Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0134/01340.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 13KB | 259 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01340}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
The King Turns Parson}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{king
says
duke
come
like
off
time
didn't
old
peter}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

The King Turns Parson

     Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow towhead 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 ofhard 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
asign 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 may be 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
carpetbags by him.

     "Run her nose inshore," 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; I 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 in 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 histrionic 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.