Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0133/01334.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01334}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Why Harney Rode Away For His Hat}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{en
de
buck
warn't
come
off
old
says
didn't
dey}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

Why Harney Rode Away For His Hat

     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 gray 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 cloud-bank 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
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 you 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
miles 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 came 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 years 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 outrun 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 wood-pile, 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 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 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 quite 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 considerable
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 ag'in 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 account o' de water, en dey brings
me truck to eat every night, en tells me how you's a-gittin' 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, only our traps was mos' all los.'  Ef we hadn'
dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn't been so dark, en
we warn't so sk'yered, 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 ag'in
mos' as good as new, en we's a 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'longs
to de mos' dat I come to heah 'bout it pretty 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 ag'in.  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?  own by the woodpile 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 came 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 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 down-hearted; so I made up my mind I wouldn't
ever go anear the 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 ag'in.  Jack's
been heah; he says 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 ag'in en
tells me for certain you is dead.  Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git you back
ag'in, 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.