APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/marktwain/huck_finn/CHAP15_29

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN


  We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the
bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what
we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way
up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.

  Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a
tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in fog; but
when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line, to make fast,
there warn't anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line
around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was
a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore
it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and
it made me so sick and scared I couldn't budge for most a half a
minute it seemed to me- and then there warn't no raft in sight; you
couldn't see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the
stern and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn't
come. I was in such a hurry I hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to
untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do
anything with them.

  As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy,
right down to the tow-head. That was all right as far as it went,
but the tow-head warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the
foot of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more
idea which way I was going than a dead man.

  Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank
or a tow-head or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's
mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a
time. I whooped and listened. Away down there, somewheres, I hears a
small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it,
listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come, I see I
warn't heading for it but heading away to the right of it. And the
next time, I was heading away to the left of it- and not gaining on it
much, either, for I was flying around, this way and that and
'tother, but it was going straight ahead all the time.

  I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all
the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the
whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and
directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good, now. That
was somebody else's whoop, or else I was turned around.

  I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me
yet, but in a different place; it kept coming and kept changing its
place, and I kept answering, till by-and-by it was in front of me
again and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down
stream and I was all right, if that was Jim and not some other
raftsman hollering. I couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for
nothing don't look natural nor sound natural in a fog.

  The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a booming down on
a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current
throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that
fairly roared, the current was tearing by them so swift.

  In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
perfectly still, then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I
didn't draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.

  I just give up, then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank
was an island, and Jim had gone down 'tother side of it. It warn't
no tow-head, that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big
timber of a regular island; it might be five or six mile long and more
than a half a mile wide.

  I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I
reckon. I was floating along, of course, four or five mile an hour;
but you don't ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying
dead still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by,
you don't think to yourself how fast you're going, but you catch
your breath and think, my! how that snag's tearing along. If you think
it ain't dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way, by yourself, in
the night, you try it once- you'll see.

  Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I
hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I
couldn't do it, and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of
tow-heads, for I had little dim glimpses of them on both sides of
me, sometimes just a narrow channel between; and some that I
couldn't see, I knowed was there, because I'd hear the wash of the
current against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the banks.
Well, I warn't long losing the whoops, down amongst the tow-heads; and
I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because it was
worse than chasing a Jack-o-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge
around so, and swap places so quick and so much.

  I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively, four or five
times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I
judged the raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or
else it would get further ahead and clear out of hearing- it was
floating a little faster than what I was.

  Well, I seemed to be in the open river again, by-and-by, but I
couldn't hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had
fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good
and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no
more. I didn't want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I
couldn't help it; so I thought I would take just one little cat-nap.

  But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the
stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning
down a big bend stern first. First I didn't know where I was; I
thought I was dreaming; and when things begun to come back to me, they
seemed to come up dim out of last week.

  It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest
kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could
see, by the stars. I looked away down stream, and seen a black speck
on the water. I took out after it; but when I got to it warn't nothing
but a couple of saw-logs made fast together. Then I see another speck,
and chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the
raft.

  When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between
his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering oar.
The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with
leaves and branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.

  I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and begun to
gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:

  "Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"

  "Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead- you
ain'drownded- you's back again? It's too good for true, honey, it's
too good for true. Lemme look at you, chile, lemme feel o' you. No,
you ain' dead! you's back again, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck-
de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"

  "What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a drinking?"

  "Drinkin'? Has I ben a drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a
drinkin'?"

  "Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"

  "How does I talk wild?"

  "How? why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all
that stuff, as if I'd been gone away?"

  "Huck- Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. Hain't
you ben gone away?"

  "Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been
gone anywheres. Where would I go to?"

  "Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who
is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat's what I wants to know?"

  "Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a
tangle-headed old fool, Jim."

  "I is, is I? Well you answer me dis. Didn't you tote out de line
in de canoe, fer to make fas' to de tow-head?"

  "No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't seen no tow-head."

  "You hain't seen no tow-head? Looky here- didn't de line pull
loose en de raf' go a hummin' down de river, en leave you en de
canoe behine in de fog?"

  "What fog?"

  "Why de fog. De fog dat's ben aroun' all night. En didn't you whoop,
en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us
got los' en 'tother one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn'
know whah he wuz? En didn't I bust up again a lot er dem islands en
have a turrible time en mos' git drownded? Now ain'dat so, boss- ain't
it so? You answer me dat."

  "Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no
islands nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with
you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I
reckon I done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of
course you've been dreaming."

  "Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?"

  "Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it
happen."

  "But Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as-"

  "It don't make no difference how plain it is, there ain't nothing in
it. I know, because I've been here all the time."

  Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there
studying over it. Then he says:

  "Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it
ain't de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no
dream b'fo' dat's tired me like dis one."

  "Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like
everything, sometimes. But this one was a staving dream- tell me all
about it, Jim."

  So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through,
just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he
said he must start in and "'terpret" it, because it was sent for a
warning. He said the first tow-head stood for a man that would try
to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get
us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us
every now and then, and if we didn't try hard to make out to
understand them they'd just take us into bad luck, 'stead of keeping
us out of it. The lot of tow-heads was troubles we was going to get
into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we
minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we
would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear
river, which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more trouble.

  It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got onto the raft, but it
was clearing up again, now.

  "Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough, as far as it goes,
Jim," I says; "but what does these things stand for?"

  It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft, and the smashed oar.
You could see them first rate, now.

  Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the
trash again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that
he couldn't seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its
place again, right away. But when he did get the thing straightened
around, he looked at me steady, without ever smiling, and says:

  "What do dey stan' for? I's gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore
out wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart
wuz mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no mo' what
become er me en de raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin', all
safe en soun', de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en
kiss' yo' foot I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin 'bout wuz how
you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en
trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en
makes 'em ashamed."

  Then he got up slow, and walked to the wigwam, and went in there,
without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel
so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.

  It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and
humble myself to a nigger- but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry
for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I
wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that
way.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN


  We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways
behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a
procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she
carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams
aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall
flag-pole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It
amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.

  We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up
and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber
on both sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.
We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we
got to it. I said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there
warn't but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to
have them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town?
Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show.
But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island
and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim- and me
too. So the question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the
first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming
along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business, and
wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good
idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.

  There warn't nothing to do, now, but to look out sharp for the town,
and not pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to
see it, because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he
missed it he'd be in the slave country again and no more show for
freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:

  "Dah she is!"

  But it warn't. It was Jack-o-lanterns, or lightning-bugs; so he
set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made
him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I
can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear
him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most
free- and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn't get that out of
my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't
rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home
to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did;
and it staid with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make
out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off
from his rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says,
every time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you
could a paddled ashore and told somebody." That was so- I couldn't get
around that, no way. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me,
"What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her
nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word?
What did that poor old woman do to you, that you could treat her so
mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you
your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how.
That's what she done."

  I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was
dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and
Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep
still. Every time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went
through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I reckoned I
would die of miserableness.

  Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He
was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State
he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when
he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close
to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the
two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an
Ab'litionist to go and steal them.

  It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk
such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in
him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the
old saying, "give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell." Thinks I,
this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger which I
had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and
saying he would steal his children- children that belonged to a man
I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm.

  I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.
My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last
I says to it, "Let up on me- it ain't too late, yet- I'll paddle
ashore at the first light and tell." I felt easy, and happy, and light
as a feather, right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking
out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By-and-by one
showed. Jim sings out:

  "We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack yo' heels, dat's de
good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it!"

  I says:

  "I'll take the canoe and go see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know."

  He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the
bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved
off, he says:

  "Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n for joy, en I'll say, it's all on
accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it
hadn't ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck;
you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de only fren' ole Jim's
got now."

  I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he
says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went
along slow then, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad
I started or whether I warn't. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:

  "Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep'
his promise to ole Jim."

  Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it- I can't get
out of it. Right then, along comes a skiff with two men in it, with
guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:

  "What's that, yonder?"

  "A piece of a raft," I says.

  "So you belong on it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Any men on it?"

  "Only one, sir."

  "Well, there's five niggers run off to-night, up yonder above the
head of the bend. Is your man white or black?"

  I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't
come. I tried, for a second or two, to brace up and out with it, but I
warn't man enough- hadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was
weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says-

  "He's white."

  "I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves."

  "I wish you would," says I, "because it's pap that's there, and
maybe you'd help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He's sick-
and so is mam and Mary Ann."

  "Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy. But I s'pose we've got to.
Come- buckle to your paddle, and let's get along."

  I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made
a stroke or two, I says:

  "Pap'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody
goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't
do it by myself."

  "Well, that's infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what's the matter
with your father?"

  "It's the- a- the- well, it ain't anything, much."

  They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little waysto the raft,
now. One says:

  "Boy, that's a lie. What is the matter with your pap? Answer up
square, now, and it'll be the better for you."

  "I will, sir, I will, honest- but don't leave us, please. It's
the- the- gentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you
the head-line, you won't have to come a-near the raft- please do."

  "Set her back, John, set her back!" says one. They backed water.
"Keep away, boy- keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind
has blowed it to us. Your pap's got the smallpox, and you know it
precious well. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to
spread it all over?"

  "Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told everybody before, and
then they just went away and left us."

  "Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry
for you, but we- well, hang it, we don't want the smallpox, you see.
Look here, I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by
yourself, and you'll smash everything to pieces. You float along
down about twenty miles and you'll come to a town on the left-hand
side of the river. It will be long after sun-up, then, and when you
ask for help, you tell them your folks are all down with chills and
fever. Don't be a fool again, and let people guess what is the matter.
Now we're trying to do you a kindness; so you just put twenty miles
between us, that's a good boy. It wouldn't do any good to land
yonder where the light is- it's only a wood-yard. Say- I reckon your
father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's in pretty hard luck. Here-
I'll put a twenty dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when
it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you, but my kingdom! it
won't do to fool with smallpox, don't you see?"

  "Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "here's a twenty to put on
the board for me. Good-bye, boy, you do as Mr. Parker told you, and
you'll be all right."

  "That's so, my boy- good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway
niggers, you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by
it."

  "Good-bye, sir," says I, "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me
if I can help it."

  They went off, and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low,
because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no
use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get
started right when he's little, ain't got no show- when the pinch
comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and
so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on-
s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better
than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad- I'd feel just the same
way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do
right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do
wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't
answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but
after this always do whichever comes handiest at the time.

  I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there. I looked all around; he
warn't anywhere. I says:

  "Jim!"

  "Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't talk loud."

  He was in the river, under the stern oar, with just his nose out.
I told him they was out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:

  "I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was
gwyne to shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to
de raf' agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck!
Dat wuz de smartes' dodge! tell you, chile, I 'speck it save' ole Jim-
ole Jim ain' gwyne to forgit you for dat, honey."

  Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise, twenty
dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat
now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free
States. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he
wished we was already there.

  Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about
hiding the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles,
and getting all ready to quit rafting.

  That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away
down in a left-hand bend.

  I went off in the canoe, to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a
man out in the aver with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and
says:

  "Mister, is that town Cairo?"

  "Cairo? no. You must be a blame' fool."

  "What town is it, mister?"

  "If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin'
around me for about a half minute longer, you'll get something you
won't want."

  I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said
never mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.

  We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again;
but it was high ground, so I didn't go. No high ground about Cairo,
Jim said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day, on a tow-head
tolerable close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something.
So did Jim. I says:

  "Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night."

  He says:

  "Doan' less' talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck.
I awluz 'spected dat rattle-snake skin warn't done wid its work."

  "I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim- I do wish I'd never
laid eyes on it."

  "It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn' know. Don't you blame yo'self
'bout it."

  When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water in shore, sure
enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with
Cairo.

  We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the shore; we
couldn't take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn't no way
but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the
chances. So we slept all day amongst the cotton-wood thicket, so as to
be fresh for the work, and when we went back to the raft about dark
the canoe was gone!

  We didn't say a word for a good while. There warn't anything to say.
We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the rattle-snake
skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we
was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more bad luck- and
keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep still.

  By-and-by we talked about what we better do, and found there
warn't no way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a
chance to buy a canoe to go back in. We warn't going to borrow it when
there warn't anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might
set people after us.

  So we shoved out, after dark, on the raft.

  Anybody that don't believe yet, that it's foolishness to handle a
snake-skin, after all that snake-skin done for us, will believe it
now, if they read on and see what more it done for us.

  The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying at shore. But we
didn't see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and
more. Well, the night got gray, and ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river, and you
can't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then
along comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged
she would see it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to us;
they go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the
reefs; but nights like this they bull right up the channel against the
whole river.

  We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till
she was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to
see how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel
bites off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and
laughs, and thinks he's mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we
said she was going to try to shave us; but she didn't seem to be
sheering off a bit. She was a big one, and she was coming in a
hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with rows of glow-worms
around it; but all of a sudden she laughed out, big and scary, with
a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining like red-hot teeth,
and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right over us. There was a
yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the engines, a pow-wow
of cussing, and whistling of steam- and as Jim went overboard on one
side and I on the other, she come smashing straight through the raft.

  I dived- and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot
wheel had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I
could always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I staid
under water a minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a
hurry, for I was nearly busting. I popped out to my arm-pits and
blowed the water out of my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was
a booming current; and of course that boat started her engines again
ten seconds after she stopped them, for they never cared much for
raftsmen; so now she was churning along up the river, out of sight
in the thick weather, though I could hear her.

  I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer;
so I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was "treading water," and
struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see
that the drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which
meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.

  It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a
good long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clum up the
bank. I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along over
rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across
a big old-fashioned double log house before I noticed it. I was
going to rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went
to howling and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another
peg.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


  In about half a minute somebody spoke out of a window, without
putting his head out, and says:

  "Be done, boys! Who's there?"

  I says:

  "It's me."

  "Who's me?"

  "George Jackson, sir."

  "What do you want?"

  "I don't want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs
won't let me."

  "What are you prowling around here this time of night, for- hey?"

  "I warn't prowling around, sir; I fell overboard off of the
steamboat."

  "Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody.

  What did you say your name was?"

  "George Jackson, sir. I'm only a boy."

  "Look here; if you're telling the truth, you needn't be afraid-
nobody'll hurt you. But don't try to budge; stand right where you are.
Rouse out Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George
Jackson, is there anybody with you?"

  "No, sir, nobody."

  I heard the people stirring around in the house, now, and see a
light. The man sung out:

  "Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool- ain't you got any
sense? Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and
Tom are ready, take your places."

  "All ready."

  "Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?"

  "No, sir- I never heard of them."

  "Well, that may be so, and it mayn't. Now, all ready. Step
forward, George Jackson. And mind, don't you hurry- come mighty
slow. If there's anybody with you, let him keep back- if he shows
himself he'll be shot. Come along, now. Come slow; push the door open,
yourself- just enough to squeeze in, d' you hear?"

  I didn't hurry, I couldn't if I'd a wanted to. I took one slow
step at a time, and there warn't a sound, only I thought I could
hear my heart. The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed
a little behind me. When I got to the three log door-steps, I heard
them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the
door and pushed it a little and a little more, till somebody said,
"There, that's enough- put your head in." I done it, but I judged they
would take it off.

  The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at
me, and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute. Three big men
with guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the
oldest, gray and about sixty, the other two thirty or more- all of
them fine and handsome- and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and
back of her two young women which I couldn't see right well. The old
gentleman says:

  "There- I reckon it's all right. Come in."

  As soon as I was in, the old gentleman he locked the door and barred
it and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns,
and they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the
floor, and got together in a corner that was out of range of the front
windows- there warn't none on the side. They held the candle, and took
a good look at me, and all said, "Why he ain't a Shepherdson- no,
there ain't any Shepherdson about him." Then the old man said he hoped
I wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no
harm by it- it was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my
pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all
right. He told me to make myself easy and at home, and tell all
about myself; but the old lady says:

  "Why bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as he can be; and
don't you reckon it may be he's hungry?"

  "True for you, Rachel- I forgot."

  So the old lady says:

  "Betsy" (this was a nigger woman), "you fly around and get him
something to eat, as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you
girls go and wake up Buck and tell him- Oh, here he is himself.
Buck, take this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him
and dress him up in some of yours that's dry."

  Buck looked about as old as me- thirteen or fourteen or along there,
though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but a
shirt, and he was very frowsy-headed. He come in gaping and digging
one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other
one. He says:

  "Ain't they no Shepherdsons around?"

  They said, no, 'twas a false alarm.

  "Well," he says, "if they'd a ben some, I reckon I'd a got one."

  They all laughed, and Bob says:

  "Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've been so slow in
coming."

  "Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right. I'm always kep'
down; I don't get no show."

  "Never mind, Buck, my boy," says the old man, "you'll have show
enough, all in good time, don't you fret about that. Go 'long with you
now, and do as your mother told you."

  When we got up stairs to his room, he got me a coarse shirt and a
roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he
asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him, he started
to telling me about a blue jay and a young rabbit he had catched in
the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when
the candle went out. I said I didn't know; I hadn't heard about it
before, no way.

  "Well, guess," he says.

  "How'm I going to guess," says I, "when I never heard tell about
it before?"

  "But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy."

  "Which candle?" I says.

  "Why, any candle," he says.

  "I don't know where he was," says I; "where was he?"

  "Why, he was in the dark! That's where he was!"

  "Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?"

  "Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are
you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have
booming times- they don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've
got a dog- and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you
throw in. Do you like to comb up, Sundays, and all that kind of
foolishness? You bet I don't, but ma she makes me. Confound these
ole britches, I reckon I'd better put'em on, but I'd ruther not,
it's so warm. Are you all ready? All right- come along, old hoss."

  Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk- that is
what they had for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that
ever I've come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked
cob pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two
young women. They all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The
young women had quilts around them, and their hair down their backs.
They all asked me questions, and I told them how pap and me and all
the family was living on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw,
and my sister Mary Ann run off and got married and never was heard
of no more, and Bill went to hunt them and he warn't heard of no more,
and Tom and Mort died, and then there warn't nobody but just me and
pap left, and he was just trimmed down to nothing, on account of his
troubles; so when he died I took what there was left, because the farm
didn't belong to us, and started up the river, deck passage, and
fell overboard; and that was how I come to be here. So they said I
could have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it was most
daylight, and everybody went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck,
and when I waked up in the morning, drat it all, I had forgot what
my name was. So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and when
Buck waked up, I says:

  "Can you spell, Buck?"

  "Yes," he says.

  "I bet you can't spell my name," says I.

  "I bet you what you dare I can," says he.

  "All right," says I, "go ahead."

  "G-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n- there now," he says.

  "Well," says I, "you done it, but I didn't think you could. It ain't
no slouch of a name to spell- right off without studying."

  I set it down, private, because somebody might want me to spell
it, next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I
was used to it.

  It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I
hadn't seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and
had so much style. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor
a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, and the
same as houses in a town. There warn't no bed in the parlor, not a
sign of a bed; but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them. There
was a big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was
kept clean and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with
another brick; sometimes they washed them over with red water-paint
that they called Spanish-brown, same as they do in town. They had
big brass dog-irons that could hold up a saw-log. There was a clock on
the middle of the mantel-piece, with a picture of a town painted on
the bottom half of the glass front, and a round place in the middle of
it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swing behind it. It was
beautiful to hear that clock tick; and sometimes when one of these
peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her in good
shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she
got tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for her.

  Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock,
made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of
the parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the
other; and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't
open their mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked
through underneath. There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans
spread out behind those things. On a table in the middle of the room
was a kind of lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and
peaches and grapes piled up in it which was much redder and yellower
and prettier than real ones is, but they warn't real because you could
see where pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk or
whatever it was, underneath.

  This table had a cover made out of beautiful oil-cloth, with a red
and blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all
around. It come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was
some books too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table.
One was a big family Bible, full of pictures. One was "Pilgrim's
Progress," about a man that left his family it didn't say why. I
read considerable in it now and then. The statements was
interesting, but tough. Another was "Friendship's Offering," full of
beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn't read the poetry. Another
was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another was Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine,
which told you all about what to do if a body was sick or dead.
There was a Hymn Book, and a lot of other books. And there was nice
split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too- not bagged down in
the middle and busted, like an old basket.

  They had pictures hung on the walls- mainly Washingtons and
Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called "Signing
the Declaration." There was some that they called crayons, which one
of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only
fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see
before; blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim
black dress, belted small under the arm-pits, with bulges like a
cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel
bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with
black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was
leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping
willow, and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white
handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said "Shall
I Never See Thee More Alas." Another one was a young lady with her
hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and knotted
there in front of a comb like a chair-back, and she was crying into
a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other
hand with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said "I Shall
Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas." There was one where a young
lady was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears running down
her cheeks; and she had an open letter in one hand with black
sealing-wax showing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a locket
with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath the picture it
said "And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas." These was all nice
pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because
if ever I was down a little, they always give me the fan-tods.
Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of
these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done what
they had lost. But I reckoned, that with her disposition, she was
having a better time in the graveyard. She was at work on what they
said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and
every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it
done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture of a young
woman in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready
to jump off, with her hair all down her back, and looking up to the
moon, with the tears running down her face, and she had two arms
folded across her breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two
more reaching up towards the moon- and the idea was, to see which pair
would look best and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was
saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now they kept
this picture over the head of the bed in her room, and every time
her birthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with
a little curtain. The young woman in the picture had a kind of a
nice sweet face, but there was so many arms it made her look too
spidery, seemed to me.

  This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to
paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it
out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of
her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about
a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and
was drownded:


           Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd.


             And did young Stephen sicken,

               And did young Stephen die?

             And did the sad hearts thicken,

               And did the mourners cry?


             No; such was not the fate of

               Young Stephen Dowling Bots;

             Though sad hearts round him thickened,

              'Twas not from sickness'shots.


             No whooping-cough did rack his frame,

               Nor measles drear, with spots;

             Not these impaired the sacred name

               Of Stephen Dowling Bots.


             Despised love struck not with woe

               That head of curly knots.

             Nor stomach troubles laid him low,

               Young Stephen Dowling Bots.


             O No. Then list with tearful eye,

               Whilst I his fate do tell.

             His soul did from this cold world fly,

               By falling down a well.


             They got him out and emptied him;

               Alas it was too late;

             His spirit was gone for to sport aloft

               In the realms of the good and great.


  If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was
fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by-and-by. Buck
said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to
stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't
find anything to rhyme with it she would just scratch it out and
slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular, she
could write about anything you choose to give her to write about, just
so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child
died, she would be on hand with her "tribute" before he was cold.
She called them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor
first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker- the undertaker never got in
ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme the dead
person's name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same, after
that; she never complained, but she kind of pined away and did not
live long. Poor thing, many's the time I made myself go up to the
little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrapbook
and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had
soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all,
and warn't going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made
poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't
seem right that there warn't nobody to make some about her, now she
was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I
couldn't seem to make it go, somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim
and nice and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have
them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady
took care of the room herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and
she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there, mostly.

  Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains
on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them, of castles
with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink.
There was a little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I
reckon, and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies
sing, "The Last Link is Broken" and play "The Battle of Prague" on it.
The walls of all the rooms was plastered, and most had carpets on
the floors, and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside.

  It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was
roofed and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the
middle of the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing
couldn't be better. And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of
it too!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


  Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all
over; and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and
that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow
Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first
aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it, too, though he
warn't no more quality than a mudcat, himself. Col. Grangerford was
very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign
of red in it anywheres; he was clean-shaved every morning, all over
his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the
thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and
the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like
they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say. His forehead
was high, and his hair was black and straight, and hung to his
shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every day of his life he
put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made out of
linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he wore
a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He carried a mahogany
cane with a silver head to it. There warn't no frivolishness about
him, not a bit, and he warn't ever loud. He was as kind as he could
be- you could feel that, you know, and so you had confidence.
Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he
straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun
to flicker out from under his eyebrows you wanted to climb a tree
first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever
have to tell anybody to mind their manners- everybody was always
good mannered where he was. Everybody loved to have him around, too;
he was sunshine most always- I mean he made it seem like good weather.
When he turned into a cloud-bank it was awful dark for a half a minute
and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week.

  When him and the old lady come down in the morning, all the family
got up out of their chairs and give them good-day, and didn't set down
again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard
where the decanters was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to
him, and he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was
mixed, and then they bowed and said "Our duty to you, sir, and madam;"
and they bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so
they drank, all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on
the sugar and the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of
their tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old
people too.

  Bob was the oldest, and Tom next. Tall, beautiful men with very
broad shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes.
They dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman,
and wore broad Panama hats.

  Then there was Miss Charlotte, she was twenty-five, and tall and
proud and grand, but as good as she could be, when she warn't
stirred up; but when she was, she had a look that would make you
wilt in your tracks, like her father. She was beautiful.

  So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was
gentle and sweet, like a dove, and she was only twenty.

  Each person had their own nigger to wait on them- Buck, too. My
nigger had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having
anybody do anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the
time.

  This was all there was of the family, now; but there used to be
more- three sons, they got killed; and Emmeline that died.

  The old gentleman owned a lot of farms, and over a hundred
niggers. Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from
ten or fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such
junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the
woods, day-times, and balls at the house, nights. These people was
mostly kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them.
It was a handsome lot of quality, I tell you.

  There was another clan of aristocracy around there- five or six
families- mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned,
and well born, and rich and grand, as the tribe of Grangerfords. The
Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing,
which was about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went
up there with a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the
Shepherdsons there, on their fine horses.

  One day Buck and me was away out in the woods, hunting, and heard
a horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:

  "Quick! Jump for the woods!"

  We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves.
Pretty soon a splendid young man came galloping down the road, setting
his horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his
pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I
heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from
his head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we
was hid. But we didn't wait. We started through the woods on a run.
The woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder, to dodge the
bullet, and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he
rode away the way he come- to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't
see. We never stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman's
eyes blazed a minute- 'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged- then his
face sort of smoothed down and he says, kind of gentle:

  "I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you
step into the road, my boy?"

  "The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage."

  Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was
telling his tale and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two
young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she
turned pale, but the color came back when she found the man warn't
hurt.

  Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by
ourselves, I says:

  "Did you want to kill him, Buck?"

  "Well, I bet I did."

  "What did he do to you?"

  "Him? He never done nothing to me."

  "Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"

  "Why, nothing- only it's on account of the feud."

  "What's a feud?"

  "Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?"

  "Never heard of it before- tell me about it."

  "Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way. A man has a quarrel with
another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills him;
then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the
cousins chip in- and by-and-by everybody's killed off, and there ain't
no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time."

  "Has this one been going on long, Buck?"

  "Well I should reckon! it started thirty year ago, or som'ers
along there. There was trouble 'bout something and then a lawsuit to
settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and
shot the man that won the suit- which he would naturally do, of
course. Anybody would."

  "What was the trouble about, Buck?- land?"

  "I reckon maybe- I don't know."

  "Well, who done the shooting?- was it a Grangerford or a
Shepherdson?"

  "Laws, how do I know? it was so long ago."

  "Don't anybody know?"

  "Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old folks; but
they don't know, now, what the row was about in the first place."

  "Has there been many killed, Buck?"

  "Yes- right smart chance of funerals. But they don't always kill.
Pa's got a few buck-shot in him; but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't
weigh much anyway. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's
been hurt once or twice."

  "Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?"

  "Yes, we got one and they got one. 'Bout three months ago, my cousin
Bud, fourteen years old, was riding through the woods, on t'other side
of the river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame'
foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming
behind him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin' after him with
his gun in his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and
'stead of jumping off and taking to the brush, Bud 'lowed he could
outrun him; so they had it, nip and tuck, for five mile and more,
the old man againing all the time; so at last Bud seen it warn't any
use, so he stopped and faced around so as to have the bullet holes
in front, you know, and the old man he rode up and shot him down.
But he didn't git much chance to enjoy his luck, for inside of a
week our folks laid him out."

  "I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck."

  "I reckon he warn't a coward. Not by a blame' sight. There ain't a
coward amongst them Shepherdsons- not a one. And there ain't no
cowards amongst the Grangerfords, either. Why, that old man kep' up
his end in a fight one day, for a half an hour, against three
Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit
off of his horse and got behind a little wood-pile, and kep' his horse
before him to stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords staid on their
horses and capered around the old man, and peppered away at him, and
he peppered away at them. Him and his horse both went home pretty
leaky and crippled, but the Grangerfords had to be fetched home- and
one of 'em was dead, and another died the next day. No, sir, if a
body's out hunting for cowards, he don't want to fool away any time
against Shepherdsons, becuz they don't breed any of that kind."

  Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody
a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them
between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The
Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching- all
about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said
it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and
had such a powerful lot to say about faith, and good works, and free
grace, and preforeordestination, and I don't know what all, that it
did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.

  About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in
their chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull.
Buck and a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun, sound
asleep. I went up to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I
found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to
ours, and she took me in her room and shut the door very soft, and
asked me if I liked her, and I said I did; and she asked me if I would
do something for her and not tell anybody, and I said I would. Then
she said she'd forgot her Testament, and left it in the seat at
church, between two other books and would I slip out quiet and go
there and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to nobody. I said I
would. So I slid out and slipped off up the road, and there warn't
anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any
lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time
because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only
when they've got to; but a hog is different.

  Says I to myself something's up- it ain't natural for a girl to be
in such a sweat about a Testament; so I give it a shake, and out drops
a little piece of paper with "Half-past two" wrote on it with a
pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't
make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and
when I got home and up stairs, there was Miss Sophia in her door
waiting for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in
the Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she
looked glad; and before a body could think, she grabbed me and give me
a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell
anybody. She was mighty red in the face, for a minute, and her eyes
lighted up and it made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal
astonished, but when I got my breath I asked what the paper was about,
and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked me
if I could read writing and I told her "no, only coarse-hand," and
then she said the paper warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her
place, and I might go and play now.

  I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty
soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we
was out of sight of the house, he looked back and around a second, and
then comes a-running, and says:

  "Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp, I'll show you a
whole stack o' water-moccasins."

  Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He
oughter know a body don't love water moccasins enough to go around
hunting for them. What is he up to anyway? So I says-

  "All right, trot ahead."

  I followed a half a mile, then he struck out over the swamp and
waded ankle deep as much as another half mile. We come to a little
flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and
bushes and vines, and he says-

  "You shove right in dah, jist a few steps, Mars Jawge, dah's whah
dey is. I's seed 'm befo', I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'."

  Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees
hid him. I poked into the place a-ways, and come to a little open
patch as big as a bedroom, all hung around with vines, and found a man
laying there asleep- and by jings it was my old Jim!

  I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise
to him to see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried, he was so
glad, but he warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me, that
night, and heard me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he
didn't want nobody to pick him up, and take him into slavery again.
Says he-

  "I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considable
ways behine you, towards de las'; when you landed I reckoned I could
ketch up wid you on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I
see dat house I begin to go slow. I off too fur to hear what dey say
to you- I wuz 'fraid o' de dogs- but when it 'uz all quiet agin, I
knowed you's in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for
day. Early in de mawnin' some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de
fields, en dey tuck me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can't
track me on accounts o' de water, en dey brings me truck to eat
every night, en tells me how you's a gitt'n along."

  "Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?"

  "Well,'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn-
but we's all right, now. I ben a-buyin' pots en pans en vittles, as
I get a chanst, en a patchin' up de raf', nights, when-"

  "What raft, Jim?"

  "Our ole raf'."

  "You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?"

  "No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal- one en' of her was-
but dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'.
Ef we hadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night
hadn' ben so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich
punkin-heads, as de sayin' is, we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis' as
well we didn't, 'kase now she's all fixed up agin mos' as good as new,
en we's got a new lot o' stuff, too, in de place o' what 'uz los'."

  "Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim- did you catch
her?"

  "How I gwyne to ketch her, en I out in de woods? No, some er de
niggers foun' her ketched on a snag, along heah in de ben', en dey hid
her in a crick, 'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout
which un 'um she b'long to de mos', dat I come to heah 'bout it
pooty soon, so I ups en settles de trouble by tellin' 'um she don't
b'long to none uv um, but to you en me; en I ast'm if dey gwyne to
grab a young white genlman's propaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I gin
'm ten cents apiece, en dey 'uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some
mo' raf's 'ud come along en make 'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good to
me, dese niggers is, en whatever I wants 'm to do fur me, I doan' have
to ast 'm twice, honey. Dat Jack's a good nigger, en pooty smart."

  "Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here; told me to come,
and he'd show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens, he
ain't mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and
it'll be the truth."

  I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I'll cut it
pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was agoing to turn over and
go to sleep again, when I noticed how still it was- didn't seem to
be anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was
up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs-
nobody around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the same
outside; thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the wood-pile I comes
across my Jack, and says:

  "What's it all about?"

  Says he:

  "Don't you know, Mars Jawge?"

  "No," says I, "I don't."

  "Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has. She run off in
de night, sometime- nobody don't know jis' when- run off to git
married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know- leastways, so dey
'spec. De fambly foun' it out, 'bout half an hour ago- maybe a
little mo'- en' I tell you dey warn't no time los'. Sich another
hurryin' up guns en hosses you never see! De women folks has gone
for to stir up the relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey
guns en rode up de river road for to try to ketch dat young man en
kill him 'fo' he kin git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n
dey's gwyne to be mighty rough times."

  "Buck went off 'thout waking me up."

  "Well I reck'n he did! Dey warn't gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars
Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a
Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en
you bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst."

  I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By-and-by I begin
to hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log store
and the wood-pile where the steamboats lands, I worked along under the
trees and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into
the forks of a cotton-wood that was out of reach, and watched. There
was a wood-rank four foot high, a little ways in front of the tree,
and first I was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier
I didn't.

  There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the
open place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to
get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside
of the steamboat landing- but they couldn't come it. Every time one of
them showed himself on the river side of the wood-pile he got shot at.
The two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could
watch both ways.

  By-and-by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started
riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady
bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle.
All the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and
started to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys
started on the run. They got half-way to the tree I was in before
the men noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and
took out after them. They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no
good, the boys had too good a start; they got to the wood-pile that
was in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they had the
bulge on the men again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was
a slim young chap about nineteen years old.

  The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they
was out of sight, I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what
to make of my voice coming out of the tree, at first. He was awful
surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men
come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or other-
wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn't
come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and his
cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day,
yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or
three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them, in ambush.
Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations-
the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was
become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across
the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did
take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at
him- I hain't ever heard anything like it.

  All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns- the
men had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind
without their horses! The boys jumped for the river- both of them
hurt- and as they swum down the current the men run along the bank
shooting at them and singing out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me
so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain't agoing to tell all that
happened- it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I ain't
ever going to get shut of them- lots of times I dream about them.

  I staid in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come
down. Sometimes I heard guns. away off in the woods; and twice I
seen little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I
reckoned the trouble was still agoing on. I was mighty down-hearted;
so I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again,
because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow. I judged that piece of
paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at halfpast
two and run off; and I judged I ought to told her father about that
paper and the curious way she acted, and then maybe he would a
locked her up and this awful mess wouldn't ever happened.

  When I got down out of the tree, I crept along down the river bank a
piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and
tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their
faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was
covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.

  It was just dark, now. I never went near the house, but struck
through the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so
I tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the
willows, red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country- the
raft was gone! My souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath
for most a minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five
foot from me, says-

  "Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise."

  It was Jim's voice- nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along
the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged
me, he was so glad to see me. He says-

  "Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin.
Jack's been heah, he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come
home no mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de
mouf er de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave
soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain you is dead. Lawsy,
I's mighty glad to git you back agin, honey."

  I says-

  "All right- that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll
think I've been killed, and floated down the river- there's
something up there that'll help them to think so- so don't you lose no
time, Jim, but just shove off for the big water as fast as ever you
can."

  I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out
in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal
lantern, and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't
had a bite to eat since yesterday; so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers
and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage, and greens- there ain't
nothing in the world so good, when it's cooked right- and whilst I eat
my supper we talked, and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get
away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We
said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem
so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and
easy and comfortable on a raft.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN


  Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum
by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we
put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there- sometimes
a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid
day-times; soon as night was most gone, we stopped navigating and tied
up- nearly always in the dead water under a tow-head; and then cut
young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them. Then we
set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as
to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where
the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a
sound, anywheres- perfactly still- just like the whole world was
asleep, only sometimes the bull-frogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first
thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line-
that was the woods on t'other side- you couldn't make nothing else
out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness, spreading
around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn't black any
more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along, ever
so far away-trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks-
rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up
voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by-and-by you
could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the
streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it
and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up
off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make
out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on
t'other side of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, and piled by
them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice
breeze blows up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and
fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the woods and the flowers;
but sometimes not that way, because they've left dead fish laying
around, gars, and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you've
got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the
song-birds just going it!

  A little smoke couldn't be noticed, now, so we would take some
fish off of the lines, and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards
we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy
along, and by-and-by lazy off to sleep. Wake up, by-and-by, and look
to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat, coughing along up
stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing
about her only whether she was stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for
about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see-
just solid lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off
yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're most always
doing it on a raft; you'd see the ax flash, and come down- you don't
hear nothing; you see that ax go up again, and by the time it's
above the man's head, then you hear the k'chunk!- it had took all that
time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying
around, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and
the rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the
steamboats wouldn't run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close
we could hear them talking and cussing and laughing- heard them plain;
but we couldn't see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly, it was
like spirits carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed
it was spirits; but I says:

  "No, spirits wouldn't say, 'dern the dern fog.'"

  Soon as it was night, out we shoved; when we got her out to about
the middle, we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current
wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the
water and talked about all kinds of things- we was always naked, day
and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us- the new clothes
Buck's folks made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I
didn't go much on clothes, nohow.

  Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the
longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the
water; and maybe a spark- which was a candle in a cabin window- and
sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two- on a raft or a
scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming
over from one of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had
the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on
our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was
made, or only just happened- Jim he allowed they was made, but I
allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so
many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of
reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a
frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch
the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd
got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.

  Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along
in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of
sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the
river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her
lights would wink out and her pow-wow shut off and leave the river
still again; and by-and-by her waves would get to us, a long time
after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you
wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how long, except maybe
frogs or something.

  After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two
or three hours the shores was black- no more sparks in the cabin
windows. These sparks was our clock- the first one that showed again
meant morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up,
right away.

  One morning about day-break, I found a canoe and crossed over a
chute to the main shore- it was only two hundred yards- and paddled
about a mile up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I
couldn't get some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a
kind of a cow-path crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men
tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it. I thought I was
a goner, for whenever anybody was after anybody I judged it was me- or
maybe Jim. I was about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they
was pretty close to me then, and sung out and begged me to save
their lives- said they hadn't been doing nothing, and was being chased
for it- said there was men and dogs a-coming. They wanted to jump
right in, but I says-

  "Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got
time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways;
then you take to the water and wade down to me and get in- that'll
throw the dogs off the scent."

 They done it, and as soon as they was aboard I lit out for our
tow-head, and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the
men away off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick,
but couldn't see them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while;
then, as we got further and further away all the time, we couldn't
hardly hear them at all; by the time we had left a mile of woods
behind us and struck the river, everything was quiet, and we paddled
over to the tow-head and hid in the cottonwoods and was safe.

  One of these fellows was about seventy, or upwards, and had a bald
head and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat
on, and a greasy blue woolen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches
stuffed into his boot tops, and home-knit galluses- no, he only had
one. He had an old longtailed blue jeans coat with slick brass
buttons, flung over his arm, and both of them had big fat
ratty-looking carpet-bags.

  The other fellow was about thirty and dressed about as ornery. After
breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come
out was that these chaps didn't know one another.

  "What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.

  "Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth-
and it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel with it- but I
staid about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the
act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of
town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to
get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself and would
scatter with you. That's the whole yarn- what's yourn?"

  "Well, I'd been a-runnin'a little temperance revival thar, 'bout a
week, and was the pet of the women-folks, big and little, for I was
makin' it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin' as
much as five or six dollars a night- ten cents a head, children and
niggers free- and business a growin' all the time; when somehow or
another a little report got around, last night, that I had a way of
puttin'in my time with a private jug, on the sly. A nigger rousted
me out this mornin', and told me the people was getherin' on the
quiet, with their dogs and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon and
give me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me down, if they
could; and if they got me they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a
rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast- I warn't hungry."

  "Old man," says the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it
together; what do you think?"

  "I ain't undisposed. What's your line- mainly?"

  "Jour printer, by trade; do a little in patent medicines;
theatre-actor- tragedy, you know; take a turn at mesmerism and
phrenology when there's a chance; teach singing-geography school for a
change; sling a lecture, sometimes- oh, I do lots of things- most
anything that comes handy, so it ain't work. What's your lay?"

  "I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o'
hands is my best holt- for cancer, and paralysis, and sich things; and
I k'n tell a fortune pretty good, when I've got somebody along to find
out the facts for me. Preachin's my line, too; and workin'
camp-meetin's; and missionaryin' around."

  Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a
sigh and says-

  "Alas!"

  "What're you alassin' about?" says the baldhead.

  "To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be
degraded down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of
his eye with a rag.

  "Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the
baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

  "Yes, it is good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who
fetched me so low, when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame
you, gentlemen- far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it
all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know- there's a
grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it's always
done, and take everything from me- loved ones, property, everything-
but it can't take that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it
all, and my poor broken heart will be at rest." He went on a-wiping.

  "Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you
heaving your pore broken heart at us f'r? We hain't done nothing."

  "No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought
myself down- yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer-
perfectly right- I don't make any moan."

  "Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"

  "Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes- let it
pass- 'tis no matter. The secret of my birth-"

  "The secret of your birth? Do you mean to say-"

  "Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to
you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"

  Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did,
too. Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?"

  "Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater,
fled to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the
pure air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own
father dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke
seized the title and estates- the infant real duke was ignored. I am
the lineal descendant of that infant- I am the rightful Duke of
Bridgewater; and here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate,
hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken,
and degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft!"

  Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort
him, but he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted;
said if we was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more
good than most anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us
how. He said we ought to bow, when we spoke to him, and say "Your
Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your Lordship"- and he wouldn't mind it if
we called him plain "Bridgewater," which he said was a title,
anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to wait on him at
dinner, and do any little thing for him he wanted done.

  Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood
around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o'dis,
or some o'dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing
to him.

  But the old man got pretty silent, by-and-by- didn't have much to
say, and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was
going on around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind.
So, along in the afternoon, he says:

  "Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but
you ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."

  "No?"

  "No, you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down
wrongfully out'n a high place."

  "Alas!"

  "No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth."
And by jings, he begins to cry.

  "Hold! What do you mean?"

  "Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of
sobbing.

  "To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and
squeezed it, and says, "The secret of your being: speak!"

  "Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

  You bet you Jim and me stared, this time. Then the duke says:

  "You are what?"

  "Yes, my friend, it is too true- your eyes is lookin' at this very
moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of
Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette."

  "You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you
must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."

  "Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has
brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen,
you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin' exiled,
trampled-on and sufferin' rightful King of France."

  Well, he cried and took on so, that me and Jim didn't know hardly
what to do, we was so sorry- and so glad and proud we'd got him with
us, too. So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to
comfort him. But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead
and done with it all could do him any good; though he said it often
made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him
according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and
always called him "Your Majesty," and waited on him first at meals,
and didn't set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and
me set to majestying him, and doing this and that and t'other for him,
and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps
of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind
of soured on him, and didn't look a bit satisfied with the way
things was going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and
said the duke's great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of
Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by his father and was allowed to
come to the palace considerable; but the duke staid hurry a good
while, till by-and-by the king says:

  "Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time, on this h-yer
raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It'll only
make things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke,
it ain't your fault you warn't born a king- so what's the use to
worry? Make the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I- that's my
motto. This ain't no bad thing that we've struck here- plenty grub and
an easy life- come, give us your hand, Duke, and less all be friends."

  The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It
took away all the uncomfortableness, and we felt mighty good over
it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any
unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on
a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind
towards the others.

  It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no
kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I
never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best
way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble.
If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no
objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it
warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt
nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along
with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY


  They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we
covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the day-time
instead of running- was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I-

  "Goodness sakes, would a runaway nigger run south?"

   No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way,
so I says:

  "My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was
born, and they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he
'lowed he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got
a little one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below
Orleans. Pa was pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd
squared up there warn't nothing left but sixteen dollars and our
nigger, Jim. That warn't enough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck
passage nor no other way. Well, when the river rose, pa had a streak
of luck one day; he ketched this piece of a raft; so we reckoned
we'd go down to Orleans on it. Pa's luck didn't hold out; a
steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft, one night, and we
all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and me come up, all
right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four years old, so they
never come up no more. Well, for the next day or two we had
considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in skiffs
and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a
runaway nigger. We don't run day-times no more, now; nights they don't
bother us."

  The duke says-

  "Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the day-time if
we want to. I'll think the thing over- I'll invent a plan that'll
fix it. We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want
to go by that town yonder in daylight- it mightn't be healthy."

  Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat
lightning was squirting around, low down in the sky, and the leaves
was beginning to shiver- it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy
to see that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our
wigwam, to see what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick- better
than Jim's, which was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around
about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you
roll over, the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of
dead leaves; it makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke
allowed he would take my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn't. He
says-

  "I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to
you that a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on.
Your Grace'll take the shuck bed yourself."

  Jim and me was in a sweat again, for a minute, being afraid there
was going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty
glad when the duke says-
 "'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel
of oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I
yield, I submit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world- let me suffer;
I can bear it."

  We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to
stand well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light
till we got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little
bunch of lights by-and-by- that was the town, you know- and slid by,
about a half a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a
mile below, we hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it
come on to rain and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so
the king told us to both stay on watch till the weather got better;
then him and the duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the
night. It was my watch below, till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in,
anyway, if I'd had a bed; because a body don't see such a storm as
that every night in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the
wind did scream along! And every second or two there'd come a glare
that lit up the white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the
islands looking dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around
in the wind; then comes a h-wack!- bum! bum!
bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum- and the thunder would go rumbling and
grumbling away, and quit- and then rip comes another flash and another
sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft, sometimes, but I
hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble
about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so
constant that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head
this way or that and miss them.

  I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that
time, so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he
was always mighty good, that way, Jim was. I crawled into the
wigwam, but the king and the duke had their legs sprawled around so
there warn't no show for me; so I laid outside- I didn't mind the
rain, because it was warm, and the waves warn't running so high,
now. About two they come up again, though, and Jim was going to call
me, but he changed his mind because he reckoned they warn't high
enough yet to do any harm; but he was mistaken about that, for
pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripper, and washed
me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. He was the easiest nigger
to laugh that ever was, anyway.

  I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and
by-and-by the storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light
that showed, I rousted him out and we slid the raft into
hiding-quarters for the day.

  The king got out an old ratty deck of cards, after breakfast, and
him and the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then they
got tired of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as
they called it. The duke went down into his carpet-bag and fetched
up a lot of little printed bills, and read them out loud. One bill
said "The celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban of Paris," would "lecture
on the Science of Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank
day of blank, at ten cents admission, and "furnish charts of character
at twenty-five cents apiece." The duke said that was him. In another
bill he was the "world renowned Shaksperean tragedian, Garrick the
Younger, of Drury Lane, London." In other bills he had a lot of
other names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and
gold with a "divining rod," "dissipating witch-spells," and so on.
By-and-by he says-

  "But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the
boards, Royalty?"

  "No," says the king.

  "You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen
Grandeur," says the duke. "The first good town we come to, we'll
hire a hall and do the sword-fight in Richard III. and the balcony
scene in Romeo and Juliet. How does that strike you?"

  "I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater,
but you see I don't know nothing about play-actn', and hain't ever
seen much of it. I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the
palace. Do you reckon you can learn me?"

  "Easy!"

  "All right. I'm jist a-freezn' for something fresh, anyway. Less
commence, right away."

  So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was, and who Juliet was,
and said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.

  "But if Juliet's such a young gal, Duke, my peeled head and my white
whiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe."

  "No, don't you worry- these country jakes won't ever think of
that. Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all
the difference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the
moonlight before she goes to bed, and she's got on her night-gown
and her ruffled night-cap. Here are the costumes for the parts."

  He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was
meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white
cotton night-shirt and a ruffled night-cap to match. The king was
satisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the
most splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same
time, to show how it had got to be done; then he give the book to
the king and told him to get his part by heart.

  There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend,
and after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about
how to run in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he
allowed he would go down to the town and fix that thing. The king
allowed he would go too, and see if he couldn't strike something. We
was out of coffee, so Jim said I better go along with them in the
canoe and get some.

  When we got there, there warn't nobody stirring; streets empty,
and perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger
sunning himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't
too young or too sick or too old, was gone to camp-meeting, about
two mile back in the woods. The king got the directions, and allowed
he'd go and work that camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might
go, too.

  The duke said what he was after was a printing office. We found
it; a little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop- carpenters
and printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a
dirty, littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with
pictures of horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls.
The duke shed his coat and said he was all right, now. So me and the
king lit out for the camp-meeting.

  We got there in about a half an hour, fairly dripping, for it was
a most awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there,
from twenty mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons,
hitched everywheres, feeding out of the wagon troughs and stomping
to keep off the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed
over with branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell,
and piles of watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.

  The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only
they was bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of
outside slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive
sticks into for legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had
high platforms to stand on, at one end of the sheds. The women had
on sunbonnets; and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham
ones, and a few of the young ones had on calico. Some of the young men
was barefooted, and some of the children didn't have on any clothes
but just a tow-linen shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and
some of the young folks was courting on the sly.

  The first shed we come to, the preacher was lining out a hymn. He
lined out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to
hear it, there was so many of them and they done it in such a
rousing way; then he lined out two more for them to sing- and so on.
The people woke up more and more, and sung louder and louder; and
towards the end, some begun to groan, and some begun to shout. Then
the preacher begun to preach; and begun in earnest, too; and went
weaving first to one side of the platform and then the other, and then
a leaning down over the front of it, with his arms and his body
going all the time, and shouting his words out with all his might; and
every now and then he would hold up his Bible and spread it open,
and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting, "It's the
brazen serpent in the wilderness! Look upon it and live!" And people
would shout out, "Glory!- A-a-men!" And so he went on, and the
people groaning and crying and saying amen:

  "Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (amen!)
come, sick and sore! (amen!) come, lame and halt, and blind! (amen!)
come, pore and needy, sunk in shame! (amen!) come all that's worn, and
soiled, and suffering!- come with a broken spirit! come with a
contrite heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that
cleanse is free, the door of heaven stands open- oh, enter in and be
at rest!" (a-a-men! glory, glory hallelujah!)

  And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said, any more,
on account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up, everywheres in
the crowd, and worked their way, just by main strength, to the
mourners' bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all
the mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they
sung, and shouted, and flung themselves down on the straw, just
crazy and wild.

  Well, the first I knowed, the king got agoing; and you could hear
him over everybody; he went a-charging up on to the platform and the
preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He told
them he was a pirate- been a pirate for thirty years, out in the
Indian Ocean, and his crew was thinned out considerable, last
spring, in a fight, and he was home now, to take out some fresh men,
and thanks to goodness he'd been robbed last night, and put ashore off
of a steamboat without a cent, and he was glad of it, it was the
blessedest thing that ever happened to him, because he was a changed
man now, and happy for the first time in his life; and poor as he was,
he was going to start right off and work his way back to the Indian
Ocean and put in the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates
into the true path; for he could do it better than anybody else, being
acquainted with all the pirate crews in that ocean; and though it
would take him a long time to get there, without money, he would get
there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he would say to
him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me no credit, it all
belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting, natural
brothers and benefactors of the race- and that dear preacher there,
the truest friend a pirate ever had!"

  And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody
sings out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well,
a half dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let him
pass the hat around!" Then everybody said it, the preacher too.

  So the king went all through the crowd with his hat, swabbing his
eyes, and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them
for being so good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little
while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their
cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss him, for to
remember him by; and he always done it; and some of them he hugged and
kissed as many as five or six times- and he was invited to stay a
week; and everybody wanted him to live in their houses, and said
they'd think it was an honor; but he said as this was the last day
of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and besides he was in a
sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to work on the
pirates.

  When we got back to the raft and he come to count up, he found he
had collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he
had fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found
under a wagon when we was starting home through the woods. The king
said, take it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in the
missionarying line. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't
amount to shucks, alongside of pirates, to work a camp-meeting with.

  The duke was thinking he'd been doing pretty well, till the king
come to show up, but after that he didn't think so much. He had set up
and printed off two little jobs for farmers, in that printing
office- horse bills- and took the money, four dollars. And he had
got in ten dollars worth of advertisements for the paper, which he
said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance- so
they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he
took in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of
them paying him in advance; they were going to pay in cord-wood and
onions, as usual, but he said he had just bought the concern and
knocked down the price as low as he could afford it, and was going
as low as he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash. He set
up a little piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own
head- three verses- kind of sweet and saddish- the name of it was,
"Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heart"- and he left that all
set up and ready to print in the paper and didn't charge nothing for
it. Well, he took in nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a
pretty square day's work for it.

  Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged
for, because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger, with
a bundle on a stick, over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it.
The reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It
said he run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New
Orleans, last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch
him and send him back, he could have the reward and expenses.

  "Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if
we want to. Whenever we see anybody coming, we can tie Jim hand and
foot with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and
say we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a
steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and
are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look
still better on Jim, but it wouldn't go well with the story of us
being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing-
we must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards."

  We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no
trouble about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough
that night to get out of the reach of the pow-wow we reckoned the
duke's work in the printing office was going to make in that little
town- then we could boom right along, if we wanted to.

  We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten
o'clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't
hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.

  When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he
says-

  "Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis
trip?"

  "No," I says, "I reckon not."

  "Well," says he, "dat's all right, den. I doan' mine one er two
kings, but dat's enough. Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain'
much better."

  I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could
hear what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so
long, and had so much trouble, he'd forgot it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


  It was after sun-up, now, but we went right on, and didn't tie up.
The king and the duke turned out, by-and-by, looking pretty rusty; but
after they'd jumped overboard and took a swim, it chippered them up
a good deal. After breakfast the king he took a seat on a corner of
the raft, and pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let
his legs dangle in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his
pipe, and went to getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart. When he had
got it pretty good, him and the duke begun to practice it together.
The duke had to learn him over and over again, how to say every
speech; and he made him sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after
while he said he done it pretty well; "only," he says, "you mustn't
bellow out Romeo! that way, like a bull- you must say it soft, and
sick, and languishy, so- R-o-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet's a
dear sweet mere child of a girl, you know, and she don't bray like a
jackass."

  Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made
out of oak laths, and begun to practice the swordfight- the duke
called himself Richard III.; and the way they laid on, and pranced
around the raft was grand to see. But by-and-by the king tripped and
fell overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk
about all kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the
river.

  After dinner, the duke says:

  "Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you
know, so I guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little
something to answer encores with, anyway."

  "What's onkores, Bilgewater?"

  The duke told him, and then says:

  "I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe;
and you- well, let me see- oh, I've got it- you can do Hamlet's
soliloquy."

  "Hamlet's which?"

  "Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in
Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I
haven't got it in the book- I've only got one volume- but I reckon I
can piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and
see if I can call it back from recollection's vaults."

  So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning
horrible every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next
he would squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of
moan; next he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It
was beautiful to see him. By-and-by he got it. He told us to give
attention. Then he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg
shoved forwards, and his arms stretched away up, and his head tilted
back, looking up at the sky; and then he begins to rip and rave and
grit his teeth; and after that, all through his speech he howled,
and spread around, and swelled up his chest, and just knocked the
spots out of any acting ever I see before. This is the speech- I
learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the king:


  To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin

  That makes calamity of so long life;

  For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,

  But that the fear of something after death

  Murders the innocent sleep,

  Great nature's second course,

  And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune

  Than fly to others that we know not of.

  There's the respect must give us pause:

  Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;

  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

  The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

  The law's delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take,

  In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn

  In customary suits of solemn black,

  But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler

    returns,

  Breathes forth contagion on the world,

  And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i' the

    adage,

  Is sicklied o'er with care,

  And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops,

  With this regard their currents turn awry,

  And lose the name of action.

  'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But soft you, the fair

    Ophelia:

  Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,

  But get thee to a nunnery- go!


  Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so
he could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and
when he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the
way he would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it
off.

  The first chance we got, the duke he had some show bills printed;
and after that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft
was a most uncommon lively place, for there warn't nothing but
sword-fighting and rehearsing- as the duke called it- going on all the
time. One morning, when we was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw,
we come in sight of a little one-horse town in a big bend; so we
tied up about three-quarters of a mile above it, in the mouth of a
crick which was shut in like a tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of
us but Jim took the canoe and went down there to see if there was
any chance in that place for our show.

  We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there that
afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in
all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave
before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he
hired the court house, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They
read like this:


                      Shaksperean Revival!!!

                      Wonderful Attraction!

                       For One Night Only!


                  The world renowned tragedians,

                    David Garrick the younger,

                  of Drury Lane Theatre, London,

                              and

                      Edmund Kean the elder,

           of the Royal Haymarket Theatre, Whitechapel,

              Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the

             Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime

                   Shaksperean Spectacle entitled


                         The Balcony Scene

                                in

                         Romeo and Juliet!!!


  Romeo............................................... Mr. Garrick.

  Juliet.............................................. Mr. Kean.


                              Also:

           The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling


                      Broad-sword conflict

                       In Richard III.!!!


         Assisted by the whole strength of the company!

          New costumes, new scenery, new appointments!


  Richard III........................................ Mr. Garrick.

  Richmond........................................... Mr. Kean.


                              Also

                      (by special request,)


                  Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy!!


                    By the Illustrious Kean!

           Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!

                     For One Night Only,

          On account of imperative European engagements!

        Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.


  Then we went loafing around the town. The stores and houses was most
all old shackly dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted;
they was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be
out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses
had little gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly
anything in them but jimpson weeds, and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and
old curled-up boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and
played-out tin-ware. The fences was made of different kinds of boards,
nailed on at different times; and they leaned every which-way, and had
gates that didn't generly have but one hinge- a leather one. Some of
the fences had been whitewashed, some time or another, but the duke
said it was in Clumbus's time, like enough. There was generly hogs
in the garden, and people driving them out.

  All the stores was along one street. They had white-domestic awnings
in front, and the country people hitched their horses to the
awning-posts. There was empty dry-goods boxes under the awnings, and
loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them with their
Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and
stretching- a mighty ornery lot. They generly had on yellow straw hats
most as wide as an umbrella, but didn't wear no coats nor
waistcoats; they called one another Bill, and Buck, and Hank, and Joe,
and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and used considerable many
cuss-words. There was as many as one loafer leaning up against every
awning-post, and he most always had his hands in his britches pockets,
except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw of tobacco or
scratch. What a body was hearing amongst them, all the time was-

  "Gimme a chaw'v tobacker, Hank."

  "Cain't- I hain't got but one chaw left. Ask Bill."

  Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain't
got none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world,
nor a chaw of tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by
borrowing- they say to a fellow, "I wisht you'd len' me a chaw,
Jack, I jist this minute give Ben Thompson the last chaw I had"- which
is a lie, pretty much every time; it don't fool nobody but a stranger;
but Jack ain't no stranger, so he says-

  "You give him a chaw, did you? so did your sister's cat's
grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n
me, Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't
charge you no back intrust, nuther."

  "Well, I did pay you back some of it wunst."

  "Yes, you did- 'bout six chaws. You borry'd store tobacker and
paid back nigger-head."

  Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the
natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw, they don't generly
cut it off with a knife, but they set the plug in between their teeth,
and gnaw with their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till
they get it in two- then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks
mournful at it when it's handed back, and says, sarcastic-

  "Here, gimme the chaw, and you take the plug."

  All the streets and lanes was just mud, they warn't nothing else but
mud- mud as black as tar, and nigh about a foot deep in some places;
and two or three inches deep in all the places. The hogs loafed and
grunted around, everywheres. You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of
pigs come lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in
the way, where folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch out,
and shut her eyes, and wave her ears, whilst the pigs was milking her,
and look as happy as if she was on salary. And pretty soon you'd
hear a loafer sing out, "Hi! so boy! sick him, Tige!" and away the sow
would go, squealing most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to
each ear, and three or four dozen more a-coming; and then you would
see all the loafers get up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh
at the fun and look grateful for the noise. Then they'd settle back
again till there was a dog-fight. There couldn't anything wake them up
all over, and make them happy all over, like a dog-fight- unless it
might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or
tying a tin to his tail and see him run himself to death.

  On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the
bank, and they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in. The
people had moved out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner
of some others, and that corner was hanging over. People lived in them
yet, but it was dangersome, because sometimes a strip of land as
wide as a house caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a quarter
of a mile deep will start in and cave along and cave along till it all
caves into the river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be
always moving back, and back, and back, because the river's always
gnawing at it.

  The nearer it got to noon that day, the thicker and thicker was
the wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time.
Families fetched their dinners with them, from the country, and eat
them in the wagons. There was considerable whiskey drinking going
on, and I seen three fights. By-and-by somebody sings out-

  "Here comes old Boggs!- in from the country for his little old
monthly drunk- here he comes, boys!"

  All the loafers looked glad- I reckoned they was used to having
fun out of Boggs. One of them says-

  "Wonder who he's a gwyne to chaw up this time. If he'd a chawed up
all the men he's ben a gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year,
he'd have considerable ruputation, now."

  Another one says, "I wisht old Boggs'd threaten me, 'cuz then I'd
know I warn't gwyne to die for a thousan' year."

  Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whopping and yelling
like an Injun, and singing out-

  "Cler the track, thar. I'm on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins
is a gwyne to raise."

  He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty
year old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him, and
laughed at him, and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd
attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns, but he
couldn't wait now, because he'd come to town to kill old Colonel
Sherburn, and his motto was, "meat first, and spoon vittles to top off
on."

  He see me, and rode up and says-

  "Whar'd you come f'm, boy? You prepared to die?"

  Then he rode on. I was scared; but a man says- "He don't mean
nothing; he's always a carryin'on like that, when he's drunk. He's the
best-naturedest old fool in Arkansaw- never hurt nobody, drunk nor
sober."

  Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town and bent his head
down so he could see under the curtain of the awning, and yells"-

  Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you've
swindled. You're the houn' I'm after, and I'm a gwyne to have you,
too!"

  And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his
tongue to, and the whole street packed with people listening and
laughing and going on. By-and-by a proudlooking man about
fifty-five- and he was a heap the best dressed man in that town,
too- steps out of the store, and the crowd drops back on each side
to let him come. He says to Boggs, mighty ca'm and slow- he says:

  "I'm tired of this; but I'll endure it till one o'clock. Till one
o'clock, mind- no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once,
after that time, you can't travel so far but I will find you."

  Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody
stirred, and there warn't no more laughing. Boggs rode off
blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the
street; and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store,
still keeping it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get
him to shut up, but he wouldn't; they told him it would be one o'clock
in about fifteen minutes, and so he must go home- he must go right
away. But it didn't do no good. He cussed away, with all his might,
and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode over it, and pretty
soon away he went a-raging down the street again, with his gray hair
a-flying. Everybody that could get a chance at him tried their best to
coax him off of his horse so they could lock him up and get him sober;
but it warn't no use- up the street he would tear again, and give
Sherburn another cussing. By-and-by somebody says-

  "Go for his daughter!- quick, go for his daughter; sometimes he'll
listen to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can."

  So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a ways, and
stopped. In about five or ten minutes, here comes Boggs again- but not
on his horse. He was a-reeling across the street towards me,
bareheaded, with a friend on both sides of him aholt of his arms and
hurrying him along. He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn't
hanging back any, but was doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody
sings out-

  "Boggs!"

  I looked over to see who said it, and it was that Colonel
Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still, in the street, and had a
pistol raised in his right hand- not aiming it, but holding it out
with the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same second I see a
young girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Boggs and the
men turned round, to see who called him, and when they see the
pistol the men jumped to one side, and the pistol barrel come down
slow and steady to a level-both barrels cocked. Boggs throws up both
of his hands, and says, "O Lord, don't shoot!" Bang! goes the first
shot, and he staggers back clawing at the air- bang! goes the second
one, and he tumbles backwards onto the ground, heavy and solid, with
his arms spread out. That young girl screamed out, and comes
rushing, and down she throws herself on her father, crying, and
saying, "Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him!" The crowd closed up
around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with their necks
stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to shove
them back, and shouting, "Back, back! give him air, give him air!"

  Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol onto the ground, and turned
around on his heels and walked off.

  They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around,
just the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a
good place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in.
They laid him on the floor, and put one large Bible under his head,
and opened another one and spread it on his breast- but they tore open
his shirt first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He
made about a dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he
drawed in his breath, and letting it down again when he breathed it
out- and after that he laid still; he was dead. Then they pulled his
daughter away from him, screaming and crying, and took her off. She
was about sixteen, and very sweet and gentle-looking, but awful pale
and scared.

  Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and
scrouging and pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a
look, but people that had the places wouldn't give them up, and
folks behind them was saying all the time, "Say, now, you've looked
enough, you fellows; 'taint right and 'taint fair, for you to stay
thar all the time, and never give nobody a chance; other folks has
their rights as well as you.

  There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe
there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was
excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened,
and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows,
stretching their necks and listening. One long lanky man, with long
hair and a big white fur stove-pipe hat on the back of his head, and a
crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where
Boggs stood, and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him
around from one place to t'other and watching everything he done,
and bobbing their heads to show they understood, and stopping a little
and resting their hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places
on the ground with his cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff
where Sherburn had stood, frowning and having his hatbrim down over
his eyes, and sung out, "Boggs!" and then fetched his cane down slow
to a level, and says "Bang!" staggered backwards, says "Bang!"
again, and fell down flat on his back. The people that had seen the
thing said he done it perfect; said it was just exactly the way it all
happened. Then as much as a dozen people got out their bottles and
treated him.

  Well, by-and-by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about
a minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and
yelling, and snatching down every clothes-line they come to, to do the
hanging with.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


  They swarmed up the street towards Sherburn's house, a-whooping
and yelling and raging like Injuns, and everything had to clear the
way or get run over and tromped to mush, and it was awful to see.
Children was heeling it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to
get out of the way; and every window along the road was full of
women's heads, and there was nigger boys in every tree, and bucks
and wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as the mob would get
nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out of reach. Lots of
the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to death.

  They swarmed in front of Sherburn's palings as thick as they could
jam together, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the noise. It
was a little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out "Tear down the fence!
tear down the fence!" Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing
and smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd
begins to roll in like a wave.

  Just then Sherburn steps out of the roof of his little front
porch, with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand,
perfectly ca'm and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket
stopped, and the wave sucked back.

  Sherburn never said a word- just stood there, looking down. The
stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eye
slow along the crowd; and wherever it struck, the people tried a
little to outgaze him, but they couldn't; they dropped their eyes
and looked sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not
the pleasant kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you
are eating bread that's got sand in it.

  Then he says, slow and scornful:

  "The idea of you lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you
thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you're brave
enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come
along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your
hands on a man? Why, a man's safe in the hands of ten thousand of your
kind- as long as it's day-time and you're not behind him.

  "Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in
the South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all
around. The average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody
walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble
spirit to bear it. In the South one man, all by himself, has stopped a
stage full of men, in the day-time, and robbed the lot. Your
newspapers call you brave people so much that you think you are braver
than any other people- whereas you're just as brave, and no braver.
Why don't your juries hang murderers? Because they're afraid the man's
friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark- and it's just what
they would do.

  "So they always acquit; and then a man goes in the night, with a
hundred masked cowards at his back, and lynches the rascal. Your
mistake is, that you didn't bring a man with you; that's one
mistake, and the other is that you didn't come in the dark, and
fetch your masks. You brought part of a man- Buck Harkness, there- and
if you hadn't had him to start you, you'd a taken it out in blowing.

  "You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and
danger. You don't like trouble and danger. But if only half a man-
like Buck Harkness, there- shouts 'Lynch him, lynch him!' you're
afraid to back down- afraid you'll be found out to be what you are-
cowards- and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves onto that
half-a-man's coat tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big
things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's
what an army is- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in
them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their
officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath
pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do, is to droop your tails and
go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be
done, it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they
come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leave-
and take your half-a-man with you"- tossing his gun up across his left
arm and cocking it, when he says this.

  The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart and went
tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after
them, looking tolerable cheap. I could a staid, if I'd a wanted to,
but I didn't want to.

  I went to the circus, and loafed around the back side till the
watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had a
twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better
save, because there ain't no telling how soon you are going to need
it, away from home and amongst strangers, that way. You can't be too
careful. I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses, when there
ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them.

  It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever
was, when they all come riding two and two, a gentleman and lady, side
by side, the men just in their drawers and under-shirts, and no
shoes nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs, easy
and comfortable- there must a' been twenty of them- and every lady
with a lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just
like a gang of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that
cost millions of dollars, and just littered with diamonds. It was a
powerful fine sight; I never see anything so lovely. And then one by
one they got up and stood, and went a-weaving around the ring so
gentle and wavy and graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy
and straight, and their heads bobbing and skimming along, away up
there under the tentroof, and every lady's rose-leafy dress flapping
soft and silky around her hips, and she looking like the most
loveliest parasol.

  And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one
foot stuck out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning
more and more, and the ring-master going round and round the
centre-pole, cracking his whip and shouting "hi!- hi!" and the clown
cracking jokes behind him; and by-and-by all hands dropped the
reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman
folded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over and hump
themselves! And so, one after the other they all skipped off into
the ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then scampered
out, and everybody clapped their hands and went just about wild.

  Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing
things; and all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the
people. The ring-master couldn't ever say a word to him but he was
back at him quick as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said;
and how he ever could think of so many of them, and so sudden and so
pat, was what I couldn't noway understand. Why, I couldn't a thought
of them in a year. And by-and-by a drunk man tried to get into the
ring- said he wanted to ride; said he could ride as well as anybody
that ever was. They argued and tried to keep him out, but he
wouldn't listen, and the whole show come to a standstill. Then the
people begun to holler at him and make fun of him, and that made him
mad, and he begun to rip and tear; so that stirred up the people,
and a lot of men begun to pile down off of the benches and swarm
towards the ring, saying, "Knock him down! throw him out!" and one
or two women begun to scream. So, then, the ring-master he made a
little speech, and said he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance, and
if the man would promise he wouldn't make no more trouble, he would
let him ride, if he thought he could stay on the horse. So everybody
laughed and said all right, and the man got on. The minute he was
on, the horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, with
two circus men hanging onto his bridle trying to hold him, and the
drunk man hanging onto his neck, and his heels flying in the air every
jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and
laughing till the tears rolled down. And at last sure enough, all
the circus men could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went
like the very nation, round and round the ring, with that sot laying
down on him and hanging to his neck with first one leg hanging most to
the ground on one side, and then t'other one on t'other side, and
the people just crazy. It warn't funny to me, though; I was all of a
tremble to see his danger. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle
and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling this way and that; and the next
minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood! and the horse
agoing like a house afire too. He just stood up there, a-sailing
around as easy and comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his life-
and then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. He shed them
so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he shed
seventeen suits. And then, there he was, slim and handsome, and
dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into
that horse with his whip and made him fairly hum- and finally
skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and
everybody just a-howling with pleasure and astonishment.

  Then the ring-master he see how he had been fooled, and he was the
sickest ring-master you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his own
men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on
to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough, to be took in so, but I
wouldn't a been in that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand
dollars. I don't know; there may be bullier circuses than what that
one was, but I never struck them yet. Anyways it was plenty good
enough for me; and wherever I run across it, it can have all of my
custom, every time.

  Well, that night we had our show; but there warn't only about twelve
people there; just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the
time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before
the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said
these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakspeare; what they
wanted was low comedy- and may be something ruther worse than low
comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next
morning he got some big sheets of wrapping-paper and some black paint,
and drawed off some handbills and stuck them up all over the
village. The bills said:


                       AT THE COURT HOUSE!

                       For 3 Nights Only!

                 The World-Renowned Tragedians

                   DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!

                               AND

                     EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!

             Of the London and Continental Theatres,

                 In their Thrilling Tragedy of

                     THE KING'S CAMELOPARD

                               or

                     THE ROYAL NONESUCH!!!

                       Admission 50 cents.

Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all-which said:


                LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED


  "There," says he, "if that line don't fetch them, I don't know
Arkansaw!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


  Well, all day him and the king was hard at it, rigging up a stage,
and a curtain, and a row of candles for footlights; and that night the
house was jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn't hold
no more, the duke he quit tending door and went around the back way
and come onto the stage and stood up before the curtain, and made a
little speech, and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most
thrillingest one that ever was; and so he went on a-bragging about the
tragedy and about Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main
principal part in it; and at last when he'd got everybody's
expectations up high enough, he rolled up the curtain, and the next
minute the king come a-prancing out on all fours, naked; and he was
painted all over, ring-streaked-and-striped, all sorts of colors, as
splendid as a rainbow. And- but never mind the rest of his outfit,
it was just wild, but it was awful funny. The people most killed
themselves laughing; and when the king got done capering, and
capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped and stormed and
haw-hawed till he come back and done it over agin; and after that,
they made him do it another time. Well, it would a made a cow laugh to
see the shines that old idiot cut.

  Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people,
and says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more,
on accounts of pressing London engagements, where the seats is all
sold aready for it in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another
bow, and says if he has succeeded in pleasing them and instructing
them, he will be deeply obleeged if they will mention it to their
friends and get them to come and see it.

  Twenty people sings out:

  "What, is it over? Is that all?"

   The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody sings
out "sold," and rose up mad, and was agoing for that stage and them
tragedians. But a big fine-looking man jumps up on a bench, and
shouts:

  "Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen." They stopped to listen. "We are
sold- mighty badly sold. But we don't want to hear the last of this
thing as long as we live. No. What we be the laughing-stock of this
whole town, I reckon, and never want, is to go out here quiet, and
talk this show up, and sell the rest of the town! Then we'll all be in
the same boat. Ain't that sensible?" ("You bet it is!- the jedge is
right!" everybody sings out.) "All right, then- not a word about any
sell. Go along home, and advise everybody to come and see the
tragedy."

  Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid
that show was. House was jammed again, that night, and we sold this
crowd the same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to
the raft, we all had a supper; and by-and-by, about midnight, they
made Jim and me back her out and float her down the middle of the
river and fetch her in and hide her about two mile below the town.

  The third night the house was crammed again- and they warn't
new-comers, this time, but people that was at the show the other two
nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that
went in had his pockets bulging or something muffled up under his
coat- and I see it warn't no perfumery neither, not by a long sight. I
smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things;
and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do,
there was sixty-four of them went in. I shoved in there for a
minute, but it was too various for me, I couldn't stand it. Well, when
the place couldn't hold no more people, the duke he give a fellow a
quarter and told him to tend door for him a minute, and then he
started around for the stage door, I after him; but the minute we
turned the corner and was in the dark, he says:

  "Walk fast, now, till you get away from the houses, and then shin
for the raft like the dickens was after you!"

  I done it, and he done the same. We struck the raft at the same
time, and in less than two seconds we was gliding down stream, all
dark and still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody
saying a word. I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of
it with the audience; but nothing of the sort; pretty soon he crawls
out from under the wigwam, and says:

  "Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, Duke?"

  He hadn't been up town at all.

  We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below that
village. Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke
fairly laughed their bones loose over the way they'd served them
people. The duke says:

  "Greenhorns, flatheads! I knew the first house would keep mum and
let the rest of the town get roped in; and I knew they'd lay for us
the third night, and consider it was their turn now. Well, it is their
turn, and I'd give something to know how much they'd take for it. I
would just like to know how they're putting in their opportunity. They
can turn it into a picnic, if they want to- they brought plenty
provisions."

  Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in
that three nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagon-load
like that, before.

  By-and-by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says:

  "Don't it 'sprise you, de way dem kings carries on, Huck?"

  "No," I says, "it don't."

  "Why don't it, Huck?"

  "Well, it don't, because it's in the breed. I reckon they're all
alike."

  "But, Huck, dese kings o' ourn is regular rapscallions; dat's jist
what dey is; dey's reglar rapscallions."

  "Well, that's what I'm a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions,
as fur as I can make out."

  "Is dat so?"

  "You read about them once- you'll see. Look at Henry the Eight;
this'n's a Sunday-School Superintendent to him. And look at Charles
Second, and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and
Edward Second, and Richard Third, and forty more; besides all them
Saxon heptarchies that used to rip around so in old times and raise
Cain. My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in
bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and
chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent
as if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They
fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off.
'Fetch up Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes. Next morning 'Chop
off her head'- and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair
Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' he made
every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up
till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he
put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book- which was a
good name and stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know
them; and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in
history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble
with this country. How does he go at it- give notice?- give the
country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston
Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and
dares them to come on. That was his style- he never give anybody a
chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well,
what did he do?- ask him to show up? No- drownded him in a butt of
mamsey, like a cat. Spose people left money laying around where he
was- what did he do? He collared it. Spose he contracted to do a
thing; and you paid him, and didn't set down there and see that he
done it- what did he do? He always done the other thing. Spose he
opened his mouth- what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick,
he'd lose a lie, every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was; and
if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings, he'd a fooled that town a
heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs because they
ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain't
nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you
got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty
ornery lot. It's the way they're raised."

  "But dis one do smell so like de nation, Huck."

  "Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a king smells;
history don't tell no way."

  "Now de duke, he's a tolerble likely man, in some ways."

  "Yes, a duke's different. But not very different. This one's a
middling hard lot, for a duke. When he's drunk, there ain't no
near-sighted man could tell him from a king."

  "Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um, Huck. Dese is all I
kin stan'."

  "It's the way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them on our hands, and
we got to remember what they are, and make allowances. Sometimes I
wish we could hear of a country that's out of kings."

  What was the use to tell Jim these warn't real kings and dukes? It
wouldn't a done no good; and besides, it was just as I said; you
couldn't tell them from the real kind.

  I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn. He
often done that. When I waked up, just at daybreak, he was setting
there with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to
himself. I didn't take notice, nor let on. I knowed what it was about.
He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and
he was low and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home
before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his
people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I
reckon it's so. He was often moaning and mourning that way, nights,
when he judged I was asleep, and saying, "Po' little 'Lizabeth! po'
little Johnny! its mighty hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see
you no mo', no mo'!" He was a mighty good nigger, Jim was.

  But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and
young ones; and by-and-by he says:

  "What makes me feel so bad dis time, 'uz bekase I hear sumpn over
yonder on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er
de time I treat my little 'Lizabeth so ornery. She warn't on'y 'bout
fo' year ole, en she tuck de sk'yarlet-fever, en had a powful rough
spell; but she got well, en one day she was a-stannin' aroun', en I
says to her, I says:

  "'Shet de do'.'

  "She never done it; jis'stood dah, kiner smilin' up at me. It make
me mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says:

  "'Doan' you hear me?- shet de do'!'

  "She jis' stood de same way, kiner smilin'up. I was a-bilin'! I
says:

  "'I lay I make you mine!'

  "En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat sont her
a-sprawlin'. Den I went into de yuther room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten
minutes; en when I come back, dah was dat do' a-stannin' open yit,
en dat chile stannin' mos' right in it, a-lookin' down and mournin',
en de tears runnin' down. My, but I wuz mad, I was agwyne for de
chile, but jis' den- it was a do' dat open innerds- jis' den 'long
come de wind en slam it to, behine de chile, ker-blam!- en my lan', de
chile never move'! My breff mos' hop outer me; en I feel so- so- I
doan' know how I feel. I crope out, all a-tremblin', en crope aroun'
en open de do' easy en slow, en poke my head in behine de chile,
sof' en still, en all uv a sudden, I says pow! jis' as loud as I could
yell. She never budge! Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin' en grab her up in
my arms, en say, 'Oh, de po' little thing! de Lord God Amighty
fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as long's he
live!' Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb- en
I'd ben a-treat'n her so!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


  Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow tow-head
out in the middle, where there was a village on each side of the
river, and the duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for working
them towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn't
take but a few hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to
him when he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You
see, when we left him all alone we had to tie him, because if
anybody happened on him all by himself and not tied, it wouldn't
look much like he was a runaway nigger, you know. So the duke said
it was kind of hard to have to lay roped all day, and he'd cipher
out some way to get around it.

  He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He
dressed Jim up in King Lear's outfit- it was a long curtain-calico
gown, and a white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his
theatre-paint and painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck all
over a dead dull solid blue, like a man that's been drownded nine
days. Blamed if he warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see.
Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so-

   Sick Arab- but harmless when not out of his head

   And he nailed the shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four
or five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was
a sight better than laying tied a couple of years every day and
trembling all over every time there was a sound. The duke told him
to make himself free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling
around he must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch
a howl or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light
out and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judgment; but you take
the average man, and he wouldn't wait for him to howl. Why, he
didn't only look like he was dead, he looked considerable more than
that.

  These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there
was so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe,
because maybe the news might a worked along down by this time. They
couldn't hit no project that suited, exactly; so at last the duke said
he reckoned he'd lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if
he couldn't put up something on the Arkansaw village; and the king
he allowed he would drop over to t'other village, without any plan,
but just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable way- meaning
the devil, I reckon. We had all bought store clothes where we
stopped last; and now the king put his'n on, and he told me to put
mine on. I done it, of course. The king's duds was all black, and he
did look real swell and starchy. I never knowed how clothes could
change a body before. Why, before, he looked like the orneriest old
rip that ever was; but now, when he'd take off his new white beaver
and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that grand and good and pious
that you'd say he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old
Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my paddle
ready. There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away up under the
point, about three mile above town- been there a couple of hours,
taking on freight. Says the king:

  "Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from
St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the
steamboat, Huckleberry; we'll come down to the village on her."

  I didn't have to be ordered twice, to go and take a steamboat
ride. I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then
went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we
come to a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on a log
swabbing the sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm
weather; and he had a couple of big carpet-bags by him.

  "Run her nose in shore," says the king. I done it. "Wher' you
bound for, young man?"

  "For the steamboat; going to Orleans."

  "Git aboard," says the king. "Hold on a minute, my servant'll he'p
you with them bags. Jump out and he'p the gentleman, Adolphus"-
meaning me, I see.

  I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap
was mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage in such
weather. He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him
he'd come down the river and landed at the other village this morning,
and now he was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up
there. The young fellow says:

  "When I first see you, I says to myself, 'It's Mr. Wilks, sure,
and he come mighty near getting here in time.' But then I says
again, 'No, I reckon it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be paddling
up the river.' You ain't him, are you?"

  "No, my name's Blodgett- Elexander Blodgett- Reverend Elexander
Blodgett, I spose I must say, as I'm one o' the Lord's poor
servants. But still I'm jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not
arriving in time, all the same, if he's missed anything by it- which I
hope he hasn't."

  "Well, he don't miss any property by it, because he'll get that
all right; but he's missed seeing his brother Peter die- which he
mayn't mind, nobody can tell as to that- but his brother would a
give anything in this world to see him before he died; never talked
about nothing else all these three weeks; hadn't seen him since they
was boys together- and hadn't ever seen his brother William at all-
that's the deef and dumb one- William ain't more than thirty or
thirty-five. Peter and George was the only ones that come out here;
George was the married brother; him and his wife both died last
year. Harvey and William's the only ones that's left now; and, as I
was saying, they haven't got here in time."

  "Did anybody send' em word?"

  "Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because
Peter said then that he sorter felt like he warn't going to get well
this time. You see, he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too
young to be much company for him, except Mary Jane the red-headed one;
and so he was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and
didn't seem to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see
Harvey- and William too, for that matter- because he was one of them
kind that can't bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for
Harvey, and said he'd told in it where his money was hid, and how he
wanted the rest of the property divided up so George's g'yirls would
be all right- for George didn't leave nothing. And that letter was all
they could get him to put a pen to."

  "Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Wher' does he live?"

  "Oh, he lives in England- Sheffield- preaches there- hasn't ever
been in this country. He hasn't had any too much time- and besides
he mightn't a got the letter at all, you know."

  "Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his brothers, poor
soul. You going to Orleans, you say?"

  "Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in a ship, next
Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives."

  "It's a pretty long journey. But it'll be lovely; I wisht I was
agoing. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?"

  "Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's about fourteen-
that's the one that gives herself to good works and has a hare-lip."

  "Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so."

  "Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they
ain't going to let them come to no harm. There's Hobson, the Babtis'
preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford,
and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and
the widow Bartley, and- well, there's a lot of them; but these are the
ones that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about
sometimes, when he wrote home; so Harvey'll know where to look for
friends when he gets here."

  Well, the old man he went on asking questions till he just fairly
emptied that young fellow. Blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody
and everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and
about Peter's business- which was a tanner; and about George's-
which was a carpenter; and about Harvey's- which was a dissentering
minister; and so on, and so on. Then he says:

  "What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?"

  "Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn't
stop there. When they're deep they won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati
boat will, but this is a St. Louis one."

  "Was Peter Wilks well off?"

  "Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it's reckoned
he left three or four thousand in cash hid up som'ers."

  "When did you say he died?"

  "I didn't say, but it was last night."

  "Funeral to-morrow, likely?"

  "Yes, 'bout the middle of the day."

  "Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to go, one time or
another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we're all
right."

  "Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always say that."

  When we struck the boat, she was about done loading, and pretty soon
she got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost
my ride, after all. When the boat was gone, the king made me paddle up
another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore, and says:

  "Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new
carpet-bags. And if he's gone over to t'other side, go over there
and git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along,
now."

  I see what he was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I
got back with the duke, we hid the canoe and then they set down on a
log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow
had said it- every last word of it. And all the time he was a doing
it, he tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well
too, for a slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't agoing to try
to; but he really done it pretty good. Then he says:

  "How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?"

  The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef
and dumb person on the histrionic boards. So then they waited for a
steamboat.

  About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come
along, but they didn't come from high enough up the river; but at last
there was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and
we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we
only wanted to go four or five mile, they was booming mad, and give us
a cussing, and said they wouldn't land us. But the king was ca'm. He
says:

  "If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece, to be took
on and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't
it?"

  So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got
to the village, they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked
down, when they see the yawl a coming; and when the king says-

  "Kin any of you gentlemen tell me where Mr. Peter Wilks lives?" they
give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to
say, "What d' I tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and
gentle:

  "I'm sorry, sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he
did live yesterday evening."

  Sudden as winking, the ornery old cretur went all to smash, and fell
up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down
his back, and says:

  "Alas, alas, our poor brother- gone, and we never got to see him;
oh, it's too, too hard!"

  Then he turns around, blubbering, and making a lot of idiotic
signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a
carpet-bag and bust out a-crying. If they warn't the beatenest lot,
them two frauds, that ever I struck.

  Well, the men gethered around, and sympathized with them, and said
all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the
hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king
all about his brother's last moments, and the king he told it all over
again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that
dead tanner like they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I
struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body
ashamed of the human race.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


  The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the
people tearing down on the run, from every which way, some of them
putting on their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the
middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a
soldier-march. The windows and door-yards was full; and every minute
somebody would say, over a fence:

  "Is it them?"

  And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say,

  "You bet it is."

  When we got to the house, the street in front of it was packed,
and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane was
red-headed, but that don't make no difference, she was most awful
beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she
was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary
Jane she jumped for them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke, and
there they had it! Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to
see them meet again at last and have such good times.

  Then the king he hunched the duke, private- I see him do it- and
then he looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two
chairs; so then, him and the duke, with a hand across each other's
shoulder, and t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn
over there, everybody dropping back to give them room, and all the
talk and noise stopping, people saying "Sh!" and all the men taking
their hats off and dropping their heads, so you could a heard a pin
fall. And when they got there, they bent over and looked in the
coffin, and took one sight, and then they bust out a crying so you
could a heard them to Orleans, most; and then they put their arms
around each other's neck, and hung their chins over each other's
shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I never see
two men leak the way they done. And mind you, everybody was doing
the same; and the place was that damp I never see anything like it.
Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and t'other on t'other
side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the
coffin, and let on to pray all to theirselves. Well, when it come to
that, it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and
so everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud- the poor
girls, too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without
saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then
put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with
the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and
swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so
disgusting.

  Well, by-and-by the king he gets up and comes forward a little,
and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears
and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor
brother to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive, after
the long journey of four thousand mile, but it's a trial that's
sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy
tears, and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's
heart, because out of their mouths they can't, words being too weak
and cold, and all that kind of rot and slush, till it was just
sickening; and then he blubbers out a pious goody-goody Amen, and
turns hirnself loose and goes to crying fit to bust.

  And the minute the words was out of his mouth somebody over in the
crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all
their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as
church letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that
soul-butter and hogwash, I never see it freshen up things so, and
sound so honest and bully.

  Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his
nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the
family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set
up with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying
yonder could speak, he knows who he would name, for they was names
that was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and
so he will name the same, to-wit, as follows, vizz:- Rev. Mr.
Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner
Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the
widow Bartley.

  Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town,
a-hunting together; that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man
to t'other world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer
Bell was away up to Louisville on some business. But the rest was on
hand, so they all come and shook hands with the king and thanked him
and talked to him; and then they shook hands with the duke, and didn't
say nothing but just kept a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a
passel of sapheads whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands
and said "Goo-goo- goo-goo-goo," all the time, like a baby that
can't talk.

  So the king he blatted along, and managed to inquire about pretty
much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts
of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or
to George's family, or to Peter; and he always let on that Peter wrote
him the things, but that was a lie, he got every blessed one of them
out of that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.

  Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and
the king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the
dwelling-house and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and
it give the tanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some
other houses and land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand
dollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand
cash was hid, down cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and
fetch it up, and have everything square and above-board; and told me
to come with a candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when
they found the bag they spilt it out on the floor and it was a
lovely sight, all them yaller-boys. My, the way the king's eyes did
shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder, and says:

  "Oh, this ain't bully, nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Biljy,
it beats the Nonesuch, don't it!"

  The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them
through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the
king says:

  "It ain't no use talkin'; bein' brothers to a rich dead man, and
representatives of furrin heirs that's got left, is the line for you
and me, Bilge. Thish-yer comes of trust'n to Providence. It's the best
way, in the long run. I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no better
way."

  Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it
on trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it
comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king:

  "Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and
fifteen dollars?"

  They worried over that a while, and ransacked all around for it.
Then the duke says:

  "Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake- I
reckon that's the way of it. The best way's to let it go, and keep
still about it. We can spare it."

  "Oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it. I don't k'yer noth'n 'bout
that- it's the count I'm thinkin'about. We want to be awful square and
open and aboveboard, here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer money
up stairs and count it before everybody- then ther' ain't noth'n
suspicious. But when the dead man says ther's six thous'n dollars, you
know, we don't want to-"

  "Hold on," says the duke. "Less make up the deffisit"- and he
begun to haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.

  "It's a most amaz'n' good idea, duke- you have got a rattlin' clever
head on you," says the king. "Blest if the old None-such ain't a
heppin' us out agin"- and he begun to haul out yaller-jackets and
stack them up.

  It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and
clear.

  "Say," says the duke, "I got another idea. Le's go up stairs and
count this money, and then take and give it to the girls."

  "Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It's the most dazzling idea 'at
ever a man struck. You have cert'nly got the most astonishin' head I
ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it.
Let 'em fetch along their suspicions now, if they want to- this'll lay
'em out."

  When we got up stairs, everybody gethered around the table, and
the king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a
pile- twenty elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it,
and licked their chops. Then they raked it into the bag agin, and I
see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech. He says:

  "Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder, has done generous by
them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous
by these-yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's
left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him, knows
that he would a done more generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o'
woundin' his dear William and me. Now, wouldn't he? Ther' ain't no
question 'bout it, in my mind. Well, then- what kind o' brothers would
it be, that'd stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles
would it be that'd rob- yes, rob- sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at
he loved so, at sech a time? If I know William- and I think I do-
he- well, I'll jest ask him." He turns around and begins to make a lot
of signs to the duke with hands; and the duke he looks at him stupid
and leather-headed a while, then all of a sudden he seems to catch his
meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for
joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the king
says, "I knowed it; I reckon that'll convince anybody the way he feels
about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the money- take it
all. It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful."

  Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the
duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And
everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook
the hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:

  "You dear good souls!- how lovely!- how could you!"

  Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the
diseased again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all
that; and before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there
from outside, and stood a listening and looking, and not saying
anything; and nobody saying anything to him either, because the king
was talking and they was all busy listening. The king was saying- in
the middle of something he'd started in on-

  "-they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased. That's why
they're invited here this evenin'; but to-morrow we want all to
come- everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and
so it's fitten that his funeral orgies sh'd be public."

  And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and
every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the
duke he couldn't stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of
paper, "obsequies, you old fool," and folds it up and goes to
goo-gooing and reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he
reads it, and puts it in his pocket, and says:

  "Poor William, afflicted as he is, his heart's aluz right. Asks me
to invite everybody to come to the funeral- wants me to make 'em all
welcome. But he needn't a worried- it was jest what I was at."

  Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping
in his funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done
before. And when he done it the third time he says:

  "I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it ain't-
obsequies bein' the common term- but because orgies is the right term.
Obsequies ain't used in England no more, now- it's gone out. We say
orgies now, in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing
you're after, more exact. It's a word that's made up outin the Greek
orgo, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew jeesum, to plant, cover
up; hence inter. So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public
funeral."

  He was the worst I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he
laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, "Why
doctor!" and Abner Shackleford says:

  "Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks."

  The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:

  "Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I-"

  "Keep your hands off of me!" says the doctor. "You talk like an
Englishman- don't you? It's the worst imitation I ever heard. You
Peter Wilks's brother. You're a fraud, that's what you are!"

  Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor, and
tried to quiet him down, and tried to explain to him, and tell him how
Harvey'd showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and knowed everybody
by name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and begged him not
to hurt Harvey's feelings and the poor girls' feelings, and all
that; but it warn't no use, he stormed right along, and said any man
that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no
better than what he did, was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was
hanging to the king and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and
turns on them. He says:

  "I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend; and I warn you
as a friend, and an honest one, that wants to protect you and keep you
out of harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel, and
have nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic
Greek and Hebrew as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an
imposter- has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he
has picked up somewheres, and you take them for proofs, and are helped
to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here, who ought to know
better. Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for your friend, and for your
unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me; turn this pitiful rascal out-
I beg you to do it. Will you?"

  Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She
says:

  "Here is my answer." She hove up the bag of money and put it in
the king's hands, and says, "Take this six thousand dollars, and
invest it for me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us
no receipt for it."

  Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and
the hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands
and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up
his hand and smiled proud. The doctor says:

  "All right, I wash my hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a
time's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of
this day"- and away he went.

  "All right, doctor," says the king, kinder mocking him, "we'll try
and get 'em to send for you"- which made them all laugh, and they said
it was a prime good hit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


  Well when they was all gone, the king he asks Mary Jane how they was
off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which
would do for Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle
Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would turn into the room
with her sisters and sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby,
with a pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his
valley- meaning me.

  So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which
was plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of
other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way,
but he said they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and
before them was a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the
floor. There was an old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar box
in another, and all sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks
around, like girls brisken up a room with. The king said it was all
the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings, and so don't
disturb them. The duke's room was pretty small, but plenty good
enough, and so was my cubby.

  That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was
there, and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on
them, and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the
head of the table, with Susan along side of her, and said how bad
the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and
tough the fried chickens was- and all that kind of rot, the way
women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all
knowed everything was tip-top, and said so- said "How do you get
biscuits to brown so nice?" and "Where, for the land's sake did you
get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind of humbug talky-talk,
just the way people always does at a supper, you know.

  And when it was all done, me and the hare-lip had supper in the
kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers
clean up the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England,
and blest if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin,
sometimes. She says:

  "Did you ever see the king?"

  "Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have- he goes to our church."
I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says
he goes to our church, she says:

  "What- regular?"

  "Yes- regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn- on t'other side
the pulpit."

  "I thought he lived in London?"

  "Well, he does. Where would he live?"

  "But I thought you lived in Sheffield?"

  I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken
bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:

  "I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's
only in the summer-time, when he comes there to take the sea baths."

  "Why, how you talk- Sheffield ain't on the sea."

  "Well, who said it was?"

  "Why, you did."

  "I didn't, nuther."

  "You did!"

  "I didn't."

  "You did."

  "I never said nothing of the kind."

  "Well, what did you say, then?"

  "Said he come to take the sea baths- that's what I said."

  "Well, then! how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the
sea?"

  "Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"

  "Why, no."

  "Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a
sea bath."

  "How does he get it, then?"

  "Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water- in barrels.
There in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants
his water hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there
at the sea. They haven't got no conveniences for it."

  "Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and
saved time."

  When she said that, I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was
comfortable and glad. Next, she says:

  "Do you go to church, too?"

  "Yes- regular."

  "Where do you set?"

  "Why, in our pew."

  "Whose pew?"

  "Why, ourn- your Uncle Harvey's."

  "His'n? What does he want with a pew?"

  "Wants it to set in. What did you reckon he wanted with it?"

  "Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."

  Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again,
so I played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says:

  "Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?"

  "Why, what do they want with more?"

  "What!- to preach before a king? I never see such a girl as you.
They don't have no less than seventeen."

  "Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as
that, not if I never got to glory. It must take 'em a week."

  "Shucks, they don't all of 'em preach the same day- only one of
'em."

  "Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"

  "Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate- and one thing or
another. But mainly they don't do nothing."

  "Well, then, what are they for?"

  "Why, they're for style. Don't you know nothing?"

  "Well, I don't want to know no such foolishness as that. How is
servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat
our niggers?"

  "No! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs."

  "Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New
Year's week, and Fourth of July?"

  "Oh, just listen! A body could tell you hain't ever been to England,
by that. Why, Hare-l- why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from
year's end to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theatre, nor
nigger shows, nor nowheres."

  "Nor church?"

  "Nor church."

  "But you always went to church."

  Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But
next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley
was different from a common servant, and had to go to church whether
he wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of it's being
the law. But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she
warn't satisfied. She says:

  "Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?"

  "Honest injun," says I.

  "None of it at all?"

  "None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.

  "Lay your hand on this book and say it."

  I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it
and said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:

  "Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll
believe the rest."

  "What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in
with Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so
to him, and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you
like to be treated so?"

  "That's always your way, Maim- always sailing in to help somebody
before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some
stretchers, I reckon; and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's
every bit and grain I did say. I reckon he can stand a little thing
like that, can't he?"

  "I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big, he's here
in our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If
you was in his place, it would make you feel ashamed; and so you
oughtn't to say a thing to another person that will make them feel
ashamed."

  "Why, Maim, he said-"

  "It don't make no difference what he said- that ain't the thing. The
thing is for you to treat him kind, and not be saying things to make
him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks."

  I says to myself, this is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle
rob her of her money!

  Then Susan she waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give
Hare-lip hark from the tomb!

  Says I to myself, And this is another one that I'm letting him rob
her of her money!

  Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely
again- which was her way- but when she got done there warn't hardly
anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.

  "All right, then," says the other girls, "you just ask his pardon."

  She done it, too. And she done it beautiful. She done it so
beautiful it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a
thousand lies, so she could do it again.

  I says to myself, this is another one that I'm letting him rob her
of her money. And when she got through, they all jest laid theirselves
out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt
so ornery and low down and mean, that I says to myself, My mind's made
up; I'll hive that money for them or bust.

  So then I lit out- for bed, I said, meaning some time or another.
When I got by myself, I went to thinking the thing over. I says to
myself, shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these
frauds? No- that won't do. He might tell who told him; then the king
and the duke would make it warm for me. Shall I go, private, and
tell Mary Jane? No- I dasn't do it. Her face would give them a hint,
sure; they've got the money, and they'd slide right out and get away
with it. If she was to fetch in help, I'd get mixed up in the
business, before it was done with, I judge. No, there ain't no good
way but one. I got to steal that money, somehow; and I got to steal it
some way that they won't suspicion that I done it. They've got a
good thing, here; and they ain't agoing to leave till they've played
this family and this town for all they're worth, so I'll find a chance
time enough. I'll steal it, and hide it; and by-and-by, when I'm
away down the river, I'll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it's
hid. But I better hive it to-night, if I can, because the doctor maybe
hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has; he might scare them out of
here, yet.

  So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Up stairs the hall
was dark, but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it
with my hands; but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king
to let anybody else take care of that money but his own self; so
then I went to his room and begun to paw around there. But I see I
couldn't do nothing without a candle, and I dasn't light one, of
course. So I judged I'd got to do the other thing- lay for them and
eavesdrop. About that time, I hears their footsteps coming and was
going to skip under the bed; I reached for it, but it wasn't where I
thought it would be; but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane's
frocks, so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in amongst the
gowns, and stood there perfectly still.

  They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done
was to get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found
the bed when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to
hide under the bed when you are up to anything private. They sets
down, then, and the king says:

  "Well, what is it? and cut it middlin' short, because it's better
for us to be down there a whoopin'-up the mournin', than up here
givin' 'em a chance to talk us over."

  "Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable. That
doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've got a
notion, and I think it's a sound one."

  "What is it, duke?"

  "That we better glide out of this, before three in the morning,
and clip it down the river with what we've got. Specially, seeing we
got it so easy- given back to us, flung at our heads, as you may
say, when of course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for
knocking off and lighting out."

  That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago, it would a
been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed.
The king rips out and says:

  "What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off like a
passel o' fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o'
property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?- and all
good salable stuff, too."

  The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't
want to go no deeper- didn't want to rob a lot of orphans of
everything they had.

  "Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We shan't rob 'em of nothing at
all but jest this money. The people that buys the property is the
suff'rers; because as soon's it's found out 'at we didn't own it-
which won't be long after we've slid- the sale won't be valid, and
it'll all go back to the estate. These-yer orphans'll git their
house back agin, and that's enough for them; they're young and spry,
and k'n easy earn a livin'. They ain't agoing to suffer. Why, jest
think- there's thous'n's and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off.
Bless you, they ain't got noth'n to complain of."

  Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and
said all right, but said he believed it was blame foolishness to stay,
and that doctor hanging over them. But the king says:

  "Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for him? Hain't we got all the
fools in town on our side? and ain't that a big enough majority in any
town?"

  So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says:

  "I don't think we put that money in a good place."

  That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a
hint of no kind to help me. The king says:

  "Because Mary Jane'll be in mourning from this out; and first you
know the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box
these duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run
across money and not borrow some of it?"

  "Your head's level, agin, duke," says the king; and he come a
fumbling under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck
tight to the wall, and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I
wondered what them fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I
tried to think what I'd better do if they did catch me. But the king
he got the bag before I could think more than about a half a
thought, and he never suspicioned I was around. They took and shoved
the bag through a rip in the straw tick that was under the feather
bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst the straw and said it was
all right, now, because a nigger only makes up the feather bed, and
don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a year, and so it
warn't in no danger of getting stole, now.

  But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was
half-way down stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it
there till I could get a chance to do better. I judged I better hide
it outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they
would give the house a good ransacking. I knowed that very well.
Then I turned in, with my clothes all on; but I couldn't a gone to
sleep, if I'd a wanted to, I was in such a sweat to get through with
the business. By-and-by I heard the king and the duke come up; so I
rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the top of my ladder and
waited to see if anything was going to happen. But nothing did.

  So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones
hadn't begun, yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


  I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring, so I tip-toed
along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound
anywheres. I peeped through a crack of the diningroom door, and see
the men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs.
The door was open into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and
there was a candle in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor
door was open; but I see there warn't nobody in there but the
remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; but the front door was locked,
and the key wasn't there. Just then I heard somebody coming down the
stairs, back behind me. I run in the parlor, and took a swift look
around, and the only place I see to hide the bag was in the coffin.
The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing the dead man's face
down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his shroud on. I tucked
the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond where his hands was
crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and then I run back
across the room and in behind the door.

  The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very
soft, and kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief
and I see she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back
was to me. I slid out, and as I passed the dining room I thought I'd
make sure them watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the
crack and everything was all right. They hadn't stirred.

  I slipped up to bed, feeling rather blue, on accounts of the thing
playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so
much resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right;
because when we get down the river a hundred mile or two, I could
write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it;
but that ain't the thing that's going to happen; the thing that's
going to happen is, the money'll be found when they come to screw on
the lid. Then the king'll get it again, and it'll be a long day before
he gives anybody another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I
wanted to slide down and get it out of there, but I dasn't try it.
Every minute it was getting earlier, now, and pretty soon some of them
watchers would begin to stir, and I might get catched- catched with
six thousand dollars in my hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take
care of. I don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as that, I
says to myself.

  When I got down stairs in the morning, the parlor was shut up, and
the watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and
the widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if
anything had been happening, but I couldn't tell.

  Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man,
and they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of
chairs, and then set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from
the neighbors till the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was
full. I see the coffin lid was the way it was before, but I dasn't
go to look in under it, with folks around.

  Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls
took seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a
half an hour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and
looked down at the dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a
tear, and it was all very still and solemn, only the girls and the
beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads
bent, and sobbing a little. There warn't no other sound but the
scraping of the feet on the floor, and blowing noses- because people
always blow them more at a funeral than they do at other places except
church.

  When the place was packed full, the undertaker he slid around in his
black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last
touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable,
and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved people
around, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passage-ways, and
done it all with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took his
place over against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest,
stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn't no more smile to him than
there is to a ham.

  They had borrowed a melodeum- a sick one; and when everything was
ready, a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky
and colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the
only one that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the
Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and
straight off the most outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body
ever heard; it was only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket,
and he kept it up, right along; the parson he had to stand there, over
the coffin, and wait- you couldn't hear yourself think. It was right
down awkward, and nobody didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty
soon they see that long-legged undertaker make a sign to the
preacher as much as to say, "Don't you worry- just depend on me." Then
he stooped down and begun to glide along the wall, just his
shoulders showing over the people's heads. So he glided along, and the
pow-wow and racket getting more and more outrageous all the time;
and at last, when he had gone around two sides of the room, he
disappears down cellar. Then, in about two seconds we heard a whack,
and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then
everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk
where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's
back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided, and
glided, around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded
his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the
preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, "He had a rat!" Then he drooped down and glided along the
wall again to his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction
to the people, because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing
like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the little things that
makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular
man in town than what that undertaker was.

  Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome;
and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual
rubbage, and at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun
to sneak up on the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat
then, and watched him pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just
slid the lid along, as soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and
fast. So there I was! I didn't know whether the money was in there, or
not. So, says I, spose somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?- now
how do I know whether to write to Mary Jane or not? Spose she dug
him up and didn't find nothing- what would she think of me? Blame
it, I says, I might get hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and
keep dark, and not write at all; the thing's awful mixed, now;
trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to
goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole business!

  They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces
again- I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing
come of it; the faces didn't tell me nothing.

  The king he visited around, in the evening, and sweetened
everybody up, and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the
idea that his congregation over in England would be in a sweat about
him, so he must hurry and settle up the estate right away, and leave
for home. He was very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody;
they wished he could stay longer, but they said they could see it
couldn't be done. And he said of course him and William would take the
girls home with them; and that pleased everybody too, because then the
girls would be well fixed, and amongst their own relations; and it
pleased the girls, too- tickled them so they clean forgot they ever
had a trouble in the world; and told him to sell out as quick as he
wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor things was that glad and
happy it made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so,
but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and change the
general tune.

  Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and
all the property for auction straight off- sale two days after the
funeral; but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.

  So the next day after the funeral, along about noontime, the
girls' joy got the first jolt; a couple of nigger traders come
along, and the king sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day
drafts as they called it, and away they went, the two sons up the
river to Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans. I
thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts
for grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made
me down sick to see it. The girls said they hadn't ever dreamed of
seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can't ever
get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and
niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying; and I reckon I
couldn't a stood it all but would a had to bust out and tell on our
gang if I hadn't known the sale warn't no account and the niggers
would be back home in a week or two.

  The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out
flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the
children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he
bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I
tell you the duke was powerful uneasy.

  Next day was auction day. About broad-day in the morning, the king
and the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by
their look that there was trouble. The king says:

  "Was you in my room night before last?"

  "No, your majesty"- which was the way I always called him when
nobody but our gang warn't around.

  "Was you in there yesterday er last night?"

  "No, your majesty."

  "Honor bright, now- no lies."

  "Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't
been anear your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and
showed it to you."

  The duke says:

  "Have you seen anybody else go in there?"

  "No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."

  "Stop and think."

  I studied a while, and see my chance, then I says:

  "Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."

  Both of them give a little jump; and looked like they hadn't ever
expected it, and then like they had. Then the duke says:

  "What, all of them?"

  "No- leastways not all at once. That is, I don't think I ever see
them all come out at once but just one time."

  "Hello- when was that?"

  "It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early,
because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see
them."

  "Well, go on, go on- what did they do? How'd they act?"

  "They didn't do anything. And they didn't act anyway, much, as fur
as I see. They tip-toed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd
shoved in there to do up your majesty's room, or something, sposing
you was up; and found you warn't up, and so they was hoping to slide
out of the way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't
already waked you up."

  "Great guns, this is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked
pretty sick, and tolerable silly. They stood there a thinking and
scratching their heads, a minute, and then the duke he bust into a
kind of a little raspy chuckle, and says:

  "It does beat all, how neat the niggers played their hand. They
let on to be sorry they was going out of this region! and I believed
they was sorry. And so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever
tell me any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why,
the way they played that thing, it would fool anybody. In my opinion
there's a fortune in 'em. If I had capital and a theatre, I wouldn't
want a better lay out than that- and here we've gone and sold 'em
for a song. Yes, and ain't privileged to sing the song, yet. Say,
where is that song?- that draft."

  "In the bank for to be collected. Where would it be?"

  "Well, that's all right then, thank goodness."

  Says I, kind of timid-like:

  "Is something gone wrong?"

  The king whirls on me and rips out:

  "None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own
affairs- if you got any. Long as you're in this town, don't you forgit
that, you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swaller it,
and say noth'n: mum's the word for us."

  As they was starting down the ladder, the duke he chuckles again,
and says:

  "Quick sales and small profits! It's a good business- yes."

  The king snarls around on him and says,

  "I was trying to do for the best, in sellin' 'm out so quick. If the
profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to
carry, is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?"

  "Well, they'd be in this house yet, and we wouldn't if I could a got
my advice listened to."

  The king sassed back, as much as was safe for him, and then
swapped around and lit into me again. He give me down the banks for
not coming and telling him I see the niggers come out of his room
acting that way- said any fool would a knowed something was up. And
then waltzed in and cussed himself a while; and said it all come of
him not laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd
be blamed if he'd ever do it again. So they went off a jawing; and I
felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all off onto the niggers and yet
hadn't done the niggers no harm by it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


  By-and-by it was getting-up time; so I come down the ladder and
started for down stairs, but as I come to the girls' room, the door
was open, and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was
open and she'd been packing things in it- getting ready to go to
England. But she had stopped now, with a folded gown in her lap, and
had her face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of
course anybody would. I went in there, and says:

  "Miss Mary Jane, you can't abear to see people in trouble, and I
can't- most always. Tell me about it."

  So she done it. And it was the niggers- I just expected it. She said
the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she
didn't know how she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the
mother and the children warn't ever going to see each other no more-
and then busted out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and
says:

  "Oh, dear, to think they ain't ever going to see each other any
more!"

  "But they will- and inside of two weeks- and I know it!" says I.

  Laws, it was out before I could think!- and before I could budge,
she throws her arms around my neck, and told me to say it again, say
it again, say it again!

  I see I had spoke too sudden, and said too much, and was in a
close place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set
there, very impatient and excited, and handsome, but looking kind of
happy and eased-up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out. So
I went to studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a body that
ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place, is taking
considerable many resks, though I ain't had no experience, and can't
say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here's a
case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the truth is
better, and actuly safer, than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and
think it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and
unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at
last, I'm agoing to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this time,
though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and
touching it off just to see where you'll go to. Then I says:

  "Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways, where
you could go and stay three or four days?"

  "Yes- Mr. Lathrop's. Why?"

  "Never mind why, yet. If I tell you how I know the niggers will
see each other again- inside of two weeks- here in this house- and
prove how I know it- will you go to Mr. Lathrop's and stay four days?"

  "Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"

  "All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of you than just
your word- I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She
smiled, and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it,
I'll shut the door- and bolt it."

  Then I come back and set down again, and says:

  "Don't you holler. Just set still, and take it like a man. I got
to tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a
bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for
it. These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all- they're a couple
of frauds- regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of
it- you can stand the rest middling easy."

  It holted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the
shoal water now, so I went right along, her eyes a blazing higher
and higher all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we
first struck that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear
through to where she flung herself onto the king's breast at the front
door and he kissed her sixteen or seventeen times- and then up she
jumps, with her face afire like sunset, and says:

  "The brute! Come- don't waste a minute- not a second- we'll have
them tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!

  Says I:

  "Cert'nly. But do you mean, before you go to Mr. Lathrop's, or-"

  "Oh," she says, "what am I thinking about!" she says, and set
right down again. "Don't mind what I said- please don't- you won't,
now, will you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way
that I said I would die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up,"
she says; "now go on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what
to do, and whatever you say, I'll do it."

  "Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed
so I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not-
I druther not tell you why- and if you was to blow on them this town
would get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right, but there'd
be another person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble.
Well, we got to save him, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't
blow on them."

  Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I
could get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then
leave. But I didn't want to run the raft in day-time, without
anybody aboard to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan
to begin working till pretty late to-night. I says:

  "Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do- and you won't have
to stay at Mr. Lathrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"

  "A little short of four miles- right out in the country, back here."

  "Well, that'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low
till nine or half-past, to-night, and then get them to fetch you
home again- tell them you've thought of something. If you get here
before eleven, put a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up,
wait till eleven, and then if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and
out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news
around, and get these beats jailed."

  "Good," she says, "I'll do it."

  "And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up
along with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing
beforehand, and you must stand by me all you can."

  "Stand by you, indeed I will. They shan't touch a hair of your
head!" she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap
when she said it, too.

  "If I get away, I shan't be here," I says, "to prove these
rapscallions ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I was here.
I could swear they was beats and bummers, that's all; though that's
worth something. Well, there's others can do that better than what I
can- and they're people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd
be. I'll tell you how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of
paper. There- 'Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't
lose it. When the court wants to find out something about these two,
let them send up to Bricksville and say they've got the men that
oldyed the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesses- why, you'll
have that entire town down here before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary.
And they'll come a-biling, too."

  I judged we had got everything fixed about right, now. So I says:

  "Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody
don't have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the
auction, on accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out
of this till they get that money- and the way we've fixed it the
sale ain't going to count, and they ain't going to get no money.
It's just like the way it was with the niggers- it warn't no sale, and
the niggers will be back before long. Why, they can't collect the
money for the niggers, yet- they're in the worst kind of a fix, Miss
Mary."

  "Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll
start straight for Mr. Lathrop's."

  "Deed, that ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner
of means; go before breakfast."

  "Why?"

  "What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?"

  "Well, I never thought- and come to think, I don't know. What was
it?"

  "Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I
don't want no better book than what your face is. A body can set
down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and
face your uncles, when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never-"

  "There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast- I'll be glad
to. And leave my sisters with them?"

  "Yes- never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while.
They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want
you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town- if a
neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning, your face would
tell something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix
it with all of them. I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your
uncles and say you've went away for a few hours for to get a little
rest and change, or to see a friend, and you'll be back to-night or
early in the morning."

  "Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given
to them."

  "Well, then, it shan't be." It was well enough to tell her so- no
harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's
the little things that smoothes people's roads the most, down here
below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost
nothing. Then I says: "There's one more thing- that bag of money."

  "Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to
think how they got it."

  "No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."

  "Why, who's got it?"

  "I wish I knowed, but I don't. I had it, because I stole it from
them: and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but
I'm afraid it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane,
I'm just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did,
honest. I come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the
first place I come to, and run- and it warn't a good place."

  "Oh, stop blaming yourself- it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow
it- you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide
it?"

  I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I
couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that
corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach.
So for a minute I didn't say nothing- then I says:

  "I'd ruther not tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you
don't mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of
paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lathrop's, if you
want to. Do you reckon that'll do?"

  "Oh, yes."

  So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was
crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was
mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."

  It made my eyes water a little, to remember her crying there all
by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under
her own roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and
give it to her, I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook
me by the hand, hard, and says:

  "Good-bye- I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if
I don't ever see you again, I shan't ever forget you, and I'll think
of you a many and a many a time, and I'll pray for you, too!"- and she
was gone.

  Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was
more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same- she was
just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the
notion- there warn't no backdown to her, I judge. You may say what you
want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I
ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like
flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty- and
goodness too- she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since,
but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million times,
and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought
it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't a
done it or bust.

  Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody
see her go. When I struck Susan and the harelip, I says:

  "What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river
that you all goes to see sometimes?"

  They says:

  "There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

  "That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane
she told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry- one
of them's sick."

  "Which one?"

  "I don't know; leastways I kinder forget; but I think it's-"

  "Sakes alive, I hope it ain't Hanner?"

  "I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."

  "My goodness- and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

  "It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss
Mary Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

  "Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her!"

  I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I
says:

  "Mumps."

  "Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the
mumps."

  "They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with these mumps.
These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

  "How's it a new kind?"

  "Because it's mixed up with other things."

  "What other things?"

  "Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and
consumption, and yeller janders, and brain fever, and I don't know
what all."

  "My land! And they call it the mumps?"

  "That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

  "Well, what in the nation do they call it the mumps for?"

  "Why, because it is the mumps. That's what it starts with."

  "Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and
take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his
brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and
some numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his toe.' Would ther' be
any sense in that? No. And ther' ain't no sense in this, nuther. Is it
ketching?"

  "Is it ketching? Why, how you talk. Is a harrow catching?- in the
dark? If you don't hitch onto one tooth, you're bound to on another,
ain't you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the
whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of
harrow, as you may say- and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther,
you come to get it hitched on good."

  "Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle
Harvey and-"

  "Oh, yes," I says, "I would. Of course I would. I wouldn't lose no
time."

  "Well, why wouldn't you?"

  "Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles
obleeged to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do
you reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all
that journey by yourselves? You know they'll wait for you. So fur,
so good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is
a preacher going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to
deceive a ship clerk?- so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go
aboard? Now you know he ain't. What will he do, then? Why, he'll
say, 'It's a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along
the best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful
pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my bounden duty to set down here
and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it.'
But never mind, if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey-"

  "Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having
good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary
Jane's got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

  "Well, anyway, maybe you better tell some of the neighbors."

  "Listen at that, now. You do beat all, for natural stupidness. Can't
you see that they'd go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just not to
tell anybody at all."

  "Well, maybe you're right- yes, I judge you are right."

  "But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a
while, anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"

  "Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them
to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've
run over the river to see Mr.- Mr.- what is the name of that rich
family your uncle Peter used to think so much of?- I mean the one
that-"'

  "Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"

  "Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to
remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has
run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction
and buy this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther
they had it than anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till
they say they'll come, and then, if she ain't too tired, she's
coming home; and if she is, she'll be home in the morning anyway.
She said, don't say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the
Apthorps- which'll be perfectly true, because she is going there to
speak about their buying the house; I know it, because she told me so,
herself."

  "All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and
give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.

  Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because
they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther
Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of
Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat-
I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of
course he would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very
handy, not being brung up to it.

  Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards
the end of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and
the old man he was on hand and looking his level piousest, up there
longside of the auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture, now
and then, or a little goody-goody saying, of some kind, and the duke
he was around goo-gooing for sympathy all he knowed how, and just
spreading himself generly.

  But by-and-by the thing dragged through, and everything was sold.
Everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So they'd
got to work that off- I never see such a girafft as the king was for
wanting to swallow everything. Well, whilst they was at it, a
steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a whooping
and yelling and laughing and carrying on, and singing out:

  "Here's your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old
Peter Wilks- and you pays your money and you takes your choice!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


  They was fetching a very nice looking old gentleman along, and a
nice looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And my souls,
how the people yelled, and laughed, and kept it up. But I didn't see
no joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke and the king
some to see any. I reckoned they'd turn pale. But no, nary a pale
did they turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up,
but just went a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug
that's googling out buttermilk; and as for the king, he just gazed and
gazed down sorrowful on them newcomers like it give him the
stomach-ache in his very heart to think there could be such frauds and
rascals in the world. Oh, he done it admirable. Lots of the
principal people gethered around the king, to let him see they was
on his side. That old gentleman that had just come looked all
puzzled to death. Pretty soon he begun to speak, and I see, straight
off, he pronounced like an Englishman, not the king's way, though
the king's was pretty good, for an imitation. I can't give the old
gent's words, nor I can't imitate him; but he turned around to the
crowd, and says, about like this:

  "This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for; and I'll
acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't very well fixed to meet it
and answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes, he's broke
his arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here, last
night in the night by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks's brother Harvey,
and this is his brother William, which can't hear nor speak- and can't
even make signs to amount to much, now't he's only got one hand to
work them with. We are who we say we are; and in a day or two, when
I get the baggage, I can prove it. But, up till then, I won't say
nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait."

  So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, and
blethers out:

  "Broke his arm- very likely ain't it?- and very convenient, too, for
a fraud that's got to make signs, and hain't learnt how. Lost their
baggage! That's mighty good!- and mighty ingenious- under the
circumstances!"

  So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or
four, or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; another one
was a sharp looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the
old-fashioned kind made out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of
the steamboat and was talking to him in a low voice, and glancing
towards the king now and then and nodding their heads- it was Levi
Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville; and another one was a
big rough husky that come along and listened to all the old
gentleman said, and was listening to the king now. And when the king
got done, this husky up and says:

  "Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd you come to this
town?"

   "The day before the funeral, friend," says the king.

  "But what time o' day?"

  "In the evenin'- 'bout an hour er two before sundown."

  "How'd you come?"

  "I come down on the Susan Powell, from Cincinnati."

  "Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the mornin'-
in a canoe?"

  "I warn't up at the Pint

  "It's a lie."

  Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way
to an old man and a preacher.

  "Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He was up at the
Pint that mornin'. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up there, and
he was up there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim
Collins and a boy."

  The doctor he up and says:

  "Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?"

  "I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why, yonder he is, now. I
know him perfectly easy."

  It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:

  "Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not;
but if these two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all. I think it's
our duty to see that they don't get away from here till we've looked
into this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you. We'll
take these fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other couple,
and I reckon we'll find out something before we get through."

  It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's
friends; so we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led me
along by the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go
my hand.

  We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles,
and fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor says:

  "I don't wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they're
frauds, and they may have complices that we don't know nothing
about. If they have, won't the complices get away with that bag of
gold Peter Wilks left? It ain't unlikely. If these men ain't frauds,
they won't object to sending for that money and letting us keep it
till they prove they're all right- ain't that so?"

  Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a
pretty tight place, right at the outstart. But the king he only looked
sorrowful, and says:

  "Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain't got no
disposition to throw anything in the way of a fair, open,
out-and-out investigation o' this misable business; but alas, the
money ain't there; you k'n send and see, if you want to."

  "Where is it, then?"

  "Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her, I took and hid
it inside o' the straw tick o' my bed, not wishin' to bank it for
the few days we'd be here, and considerin' the bed a safe place, we
not bein' used to niggers, and suppos'n' em honest, like servants in
England. The niggers stole it the very next mornin' after I had went
down stairs; and when I sold 'em, I hadn't missed the money yit, so
they got clean away with it. My servant here k'n tell you 'bout it,
gentlemen."

  The doctor and several said "Shucks!" and I see nobody didn't
altogether believe him. One man asked me if I see the niggers steal
it. I said no, but I see them sneaking out of the room and hustling
away, and I never thought nothing, only I reckoned they was afraid
they had waked up my master and was trying to get away before he
made trouble with them. That was all they asked me. Then the doctor
whirls on me and says:

  "Are you English too?"

  I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, "Stuff!"

  Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we
had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word
about supper, nor ever seemed to think about it- and so they kept it
up, and kept it up; and it was the worst mixed-up thing you ever
see. They made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman
tell his'n; and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a
seen that the old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies.
And by-and-by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give
me a left-handed look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed
enough to talk on the right side. I begun to tell about Sheffield, and
how we lived there, and all about the English Wilkses, and so on;
but I didn't get pretty fur till the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi
Bell, the lawyer, says:

  "Set down, my boy, I wouldn't strain myself, if I was you. I
reckon you ain't used to lying, it don't seem to come handy; what
you want is practice. You do it pretty awkward."

  I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let
off, anyway.

  The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says:

  "If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell-"

  The king broke in and reached out his hand, and says:

  "Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend that he's wrote so
often about?"

  The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked
pleased, and they talked right along a while, and then got to one side
and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and says:

  "That'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it, along with your
brother's, and then they'll know it's all right."

  So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and
twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled
off something; and then they give the pen to the duke- and then for
the first time, the duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote.
So then the lawyer turns to the new old gentleman and says:

  "You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your
names."

  The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it. The lawyer
looked powerful astonished, and says:

  "Well, it beats me"- and snaked a lot of old letters out of his
pocket, and examined them, and then examined the old man's writing,
and then them again; and then says: "These old letters is from
Harvey Wilks; and here's these two's handwritings, and anybody can see
they didn't write them" (the king and the duke looked sold and
foolish, I tell you, to see how the lawyer had took them in), "and
here's this old gentleman's handwriting, and anybody can tell, easy
enough, he didn't write them- fact is, the scratches he makes ain't
properly writing, at all. Now here's some letters from-"

  The new old gentleman says:

  "If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my hand but my
brother there- so he copies for me. It's his hand you've got there,
not mine."

  "Well!" says the lawyer, "this is a state of things. I've got some
of William's letters too; so if you'll get him to write a line or so
we can com-"

  "He can't write with his left hand," says the old gentleman. "If
he could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his own
letters and mine too. Look at both, please- they're by the same hand."

  The lawyer done it, and says:

  "I believe it's so- and if it ain't so, there's a heap stronger
resemblance than I'd noticed before, anyway. Well, well, well! I
thought we was right on the track of a slution, but it's gone to
grass, partly. But anyway, one thing is proved- these two ain't either
of 'em Wilkses"- and he wagged his head towards the king and the duke.

  Well, what do you think?- that muleheaded old fool wouldn't give
in then! Indeed he wouldn't. Said it warn't no fair test. Said his
brother William was the cussedest joker in the world, and hadn't tried
to write- he see William was going to play one of his jokes the minute
he put the pen to paper. And so he warmed up and went warbling and
warbling right along, till he was actuly beginning to believe what
he was saying, himself- but pretty soon the new old gentleman broke
in, and says:

  "I've thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped to lay
out my br- helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying?"

  "Yes," says somebody, "me and Ab Turner done it. We're both here."

  Then the old man turns towards the king, and says:

  "Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tatooed on his breast?"

  Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or he'd a
squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut under, it took
him so sudden- and mind you, it was a thing that was calculated to
make most anybody sqush to get fetched such a solid one as that
without any notice- because how was he going to know what was
tatooed on the man? He whitened a little; he couldn't help it; and
it was mighty still in there, and everybody bending a little
forwards and gazing at him. Says I to myself, Now he'll throw up the
sponge- there ain't no more use. Well, did he? A body can't hardly
believe it, but he didn't. I reckon he thought he'd keep the thing
up till he tired them people out, so they'd thin out, and him and
the duke could break loose and get away. Anyway, he set there, and
pretty soon he begun to smile, and says:

  "Mf! It's a very tough question, ain't it! Yes, sir, I k'n tell
you what's tatooed on his breast. It's jest a small, thin, blue arrow-
that's what it is; and if you don't look clost, you can't see it.
Now what do you say- hey?"

  Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean
out-and-out cheek.

  The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard,
and his eye lights up like he judged he'd got the king this time,
and says:

  "There- you've heard what he said! Was there any such mark on
Peter Wilks's breast?"

  Both of them spoke up and says:

  "We didn't see no such mark."

  "Good!" says the old gentleman. "Now, what you did see on his breast
was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was
young), and a  W, with dashes between them, so: P-B-W"-and he marked
them that way on a piece of paper. "Come- ain't that what you saw?"

  Both of them spoke up again, and says:

  "No, we didn't. We never seen any marks at all."

  Well, everybody was in a state of mind, now; and they sings out:

  "The whole bilin' of' m's frauds! Le's duck 'em! le's drown 'em!
le's ride'em on a rail!" and everybody was whooping at once, and there
was a rattling pow-wow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table and
yells, and says:

  "Gentlemen- gentlemen! Hear me just a word- just a single word- if
you PLEASE! There's one way yet- let's go and dig up the corpse and
look."

  That took them.

  "Hooray!" they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the
lawyer and the doctor sung out:

  "Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and
fetch them along, too!"

  "We'll do it!" they all shouted: "and if we don't find them marks
we'll lynch the whole gang!"

  I was scared, now, I tell you. But there warn't no getting away, you
know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for
the graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the
whole town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only
nine in the evening.

  As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent Mary Jane out of
town; because now if I could tip her the wink, she'd light out and
save me, and blow on our dead-beats.

  Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like
wild-cats; and to make it more scary, the sky was darking up, and
the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver
amongst the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most
dangersome I ever was in; and I was kinder stunned; everything was
going so different from what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed
so I could take my own time, if I wanted to, and see all the fun,
and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free when the
close-fit come, here was nothing in the world betwixt me and sudden
death but just them tatoo-marks. If they didn't find them-

  I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't
think about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a
beautiful time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me
by the wrist- Hines- and a body might as well try to give Goliar the
slip. He dragged me right along, he was so excited; and I had to run
to keep up.

  When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed
over it like an overflow. And when they got to the grave, they found
they had about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but
nobody hadn't thought to fetch a lantern. But they sailed into
digging, anyway, by the flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to
the nearest house a half a mile off, to borrow one.

  So they dug and dug, like everything; and it got awful dark, and the
rain started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the
lightning come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them
people never took no notice of it, they was so full of this
business; and one minute you could see everything and every face in
that big crowd, and the shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the
grave, and the next second the dark wiped it all out, and you couldn't
see nothing at all.

  At last they got out the coffin, and begun to unscrew the lid, and
then such another crowding, and shouldering, and shoving as there was,
to scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark, that
way, it was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful, pulling and
tugging so, and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so
excited and panting.

   All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white
glare, and somebody sings out:

  "By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his breast!"

  Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and
give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I
lit out and shinned for the road in the dark, there ain't nobody can
tell.

  I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew- leastways I had
it all to myself, except the solid dark, and the now-and-then
glares, and the buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind,
and the splitting of the thunder; and sure as you are born I did
clip it along!

  When I struck the town, I see there warn't nobody out in the
storm, so I never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight
through the main one; and when I begun to get towards our house I
aimed my eye and set it. No light there; the house all dark- which
made me feel sorry and disappointed, I didn't know why. But at last,
just as I was sailing by, flash comes the light in Mary Jane's window!
and my heart swelled up sudden, like to bust; and the same second
the house and all was behind me in the dark, and wasn't ever going
to be before me no more in this world. She was the best girl I ever
see, and had the most sand.

  The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the
tow-head, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow; and the first
time the lightning showed me one that wasn't chained, I snatched it
and shoved. It was a canoe, and warn't fastened with nothing but a
rope. The tow-head was a rattling big distance off, away out there
in the middle of the river, but I didn't lose no time; and when I
struck the raft at last, I was so fagged I would a just laid down to
blow and gasp if I could afforded it. But I didn't. As I sprung aboard
I sung out:

  "Out with you Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, we're
shut of them!"

  Jim lit out, and was a coming for me with both arms spread, he was
so full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning, my heart
shot up in my mouth, and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he
was old King Lear and a drowned A-rab all in one, and it most scared
the livers and lights out of me. But Jim fished me out, and was
going to hug me and bless me, and so on, he was so glad I was back and
we was shut of the king and the duke, but I says:

  "Not now- have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose
and let her slide!"

  So, in two seconds, away we went, a sliding down the river, and it
did seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big
river and nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up
and crack my heels a few times, I couldn't help it; but about the
third crack, I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well- and held
my breath and listened and waited- and sure enough, when the next
flash busted out over the water, here they come!- and just a laying to
their oars and making their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke.

  So I wilted right down onto the planks, then, and give up; and it
was all I could do to keep from crying.