it; and I’d a waded neck-deep in blood

to—goodness alive, AUNT POLLY!”



If she warn’t standing right there, just inside the door, looking as

sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!



Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and

cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed,

for it was getting pretty sultry for _us_, seemed to me. And I peeped

out, and in a little while Tom’s Aunt Polly shook herself loose and

stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles—kind of grinding

him into the earth, you know. And then she says:



“Yes, you _better_ turn y’r head away—I would if I was you, Tom.”



“Oh, deary me!” says Aunt Sally; “_is_ he changed so? Why, that ain’t

_Tom_, it’s Sid; Tom’s—Tom’s—why, where is Tom? He was here a minute

ago.”



“You mean where’s Huck _Finn_—that’s what you mean! I reckon I hain’t

raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I

_see_ him. That _would_ be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that

bed, Huck Finn.”



So I done it. But not feeling brash.



Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever

see—except one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told

it all to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn’t

know nothing at all the rest of the day, and preached a prayer-meeting

sermon that night that gave him a rattling ruputation, because the

oldest man in the world couldn’t a understood it. So Tom’s Aunt Polly,

she told all about who I was, and what; and I had to up and tell how I

was in such a tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom

Sawyer—she chipped in and says, “Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally, I’m

used to it now, and ’tain’t no need to change”—that when Aunt Sally

took me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand it—there warn’t no other way, and

I knowed he wouldn’t mind, because it would be nuts for him, being a

mystery, and he’d make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly

satisfied. And so it turned out, and he let on to be Sid, and made

things as soft as he could for me.



And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting

Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took

all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn’t

ever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how he _could_

help a body set a nigger free with his bringing-up.



Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom

and _Sid_ had come all right and safe, she says to herself:



“Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off that

way without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all the

way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that

creetur’s up to _this_ time; as long as I couldn’t seem to get any

answer out of you about it.”



“Why, I never heard nothing from you,” says Aunt Sally.



“Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean

by Sid being here.”



“Well, I never got ’em, Sis.”



Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:



“You, Tom!”



“Well—_what?_” he says, kind of pettish.



“Don’t you what _me_, you impudent thing—hand out them letters.”



“What letters?”



“_Them_ letters. I be bound, if I have to take aholt of you I’ll—”



“They’re in the trunk. There, now. And they’re just the same as they

was when I got them out of the office. I hain’t looked into them, I

hain’t touched them. But I knowed they’d make trouble, and I thought if

you warn’t in no hurry, I’d—”



“Well, you _do_ need skinning, there ain’t no mistake about it. And I

wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s’pose he—”



“No, it come yesterday; I hain’t read it yet, but _it’s_ all right,

I’ve got that one.”



I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn’t, but I reckoned maybe

it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.









CHAPTER THE LAST





The first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea,

time of the evasion?—what it was he’d planned to do if the evasion

worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already

free before? And he said, what he had planned in his head from the

start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river

on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and

then tell him about his being free, and take him back up home on a

steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and write word

ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them waltz him into

town with a torchlight procession and a brass-band, and then he would

be a hero, and so would we. But I reckoned it was about as well the way

it was.



We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle

Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom,

they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him

all he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we had

him up to the sick-room, and had a high talk; and Tom give Jim forty

dollars for being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so good,

and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted out, and says:



“_Dah_, now, Huck, what I tell you?—what I tell you up dah on Jackson

islan’? I _tole_ you I got a hairy breas’, en what’s de sign un it; en

I _tole_ you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich _agin;_ en it’s

come true; en heah she _is! Dah_, now! doan’ talk to _me_—signs is

_signs_, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis’ ’s well ’at I ’uz gwineter

be rich agin as I’s a-stannin’ heah dis minute!”



And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le’s all three

slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go for

howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for a

couple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I

ain’t got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn’t get

none from home, because it’s likely pap’s been back before now, and got

it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.



“No, he hain’t,” Tom says; “it’s all there yet—six thousand dollars and

more; and your pap hain’t ever been back since. Hadn’t when I come

away, anyhow.”



Jim says, kind of solemn:



“He ain’t a-comin’ back no mo’, Huck.”



I says:



“Why, Jim?”



“Nemmine why, Huck—but he ain’t comin’ back no mo.”



But I kept at him; so at last he says:



“Doan’ you ’member de house dat was float’n down de river, en dey wuz a

man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn’ let you

come in? Well, den, you kin git yo’ money when you wants it, kase dat

wuz him.”



Tom’s most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a

watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so

there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it,

because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t

a tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more. But I reckon I got to light

out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going

to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.



THE END. YOURS TRULY, _HUCK FINN_.









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