Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0135/01355.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 12KB | 212 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01355}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Tom Writes Nonnamous Letters}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{tom
way
didn't
warn't
time
snakes
done
door
it's
jim}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

Tom Writes Nonnamous Letters

     In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and
fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we had
fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put it in a
safe place under Aunt Sally's bed.  But while we was gone for spiders little
Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there, and
opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did; and
Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was a-standing on top of the
bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull
times for her.  So she took and dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as
much as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome
cub, and they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the
pick of the flock.  I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first
haul was.

     We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and
caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet's nest,
but we didn't.  The family was at home.  We didn't give it right up, but
stayed with them as long as we could; because we allowed we'd tire them out
or they'd got to tire us out, and they done it.  Then we got allycumpain and
rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right again, but couldn't set
down convenient.  And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of
dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in a bag, and put it in our
room, and by that time it was supper-time, and a rattling good honest day's
work; and hungry? - oh, no, I reckon not!  And there warn't a blessed snake
up there when we went back - we didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out
somehow, and left.  But it didn't matter much, because they was still on the
premises somewheres.  So we judged we could get some of them again.  No,
there warn't no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable
spell.  You'd see them dripping from the rafters and places every now and
then; and they generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck,
and most of the time where you didn't want them.  Well, they was handsome and
striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of them; but that never made
no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed what they
might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it; and every time
one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference what she was
doing, she would just lay that work down and light out.  I never see such a
woman.  And you could hear her whoop to Jericho.  You couldn't get her to
take a-holt of one of them with the tongs.  And if she turned over and found
one in bed she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would think the
house was afire.  She disturbed the old man so that he said he could most
wish there hadn't ever been no snakes created.  Why, after every last snake
had been gone clear out of the house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn't
over it yet; she warn't near over it; when she was setting thinking about
something you could touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she
would jump right out of her stockings.  It was very curious.  But Tom said
all women was just so.  He said they was made that way for some reason or
other.

     We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she
allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded
up the place again with them.  I didn't mind the lickings, because they
didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had to lay in another
lot.  But we got them laid in, and all the other things; and you never see a
cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd all swarn out for music and go
for him.  Jim didn't like the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim; and
so they'd lay for him, and make it mighty warm for him.  And he said that
between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone there warn't no room in
bed for him, skasely, and when ther was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so
lively, and it was always lively, he said, because they never all slept at
one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on
deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had
one gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang having a circus over him,
and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would take a chance at him
as he crossed over.  He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't ever be
prisoner again, not for a salary.

     Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape.
The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would
get up and write a line in his journal whilst the ink was fresh; the pens was
made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the grindstone; the
bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust, and it give us a most
amazing stomach-ache.  We reckoned we was all going to die, but didn't.  It
was the most undisgestible sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the same.  But as
I was saying, we'd got all the work done now, at last; and we was all pretty
much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim.  The old man had wrote a couple of
times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get the runaway nigger, but
hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such plantation; so he allowed
he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he
mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold shivers, and I see we
hadn't no time to lose.  So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters.

     "What's them?"  I says.

     "Warnings to the people that something is up.  Sometimes it's done one
way, sometimes another.  But there's always somebody spying around that gives
notice to the governor of the castle.  When Louis XVI. was going to light out
of the Tooleries a servant-girl done it.  It's a very good way, and so is the
nonnamous letters.  We'll use them both.  And it's usual for the prisoner's
mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in, and he slides out in her
clothes.  We'll do that, too."

     "But looky here, Tom, what do we want to warn anybody for that
something's up?  Let them find it out for themselves - it's their lookout."

     "Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them.  It's the way they've acted
from the very start - left us to do everything.  They're so confiding and
mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all.  So if we don't give
them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us, and so
after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll go off perfectly flat;
won't amount to nothing - won't be nothing to it."

     "Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."

     "Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted.  So I says:

     "But I ain't going to make no complaint.  Any way that suits you suits
me.  What you going to do about the servant-girl?"

     "You'll be her.  You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that
yaller girl's frock."

     "Why, Tom, that'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she
prob'bly hain't got any but that one."

     "I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the
nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door."

     "All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my
own togs."

     "You wouldn't look like a servant-girl then, would you?"

     "No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, anyway."

     "That ain't got nothing to do with it.  The thing for us to do is just
to do our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us do it or not.
Hain't you got no principle at all?"

     "All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl.  Who's Jim's
mother?"

     "I'm his mother.  I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."

     "Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves."

     "Not much.  I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed
to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's gown
off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together.  When a prisoner of
style escapes it's called an evasion.  It's always called so when a king
escapes, f'rinstance.  And the same with a king's son; it don't make no
difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one."

     So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's
frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the way
Tom told me to.  It said:

     Beware.  Trouble is brewing.  Keep a sharp lookout.

Unknown Friend.

     Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and
crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a coffin on the
back door.  I never see a family in such a sweat.  They couldn't 'a' been
worse scared if the place had 'a' been full of ghosts laying for them behind
everything and under the beds and shivering through the air.  If a door
banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said "ouch!" if anything fell, she jumped
and said "ouch!" if you happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she
done the same; she couldn't face no way and be satisfied, because she allowed
there was something behind her every time - so she was always a-whirling
around sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd got two-thirds around
she'd whirl back again, and say it again; and she was afraid to go to bed,
but she dasn't set up.  So the thing was working very well, Tom said; he said
he never see a thing work more satisfactory.  He said it showed it was done
right.

     So he said, now for the grand bulge!  So the very next morning at the
streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we better
do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going to have a
nigger on watch at both doors all night.  Tom he want down the lightning-rod
to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in
the back of his neck and come back.  This letter said:

     Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend.  There is a desperate gang of
cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your runaway
nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will stay
in the house and not bother them.  I am one of the gang, but have got
religion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will betray
the helish design.  They will sneak down from northards, along the fence, at
midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the nigger's cabin to get him.  I
am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger; but stead of
that I will ba like a sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all; then
whilst they are getting his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in,
and can kill them at your leisure.  Don't do anything but just the way I am
telling you; if you do they will suspicion something and raise
whoop-jamboreehoo.  I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the
right thing.  Unknown Friend.