Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0131/01319.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 13KB | 249 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01319}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Our Gang's Dark Oath}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{tom
jim
get
kill
that's
till
ben
now
rogers
says}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

Our Gang's Dark Oath

     We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back toward 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 came 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 upward of a thousand
places.  Pretty soon Jim says:

     "Say, who is you?  Whar is you?  Dog my cats ef I didn't 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 ag'in."

     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.  The
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.  Afterward 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 Joe 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 named 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 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
Joe 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.