Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0135/01356.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 13KB | 270 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01356}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
A Mixed-Up And Splendid Rescue}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{says
come
jim
get
now
right
didn't
tom
off
till
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{}
$Log{See Huck After Fishing*0135601.scf
See Guns And Dogs*0135602.scf
}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

A Mixed-Up And Splendid Rescue

     We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went
over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a look
at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper, and found
them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end they was standing
on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done supper, and
wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a word about the new
letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as much about it as anybody
did, and as soon as we was half up-stairs and her back was turned we slid for
the cellar cubboard and loaded up a good lunch and took it up to our room and
went to bed, and got up about half past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's
dress that he stole and was going to start with the lunch, but says:

[See Huck After Fishing: We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took
my canoe and went over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time]

     "Where's the butter?"

     "I laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone."

     "Well, you left it laid out, then - it ain't here."

     "We can get along without it," I says.

     "We can get along with it, too," he says; "just you slide down cellar
and fetch it.  And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along.
I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in
disguise, and be ready to ba like a sheep and shove soon as you get there."

     So out he went, and down cellar went I.  The hunk of butter, big as a
person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of corn-pone
with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up-stairs very stealthy, and
got up to the main floor all right, but there comes Aunt Sally with a candle,
and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the
next second she see me; and she says:

     "You been down cellar?"

     "Yes'm."

     "What you been going down there?"

     "Noth'n."

     "Noth'n!"

     "No'm."

     "Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?"

     "I don't know 'm."

     "You don't know?  Don't answer me that way.  Tom, I want to know what
you been doing down there."

     "I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I
have."

     I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a general thing she would; but I
s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat
about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says, very
decided:

     "You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come.  You
been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it is
before I'm done with you."

     So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room.
My, but there was a crowd there!  Fifteen farmers, and every one of them had
a gun.  I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down.  They
were setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice, and all
of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't; but I knowed
they was, because they was always taking off their hats, and putting them on,
and scratching their heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling with their
buttons.  I warn't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off, all the same.

     I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if
she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this thing,
and what a thundering hornet's nest we'd got ourselves into, so we could stop
fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim before these rips got out
of patience and come for us.

     At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I couldn't answer
them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because these men was in
such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right now and lay for them
desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to midnight; and others
was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the sheep-signal; and here was
Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me a-shaking all over and ready to
sink down in my tracks I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and
hotter, and the butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my
ears; and pretty soon, when one of them says, "I'm for going and getting in
the cabin first and right now, and catching him when they come," I most
dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and Aunt
Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says:

     "For the land's sake, what is the matter with the child?  He's got the
brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"

     And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes
the bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me,
and says:

     "Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it
ain't no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and
when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color and
all it was just like your brains would be if - Dear, dear, whyd'nt you tell
me that was what you'd been down there for, I wouldn't 'a' cared.  Now cler
out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of you till morning!"

     I was up-stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one,
and shinning through the dark for the lean-to.  I couldn't hardly get my
words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump
for it now, and not a minute to lose - the house full of men, yonder, with
guns!

     His eyes just blazed; and he says:

     "No! - is that so?  Ain't it bully!  Why, Huck, if it was to do over
again, I bet I could fetch two hundred.  If we could put it off till -"

     "Hurry! hurry!" I says.  "Where's Jim?"

     "Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him.  He's
dressed, and everything's ready.  Now we'll slide out and give the
sheep-signal."

     But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them
begin to fumble with the padlock, and heard a man say:

     "I told you we'd be too soon; they haven't come - the door is locked.
Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the dark
and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece, and listen
if you can hear 'em coming."

     So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us
whilst we was hustling to get under the bed.  But we got under all right, and
out through the hole, swift but soft - Jim first, me next, and Tom last,
which was according to Tom's orders.  Now we was in the lean-to, and heard
trampings close by outside.  So we crept to the door, and Tom stopped us
there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make out nothing, it was so
dark; and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get further,
and when he nudged us Jim must glide out first, and him last.  So he set his
ear to the crack and listened, and listened, and listened, and the steps
a-scraping around out there all the time; and at last he nudged us, and we
slid out, and stooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise,
and slipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all
right, and me and Jim over it; but Tom's britches catched fast on a splinter
on the top rail, and then he hear he steps coming, so he had to pull loose,
which snapped the splinter and made a noise; and as he dropped in our tracks
and started somebody sings out

     "Who's that?  Answer, or I'll shoot!"

     But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved.  Then there
was a rush, and a bang, bang, bang! and the bullets fairly whizzed around us!
We heard them sing out:

     "Here they are!  They've broke for the river!  After 'em, boys, and turn
loose the dogs!"

[See Guns And Dogs: They'd had all the dogs shut up, so they would't scare off
the robbers.]

     So here they come, full tilt.  We could hear them because they wore
boots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell.  We was in the
path to the mill; and when they got pretty close onto us we dodged into the
bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind them.  They'd had all the
dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the robbers; but by this time
somebody had let them loose, and here they come, making powwow enough for a
million; but they was our dogs; so we stopped in our tracks till they catched
up; and when they see it warn't nobody but us, and no excitement to offer
them, they only just said howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting
and clattering; and then we up-steam again, and whizzed along after them till
we was nearly to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my
canoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of
the river, but didn't make no more noise than we was obleeged to.  Then we
struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island where my raft was; and we
could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down the bank,
till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out.  And when we stepped
onto the raft I says:

     "Now, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a
slave no more."

     "En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck.  It 'uz planned beautiful, en
it 'uz done beautiful; en dey ain't nobody kin git up a plan dat's mo' mixed
up en splendid den what dat one wuz."

     We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because
he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.

     When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel as brash as what we did
before.  It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in the
wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but he says:

     "Gimme the rags; I can do it myself.  Don't stop now; don't fool around
here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set her
loose!  Boys, we done it elegant! - 'deed we did.  I wish we'd 'a' had the
handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't 'a' been no "Son of Saint Louis,
ascend to heaven!' wrote down in his biography; no, sir, we'd 'a' whooped him
over the border - that's what we'd 'a' done with him - and done it just as
slick as nothing at all, too.  Man the sweeps - man the sweeps!"

     But me and Jim was consulting - and thinking.  And after we'd thought a
minute, I says:

     "Say it, Jim."

     So he says:

     "Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck.  Ef it wuz him dat 'uz
bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, `Go on en
save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one'?  Is dat like Mars Tom
Sawyer?  Would he say dat?  You bet he wouldn't!  Well, den, is Jim gwyne to
say it?  No, sah - I doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'dout a doctor; not
if it's forty year!"

     I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say -
so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a - going for a doctor.  He
raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't
budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself; but we
wouldn't let him.  Then he give us a piece of his mind, but it didn't do no
good.

     So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:

     "Well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when you
get to the village.  Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and fast
and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse full of gold in
his hand, and then take and lead him all around the back alleys and
everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the canoe, in a
roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him and take his chalk away
from him, and don't give it back to him till you get him back to the village,
or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it again.  It's the way they
all do."

     So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he
see the doctor coming till he was gone again.