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- 1885
- THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
- by Mark Twain
-
-
-
- NOTICE
-
- Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be
- prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
- persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-
- By Order of the Author
- Per G. G., Chief Ordnance
-
-
-
-
- EXPLANATORY
-
- In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri
- negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western
- dialect; the ordinary "Pike-County" dialect; and four modified
- varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a
- hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work; but painstakingly, and with
- the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with
- these several forms of speech.
- I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers
- would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike
- and not succeeding.
-
- The Author
-
-
- CHAPTER ONE
-
-
- You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of
- "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter. That book
- was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was
- things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is
- nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without
- it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly- Tom's Aunt
- Polly, she is- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas, is all told about in
- that book- which is mostly a true book; with some stretchers, as I
- said before.
-
- Now the way that the book winds up, is this: Tom and me found the
- money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got
- six thousand dollars apiece- all gold. It was an awful sight of
- money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher, he took it and put
- it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece, all the
- year round- more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow
- Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me;
- but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how
- dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I
- couldn't stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags, and my
- sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he
- hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers and I
- might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I
- went back.
-
- The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
- called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by
- it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing
- but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old
- thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had
- to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to
- eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and
- grumble a little over the victuals, though there wasn't really
- anything the matter with them. That is, nothing only everything was
- cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things
- get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go
- better.
-
- After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
- Bulrushers; and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but
- by-and-by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable
- long time; so then I didn't care no more about him; because I don't
- take no stock in dead people.
-
- Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But
- she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and
- I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some
- people. They get down on the thing when they don't know nothing
- about it. Here she was a bothering about Moses, which was no kin to
- her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power
- of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she
- took snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it
- herself.
-
- Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on,
- had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now, with a
- spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then
- the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then
- for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would
- say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry"; and "don't scrunch
- up like that, Huckleberry- set up straight"; and pretty soon she would
- say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry- why don't you
- try to behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I
- wished I was there. She got mad, then, but I didn't mean no harm.
- All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't
- particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she
- wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go
- to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where
- she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never
- said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
-
- Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the
- good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go
- around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I
- didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she
- reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and, she said, not by a
- considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me
- to be together.
-
- Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and
- lonesome. By-and-by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and
- then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of
- candle and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the
- window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use.
- I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars was shining,
- and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an
- owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a
- whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die;
- and the wind was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn't make
- out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then
- away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost
- makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and
- can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave
- and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so
- down-hearted and scared, I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon
- a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit
- in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I
- didn't need anybody to tell me that was an awful bad sign and would
- fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off
- of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed
- my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with
- a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that
- when you've lost a horse-shoe that you've found, instead of nailing it
- up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way
- to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.
-
- I set down again, a shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a
- smoke; for the house was all as still as death, now, and so the
- widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away
- off in the town go boom- boom- boom-twelve licks- and all still again-
- stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap, down in the dark
- amongst the trees- something was a stirring. I set still and listened.
- Directly I could just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That
- was good! Says I, "me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put
- out the light and scrambled out of the window onto the shed. Then I
- slipped down to the ground and crawled in amongst the trees, and
- sure enough there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
-
- CHAPTER TWO
-
-
- We went tip-toeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the
- end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't
- scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a
- root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's
- big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see
- him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up
- and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:
-
- "Who dah?"
-
- He listened some more; then he come tip-toeing down and stood
- right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it
- was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so
- close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching; but
- I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my
- back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't
- scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty of times since. If you
- are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when
- you ain't sleepy- if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to
- scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.
- Pretty soon Jim says:
-
- "Say- who is you? What is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.
- Well, I knows what I's gwyne to do. I's gwyne to set down here and
- listen tell I hears it agin."
-
- So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his
- back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them
- most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the
- tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch
- on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I
- was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or
- seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching
- in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it
- more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to
- try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore- and
- then I was pretty soon comfortable again.
-
- Tom he made a sign to me- kind of a little noise with his mouth- and
- we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot
- off, Tom whispered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun;
- but I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd
- find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough,
- and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want
- him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to
- resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid
- five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat
- to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim
- was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited,
- and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.
-
- As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden
- fence, and by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other
- side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and
- hung it on the limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he
- didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him
- in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under
- the trees again and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And
- next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and
- after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till
- by-and-by he said they rode him over the world, and tired him most
- to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous
- proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other
- niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he
- was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers
- would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if
- he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark
- by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to
- know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you
- know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a
- back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece around his neck with
- a string and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own
- hands and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches
- whenever he wanted to, just by saying something to it; but he never
- told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around
- there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that
- five-center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had
- had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined, for a servant, because he
- got so stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by
- witches.
-
- Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill-top, we looked
- away down into the village and could see three or four lights
- twinkling, where there was sick folks, may be; and the stars over us
- was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a
- whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and
- found Jo Harper, and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys,
- hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the
- river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went
- ashore.
-
- We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep
- the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the
- thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles and crawled in on
- our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the
- cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages and pretty soon
- ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a
- hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all
- damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:
-
- "Now we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
- Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his
- name in blood."
-
- Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
- wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the
- band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done
- anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill
- that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he
- mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their
- breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong
- to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if
- he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to
- the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then
- have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and
- his name blotted off the list with blood and never mentioned again
- by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot, forever.
-
- Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he
- got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was
- out of pirate books, and robber books, and every gang that was
- high-toned had it.
-
- Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told
- the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and
- wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
-
- "Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family- what you going to do
- 'bout him?"
-
- "Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.
-
- "Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him, these days.
- He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't
- been seen in these parts for a year or more."
-
- They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
- said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
- wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think
- of anything to do- everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most
- ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered
- them Miss Watson- they could kill her. Everybody said:
-
- "Oh, she'll do, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."
-
- Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign
- with, and I made my mark on the paper.
-
- "Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"
-
- "Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.
-
- "But who are we going to rob? houses- or cattle- or-"
-
- "Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery, it's
- burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort
- of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road,
- with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money."
-
- "Must we always kill the people?"
-
- "Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but
- mostly it's considered best to kill them. Except some that you bring
- to the cave here and keep them till they're ransomed."
-
- "Ransomed? What's that?"
-
- "I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and
- so of course that's what we've got to do."
-
- "But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"
-
- "Why blame it all, we've to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the
- books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the
- books, and get things all muddled up?"
-
- "Oh, that's all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the
- nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how
- to do it to them? that's the thing I want to get at. Now what do you
- reckon it is?"
-
- "Well I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're
- ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead."
-
- "Now, that's something like. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said
- that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death- and a
- bothersome lot they'll be, too, eating up everything and always trying
- to get loose."
-
- "How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a
- guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"
-
- "A guard. Well, that is good. So somebody's got to set up all
- night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think
- that's foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as
- soon as they get here?"
-
- "Because it ain't in the books- that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do
- you want to do things regular, or don't you?- that's the idea. Don't
- you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the
- correct thing to do? Do you reckon you can learn 'em anything? Not
- by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the
- regular way."
-
- "All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say- do
- we kill the women, too?"
-
- "Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on.
- Kill the women? No- nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.
- You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to
- them; and by-and-by they fall in love with you and never want to go
- home any more."
-
- "Well, if that's the way, I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in
- it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and
- fellows waiting to be ransomed, that they won't be no place for the
- robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."
-
- Little Tommy Barnes was asleep, now, and when they waked him up he
- was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and
- didn't want to be a robber any more.
-
- So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that
- made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the
- secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we
- would all go home and meet next week and rob somebody and kill some
- people.
-
- Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he
- wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be
- wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed
- to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we
- elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the
- Gang, and so started home.
-
- I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
- breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
- dog-tired.
-
- CHAPTER THREE
-
-
- Well, I got a good going-over in the morning, from old Miss
- Watson, on account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold,
- but only cleaned off the grease and clay and looked so sorry that I
- thought I would behave a while if I could. Then Miss Watson she took
- me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to
- pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't
- so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any
- good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times,
- but somehow I couldn't make it work. By-and-by, one day, I asked
- Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told
- me why, and I couldn't make it out no way.
-
- I set down, one time, back in the woods, and had a long think
- about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray
- for, why don't Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why
- can't the widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why
- can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in
- it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a
- body could get by praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too
- many for me, but she told me what she meant- I must help other people,
- and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them
- all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss
- Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my
- mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it- except for
- the other people- so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it
- any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one
- side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth
- water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all
- down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a
- poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence,
- but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more.
- I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's, if
- he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was agoing to be any
- better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant
- and so kind of low-down and ornery.
-
- Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was
- comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to
- always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me;
- though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was
- around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drowned, about
- twelve miles above town, so people said. They judged it was him,
- anyway; said this drowned man was just his size, and was ragged, and
- had uncommon long hair- which was all like pap- but they couldn't make
- nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it
- warn't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his
- back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I
- warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I
- knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on
- his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed
- up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the
- old man would turn up again by-and-by, though I wished he wouldn't.
-
- We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned.
- All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, we hadn't killed any
- people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and
- go charging down on hog-drovers and women in carts taking garden stuff
- to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the
- hogs "ingots," and he called the turnips and stuff "julery" and we
- would go to the cave and pow-wow over what we had done and how many
- people we had killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it.
- One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick,
- which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get
- together), and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that
- next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich Arabs was
- going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six
- hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter" mules, all loaded down
- with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard of four hundred
- soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and
- kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our swords
- and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a turnip-cart
- but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it; though
- they was only lath and broom-sticks, and you might scour at them
- till you rotted and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more
- than what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd
- of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants,
- so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got
- the word, we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there
- warn't no Spaniards and Arabs, and there warn't no camels nor no
- elephants. It warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a
- primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up
- the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam,
- though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and
- a tract; and then the teacher charged in and made us drop everything
- and cut. I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said
- there was loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was Arabs
- there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldn't we see
- them, then? He said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book
- called "Don Quixote," I would know without asking. He said it was
- all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there,
- and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he
- called magicians, and they had turned the whole thing into an infant
- Sunday school, just out of spite. I said, allright, then the thing for
- us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a
- numskull.
-
- "Why," says he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and
- they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack
- Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church."
-
- "Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help us- can't we lick
- the other crowd then?"
-
- "How you going to get them?"
-
- "I don't know. How do they get them?"
-
- "Why they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies
- come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and
- the smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and
- do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot tower up by the
- roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with
- it- or any other man."
-
- "Who makes them tear around so?"
-
- "Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs
- the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he
- tells them to build a palace forty miles long, out of di'monds, and
- fill it full of chewing gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an
- emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do
- it- and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And
- more-they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever
- you want it, you understand."
-
- "Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flatheads for not
- keeping the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that.
- And what's more- if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho
- before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of
- an old tin lamp."
-
- "How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to come when he rubbed it,
- whether you wanted to or not."
-
- "What, and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right,
- then; I would come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree
- there was in the country."
-
- "Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem
- to know anything, somehow- perfect sap-head."
-
- I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
- would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an
- iron ring and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat
- like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it
- warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that
- stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed
- in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It
- had all the marks of a Sunday school.
-
- CHAPTER FOUR
-
-
- Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the
- winter, now. I had been to school most all the time, and could
- spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the
- multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't
- reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live
- forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway.
-
- At first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand
- it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I
- got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to
- school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the
- widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a
- house, and sleeping in a bed, pulled on me pretty tight, mostly, but
- before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods,
- sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best,
- but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The
- widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very
- satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me.
-
- One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast.
- I reached for some of it as quick as I could, to throw over my left
- shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of
- me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away,
- Huckleberry- what a mess you are always making." The widow put in a
- good word for me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I
- knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling
- worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and
- what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad
- luck, but this wasn't one of them kind; so I never tried to do
- anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.
-
- I went down the front garden and clumb over the stile, where you
- go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on
- the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the
- quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the
- garden fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing
- around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was
- going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks
- first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was
- a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the
- devil.
-
- I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my
- shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge
- Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:
-
- "Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your
- interest?"
-
- "No sir," I says; "is there some for me?"
-
- "Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in, last night. Over a hundred and
- fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You better let me invest it
- along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."
-
- "No sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all-
- nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it
- to you- the six thousand and all."
-
- He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:
-
- "Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
-
- I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please.
- You'll take it- won't you?" He says:
-
- "Well I'm puzzled. I's something the matter?"
-
- "Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing- then I won't
- have to tell no lies."
-
- He studied a while, and then he says:
-
- "Oho-o. I think I see. You want to sell all your property to me- not
- give it. That's the correct idea."
-
- Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
-
- "There- you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have
- bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now,
- you sign it."
-
- So I signed it, and left. Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball
- as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach
- of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a
- spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that
- night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the
- snow. What I wanted to know, was, what he was going to do, and was
- he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball, and said something over
- it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty
- solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then
- another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees
- and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use; he said
- it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money.
- I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no
- good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it
- wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was
- so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I
- reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the
- judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball
- would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim
- smelt it, and bit it, and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the
- hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw
- Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all
- night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't
- feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute,
- let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that, but I
- had forgot it.
-
- Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball and got down and listened
- again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would
- tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the
- hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
-
- "Yo'ole father doan' know, yit, what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes
- he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way
- is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels
- hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en 'tother one
- is black. De white one gits him to go right, a little while, den de
- black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell, yit, which one
- gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have
- considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne
- to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time
- you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo'
- life. One uv 'em's light en 'tother one is dark. One is rich en
- 'tother is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one
- by-en-by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en
- don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to
- git hung."
-
- When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night, there set
- pap, his own self!
-
- CHAPTER FIVE
-
-
- I had shut the door to. Then I turned around, and there he was. I
- used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I
- reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was
- mistaken. That is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my
- breath sort of hitched- he being so unexpected; but right away
- after, I see I warn't scared of him worth bothering about.
-
- He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled
- and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining
- through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was
- his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face,
- where his face showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but
- a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl- a
- tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes- just rags,
- that was all. He had one ankle resting on 'tother knee; the boot on
- that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked
- them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor; an old black
- slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.
-
- I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his
- chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the
- window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me
- all over. By-and-by he says:
-
- "Starchy clothes- very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,
- don't you?"
-
- "Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
-
- "Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on
- considerble many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg
- before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say; can read
- and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you,
- because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might
- meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?- who told you you could?"
-
- "The widow. She told me."
-
- "The widow, hey?- and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
- about a thing that ain't none of her business?"
-
- "Nobody never told her."
-
- "Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here- you drop that
- school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs
- over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme
- catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother
- couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None
- of the family couldn't, before they died. I can't; and here you're
- a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it- you
- hear? Say- lemme hear you read."
-
- I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and
- the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a
- whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
-
- "It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
- here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for
- you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you
- good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a
- son."
-
- He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a
- boy, and says:
-
- "What's this?"
-
- "It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."
-
- He tore it up, and says-
-
- "I'll give you something better- I'll give you a cowhide."
-
- He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says-
-
- "Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and
- a look'n-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor- and your own
- father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a
- son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done
- with you. Why there ain't no end to your airs- they say you're rich.
- Hey?- how's that?"
-
- "They lie- that's how."
-
- "Looky here- mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can
- stand, now- so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and
- I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away
- down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money
- to-morrow- I want it."
-
- "I hain't got no money."
-
- "It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."
-
- "I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll
- tell you the same."
-
- "All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll
- know the reason why. Say- how much you got in your pocket? I want it."
-
- "I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to-"
-
- "It don't make no difference what you want it for- you just shell it
- out."
-
- He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
- going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all
- day. When he had got out on the shed, he put his head in again, and
- cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him;
- and when I reckoned he was gone, he come back and put his head in
- again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going
- to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that.
-
- Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and
- bullyragged him and tried to make him give up the money, but he
- couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him.
-
- The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away
- from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge
- that had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said
- courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help
- it; said he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So
- Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.
-
- That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide
- me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I
- borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
- drunk and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and
- carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till
- most midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him
- before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was
- satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him.
-
- When he got out the new judge said he was agoing to make a man of
- him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and
- nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the
- family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper
- he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man
- cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he
- was agoing to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be
- ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on
- him. The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried,
- and his wife she cried again; pap said he'd been a man that had always
- been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The
- old man said that what a man wanted that was down, was sympathy; and
- the judge said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was
- bedtime, the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:
-
- "Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take ahold of it; shake it.
- There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more;
- it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and 'll die
- before he'll go back. You mark them words- don't forget I said them.
- It's a clean hand now; shake it- don't be afeard."
-
- So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The
- judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge-
- made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or
- something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful
- room, which was the spare room, and in the night sometime he got
- powerful thirsty and clumb out onto the porch-roof and slid down a
- stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb
- back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled
- out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke
- his left arm in two places and was most froze to death when somebody
- found him after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room,
- they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.
-
- The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could
- reform the ole man with a shot-gun, maybe, but he didn't know no other
- way.
-
- CHAPTER SIX
-
-
- Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he
- went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that
- money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me
- a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same,
- and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go
- to school much, before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That
- law trial was a slow business; appeared like they warn't ever going to
- get started on it; so every now and then I'd borrow two or three
- dollars off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding.
- Every time he got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he
- raised Cain around town; and every time he raised Cain he got
- jailed. He was just suited- this kind of thing was right in his line.
-
- He got to hanging around the widow's too much, and so she told him
- at last, that if he didn't quit using around there she would make
- trouble for him. Well, wasn't he mad? He said he would show who was
- Huck Finn's boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring,
- and catched me, and took me up the river about three miles, in a
- skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and
- there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the
- timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it
- was.
-
- He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run
- off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put
- the key under his head, nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I
- reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every
- little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three
- miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky and fetched
- it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow
- she found out where I was, by-and-by, and she sent a man over to try
- to get hold of me, but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't
- long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it,
- all but the cowhide part.
-
- It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day,
- smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run
- along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see
- how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to
- wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up
- regular, and be forever bothering over a book and have old Miss Watson
- pecking at you all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had
- stopped cussing, because the widow didn't like it; but now I took to
- it again because pap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up
- in the woods there take it all around.
-
- But by-and-by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't
- stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and
- locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was
- dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drowned and I wasn't ever going
- to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix up
- some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a
- time, but I couldn't find no way. There warn't a window to it big
- enought for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly, it
- was too narrow. The door was thick solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty
- careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was
- away; I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times;
- well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way
- to put in the time. But this time I found something at last; I found
- an old rusty wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a
- rafter and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to
- work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the
- far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing
- through the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table
- and raised the blanket and went to work to saw a section of the big
- bottom log out, big enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long
- job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard pap's gun in
- the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the
- blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap came in.
-
- Pap warn't in a good humor- so he was his natural self. He said he
- was down to town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he
- reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money, if they ever
- got started on the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long
- time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people
- allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me
- to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win, this
- time. This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want to go
- back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as
- they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything
- and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again
- to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off
- with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable
- parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called them
- what's-his-name, when he got to them, and went right along with his
- cussing.
-
- He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would
- watch out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of
- a place six or seven mile off, to stow me in, where they might hunt
- till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty
- uneasy again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on
- hand till he got that chance.
-
- The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got.
- There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,
- ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two
- newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and
- went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it
- all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines,
- and take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in
- one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night
- times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that
- the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I
- would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I
- reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I
- was staying, till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was
- asleep or drownded.
-
- I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark.
- While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort
- of warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in
- town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.
- A body would a thought he was Adam, he was just all mud. Whenever
- his liquor begun to work, he most always went for the govment. This
- time he says:
-
- "Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like.
- Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him- a
- man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety
- and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son
- raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for
- him and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call
- that govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge
- Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what
- the law does. The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and
- upards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets
- him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that
- govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this.
- Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good
- and all. Yes, and I told 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face.
- Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two
- cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come anear it agin.
- Them's the very words. I says, look at my hat- if you call it a hat-
- but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below
- my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head
- was shoved up through a jint o' stove-pipe. Look at it, says I- such a
- hat for me to wear- one of the wealthiest men in this town, if I could
- git my rights.
-
- "Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here.
- There was a free nigger there, from Ohio; a mulatter, most as white as
- a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the
- shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine
- clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a
- silver-headed cane- the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State.
- And what do you think? they said he was a p'fessor in a college, and
- could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that
- ain't the wust. They said he could vote, when he was at home. Well,
- that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was
- 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote, myself, if I warn't
- too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in
- this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says
- I'll never vote agin. Them's the very words I said; they all heard me;
- and the country may rot for all me- I'll never vote agin as long as
- I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger- why, he wouldn't a
- give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to
- the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold- that's
- what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they
- said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six months, and
- he hadn't been there that long yet. There, now- that's a specimen.
- They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's
- been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a
- govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment,
- and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can
- take ahold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted nigger,
- and-"
-
- Pap was agoing on so, he never noticed where his old limber legs was
- taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork,
- and barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the
- hottest kind of language- mostly hove at the nigger and the govment,
- though he give the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped
- around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other,
- holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let
- out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a
- rattling kick. But it warn't good judgment, because that was the
- boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it;
- so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down
- he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes; and the
- cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous.
- He said so his own self, afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan
- in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too; but I reckon that
- was sort of piling it on, maybe.
-
- After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there
- for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I
- judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would
- steal the key, or saw myself out, one or 'tother. He drank, and drank,
- and tumbled down on his blankets, by-and-by; but luck didn't run my
- way. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned, and
- moaned, and thrashed around this way and that, for a long time. At
- last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open, all I could do, and
- so before I knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle
- burning.
-
- I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an
- awful scream and I was up. There was pap, looking wild and skipping
- around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was
- crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and
- say one had bit him on the cheek- but I couldn't see no snakes. He
- started and run round and round the cabin, hollering "take him off!
- take him off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so
- wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down
- panting; then he rolled over and over, wonderful fast, kicking
- things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with
- his hands, and screaming, and saying there was devils ahold of him. He
- wore out, by-and-by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid
- stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the
- wolves, away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was
- laying over by the corner. By-and-by he raised up, part way, and
- listened, with his head to one side. He says very low:
-
- "Tramp- tramp- tramp; that's the dead; tramp- tramp- tramp;
- they're coming after me; but I won't go- Oh, they're here! don't touch
- me- don't! hands off- they're cold; let go- Oh, let a poor devil
- alone!"
-
- Then he went down on all fours and crawled off begging them to let
- him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in
- under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying.
- I could hear him through the blanket.
-
- By-and-by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild,
- and he see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place,
- with a clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death and saying he
- would kill me and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged,
- and told him I was only Huck, but he laughed such a screechy laugh,
- and roared and cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned
- short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket
- between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of
- the jacket quick as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was
- all tired out, and dropped down with his back against the door, and
- said he would rest a minute and then kill me. He put his knife under
- him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who
- was who.
-
- So he dozed off, pretty soon. By-and-by I got the old splitbottom
- chair and clumb up, as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got
- down the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded,
- and then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and
- set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the
- time did drag along.
-
- CHAPTER SEVEN
-
-
- Git up! what you 'bout!"
-
- I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I
- was. It was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was
- standing over me, looking sour- and sick, too. He says-
-
- "What you doin' with this gun?"
-
- I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I
- says:
-
- "Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him."
-
- "Why didn't you roust me out?"
-
- "Well I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you."
-
- "Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with
- you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be
- along in a minute."
-
- He unlocked the door and I cleared out, up the river bank. I noticed
- some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling
- of bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would
- have great times now, if I was over at the town. The June rise used to
- be always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins, here comes
- cord-wood floating down, and pieces of log rafts- sometimes a dozen
- logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to
- the wood yards and the sawmill.
-
- I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and 'tother one
- out for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once, here comes
- a canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long,
- riding high like a duck. I shot head first off of the bank, like a
- frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just
- expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often
- done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most
- to it they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. It
- was a drift-canoe, sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore.
- Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this- she's worth
- ten dollars. But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I
- was running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with
- vines and willows, I struck another idea; I judged I'd hide her
- good, and then, stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go
- down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and
- not have such a rough time tramping on foot.
-
- It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man
- coming, all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked
- around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a
- piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen
- anything.
-
- When he got along, I was hard at it taking up a "trot" line. He
- abused me a little for being so slow, but I told him I fell in the
- river and that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was
- wet, and then he would be asking questions. We got five cat-fish off
- of the lines and went home.
-
- While we laid off, after breakfast, to sleep up, both of us being
- about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to
- keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a
- certainer thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before
- they missed me; you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I
- didn't see no way for a while, but by-and-by pap raised up a minute,
- to drink another barrel of water, and he says:
-
- "Another time a man comes a-prowling round here, you roust me out,
- you hear? That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time,
- you roust me out, you hear?"
-
- Then he dropped down and went to sleep again- but what he had been
- saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix
- it now so nobody won't think of following me.
-
- About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The
- river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the
- rise. By-and-by, along comes part of a log raft- nine logs fast
- together. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we
- had dinner. Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through,
- so as to catch more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs
- was enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So
- he locked me in and took the skiff and started off towing the raft
- about half-past three. I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I
- waited till I reckoned he had got a good start, then I out with my saw
- and went to work on that log again. Before he was side of the river
- I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the
- water away off yonder.
-
- I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid,
- and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the
- same with the side of bacon; then the whisky jug; I took all the
- coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the
- wadding; I took the bucket and gourd, I took a dipper and a tin cup,
- and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I
- took fish-lines and matches and other things- everything that was
- worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there
- wasn't any, only the one out at the wood pile, and I knowed why I
- was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
-
- I had wore the ground a good deal, crawling out of the hole and
- dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from
- the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the
- smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back in
- its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it
- there,- for it was bent up at that place, and didn't quite touch
- ground. If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was
- sawed, you wouldn't ever notice it; and besides, this was the back
- of the cabin and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around
- there.
-
- It was all grass clear to the canoe; so I hadn't left a track. I
- followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the
- river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the
- woods and was hunting around for some birds, when I see a wild pig;
- hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the
- prairie farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
-
- I took the axe and smashed in the door- I beat it and hacked it
- considerable, a-doing it. I fetched the pig in and took him back
- nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and
- laid him down on the ground to bleed- I say ground, because it was
- ground- hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack
- and put a lot of big rocks in it,- all I could drag- and I started
- it from the pig and dragged it to the door and through the woods
- down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight.
- You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground.
- I did wish Tom Sawyer was there, I knowed he would take an interest in
- this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could
- spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.
-
- Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and bloodied the axe
- good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the
- corner. Then I took the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket
- (so he couldn't drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then
- dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I
- went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe and
- fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand,
- and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't
- no knives and forks on the place- pap done everything with his
- clasp-knife, about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a
- hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the
- house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes-
- and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a slough or a
- creek leading out of it on the other side, that went miles away, I
- don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted out
- and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap's
- whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by
- accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it
- wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.
-
- It was about dark, now; so I dropped the canoe down the river
- under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to
- rise. I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and
- by-and-by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I
- says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to
- the shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal
- track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of
- it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They
- won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll
- soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me. All
- right; I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good
- enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes
- there. And then I can paddle over to town, nights, and slink around
- and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place.
-
- I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed, I was asleep. When
- I woke up I didn't know where I was, for a minute. I set up and looked
- around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and
- miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift
- logs that went a slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards
- out from shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and
- smelt late. You know what I mean- I don't know the words to put it in.
-
- I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and
- start, when I heard a sound away over the water. Pretty soon I made it
- out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars
- working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I peeped out through
- the willow branches, and there it was- a skiff, away across the water.
- I couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it
- was abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it. Thinks I,
- maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me,
- with the current, and by-and-by he come a-swinging up shore in the
- easy water, and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun
- and touched him. Well, it was pap, sure enough- and sober, too, by the
- way he laid to his oars.
-
- I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down
- stream soft but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and
- a half, and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the
- middle of the river, because soon I would be passing the ferry landing
- and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the
- drift-wood and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her
- float. I laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe,
- looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so
- deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed
- it before. And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I
- heard people talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said,
- too, every word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long
- days and the short nights, now. 'Tother one said this warn't one of
- the short ones, he reckoned- and then they laughed, and he said it
- over again and they laughed again; then they waked up another fellow
- and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out
- something brisk and said let him alone. The first fellow said he
- 'lowed to tell it to his old woman- she would think it was pretty
- good; but he said that warn't nothing to some things he had said in
- his tune. I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he
- hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than about a week longer. After
- that, the talk got further and further away, and I couldn't make out
- the words any more, but I could hear the mumble; and now and then a
- laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.
-
- I was away below the ferry now. I rose up and there was Jackson's
- Island, about two mile and a half down stream, heavy-timbered and
- standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid,
- like a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the bar
- at the head- it was all under water, now.
-
- It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a
- ripping rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into dead water
- and landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe
- into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the
- willow branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen
- the canoe from the outside.
-
- I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island and looked
- out on the big river and the black driftwood, and away over to the
- town, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.
- A monstrous big lumber raft was about a mile up stream, coming along
- down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping
- down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say,
- "Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as
- plain as if the man was by my side.
-
- There was a little gray in the sky, now; so I stepped into the woods
- and laid down for a nap before breakfast.
-
- CHAPTER EIGHT
-
-
- The sun was up so high when I waked, that I judged it was after
- eight o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade,
- thinking about things and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and
- satisfied. I could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly
- it was big trees all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There
- was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down
- through the leaves, and the freckled places swapped about a little,
- showing there was a little breeze up there. A couple of squirrels
- set on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly.
-
- I was powerful lazy and comfortable- didn't want to get up and
- cook breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again, when I think I hears a
- deep sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up and rests my
- elbow and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up and
- went and looked out a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke
- laying on the water a long ways up- about abreast the ferry. And there
- was the ferryboat full of people, floating along down. I knowed what
- was the matter, now. "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the
- ferry-boat's side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water,
- trying to make my carcass come to the top.
-
- I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a
- fire, because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the
- cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide,
- there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning- so I was having
- a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders, if I only had a
- bite to eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put
- quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off because they
- always go right to the drownded carcass and stop there. So says I,
- I'll keep a lookout, and if any of them's floating around after me,
- I'll give them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to
- see what luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed. A big double
- loaf come along, and I most got it, with a long stick, but my foot
- slipped and she floated out further. Of course I was where the current
- set in the closest to the shore- I knowed enough for that. But
- by-and-by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the
- plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in.
- It was "baker's bread"- what the quality eat- none of your low-down
- corn-pone.
-
- I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log,
- munching the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well
- satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the
- widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find
- me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain't no doubt but
- there is something in that thing. That is, there's something in it
- when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work
- for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind.
-
- I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke and went on watching. The
- ferry-boat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a
- chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would
- come in close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along
- down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out
- the bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open
- place. Where the log forked I could peep through.
-
- By-and-by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they
- could a run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the
- boat. Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and
- Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more.
- Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and
- says:
-
- "Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe
- he's washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's
- edge. I hope so, anyway."
-
- I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails,
- nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I
- could see them first-rate, but they couldn't see me. Then the
- captain sung out:
-
- "Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me
- that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the
- smoke, and I judged I was gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I
- reckon they'd a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't
- hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight
- around the shoulder of the island. I could hear the booming, now and
- then, further and further off, and by-and-by after an hour, I didn't
- hear it no more. The island was three mile long. I judged they had got
- to the foot, and was giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They
- turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the
- Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they
- went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got
- abreast of the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped
- over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town.
-
- I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after
- me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the
- thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my
- things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a cat-fish
- and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my
- camp fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for
- breakfast.
-
- When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty
- satisfied; but by-and-by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and
- set on the bank and listened to the currents washing along, and
- counted the stars and drift-logs and rafts that come down, and then
- went to bed; there ain't no better way to put in time when you are
- lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it.
-
- And so for three days and nights. No difference- just the same
- thing. But the next day I went exploring around down through the
- island. I was boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I
- wanted to know all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I
- found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer-grapes,
- and green razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to
- show. They would all come handy by-and-by, I judged.
-
- Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I
- warn't far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I
- hadn't shot nothing, it was for protection; thought I would kill
- some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good
- sized snake, and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers,
- and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all
- of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was
- still smoking.
-
- My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look
- further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tip-toes
- as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second,
- amongst the thick leaves, and listened; but my breath come so hard I
- couldn't hear nothing else. I slunk along another piece further,
- then listened again; and so on, and so on; if I see a stump, I took it
- for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a
- person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the
- short half, too.
-
- When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much
- sand in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling
- around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them
- out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to
- look like an old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree.
-
- I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I
- didn't hear nothing- I only thought I heard and seen as much as a
- thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last
- I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the
- time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from
- breakfast.
-
- By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good
- and dark, I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to
- the Illinois bank- about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the
- woods and cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would
- stay there all night, when I hear a plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk,
- and says to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people's voices.
- I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went
- creeping through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn't
- got far when I hear a man say:
-
- "We better camp here, if we can find a good place; the horses is
- about beat out. Let's look around."
-
- I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in
- the old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.
-
- I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every
- time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep
- didn't do me no good. By-and-by I says to myself, I can't live this
- way; I'm agoing to find out who it is that's here on the island with
- me; I'll find it out or bust. Well, I felt better, right off.
-
- So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two,
- and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon
- was shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as
- day. I poked along well onto an hour, everything still as rocks and
- sound asleep. Well by this time I was most down to the foot of the
- island. A little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as
- good as saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with the
- paddle and brung her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped
- out and into the edge of the woods. I set down there on a log and
- looked out through the leaves. I see the moon go off watch and the
- darkness begin to blanket the river. But in a little while I see a
- pale streak over the tree-tops, and knowed the day was coming. So I
- took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp
- fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck,
- somehow; I couldn't seem to find the place. But by-and-by, sure
- enough, I catched a glimpse of fire, away through the trees. I went
- for it, cautious and slow. By-and-by I was close enough to have a
- look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the
- fan-tods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in
- the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes, in about six foot of
- him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight,
- now. Pretty soon he gapped, and stretched himself, and hove off the
- blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him.
- I says:
-
- "Hello, Jim!" and skipped out.
-
- He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his
- knees, and puts his hands together and says:
-
- "Doan' hurt me- don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I
- awluz liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in
- de river agin, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz
- awluz yo' fren'."
-
- Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was
- ever so glad to see Jim. I warn't lonesome, now. I told him I warn't
- afraid of him telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he
- only set there and looked at me; never said nothing. Then I says:
-
- "It's good daylight. Le's get breakfast. Make up your camp fire
- good."
-
- "What's de use er makin' up de camp fire to cook strawbries en
- sich truck? But you got a gun, hain't you? Den we kin git sumfn better
- den strawbries."
-
- "Strawberries and such truck," I says. "Is that what you live on?"
-
- "I couldn' git nuffn else," he says.
-
- "Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?"
-
- "I come heah de night arter you's killed."
-
- "Yes- indeedy."
-
- "What, all that time?"
- "And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?"
-
- "No, sah- nuffn else."
-
- "Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?"
-
- "I reckon I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on
- de islan'?"
-
- "Since the night I got killed."
-
- "No! W'y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got
- a gun. Dat's good. Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire."
-
- So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in
- a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and
- coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the
- nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all
- done with witchcraft. I catched a good big cat-fish, too, and Jim
- cleaned him with his knife, and fried him.
-
- When breakfast was ready, we lolled on the grass and eat it
- smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most
- about starved. Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off
- and lazied.
-
- By-and-by Jim says:
-
- "But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty, ef
- it warn't you?"
-
- Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said
- Tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I
- says:
-
- "How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?"
-
- He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then
- he says:
-
- "Maybe I better not tell."
-
- "Why, Jim?"
-
- "Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I 'uz to tell
- you, would you, Huck?"
-
- "Blamed if I would, Jim."
-
- "Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I- I run off."
-
- "But mind, you said you wouldn't tell- you know you said you
- wouldn't tell, Huck."
-
- "Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest
- injun I will. People would call me a low down Abolitionist and despise
- me for keeping mum- but that don't make no difference. I ain't
- agoing to tell, and I ain't agoing back there anyways. So now, le's
- know all about it."
-
- "Well, you see, it' uz dis way. Ole Missus- dat's Miss Watson- she
- pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz
- said she wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a
- nigger trader roun' de place considable, lately, en I begin to git
- oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do', pooty late, en de do'
- warn't quite shet, en I hear ole missus tell de widder she gwyne to
- sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she could git
- eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack of money she
- couldn' resis'. De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn' do it,
- but I never waited to hear de res'. I lit out mighty quick, I tell
- you.
-
- "I tuck out en shin down de hill en 'spec to steal a skit 'long de
- sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirrin' yit, so I
- hid in de ole tumble-down cooper shop on de bank to wait for everybody
- to go 'way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de
- time. 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin', skifts begin to go by, en 'bout
- eight er nine every skit dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo'
- pap come over to de town en say you's killed. Dese las' skifts wuz
- full o' ladies en genlmen agoin' over for to see de place. Sometimes
- dey'd pull up at de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so
- by de talk I got to know all 'bout de killin'. I 'uz powerful sorry
- you's killed, Huck, but I ain't no mo, now.
-
- "I laid dah under de shavins all day. I 'uz hungry, but I warn't
- afeared; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to
- de camp meetn' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey
- knows I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to
- see me roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de
- evenin'. De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en
- take holiday, soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way.
-
- "Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went
- 'bout two mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my
- mine 'bout what I's agwyne to do. You see ef I kep' on tryin' to git
- away afoot, de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over,
- dey'd miss dat skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de
- yuther side en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I's
- arter; it doan' make no track.
-
- "I see a light a-comin'roun'de p'int, bymeby, so I wade' in en
- shove' a log ahead o' me, en swum more'n half-way acrost de river,
- en got in 'mongst de drift-wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder
- swum agin de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern
- uv it, en tuck aholt. It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little
- while. So I clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men 'uz all 'way
- yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz arisin' en
- dey wuz a good current; so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de mawnin' I'd
- be twenty-five mile down de river, en den I'd slip in, jis' b'fo'
- daylight, en swim asho' en take to de woods on de Illinoi side.
-
- "But I didn'have no luck. When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de
- islan', a man begin to come aft wid de lantern. I see it warn't no use
- fer to wait, so I slid overboard, en struck out fer de islan'. Well, I
- had a notion I could lan' mos' anywheres, but I couldn't- bank too
- bluff. I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I foun' a good
- place. I went into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo',
- long as dey move de lantern roun' so. I had my pipe en a plug er
- dog-leg, en some matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all
- right."
-
- "And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why
- didn't you get mud-turkles?"
-
- "How you gwyne to git'm? You can't slip up on um en grab um; en
- how's a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in
- de night? en I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime."
-
- "Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of
- course. Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon?"
-
- "Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah; watched
- um thoo de bushes."
-
- Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and
- lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it
- was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it
- was the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some
- of them, but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his
- father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his
- old granny said his father would die, and he did.
-
- And Jim said you musn't count the things you are going to cook for
- dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the
- table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a bee-hive,
- and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next
- morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die.
- Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that,
- because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting
- me.
-
- I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of
- them. Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most
- everything. I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad
- luck, and so I asked him if there warn't any goodluck signs. He says:
-
- "Mighty few- an' dey ain' no use to a body. What you want to know
- when good luck's a-comin' for? want to keep it off?" And he said:
- "Ef you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's
- agwyne to be rich. Well, dey's some use in a sign like dat, 'kase it's
- so fur ahead. You see, maybe you's got to be po' a long time fust,
- en so you might git discourage' en kill yo'sef 'f you didn'know by
- de sign dat you gwyne be rich bymeby."
-
- "Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?"
-
- "What's de use to ax dat question? don' see I has?"
-
- "Well, are you rich?"
-
- "No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin. Wunst I had
- foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n', en got busted out."
-
- "What did you speculate in, Jim?"
-
- "Well, fust I tackled stock."
-
- "What kind of stock?"
-
- "Why, live stock. Cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow.
- But I ain't gwyne to resk no mo' money in stock. De cow up 'n' died on
- my han's."
-
- "So you lost the ten dollars."
-
- "No, I didn'lose it all. I on'y los' 'bout nine of it. I sole de
- hide en taller for a dollar en ten cents."
-
- "You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any
- more?"
-
- "Yes. You know dat one-laigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto
- Bradish? well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar
- would git fo' dollars mo' at de en' er de year. Well, all de niggers
- went in, but dey didn'have much. I wuz de on'y one dat had much. So
- I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd
- start a bank mysef. Well o' course dat nigger want' keep me out er
- de business, bekase he say dey warn't business 'nough for two banks,
- so he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at
- de en' er de year.
-
- "So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirty-five dollars
- right off en keep things a-movin'. Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had
- ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn'know it; en I bought it off'n
- him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en' er de
- year come; but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex' day de
- one-laigged nigger say de bank's busted. So dey didn' none uv us git
- no money."
-
- "What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?"
-
- "Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream
- tole me to give it to a nigger name' Balum- Balum's Ass dey call him
- for short, he's one er dem chuckle-heads, you know. But he's lucky,
- dey say, en I see I warn't lucky. De dream say let Balum inves' de ten
- cents en he'd make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en
- when he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de
- po' len' to de Lord, en boun' to git his money back a hund'd times. So
- Balum he tuck en give de ten cents to de po', en laid low to see
- what wuz gwyne to come of it."
-
- "Well, what did come of it, Jim?"
-
- "Nuffn' never come of it. I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no
- way; en Balum he couldn'. I ain'gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see
- de security. Boun' to get yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher
- says! Ef I could git de ten cents back, I'd call it squah, en be
- glad er de chanst."
-
- "Well, it's all right, anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be
- rich again some time or other."
-
- "Yes- en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth
- eight hundred dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'."
-
- CHAPTER NINE
-
-
- I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the
- island, that I'd found when I was exploring; so we started, and soon
- got to it, because the island was only three miles long and a
- quarter of a mile wide.
-
- This place was a tolerable long steep hill or ridge, about forty
- foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so
- steep and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over
- it, and by-and-by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to
- the top on the side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two
- or three rooms bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in
- it. It was cool in there. Jim was for putting our traps in there,
- right away, but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there
- all the time.
-
- Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the
- traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the
- island, and they would never find us without dogs. And besides, he
- said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want
- the things to get wet?
-
- So we went back and got the canoe and paddled up abreast the cavern,
- and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close
- by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some
- fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for
- dinner.
-
- The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and
- on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit and was
- flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and
- cooked dinner.
-
- We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in
- there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern.
- Pretty soon it darkened up and begun to thunder and lighten; so the
- birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained
- like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of
- these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all
- blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by
- so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby;
- and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and
- turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of
- a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms
- as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the
- bluest and blackest- fst! it was as bright as glory and you'd have a
- little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about, away off yonder in the
- storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as
- sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an
- awful crash and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky
- towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down
- stairs, where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.
-
- "Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but
- here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."
-
- "Well, you wouldn't a ben here, 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd
- a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded,
- too, dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain,
- en so do de birds, chile."
-
- The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till
- at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep
- on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that
- side it was a good many miles wide; but on the Missouri side it was
- the same old distance across- a half a mile- because the Missouri
- shore was just a wall of high bluffs.
-
- Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was
- mighty cool and shady in the deep woods even if the sun was blazing
- outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees; and sometimes
- the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way.
- Well, on every old broken-down tree, you could see rabbits, and
- snakes, and such things; and when the island had been overflowed a day
- or two, they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could
- paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not
- the snakes and turtles- they would slide off in the water. The ridge
- our cavern was in, was full of them. We could a had pets enough if
- we'd wanted them.
-
- One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft- nice pine
- planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot
- long, and the top stood above water six or seven inches, a solid level
- floor. We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight, sometimes, but
- we let them go; we didn't show ourselves in daylight.
-
- Another night, when we was up at the head of the island, just before
- daylight, here comes a frame house down, on the west side. She was a
- two-story, and tilted over, considerable. We paddled out and got
- aboard- clumb in at an up-stairs window. But it was too dark to see
- yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.
-
- The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island.
- Then we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table,
- and two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor;
- and there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something
- laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim
- says:
-
- "Hello, you!"
-
- But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:
-
- "De man ain't asleep- he's dead. You hold still- I'll go en see."
-
- He went and bent down and looked, and says:
-
- "It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's shot in de back.
- I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan'
- look at his face-it's too gashly."
-
- I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but
- he needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old
- greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky
- bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over
- the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures, made with
- charcoal. There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet,
- and some women's under-clothes, hanging against the wall, and some
- men's clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoe; it might come
- good. There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took
- that too. And there was a bottle that had milk in it; and it had a rag
- stopper for a baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was
- broke. There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the
- hinges broke. They stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them
- that was any account. The way things was scattered about, we
- reckoned the people left in a hurry and warn't fixed so as to carry
- off most of their stuff.
-
- We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher knife without any handle,
- and a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot
- of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin
- cup, and a ratty old bed-quilt off the bed, and a reticule with
- needles and pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck
- in it, and a hatchet and some nails, and a fish-line as thick as my
- little finger, with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of
- buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, and a horse-shoe, and some vials
- of medicine that didn't have no label on them; and just as we was
- leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found a
- ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of
- it, but barring that, it was a good enough leg, though it was too long
- for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the other
- one, though we hunted all around.
-
- And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready
- to shove off, we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it
- was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up
- with the quilt, because if he set up, people could tell he was a
- nigger a good ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and
- drifted down most a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water
- under the bank, and hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody. We
- got home all safe.
-
- CHAPTER TEN
-
-
- After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out
- how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would
- fetch bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us;
- he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting
- around than one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded
- pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from
- studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what
- they done it for.
-
- We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in
- silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said
- he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd
- a knowed the money was there they wouldn't a left it. I said I
- reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that.
- I says:
-
- "Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in
- the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before
- yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch
- a snake-skin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in
- all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some
- bad luck like this every day, Jim."
-
- "Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart.
- It's a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."
-
- It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well,
- after dinner Friday, we was laying around in the grass at the upper
- end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to
- get some, and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled
- him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd
- be some fun when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all
- about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket
- while I struck a light, the snake's mate was there, and bit him.
-
- He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the
- varmit curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a
- second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky jug and begun to
- pour it down.
-
- He was barefooted, and the snake bit him on the heel. That all comes
- of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a
- dead snake its mate always comes and curls around it. Jim told me to
- chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body
- and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it would
- help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his
- wrist, too. He said that would help. Then I slid out quiet and throwed
- the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going to let
- Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.
-
- Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his
- head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to
- himself he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up
- pretty big, and so did his leg; but by-and-by the drunk begun to come,
- and so I judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a
- snake than pap's whisky.
-
- Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was
- all gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever
- take aholt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what
- had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time.
- And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that
- maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the
- new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than
- take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way
- myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon
- over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest
- things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged
- about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of
- the shot tower and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of
- a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn
- doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see
- it. Pap told me. But anyway, it all come of looking at the moon that
- way, like a fool.
-
- Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks
- again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big
- hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a cat-fish that was
- as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over
- two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a
- flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear
- around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach, and a
- round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the
- hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a
- long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a
- fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he
- hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal
- over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the
- pound in the market house there; everybody buys some of him; his
- meat's as white as snow and makes a good fry.
-
- Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to
- get a stirring up, some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the
- river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he
- said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and
- said, couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a
- girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the
- calico gowns and I turned up my trowser-legs to my knees and got
- into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair
- fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a
- body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of
- stove-pipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime,
- hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things,
- and by-and-by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't
- walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at
- my britches pocket. I took notice, and done better.
-
- I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.
-
- I started across to the town from a little below the ferry
- landing, and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of
- the town. I tied up and started along the bank. There was a light
- burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long
- time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there. I slipped up
- and peeped in at the window. There was a woman about forty year old in
- there, knitting by a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know
- her face; she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that
- town that I didn't know. Now this was lucky, because I was
- weakening; I was getting afraid I had come; people might know my voice
- and find me out. But if this woman had been in such a little town
- two days she could tell me all I wanted to know; so I knocked at the
- door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.
-
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
-
-
- "Come in," says the woman, and I did. She says:
-
- "Take a cheer."
-
- I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and
- says:
-
- "What might your name be?"
-
- "Sarah Williams."
-
- "Where 'bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?"
-
- "No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I've walked all the way and
- I'm all tired out."
-
- "Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something."
-
- "No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two mile
- below here at a farm; so I ain't hungry no more. It's what makes me so
- late. My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I
- come to tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the
- town, she says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you know him?"
-
- "No; but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite
- two weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town.
- You better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet."
-
- "No," I says, "I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't
- afeard of the dark."
-
- She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would
- be in by-and-by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him
- along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about
- her relations up the river, and her relations down the river, and
- about how much better off they used to was, and how they didn't know
- but they'd made a mistake coming to our town, instead of letting
- well alone- and so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a
- mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in this town;
- but by-and-by she dropped onto pap and the murder, and then I was
- pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told about me and
- Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it ten)
- and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I
- was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says:
-
- "Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on, down
- in Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn."
-
- "Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people here that'd
- like to know who killed him. Some thinks old Finn done it himself."
-
- "No- is that so?"
-
- "Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he
- come to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and
- judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim."
-
- "Why he-"
-
- I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never
- noticed I had put in at all.
-
- "The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So
- there's a reward out for him- three hundred dollars. And there's a
- reward out for old Finn too- two hundred dollars. You see, he come
- to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out
- with 'em on the ferry-boat hunt, and right away after he up and
- left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see.
- Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone; they found out he
- hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So
- then they put it on him, you see, and while they was full of it,
- next day back comes old Finn and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher
- to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with. The
- judge give him some, and that evening he got drunk and was around till
- after midnight with a couple of mighty hard looking strangers, and
- then went off with them. Well, he hain't come back sence, and they
- ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for
- people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks
- would think robbers done it, and then he'd get Huck's money without
- having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn't
- any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he don't come back
- for a year, he'll be all right. You can't prove anything on him, you
- know; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk into Huck's
- money as easy as nothing."
-
- "Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has
- everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?"
-
- "Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll
- get the nigger pretty soon, now, and maybe they can scare it out of
- him."
-
- "Why, are they after him yet?"
-
- "Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay
- round every day for people to pick up? Some folks thinks the nigger
- ain't far from here. I'm one of them- but I hain't talked it around. A
- few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door
- in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes
- to that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't
- anybody live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any
- more, but I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen
- smoke over there, about the head of the island, a day or two before
- that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over
- there; anyway, says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a
- hunt. I hain't seen any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if
- it was him; but my husband's going over to see- him and another man.
- He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day and I told him as
- soon as he got here two hours ago."
-
- I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with
- my hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading
- it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman
- stopped talking, I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty
- curious, and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread and
- let on to be interested- and I was, too- and says:
-
- "Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could
- get it. Is your husband going over there to-night?"
-
- "Oh, yes. He went up town with the man I was telling you of, to
- get a boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over
- after midnight."
-
- "Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?"
-
- "Yes. And couldn't the nigger see better, too? After midnight
- he'll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and
- hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one."
-
- "I didn't think of that."
-
- The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit
- comfortable. Pretty soon she says:
-
- "What did you say your name was, honey?"
-
- "M- Mary Williams."
-
- Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I
- didn't look up; seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of
- cornered, and was afeard maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the
- woman would say something more; the longer she set still, the uneasier
- I was. But now she says:
-
- "Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"
-
- "Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name.
- Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."
-
- "Oh, that's the way of it?"
-
- "Yes'm."
-
- I was feeling better, then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway.
- I couldn't look up yet.
-
- Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how
- poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned
- the place, and so forth, and so on, and then I got easy again. She was
- right about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in
- the corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy
- to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no
- peace. She showed me a bar of lead, twisted up into a knot, and said
- she was a good shot with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a
- day or two ago, and didn't know whether she could throw true, now. But
- she watched for a chance, and directly she banged away at a rat, but
- she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!" it hurt her arm so. Then she
- told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away before
- the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on. I got the
- thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd
- a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said
- that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She
- went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back and brought along
- a hank of yarn, which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two
- hands and she put the hank over them and went on talking about her and
- her husband's matters. But she broke off to say:
-
- "Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,
- handy."
-
- So she dropped the lump into my lap, just at that moment, and I
- clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about
- a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the
- face, but very pleasant, and says:
-
- "Come, now- what's your real name?"
-
- "Wh- what, mum?"
-
- "What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?- or what is it?"
-
- I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do.
- But I says:
-
- "Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the
- way, here, I'll-"
-
- "No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to
- hurt you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me
- your secret, and trust me. I'll keep it; and what's more, I'll help
- you. So'll my old man, if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway
- 'prentice- that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't any harm in
- it. You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless
- you, child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it, now-
- that's a good boy."
-
- So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and
- I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she
- mustn't go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother
- was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the
- country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I
- couldn't stand it no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days,
- and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old
- clothes, and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the
- thirty miles; I traveled nights, and hid day-times and slept, and
- the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way
- and I had a plenty. I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would
- take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of
- Goshen.
-
- "Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg.
- Goshen's ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?"
-
- "Why, a man I met at day-break this morning, just as I was going
- to turn into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads
- forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to
- Goshen."
-
- "He was drunk I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong."
-
- "Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I
- got to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before day-light."
-
- "Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want
- it."
-
- So she put me up a snack, and says:
-
- "Say- when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first?
- Answer up prompt, now- don't stop to study over it. Which end gets
- up first?"
-
- "The hind end, mum."
-
- "Well, then, a horse?"
-
- "The for'rard end, mum."
-
- "Which side of a tree does the most moss grow on?"
-
- "North side."
-
- "If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats
- with their heads pointed the same direction?"
-
- "The whole fifteen, mum."
-
- "Well, I reckon you have lived in the country. I thought maybe you
- was trying to hocus me again. What's your real name now?"
-
- "George Peters, mum."
-
- "Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's
- Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's
- George-Elexander when I catch you. And don't go about women in that
- old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men,
- maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle, don't
- hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle
- still and poke the thread at it- that's the way a woman most always
- does; but a man always does 'tother way. And when you throw at a rat
- or anything, hitch yourself up a tip-toe, and fetch your hand up
- over your head as awkard as you can, and miss your rat about six or
- seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a
- pivot there for it to turn on- like a girl; not from the wrist and
- elbow, with your arm out to one side like a boy. And mind you, when
- a girl tries to catch anything in her lap, she throws her knees apart;
- she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the
- lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading
- the needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now
- trot along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters,
- and if you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Lotus,
- which is me, and I'll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the
- river road, all the way, and next time you tramp, take shoes and socks
- with you. The river road's a rocky one, and your feet 'll be in a
- condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon."
-
- I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my
- tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below
- the house. I jumped in and was off in a hurry. I went up stream far
- enough to make the head of the island, and then started across. I took
- off the sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on, then. When I was
- about the middle, I hear the clock begin to strike; so I stops and
- listens; the sound come faint over the water, but clear- eleven.
- When I struck the head of the island I never waited to blow, though
- I was most winded, but I shoved right into the timber where my old
- camp used to be, and started a good fire there on a high-and-dry spot.
-
- Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place a mile and a
- half below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the
- timber and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound
- asleep on the ground. I roused him out and says:
-
- "Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose.
- They're after us!"
-
- Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he
- worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By
- that time everything we had in the world was on our raft and she was
- ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We
- put out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a
- candle outside after that.
-
- I took the canoe out from shore a little piece and took a look,
- but if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and
- shadows ain't good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped
- along down in the shade, past the foot of the island dead still, never
- saying a word.
-
- CHAPTER TWELVE
-
-
- It must a been close onto one o'clock when we got below the island
- at last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to
- come along, we was going to take to the canoe and break for the
- Illinois shore; and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever
- thought to put the gun into the canoe, or a fishing-line or anything
- to eat. We was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many
- things. It warn't good judgment to put everything on the raft.
-
- If the men went to the island, I just expect they found the camp
- fire I built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways,
- they stayed away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled
- them it warn't no fault of mine. I played it as low-down on them as
- I could.
-
- When the first streak of day begun to show, we tied up to a tow-head
- in a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cotton-wood
- branches with the hatchet and covered up the raft with them so she
- looked like there had been a cave-in in the bank there. A tow-head
- is a sand-bar that has cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.
-
- We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the
- Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that
- place, so we warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there
- all day and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri
- shore, and upbound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I
- told Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim
- said she was a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she
- wouldn't set down and watch a camp fire- no, sir, she'd fetch a dog.
- Well, then, I said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a
- dog? Jim said he bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready
- to start, and he believed they must a gone up town to get a dog and so
- they lost all that time, or else we wouldn't be here on a tow-head
- sixteen or seventeen mile below the village- no, indeedy, we would
- be in that same old town again. So I said I didn't care what was the
- reason they didn't get us, as long as they didn't.
-
- When it was beginning to come on dark, we poked our heads out of the
- cottonwood thicket and looked up, and down, and across; nothing in
- sight; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a
- snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the
- things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or
- more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the
- traps was out of the reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle
- of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep
- with a frame around it for to hold it to its place; this was to
- build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep
- it from being seen. We made an extra steering oar, too, because one of
- the others might get broke, on a snag or something. We fixed up a
- short forked stick to hang the old lantern on; because we must
- always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming down
- stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't have to light
- it for upstream boats unless we see we was in what they call a
- "crossing"; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being
- still a little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always run the
- channel, but hunted easy water.
-
- This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a
- current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish, and
- talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was
- kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs
- looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud,
- and it warn't often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low
- chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing
- ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.
-
- Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black
- hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights, not a house could
- you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the
- whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was
- twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it
- till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still
- night. There warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep.
-
- Every night, now, I used to slip ashore, towards ten o'clock, at
- some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or
- bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that
- warn't roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take
- a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him
- yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't
- ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken
- himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.
-
- Mornings, before daylight, I slipped into corn fields and borrowed a
- watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things
- of that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things, if
- you was meaning to pay them back, sometime; but the widow said it
- warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would
- do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was
- partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three
- things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more- then he
- reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked
- it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make
- up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or
- the mushmelons, or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled
- satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons. We
- warn't feeling just right, before that, but it was all comfortable
- now. I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain't
- ever good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe for two or three
- months yet.
-
- We shot a water-fowl, now and then, that got up too early in the
- morning or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all
- around, we lived pretty high.
-
- The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight,
- with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a
- solid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of
- itself. When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight
- river ahead, and high rocky bluffs on both sides. By-and-by says I,
- "Hel-lo Jim, looky yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killed herself
- on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her. The lightning showed
- her very distinct. She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck
- above water, and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and
- clear, and a chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging
- on the back of it when the flashes come.
-
- Well, it being away in the night, and stormy, and all so
- mysterious-like, I felt just the way any other boy would a felt when I
- see that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle
- of the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little,
- and see what there was there. So I says:
-
- "Le's land on her, Jim."
-
- But Jim was dead against it, at first. He says:
-
- "I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no wrack. We's doin' blame'
- well, en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says. Like
- as not dey's a watchman on dat wrack."
-
- "Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't nothing to watch
- but the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going
- to resk his life for a texas and a pilothouse such a night as this,
- when it's likely to break up and wash off down the river any
- minute?" Jim couldn't say nothing to that, so he didn't try. "And
- besides," I says, "we might borrow something worth having, out of
- the captain's stateroom. Seegars, I bet you- and cost five cents
- apiece, solid cash. Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty
- dollars a month, and they don't care a cent what a thing costs, you
- know, long as they want it. Stick a candle in your pocket; I can't
- rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer
- would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an
- adventure- that's what he'd call it; and he'd land on that wreck if it
- was his last act. And wouldn't he throw style into it?- wouldn't he
- spread himself, nor nothing? Why, you'd think it was Christopher
- C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come. I wish Tom Sawyer was here."
-
- Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any
- more than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning
- showed us the wreck again, just in time, and we fetched the
- starboard derrick, and made fast there.
-
- The deck was high out, here. We went sneaking down the slope of it
- to labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with
- our feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was
- so dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the
- forward end of the skylight, and clumb onto it; and the next step
- fetched us in front of the captain's door, which was open, and by
- Jimminy, away down through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in
- the same second we seem to hear low voices in yonder!
-
- Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me
- to come along. I says, all right; and was going to start for the raft;
- but just then I heard a voice wail out and say:
-
- "Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!"
-
- Another voice said, pretty loud:
-
- "It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always
- want more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too,
- because you've swor't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've
- said it jest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest
- hound in this country."
-
- By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with
- curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and
- so I won't either; I'm agoing to see what's going on here. So I
- dropped on my hands and knees, in the little passage, and crept aft in
- the dark, till there warn't but about one stateroom betwixt me and the
- cross-hall of the texas. Then, in there I see a man stretched on the
- floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one
- of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol.
- This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor and
- saying-
-
- "I'd like to! And I orter, too, a mean skunk!"
-
- The man on the floor would shrivel up, and say: "Oh, please don't,
- Bill- I hain't ever goin' to tell."
-
- And every time he said that, the man with the lantern would laugh,
- and say:
-
- "'Deed you ain't! You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet
- you." And once he said: "Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the
- best of him and tied him, he'd a killed us both. And what for? Jist
- for noth'n. Jist because we stood on our rights- that's what for.
- But I lay you ain't agoin'to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put
- up that pistol, Bill."
-
- Bill says:
-
- "I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him- and din't he
- kill old Hatfield jist the same way- and don't he deserve it?"
-
- "But I don't want him killed, and I've got my reasons for it."
-
- "Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit
- you, long's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
-
- Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on
- a nail, and started towards where I was, there in the dark, and
- motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could, about two
- yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn't make very good tune; so
- to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom
- on the upper side. The man come a-pawing along in the dark, and when
- Packard got to my stateroom, he says:
-
- "Here- come in here."
-
- And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in, I was up
- in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there,
- with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see
- them, but I could tell where they was, by the whisky they'd been
- having. I was glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much
- difference, anyway, because most of the time they couldn't a treed
- me because I didn't breathe. I was too scared. And besides, a body
- couldn't breathe, and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest.
- Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
-
- "He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our
- shares to him now, it wouldn't make no difference after the row, and
- the way we've served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's
- evidence; now you hear me. I'm for putting him out of his troubles."
-
- "So'm I," says Packard, very quiet.
-
- "Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then,
- that's all right. Le's go and do it."
-
- "Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me.
- Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's gotto be
- done. But what I say, is this; it ain't good sense to go court'n
- around after a halter, if you can git at what you're up to in some way
- that's jist as good and at the same time don't bring you into no
- resks. Ain't that so?"
-
- "You bet it is. But how you goin'to manage it this time?"
-
- "Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gether up whatever
- pickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and
- hide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't agoin' to be
- more 'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the
- river. See? He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it
- but his own self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better'n killin'
- of him. I'm unfavorable to killin'a man as long as you can git
- around it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?"
-
- "Yes- I reck'n you are. But s'pose she don't break up and wash off?"
-
- "Well, we can wait the two hours, anyway, and see, can't we?"
-
- "All right, then; come along."
-
- So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled
- forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said in a kind of a
- coarse whisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a
- sort of a moan, and I says:
-
- "Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning;
- there's a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their
- boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get
- away from the wreck, there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix.
- But if we find their boat we can put all of 'em in a bad fix- for
- the Sheriff'll get 'em. Quick- hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you
- hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and-"
-
- "Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf Dey ain' no raf' no mo', she done broke
- loose en gone!- 'en here we is!"
-
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
-
-
- Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck
- with such a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be
- sentimentering. We'd got to find that boat, now- had to have it for
- ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side,
- and slow work it was, too- seemed a week before we got to the stern.
- No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he could go any further-
- so scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said. But I said come
- on, if we get left on this wreck, we are in a fix, sure. So on we
- prowled, again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it,
- and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from
- shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water.
- When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door, there was the
- skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so
- thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her; but just
- then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out, only about
- a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it
- in again, and says:
-
- "Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!"
-
- He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in
- himself, and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and got
- in. Packard says, in a low voice:
-
- "All ready- shove off!"
-
- I couldn't hardly hang onto the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill
- says:
-
- "Hold on- 'd you go through him?"
-
- "No. Didn't you?"
-
- "No. So he's got his share o' the cash, yet."
-
- "Well, then, come along- no use to take truck and leave money."
-
- "Say- won't he suspicion what we're up to?"
-
- "Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."
-
- So they got out and went in.
-
- The door slammed to, because it was on the careened side; and in a
- half second I was in the boat, and Jim come a tumbling after me. I out
- with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went!
-
- We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor
- hardly even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past
- the tip of the paddlebox, and past the stern; then in a second or
- two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness
- soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.
-
- When we was three or four hundred yards down stream, we see the
- lantern show like a little spark at the texas door, for a second,
- and we knowed by that the rascals had missed their boat, and was
- beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble, now, as
- Jim Turner was.
-
- Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was
- the first time I begun to worry about the men- I reckon I hadn't had
- time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for
- murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no
- telling but I might come to be a murderer myself, yet, and then how
- would I like it? So says I to Jim:
-
- "The first light we see, we'll land a hundred yards below it or
- above it, in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the
- skiff, and then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get
- somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they
- can be hung when their time comes."
-
- But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm
- again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and
- never a light showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down
- the river, watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long
- time the rain let up, but the clouds staid, and the lightning kept
- whimpering, and by-and-by a flash showed us a black thing ahead,
- floating, and we made for it.
-
- It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again.
- We seen a light, now, away down to the right, on shore. So I said I
- would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang
- had stole, there on the wreck. We hustled it onto the raft in a
- pile, and I told Jim to float along down, and show a light when he
- judged he had gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come;
- then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got down
- towards it, three or four more showed- up on a hillside. It was a
- village. I closed in above the shore-light, and laid on my oars and
- floated. As I went by, I see it was a lantern hanging on the jackstaff
- of a double-hull ferry-boat. I skimmed around for the watchman,
- a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by-and-by I found him roosting
- on the bitts, forward, with his head down between his knees. I give
- his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.
-
- He stirred up, in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it
- was only me, he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:
-
- "Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?"
-
- I says:
-
- "Pap, and mam, and sis, and-"
-
- Then I broke down. He says:
-
- "Oh, dang it, now, don't take on so, we all has to have our troubles
- and this'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"
-
- "They're- they're- are you the watchman of the boat?"
-
- "Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captain
- and the owner, and the mate, and the pilot, and watchman, and head
- deck-hand; and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as
- rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good
- to Tom, Dick and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he
- does; but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places
- with him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm
- derned if I'd live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing
- ever goin'on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of
- it. Says I-"
-
- I broke in and says:
-
- "They're in an awful peck of trouble, and-"
-
- "Who is?"
-
- "Why, pap, and mam, and sis, and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your
- ferry-boat and go up there-"
-
- "Up where? Where are they?"
-
- "On the wreck."
-
- "What wreck?"
-
- "Why, there ain't but one."
-
- "What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?"
-
- "Yes."
-
- "Good land! What are they doin' there, for gracious sakes?"
-
- "Well, they didn't go there a-purpose."
-
- "I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for
- 'em if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did
- they ever git into such a scrape?"
-
- "Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting, up there to the town-"
-
- "Yes, Booth's Landing- go on."
-
- "She was a-visiting, there at Booth's Landing, and just in the
- edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the
- horse-ferry, to stay all night at her friend's house, Miss
- What-you-may-call-her, I disremember her name, and they lost their
- steering-oar, and swung around and went afloating down, stern-first,
- about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferry man and
- the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made
- a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark, we
- come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn't
- notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so we saddle-baggsed;
- but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple- and oh, he was the best
- cretur!- I most wish't it had been me, I do."
-
- "My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what
- did you all do?"
-
- "Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there, we
- couldn't make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore
- and get help somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made
- a dash for it, and Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help
- sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I
- made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along ever since,
- trying to get people to do something, but they said, 'What, in such
- a night and such a current? there ain't no sense in it; go for the
- steam-ferry.' Now if you'll go, and-"
-
- "By Jackson, I'd like to, and blame it I don't know but I will;
- but who in the dingnation's agoin' to pay for it? Do you reckon your
- pap-"
-
- "Why that's all right. Miss Hooker she told me, particular, that her
- uncle Hornback-"
-
- "Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light
- over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a
- quarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart
- you out to Jim Hornback's and he'll foot the bill. And don't you
- fool around any, because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll
- have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now;
- I'm agoing up around the corner here, to roust out my engineer."
-
- I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went
- back and got into my skiff and bailed her out and then pulled up shore
- in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in
- among some woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the
- ferry-boat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther
- comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang,
- for not many would a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I
- judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions,
- because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good
- people takes the most interest in.
-
- Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding
- along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck
- out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't
- much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her
- and hollered a little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still.
- I felt a little bit heavyhearted about the gang, but not much, for I
- reckoned if they could stand it, I could.
-
- Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of the
- river on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of
- eye-reach, I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell
- around the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain
- would know her uncle Horseback would want them; and then pretty soon
- the ferryboat give it up and went for shore, and I laid into my work
- and went a-booming down the river.
-
- It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and
- when it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the
- time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the
- east; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the
- skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.
-
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
-
-
- By-and-by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had
- stole off the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and
- all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and
- three boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before, in
- neither of our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the
- afternoon in the woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a
- general good time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the
- wreck, and at the ferry-boat; and I said these kinds of things was
- adventures; but he said he didn't want no more adventures. He said
- that when I went in the texas and he crawled back to get on the raft
- and found her gone, he nearly died; because he judged it was all up
- with him, anyway it could be fixed; for if he didn't get saved he
- would get drownded; and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would
- send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would
- sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was most always right; he
- had an uncommon level head, for a nigger.
-
- I read considerable to Jim about kings, and dukes, and earls, and
- such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on,
- and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship,
- and so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was
- interested. He says:
-
- "I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un
- um, skasely, but old King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's
- in a pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?"
-
- "Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they
- want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs
- to them."
-
- "Ain't dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?"
-
- "They don't do nothing! Why how you talk. They just set around."
-
- "No- is dat so?"
-
- "Of course it is. They just set around. Except maybe when there's
- a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around;
- or go hawking- just hawking and sp- Sh!- d'you hear a noise?"
-
- We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter
- of a steamboat's wheel, away down coming around the point; so we
- come back.
-
- "Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with
- the parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads
- off. But mostly they hang round the harem."
-
- "Roun' de which?"
-
- "What's de harem?"
-
- "The place where he keep his wives. Don't you know about the
- harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."
-
- "Why, yes, dat's so; I- I'd done forgot it. A harem's a
- bo'd'n-house, I reck'on. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de
- nussery. En I reck'n de wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de
- racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan'
- take no stock in dat. Bekase why would a wise man want to live in de
- mids'er sich a blimblammin' all de time? No- 'deed he wouldn't. A wise
- man 'ud take en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet down de
- biler-factry when he want to res'."
-
- "Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told
- me so, her own self."
-
- "I doan k'yer what de widder say, he warn't no wise man, nuther.
- He had some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know
- 'bout dat chile dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"
-
- "Yes, the widow told me all about it."
-
- "Well, den! Warn't dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes'
- take en look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah- dat's one er de
- women; heah's you- dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish-yer
- dollar bill's de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does
- I shin aroun' mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill
- do b'long to, en han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de
- way dat anybody dat had any gumption would? No- I take en whack de
- bill in two, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther
- woman. Dat's de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want
- to ast you: what's de use er dat half a bill?- can't buy noth'n wid
- it. En what use is a half a chile? I would'n give a dern for a million
- un um."
-
- "But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point- blame it, you've
- missed it a thousand mile."
-
- "Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I
- knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as
- dat. De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a
- whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a
- whole chile wid a half a chile, doan' know enough to come in out'n
- de rain. Doan'talk to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de
- back."
-
- "But I tell you don't get the point."
-
- "Blame de pint! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de
- real pint is down furder- it's down deeper. It lays in de way
- Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one er two
- chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he
- can't'ford it. He know how to value 'em. But you take a man dat's
- got 'bout five million chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's
- diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'.
- A chile er two, mo'er less, warn't no consekens to Sollermun, dad
- fetch him!"
-
- I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once,
- there warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on
- Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other
- kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got
- his head cut off in France long time ago; and about his little boy the
- dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in
- jail, and some say he died there.
-
- "Po' little chap."
-
- "But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."
-
- "Dat's good! But he'll be ooty lonesome- dey ain' no kings here,
- is dey, Huck?"
-
- "No."
-
- "Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?"
-
- "Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of
- them learns people how to talk French."
-
- "Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"
-
- "No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said- not a single
- word."
-
- "Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"
-
- "I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a
- book. Spose a man was to come to you and say 'Polly-voo-franzy'-
- what would you think?"
-
- "I wouldn't think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head. Dat is,
- if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."
-
- "Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying do you know
- how to talk French."
-
- "Well, den, why couldn't he say it?"
-
- "Why, he is a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it."
-
- "Well, it's a blame' ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no
- mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."
-
- "Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"
-
- "No, a cat don't."
-
- "Well, does a cow?"
-
- "No, a cow don't, nuther."
-
- "Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"
-
- "No, dey don't."
-
- "It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other,
- ain't it?"
-
- "Course."
-
- "And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk
- different from us?"
-
- "Why, mos' sholy it is."
-
- "Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to
- talk different from us? You answer me that."
-
- "Is a cat a man, Huck?"
-
- "No."
-
- "Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow
- a man?- er is a cow a cat?"
-
- "No, she ain't either of them."
-
- "Well, den, she ain' got no business to talk like either one or
- the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"
-
- "Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer
- me dat!"
-
- I see it warn't no use wasting words- you can't learn a nigger to
- argue. So I quit.
-