Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0134/01349.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 15KB | 320 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01349}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
The Pitiful Ending Of Royalty}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{says
come
like
tom
didn't
warn't
let
told
i'm
old}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

The Pitiful Ending Of Royalty

     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 quit
satisfied yet.  He says:

     "Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you.  Honest injun,
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 hit 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 yourn; 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 he 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 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 nervous, and
wondering how this was going to help me out of 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 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 upon 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 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 yeller dog that didn't know no more
than a person's conscience does I would poison him.  It takes up more room
than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, no how.  Tom
Sawyer he says the same.