Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0133/01335.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 18KB | 337 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01335}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
The Duke And The Dauphin Come Aboard}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{says
done
duke
off
time
jim
ain't
didn't
raft
way}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

The Duke And The Dauphin Come Aboard

     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 towhead; 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 anywhere - 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 wood-yard, 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 ax flash and come down - you don't
hear nothing; you see that ax 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 towhead, 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 awhile; 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 towhead 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 woolen 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 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 been 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
gatherin' 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 considerable in the doctoring way in my time.  Layin' on o'
hands is my best holt - for cancer and paralysis, and such 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 in 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 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, heartbroken, 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 jinks, 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.