Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) by Mark Twain

1 01 Chapter 1 9:29

Org. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter One. Notice. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted. Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished. Persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot, by order of the author, per G. G. Chief of Ordnance. Explanatory. In this book, a number of dialects are used, to wit, the Missouri Negro dialect, the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect, the ordinary Pike County dialect, and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork, but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that, without it, many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike, and not succeeding. The author. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Seen, The Mississippi Valley. Time, Forty to Fifty Years Ago. Chapter One Civilizing Huck, Miss Watson, Tom Sawyer Waits. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.

Aunt Polly, Tom's Aunt Polly, she is, and Mary, and the widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book. with some stretchers, as I said before. Now, the way that the book winds up is this. Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece, all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us the dollar a day apiece all the year round, more than a body could tell what to do with. The widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would civilize me. But it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways, and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out.

I got into my old rags and my sugar hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he hunted me up, and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. The widow, she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat, and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table, you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there weren't really anything the matter with him—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself.

In a barrel of odds and ends, it is different. Things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better. After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and Bull Rushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him, but by and by she let out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time. So then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke and asked the widow to let me, but she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her and no use to anybody being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it.

And she took snuff, too. Of course, that was all right, because she done it herself. Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "'Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry,' and "'Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry. Set up straight.' And pretty soon she would say, "'Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry. Why don't you try to behave?' Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there.

She got mad then. But I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres. All I wanted was a change. I weren't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said. said she wouldn't say it for the whole world. She was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble and wouldn't do no good. Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing forever and ever, So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so.

I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together. Miss Watson, she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle and put it on the table. Then I sat down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it weren't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful, and I heard an owl way off, hoo-hooing about somebody that was dead, and a whip-poor-will, and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die.

And the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was. and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then, away out in the woods, I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind, and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so downhearted and scared, I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off, and it lit in the candle. And before I could budge, it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me.

I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time, and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've found instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider. I sat down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke, for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Twelve licks, and all still again, stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees.

Something was a-stirring. I sat still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a—meow, meow, down there. That was good. Says I—meow, as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out the window onto the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.

2 02 Chapter 02 13:05

This is chapter two of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter Two. The Boys Escape Jim. Tom Sawyer's Gang. Deep-laid plans. We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees, back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen, I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger named Jim was setting in the kitchen door. We could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says, "'Who da?' He listened some more.

Then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us. Could have touched him nearly. Well—' Likely it was minutes and minutes that there weren't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I desn't scratch it. And then my ear begun to itch, and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy, If you're anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why, you will itch all over and upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says, "'Say, who is you? Where is you?' Dog my cats, if I didn't hear something.

Well, I know what I'm going to do. I's going to sit down here and listen till I hears it again." So he sets down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of the most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes, but I doesn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes, but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try.

Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy. Next he begun to snore, and then I was pretty soon comfortable again. Tom, he made a sign to me, kind of a little noise with his mouth, and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off, Tom whispered to me. and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no. He might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warrant him. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come, but Tom wanted to rescate. So we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away.

But nothing would do, Tom, but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while. Everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off his head, and hung it on a limb right over him. And Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him, and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the state, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it, he said they rode him down to New Orleans.

And after that, every time he told it, he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death. and his back was all over saddle boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire. But whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "'H-m! What do you know about witches?' And that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.

Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it, and fetch witches whenever he wanted to, just by saying something to it. But he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece, but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rowed by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop, We looked away down into the village, and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe, and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine, and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand.

We went down the hill, and found Joe Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tan-yard. So we unhitched a skiff, and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped.

Tom says, "'Now, we'll start this band of robbers, and call it Tom Sawyer's gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.'" Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band. and never tell any of the secrets. And if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat, and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued, and if he done it again he must be killed.

If anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever. Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said some of it, but the rest was out of pirate books and robber books. and every gang that was high-toned had it. Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says, "'Here's Huck Finn. He ain't got no family.

What you going to do about him?' "'Well, ain't he got a father?' says Tom Sawyer. "'Yes, he's got a father. But you can't never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs and the tanyard.' But he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more. They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to do. Everybody was stumped and set still. I was most ready to cry. But all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson. They could kill her. Everybody said, "'Oh, she'll do.' That's all right. Huck can come in.

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper. "'Now,' says Ben Rogers, "'what's the line of business of this gang?' "'Nothing. Only robbery and murder,' Tom said. "'But—who are we going to rob? Houses, or cattle, or—stuff! Stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery. It's burglary,' says Tom Sawyer. "'We ain't burglars.' That ain't no sort of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money. Must we always kill the people? Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them, except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed.

Ransomed? What's that? I don't know. "'But that's what they do. I've seen it in books, and so of course that's what we've got to do.' "'But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?' "'Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books and get things all muddled up? Oh, that's all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them? That's the thing I want to get at.' Now, what do you reckon it is? Well, I don't know. But perhaps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead. Now, that's something like—that'll answer.

Why couldn't you said that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death. In a bothersome lot they'll be, too, eating up everything and always trying to get loose. How you talk, Ben Rogers? How can they get loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg? A guard? Well, that is good. So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here? Because it ain't in the books so, that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular or don't you? That's the idea. Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do?

Do you reckon you can learn them anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir. We'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way. All right, I don't mind, but I say it's a fool way anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too? Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you, I wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No, nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them, and by-and-by they fall in love with you and never want to go home any more. Well, if that's the way, I'm agreed. But I don't take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women and fellows waiting to be ransomed that there won't be no place for the robbers.

But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say." Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up— He was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber any more. So they all made fun of him, and called him a crybaby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people. Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday, But all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain, and Joe Harper second captain of the gang, and so started home.

I clumbed up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clay, and I was dog-tired.

3 03 Chapter 03 9:14

This is chapter three of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 3. A Good Going Over Grace Triumphant. One of Tom Sawyer's Lies. Well, I got a good going over in the morning from old Miss Watson, on account of my clothes. But the widow, she didn't scold, but only cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave a while if I could. Then, Miss Watson, she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for, I would get it. But it weren't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish line, but no hooks. It weren't any good to me without hooks.

I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by one day I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why. and I couldn't make it out no way. I sat down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't Deacon Wynn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said— The thing a body could get by praying for it was spiritual gifts. This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant.

I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods, and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it, except for the other people. So last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about providence in a way to make a body's mouth water. Maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with a widow's providence, but if Miss Watson's got him, there weren't no help for him any more.

I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery. Pap, he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me. I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always wail me when he was sober, and could get his hands on me. Though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river Drowned, about twelve miles above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway. Said this Drowned man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like Pap.

But they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it weren't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drowned man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed then that this warn't Pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he wouldn't. We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only just pretended.

We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs ingots, and he called the turnips and stuff jewelry, and we would go to the cave and pow-wow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked, but I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan, which was the sign for the gang to get together, and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich arabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants and six hundred camels and over a thousand sumpter mules, all loaded down with diamonds, And they didn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay an ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things.

He said we must slick up our swords and guns and get ready. He never could go after even a turnip-cart, but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they weren't worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of spaniards and arabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade. And when we got the word, we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there weren't no spaniards and arabs, and there weren't no camels nor no elephants. It weren't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer class at that.

We busted it up and chased the children up the hollow. But we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Joe Harper got a hymn-book and a tract, and then the teacher charged in and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no diamonds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there anyway, and he said there was arabs there too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldn't we see them then? He said if I weren't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants, and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians, and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday school, just out of spite.

I said, All right. Then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numbskull. "'Why,' said he, "'a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.' "'Well,' I says, "'s'pose we got some genies to help us. Can't we lick the other crowd then?' "'How you going to get them?' "'I don't know. How do they get them?' "'Why,' They rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around, and the smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do, they up and do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it, or any other man.

Who makes them tear round so? Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of diamonds, and fill it full of chewing gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it, and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more, they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand. Well, says I, I think they are a pack of flatheads for not keeping the palace themselves, instead of fooling them away like that. And what's more, if I was one of them, I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.

How you talk, Huck Finn! Why, you'd have to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not. What? Ain't I as high as a tree and as big as a church? "'All right, then. I would come. But I lay, I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country.' "'Shucks! It ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to know anything somehow. Perfect sap-head!' I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went out in the woods, Rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an engine calculating to build a palace and sell it. But it weren't no use—none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies.

I reckon he believed in arabs and elephants, but as for me, I think different. It had all the marks of a Sunday school.

4 04 Chapter 04 7:40

This is chapter four of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Four. Huck and the Judge. Superstition. Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time, and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics anyway. At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired, I played hooky, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up.

So the longer I went to school, the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, too, and they weren't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure and doing very satisfactory. She said she weren't ashamed of me. One morning I happened to turn over the salt cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it, as quick as I could, to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me and crossed me off.

She says, "'Take your hands away, Huckleberry.' What a mess you were always making." The widow put in a good word for me, but that weren't going to keep off the bad luck I knowed that well enough. I started out after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind, so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out. I went down to the front garden, and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They'd come up from the quarry, and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence.

It was funny they hadn't come in after standing around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil. I was up in a second and shining down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said, "'Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?' "'No, sir,' I says. "'Is there some for me?' "'Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night. Over a hundred and fifty dollars.

Quite a fortune for you. You'd better let me invest it along with your six thousand, because if you take it, you'll spend it.' "'No, sir,' I says. "'I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all. Nor the six thousand other. I want you to take it. I want to give it to you—the six thousand and all.' He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says, "'Why, what can you mean, my boy?' I says, "'Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take it, won't you?' He says, "'Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?' "'Please take it,' says I. "'And don't ask me nothing. Then I won't have to tell no lies.' He studied a while, and then he says, "'Oh, I think I see.' "'You want to sell all your property to me, not give it.

That's the correct idea.' Then he wrote something on a paper, and read it over, and says, "'There. You see, it says, "'For a consideration. That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now, you sign it.' So I signed, and left." Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hairball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night, and told him Pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was what he was going to do, and was he going to stay. Jim got out his hairball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor.

It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use. He said it wouldn't talk. He said, "'Sometimes it wouldn't talk without money.' I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good, because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge. I said it was pretty bad money, and maybe the hairball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference.

Jim smelt it, and bit it, and rubbed it. and said he would manage so the hairball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato, and stick the quarter in between, and keep it there all night, and next morning he couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hairball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it. Jim put the quarter under the hairball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hairball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hairball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says, "'Yo old father don't know yet what he's goin to do.

Sometimes he speck he'll go way, and then again he speck he'll stay. De best way is to rest easy, and let de old man take his own way. Dey's two angels hover around about him. One of them is white and shiny. "'T'other one is black. The white one gets him to go right in a little while, then the black one's sailing and bust it all up. The body can't tell yet which one going to fetch him at the last. But you is all right. You're going to have considerable trouble in your life and considerable joy. Sometimes you're going to get hurt, and sometimes you're going to get sick, but every time you's going to get well again. There's two gals flying about you and your life. One of them's light, and t'other one is dark.

One is rich, and t'other is pole. You's going to marry the pole one first, and the rich one by and by. You wants to keep away from the water as much as you can, and don't run no risk, case it's down the bills that you's going to get hung. When I lit my candle, and went up to my room that night, There sat Pap, his own self.

5 05 Chapter 05 8:54

This is chapter five of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 5. Huck's father, the fond parent, reform. I had shut the door too. Then I turned round and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time. He'd hand me so much. I reckoned I was scared now too. But in a minute I see I was mistaken, that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected, but right away after I see I weren't scared of him worth bothering about. He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long, and tangled, and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines.

It was all black, no gray. So was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There weren't no color in his face, where his face showed. It was white. Not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl, a tree-toed white, a fish-bellied white. As for his clothes, just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee. The boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through. and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor, an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid. I stood a-looking at him. He set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up, so he had clum in by the shed.

He kept a-looking at me, all over. By and by he says, "'Starchy clothes, for—'you think you're a good deal of big-bug, don't you?' "'Maybe I am, maybe I ain't,' I says. "'Don't you give me none of your lip,' he says he. "'You've put on considerable many frills since I've been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say. Can read and write. You think you're better'n your father now, don't you, because he can't?' "'I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such highfalutin foolishness, hey? Who told you you could?' "'The widow, she told me.' The widow, eh? And who told the widow she could put in her shovel about the thing that ain't none of her business?

Nobody never told her. Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And look here, you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You let me catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write another before she died. None of the family couldn't before they died. I can't. And here you're a swellin' yourself up like this? I ain't the man to stand it, you hear? Say— Let me hear you read. I took up a book, and begun somethin' about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half-minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand, and knocked it across the house.

He says, "'It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here.' "'You stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my smarty, and if I catch you about that school, I'll tan you good. First you know you'll—and get religion, too. I never see such a son.' He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says, "'What's this?' "'It's something they give me for learning my lessons good.' He tore it up, and says, "'I'll give you something better. I'll give you a cowhide.' He's set there a-mumblin' and a-growlin' a minute, and then he says, "'Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed, and bed-clothes, and a lookin'-glass, and a piece of carpet on the floor, and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tan-yard.

I never see such a son. I bet I'll take some of these frills out of you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs, they say. You're rich. Eh? How's that?' "'They lie. That's how.' Look here. Mind how you talk to me. I'm a-standin' about all I can stand now, so don't give me no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't heard nothin' but about you being rich. I heard about it way down the river, too. That's why I come. You get me that money tomorrow. I want it. I ain't got no money. It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You get it. I want it. I ain't got no money, I tell you. You ask, Judge Thatcher. He'll tell you the same. All right. I'll ask him. And I'll make him Pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why.

Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it. I ain't got only a dollar, and I want that to—'It don't make no difference what you want it for. You just shell it out.' He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whiskey. Said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he got out on the shed, he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills, and trying to be better than him, and when I reckoned he was gone, he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that. Next day he was drunk, and he went to see Judge Thatcher's, and bully-ragged him, and tried to make him give up the money, but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him, and let one of them be my guardian. But it was a new judge that had just come, and he didn't know the old man. So he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it, said he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business. That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and Pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blown around and cussing and whooping and carrying on, and he kept it up all over town with a tin pan till most midnight.

Then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was satisfied. Said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him. When he got out, the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper, he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life. But now he was a-goin' to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him.

The judge said he could hug him for them words. So he cried, and his wife, she cried again. Pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so. So they cried again. And when it was bedtime, the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says, "'Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all. Take a hold of it. Shake it. There's a hand that was the hand of a hog, but it ain't so no more. It's the hand of a man that started on a new life, and he'll die before he'll go back. You mark them words. Don't forget I said them. It's a clean hand now. Shake it. Don't be afeared.' So they shook it.

one after the other, all around, and cried. The judge's wife, she kissed it. Then the old man, he signed a pledge, made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room which was the spare room, and in the night sometime he got powerful thirsty and clum out on the porch roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty rod, and clum back again and had a good old time. And towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sunup, and when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.

The judge, he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.

6 06 Chapter 06 15:17

This is chapter six of Huckleberry Finn. This is the living of Huckleberry Finn. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter six. He went for Judge Thatcher. Huck decided to leave. Political economy. Thrashing around. Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite Pap. That law trial was a slow business. Appeared like they weren't ever going to get started on it, so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off the judge for him to keep from getting a cowhiding, and every time he got money he got drunk.

"'And every time he got drunk he raised cane around town, and every time he raised cane he got jailed. He was just suited—this kind of thing was right in his line. He got to hanging around the widows too much, and so she told him at last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasn't he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss, So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three miles in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody, and there weren't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was. He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.

We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store three miles to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whiskey, and fetched it home, and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow, she found out where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me, but Pap drove him off with the gun. And it weren't long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it—all but the cowhide part. It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study.

Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash and eat on the plate, "'Comb up, and go to bed, and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing because the widow didn't like it, but now I took to it again because Pap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all round. But by and by Pap got too handy with his hickory, and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days.

It was dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drowned and I wasn't ever going to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I couldn't find no way. There weren't a window to it big enough for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the Chimbley. It was too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away. I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times. Well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time. But this time I found something at last. I found an old rusty wood saw, without any handle.

It was laid in between a rafter and the clabards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work. There was an old horse blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out, big enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting toward the end of it when I heard Pap's gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket, and hid my saw, and pretty soon Pap come in. Pap weren't in a good humor, so he was his natural self. He said he was downtown, and everything was going wrong.

His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial, but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and civilized, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and he cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a Kind of a general cuss all around, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called them What's-His-Name when he got to them, and went right along with his cussing.

He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch out, and if they tried to come in any such game on him, he knowed of a place six or seven miles off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute. I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that chance. The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got. There was a fifty-pound sack of cornmeal and a side of bacon, ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whiskey, and an old book and two newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with a gun and some lines, and take to the woods when I run away.

I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night-times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and leave that night if Pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it— I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered, and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded. I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper, the old man took a swig or two, and got sort of warmed up, and went to Rippon again. He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.

A body would have thought he was at him—he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor begun to work, he most always went for that government. This time he says, "'Call this a government. Why, just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law standing ready to take a man's son away from him—a man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising.' Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do something for him, and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call that government. That ain't all, nother. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up, and helps him to keep me out of my property. Here's what the law does.

The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars, and upwards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this. "'And let's him go round in clothes that ain't fitting for a hog. They call that government. A man can't get his rights in a government like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I told him so. I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of them heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents, I'd leave the blamed country and never come a'n'ear again. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat. if you call it a hat, but the lid raises up, and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jinto stovepipe.

Look at it," says I. "'Such a hat for me to wear, and one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could get my rights. Oh, yes, this is a wonderful government, wonderful. Why, looky here, There was a free nigger there from Ohio, a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat. And there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had. And he had a gold watch and chain and a silver-headed cane, the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state. And what do you think? They said he was a professor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and note everything, and that ain't the worst. They said he could vote when he was at home.

Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself, if I weren't too drunk to get there. But when they told me there was a state in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote again. Them's the very words I said. They all heard me, and the country may rot for all me. I'll never vote again as long as I live, and to see the cool way of that nigger. Why, he wouldn't give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out of the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold? That's what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why— They said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the state six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet.

There, now, that's a specimen. They call that a government that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in the state six months. Here's a government that calls itself a government, and lets on to be a government, and thinks it is a government, and yet's got to set stock still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, Pap was a-going on, so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taking him to, so he went ahead over heels over the tub of salt pork and barked both shims, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of language, mostly hove at the nigger and the government, though he gives the tub some, too, all along here and there.

He hopped around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one shin and then the other one, And at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it weren't good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it. So now he raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt and rolled there and held his toes, and the cussing he'd done then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards. He had heard old Salbury Hagen in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too. But I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.

After supper, Pap took the jug, and said he had had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank and tumbled down on his blankets by and by. Luck didn't run my way. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about, I was sound asleep and the candle burning. I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream, and I was up.

There was Pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way, and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs, and then he would give a jump and scream, and said one had bit him on the cheek. But I couldn't see no snakes. He started, and ran round and round the cabin, hollering, "'Take him off! Take him off! He's biting me on the neck!' I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting. Then he rolled over and over, wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there was devils a-hole of him. He wore out by and by, and laid still a while, moaning.

Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he raised up part way, and listened. with his head to one side. He says, very low, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. That's the dead. Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. They're coming after me. But I won't go. Oh, they're here. Don't touch me. Don't. Hands off. They're cold. Let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone. Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging, and then he went to crying. I could hear him through the blanket.

By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet, looking wild, and he see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, saying he would kill me, and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged and told him I was only huck, but he laughed such a screechy laugh, and roared and cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once, when I turned short and dodged under his arm, he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone. But I slid out of the jacket quick as lightning and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out and dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me.

He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep, and get strong, and then he would see who was who. So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by, I got the old split-bottomed chair, and clum up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it, to make sure it was loaded. Then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards Pap, and set down behind it, to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did drag along.

7 07 Chapter 07 13:41

This is chapter seven of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Seven Laying for him, Locked in the cabin, Sinking the body, Resting. Get up. What you bout? I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. It was after sunup, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over me, looking sour and sick, too. He says, "'What are you doing with this gun?' I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I says, "'Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him.' "'Why didn't you roust me out?' "'Well, I tried to, but I couldn't. I couldn't budge you.' "'Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast.

I'll be along in a minute.' He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark, so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be always luck for me, because as soon as that rise begins, here comes cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts, sometimes a dozen logs together, so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the woodyards and the sawmill. I went along up the bank with one eye out for Pap, and t'other one out for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe—just a beauty, too—bout thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck.

I shot head first off the bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it, they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it weren't so this time. It was a drift canoe, sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore. Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this. She's worth $10. But when I got to shore, Pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I was running her into the little creek like a gully, All hung over with vines and willows, I struck another idea. I judged I'd hide her good, and then, stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot.

It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man coming all the time, but I got her hid, and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows, There was the old man down the path a piece, just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun, so he hadn't seen anything. When he got along, I was hard at it taking up a trot-line. He abused me a little for being so slow, but I told him I fell in the river, and that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the lines and went home. While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep Pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainter thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me.

You see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see no way for a while, but by and by Pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water, and he says— "'Another time a man comes a-prowling round here, you roust me out, you hear? That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time you roust me out, you hear?" Then he dropped down and went to sleep again. But what he had been saying gave me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, "'I can fix it now so nobody won't think of following me.' About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise. By and by along comes part of the log raft, nine logs fast together.

We went out with a skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. Anybody but Pap would have waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more stuff. But that warn't Pap's style. Nine logs was enough for one time. He must shove right over to the town and sell. So he locked me in and took the skiff and started off towing the raft about half-past three. I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good start, then I out with my saw and went to work on that log again. Before he was t'other side of the river, I was out of the hole. Him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder. I took the sack of cornmeal, and I took it to where the canoe was hid, and I shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in.

Then I done the same with the side of bacon. Then the whiskey-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all of the ammunition. I took the wadding, I took the bucket and gourd. I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and matches and other things—everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any—only the one out at the wood-pile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done. I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things, so I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust.

Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away and— Didn't know it was sawed. You wouldn't never notice it. And besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it weren't likely anybody would go fooling around there. It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the river, all safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig. Hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they'd got away from the prairie farms.

I shot this fellow, and took him into camp. I took the axe, and smashed in the door. I beat it, and hacked it considerable, doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly to the table, and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down on the ground to bleed. I say ground, because it was ground, hard-packed, and no boards. Next, I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it, all I could drag, and I started it from the pig and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk out of sight. You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there. I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business and throw in the fancy touches.

Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that. Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig, and held him to my breast with my jacket so he couldn't drip till I got a good piece below the house, and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went, and I got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with a saw, for there weren't no knives and forks on the place. Pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass, and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five miles wide and full of rushes, and ducks too, you might say, in the season.

There was a slough or a creek leading out of it, on the other side that went miles away—I don't know where—but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped Pap's whetstone there, too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again. It was about dark now, so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow, then I took a bite to eat, and by-and-by laid down the canoe to smoke a pipe, and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sack full of rocks to the shore, and then drag the river for me, and they'll follow that meal track to the lake, and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it, to find the robbers that killed me and took the things.

They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me. All right, I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me. I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around, and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place. I was pretty tired, The first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I woke up, I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so bright I could have counted the drift-logs that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from shore.

Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and smelt late. You know what I mean. I don't know the words to put it in. I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in rowlocks when it's still night. I peeped out through the willow branches, and there it was, a skiff, away across the water. Couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept a-comin, and when it was abreast of me, I see there weren't but one man in it. Thinks I—maybe it's Pap, though I weren't expecting him. He dropped below me with the current, and by and by he came a-swingin' up shore in the easy water, and he went by so close I could have reached out the gun and touched him.

Well, it was Pap, sure enough, and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars. I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinnin' downstream, soft but quick, in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more toward the middle of the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing, and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe, and let her float. I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky. Not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine. I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear on the water such nights?

I heard people talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too—every word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights now. T'other one said this warn't one of the short ones, he reckoned, and then they laughed. He said it over again, and they laughed again. Then they waked up another fellow and told him and laughed. But he didn't laugh. He ripped out something brisk and said, Let him alone. The first fellow said he allowed to tell it to his old woman. She would think it was pretty good. But he said that weren't nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than about a week longer.

After that the talk got further and further away, and I couldn't make out the words any more, but I could hear the mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off. I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson's Island, about two mile and a half downstream, heavy-timbered and standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like a steamboat without any lights. There weren't any signs of the bar at the head. It was all under water now. It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping rate—the current was so swift—and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side toward the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about.

I had to part the willow branches to get in, and when I made fast nobody could have seen the canoe from the outside. I went up, and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked out on the big river and the black driftwood, and away over to the town three miles away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A monstrous big lumber raft was about a mile upstream coming along down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood, I heard a man say, "'Stirin' oars there! Heave her head to stabbard!' I heard that just as plain as if the man was by my side. There was a little gray in the sky now, so I stepped into the woods and laid down for a nap before breakfast.

8 08 Chapter 08 23:57

This is chapter eight of Huckleberry Finn. This is in the public domain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Eight. Sleeping in the woods, Raising the dead, Exploring the island, Finding Jim, Jim's escape, Signs, Balam. The sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade, thinking about things. and feeling rested, and rather comfortable and satisfied. I could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze up there.

A couple of squirrels sat on a limb, and jabbered at me very friendly. I was powerful lazy and comfortable, didn't want to get up and cook breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep sound of boom way up the river. I rouses up and rests on my elbows and listens. Pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up and went and looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways up, about abreast of the ferry. And there was the ferryboat, full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the matter now. Boom! I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my carcass come to the top.

I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire, because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the cannon smoke, and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there, And it always looks pretty on a summer morning, so I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders, if I only had a bite to eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in loaves of bread, and float them off, because they always go right to the drowned carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and if any of them's floating around after me, I'll give them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see the— What luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed.

A big double loaf come along, and I most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped, and she floated out further. Of course, I was where the current set in the closest to the shore, and I knowed enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the plug, and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was baker's bread—what the quality eat! None of your low-down corn-pone. I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching the bread, and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, "'Now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it.

So there ain't no doubt, but there is something in that thing—that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, But it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind. I lit a pipe, and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The ferry-boat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down toward me, I put out my pipe, and went to where I fished out the bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where the log forked, I could peep through. By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could have run out a plank and walked ashore.

Most everybody was on the boat—Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Joe Harper, and Tom Sawyer, and his old aunt Polly, and Sid, and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says, "'Look sharp now!' The current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I hope so, anyway. I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see them, first-rate, but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out, "'Stand away!' and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise, and pretty near blind with the smoke.

"'And I judged I was gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more. The island was three miles long. I judged they had got to the foot and was giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island, they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town.

I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would have come a-hunting after me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets, to put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish, and haggled him open with my saw, and toward sundown I started my campfire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast. When it was dark I sat by my campfire smoking, and feeling pretty well satisfied, but by and by it got sort of lonesome, And so I went and sat on the bank and listened to the current swashing along and counted the stars and drift-logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed.

There ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome. You can't stay so. You soon get over it. And so for three days and nights. No difference, just the same thing. But the next day I went exploring around down through the island. I was boss of it. It all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it. But mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime, and green summer grapes, and green raspberries, and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They would all come handy by and by, I judged. Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot nothing.

It was for protection. Thought I would kill some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on the ashes of a campfire that was still smoking. My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened. But my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothin' else. I slunk along another piece further, then listened again, and so on and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man.

If I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person that cut one of my breaths in two, and I only got half, and the short half too. When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash. There warn't much sand in my crawl. But, I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last-year's camp, then clum a tree. I reckon I was up in the tree two hours, but I didn't see nothing. I didn't hear nothing. I only thought I heard and seen as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever, so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time.

All I could get to eat was berries. and what was left over from breakfast. By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinois bank about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all night when I hear a plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk, and says to myself, Horses coming! And next I hear people's voices. I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when I hear a man say, "'We better camp here if we can find a good place. The horse is about beat out.

Let's look around.' I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe. I didn't sleep much—I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. and every time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck, so the sleep didn't do me no good. By-and-by says to myself, I can't live this way. I'm a-going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me. I'll find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off. So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks, and sound asleep.

Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A little ripply cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with a paddle, and brung her nose to shore. Then I got my gun, and slipped out and into the edge of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the leaves. I see the moon go off watch. and the darkness began to blanket the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the tree-tops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp-fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck somehow. I couldn't seem to find the place.

But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fantods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I sat there behind a clump of bushes in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's gym. Bet I was glad to see him. I says, "'Hullo, Jim!' and skipped out. He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees and puts his hands together and says, "'Don't hurt me, don't.

I ain't ever done no harm to the ghosts. I always liked dead people, and done all I could for them. You go and get in the river again, while you belongs, and don't do nothing to old Jim. That is always your friend.' Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn't lonesome now. I told him I warn't afraid of him telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he only sat there and looked at me, never said nothing. Then I says, "'It's good daylight. Let's get breakfast. Make up your campfire good.' "'What's the use of making up the campfire to cook strawberries in such truck? But you got a gun, ain't you? Then we can get something better than strawberries.' "'Strawberries in such truck,' I says.

"'Is that what you live on?' "'I couldn't get nothing else,' he says. "'Why, how long have you been on the island, Jim?' "'I come here the night arter you're killed.' "'What, all that time?' "'Yes, indeedy. And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbish to eat?' No, sir, n-n-nothing else. Well, you must be most starved, ain't you? I reckon I could eat a horse. I think I could. How long you been on the island? Since the night I got killed. No. Why, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a gun. That's good. Now you kill something, and I'll make up the fire. So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal, and bacon, and coffee, and coffee-pot, and frying-pan, and sugar, and tin cups, and the nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done with witchcraft.

I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him with his knife and fried him. When breakfast was ready, we lulled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then, when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By-and-by, Jim says, "'But looky here, Huck, who was it that is killed in that shanty if it warn't you?' Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says, "'How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?' He looked pretty uneasy and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he says, "'Maybe I better not tell.' "'Why, Jim?' "'Well—' "'Days reasons.' But you wouldn't tell on me if I was to tell you, would you, Huck?

"'Blamed if I would, Jim.' "'Well, I believe you, Huck. I—I—run off.' "'Jim!' but mind, you said you wouldn't tell. You know you said you wouldn't tell, Huck. "'Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest injun I will.' People would call me a low-down abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum, but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-goin' to tell, and I ain't a-goin' back there anyways. So now let's know all about it. "'Well, you see, it is this way. Old missus—that's Miss Watson—she pecks on me all the time, and treats me pooty rough, but she allus says she wouldn't sell me down to Orleans.' But I noticed they was a nigger trader round the place considerable lately, and I began to get on easy.

Well, one night I creeped to the dough pooty late, and the dough warn't quite shut, and I hear old Mrs. Tell the widder she'd gwine to sell me down to Orleans. But she didn't want to, but she could get eight hundred dollars from me, and it had such a big stack of money she couldn't resist. The widder she tried to get her to say she wouldn't do it, but I never waited to hear the rest. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you. I tuck out and shined down the hill, and expect to steal the skift along the shore somers, about the town. But there was people a-stirring it, so I hid in the old tumble-down cooper's shop on the bank, to wait for everybody to go away. Well, I was there all night. There was somebody round all the time, long about six in the morning, Skiffs began to go by, and about eight or nine every skiff that went along was talking about how your pap come over to the town and say you's killed, and these last skiffs was full of ladies and gentlemen of going over for to see the place.

Sometimes they'd pull up to shore and take a rest before they started across, so by the talk I got to know all about the killing. I was powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but I ain't no more now. I laid down to the shavens all day. I was hungry, but I warn't afeared, because I knowed old missus and the widder was going to start to the camp meetin' and right arter breakfast, and be gone all day, and they knows I goes off with the cattle about daylight, so they wouldn't spec to see me round the place, and so they wouldn't miss me till arter dark in the evening. The other servants wouldn't miss me, because they'd shin out and take holiday soon as the old folks was out in the way. Well, when it come dark, I took out up the river road, and went about two mile or more to where there weren't no houses.

I'd made up my mind about what I was going to do. You see, if I kept on trying to get away foot, the dogs would track me, and if I stole a skiff to cross over, they'd miss that skiff, you see, and they'd know about where I'd land on the other side, and I wad to pick up my track. So I says a raff is what I's arter. It dawn make no track. I see a light a-cum around the pant wi'by-by, so I waded in the sho'v log ahead of me, and I swum more'n half-way across the river, and got in amongst the driftwood, and kept my head down low, and kind of swum again the current till the raff come along. Then I swum to the stern of it, and took a holt. It clouded up, and it was putty dark for a little while. So I clum up and laid down on the planks.

The men is all way yonder in the middle, where the lantern was. The river was a-rising, and they was a good current. So I reckon that by four in the morning I'd be twenty-five miles down the river, and then I'd slip in just before daylight and swim ashore, and take to the woods on the Illinois side. But I didn't have no luck. When we was most down to the head of the island, a man began to come aft with the lantern. I see it weren't no use for the weight, so I slid overboard and struck out for the island. Well, I had a notion I could land most anywheres, but I couldn't—bank two bluff! I was most to the foot of the island before I found a good place. I went into the woods, and jedged I wouldn't fool with rafts no more, long as they moved the lantern round so.

I had my pipe, and a plug or dogleg, and some matches in my cap, and they weren't wet, so I was all right. "'And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why didn't you get mud-turkles?' "'How you goin' get em?' "'You can't slip up on em and grab em. And how's a body goin' to hit em with a rock? How could a body do it in the night? And I weren't goin' to show myself on the bank in the daytime.' "'Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of course. Did you hear em shooting the cannon?' "'Oh, yes. I knowed they was out of you. I seen em go by here.' Watched em through the bushes. Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time, and lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain.

He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and he did. And Jim said, "'You mustn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the tablecloth after sundown.' And he said, "'If a man owned a beehive, and that man died, the bees must be told about it before the sun up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting me.' I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them.

Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him if there weren't any good luck signs, and he says, "'Mighty few, and they ain't no use to a body. What do you want to know when good luck's a coming for? Want to keep it off?' And he said, If you's got hairy arms and hairy breasts, it's a sign that you's goin' to be rich. Well, there's some use in a sign like that, in case it's so fur ahead. You see, maybe you's got to be poor a long time first, and so you might get discouraged and kill yourself if you didn't know by the sign that you're goin' to be rich by and by. Have you got hairy arms and hairy breasts, Jim?

What's the use axed that question? Don't you see I has? Well, are you rich? No, but I been rich onct, and gwine to be rich again. Onct I had fourteen dollars, but I tucked to speculating, and got busted out. What did you speculate in, Jim? Well, first I tackled stock. What kind of stock? Why, livestock, cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I ain't gwine to gresk no more money in stock. De cow up and died on my hands. So you lost the $10? No, I didn't lose it all. I only lost about nine of it. I sold to Hyde and Taller for a dollar and ten cents. You had $5.10 left. Did you speculate any more? Yes. You know that one-legged nigger that belongs to old Mr. Braddish? Well, he sought up a bank.

and say anybody that put in a dollar would get four dollars more at the end of the year. Well, all the niggers went in, but they didn't have much. I was the only one that had much, so I stuck out for more than four dollars, and I said if I didn't get it, I'd start a bank myself. Well, of course, that nigger want to keep me out of their business, because he says they weren't business enough for two banks. So he say I could put in my five dollars, and he pay me thirty-five at the end of the year. So I done it. Then I reckon I'd invest the thirty-five dollars right off, and keep things a-moving. There was a nigger named Bob that had ketched a wood flat, and his master didn't know it, and I bought it off on him, and told him to take the thirty-five dollars when the end of the year come.

But somebody stole the wood flat that night, and next day the one-legged nigger say the bank's busted. So didn't none of us get no money. What did you do with the ten cents, Jim? Well, I's gwine to spend it, but I had a dream, and a dream told me to give it to a nigger named Ballam—Ballam's Ass, they call him for short. He's one of them chuckleheads, you know. But he's lucky, they say. "'And I see I warn't lucky. The dream say, let Balam invest the ten cents, and he'd make a raise for me. Well, Balam he tuck the money, and when he was in church he heared the preacher say that whoever giv'd to the pole lend to the Lord, and bound to git his money back a hundred times. So Balam he tuck and giv'd the ten cents to the pole, and laid low to see what was going to come of it.

Well, what did come of it, Jim? Nuff would never come of it. I couldn't manage to collect that money no way, and Balam, he couldn't. I ain't going to lend no more money. Doubt I see the security. Bound to get your money back a hundred times, the preacher says. If I could get the ten cents back, I'd call it square, and be clouded or chanced. Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again, some time or other. Yes, and I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself. and I was worth eight hundred dollars. I wished I had the money. I wouldn't want no more.

9 09 Chapter 09 8:32

This is chapter nine of Huckleberry Finn. This is the recording is in the public domain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Nine. The Cave. The Floating House. I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I'd found when I was exploring. So we started and soon got to it, because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide. This place was a tolerable long, steep hill, or a ridge about forty foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep, and the bushes so thick. We tramped, and clumbed around all over it, and by and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top, on the side toward Illinois.

The cavern was as big as two or three rooms, bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool in there, Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time. Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, and they would never find us without dogs. And besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to get wet? So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows.

We took some fish off of the lines, and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner. The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hog's head in, and on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat, and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there, and cooked dinner. We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there, We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten. So the birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and to never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside and lovely, and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby, And here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves, and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to toss in their arms as if they was just wild, and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest, pft!

It was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm hundreds of yards further than you could see before. Dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky towards the underside of the world, like rolling empty barrels downstairs, where it's long stairs, and they bounce a good deal, you know. Jim, this is nice, I says. I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish, and some hot cornbread. Well, "'You wouldn't have been here if it hadn't been for Jim. You'd have been down to add the woods, without any dinner, and gettin' mose drowned, too.

D'out you would, honey. Chickens know when it's goin to rain, and so do birds, chile.' The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days until at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it was a good many miles wide. But on the Missouri side it was the same old distance across—a half a mile, because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs. Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way.

Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things, and when the island had been overflowed a day or two, they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to, but not the snakes and turtles. They would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them. We could have had pets enough if we'd wanted them. One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft, nice pine planks. It was twelve foot wide, and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the top stood above water six or seven inches, a solid, level floor. We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go.

We didn't show ourselves in daylight. Another night, when we was up at the head of the island, just before daylight, here comes a frame house down, on the west side. She was a two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out, and got aboard. Clumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we made the canoe fast, and set in her to wait for daylight. The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man.

So Jim says, "'Hullo, you!' But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, then Jim says, "'De man ain't asleep. He's dead. You hold still. I'll go and see.' He went, and bent down, and looked, and says, "'It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy. Naked, too. He's been shot in the back. I reckon he's been dead two or three days. Come in, Huck, but don't look at his face. It's too gashily.' I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he needn't done it. I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whiskey bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth, and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.

There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sunbonnet, and some women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoe. It might come good. There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor. I took that, too. And there was a bottle that had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck. We would have took the bottle, but it was broke. There was a seedy old chest and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. They stood open, but there weren't nothing left in them that was any count. The way things was scattered about, we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and weren't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff. We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher knife without any handle, and a brand new barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bed-quilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles, and pins, and beeswax, and buttons, and thread, and all such truck in it, and a hatchet, and some nails.

and a fish line as thick as my little finger, with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on them. And just as we was leaving, I found a tolerable good curry comb, and Jim, he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of it, but barring that it was a good enough leg, though it was too long for me, and not long enough for Jim. and we couldn't find the other one, though we hunted all around. And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to shove off, we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was a pretty broad day. So I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with a quilt, because if he set up, people could tell he was a nigger good ways off.

I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most a half-mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the bank, and had no accidents and didn't see nobody. We got home all safe.

10 10 Chapter 10 7:18

This is chapter 10 of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 10. The Find Old Hank Bunker in Disguise. After breakfast, I wanted to talk about the dead man, and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch bad luck, and besides, he said he might come and haunt us. He said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-hantin' around than one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more. But I couldn't keep from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man and what they'd done it for. We rummaged the clothes we'd got and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat.

Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the money was there— They wouldn't have left it. I said, I reckon they killed him, too, but Jim didn't want to talk about that. I says, Now you think it's bad luck, but what did you say when I fetched in the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck. We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim." "'Never you mind, hon, never you mind. Don't you get too pert. It's a-coming. Mind I tell you, it's a-coming.' It did come, too.

It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after dinner Friday, we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun, when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light, the snake's mate was there, and bit him. He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in the second with a stick, and Jim grabbed Pap's whiskey-jug and begun to pour it down.

He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all comes with my being such a fool as to not remember that whenever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it. Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it, and said it would help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrists, too. He said that that would help. Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes, For I warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it. Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled, but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug again.

His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg, but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was all right, but I'd rather been bit with a snake than Pap's whiskey. Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone, and he was around again. I made up my mind. I wouldn't ever take a hold of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I'd seen what had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time, and he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he'd druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was gettin' to feel that way myself.

Though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessness and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it, and in less than two years he got drunk, fell off of the shot tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say, and they slid him edgewise between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say. But I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway, it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool. Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again, and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit, and set it, and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds.

We couldn't handle him, of course. He would have flung us into Illinois. We just set there, and watched him rip and tear around till he drowned. We found a brass button in his stomach, and a round ball, and lots of rubbish. We split the ball open with a hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so, and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would have been worth a good deal over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there. Everybody buys some of them. His meat's as white as snow, and makes a good fry.

Next morning I said I was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river, and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion, but he said I must go in the dark, and look sharp. Then he studied it over, and said, "'Couldn't I put on some of them old things, and dress up like a girl?' That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouser legs to my knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the sunbonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of a stovepipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime hardly.

I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in them. Only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl, and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my breeches pocket. I took notice and done better. I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark. I started across to the town from a little below the ferry landing, and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I tied up and started along the bank. There was a light burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped in at the window. There was a woman about forty years old in there, knitting by a candle that was on a pine table.

I didn't know her face. She was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know. Now, this was lucky, because I was weakening. I was getting afraid I'd come. People might know my voice and find me out. But if this woman had been in such a little town two days, she could tell me all I wanted to know. So I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.

11 11 Chapter 11 14:53

This is chapter 11 of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 11. Huck and the Woman. The Search. Prevarication. Going to Goshen. "'Come in,' says the woman. And I did. She says, "'Take a cheer! I done it.' She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says, "'What might your name be?' "'Sara Williams.' "'Whereabouts do you live? In this neighborhood?' "'Noman, in Hookerville, seven miles below. I've walked all the way, and I'm all tired out.' "'Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something.' "'Noman, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below here at a farm, so I ain't hungry no more.

It's what makes me so late. My mother's down sick and out of money and everything, and I come to tell my Uncle Abner Moore.' He lives at the upper end of the town, she says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you know him?" No, but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite two weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet. No, I says. I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't feared of the dark." She said she wouldn't let me go by myself. But her husband would be in by-and-by, maybe in an hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off they used to was, and how they didn't know, but they'd made a mistake coming to our town instead of letting well alone, and so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in the town.

By and by she dropped on to Pap and the murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the $6,000, only she got at 10, and all about Pap and what a hard lot he was and what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says, "'Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on down in Hookerville, but—' We don't know who twas that killed Huck Finn. Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people here that'd like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself. No. Is that so? Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come to get lynched. But before night they changed round and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim.

Why, he—I stopped. I reckon I better keep still. She run on, and never noticed I had put in at all. The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed, so there's a reward out for him—three hundred dollars! And there's a reward out for old Finn, too—two hundred dollars! You see, he come to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with him on the ferry-boat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone. They found out he hadn't been seen since ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see, and while they was full of it, next day back comes old Finn and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with.

The judge gave him some, and that evening he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he ain't come back since. and they ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he don't come back for a year, he'll be all right. You can't prove anything on him, you know. Everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in Huck's money as easy as nothing.

Yes, I reckon some. Don't see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody quit thinking the nigger done it? Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it, but they'll get the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him. Why, are they after him yet? Well, you're innocent, ain't you? Does three hundred dollars lay around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain't far from here. I'm one of them, but I ain't talked it around. A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log shanty, and they happen to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't anybody live there? says I.

No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any more, but I'd done some thinkin'. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over there about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over there. Anyway, says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I ain't seen any smoke since, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him. But husband's going over to see—him and another man. He was gone up the river, but he got back to-day. and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago. I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with my hands, so I took up a needle off the table and went to threading it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it.

When the woman stopped talking, I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to be interested—and I was, too—and says, "'Three hundred dollars is a power of money.' I wish my mother could get it. Is your husband going over there tonight? Oh, yes. He went uptown with the man I was telling you of, to get a boat, and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over after midnight. Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime? Yes, and couldn't a nigger see better too? After midnight he'll likely be asleep, and then they can slip round through the woods and hunt up his campfire all the better for the dark, if he's got one.

I didn't think of that. The woman kept looking at me, pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit comfortable. Pretty soon she says, "'What did you say your name was, honey?' "'M-m-mary Williams.' Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't look up. Seemed to me I said it was Sarah, so I felt sort of cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it too. I wished the woman would say something more. The longer she set still, the uneasier I was. But now she says, "'Honey?' I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in. Oh, yes, m, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary. Oh, that's the way of it? Yes, m. I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there anyway.

I couldn't look up yet. Well, The woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place, and so forth, and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generally. But she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and directly banged away at a rat. But she missed him wide, and said, ouch!

It hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was, he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands, and she put the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband's matters. But she broke off to say, Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap handy. So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it, and she went on talking, but only about a minute.

Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, very pleasant, and says, "'Come now, what's your real name?' "'What, what, Mum? What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob, or what is it?' I reckon I shook like a leaf. But I didn't know hardly what to do. But I says, "'Please don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, Mum. If I'm in the way here, I'll—'No, you won't. Sit down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt you, and I ain't going to tell on you another. You just tell me your secret, and trust me. I'll keep it, and what's more, I'll help you. So'll my old man, if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway Prentice, that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it.

"'You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now. That's a good boy.' So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she mustn't go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer. He went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three nights come in the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid daytimes, and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way, and I had a plenty.

I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore, would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of Goshen. "'Goshen, child! This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?' "'Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the road's forked I must take the right hand and five mile would fetch me to Goshen. He was drunk, I reckon.' He told you just exactly wrong. Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight. Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it.

So she put me up a snack and says, Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer up prompt now. Don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first? The hind end, mum. Well, then, a horse. The forward end, Mum. Which side of a tree does the moss grow on? North side. If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with their heads pointed the same direction? The whole fifteen, Mum. Well, I reckon you have lived in the country. I thought maybe you was trying to hocus me again. What's your real name now? George Peters, Mum. Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's Alexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Alexander when I catch you.

And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle, don't hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it. Hold a needle still and poke the thread at it. That's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff arm from the shoulder like there was a pivot there for it to turn on like a girl, not from the wrist and elbow with your arm out to one side like a boy. And mind you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap, she throws her knees apart.

She don't clap them together, the way you did when you catch the lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threadin' the needle, and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now, trot along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Alexander Peters, and if you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one, and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon. I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house.

I jumped in and was off in a hurry. I went upstream far enough to make the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the sunbonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then. When I was about the middle, I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens. The sound come faint over the water, but clear. Eleven. When I struck the head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be and started a good fire there on a high and dry spot. Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place a mile and a half below, as hard as I could go. I landed and slopped through the timber and up the ridge and into the cavern.

There Jim lay sound asleep on the ground. I roused him out and says, "'Get up and hump yourself, Jim. There ain't a minute to lose. They're after us.' Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word, but the way he worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By that time everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We put out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a candle outside after that. I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece, and took a look, but if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and shadows ain't good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped along down in the shade, past the foot of the island dead still, never saying a word.

12 12 Chapter 12 15:04

This is chapter twelve of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 12. Slow navigation. Borrowing things. Boarding the wreck. The plotters. Hunting for the boat. It must have been close on to one o'clock when we got below the island at last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to come along, We was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinois shore, and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever thought to put the gun in the canoe, or a fishing line, or anything to eat. We was in rather too much of a sweat to think of so many things. It weren't good judgment to put everything on the raft.

If the men went to the island, I just expect they found the camp-fire I built and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayed away from us. and if my building the fire never fooled them, it weren't no fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as I could. When the first streak of day began to show, we tied up to a towhead in a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches with the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like there'd been a cave-in in the bank there. A towhead is a sandbar that has cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth. We had mountains on the Missouri shore, and heavy timber on the Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we weren't afraid of anybody running across us.

We laid there all day, and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and upbound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I told Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that woman, and Jim said she was a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself, She wouldn't sit down and watch a campfire, no sir. She'd fetch a dog. Well, then, I said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog? Jim said he bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and he believed they must have gone uptown to get a dog, and so they lost all that time, or else we wouldn't be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen miles below the village. No, indeedy, we would be in that same old town again.

So I said I didn't care what was the reason they didn't get us as long as they didn't. When it was beginning to come on dark, we poked our heads out of the cottonwood thicket and looked up and down and across, nothing in sight. So Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam. and raised it a foot or more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep, with a frame around it, for to hold it to its place. This was to build a fire on, in sloppy weather or chilly.

The wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra steering oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming downstream, to keep from getting run over. But we wouldn't have to light it for upstream boats, unless we see we was in what they call a crossing, for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water. So upbound boats didn't always run the channel, but hunted easy water. This second night We run between seven and eight hours, with a current that was making over four miles an hour. We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.

It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs, looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it weren't often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next. Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights. Not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, But I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still night.

There weren't a sound there. Everybody was asleep. Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o'clock at some little village and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat, and sometimes I lifted a chicken that weren't roosting comfortable and took him along. Pap always said, "'Take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself—' You can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see Pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway. Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon or a mush-melon or a punkin, or some new corn or things of that kind.

Pap always said it weren't no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time, but the widow said it weren't anything but a soft name for stealing. and no decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right, and Pap was partly right. So the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list, and say we wouldn't borrow them any more. Then he reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantaloupes, or the mush-melons, or what. But towards daylight got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to drop crab-apples and b'simmons.

We weren't feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way it come out, too, because crab-apples ain't ever good, and b'simmons wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet. We shot a waterfowl now and then, that got up too early in the morning, or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we lived pretty high. The fifth night below St. Louis, we had a big storm after midnight, with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of itself. When the lightning glared out, we could see a big straight river ahead, and high and rocky bluffs on both sides. By and by, says I, hello, Jim, look a yonder.

It was a steamboat that had killed herself on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her. The lightning showed her very distinct. She was leaning over with part of her upper deck above water, and you could see every little Chimbley guy, clean and clear, and a chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging on the back of it when the flashes come. Well, it being away in the night and stormy and all so mysterious-like, I felt just the way any other boy would have felt when I see that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river. I wanted to get aboard of her, and slink around a little, and see what there was there. So I says, "'Lis land on her, Jim!' But Jim was dead against it at first.

He says, "'I don't want to go foolin' along her no rack. We's doin' blame well, and we'd better let blame well loan, and, as the good book says, like as not days of watchmen on that rack.' "'Watchmen? You're grandmother,' I says. "'There ain't nothin' to watch but the Texas and the pilot-house, and do you reckon anybody's goin' to risk his life for a Texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when it's likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?' Jim couldn't say nothin' to that, so he didn't try. "'And besides,' I says, "'we might borrow something worth having out of the captain's stateroom—seegars, I bet you, and cost five cents apiece, solid cash.' Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and they don't care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it.

Stick a candle in your pocket. I can't rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go buy this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an adventure, that's what he'd call it, and he'd land on that wreck if it was his last act, and wouldn't he throw style into it? Wouldn't he spread himself, nor nothing? Why— You'd think it was Christopher Columbus discovering kingdom come. I wish Tom Sawyer was here. Jim, he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any more than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning showed us the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the Stabbered Derrick and made fast there. The deck was high out here.

We went sneaking down the slope of it to Labord, in the dark, towards the Texas, feeling our way slow with our feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was so dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the forward end of the skylight and clumb on to it, and the next step fetched us in front of the captain's door, which was open, and by Jim and Eve, away down through the Texas Hall we see a light, and all in the same second we seemed to hear low voices in yonder. Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to come along. I says, All right, and was going to start for the raft. But just then I heard a voice wail out and say, Oh, please don't, boys.

I swear I won't ever tell. Another voice said, Pretty loud. It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always want more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, because you've swore it if you didn't, you'd tell. But this time you've said it just one time too many. "'You're the meanest, treacherous hound in this country.' By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-bilein' with curiosity, and I says to myself, "'Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and so I won't either. I'm a-goin' to see what's goin' on here.' So I dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till there warn't but one stateroom twixt me and the cross-hall of the Texas.

Then in there I see a man stretched on the floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol. This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor and saying, "'I'd like to, and I order to—I mean skunk.' The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, "'Oh, please don't, Bill. I ain't ever going to tell.' And every time he said that, the man with the lantern would laugh and say, "'Teed you ain't. You never said no truer thing'n that, you betcha.' And once he said, "'Hear him beg, and yet if we hadn't got the best of him and tied him, he'd a killed us both. And what for? Just for nothing. Just because we stood on our rights, that's what's for.

But I lay you ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put up that pistol, Bill.' Bill says, "'I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him.' "'And didn't he kill ol' Hatfield just the same way, and don't he deserve it?' But I don't want him killed, and I've got my reasons for it. "'Bless your heart for them words, Jake Packard. I'll never forget you long as I live,' says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering. Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail, and started toward where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn't make very good time. So, to keep from getting run over and catched, I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side.

The man came pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to my stateroom he says, "'Here! Come in here!' And in he come and bill after him. But before they got in I was up in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there with their hands on the ledge of the berth and talked. I couldn't see them, but I could tell where they was by the whiskey they'd been having. I was glad I didn't drink whiskey, but it wouldn't make much difference anyway, because most of the time they couldn't a treed me, because I didn't breathe. I was too scared. And besides, a body couldn't breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says, "'He said he'll tell, and he will.

If we was to give both our shares to him now, it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way we've served him.' Sure, as you're born, he'll turn state's evidence. Now you hear me? I'm for putting him out of his troubles. "'So am I,' says Packard, very quiet. "'Blame it. I'd sort of begun to think you wasn't. Well, then, that's all right. Let's go and do it. Hold on a minute. I ain't had my say yet. You listen to me. Shootin's good, but there's a quieter way if the thing's got to be done. But what I say is this—' It ain't good sense to go courtin' round after a halter if you can get at what you're up to in some way that's just as good, and at the same time don't bring you into no risks.

Ain't that so? You bet it is. But how you going to manage it this time? Well, my idea is this. We'll rustle around and gather up whatever pickings we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now, I say, it ain't a-goin to be more'n two hours before this rack breaks up and washes off down the river, see. He'll be drowned, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that's a considerable sight better'n killing of him. I'm unfavorable to killing a man as long as you can get around it. It ain't good sense. It ain't good morals. Ain't I right?" Yes, I reckon you are. But s'pose she don't break up and wash off. We can wait the two hours anyway, and see, can't we?

All right, then. Come along. So they started, and I lit out all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there, but I said in a kind of coarse whisper, Jim! And he answered up right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says, Quick, Jim! It ain't no time for foolin' round and moanin'. There's a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set her driftin' down the river so these fellows can't get away from the wreck, there's one of them goin' to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat, we can put all of them in a bad fix, for the sheriff'll get them. Quick, hurry! I'll hunt the labbered side, you hunt the stabbered. You start at the raft, and—oh, my lordy, lordy raft!

They ain't no raff no more. She done broke loose and gone, and here we is.

13 13 Chapter 13 10:27

This is chapter thirteen of Huckleberry Finn. This is the recording is in the public domain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 13. Escaping from the wreck, the watchman sinking. Well, I catched my breath, and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that. But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd got to find that boat now—had to have it for ourselves. So we went a quaking and shaking down the stabbard side, and slow work it was, too, seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he could go any further, so scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, Come on. If we get left on this wreck, we are in a fix sure.

So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the Texas, and found it, and then scrambled along forward on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-haul door, there was the skiff, sure enough. I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would have been aboard her, but just then the door opened, one of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone. But he jerked it in again and says, "'Heave that blame lantern out of sight, Bill.' He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and set down. It was Packard.

Then Bill—he come out and got in. Packard says in a low voice, "'Already. Shove off.' I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says, "'Hold on. Did you go through him?' "'No. Didn't you?' "'No. So he's got his share of the cash yet.' "'Well, then, come along. It's no use to take truck and leave money. Say, wouldn't he suspicion what we're up to?' "'Maybe he won't. But we've got to have it anyway. Come along.' So they got out and went in. The door slammed, too, because it was on the careen side, and in half a second I was in the boat and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went. We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly even breathe.

We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the paddle-box and past the stern. Then in a second or two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe and knowed it. When we was three or four hundred yards downstream we see the lantern show like a little spark at the Texas door for a second, and we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was. Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men. I reckon I hadn't had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix.

I says to myself, there ain't no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet. Then how would I like it? So I says to Jim, the first light we see will land a hundred yards below it, or above it, in a place where it's a good hiding place for you and the skiff, and then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang, and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their time comes. But that idea was a failure, for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light showed. Everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, watching for lights, and watching for our raft. After a long time the rain lit up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering, and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we made for it.

It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We seen a light now, way down to the right on shore, so I said I would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told Jim to float along down and show a light when he judged he'd gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come. Then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it, three or four more showed, up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by, I see it was a— Lantern, hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. I skimmed around for the watchman, wondering whereabouts he slept, and by and by found him roosting on the bits forward, with his head down between his knees.

I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry. He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way, but when he see it was only me, he took a good gap and a stretch, and then he says, "'Hello! What's up?' Don't cry, Bob. What's the trouble?' I says, "'Pap, and ma'am, and sis, and—'," then I broke down. He says, "'Oh, dang it now! Don't take on so. We all has to have our troubles, and this'll come out all right. What's the matter with them?' "'There—there—are you the watchman of the boat?' "'Yes,' he says, kind of pretty well satisfied like. "'I'm the captain, and the owner, and the mate, and the pilot, and watchman, and head-deck-hand. "'And sometimes I'm the freight and passengers.

I ain't as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame-generous and good to Tom, Dick, and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does. But I've told him many a time that I wouldn't trade places with him, for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me. And I'm durned if I'd live two mile out of town, where there ain't nothing ever going on, not for all his spondylics and as much more on top of it, says I. I broke in, and says, "'They's in an awful peck o' trouble, and—' "'Who is?' "'Why, Pap and Mam and Sis and Miss Hooker, and if you'd take your ferry-boat and go up there—' "'Up where? Where are they?' "'On the wreck.' "'What wreck?' "'Why, there ain't but one.' "'Why, you don't mean the Walter Scott?' "'Yes.' "'Good land!

What are they doing there, for gracious sake?' "'Well, they didn't go there a purpose.' I bet they didn't. Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for them if they don't git off mighty quick. Why, how in the nation do they ever git into such a scrape? Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town. Yes, Booth's Landing. Go on. She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman and a horse fairy to stay all night at her friend's house. Miss—what you may call her—I disremember her name. "'And they lost their steering oar, and swung around, and went a-floatin' down, stern first, about two mile, and saddlebags on the wreck.

And the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost. But Miss Hooker, she made a grab, and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our trading scowl, and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was right on it. And so we saddlebags—' But all of us was saved but Bill Whipple, and oh, he was the best critter. I most wished had been me, I do. My, George, it's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what did you all do? Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't make nobody hear. So Pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and Miss Hooker, she said, if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing.

I made the land about a mile below and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do something, but they said—why, in such a night and such a current, There ain't no sense in it. Go for the steam ferry. Now, if you'll go and—by, Jackson, I'd like to and blame it. I don't know, but I will. But who in the dinged nations are going to pay for it? Do you reckon your pap? Why, that's all right. Miss Hooker, she told me particular that her uncle Hornback—great guns! Is he her uncle? Look it here. You break for that light over yondy way, and turn out west when you get there, and about a quarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern. Tell him to dart you out to Jim Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill.

And don't you fool around any, because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself now. I'm a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer." I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among the wood-boats, for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferry-boat start. But take it all around, I was feeling rather comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would have done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and deadbeats is the kind of the widow and good people takes the most interest in.

Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky and sliding along down. A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there weren't much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a little, but there wasn't any answer. All dead still. I felt a little bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could stand it, I could. Then here comes the ferry-boat. So I shoved for the middle of the river on a long downstream slant, and when I judged I was out of eye-reach, I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle Hornback would want them, and then pretty soon the ferry-boat give it up and— went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-boomin'-down the river.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up, and when it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got there, the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east, so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.

14 14 Chapter 14 8:29

This is chapter fourteen of Huckleberry Finn. This is the recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 14. A General Good Time. The harem. French. By and by when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole off in the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spy-glass, and three boxes of cigars. We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of our lives. The cigars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the woods, talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferry-boat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures, but he said he didn't want no more adventures.

He said that when I went into Texas, and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone, he nearly died. Because he judged it was all up with him anyway it could be fixed, for if he didn't get saved, he would get drowned, and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him south, sure. Well, he was right. He was most always right. He had an uncommon level head for a nigger. I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty and your grace and your lordship and so on, instead of mister, and Jim's eyes bugged out and he was interested.

He says, "'Ah, didn't know dey was so many of em. I ain't heard about none of em, scasely, but old King Solomon, unless you counts dem kings that's in your pack of your cards,' How much do a king get? Get? I says. Why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it. They can have just as much as they want. Everything belongs to them. Ain't that gay. And what have they got to do, Huck? They don't do nothing. Why, how you talk? They just set around. No, is that so? Of course it is. They just set around, except maybe when there's a war, then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy round, or go hawking—just hawking, and sp—sh—d'ye hear noise? We skipped out and looked, but it weren't nothing but the flutter of a steamboat's wheel way down, coming round the point, so we come back.

"'Yes,' says I. "'And other times, when things is dull, they fuss with a parleyment. And if everybody don't go just so, he whacks their heads off. But mostly they hang around the harem.' "'Round a which?' "'Harem. What's the harem? The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem? Solomon had one. He had about a million wives. Why, yes, that's so. I done forgot it. A harem's a bauden-house, I reckon. Most likely dey has rackety times in de nursery. I reckon de wives quarrels considerable, and dat creased the racket. Yet dey say Solomon de wisest man de ever live. I don't take no stock in that. Because, why, would a wise man want to live in the midst of such a blim-blammin' all the time?

No, Deedee wouldn't. A wise man had taken and built a biler factory, and then he could shut down the biler factory when he want to rest. Well, but he was the wisest man anyway, because the widow she told me so, her own self. I don't care what the widder say. He warn't no wise man another. He had some of their dad fetch in his ways I ever see. "'Does you know about that chile, that he was gwine to chop in two?' "'Yes. The widow told me all about it.' "'Well, then, weren't that the beatenest notion in the world?' "'You just take a look at it a minute. There's the stump. There. That's one o the women. Here's you. That's the other one. I's Solomon. And this year dollar bills the chile. Before you claims it, what does I do?' "'Dos I shin round mong the neighbors, and find out which un you de bill do belong to, and hand it over to the right one, all safe and sound, the way de anybody de any gumption would?' "'No.

I taken a whack de bill in two, and give half in it to you, and de other half to de other woman. That's de way Solomon is going to do with de child. Now I want to ask you, what's de use of de half a bill?' Can't buy nothin' with it. What is the use of a half a child? I wouldn't give a durn for a million of them. But hang it, Jim. You clean missed the point. Blame it. You've missed it a thousand mile. Who, me? Go long. Don't talk to me about your pints. I reckon I know sense when I sees it, and there ain't no sense in such doin's that. Dispute warn't about half a child. Dispute was about a whole child. And the man that think he can settle a spute about a whole child with a half a child don't know enough to come in out of the rain.

Don't talk to me about Solomon, Huck. I knows him by the back. But I tell you, you don't get the point. Blame the point. I reckon I knows what I knows. And mind you, the real pint is down further. It's down deeper. It lays in the way Solomon was raised. You take a man that's got only one or two chillen, is that man going to be waistful of chillen? No, he ain't. He can't ford it. He know how to value him. But you take a man that's got about five million children running around the house, and it's different. He as soon chop a child in two as a cat. They's plenty more. A child or two, more less, weren't no consequence to Solomon, that fetch him. I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there weren't no getting it out again.

He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other things, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis XVI that got his head cut off in France long time ago, and about his little boy the Dolphin. It would be a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there. Poor little chap! But some says he got out and got away and come to America. That's good. But he'll be pretty lonesome. They ain't no kings here, is they, Huck? No. "'Den he can't get no situation. What are you going to do?' "'Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police. Some of them learns people how to talk French.' "'Why, Huck, don't the French people talk the same way we does?' "'No, Jim.

You couldn't understand a word they said. Not a single word.' "'Well, now, I'll be ding-busted.' "'How did that come?' "'I don't know, but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.' "'S'pose a man was to come to you and say, "'Polly, vous, Francie,' what would you think?' "'I wouldn't think nothing. I'd take and bust him over the head—that is, if he weren't white. I wouldn't allow no nigger to call me that.' "'Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, "'Do you know how to talk French?' "'Well, then, why couldn't he say it?' "'Why, he is saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it. Well, it's a blame-ridiculous way, and I don't want to hear no more about it.' They ain't no sense in it.

Look here, Jim. Does a cat talk like we do? No, a cat don't. Well, does a cow? No, a cow don't neither. Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat? No, they don't. It's natural and right for them to talk different from each other, ain't it? Course. And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us? Why, most surely it is. Well, then— Why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that. Is a cat a man, Huck? No. Well then, there ain't no sense in a cat talking like a man. Is a cow a man? Or is a cow a cat? No, she ain't neither of them. Well then, she ain't got no business to talk like either one or t'other of them. Is a Frenchman a man?

Yes? Well then, dad blame it. Why don't he talk like a man? You answer me that. I see it warn't no use wasting words. You can't learn a nigger to argue, so I quit.

15 15 Chapter 15 13:02

This is chapter 15 of Huckleberry Finn. This is the public domain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 15 Huck loses the raft. In the fog. Huck finds the raft. Trash. 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 the fog. But when I paddled ahead in the canoe with a line to make fast, there weren'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 weren'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 the towhead.

That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead weren'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 the dead man. Thinks I—it won't do to paddle—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 hand still at such a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewhere 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 t'other, 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 downstream, and I was all right if that was Jim, and not some other raftman hollering.

I couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, but nothing don't look natural nor sound natural in a fog. The whooping went on. and in about a minute I come a-boomin' 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 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 t'other 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 miles long, and more than 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 miles an hour. But you don't ever think of that. No, you feel like you're 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 the 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 towheads, 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 heard 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 know to 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 reckon 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 catnap. But I reckon it was more than a catnap, 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 began 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 thickest kind of timber on both banks, just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked away downstream and seen a black speck on the water.

I took after it, but when I got to it, it weren't nothing but a couple of saw-logs made fast together. Then I see another speck and chase that, then another, and this time—I was right. It was the raft. When I got to it, Jim was sitting 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 began to gap, and stretched my fists out against Jim, and says, "'Hello, Jim. Have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?' Goodness gracious, is that you, Huck? "'And you ain't dead?

You ain't drowned? You's back again?' "'It's too good for true, honey. It's too good for true. Let me look at you, child. Let me feel you.' "'No, you ain't dead. You's back again. Lies in the sound. Just the same old huck. The same old huck. Thank to goodness.' "'What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinkin?' "'Drinkin'? Has I been a-drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'? Well, then, what's—' "'Make you talk so wild.' "'How does I talk wild?' "'How? Why, ain't you been talking about my coming back and all that stuff, as if I'd been gone away?' "'Huck, huck, fin, you look me in the eye, look me in the eye. Ain't you been gone away?' "'Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean?

I ain't been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?' "'Well, "'Look here, boss. There's something wrong. There is—is I me, or—who is I? Is I here, or—what is I? Now—that's what I want 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 this. Didn't you towed out the line in the canoe for—to make fast to the toe-head?' "'No, I didn't. What toe-head?' "'I ain't seen no tow-head.' "'You ain't seen no tow-head. Look here. Didn't the line pull loose, and the raft go a-humming down the river, and leave you and the canoe behind in the fog?' "'What fog?' "'Why, the fog—the fog that's been round all night. And didn't you whoop, and—and didn't I whoop, and tell—tell we were—got mixed up in the islands, and—and one of us got loss, and t'other—t'other one was just as good as loss, in case he didn't know where he was.' "'Din't I bust up agin a lot o them islands, and have a turrible time, and most get drownded?

Ain't dat so, boss? Ain't it so? You answer me dat. "'Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I ain't seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothin. I've been settin' here talkin' with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I'd done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so course you've been dreaming. "'Dat fetch it! How is I gwine 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 just 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, then, huh. I reckon I did dream it, Huck, but—' Dog my cats if it ain't the powerfulest dream I ever see, and I ain't ever had no dream for that tired me like this 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 interpret it, because it 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, instead 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 on to 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 ore. You could see them first-rate now. Jim looked at the trash, 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 stand for?' "'I's gwine tell you.' When I got all wore out with work, and with the calling for you, and went to sleep, my heart was most broke because you was loss, and I didn't care no more what become me and the raff. And when I wake up and find you back again, all safe and sound, the tears come, and I could have got down on my knees and kiss your foot, I so thankful. and all you was thinking about was how you could make a fool if old Jim would a lie.

Dat truck dere is trash, and trash is what people is dat puts dirt under head of their friends, and 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 kiss 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 knowed it would make him feel that way.

16 16 Chapter 16 17:53

This is chapter 16 of Huckleberry Finn. This is a living box recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 16. Expectation. A white lie. Floating currency. Running by Cairo. Swimming ashore. 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 campfire in the middle, and a tall flagpole 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 weren'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 the 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 weren'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'd seen it, but if he missed it, he'd be in a slave country again, and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says, Dash he is! But it weren't. It was jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning-bugs. So he sat 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 stayed 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. Conscious, up and says, every time. But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could have 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, Dazz 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 abolitionist to go and steal them.

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dare 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 L.' I think, Si, 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'n 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 safe, Huck, we safe!' Jump up and crack your heels. That's the good old Cairo at last. I just knows it. I says, I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know. He jumped up and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to sit on, and give me the paddle, and as I shoved off, he says, Poddy soon I'll be a-shoutin' for joy, and I'll say it's all on accounts of Huck. I's a free man, and I couldn't ever been free if it hadn't been for Huck.

Huck done it. Jim won't ever forget you, Huck. Used de best friend Jim's ever had, and used de only friend old 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, "'Dar you goes. De old true Huck,' De only white gentleman to ever kept his promise to old 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 says, What's that yonder? Piece of a raft, I says.

Do you belong in 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 a prompt. I tried to, but 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 suppose 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'd 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—the—well, it ain't anything much. They stopped pulling. It weren't but a mighty little ways to 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 better for you. I will, sir, I will, honest. But don't leave us please. It's the—the—the—the— "'Gentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead and let me heave you the headline, you won't have to come near the raft.

Please do.' "'Set her back, John, set her back,' says one. They backed water. "'Keep away, boy, keep to the Lord. 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? You want to spread it all over?' "'Well,' says I, blustering, "'I've told everybody before, and 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, or 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 $20 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'd 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. Suppose you a done right, and give Jim up.

Would you felt better than— "'What you do now?' "'No,' says I. "'I'd feel just the same way I do now.' "'Well, then,' says I. "'What's the use of 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 come handiest at the time. I went into the wigwam. Jim weren't there. I looked all round. He weren't anywhere. I says, "'Jim!' Here I is, Huck. Is dey out of sight yet? Don't talk loud." He was in the river, under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I told him they were out of sight, so he come aboard.

He says, "'I was a-listening to all the talk, and I slips into the river, and was goin to shove for shore if they come aboard. Then I was goin to swim to the raft again when they was gone. But, Lawsey, how you did fool him, Huck! That was de smartest dodge! I tell you, child, I speck it save old Jim. Old Jim ain't goin to forget 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 way 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 river with a skiff setting a trot-line. I ranged up and says, Mr. Is that town "'Kayro? No. You must be blame fool. "'What town is it, mister?' "'If you want to know, go find out. "'If you stay here bothering around me for about half a minute longer, "'you'll get something you won't want.' I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never mind. "'Kayro 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 towhead 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, "'Don't let's talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck. I all suspected that rattlesnake's skin weren't done with 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 your fault, Huck. You didn't know. Don't you blame yourself about it. When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, 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 weren't no way to wait for dark. and start back in the canoe and take the chances. So we slept all day amongst the cottonwood 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 weren't anything to say. We both knowed well enough it was some work of the rattlesnake 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'd better do, and found there weren'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 weren't going to borrow it when there weren'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 snakeskin after all that that snakeskin 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 up 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 rather 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, and along comes a steamboat up the river.

We lit the lantern, and judged she would see it. Upstream boats didn't generally 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 and shave us, but she didn't seem to be shearing 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 bulged 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 comes 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 to have plenty of room. I could always stay under water a minute. This time, I reckon I stayed under a minute and a half, and then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits, 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 clumb 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.

17 17 Chapter 17 18:40

This is chapter seventeen of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 17. An Evening Call. The Farm in Arkansas. Interior decorations. Stephen Dowling Botts. Poetical Effusions. In about 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 weren'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 round in the house now, and see a light. The man sung out, "'Snatch that line away, Betsy, you 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. 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. You hear? I didn't hurry. I couldn't if I'd wanted to. I took one slow step at a time, and there weren'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 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 in 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 the range of the front windows.

There weren't none on the side. They held the candle, and took a good look at me, and all said, "'Why, he ain't a shepherdsun. No, there ain't any shepherdsun 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 round 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 long there, though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but a shirt, and he was very frowsy-headed. He came 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 been some, I reckon I'd 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 kept 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 upstairs 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 tell 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 am I going to guess?' says I, when I never heard tell of 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'd 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.' "'D'ye like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness?

You bet I don't, but Mom, she makes me. Confound these old breeches. I reckon I'd better put em on, but I'd rather 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 Arkansas, 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, dratted 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-E-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, the same as houses in town. There weren't no bed in the parlor, nor 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 call Spanish Brown, same as they do in town. They had big brass dog-ilands that could hold up a saw-log. There was a clock in the middle of the mantelpiece, 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 swinging 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 looked different, nor interested. They squeaked through underneath. There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out behind those things. On the table in the middle of the room was a kind of a 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 weren'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 oilcloth, 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, 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-bottomed 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 seen before, blacker mostly than is common. One was a woman in a slim black dress, belted small under the armpits, 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, lass?' Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and nodded there in front of a comb like a chair-back, and she was crying into a handkerchief, and had a dead bird lying 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 fantods. 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 reckon 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 Botts that fell down a well and was drownded. Ode to Stephen Dowling Botts, deceased. 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-Botz. 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-Botz." Despised love struck not with woe that head of curly knots, nor stomach troubles laid him low, young Stephen Dowling-Botts. Oh, 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 have 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 could slap down a line, and if she couldn't find anything to rhyme with it, would just scratch it out and slap down another one and go ahead. She weren't particular. She could write about anything you'd 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, and then the undertaker. The undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was Whistler. She weren't ever the same after that. She never complained, but she kinder 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 scrap-book and read 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 weren'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.

18 18 Chapter 18 25:26

This is chapter 18 of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 18. Colonel Grangerford. Aristocracy. Feuds. The Testament. Recovering the raft. The woodpile. Pork and cabbage. Colonel 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 one of the first aristocracy in our town, and Pap, he always said it, too, though he weren't no more quality than a mud-cat himself. Colonel 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 tailcoat 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, he 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 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 decanter 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 whiskey, 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 their 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 weren't stirred up. But when she was, she had a look that would wilt you 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 weren't used to having anybody do anything for me, but Bucks 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 their horseback from ten or fifteen mile round, and stay five or six days. and have such junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the woods daytimes, 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 Shepardson. They was as high-toned and well-born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing, which was about two miles above our house. So sometimes when I went up there with a lot of our folks, I used to see a lot of 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 come 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 Shepardson. 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 weren'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, t'was 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 Sheppardsons 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 come back when she found the man warn't hurt. Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-crib 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 years ago, or summers along there.

There was trouble about something, and then a lawsuit to settle it, and the suit went again one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit, which he would naturally do, of course, and 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 Shepardson? 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 people, 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 buckshot at him, but he don't mind it, because 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. About 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 blamed foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-comin 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. Instead o jumpin off and takin to the brush, Bud lowed he could outrun him. So they had it—nip and tuck for five mile or more—the old man a-gaining 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 get 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's 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 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 woodpile, and kept his horse before him to stop the bullets. But the Grangerfords stayed 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 them was dead, and another died the next day.

No, sir. If a body's out hunting for cowards, he don't want a fool away any time amongst them shepherdsons, because 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 preferor destination, and I don't know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I 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, and 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 weren't anybody at the church except maybe a hog or two, for there weren't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a punchin' floor in summertime because it's cool. If you notice, Mokes folks don't go to church only when they've got to go, 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, Couldn't find anything else. I couldn't make anything out of that, so I put the paper and the book again, and when I got home and upstairs 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 her 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 weren't anything but a bookmark 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 George, if you'll come down into the swamp, I'll show you a whole stack of water-moccasins.' Thinks I. "'That's mighty curious. He said that yesterday. He ought to 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 dae just a few steps, Mars George.

Daes where they is. I seed him before. I don't care to see him no more.' Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hit him. I poked into the place a ways, and come to a little open patch as big as a bedroom all hung round 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 weren't. He nearly cried he was so glad, But he weren't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard me yell every time, but doesn'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, and couldn't swim fast, so I was a considerable ways behind you towards the last.

When you landed, I reckon'd I could kitch up with you, and land, that having to shout at you. But when I see that house, I begin to go slow. I was off too fur to hear what they say to you. I was afraid of the dogs, but when it was all quiet again, I knowed yous in the house, so I struck out for the woods to wait for a day. Early in the morning some of the niggers come along, going to the fields, and they took me and showed me this place, why the dogs can't track me on accounts of the water, and they brings me truck to eat every night, and tells me how's your getting along. Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim? Well, "'Twer'n't no use to disturb you, Huck, till we could do somethin.

But we's all right now. I've been a-buying pots and pans and vittles, as I got a chance, and a-patching up to raff nights when—'What raff, Jim? Our old raff. You mean to say our old raff weren't smashed all to Flinders? No, she warn't. She would tore up a good deal. One end of her was. But—' "'There'y wasn't no great harm done. Only our traps was most all loss. If we hadn't a dive so deep and swum so fur under water in the night hadn't been so dark, and we warn't so skeered, and been such punkinheads, as they say's is, we'd a seed the raft. But it's just as well we didn't. Case now she's all fixed up again most as good as new, and we's got a new lot of stuff, in the place of what is loss. Why—' How did you get a hold of the raff again, Jim?

Did you catch her? How I going to catch her and eye out in the woods? No. Some of the niggers found her catched on a snag along here in the bend, and they hit her in a crick amongst the willows. And they was so much jawin' bout which in them she belong to do the most that I come to hear bout it potty soon, so Epson settles the trouble by tellin' them she don't belong to none of them. but to you and me, and I asked them if they gwine to grab a young white gentleman's property and get a hiding for it. Then I give them ten cents apiece, and they is mighty well satisfied, and wish some more rouse ud come along and make him rich again. They is mighty good to me, these niggers is, and whatever I wants them to do for me I don't have to ask them twice, honey.

That Jack's a good nigger and putty 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 a-goin' to turn over and go to sleep again, when I noticed how still it was. Didn't seem to be anybody stirring. That weren't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wonderin', and goes downstairs. Nobody around. Everything is still as a mouse, just the same outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the woodpile, I comes across my jack, and says, what's it all about?

Says he, don't you know, Mars George? No, says I, I don't. Well, then, Miss Sophia's run off. Deed she has. She run off in the night sometime. Nobody knows just when. Run off to get married to that young Harney Shepardson, you know, leastwise so they spec. The family found it out about half an hour ago, maybe a little more, and I tell you, they warn't no time lost. Search another hurrying up guns and horses you never see. De womenfolk is gone for to stir up de relations, and old Mars Saul and de boys took de guns and rode up de river road for to try to catch de young man and kill him, for he can git across de river with Miss Sophia. I reckon dey's going to be mighty rough times. Buck went off without waking me up.

Well, I reckon he did. Dey weren't going to mix you up in it. Mars Buck, he loaded up his gun, and allowed he's going to fetch home a shepherds in her bust. Well, there'll be plenty in them da, I reckon, and you bet you'll fetch one if you gets a chanced. I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by, I began to hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log store and the woodpile 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 cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a wood-rank, four foot high, and 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 were 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 halfway 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 woodpile 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 a while, 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 doesn't come down. Buck begun to cry, and rip, and loud 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 have 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 ain'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 a-going to tell all that happened. It would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of them. Lots of times I dream about them. I stayed 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 reckon the trouble was still a-going on.

I was mighty downhearted. So I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go near that house again, because I reckoned I was to blame somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past 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 have 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 creek. 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 land! Is that you, honey? Don't 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, "'Lawz! Bless you, child. I was right down shore.

You's dead again. Jack's been here. He say he reckon you's been shot, case you didn't come home no more. So I was just dis minute a starting to raft down toward the mouth of the crick, so as to be all ready for to shove out, and leave soon as Jack comes again, and tells me for certain you is dead." "'Lawsey, I's mighty glad to get you back again, 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 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 miles 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 nothin' 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.

19 19 Chapter 19 19:01

This is chapter 19 of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 19 Tying up Daytimes. An Astronomical Theory. Running a Temperance Revival. The Duke of Bridgewater. The Troubles of Royalty. 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 daytimes. Soon as night was most gone, we stopped navigating and tied up, nearly always in the dead water under a towhead, 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, perfectly still, just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs are 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, screeching, 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 up by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres. Then the nice breeze springs 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's smiling in the sun, and the song-bird's just going it. A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so— We would take some fish off 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 coffin along upstream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing about her, only whether she was a stern-wheel or a side-wheel. Then for about an hour— There wouldn't be nothin' to hear nor nothin' to see, just solid lonesomeness.

Next you'd see a raft sliding by, way 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 nothin'. 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, lazing 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 bucks 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 the cabin window.

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 lowed they was made, but I lowed they happened. I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could lay 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 lowed they 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 chimbleas, 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 juggle 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 daybreak, 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 cow-pass 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-comin.

They wanted to jump right in, but I says, "'Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet. You 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 soon as they was aboard, I lit out for our tow-head, In about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away, all shouting. We heard them come along towards the creek, 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, 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 breeches stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit galosses. No, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed 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 bald head to the other chap. "'Well, I've been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth, and it does take it off, too, and generally the enamel along with it, but I stayed 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 out with you, and that's the whole yarn. What's yourn? Well, I'd been a-running a little temperance revival about a week. and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was making it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and taking as much as five or six dollars a night, ten cents a head, children and niggers free, and business a growing all the time, when somehow or another a little report got round last night that I had a way of putting in my time with a private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this morning, and told me the people was a-gathering on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon, and give me about 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 the rails, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast. I warn't hungry. "'Old man,' said the young one. "'I reckon we might double-team it together. What do you think?' "'I ain't undisposed. What's your line, mainly?' Jew or printer by trade. Do a little in patent medicines. Theater actor, tragedy, you know. Take a turn to 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 considerable in the doctoring way in my time. Laying on a hands is my best holt for cancer and paralysis and such things, and I can tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out the facts for me.

Preaching's my line, too, and working camp-meadens and missionarying round. Nobody never said anything for a while. Then the young man hove a sigh and says, "'Alas!' "'What are you lassing about?' says the bald head." To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded down into such company. And he began to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag. Darn your skin! Ain't the company good enough for you? Says the bald head, pretty pert and uppish. Yes, it is good enough for me, and 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 poor broken heart,' says the bald head. "'What are you heaving your poor broken heart at us for?' We ain'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 bald head said, 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 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 titles 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 I am, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heartbroken. 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 weren'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 your grace have some of this or some of that?' 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 been snaked down wrongfully out in 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, can 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, That's secret of your being. Speak! Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin. You Bet you Jim and me stare this time. Then the Duke says, "'You are what?' "'Yes, my friend, it is too true. Your eyes is looking at this very moment on the poor, disappeared Dauphin, Louis XVII, son of Louis XVI, and Mary Antoinette.' "'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 in this premature balditude.

Yes, gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wandering exiled trampled on and suffering rightful king of France. Well, we 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'd done before with the Duke, and tried to comfort him. But he said it weren'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 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 stayed huffy a good while, till by and by the king says, "'Like as not!' "'We got to be together a blamed long time on this here raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use of your being sour?

It'll only make things uncomfortable. 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 of things the way you find them,' 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 let's 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 have 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 weren'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 weren't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of Pap, I learned that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let em have their own way.

20 20 Chapter 20 19:21

This is chapter 20 of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 20. Huck explains laying out a campaign, working the camp meeting, a pirate at the camp meeting, the Duke as a printer. They asked us considerable many questions, wanted to know what we covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime 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 allowed 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 miles below Orleans.' Pa was pretty poor, and had some debts.

So when he'd squared up there, warn't nothin' left but sixteen dollars in 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 ketch'd this piece of a raft. So we reckon we'd go down to Orleans on it. Pa's luck didn't hold out. A steamboat run over the ford 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 daytimes 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 daytime 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 today, 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'n Jim's, which was a corn shuck tick.

There's always cobs around about, and the 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'd make 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 ha'reckoned the difference in rank would ha' suggested to you that a corn-shuck bed warn't just fittin' 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, and 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 had come on to rain and blow and thunder and lightning 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 have turned in anyway if I'd have bed. Because the body don't see such a storm as that every day, and the weak not by a long sight. My soul's how the wind did scream along. And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white caps for 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 ho-whack, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom And then, rip, comes another flash and another sock-dollager.

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 weren't no show for me, so I laid outside. I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and the waves weren'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 there weren'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 lit 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 aloud.

One bill said, The celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalwan of Paris would lecture on the science of phrenology at such and such a place, on the day of at Ten cents admission, and furnished charts of character at twenty-five cents apiece. The Duke said that was him. In another bill he was the world-renowned Shakespearean tragedian, and 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 to will hire a hall and do the sword fight in Richard the third, and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. How does that strike you? I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that'll pay, Bilgewater. But you see, "'I don't know nothin' about play-actin, and hain't ever seen much of it. I was too small when Pap used to have him at the palace. Do you reckon you can learn me?' "'Easy! All right. I'm just freezin' for somethin' fresh, anyway. Let's 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 going to look on calm and 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 a 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 nightgown and her ruffled nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts. He got out two or three curtain calico suits, which he said was medieval armor for Richard III, and t'other chap, and a long white cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap 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 gave the book to the king and told him to get his part by heart.

There was a little one-horse town about three miles down the bend, and after dinner the Duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to run in daylight without it being dangerous 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 backyard, and he said everybody that warn't too young or too sick or too old was gone to Camp Meeton, about two miles back in the woods.

The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work that Camp Meeton 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's 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 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 suchlike 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 lindsey-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 tolin'n a 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 began to preach, and began 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! Amen!' And so he went on, and the people groaning and crying and saying, "'Amen!' O come to the mourner's bench! Come, black with sin! Amen! Come, sick and sore! Amen! Come, lame and halt and blind! Amen! Come, poor and needy, sunk in shame! Amen! Come, and 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. Amen, 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 the crowd, they sung and shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild. Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him over everybody. And next he went a charging up on 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 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 Polkville 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 a 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 $80.75, and then he had fetched away a three-gallon jug of whiskey, too, that he found under a wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, Take it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in a 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 so much. He had set up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that printing office, horse-bills, and took the money, $4, and he had got in $10 worth of advertisements for the paper, which he said he would put in for $4 if they would pay in advance, so they done it.

The price of the paper was $2 a year. But he took it in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece, on condition of them paying him in advance. They were going to pay in cordwood 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 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 two-hundred-dollar reward under it. The reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It said he ran away from St. Jack's 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 tonight 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 reckon 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!' "'Dus you reckon we gwine to run cross any more kings on dis trip?' "'No,' says I reckon not. "'Well,' says he, "'that's all right, then. I don't mind one or two kings, but that's enough. Dis one's powerful drunk, and a duke ain't 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.

21 21 Chapter 21 21:06

This is chapter 21 of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 21. Sword Exercise. Hamlet's Soliloquy. They loafed around town. A lazy town. Old Boggs. Dead. 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 the corner of the raft, and pulled off his boots, and rolled up his breeches, 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. He made him sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he'd 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, Romeo. That is the idea. For Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn'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 sword-fight. 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, 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 encores, 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, and 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 led 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 Fardles bear till Burnham would to 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 wouldst 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 born no traveler returns breathes forth contagion on the world, and thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat in the adage, is sicklied o'er with care, And all the clouds that lord o'er our house-tops, 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 rar up behind when he was getting it off. The first chance we got, the Duke, he made 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 weren'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 Arkansas, 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 creek 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 shakley 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. "'Shakespeare Revival! Wonderful Attraction! For One Night Only!' The world-renowned tragedians, David Garrick, the younger, of Drury Lane Theatre, London, and Edmund Keene, the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre, Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime Shakespearean spectacle entitled, The Balcony Scene in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo, Mr. Garrick, Juliet, Mr. Keene, assisted by the whole strength of the company, New costumes, new scenery, new appointments. Also, the thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling broadsword conflict in Richard, the third. Richard, the third, Mr. Garrick. Richmond, Mr. Keene. Also, by special request, Hamlet's immortal soliloquy, by the illustrious Keene.

Done by him three hundred consecutive nights in Paris, for one night only, on account of imperative European engagements. Admission, twenty-five cents, children and servants, ten cents. Then we went loafing around town. The stores and houses was most all old, shakily 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 jimson weeds, and sunflowers, and ash piles, and old curled-up boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles and rags, and played-out tinware. 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 generally 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 Columbus time, like enough. There was generally 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 generally had on yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella, but they 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 breeches 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, Thraker, Hank!' "'Tain't. Ain'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 chawin' by borrowin.' They say to a fellow, "'I wish you'd lend me a chaw, Jack.' I just a minute give Ben Johnson 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 that your sister's cat's grandmother. "'You pay me back the chaw you've already borrowed off'n me, Leif Buckner. "'Then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, "'and won't charge you no back interest another.' "'Well, I did pay back some of it onct.' "'Yes, you did, about six chaws. You buried store tobacco and paid back niggerhead.' Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw, they don't generally cut it off with a knife, but 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 lazing along the street and wallop 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, 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 pan 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 fetch 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 reckon they was used to havin' fun out of Boggs. One of them says, "'Wonder who he's a gwine to chaw up this time. If he'd a chawed up all the men he's been a gwine to chaw up in the last twenty years, he'd a consider a reputation now.' Another one says, "'I wisht old Boggs to threaten me, cause then I'd know I warn't gwine to die for a thousand year.' Boggs comes a-tearin' along on his horse, whoopin' and yellin' like an injin'.

and singing out, "'Clear the track, thar! I'm on a wall-path, and the price of coffins is going to raise!' He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle. He was over fifty years 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 Sherburne, and his motto was, "'Meat first, and spoon vittles to top off on.' He sees me, and rode up, and says, "'Where'd you come from, boy? Are you prepared to die?' Then he rode on. I was scared. But a man says, "'He don't mean nothing. He's always a-carin' on like that when he's drunk.' He's the best naturedest old fool in Arkansas, 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, Sherburnt! Come out and meet the man you've swindled! You're the hound I'm after, and I'm a-gwine to have you, too!' And so he went on, calling Sherburne everything he could lay his tongue to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and going on. By and by, a proud-looking 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 calm 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 weren'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, 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 weren't no use.

Up the street he would tear again and give Sherburne 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 the 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, bare-headed, with a friend on both sides of him, a holt of his arms, and hurrying him along. He was quiet and looked uneasy, and he weren't hanging back any, but was doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody sings out, "'Boggs!' I looked over there 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 a barrel tilted up toward 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 jump 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, "'Oh, 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 Sherburne, 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 scrounging 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 fellas!' "'Tain't right, and tain't fair for you to stay there 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 stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a crooked-handled cane marked out the places on the ground where Boggs stood and where Sherburne stood, and the people following him around from one place to other, and watching everything he'd done, and bobbing their heads to show they understood, and stooping 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 Sherburne had stood, frowning, and having his hat brimmed 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'd 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 Sherburne ought to be lynched. In about a minute, everybody was saying it. So away they went, mad and yelling, and snatching down every clothesline they come to, to do the hanging with.

22 22 Chapter 22 11:50

This is chapter twenty two of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 22 Sherburn. Attending the circus. Intoxication in the ring. The thrilling tragedy. They swarmed up toward Sherburn's house, a-whooping and raging like Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromp 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 scattle back out of reach.

Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to death. They swarmed up in front of Sherburne'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 Sherburne steps out onto the roof of his little front porch, with a double-barreled gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly calm and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave sucked back. Sherburne never said a word, just stood there, looking down.

The stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburne run his eyes 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 Sherburne 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? A man safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind, as long as it's daytime, and you're not behind him.

Do I know you? I know you clear through 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 daytime and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a 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 have 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 on to 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—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 is 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, then broke all apart and went tearing off in every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking tolerable cheap.

I could have stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchmen went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my $20 gold piece and some other money, but I reckon I better save it, because there ain't no telling how soon you're 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 in, two and two, a gentleman and a lady, side by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs, easy and comfortable.

There must have 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. 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, with their heads bobbing and skimming along, away up there under the tent-roof, 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 out in the air, and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center 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 a people. The ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him, but he was back at him quick as a wink with the funniest things the 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 no way understand.

Why, I couldn't have 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 began to holler at him and make fun of him, and that made him mad, and he began to rip and tear. So that stirred up the people, and a lot of men began to pile down off the benches and swarm towards the ring, saying, Knock him down! Throw him out! And one or two women began to scream. So, then, the ringmaster, 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 began to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up, shouting and laughing till 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 a straddle 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 a-going like a house afire, too. He just— Stood up there, a-sailing around as easy and comfortable as if he weren'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 ringmaster. He see how he had been fooled, and he was the sickest ringmaster 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 led on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I wouldn't have 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. There weren'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 Arkansas lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare. What they wanted was low comedy, and maybe something rather 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 hand-bills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said, "'At the court-house, for three nights only, the world-renowned tragedians, David Garrick the younger and Edmund Keene the elder, of the London and Continental Theatres, in their thrilling tragedy of the King's Camel-Leopard, or the Royal Nonesuch, admission fifty 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 Arkansas.

23 23 Chapter 23 13:01

This is chapter 23 of Huckleberry Finn. This is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 23. Sold. Royal Comparisons. Jim Gets Homesick. 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 jammed full of men in no time. When the place couldn't hold no more, the Duke, he quit tending door, and went round the back way, and come on to 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 Keene 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, rings 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 again, and after that they made him do it another time. Well, it would make 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 already for it in Drury Lane. Then he makes them another bow, and says, If he has succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them, he will be deeply obliged, 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 a-going 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 stop to listen. We are sold—mighty badly sold. But we don't want to be the laughing-stock of this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as long as we live. No. What we want is to go out of 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 judge 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 miles below town. The third night the house was crammed again, and they weren't newcomers 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, I bet I do. There was sixty-four of them who 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'd give a fellow a quarter, and told him to tend door for him a minute, and then he started round for the stage door, high 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 downstream, all dark and still, and edging toward the middle of the river, nobody saying a word.

I reckon 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 uptown at all. We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the 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, Green horns, flat heads. 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 could 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 spryse you, dear.'" Way them kings carry 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, these kings of iron is regular rapscallions. That's just what they is—they's regular rapscallions. Well, that's what I'm a-saying. All kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.

"'That so?' "'You read about them once. You'll see. Look at Henry the Eight. This un'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 of them Saxon heptarchies that used to rip round so in old times and raise cane. 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 Gwynne,' 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 Rosamund.' Fair Rosamund answers the bell. Next morning—' Chop off her head. And 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 Doomsday 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 Arne 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. Drowned him in a bud of Mamsey. Like a cat. S'pose people left money laying round where he was. What did he do? He collared it. S'pose 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. S'pose 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 have fooled that town a heap worse than Arn does. I don't say that Arn's 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 this one do smell so like donation, 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 tolerable 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 nearsighted man could tell him from a king. Well, anyways, I don't hanker for no more'n em, Huck. Dees is all I can stand. It's the way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them on our hands, and we've 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 weren't real kings and dukes? It wouldn't have 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 sitting 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 way 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 theirn.

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, "'Poor little Lisbeth, poor little Johnny, it's mighty hard. I speck I ain't ever goin' to see you no more, no more. 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—'I "'What makes me feel so bad this time is because I hear something over yonder on the bank like a whack or a slam while ago, and it'd mind me at the time I treat my little Lisbeth so ornery. She warn't on'y about four year old, and she took the scarlet fever, and had a powerful rough spell. But she got well, and one day she was a-stand around, and I says to her, I says, "'Shet the dough.

She never done it.' "'Just stood there, kind of smiling up at me. It'd make me mad.' "'And I says again, mighty loud, I says, "'Don't you hear me? Shut the door!' "'Just stood the same way, kind of smiling up. I was a-biling. I says, "'I lay, I make you mine.' "'And with that I fetch her a slap side the head that saunt her sprawling. "'Then I went into the other room, and it was gone about ten minutes. "'And when I come back, there was that door a-standin' open yet, and that child standin' most right in it, a-lookin' down, and mournin, and the tears runnin' down. My, but I was mad. I was a-garn for the child, but just then it was a door that open in'ards. Just then, long come the wind and slam it to, behind the child.

Ker-blam! And mighty land, the child never move. My breath most hop out of me. And I feel so, so I don't know how I feel. I crope out all a-tremblin, and crope round and open the dough easy and slow, and poke my head in behind a chile, soft and still, and all of a sudden I says, Pow! Just as loud as I could yell. She never budge. Oh, Huck, I bust out a-crying, and grab her up in my arm, and say, Oh, the poor little thing, the Lord God I might have forgave poor old Jim, because he never going to forgive hisself as long as he live. Oh, she was plumb, deef, and dumb, Huck, plumb, deef, and dumb, and I'd been a-treating her so.

24 24 Chapter 24 13:07

This is chapter XXIV of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter XXIV. Jim in royal robes. They take a passenger. Getting information. Family grief. Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow-toe 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 a rope. You see, when we left him all alone, we had to tie him, because if anybody happened on to 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 a King Lear's outfit. It was a long curtain calico gown, and a white horsehair wig and whiskers, and then he took his theater 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 drowned nine days, blamed if he weren'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 that 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 lying 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 nonsuch again, because there was so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe the news might have 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 Arkansas village. And the king, he lowed he would drop over 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'd 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 miles above the town. Been there a couple hours, taking on freight," says the king. Seems 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.

"'Runner nose in shore,' says the king. I done it. "'Were you bound for a young man?' "'Far the steamboat. Goin to Orlans.' "'Git aboard,' says the king. "'Hold on a minute. My servant'll help you with them bags. Jump out and help 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 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 miles 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.

Wilkes, 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, Alexander Blodgett, Reverend Alexander Blodgett, I suppose I must say, as I'm one of the Lord's poor servants. But still I'm just as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilkes 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 poor 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 deep and dumb one. William ain't more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter and George were 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 him word? Oh, yes, a month or two ago, when Peter was first took, because Peter said then that he sort of felt like he weren't going to get well this time. You see, He was pretty old, and George's girls 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 girls 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? Where 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 have got the letter at all, you know.' "'Too bad. Too bad he couldn't live to see his brothers, poor soul.

You're going into Orleans, you say?' "'Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in a ship next Wednesday for Rio Janeiro, where my uncle lives.' "'It's a pretty long journey, but it'll be lovely. Wish'd I was going. 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 hair-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 Baptist preacher, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackelford, 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 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 Wilkeses, 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. And 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 Wilkes well off?" Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it's reckoned he left three or four thousand in cash hit up summers. When did you say he died? I didn't say, but it was last night. Funeral tomorrow, likely. Yes, about 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 t'other side, go over there and get him, and tell him to get 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 a-going to try to, but he really done it pretty good, and 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 histronick 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 miles, they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and said they wouldn't land us. But the king was calm. 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 him, 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 flock down when they see the yawl a-comin, and when the king says, "'Kin any of you gentlemen tell me where Mr.

Peter Wilkes lives?' They give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads as much as to say, "'What'd I tell you?' and 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 critter 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 round, blubbering, and makes 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 I ever struck, well—well, The men gathered round 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.

25 25 Chapter 25 16:27

This is chapter XXV of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter XXV. Is it them? Singing the doxologer. Awful square funeral orgies. A bad investment. 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 soldiers' 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 were 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 hair-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 round 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.

and people saying, shh, and all the men taking their hats off and drooping their heads, so you could have 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 have heard them to Orleans most. And then they put their arms round each other's necks 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 had never seen 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 led on to pray all to themselves.

Well, when it come to that, it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and everybody broke down and went 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 toward 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 himself loose, and goes to crying fit to burst. And the minute the words were out of his mouth, somebody over in the crowd struck up the doxologer, 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.

Viz. 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 t'other world, and the preacher was p'intin' him right. Lawyer Bell was away up to Louisville on business. But the rest was on hand, and 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 parcel of sap-heads, whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands, and said, "'Go!

Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!' all the time, like a baby that can't talk. So the king he blattered 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 of 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 nothing. Oh, no, I reckon not. Why, Bilgey, it—' beats the nunsush, 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'ers that's got left is the line for you and me, Bilge.

This here comes of trustin to providence. It's the best way in the long run. I've tried them all, and there ain't no better way. Most everybody would have 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 care nothing about that.

It's the count I'm thinking about. We want to be awful square and open and above board here, you know. We want to lug this here money upstairs and count it before everybody. Then there ain't nothing suspicious. But when the dead man says there's six thousand dollars, you know, we don't want to—hold on, says the Duke. Let's make up the deficit. and he begun to haul out yaller boys out of his pocket. "'It's a most amazin' good idea, Duke. You have got a rattlin' clever head on you,' says the king. "'Blessed if the old nonsuch ain't a heppin' us out again.' 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.

Let's go upstairs 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 ever a man struck. You have certainly got the most astonishing head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge. There ain't no mistake about it. Let em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to. This'll lay em out. When we got upstairs, everybody gathered 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 again, 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 sorrows. He has done generous by these ye 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 have done more generous by him if he hadn't been afeared a woundin' his dear William and me. Now, wouldn't he? There ain't no question about it in my mind. Well, then, what kind of brothers would it be that'd stand in his way at such a time? And what kind of uncles would it be that'd rob, yes, rob, such poor sweet lambs as these that he loved so at such a time? If I know William, and I think I do, he—well, I'll just ask him.

And he turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the Duke with his 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, Joiner, 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 hair-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 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 being particular friends of the deceased. That's why they're invited here this evening. But tomorrow we want all to come everybody, for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fitting that his funeral orgies should be public.' So he went a-moonin' 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 all is right, asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeral, wants me to make them all welcome. But he needn't have worried. It was just what I was at. Then he weaves along again, perfectly calm, 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 being 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 out in a Greek orgo, outside, open, abroad, and the Hebrew jesum, to plant, cover up, hence inter. So, you see, funeral orgies is an opener public funeral. He was the worst I ever struck. The iron-jawed man, he laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, "'Why, doctor!' and Abner Shackelford says, "'Why, Robinson, ain't you heard the news?' "'This is Harvey Wilkes.' 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 Wilkes' 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 girl's 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 linga no better than what he did, was a fraud and a liar. The poor girl's 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 impostor, has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he 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 Wilkes, 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 hair-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 head and smiled proud, the doctor says, "'All right, I wash my hands of the matter, but I warn you all that a time's a-comin' when you're goin' 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 him to send for you,' which made them all laugh, and they said it was a prime good hit.

26 26 Chapter 26 15:59

This is chapter twenty six of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Twenty Six. A pious king. The king's clergy. She asked his pardon. Hiding in the room. Huck takes the money. Well, When they was all gone, the king, he asks Mary Jane how they was off for spare rooms. 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 weren't. The frocks was hung along a 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 knick-knacks and gym-cracks 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 of 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 sat at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chicken 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 land's sake, did you get these maize and pickles?' And all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know. When it was all done, me and the hair-lip had supper in the kitchen, off for the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up the things. The hair-lip—' She got to pumping me about England, and blessed if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes.

She says, "'Did you ever see the King?' "'Who? William Forth?' "'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—' Arn! On t'other side of 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 summertime, 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, nother. 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? Look here, I says. Did you ever see any Congress water? Yes? Well— "'D'ye have to go to Congress to get it?' "'Why, no.' "'Well, neither does William Forth have to go to the sea to get 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 buy that amount of water way off there at the sea.

They haven't got no conveniences for it.' "'Oh, I see now.' You might have 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, Arne, 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 did 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 him a week. Shucks, they don't all of them preach the same day, only one of them. Well, then, what does the rest of them 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 them better than we treat our niggers?' "'No.

A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs.' "'Don't they give them holidays, the way we do—Christmas, and New Year's week, and Fourth of July?' "'Oh, just listen. Body could tell you hain't ever been to England by that. Why, Harrell—why, Joanna—they never see a holiday from year's end to year's end. Never go to the circus, nor a theater, 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 its being the law.

But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got home I see she warn't satisfied. She says, "'Honest injun! Now ain'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 weren'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, Mame, always sailing in to help somebody before they're hurt. I ain'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 a 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—'I 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 reptile rob her of her money. Then Susan she waltzed in, and if you'll believe me, she did give Harelip heart 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, and when she got done there weren't hardly anything left to poor hair-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 just 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 thinkin' 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 danced to 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 judged. No, there ain't no good way but one.

I got to steal that money somehow, and I got to steal it some way they won't suspicion that I done it. They've got a good thing here, and they ain't a-goin 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 tonight 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. Upstairs 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 doesn't light one, of course. So I judged I'd go to do the other thing, lay for them and eavesdrop. About that time I hears their footsteps coming, and I 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're up to anything private.

They sets down then, and the King says, "'Well, what is it?' "'And cut it middling short, because it's better for us to be down there a-whooping up the morning than up here giving them a chance to talk us over.' "'Well, this is it, It ain't easy. It 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, especially seeing we got it so easy. Given back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of course we allow 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 have 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 of the property. March off like a passel of fools and leave eight or nine thousand dollars' worth of property laying round just sufferin' to be scooped in, and all good saleable stuff, too." The duke, he crumbled, 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 robin' of nothin' at all but just this money. The people that buys the property is the sufferers, "'cause as soon as it's found out that 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 again, and that's enough for them.

They're young and spry and g'n'easy earn a livin. They ain't a-goin' to suffer. Why, just think, there's thousands and thousands that ain't nigh so well off. Bless you, they ain't got nothin' to complain of. Well— The king, he talked him blind, so at last he given, and said all right, but said he believed it was blame foolishness to stay and that doctor hanging over them. But the king says, "'Cause the doctor, what do we care for him? Ain'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 downstairs again, and Duke says, "'I don't think we put that money in a good place.' That cheered me up. I begin to think I warn't going to give a hint of no kind to help me.

The king says, Why? 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 them away, and you reckon a nigger can run across money and not borrow some of it? Your head's level again, Duke," says the king, and he comes 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 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 weren't in no danger of getting stole now.

But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was halfway downstairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I could get a chance to do better. I judged I'd better hide it outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the house a good ransacking. I know that very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes all on, but I couldn't have gone to sleep if I'd 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.

27 27 Chapter 27 14:34

This is chapter twenty-seven of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Twenty-Seven. The Funeral Satisfying Curiosity Suspicious of Huck, Quick Sales and Small Profits. I crept to their doors and listened. They were snoring. So I tiptoed along and got downstairs all right. There weren't a sound anywheres. I peeped through a crack of the dining-room 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 weren'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. 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, and 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 rusk 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 smooch it from him.

Of course, I wanted to slide down and get it out of there, but I doesn'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 downstairs in the morning, the parlor was shut up, and the watchers was gone. There weren'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 doesn't go to look it and utter 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 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 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 weren't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the floor, and blowing noses, because people always blows them more 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 shipshape and comfortable, and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke. He moved people around and squeezed in late ones. He opened up passageways and done it 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 weren't no more smile to him than there is to a ham. They had borrowed a melodium, a sick one, and when everything was ready, a young woman sat down and worked it, and it was pretty squeaky 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. He 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'd gone round two sides of the room, he disappears down cellar.

Then in about two seconds we heard a whack in the dog. He finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and 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 him 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 weren't no more popular man in town than what that undertaker was. Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison along 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 screwdriver. 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, s'pose somebody has hogged that bag on the sly. Now how do I know whether to write to Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up, and didn't find nothin.

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 right at all. The thing's awful mixed now. Try to better it, and I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone. Dead fetch the whole business. They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces again, and I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. "'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 girl's joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king sold them the niggers reasonable. For three-day draughts, 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 have stood it at all, but would have had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed 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 flat-footed and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way. It injured the fraud 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 weren't around. "'Was you in there?' "'Yestiday, or last night?' "'No, Your Majesty.' "'Honor bright, Your Majesty.

I'm telling you the truth. I ain't been in near 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, and I says, Well, I see the niggers go in there several times. Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever expected it, and then like they had, and then the Duke says, What? All of them? No, leastwise 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? Well, 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 nothing. They didn't act anyway much, as fur as I could see. They tiptoed away. So I seen easy enough that they'd shoved in there to do up your Majesty's room or something, s'posin you was up, and found you weren'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 the duke, he busts into a kind of a little raspy chuckle and says, It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand.

They led on to be sorry they was going out of this region, and I believe 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 them. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better layout than that, and here we've gone and sold them 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 of your business.

You keep your head shit, and mind your own affairs, if you got any.' Long as you're in this town, don't you forget that, you hear? And he says to the Duke, "'We got to just swaller it and say nothing. 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 good business, yes.' The king snarls around on him and says, I was tryin' to do for the best in sellin' him out so quick. If the profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considerable, and none to carry, is it my fault, and any more'n it's yourn? Well, they'd be in this house yet, and we wouldn't, if I could have got my advice listened to. The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped round the lidden to 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 have 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-jawin, 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.

28 28 Chapter 28 19:27

This is chapter twenty-eight of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Twenty-eight. The trip to England. The brute! Mary Jane decides to leave. Huck parting with Mary Jane. Mumps. The opposite line. By and by, it was getting up time. So I come down the ladder and started for downstairs. 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 bear 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 weren'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, 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 sat 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 risks, 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 blessed if it don't look to me like the truth is better and actually 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 nothin' like it. Well, says to myself at last, I'm a-going to chance it. I'll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a keg 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. Lothrop's. Why? Never mind why yet. If I'll 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. Lothrop'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'd rather 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 sit down again and says, "'Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell you 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 your'n 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 jolted 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 blamed thing, from where we first struck that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she flung herself on to 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. Certainly! But do you mean before you go to Mr. Lothrop's? 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'd rather 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, ain'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 the daytime without anybody aboard to answer questions but me. So I didn't want the plan to begin working till pretty late tonight." I says, Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay at Mr. Lothrop's so long, n'other. How far 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 tonight, 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. Give me 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 Briggsville, and say they've got the men that played the royal nonsuch, 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 counts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they get that money. And the way we 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. Lothrop'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-faced 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 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 your 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 smooth 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 weren'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 rather not tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't mind letting me off, but I'll write it out for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop'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 Judas. if she took the notion. There weren't no back down 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 ain't ever seen her since that time I see her go out of that door. No, 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 hair-lip, 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 Proctor's, 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 kind of 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's 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 erysoplase, and consumption, and yallerjanders, 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, there 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 numbskullop and says, why, he stumped his toe. Would there be any sense in that? No. "'And then there ain't no sense in this nother. Is it catching? Is it catching? Why, how you talk? Is a harrow catching in the dark? If you don't hitch on to 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 a harrow, as you may say, and it ain't no slouch of a harrow nother you come to get it hitched on good.

"'Well, it's awful, I think. Says the hairlip. 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. Ain't your uncles obliged 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 for 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 pluribusuna 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'd 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? There ain't no way but just to not 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 Apthorpes, ain't it? Of course. Bother them kind of names. Body can't ever seem to remember them half the time somehow. Yes, she said. Say she has run over for to ask the Apthorpes to be sure, and come to the auction and buy this house. Because she allowed her uncle Peter would rather 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 Apthorbs, 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 rather Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Dr. Robinson. I felt very good. I judged I had done it pretty neat. I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't have done it no neater himself.

Of course, he would have 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 toward the end of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, And the old man, he was on hand, and looking his level pisonous, up there alongside 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 generally. 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 giraffe 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 a-yelling and laughing and carrying on and singing out, here's your opposition line, here's your two sets of airs to old Peter Wilkes, and you pays your money, and you takes your choice.

29 29 Chapter 29 20:25

This is chapter twenty-nine of Huckleberry Finn. This is the recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Twenty-nine Contested Relationship. The King explains the loss. A question of handwriting. Digging up the corpse. Huck escapes. 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 soul's 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 stomachache 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 gathered 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 round 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 Wilkes' 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 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 ain'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, lookie here. If you are Harvey Wilkes, when'd you come to this town?' "'The day before the funeral, friend,' says the king.

"'But what time o' day?' "'In the evening. "'About an hour or two before sundown.' "'How'd you come?' "'Come down on the Susan Bell from Cincinnati.' "'Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the pint in the morning in a canoe?' "'I warn't up at the pint in the morning. It's a lie.' Selverdham 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 morning. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up there, and he was up there. I seen him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and a boy. The doctor hee 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, "'Neighbours? I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not, but if these two ain't frauds, I'm 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 accomplices get away with that bag of gold Peter Wilkes 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 are all right. Ain't that so? Everybody agreed to that. So I judge 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 of this miserable business. But alas, the money ain't there. You can 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 it and hid it inside of the straw tick of my bed, not wishing to bank it for the few days we'd be here, And considering the bed a safe place, we not being used to niggers, and s'posin' em honest like servants in England, the niggers stole it the very next morning, after I had went downstairs, and when I sold em, I hadn't missed the money yet, so they got clean away with it. My servant here can tell you about 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 reckon they was afraid they'd 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 even 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 have seen that the old gentleman's 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 Wilkeses, and so on, and I didn't get pretty fur till the doctor begun to laugh, and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says, Sit 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 brothers, and then they'll know it's all right.' So they got some paper and 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 could 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 Wilkes, and here's these two 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—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 come—'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 track of a solution. But it's gone to grass, partly. But anyway, one thing is proved. These two ain't either of them Wilkeses. And he wagged his head toward the king and the Duke. Well, what do you think? That mule-headed old fool wouldn't give in then. Indeed he wouldn't. Said it warn't no fair test. Said his brother William was the cussidest 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 actually beginning to believe what he was saying himself. But pretty soon the new 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 Wilkes for burying?' "'Yes,' says somebody." "'Me and Ab Turner done it. We're both here.' Then the old man turns toward the king and says, "'Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his breast.' Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or he'd a squished 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 squish to get fetched such a solid one as that without any notice, because how was he going to know what was tattooed 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? Potty 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, "'It's a very tough question, ain't it? Yes, sir. I can tell you what's tattooed on his breast. It's just a small, thin blue arrow. That's what it is.' "'And if you don't look close, 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 eyes light 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 Wilkes' breast?' Both of them spoke up and says, "'We didn't see no such mark.' "'Good,' said 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 bellin' of them's frauds. Let's duck em, let's drown em, let'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. "'Hurray!' they all shouted, and was starting right off, but the lawyer and the doctor sang 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 weren'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 darkening up, and the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the winds 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. Instead 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 twixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo 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 Goliath the slip. He dragged me right along, and 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 swooshed 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 scrounge 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 shined for the road in the dark, there ain't nobody can tell. I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew. Leastwise 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 weren'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 began 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 weren'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 have just laid down to blow and gasp if I could afforded it. But I didn't. As I sprung aboard, I sang 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 Arab 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 on to the planks then and give up, and it was all I could do to keep from crying.

30 30 Chapter 30 6:40

This is chapter 30 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 30 The King Went For Him. A Royal Row. Powerful Mellow. When they got aboard, the king went for me, and shook me by the collar, and says, Tryin' to give us the slip, was yer, you pup? Tired of our company, hey? I says, No, your majesty, we weren't. Please don't, your majesty. Quick, then, and tell us what was your idea, or I'll shake the insides out of you. Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it happened, your Majesty. The man that had a holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous fix, and when they was all took by surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets go of me, and whispers, He'll it now, or they'll hang you, sure, and I lit out.

It didn't seem no good for me to stay. I couldn't do nothin', and I didn't want to be hung if I could get away. So I never stopped running till I found the canoe, and when I got here I told Jim to hurry, or they'd catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you when the Duke wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful glad when we see you coming. You may ask Jim if I didn't." Jim said it was so. And the king told him to shut up, and said, "'Oh, yes, it's mighty likely,' and shook me up again, and said he reckoned he'd drowned me. But the duke says, "'Lego the boy, you old idiot! Would you done any different? Did you inquire round for him when you got loose? I don't remember it.' So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in it.

But the duke says, "'You better a blame's sight give yourself a good cussing, for you're the one that's entitled to it most.' You hain't done a thing from the start that had any sense in it, except comin' up so cool and cheeky with that imaginary blue arrow mark. That was bright. It was right down bully, and it was a thing that saved us, for if it hadn't been for that, they'd a jailed us till them Englishmen's baggage come, and then—the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took em to the graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness. For if the excited fools hadn't let go all halts, and made that rush to get a look, we'd slept in our cravats tonight. Cravats warranted to wear, too, longer than we'd need them.

They was still a minute thinkin', then the king says, kind of absent-minded, like, and we reckon the niggers stole it. That made me squirm. Yes, said the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic. We did. After about a half-minute the king draws out. "'Leastways I did.' The duke says the same way. "'On the contrary, I did.' The king kind of ruffled up and says, "'Look here, Bilgewater, what are you referring to?' The duke says pretty brisk, "'When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was you referring to?' "'Shuck,' says the king, very sarcastic. "'But I don't know. Maybe you was asleep and didn't know what you was about.' The duke bristles up now and says, "'Oh, let up on this cussed nonsense!

Do you take me for a blame, fool? Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?' "'Yes, sir, I know you do know, because you done it yourself. It's a lie,' and the duke went for him. The king sings out, "'Take your hands off and lick on my throat! I take it all back,' the duke says. "'Well, you just own up first.' that you did hide that money there, intended to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig it up and have it all yourself. "'Way just a minute, Duke. Answer me this one question, honest and fair. If you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take back everything I said.' "'You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now.' "'Well, then I b'lieve you.

But answer me only just this want more. Now, don't get mad. Didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide it? The Duke never said nothing for a little bit. Then he says, Well, I don't care if I did. I didn't do it, anyway. But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you done it! I wished I never die if I'd done it, Duke, and that's honest. I won't say I weren't going to do it, because I was. But you—I mean, somebody—got in ahead of me. It's a lie. You done it. And you got to say you done it, or— The king began to gurgle, and then he gasped out, "'Nuff! I own up!' I was very glad to hear him say that. It made me feel much more easier than what I was feeling before. So the Duke took his hands off, and says, "'If you ever deny it again, I'll drown you.

It's well for you to set there and blubber like a baby. It's fitting for you, after the way you've acted.' I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everything, and I had trusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for him. It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to believe that rubbish. Cus you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deficit. You wanted to get what money I'd got out of the nonsuch and one thing or another and scoop it all. The king says, timid and still a-snuffling, why, Duke, it was you that said make up the deficit.

It weren't me. Dry up. I don't want to hear no more out of you, says the Duke. And now you see what you got by it. They's got all their own money back and all ourn, but a shekel or two besides. Go long to bed, and don't you deficit me no more deficits, long as you live. So the king sneaked into the wigwam, and took to his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled his bottle, and so in about a half-an-hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got, the lovinger they got, and went off a-snortin' in each other's arms. They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money back again. That made me feel easy and satisfied.

Of course, When they got to snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything.

31 31 Chapter 31 19:09

This is chapter thirty-one of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn.

This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is a book of Huckleberry Finn. This is and mighty long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long gray beards. It was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they begun to work the villages again. First they done a lecture on temperance, but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then, in another village, they started a dancing school, but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does, so the first prance they made, the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town.

Another time, they tried to go at yellacootion, but they didn't yellacoot long till the audience got up and give them solid good cussing and made them skip out. They tackled missionaring, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of everything. But they couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate. And at last they took a change, and begun to lay their heads together in the wigwam, and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it.

We judged they was studding up some kind of worse diviltry than ever. We turned it over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit money business or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show, we would give them the cold shake, and clear out, and leave them behind. Well, Early one morning we hid the raft in a good safe place about two miles below a little bit of a shabby village named Pykesville, and the king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid, whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the royal nonsuch there yet.

"'How's to rob you mean?' says I to myself, and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft, and you'll have to take it out in wondering. and he said if he weren't back by midday, the Duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along. So we stayed where we was. The Duke he fretted and sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't seem to do nothing right. He found fault with every little thing. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come, and no king. We could have a change anyway, and maybe a chance for the change on top of it." So me and the Duke went up to the village, and hunted around there for the king, and by-and-by we found him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bully-ragging him for sport, and he a cussing and a threatening with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to them.

The Duke, he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it, I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see our chance, and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all out of breath, and loaded up with joy, and sung out, "'Set her loose, Jim! We're all right now!' But there weren't no answer. and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was gone. I set up a shout, and then another, and then another one, and run this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching, but it weren't no use. Old Jim was gone. Then I sat down and cried.

I couldn't help it, but I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I'd better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dress so-and-so, and he says, "'Yes!' "'Wherebout?' says I. "'Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here. He's a runaway nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?' "'You bet I ain't. I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out, and told me to lay down and stay where I was, and I done it. Been there ever since. Afeared to come out.' "'Well,' he says, "'you needn't be feared no more, because they got him. He run off from down south, Summers.' "'It's a good job they got him.

Well, I reckon. There's two hundred dollars reward on him. It's like picking up money out in the road. Yes, it is, and I could have had it if I'd been big enough. I see him first. Who nailed him?' "'It was an old fellow, a stranger, and he sold out his chance in him for $40, because he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think of that now. You bet I'd wait, if it was seven year.' "'That's me every time,' says I. "'But maybe his chance ain't worth no more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't straight about it.' "'But it is, though. Straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It tells all about him to a dot, paints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's from below Nerline's.

No-siree, Bob. They ain't no trouble about that speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw at tobacco, won't you?' I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think, but I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers too, for forty dirty dollars. Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he's got to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was.

But I soon give up that notion for two things. She'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungrateful for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again, and if she didn't, Everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me. It would get all round that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom, and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again, I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way. A person does a low-down thing, and then you don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly.

The more I studied about this, the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked the low down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time, from up there in heaven. Whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's one that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further. I most dropped in my tracks. I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame.

Something inside me kept saying, "'There was the Sunday School. You could have gone to it, and if you'd have done it, they'd alert you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.' It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of boy I was, and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It weren't no use to try and hide it from him, nor from me neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart weren't right. It was because I weren't square. It was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all.

I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing, the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was, but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and he knowed it. You can't pray a lie, I found that out. So I was full of trouble, full as I could be, and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea, and I says, I'll go and write the letter, and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my trouble's all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote, Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two miles below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him, and he will give him up for the reward if you send.

Huck Finn. I felt Good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now, but I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking, thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell, and went on thinking, and got to thinking over our trip down the river, And I see Jim before me all the time, in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, instead of calling me so I could go on sleeping.

and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog, and when I come to him again in the swamp up there where the feud was, and suchlike times, and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me. and how good he always was, and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now, and then I happened to look round and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide forever betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute. Sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, "'All right, then.

I'll go to hell,' and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said, and I let them stay said, and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other weren't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again, and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that too, because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog. Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some considerable many ways in my mind, and at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark, I crept out with my raft, and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in.

I slept the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others, and one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe, and cleared for shore. I landed below, where I judged was Phelps' place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her, and sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank. Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it, Phelps Sawmill, and when I come to the farmhouses, two or three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody round, though it was good daylight now.

But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody just yet. I only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below. So I just took a look and shoved along straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was the Duke. He was sticking up a bill for the royal nonsuch, three-night performance, like that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds. I was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says, "'Hullo! Where'd you come from?' Then he says, kind of glad and eager, "'Where's the raft? Got her in a good place?' I says, "'Why, that's just what I was going to ask you, Grace.' Then he didn't look so joyful, and says, "'What was your idea for asking me?' He says, "'Well,' I says, When I see the king in that doggery yesterday, I says to myself, we can't get him home for hours till he's soberer.

So I went a loafing around town to put in time and wait. A man up and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along. But when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me a holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark. Then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, they've got into trouble and had to leave, and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living.

So I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what did become of the raft then? And Jim, poor Jim. Blamed if I know. That is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had made a trade and got $40, and when we found him in the doggery, the loafers had matched half dollars with him, and got every cent but what he'd spent for whiskey. And when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, "'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook us and run off down the river.' I wouldn't shake my nigger, would I? The only nigger I had in the world, and the only property? We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him our nigger. Yes, we did consider him so.

Goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, There weren't anything for it but to try the royal nun such another shake, and I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where's that ten cents? Give it here. I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says— "'Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he'd done that.' "'How can he blow? Ain't he run off?' "'No. That old fool sold him, and never divided with me.

And the money's gone.' "'Sold him?' I says, and begun to cry. "'Why, he was my nigger, and that was my money. Where is he? I want my nigger.' "'Well, you can't get your nigger, that's all, so dry up your blubbering. Lookie here. Do you think you'd venture to blow on us?' Blamed if I think I'd trust you. Why, if you was to blow on us—he stopped, but I never see the Duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I went on a whimperin' and says, "'I don't want to blow on nobody, and I ain't got no time to blow nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger.' He looked kind of bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on his arm, thinking and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says, "'I tell you something.' "'We got to be here three days.

If you'll promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him.' So I promised, and he says, "'A farmer by the name of Silas F.' Then he stopped. "'You see, he's He started to tell me the truth, but when he stopped that way and began to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind, and so he was. He wouldn't trust me. He wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says, "'The man that bought him is named Abram Foster, Abram G. Foster, and he lives 40 miles back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette. All right,' I says. "'I can walk it in three days, and I'll start this very afternoon.' "'No, you won't.

You'll start now, and don't you lose any time about it neither, nor do any gabbling by the way.' Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with us. D'ye hear? That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans. "'So clear out,' he says, and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim is your nigger. Some idiots don't require documents. Leastwise I've heard there's such down south here.' And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting him out. Go long now.

Tell him anything you want to, but mind you don't work your jaw any between here and there. So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I kinder felt like he was watching me, but I knowed I could tire him out at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I stopped. Then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps. I reckoned I'd better start in on my plan straight off, without fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.

32 32 Chapter 32 12:30

This is chapter thirty-two of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Thirty-Two. Still and Sunday-like Mistaken Identity. Up a stump in a dilemma. When I got there, it was all still and Sunday-like and hot and sunshiny. The hands was gone to the fields, and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone, and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves, it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits whispering, spirits that's been dead ever so many years, and you always think they're talking about you. As a general thing, it makes a body wish he was dead, too, and done with it all.

Phelps was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they all look alike. A rail fence around a two-acre yard, a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of different length to climb over the fence with, and for the woman to stand on when they are going to jump onto a horse, some sickly grass patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with a gnat rubbed off. Big double log house for the white folks, hewed logs with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud stripes been whitewashed some time or another. Round log kitchen, with a big broad open but roofed passage joining it to the house. Log smoke house back of the kitchen, three little log nigger cabins in a row t'other side of the smoke house.

One little hut all by itself, away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side. Ash hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut. Bench by the kitchen door with bucket of water and a gourd. Hound asleep there in the sun, more hounds asleep round about. About three shade trees away off in a corner, some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence. Outside of the fence, a garden and a watermelon patch, and then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields, the woods. I went around, and clumb over the back stile by the ash hopper, and started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways, I heard the dim hum of a spinning wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again, and then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead, for that is the lonesomest sound in the whole world.

I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come, for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone. When I got halfway, first one hound and then another got up and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them and kept still, and such another pow-wow as they made. In a quarter of a minute I was kind of a hub of a wheel, As you may say, spokes made out of dogs. Circle of fifteen of them packed together round me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barkin' and howlin'n more a-comin' and you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.

A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling pin in her hand, singing out, Begone, ye tig, you spot, begone, sah! And she fetched first one, and then another of them, and a clip, and sent them howling, and then the rest followed. And the next second half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't no harm in a how, no how. And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl, and two little nigger boys without anything on but tolin'n shirts, and they hung on their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty years old, bare-headed, and her spinning-stick in her hand, and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers was doing.

She was smiling all over as she could hardly stand, and says, It's you, at last, ain't it? I out with a yes'm before I thought. She grabbed me and hugged me tight, and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook, and the tears come in her eyes and run down over, and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, "'You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would, but law's sakes, I don't care for that. I'm so glad to see you. Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up.' Children, it's your cousin Tom. Tell him howdy. But they ducked their heads and put their fingers in their mouths and hid behind her. So she run on. Lies, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away, or did you get your breakfast on the boat?

I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair and set herself down in a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says, "'Now I can have a good look at you, and laws of me, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last. We've been expecting you a couple days and more. What kept you? Boat get aground? Yesum, she—don't say yesum, say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get a ground? I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down, but I go a good deal on instinct, and my instinct said she would be coming up from down towards Orleans.

That didn't help me much, though, for I didn't know the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got a ground on, or—now I struck an idea and fetched it out. It weren't the grounding that— That didn't keep us back up but a little. We blowed out a cylinder head. Good gracious! Anybody hurt? No. M. killed a nigger. Well, it's lucky, because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago, last Christmas, your uncle Silas was coming up from New Orleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder head and crippled a man, and I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well.

Yes, I remember now he did die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification, that was it. He turned blue all over and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch you, and he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago. He'll be back any minute now. You must have met him on the road, didn't you? Oldish man with a—no, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight. And I left my baggage on the wharf-boat, and went looking around the town, and out a piece in the country, to put in the time, and not get here too soon, and so I come down the back way.

Who'd you give the baggage to? Nobody. Why, child, it'll be stole. Not where I hid it, I reckon it won't, I says. How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat? It was kind of thin ice, but I says, the captain see me standing around, and told me I'd better have something to eat before I went ashore, so he took me in the Texas to the officer's lunch, and give me all I wanted. I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the children all the time. I wanted to get them out to one side, and pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show. Mrs. Phelps kept it up, and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak all down my back, because she says, "'But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word about Sis, nor any of them.

Now I'll rest my works a little, and you start up yourn. Just tell me everything. Tell me all about them, all, every one of them, and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told you to tell me, and every last thing you can think of. Well—' I see I was up a stump, and up it good. Providence had stood by me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead. I'd got to throw up my hand. So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to risk the truth. I open my mouth to begin. But she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed, and says, here he comes. Stick your head down lower. There. That'll do. You can't be seen now.

Don't you let on your here. I'll play a joke on him. Children, don't you say a word. I see I was in a fix now. But it weren't no use to worry. There weren't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from under when the lightning struck. I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in, then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps, she jumps for him and says, "'Has he come?' "'No,' says her husband. "'Goodness gracious,' she says. "'What in the world can have become of him?' "'I can't imagine,' says the old gentleman. "'And I must say it makes me dreadful uneasy.' "'Uneasy,' she says. "'I'm ready to go distracted. He must come. And you've missed him along the road.

I know it so. Something tells me so.' "'Why, Sally, I couldn't miss him along the road. You know that.' But—oh dear, dear, what will sis say? He must come. You must a missed him. He—oh, don't distress me any more, and I'm already distressed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind acknowledging it. I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's come, for he couldn't come and me miss him. Sallie, it's terrible, just terrible. Something's happened to the boat, sure. Why— Silas, look yonder up the road. Ain't that somebody coming?" He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed, and give me a pull, and out I come, and when he turned back from the window, there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house of fire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside.

The old gentleman stared, and says, "'Why, who's that? Who'd he reckon tis?' I ain't no idea. Who is it? It's Tom Sawyer. By jings, I most slumped through the floor, but there weren't no time to swap knives. The old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on shaking, and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and cry, and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid and Mary and the rest of the tribe. But if they was joyful, it weren't nothing to what I was. For it was like being born again. I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they froze to me for two hours, and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family—I mean, the Sawyer family—than ever happened to any six Sawyer families.

And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder head at the mouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it, which was all right, and worked first-rate, because— They didn't know but what it would take three days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolt-head, it would a done just as well. Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, "'S'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat.' And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep quiet.

Well, I couldn't have it that way. It wouldn't do at all. I must go up the road and waylay him, so I told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I'd rather he wouldn't take no trouble about me.

33 33 Chapter 33 14:29

This is chapter 33 of Huckleberry Finn. This is a public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 33 A Nigger Steeler Southern Hospitality A Pretty Long Blessing Tar and Feathers So I started for town in the wagon, and when I was halfway I see a wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited till he come along. I says, Hold on, and it stopped alongside, and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so, and he swallowed two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says—I ain't ever done you no harm, you know that. So then—what do you want to come back and haunt me for? I says—I ain't come back. I ain't been gone. When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he weren't quite satisfied yet.

He says, "'Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injin now, you ain't a ghost.' "'Honest injin I ain't,' I says. "'Well, I—I—well, that ought to settle it, of course. But I—I can't somehow seem to understand it no way. Lookie here, weren't you ever murdered at all?' "'No, I weren't ever murdered at all.' I played it on them. You come in here and feel of me if you don't believe me. So he done it, and it satisfied him, and he was that glad to see me again. He didn't know what to do, and he wanted to know all about it right off, because it was a grand adventure and mysterious, and so it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by, and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do?

He said, "'Let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him.' So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says, "'It's all right. I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on its yourn, and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the house about the time you ought to, and I'll go towards town a piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or half an hour after you, and you needn't let on to know me at first.' I says, "'All right.' But wait a minute. There's one more thing—a thing that nobody don't know but me, and that is—there's a nigger here that I'm a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is Jim—old Miss Watson's Jim. He says, "'What? Why, Jim is—' He stopped and went to studying.

I says, "'I know what you say. You say it's a dirty low-down business, but what if it is? I'm low-down, and I'm a-going to steal him.' "'And I want to keep mum and not let on. Will you?' His eye lit up, and he says, "'I'll help you steal him.' Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard, and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation, only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer, a nigger-stealer. "'Oh, shucks,' I says. "'You're joking.' "'I ain't joking, neither.' "'Well, then,' I says, "'joking or no joking, if you hear anything said about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that you don't know nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him.' Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way, and I drove mine.

But, of course, I forgot all about driving slow on accounts of being glad and full of thinking, so I got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and he says—' Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would have thought it was in that mare to do it. I wish we'd have timed her. And she ain't sweated a hair—not a hair. It's wonderful! Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse now—I wouldn't, honest! And yet I'd sold her for fifteen before, and thought t'was all she was worth. That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it weren't surprising, because he weren't only just a farmer. He was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built himself at his own expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too.

There was plenty other farmer preachers like that, and done the same way down south. In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, And Aunt Sally, she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty yards, and says, "'Why, there's somebody come. I wonder who tis. Why, I do believe it's a stranger. Jimmy,' that's one of the children, "'run and tell lies to put on another plate for dinner.' Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger don't come every year, and so he lays over the yaller fever for interest when he does come. Tom was over the style and starting for the house. The wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and he was all bunched in the front door.

Tom had his store clothes on and an audience, and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances, it weren't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He weren't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep. No, he come calm and important, like the ram. When he got in front of us, he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it, and he didn't want to disturb them, and says, Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume? No, my boy, says the old gentleman. I'm sorry to say it. Your driver has deceived you. Nicholas's place is down a matter of three miles more. Come in, come in. Tom, he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, Too late.

He's out of sight. "'Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us, and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols.' "'Oh, I can't make you so much trouble. I couldn't think of it. I'll walk. I don't mind the distance.' "'But we won't let you walk. It wouldn't be southern hospitality to do it. Come right in.' "'Oh, do,' says Aunt Sally. "'It ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world.' You must stay. It's a long, dusty three-mile, and we can't let you walk. And besides, I've already told him to put on another plate when I see you coming, so you mustn't disappoint us. Come right in and make yourself at home. So Tom, he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded and come in.

And when he was in, he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson, and he made another bow. Well, he run on and on and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervous and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape, and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking, but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand and says, "'You audacious puppy!' He looked kind of hurt and says, "'I'm surprised at you, ma'am.' "'You're surprised—why, what do you reckon I am?

I've got a good notion to take, and—say, what do you mean by kissing me?' He looked kind of humble, and says, "'I didn't mean nothing, ma'am. I didn't mean no harm. I—I—I—I thought you'd like it.' "'Why, you born fool!' She took up the spinning stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. "'What made you think I'd like it?' "'Well, I don't know. Only they—they told me you would.' "'They told you I would. Whoever told you's another lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who's they?' "'Why, everybody. They all said so, ma'am.' It was all she could do to hold in, and her eyes snapped and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him, and she says, "'Who's everybody?

Out with their names, or they'll be an idiot short.' He got up and looked distressed and fumbled his hat and says, "'I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told me to. They all said, "'Kiss her,' and said she'd like it. They all said it—every one of them. But I'm sorry, ma'am, and I won't do it no more. I won't, honest.' "'You won't, won't you?' "'Well, I shouldn't reckon you won't.' "'No, man, I'm honest about it. I won't ever do it again—till you ask me—till I ask you.' "'Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days. I lay you'll be the Methuselam numskull of creation before ever I ask you—or the likes of you. Well,' he says, "'it does surprise me so. I can't make it out somehow.

They said you would, and I thought you would, but—' He stopped, and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, "'Didn't you think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?' Why, no, I—I—well, no, I believe I didn't. Then he looks on around the same way to me and says, Tom, didn't you think Aunt Sallie'd open out her arms and say, Sid Sawyer? "'My land,' she says, breaking in and jumping for him. "'You impudent young rascal, to fool a body so,' and was going to hug him, but he fended her off, and says, "'No, not till you've asked me first.' So she didn't lose no time, but asked him, and hugged him, and kissed him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he took what was left, and after they got a little quiet again, she says, "'Why, dear me, I—' I never see such a surprise.

We weren't looking for you at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but him. It's because it weren't intended for any of us to come but Tom, he says. But I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come too. So, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me to by-and-by tag along and drop in and let on to be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger to come. No. Not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to have had your jaws boxed. I ain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care. I don't mind the terms. I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have you hear.

Well, to think of that performance—I don't deny it. I was most putrefied with astonishment when you give me that smack. We had dinner out in that broad, open passage betwixt the house and the kitchen, and there was things enough on that table for seven families, and all hot, too—none of your flabby tough meat that's laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas, he asked a pretty long blessing over it, but it was worth it, and it didn't cool it a bit, neither—the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times. There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me and Tom was on the lookout all the time, but it weren't no use.

They didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper at night, one of the little boys says, Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show? No, says the old man. I reckon there ain't going to be any, and you couldn't go if there was. Because the runaway nigger told Burton me all about the scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the people, so I reckon they've drove the audacious loafers out of town before this time. So there it was, but I couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep in the same room and bed. So— Being tired, we bid good-night, and went up to bed right after supper, and clum out of the window and down the lightning-rod, and shoved for the town, for I didn't believe anybody was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn't hurry up and give them one, they'd get into trouble, sure.

On the road, Tom, he told me all about how it was reckoned I was murdered, and how Pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn't come back no more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away. And I told Tom all about our royal nunsuch rapscallions, and as much of the raft voyage as I had time to. And as we struck into the town, and up through the middle of it—it was as much as half after eight, then—here comes a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling and banging tin pans and blowing horns, and we jumped to one side to let them go by. And as they went by, I see they had the king and the duke a straddle of a rail. That is, I knowed it was the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the world that was human, just looked like a couple of monstrous big soldier plumes.

Well, it made me sick to see it, and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals. It seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another. We see we was too late, couldn't do no good. We asked some stragglers about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very innocent, and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the middle of his cavortings on the stage, then somebody give a signal, and the house rose up and went for them. So we poked along back home, and I weren't feeling so brash as I was before, but kind of Ornery, and humble, and to blame somehow. I hadn't done nothing.

But that's always the way. It don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong. A person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does, I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer, he says the same.

34 34 Chapter 34 11:58

This is chapter thirty-four of Huckleberry Finn. This is a living recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Thirty-four. The hut by the Ash Hopper. Outrageous. Climbing the lightning-rod. Troubled with witches. We stopped talking and got to thinking. By and by, Tom says, Lookie here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before. I bet I know where Jim is. No. Where? In that hut down by the Ash Hopper. Why, lookie here. When we was at dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles? Yes. What did you think the vittles was for? For a dog. So did I. Well, it wasn't for a dog. Why? Because part of it was watermelon. So it was, I noticed it.

Well, it does beat all that I never thought about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see and don't see at the same time. Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked it again when he came out. He fetched uncle or key about the time we got up from table. Same key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock shows prisoner, and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a little plantation, and where the people's all so kind and good. Jim's the prisoner. All right. I'm glad we found it out detective fashion. I wouldn't give shucks for any other way. Now you work your mind, and study out a plan to steal Jim, and I will study out one too, and we'll take the one we like the best.

What a head for just a boy to have. If I had Tom Sawyer's head, I wouldn't trade it off to be a Duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan, but only just to be doing something. I knowed very well where the right plan was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says, Ready? Yes, I says. All right, bring it out. My plan is this, I says. We can easy find out if it's Jim in there, then get up my canoe tomorrow night and fetch my raft over from the island, then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the old man's breeches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and Jim used to do before.

Wouldn't that plan work? Work? Why, certainly it would work, like rats a-fighting, but it's to blame simple. There ain't no nothing to it. What's the good of a plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goose-milk. Why, huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap factory. I never said nothing, because I weren't expecting nothing different, but I knowed mighty well that whenever he'd got his plan ready it wouldn't have none of them objections to it, and it didn't. He told me what it was, and I seen a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it.

I needn't tell what it was here, because I knowed it wouldn't stay the way it was. I knowed he would be changing it around every which way as we went along, and heaving in new bullinesses whenever he got a chance, and that is what he done. Well, One thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in earnest, and was actually going to help steal that nigger out of slavery. That was a thing that was too many for me. Here was a boy that was respectable, and well brung up, and had a character to lose, Folks at home that had characters, and he was bright and not leather-headed, and knowing and not ignorant, and not mean but kind, and yet here he was, without any more pride or rightness or feeling, than to stoop to this business and make himself a shame and his family a shame before everybody.

I couldn't understand it no way t'all. It was outrageous. and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so, and so be his true friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save himself. And I did start to tell him, but he shut me up and says, Don't you reckon I know what I'm about? Don't I generally know what I'm about? Yes. Didn't I say I was going to help steal the nigger? Yes. Well, then, that's all he said, and that's all I said. It weren't no use to say any more, because— When he said he'd do a thing, he always done it. But I couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing, so I just let it go and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound to have it so, I couldn't help it.

When we got home, the house was all dark and still, so we went on down to the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it. We went through the yard so as to see what the hounds would do. They knowed us, and didn't make no more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything comes by at the night. When we got to the cabin, we took a look at the front and the two sides, and on the side I weren't acquainted with, which was the north side, we found a square window hole, up tolerable high, with just one stout board nailed across it. I says, "'Here's the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if we wrench off the board.' Tom says, "'It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three in a row, and as easy as playing hooky.' I should hope we can find a way that's a little more complicated than that, Huck Finn.

"'Well, then,' I says, "'how'll it do to saw him out, the way I done before I was murdered that time?' "'That's more like,' he says. "'It's real mysterious and troublesome and good,' he says. "'But I bet we can find a way that's twice as long. There ain't no hurry. Le's keep on looking around.' Betwixt the hut and the fence on the backside was a lean-to that joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was as long as the hut, but narrow, only about six foot wide. The door to it was at the south end, and was padlocked. Tom, he went to the soap-cattle, and searched around, and fetched back the iron thing they lift the lid with, so he took it, and prized out one of the staples. The chain fell down, and we opened the door, and went in, and shut it, and struck a match.

And see, the shed was only built against the cabin, and hadn't no connection with it, and there weren't no floor to the shed, nor nothing in it but some old rusty played-out hose, and spades, and picks, and a crippled plow. The match went out, and so did we, and shoved in the staple again, and the door was locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful. He says, "'Now we're all right. We'll dig him out. It'll take about a week.' Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door. Only you have to pull a buckskin latch-string. They don't fasten the doors. But that warn't romantical enough for Tom Sawyer. No way would do him, but he must climb up the lightning-rod. But after he got up halfway about three times, and missed fire, and fell every time, and the last time most busted his brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up.

But after he was rested, He allowed he would give her one more turn for luck, and this time he made the trip. In the morning we was up at break of day and down to the nigger cabins to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jim, if it was Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting through breakfast and starting for the fields, and Jim's nigger was piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things, and whilst the others was leaving, the key come from the house. This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his wool was all tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep witches off. He said the witches was pestering him awful these nights, and making them see all kinds of strange things, and hear all kinds of strange words and noises, and he didn't believe he was ever witched so long before in his life.

He got so worked up and got to running on so about his troubles, he forgot all about what he'd been a-going to do. So Tom says, What's the vittles for? Going to feed the dogs? The nigger kind of smiled around gradually over his face, like when you heave a brick-bat in a mud-pottle, and he says, "'Yas, Marseid, the dog. Currie's dog, too. Does you want to go and look at him?' "'Yes.' I hunched Tom in whispers. "'You going? Right here in the daybreak? That warn't the plan.' "'No, it warn't, but it's the plan now.' So drat him we went along, but I didn't like it much. When we got in we couldn't hardly see anything, it was so dark. But Jim was there, sure enough, and could see us, and he sings out, Why, huck, and good land ain't dat, Mr.

Tom. I just knowed how it would be. I just expected it. I didn't know nothing to do, and if I had, I couldn't have done it, because that nigger busted in and says, Why, the gracious sakes, do he know you gentlemen? We could see pretty well now. Tom, he looked at the nigger, steady and kind of wondering, and says, "'Does who know us?' "'Why, dis yer runaway nigger.' "'I don't reckon he does. But what put that into your head?' "'What put it, dar? Didn't he just dis minute sing out like he knowed you?' Tom says in a puzzled kind of way, "'Well, that's mighty curious. Who sung out? When did he sing out? What did he sing out?' and turns to me, perfectly calm, and says, "'Did you hear anybody sing out?' "'Course, there weren't nothing to be said but the one thing, so I says, "'No, I hain't heard nobody say nothing.' Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never seen him before, and says, "'Did you sing out?' "'No, sir,' says Jim.

"'I hain't said nothing, sir.' "'Not a word?' "'No, sir. I hain't said a word. Did you ever see us before?' "'No, sir.' Not as I knows on. So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and says kind of severe. What do you reckon's the matter with you anyway? What made you think somebody sung out? Oh, it's de dat blame witches, Si, and I wish'd I was dead, I do. Dey's allas at it, Si, and dey do most kill me. Dey scares me so. Please to don't tell nobody about it, sa. There old Mars Silas he'll scold me, cause he say they ain't no witches. I just wish to goodness he was here now. Den what would he say? I just bet he couldn't find no way to get around it this time. But it's all is just so.

People did sot stay sot. They won't look into nothing and find it out for'n's theyself, and when you find it out and tell them about it, they don't believe you. Tom gave him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody, and told him to buy some more thread to tie up his wool with, and then looks at Jim, and says, I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give him up. I'd hang him. And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to look at the dime, and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to Jim, and says, Don't ever let on to know us. "'And if you hear any digging going on nights, it's us. We're going to set you free.

Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it, then the nigger come back, and we said we'd come again sometime if the nigger wanted us to. And he said he would, more particular if it was dark, because the witches went for him mostly in the dark,

35 35 Chapter 35 14:41

This is chapter thirty-five of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Thirty-Five. Escaping Properly. Dark Schemes. Discrimination in stealing. A deep hole. It would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down into the woods, Because Tom said we got to have some light to see how to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble. What we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and sat down to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied, blame it.

This whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be, and so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan. There ain't no watchman to be drugged. Now, there ought to be a watchman. There ain't even a dog to give a sleeping mixture to. And there's Jim chained by one leg with a ten-foot chain to the leg of his bed. Why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain. And Uncle Silas, he trusts everybody. Sends the key to the pumpkin-headed nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim could get out of that window-hole before this, only there wouldn't be no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on his leg. Why, drat it, Huck! It's the stupidest arrangement I ever see.

You got to invent all the difficulties. Well, we can't help it. We got to do the best we can with the materials we got. Anyhow, there's one thing— There's more honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties and dangers, where there weren't one of them furnished to you by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all out of your own head. Now look at just that one thing of the lantern. When you come down to the cold facts, we simply got to let on that a lantern's rescue. Why, we could work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe. Now, whilst I think of it, We got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the first chance we get. What do we want of a saw?

What do we want of it? Ain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed off, so as to get the chain loose? Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain off. Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn, you can get up the infant's schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, ain't you ever read any books at all? Baron Trank, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Cellini, nor Henry Fourre, nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of getting a prisoner loose in such an old maidy way as that? No, the way all the best authorities does is to saw the bedleg in two. And leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put some dirt and grease around the sawed place, so the very keenest Senesco can't see no sign of its being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound.

Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes, slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements. Shin down it, break your leg in the moat, Because the rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know. And there's your horses and your trusty vassals, and they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native Languedoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one. I says, what do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under the cabin? But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else.

He had his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head, then sighs again and says, "'No, it wouldn't do. There ain't necessity enough for it.' "'For what?' I says. "'Why, to saw Jim's leg off,' he says. "'Good land,' I says. "'Why, there ain't no necessity for it. And what would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?' "'Well,' Some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved, and a leg would be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity enough in this case. And besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe. So we'll let it go.

There's one thing—he can have a rope ladder—he We can tear up our sheets and make him a rope-ladder easy enough, and we can send it to him in a pie. It's mostly done that way. And I've et worse pies. Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk, I says. Jim ain't got no use for a rope-ladder. He has got use for it. How you talk, you better say. You don't know nothing about it. He's got to have a rope-ladder. They all do. What in nation can he do with it? Do with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what they all do, and he's got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do anything that's regular. You want to be starting something fresh all the time. Suppose he don't do nothing with it. Ain't it there in his bed for a clue, after he's gone?

And don't you reckon they'll want clues? Of course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That would be a pretty howdy-do, wouldn't it? I never heard of such a thing." "'Well,' I says, "'if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it all right, let him have it, because I don't wish to go back on no regulations. But there's one thing, Tom Sawyer, if we go to tearing up our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at it, a hickory-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing.' and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag-ladder you can start. And as for Jim, he ain't had no experience, and so he don't care what kind of a—aw, shucks, Huck, Finn.

If I was as ignorant as you, I'd keep still. That's what I'd do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a hickory-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous. Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way, but if you'll take my advice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothes line. He said that would do, and that gave me another idea, and he says— Borrow a shirt, too. What do we want of a shirt, Tom? Want it for Jim to keep a journal on. Journal your granny. Jim can't write. Suppose he can't write. He can make marks on the shirt, can't he? If we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron barrel-hoop. Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better one, and quicker, too.

Prisoners don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens out of, you muggins. They always make their pens out of the hardest, toughest, and troublesomeest piece of old brass candlestick, or something like that, they can get their hands on. And it takes them weeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. They wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had it. It ain't regular. Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of? Many makes it out of iron rust and tears. But that's the common sort, and women. The best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that, and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window.

The Iron Mask always done that, and it's a blame good way to—'Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan. That ain't anything. We can get him some.' Can't nobody read his plates? That ain't got nothin' to do with it, Huck Finn. All he's got to do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't have to be able to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else. Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates? Why, blame it all. It ain't the prisoner's plates, but it's somebody's plates, ain't it? Well, s'posin' it is. What does the prisoner care whose—he broke off there, because we heard the breakfast horn blowing—so we cleared out for the house.

Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off the clothes line, and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went down and got the fox-fire and put that in too. I called it borrowing, because that was what Pap always called it, but Tom said it weren't borrowing, it was stealing. He said he was representing prisoners. and prisoners don't care how they get a thing, so they get it, and nobody don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said. It's his right, and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves out of prison with.

He said if we weren't prisoners it would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean ornery person would steal when he weren't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was that come handy, and yet he made a mighty fuss one day after that when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger patch and eat it, and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was we could steal anything we needed. Well, I says I needed the watermelon, but he said I didn't need it to get out of prison with. There's where the difference was. He said if I'd a wanted to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the Senescal with, it would a been all right.

So I let it go at that, though I couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon. Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard. Then Tom, he carried the sack into the lean-to, whilst I stood off a piece to keep watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the wood-pile to talk. He says, "'Everything's all right now, "'cept tools, and that's easy fixed. "'Tools?' I says. "'Yes.' "'Tools for what?' "'Why, to dig with. We ain't a-goin to gnaw him out, are we? Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a nigger out with?' I says.

He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says, Huck, Finn, did you ever hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now I want to ask you, if you got any reasonableness in you at all, what kind of a show would that give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and done with it. Picks and Shovels. Why, they wouldn't have furnished them to a king. Well, then, I says, if we don't want the picks and Shovels, what do we want? A couple of case knives. To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with? Yes. Confound it, it's foolish, Tom. It don't make no difference how foolish it is.

It's the right way, and it's the regular way, and there ain't no other way than ever I heard of. And I've read all the books that gives any information about these things. They always dig out with a case-knife, and not through dirt, mind you. Generally it's through solid rock, and it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and forever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castel-Diff in the harbor of Marseilles that dug himself out that way. How long was he at it, you reckon? I don't know. Well, guess. I don't know. A month and a half? Thirty-seven year. And he come out in China. That's the kind. I wish the bottom of this fortress was solid rock. Jim don't know nobody in China.

What's that got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But—you're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to the main point? All right. I don't care where he comes out, so he comes out. And Jim don't either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway. Jim's too old to be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last. Yes, he will last, too. You don't reckon it's going to take thirty-seven years to dig out through a dirt foundation, do you? How long will it take, Tom? Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. He'll hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to advertise Jim, or something like that.

So we can't risk being as long digging him out as we ought to. By rights, I reckon we ought to be a couple of years, but we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this—that we really dig right in as quick as we can, And after that we can let on to ourselves that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch em out and rush em away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon that'll be the best way. Now there's sense in that, I says. Letting on don't cost nothing. Letting on ain't no trouble, and if it's any object, I don't mind letting on. We was at it a hundred and fifty year, and it wouldn't strain me none after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now and smooch a couple of case knives.

Smooch three, he says. We want one to make a saw out of. Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to suggest it, I says, there's an old rusty saw blade around yonder sticking under the weather-boarding behind the smokehouse. He looked kind of weary and discouraged like, and says, "'It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and smooch the knives, three of them.' So I done it.

36 36 Chapter 36 11:08

This is chapter thirty-six of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter Thirty-Six The Lightning Rod His level best, a bequest to posterity, a high figure. As soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night, we went down the lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the way, about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom said he was right behind Jim's bed now, and we dig in under it, and when we got through, there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole there, because Jim's counterpin hung down most to the ground, and you'd have to raise it up and look under to see the hole.

So we dug and dug with the case knives till most midnight, and then— We was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn't see we'd done anything hardly. At last I says, "'This ain't no thirty-seven-year job. This is a thirty-eight-year job, Tom Sawyer.' He never said nothing, but he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking. Then he says, "'It ain't no use, Huck. It ain't a-goin to work. If we was prisoners it would—' Because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, in no hurry, and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig every day while they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the way it ought to be done.

But we can't fool along. We got to rush. We ain't got no time to spare. If we was to put in another night this way, we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get well. Couldn't touch a case-knife with them sooner. Well, then, what we going to do, Tom? I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like it to get out, but there ain't only just the one way. We got to dig him out with the picks, and let on its case-knives. Now you're talking, I says. Your head gets leveler and leveler all the time, Tom Sawyer, I says. Pix is the thing, moral or no moral, and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger or a watermelon or a Sunday-school book, I ain't no ways particular how it's done, so it's done.

What I want is my nigger, or what I want is my watermelon. Or what I want is my Sunday School book, and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing I'm going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday School book out with, and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nother. Well, he says, There's excuse for picks and letting on in a case like this. If it weren't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by and see the rules broke, because right is right and wrong is wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better. It might answer for you to dig Jim out with a pick without any letting on, because you don't know no better, but it wouldn't for me, because I do know better.

Give me a case knife. He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down and says, "'Gimme a case-knife!' I didn't know just what to do, but then I thought. I scratched around amongst the old tools and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took it and went to work and never said a word. He was always just that particular, full of principle, So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turned about and made the fur fly. We stuck to it about half an hour, which was as long as we could stand up, but we had a good deal of a hole to show for it. When I got upstairs, I looked out the window and see Tom doing his level best with a lightning rod, but he couldn't come it. His hands was so sore.

At last he says, "'It ain't no use. It can't be done. What do you reckon I better do? Can't you think of no way?' "'Yes,' I says. But I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs, and let on it's a lightning rod. So he done it. Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles, and I hung around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance and stole three tin plates. Tom says it wasn't enough. But I said, nobody would ever see the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel and Jimson weeds under the window-hole. Then we could tote them back, and he could use them over again. So Tom was satisfied.

Then he says, now the thing to study out is how to get the things to Jim. Take them in through the hole, I says, when we get it done. He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard of such an idiotic idea, and then he went on to studying. By and by, he said, he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there weren't no need to decide on any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first. That night we went down the lightning rod a little after ten, and took one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard Jim snoring. So we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we whirled in with a pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half the job was done.

We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim a while, and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried, and called us Honey, and all the pet names he could think of, and was for having us hunt up a cold chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with right away, and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom, he showed him how unregular it would be, and sat down and told him all about our plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an alarm, and not to be the least afraid, because we would see he got away, sure. So, Jim, he said it was all right, and we sat there and talked over old times a while, And then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of them was kind as they could be, Tom says, "'Now I know how to fix it.

We'll send you some things by them.' I said, "'Don't do nothing of the kind. It's one of the most jackass ideas I ever struck.' But he never paid no attention to me, went right on. It was his way when he'd got his plan set. So we told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and other large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the lookout and not be surprised and not let Nat see him open them, and we would put small things in Uncle's coat pockets, and he must steal them out, and we would tie things to Aunt's apron-strings, or put them in her apron pocket, if we got a chance, and told him what they would be and what they was for, and told him how to keep a journal on the shirt with his blood and all that.

He told him everything. Jim, he couldn't see no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him, so he was satisfied and said he would do it all just as Tom said. Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco, so we had a right-down good sociable time, and then we crawled out through the hole and so home to bed, with hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most intellectual, and said if he only could see his way to it, we could keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out, for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the more he got used to it.

He said that in that way it could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the best time on record, and he said it would make us all celebrated that had a hand in it. In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a corn pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how it would work, and it just worked out noble. When Jim bit into it, it most mashed all his teeth out, and there weren't ever anything could have worked better. Tom said so himself.

Jim, he never let on, but what it was only just a piece of rock or something like that that's always getting into bread, you know. But after that he never bit into nothing but what he jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first. And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmest light, here comes a couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed, and they kept on piling in till there was eleven of them, and there weren't hardly room in there to get your breath. By Jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to door. The nigger, Nat, he only just hollered, "'Witches!' once, and keeled over onto the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other door too.

Then he went to work on the nigger. Coaxing him and petting him, and asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again. He raised up and blinked his eyes around and says, "'My Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't believe I see most a million dogs or devils or something, I wish'd I may die right here in these tracks. I did, most surely. My Sid, I felt him. I felt him, sir. Day was all over me.' Tat fetched, I just wished I could get my hands on one of them witches just once, only just once. It's all I'd asked, but mostly I wished they'd let me alone, I does. Tom says, well, I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just at this runaway nigger's breakfast time? It's because they're hungry.

That's the reason. You make them a witch pie. That's the thing for you to do. But my land, Mars Sid, "'How's I gwine to make a witch-pie? I don't know how to make it. I ain't ever heard such a thing before. Well, then, I'll have to make it myself. Will you do it, honey? Will you? I'll wussh up the ground under your foot, I will. All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us, and showed us the runaway nigger. But you've got to be mighty careful. When we come around, you turn your back, and then whatever we put in the pan, Don't you let on you see it at all, and don't you look when Jim unloads the pan. Something might happen, I don't know what. And above all, don't you handle the which things?

Handle them, Marse said. What is you talking about? I wouldn't lay to waiter my finger on them. Not for ten hundred thousand billion dollars, I wouldn't.

37 37 Chapter 37 13:28

This is chapter thirty-seven of Huckleberry Finn. This is a recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Thirty-seven. The Last Shirt Mooning Around Sailing Orders. The Witch Pie. That was all fixed. So then we went away, and went to the rubbage pile in the backyard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, Pieces of bottles, and worn-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched around and found an old tin wash-pan, and stopped up the holes as well as we could to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar, and stole it full of flour, and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nails that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in Aunt Sally's apron pocket, which was hanging on a chair, And t'other we stuck in the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because we heard the children say their ma and pa was going to the runway nigger's house this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coat pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come yet, so we had to wait a little while.

And when she come, she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly wait for the blessing, and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one hand, and cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble with the other, and says, "'I've hunted high, and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what has become of your other shirt.' My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things. And a hard piece of corncrust started down my throat after it got met on the road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the children in the eye, and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cry out of him the size of a war-whoop, and Tom, he turned kinder blue around the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for about a quarter of a minute, or as much as that, and I would have sold out for half price if there was a bidder.

But after that we was all right again. It was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas, he says, "'It's most uncommon curious. I can't understand it. I know perfectly well I took it off, because—' Because you hain't got but one on. Just listen at the man. I know you took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gathering memory, too, because it was on the clothes line yesterday. I see it there myself. But it's gone.' That's the long and the short of it, and you'll just have to change to a red-flannel one till I can get time to make a new one, and it'll be the third I've made in two years. It just keeps a body on the jump to keep you in shirts, and whatever you do manage to do with them all is more'n I can make out.

A body'd think you would learn to take some sort of care of them at your time of life. I know it, Sally. I do try all I can. But it oughtn't to be altogether my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have nothing to do with them except when they are on me, and I don't believe I've ever lost one of them off of me. Well, it ain't your fault if you haven't, Silas. You'd a done it if you could, I reckon, and the shirt ain't all that's gone, nether. There's a spoon gone, and that ain't all. There was ten, now there's only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never took the spoon, that's certain. Why, what else is gone, Sally? There's six candles gone, that's what. The rats could have got the candles, and I reckon they did.

I wonder they don't walk off with the whole place, the way that you're always going to stop their holes and don't do it. And if they weren't fools, they'd sleep in your hair, Silas. You'd never find it out. But you can't lay the spoons on the rats, and that I know. Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it. I've been remiss. But I won't let tomorrow go by without stopping up them holes. Oh, I wouldn't hurry. Next year'll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta Phelps. Whack! comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the sugar bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps on to the passage and says, Mrs. Day's a sheet gone. A sheet gone? Well, for the land's sake— "'I'll stop up them holes to-day,' says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.

"'Oh, do shut up. S'pose the rights took the sheet? Where's it gone, Lies?' "'Claud of goodness, I hain't no notion, Miss Sally. She was on to Cloline yistiday, but she done gone. She ain't dare no more now. I reckon the world is coming to an end. I never see the beat of it in all my born days—a shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six-cant misses.' Comes a young yaller wench. Day's a brass candlestick missin. Clear out from here, you hussy, or I'll take a skillet to you. Well, she was just a biling. I begun to lay for a chance. I reckoned I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She kept a raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and everybody else mighty meek and quiet, and at last Uncle Silas, looking kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket.

She stopped with her mouth open and her hands up, and as for me, I wished I was in Jerusalem or somewheres, but not long, because she says, "'It's just as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time, and like as not you've got the other things there too. How'd it get there?' "'I really don't know, Sally,' he says, kind of apologizing. Or you know I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts 17 before breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there not noticing meaning to put my testament in, and it must be so, because my testament ain't in, but I'll go and see, and if the testament is where I had it, I'll know I didn't put it in. And that will show that I laid the testament down and took up the spoon, and—oh, for the land's sake!

Give a body a rest. Go long now, the whole kitten bilin of you, and don't come nigh me again till I've got back my peace of mind. I'd a heard her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it out, and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead. As we was passing through the setting room, the old man he took up his hat, and the shingle nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says, "'Well, it ain't no use to send things by him no more. He ain't reliable.' Then he says, But he'd done us a good turn with a spoon anyway, without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without him knowing it.

Stop up his rat-holes. There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole hour, but we done the job tight and good and ship-shape. Then we heard steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light, and hid. And here comes the old man, with a candle in one hand, and a bundle of stuff in t'other, looking as absent-minded as year before last. He went a-mooning around, first to one rat-hole, and then another, till he'd been to them all. Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candle, and thinking. Then he turns off slow and dreamy toward the stairs, saying, Well. For the life of me, I can't remember when I'd done it. I could show her now that I weren't to blame on account of the rats, but never mind, let it go.

I reckon it wouldn't do no good. And so he went on a mumbling upstairs, and then we left. He was a mighty nice old man, and always is. Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said we'd got to have it, so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out, he told me how we was to do, and then we went and waited around the spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeves, and Tom says, "'Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons yet!' She says, "'Go long to your play, and don't bother me. I know better. I counted myself.' Well—' "'I've counted them twice, Auntie, and I can't make but nine.' She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count—anybody would.

"'I declare to gracious there ain't but nine,' she says. "'Why, what in the world? Plague take the things. I'll count them again.' So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting she says, "'Hang the troublesome rubbish! There's ten now!' And she looked huffy and bothered both. But Tom says—' Why, Auntie, I don't think there's ten. You numbskull, didn't you see me count em? No, but—well, I'll count em again. So I smooched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time. Well, she was, in a tearing way, just a-trembling all over. She was so mad. But she counted and counted, till she got that addled she'd start to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes, and so three times they come out right, and three times they come out wrong.

Then she grabbed up the basket, slammed it across the house, and knocked the cat galley west, and she said clear out and let her have some peace, and if we come bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she'd skin us. So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apron pocket while she was a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right, along with her shingle nail, before noon. We was very well satisfied with this business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took, because he said now she couldn't ever count them spoons twice alike again to save her life, and wouldn't believe she'd counted them right if she did. and said that after she'd about counted her head off for the next three days, he judged she'd give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them any more.

So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of her closet, and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a couple of days, till she didn't know how many sheets she had any more, and she didn't care, and weren't a-going to bully-rag the rest of her soul out about it, and wouldn't count them again not to save her life. She'd rather die first. So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up counting. And as to the candlestick, it weren't no consequence. It would blow over by and by. But that pie was a job. We had no end of trouble with that pie. We fixed it up way down in the woods, and cooked it there, and we got it done at last, and very satisfactory too, but not all in one day, and we had to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through, and we got burnt pretty much all over in places, and eyes put out with the smoke, because, you see, We didn't want nothing but a crust, and we couldn't prop it upright, and she would always cave in, but of course we thought of the right way at last, which was to cook the latter, too, in the pie.

So then we laid in with Jim the second night, and tore up the sheet all in little strings and twisted them together, and long before daylight we had a lovely rope that you could have hung a person with, We led on it took nine months to make it, and in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet that way, there was rope enough for forty pies if we'd have wanted them, and plenty left over for soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We could have had a whole dinner. We didn't need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie, and so we throwed the rest away. We didn't cook none of the pies in the wash-pan, afraid the solder would melt.

But Uncle Silas, he had a noble brass-warming pan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged to one of his ancestors, with a long wooden handle that come over from England with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower, or one of them early ships, and was hit away up garret with a lot of other old pots and things that was valuable, not on account of being any account, because they weren't, But on account of them being relics, you know. And we snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on the first pies, because we didn't know how, but she come up smiling on the last one. We took and lined her with dough, and set her in the coals, and loaded her with rag-rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut down the lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot with a long handle, Cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned out a pie that was a satisfaction to look at.

But the person that et it would want to fetch a couple of kegs of toothpicks along, for if that rope ladder wouldn't cramp him down to business, I don't know nothing what I'm talking about, and lay him in enough stomachache to last him till next time, too. Nat didn't look when we put the witch-pie in Jim's pan, and we put the three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the victuals, and so Jim got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted into the pie, and hid the rope-ladder inside of his straw tick, and scratched some marks on a tin plate, and throwed it out of the window-hole.

38 38 Chapter 38 14:00

This is chapter thirty-eight of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Thirty-eight. The coat of arms. A skilled superintendent. Unpleasant glory. A tearful subject. Making them pens was a distressed tough job, and so was the saw, and Jim allowed the inscription was going to be toughest of all. That's the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to have it. Tom said he'd got to. There weren't no case of a state prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms. Look at Lady Jane Gray, he says. Look at Guilford Dudley. Look at old Northumberland. Why, Huck, suppose it is considerable trouble.

What are you going to do? How are you going to get around it? Jim's got to do his inscription in coat-of-arms. They all do. Jim says, "'Why, Mars, Tom, I hain't got no coat-of-arm. I hain't got nothin' but dis here old shirt, an' you knows I got to keep the journal on dat.' "'Oh, you don't understand, Jim. A coat-of-arms is very different.' "'Well,' I says, "'Jim's right anyway, when he says he hain't got no coat-of-arms, because he ain't.' "'I reckon I know that,' Tom says. But you bet he'll have one before he goes out of this, because he's going out right. There ain't going to be no flaws in his record. So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brick-back a piece, Jim a-making his'n out of the brass, and I making mine out of the spoon, Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms.

By and by he said he'd struck so many good ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but there was one which he reckoned he'd decide on. He says, On the scutcheon will have a bend, or the Dexter bass, a saltire murray in the fess, with a dog, Couchon, for common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled for slavery, with a chevron vert in a chief and grailed, and three invected lines on a field azure, with the nombril points rampant on a danset indented. Crest, a runaway nigger. Sable, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister, and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me. Motto, Maggiore Fretta Minore Otto. Got it out of a book. Means the more haste, the less speed.

Gee, Willikins, I says. But what does the rest of it mean? We ain't got no time to bother over that, he says. We got to dig in like all git out. Well, anyway, I says, What's some of it? What's a fess? A fess? A fess is—you don't need to know what a fess is. I'll show him how to make it when he gets to it. Shucks, Tom, I says. I think you might tell a person. What's a bar sinister? I don't know, but he's got to have it. All the nobility does. That was just his way. If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to you, he wouldn't do it. You might pump at him a week. It wouldn't make no difference. He'd got all that coat-of-arms business fixed, so now he started in to finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a mournful inscription, said Jim Got to Have One, like they all done.

He made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off. So, one, here a captive heart busted. Two, here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends, fretted his sorrowful life. Three, Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity. For here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV. Tom's voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke down. When he got done, he couldn't no way make up his mind which one for Jim to scrabble onto the wall. They was all so good. But at last he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on.

Jim said it would take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck onto the logs with a nail, and he didn't know how to make letters besides. But Tom said he would block them out for him, and then he wouldn't have nothing to do but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says, Come to think, the logs ain't going to do. "'They don't have log walls in a dungeon. We got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We'll fetch a rock.' Jim said the rock was worse than the logs. He said it would take him such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn't ever get out, but Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he took a look to see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was most pesky, tedious, hard work, and slow.

and didn't give my hands no show to get well of the sores, and we didn't seem to make no headway hardly. So Tom says, I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock. There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smooch it and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it too. It weren't no slouch of an idea, and it weren't no slouch of a grindstone other. But we allowed we'd tackle it. It warn't quite midnight yet, so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smooched the grindstone and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation-tough job. Sometimes do what we could—we couldn't keep her from falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time.

Tom said she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got through. We got her halfway, and then we was plumb played out. and most drowned with sweat. We see it weren't no use. We got to go and fetch Jim, so he raised up his bed and slid the chain off the bed-leg, and wrapped it around and around his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along like nothing, and Tom superintended. He could out superintend any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything. Our hole was pretty big, but it weren't big enough to get the grindstone through. But Jim, he took the pick and soon made it big enough. Then Tom marked out them things on it with a nail, and set Jim to work on them, with a nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone under his straw tick, and sleep on it.

Then we helped him fix his chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom thought of something, and says, "'You got any spiders in here, Jim?' "'No, sir. Thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom. All right.' We'll get you some. But bless you, honey, I don't want none. I's a fear of them. I'll just as soon have rattlesnakes around. Tom thought a minute or two, and says, It's a good idea, and I reckon it's been done. It must have been done. It stands to reason. Yes, it's a prime good idea. Where could you keep it? Keep what, Mars Tom? Why—a rattlesnake. De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom. Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to come in here, I'd take and bust right out through that long wall I would with my head.

Why, Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it after a little. You could tame it. Tame it? Yes. Easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting, and they wouldn't think of hurting a person that pets them. Any book will tell you that. You try, that's all I ask. Just try for two or three days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that he'll love you, and sleep with you, and won't stay away from you a minute, and will let you wrap him around your neck and put his head in your mouth. Please, Mars Tom, don't talk so. I can't stand it. He'd let me shove his head into my mouth for a favor, ain't it? I lay he'd wait a powerful long time for I asked him, and more'n that I don't want him to sleep with me.

Jim, don't act so foolish. A prisoner's got to have some kind of a dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other way you could ever think of to save your life. "'Why, Mars, Tom, I don't want no sich glory. Snake take and bite Jim's chin off, then why is the glory? No, sir, I don't want no sich doings.' "'Blame it. Can't you try?' I only want you to try. You needn't keep it up if it don't work. But the trouble all done if the snake bite me while I's trying him. Mars' Tom, I's willing to tackle most anything. It ain't unreasonable. But if you and a huck fetches a rattlesnake in here for me to tame, I's going to leave.

That's sure. Well, then let it go. Let it go, if you're so bullheaded about it. We can get some garter snakes, and you can tie some buttons on their tails, and— Let on their rattlesnakes, and I reckon they'll have to do. "'I can stand dem, Mars, Tom, but blame if I couldn't get along without em, I tell you that. I never knowed for twas so much botherin' trouble to be a prisoner.' "'Well, it always is, when it's done right.' "'You got any rats around here?' "'No, sir. I ain't seed none.' "'Well, we'll get you some rats.' Why, Mars Tom, I don't want no rats. Days de Dad blamed us creeters to stir body, and rustle round over him, and bite his feet when he's tryin to sleep I ever see. No, sah, gimme gyarter snakes, if I's got to have him, but don't gimme no rats.

I ain't got no use for him, scasely. But, Jim, you got to have him. They all do. So don't make no more fuss about it. Prisoners ain't ever without rats. There ain't no instance of it. And they train them, and— Pet them, and learn them tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play music to them. You got anything to play music on? I ain't got nothing but a coarse comb and a piece of paper, and a juice-harp, but I reckon they wouldn't take no stock in a juice-harp. Yes, they would. They don't care what kind of music tis. A juice-harp's plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music. In a prison, they dote on it. Specially painful music, and you can't get no other kind out of a juice-harp.

It always interests them. They come out to see what's the matter with you. Yes, you're all right. You're fixed very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep, and early in the mornings, and play your Jews'-harp. Play The Last Link Is Broken. That's the thing that'll scoop a rat quicker'n anything else. And when you've played about two minutes, you'll see all the rats, and the snakes, and spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you, and come. And they'll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good time. Yes, they will, I reckon, Mars Tom, but what kinder time is Jim havin'? Blessed if I can see de pint. But I'll do it if I got to. I reckon I better keep the animal satisfied, and not have no trouble in the house.

Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else, and pretty soon he says, Oh, there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you reckon? I don't know, but maybe I could, Mars Tom, but it's tolerable dark in here, and I ain't got no use for no flower, nohow, and she'd be a powerful sight of trouble. Well, You try it anyway. Some other prisoners has done it. One of them big cat-tail-looking mullein-stalks would grow in here, Mars Tom, I reckon, but she wouldn't be worth half to trouble she's cost. Don't you believe it. We'll fetch you a little one, and you plant it in the corner over there, and raise it, and don't call it mullein. Call it Pichola. That's its right name when it's in a prison, and you want to water it with your tears.

Why, I got plenty of spring water, Mars Tom. You don't want spring water. You want to water it with your tears. It's the way they always do. Why, Mars Tom, I lay I can raise one or dem mullin-stalks twice with spring water whilst another man's starting one with tears. That ain't the idea. You got to do it with tears. She'll die on my hands, Mars Tom. She sho'ly will, cause I don't scarcely ever cry. So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one private in Jim's coffee-pot in the morning. Jim said he would just as soon have to backer in his coffee. and found so much fault with it, and with the work and bother of raising the mullein, and Jews harping the rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes, and spiders, and things, on top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more trouble, and worry, and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom most lost all patience with him, and said he was just loadin' down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him.

So, Jim, he was sorry, and said he wouldn't behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.

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This is chapter thirty-nine of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Thirty-nine Rats, lively bedfellows, the straw dummy. In the morning we went up to the village, and bought a wire rat-trap, and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kinds of ones, and then we took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders, little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Alexander Phelps found it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did. And Aunt Sally, she come in, and when we got back, she was a-standing on top of the bed raising cane, and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times for her.

So she took and dusted us both with the hickory, and we was as much as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they weren't the likeliest neither, because the first haul was the pick of the flock. I never see a likelier lot of rats than what the That first haul was. We got a splendid stock of sordid spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and caterpillars, and one thing or another, and we liked to got a hornet's nest, but we didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give it right up, but stayed with them as long as we could, because we allowed we'd tire them out, or they'd got to tire us out, and they done it. Then we got alley-compagne, and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right again, but couldn't set down convenient.

And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was supper-time, and a rattling good honest day's work. And hungry? Oh, no, I reckon not. And there weren't a blessed snake up there when we went back. We didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out somehow and left. But it didn't matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres, so we judged we could get some of them again. No, There weren't no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell. You'd see them dripping from the rafters in places every now and then, and they generally landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck, and most of the time where you didn't want them.

Well, they was handsome and striped, and there weren't no harm in a million of them. But that never made no difference to Aunt Sally. She despised snakes, be the breed what they might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it. And every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference what she was doing. She would just lay that work down and light out, and I never see such a woman. And you could hear her whoop to Jericho. You couldn't get her to take a hold of one of them with the tongs. And if she turned over and found one in bed, she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would think the house was afire. She disturbed the old man so that he said he could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes created.

Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the house for as much as a week, Aunt Sallie weren't over it yet. She weren't near over it. When she was sitting thinking about something, you could touch her on the back of her neck with a feather, and she would jump right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all women was just so. He said they was made that way, for some reason or other. We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she allowed these lickings weren't nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded up the place again with them. I didn't mind the lickings, because they didn't mount to nothing, but I minded the trouble we had to lay in another lot.

But we got them laid in, and all the other things, And you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't like the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim, and so they'd lay for him and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone there weren't no room in bed for him, scarcely. And when there was, the body couldn't sleep. It was so lively. And it was always lively, he said, because they never all slept at one time. took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch. So he always had one gang under him in his way, and t'other gang having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place, the spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed over.

He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary. Well— By the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape. The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh. The pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the grindstone. The bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had ed up the sawdust, and it give us a most amazing stomachache. We reckoned we was all going to die, but didn't. It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever see, and Tom said the same. But, as I was saying, we'd got all the work done now, at last, and we was all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim.

The old man had rode a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, Because there weren't no such plantation. So he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans papers, and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones, it'd give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the anonymous letters, what's them? I says. Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around that gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis Sixteenth was going to light out of the Tuileries, a servant girl done it. It's a very good way, and so is the anonymous letters.

We'll use them both, and it's usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in and he slides out in her clothes. We'll do that, too. But look here, Tom. What do we want to warn anybody for that something's up? Let them find it out for themselves. It's their lookout. Yes, I know. But you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted from the very start, left us to do everything. They're so confiding and mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we don't give them notice, there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us, and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape'll go off perfectly flat. Won't amount to nothing—won't be nothing to it.

Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like it. Shucks, he says, and looks disgusted, so I says, but I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits me. What are you going to do about the servant girl? You'll be her. You slide in in the middle of the night, and hook that yaller girl's frock. Why, Tom, that'll make trouble next morning, because, of course, she probably ain't got any but that one. I know. But you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the anonymous letter and shove it under the front door. All right, then, I'll do it, but I could carry it just as handy in my own togs. You wouldn't look like a servant girl then, would you? No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like anyway.

That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just to do our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us do it or not. Ain't you got no principle at all?" All right, I ain't saying nothing. I'm the servant girl. Who's Jim's mother? I'm his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally. Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves. Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim'll take the nigger woman's gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When a prisoner's style escapes, it's called an evasion. It's always called so when a king escapes, for instance, and the same with a king's son.

It don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one. So Tom, he wrote the anonymous letter, and I smooched the yaller wench's frock that night and put it on and shoved it under the front door the way Tom told me to. It said, Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout. Unknown friend. Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and crossbones on the front door, and next night another one of a coffin on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They couldn't have been worse scared if the place had been full of ghosts laying for them behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally, she jumped and said, Ouch!

If anything fell, she jumped and said, Ouch! If you happened to touch her, when she weren't noticing, she done the same. She couldn't face no way and be satisfied, because she allowed there was something behind her every time, so she was always a-whirling around sudden and saying, Ouch! And before she'd got two-thirds round, she'd whirl back again and say it again, and she was afraid to go to bed. But she doesn't set up. So the thing was working very well, Tom said. He said he never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right. So he said, Now for the grand bulge. So the very next morning at the streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we'd better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night.

Tom, he went down the lightning rod to spy round, and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This letter said, Don't betray me. I wish to be your friend. There is a desperate gang of cut-throats from over in the Indian territory going to steal your runaway nigger tonight, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang, but have got religion, and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will betray the hellish design. They will sneak down from northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the nigger's cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger, but stead of that I will bow like a sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all.

Then, whilst they are getting his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them at your leisure. Don't do anything but just the way I am telling you. If you do, they will suspicion something and raise whoop-jamboree-hoo. I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing. Unknown friend.

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This is chapter forty of Huckleberry Finn. This is a public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Forty. Fishing. The Vigilance Committee. A lively run. Jim advises a doctor. We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe, and went over the river a-fishing with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a look at the raft, and found her all right, and got home late to supper, and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a word about the new letter. But didn't need to, because we knowed as much about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half upstairs and her back was turned, we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and was going to start with lunch, but says, "'Where's the butter?' "'I laid out a hunk of it,' I says, "'on a piece of corn-pone.' "'Well, you left it laid out, then.

It ain't here. We can get along without it,' I says. "'We can get along with it, too,' he says. "'Just you slide down cellar and fetch it, and then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in disguise, and be ready to bough like a sheep and shove soon as you get there.' So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started upstairs very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me, and she says, "'You been down, Salla?' "'Yes, m.' "'What you been doing down there?' "'Nothing.' "'Nothing.' "'No'm?' "'Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?' "'I don't know'm.' "'You don't know?' "'Don't answer me that way.

Tom, I want to know what you would been doing down there.' "'I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally. I hoped a gracious if I have.' "'I reckon she'd let me go now, and as a general thing she would.' But I suppose there was so many strange things going on, she was just in a sweat about every little thing that weren't yard-stick straight. So she says, very decided, you just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You've been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it is before I'm done with you. So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room. My, but there was a crowd there. Fifteen farmers, and every one of them had a gun.

I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down. They was setting round, some of them talking a little in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy, and trying to look like they weren't. But I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their hats, and putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling with their buttons. I weren't easy myself. But I didn't take my hat off all the same. I did wish Aunt Sally would come and get done with me, and lick me if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this thing, and what a thundering hornet's nest we'd got ourselves into, so we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim before these rips got out of patience and come for us.

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

And a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally, she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says, "'For the land's sake, what is the matter with the child? He's got the brain fever as sure as you're born, and they're oozing out!' And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes the bread, and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me, and says, "'Oh!' What a turn you did give me, and how glad and grateful I am. It ain't no worse, for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color and all it was just like your brains would be if—dear, dear, why'd you tell me that was what you'd been down there for?

I wouldn't a cared. Now clear out to bed, and don't let me see no more of you till morning. I was upstairs in a second, and down the lightning rod in another one, and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get my words out, I was so anxious, but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump for it now, and not a minute to lose. The house was full of men yonder with guns. His eyes just blazed, and he says, No! Is that so? Ain't it, bully? Why, Huck, if it was to do over again, I bet I could fetch two hundred. If we could put it off till—hurry, hurry! I says. Where's Jim? Right at your elbow. If you reach out your arm, you can touch him. He's dressed, and everything's ready.

Now we'll slide out and give the sheep signal. But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them begin to fumble with a padlock, and heard a man say, I told you we'd be too soon. They haven't come. The door is locked. Here, I'll— Lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for em in the dark, and kill em when they come. And the rest scatter round a piece, and listen if you can hear em coming. So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right, and out through the hole, swift but soft, Jim first, me next, and Tom last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the lean-to, and heard trampings close by outside.

So we crept to the door, and Tom stopped us there, and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make out nothing—it was so dark—and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get further, and when he nudged us, Jim must glide out first, and him last. So he set his ear to the crack, and listened, and listened, and listened. And the steps a-scrapin' round out there all the time, and at last he nudged us, and we slid out, and stooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise, and slipped stealthy towards the fence in engine-file, and got to it all right, and me and Jim over it, but Tom's breeches catched fast on a splinter on the top rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he had to pull loose, which snapped the splinter, and made a noise, And as he dropped in our tracks and started, somebody sings out, "'Who's that?

Answer, or I'll shoot!' But we didn't answer. We just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there was a rush and a bang, bang, bang, and the bullets fairly whizzed around us. We heard them sing out. "'Here they are! They've broke for the river! After them, boys! And turn loose the dogs!' So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore boots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We was in the path to the mill, and when they got pretty close on to us, we dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind them. They'd had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the robbers, but by this time somebody had let them loose, and here they come, making pow-wow enough for a million.

But they was our dogs. So we stopped in our tracks till they catched up, and when they see it weren't nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only just said howdy and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering, and then we up steam again, and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the river. that didn't make no more noise than we was ob'leged to. Then we struck out easy and comfortable for the island where my raft was, and we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down the bank till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out, and when we stepped onto the raft I says, "'Now, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a slave no more.' "'And a mighty good job it was, too, It is plan beautiful, and it is done beautiful, and ain't nobody can get up a plan that's more mixed up and splendid than what that one was.

We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg. When me and Jim heard that, we didn't feel so brash as what we did before. It was hurting him considerable and bleeding, so we laid him in the wigwam and tore up one of Duke's shirts for to bandage him, but he says, "'Gimme the rags. I can do it myself. Don't stop now. Don't fool around here, and the evasion booming along so handsome. Man the sweeps and set her loose. Boys, we done it elegant. Indeed we did.' I wished we'd a hand the handling of Louie the sixteenth. There wouldn't a been no son of St. Louis ascend to heaven, wrote down in his biography. No, sir, we'd a whooped him over the border.

That's what we'd a done with him, and done it just as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps! Man the sweeps! But me and Jim was consulting and thinking, and after we'd thought a minute I says, Say it, Jim. So he says, Well, then, this is the way it looked to me, Huck. If it was him that was being sought free, and one of the boys was to get shot, would he say, "'Go on and save me! Nem' mind about a doctor for to save this one! Is that like Mars Tom Sawyer?' Would he say that? You bet he wouldn't. Well then, is Jim going to say it? No, sir. I don't budge a step out of this place, doubt a doctor. Not if it's forty year. I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say, so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor.

He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't budge. So he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself, but we wouldn't let him. Then he'd give us a piece of his mind, but it didn't do no good. So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says, "'Well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when you get to the village. Shut the door, and blindfold the doctor tight and fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him, and take his chalk away from him, "'And don't give it back to him till you get him back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it again.

It's the way they all do. So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see the doctor coming till he was gone again."

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This is chapter forty-one of Huckleberry Finn. This is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter Forty-one. The doctor, Uncle Silas, Sister Hotchkiss, Aunt Sallie in trouble. The doctor was an old man. A very nice, kind-looking old man when I got him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must have kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the folks. "'Who is your folks?' he says.

The Phelpses down yonder. Oh, he says, and after a minute he says, How'd you say he got shot? He had a dream, I says, and it shot him. Singular dream, he says. So he lit up his lantern and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But when he sees the canoe, he didn't like the look of her, said she was big enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two. I says, Oh, you needn't be afeard, sir. She carried the three of us easy enough. What three? Why, Me and Sid, and—and—and the guns, that's what I mean. Oh," he says, but he put his foot on the gunwale, and rocked her, and shook his head, and said he reckoned he'd look round for a bigger one. But they was all locked and chained, so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to.

But I said I didn't, so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he started. I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, "'S'posin' he can't fix that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail,' as the saying is. "'S'posin' it takes him three or four days. What are we going to do? Lay around there till he lets the cat out of the bag?' "'No, sir. I know what I'll do. I'll wait, and when he comes back, if he says he's got to go any more, I'll get down there too if I swim, and we'll take and tie him, and keep him, and shove out down the river.' and when Tom's done with him, we'll give him what it's worth, or all we got, and then let him get ashore. So then I crept into a lumber pile to get some sleep, and next time I waked up, the sun was away up over my head.

I shot out and went for the doctor's house, but they told me he'd gone away in the night some time or other, and weren't back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad for Tom, and I'll dig out for the island right off. So away I shoved, and turned the corner, and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's stomach. He says, "'Why, Tom, where you been all this time, you rascal?' "'I ain't been nowhere,' I says, "'only just hunting for the runaway nigger, me and Sid.' "'Why, wherever did you go?' he says. "'Your aunt's been mighty uneasy.' "'She needn't,' I says, "'because we was all right. We followed the men and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them.' But we thought we heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over, but couldn't find nothing of them, so we cruised along up shore till we got kinder tired and beat out, and tied up the canoe and went to sleep, and never waked up till about an hour ago.

Then we paddled over here to hear the news, and Sid's at the post-office to see what he can hear, and I'm a branching out to get something to eat for us, and then we're going home. So then we went to the post-office to get Sid, but just as I suspicioned he warn't there. So the old man he got a letter out of the office, and we waited a while longer, but Sid didn't come. So the old man said come along, let Sid foot it home or canoe it when he got done fooling around, but we would ride. I couldn't get him to let me stay and wait for Sid, and he said there warn't no use in it, and I must come along and let Aunt Sally see we was all right. When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of her that don't mount and shucks, and said she'd serve Sid the same when he come.

And the place was plumbful of farmers and farmers' wives to dinner, and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hodgkiss was the worst. Her tongue was a-going all the time. She says, Well, sisters Phelps, I've ransacked that air cabin over, and I believe the nigger was crazy. I says to Sister Dameril, didn't I, Sister Dameril? Says I, he's crazy, says I. Them's the very words I said. You all heard me. He's crazy, says I. Everything shows it, says I. Look at that air grindstone, says I. Want to tell me to any creature that is in his right mind is going to scrabble all them crazy things on to grindstone, says I. Here's such and such a person's busted his heart. "'And here so-and-so pegged along for thirty-seven year, and all that.

Natcher son o Louie somebody in such everlasting rubbish. He's plumb crazy,' says I. "'It's what I says in the fust place. It's what I says in the middle. It's what I says lastin all the time. The nigger's crazy. Crazy as nebber could knees her,' says I. "'And look at that ere ladder made out of drag, sister Hodgkiss,' says old Mrs. Damrell. "'What in the name of goodness could ever want of?' The very words I was a-saying no longer ago than this minute, says sister Utterback. She'll tell you so herself. She, look at that air rag ladder. She, says I, yes, look at it, says I. What could he a wanted of it, says I, she, sister Hodgkiss, she, but how in the nation they'd ever get that grindstone in there anyway.

And who dug that air hole? And who, my very words, Brer Penrod, I was a saying, pass that here sasser molasses, won't you? I was a saying to Sister Dunlop, just this minute, how did they get that grindstone in there, says I? Without help, mind you, without help. That's where it is. Don't tell me, says I. There was help, says I. There was plenty of help, too, says I. There's been a dozen of help in that nigger. I lay I'd skin every last nigger on this place, but I'd find out who done it, says I. Moreover, says I—a dozen, says you. Forty couldn't have done everything that's been done. Look at them case-knife saws and things. How tedious they've been made. Look at that bed-leg sawed off with them.

A week's work for six men. Look at that nigger made out of straw on the bed, and look at—you may well say it, Brer Hightower. It's just as I was a saying to Brer Phelps, his own self. Says he. What do you think of it, Sister Hodgkins? Says he. Think of what, Brer Phelps? Says I. Think of that bed-leg sawed off that-a-way? Says he. Think of it? Says I. I lay it never sawed itself off, says I. Somebody sawed it off, says I. That's my opinion, take it or leave it. It mayn't be no count, says I, but sich as tis, it's my opinion, says I. If anybody can start a better one, says I, then let him do it, says I. That's all. I says to Sister Dunlap, says I, Why, dog my cats. They must have been a houseful of niggers in there every night for four weeks to have done all that work, sister Phelps.

Look at that shirt, every last inch of it kivered over with secret African writing down with blood. Must have been a raft of them at it right along all the time, amost. Why, I'd give two dollars to have it read to me, and as for the niggers that wrote it, I low I'd taken lashmen till—'Popele to help him, brother Marples. Well, I reckon you'd think so if you'd have been in this house for a while back. Why, they've stole everything they could lay their hands on, and we a-watching all the time, mind you. They stole that shirt right off the line, and as for that sheet they made the rag-ladder out of, There ain't no telling how many times they didn't steal that, and flour, and candles, and candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and most a thousand things that I disremember now, and my new calico dress, and me, and Silas, and my Sid, and Tom, on the constant watch day and night.

As I was a-telling you, and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight nor sound of them. And here, at the last minute, lo and behold you, they slides right in under our noses and fools us, and not only fools us, but the Injun territory robbers too, and actually gets away with that nigger safe and sound. and that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs right on their very heels at that very time. I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever heard of. Why, spirits couldn't a done better and been no smarter, and I reckon they must a been spirits, because you know our dogs, and there ain't no better. Well, them dogs never even got on the track of them once. You explain that to me if you can, any of you.

Well, it does be— Laws alive, I never— So, help me, I wouldn't be house thieves as well as— Goodness gracious sakes, I'd been feared to live in such a— Afraid to live? Why, I was that scared I doesn't hardly go to bed, or get up, or lay down, or set down, sister Ridgway. Why, they'd steal the very— Why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was in by the time midnight come last night. I hoped to gracious if I weren't afraid they'd steal some of the family. I was just to that pass. I didn't have no reasoning faculties no more. It looks foolish enough now, in the daytime, but I says to myself, there's my two poor boys asleep way upstairs in that lonesome room, and I declare to goodness I was that uneasy, that I crept up there and locked him in, I did, and anybody would, because, you know, when you get scared that way, and it keeps running on, and getting worse and worse all the time, "'And your wits gets to addling, and you get to doing all sorts of wild things, and by and by you think to yourself, "'S'pose I was a boy, and was away up there, and the door ain't locked, and you—'," she stopped, looked kind of wondering, and then she turned her head round slow, and when her eye lit on me, I got up and took a walk.

"'S'is I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little. So I done it, but I doesn't go fur, or she'd a sent for me, and when it was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and told her the noise, and shooting waked up me and Sid, and the door was locked. and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the lightning-rod, and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn't never want to try that no more. And then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before, and then she said she'd forgive us, and maybe it was all right enough anyway, and about what a body might expect of boys, for all boys was a pretty harum-scarum lot as fur as she could see.

And so, as long as no harm hadn't come of it, She judged she better put in her time being grateful we was alive and well, and she had us still, stead of fretting over what was past and done. So then she kissed me, and patted me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a brown study, and pretty soon jumps up and says, "'Why, laws and mercy, it's most night, and Sid not come yet. What has become of that boy?' I see my chance, so I skips up and says, "'I'll run him right up to town and get him,' I says. "'No, you won't,' she says. "'You'll stay right where you are. One's enough to be lost at a time. If he ain't here to supper, your uncle'll go.' "'Well, he weren't there to supper, so right after supper uncle went.

He come back about ten a little bit uneasy, hadn't run across Tom's track. Aunt Sally was a good deal uneasy, but Uncle Silas he said there weren't no occasion to be, Boys will be boys, he said, and you'll see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right. So she had to be satisfied, but she said she'd set up for him a while anyway, and keep a light burning so he could see it. And then when I went up to bed, she come up with me and fetched her candle and tucked me in and mothered me so good I felt mean and like I couldn't look her in the face, and she sat down on the bed and talked with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and didn't seem to want to ever stop talking about him, and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned he could have got lost, or hurt, or maybe drowned, and might be laying at this minute somewhere suffering or dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in the morning, sure.

and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me, and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her good, and she was in so much trouble. And when she was going away, she looked down in my eyes, so steady and gentle, and says, "'The door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window and the rod. But you'll be good, won't you? And you won't go, for my sake. Laws knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all intending to go. But after that I wouldn't a went—not for kingdoms. But she was on my mind, and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless. And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window, with her eyes towards the road, and the tears in them.

And I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn't, only to swear that I wouldn't never do nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep.

42 42 Chapter 42 16:26

This is chapter 42 of Huckleberry Finn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 42 Tom Sawyer Wounded, The Doctor's Story, Tom Confesses, Aunt Polly Arrives. Hand out them letters.

The old man was up town again before breakfast, but couldn't get no track of Tom. And both of them sat at the table thinking, and not saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not eating anything. And by and by the old man says—'Did I give you the letter?'' What letter? "'The one I got yesterday out of the post office.' "'No? You didn't give me no letter?' "'Well, I must have forgot it. So he—' Rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he'd laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says, "'Why, it's from St. Petersburg. It's from Sis!' I allowed another walk would do me good, but I couldn't stir. But before she could break it open, she dropped it and run, for she sees something.

And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress, and that old doctor, and Jim, and Jim, in her calico dress, with his hands tied behind him, and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says, "'Oh, he's dead! He's dead! I know he's dead!' and Tom, he turned his head a little and muttered something or other, which showed he weren't in his right mind. Then she flung up her hands and says, "'He's alive! Thank God! And that's enough!' and she snatched a kiss of him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders right and left of the niggers and everybody else as fast as her tongue could go, every jump of the way.

I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim, and the old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run away like Jim done. and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a whole family scared most to death for days and nights. But the other said, Don't do it. It wouldn't answer at all. He ain't our nigger, and his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled him down a little, because the people that's always the most anxious for to hang a nigger that ain't done just right is always the very ones that ain't the most anxious to pay for him when they've got their satisfaction out of him.

They cussed Jim considerable, though, and give him a cuff or two side of the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes on him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to a big staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands too, and both legs, and said he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold at auction because he didn't come in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and said a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime, and about this time they was through with the job, and was tapering off with a kind of general good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and takes a look, and says, Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't a bad nigger.

When I got to where I found the boy, I see I couldn't cut the bullet out without some help, and he weren't in no condition for me to leave to go and get help, and he got a little worse and a little worse, and after a long time he went out of his head and wouldn't let me come an'y him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill me, and no end of wild foolishness like that. And I see I couldn't do anything at all with him. So I says, I got to have help somehow, and the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres, and says he'll help, and he done it too, and done it very well. Of course, I judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I was, and there I had to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night.

It was a fix, I tell you. I had a couple of patients with the chills, and of course I'd have liked to run up to town and see them. But I dazn't, because the nigger might get away, and then I'd be to blame, and yet never a skiff come close enough for me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight this morning, and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuler, and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I like the nigger for that. I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars, and kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he would have done at home, better maybe, because it was so quiet.

But there I was, with both of them on my hands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning, Then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it, the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees, sound asleep, so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble, and the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft on and towed her over very nice and quiet. and the nigger never made the least round or said a word from the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen, and that's what I think about him. Somebody says, "'Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say.' Then the others softened up a little too, and I was mighty thankful to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn, and I was glad it was according to my judgment of him too, because I thought he had a good heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him.

Then they all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some notice took of it, and reward, so every one of them promised, right out and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more. Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water, but they didn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but I judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soon as I'd got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of me—explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted knight paddling around hunting the runaway nigger.

But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally, she stuck to the sick room all day and all night, and every time I seeed Uncle Silas mooning around, I dodged him. Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick room, and if I found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful too, and pale, not fire-faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and laid for him to wake, In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there I was, up a stump again. She motioned me to be still, and set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be joyful now, because all the symptoms was first-rate, and he'd been sleeping like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuler all the time, and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind.

So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says, Hello! Why, I'm at home. How's that? Where's the raft? It's all right, I says. And Jim? The same, I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash, but he never noticed, but says, Good! Splendid! Now we're all right and safe. Did you tell Auntie? I was going to say yes, but she chipped in and says, "'About what, Sid?' "'Why, about the way the whole thing was done.' "'What whole thing?' "'Why, THE whole thing. There ain't but one. How we set the runaway nigger free, me and Tom.' "'Good land. Set the run—'what is the child talking about? Dear, dear, out of his head again. No, I ain't out of my head.

I know all what I'm talking about.' We did set him free, me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we done it, and we done it elegant, too. He'd got a start, and she never checked him up, just sat and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and I see it warn't no use for me to put in. Why, Auntie, it cost us a power of work, weeks of it, hours and hours every night, whilst you was all sleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt, and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things. And you can't think what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or another, and you can't think half the fun it was.

And we had to make up the pictures of coffins, and things, and anonymous letters from the robbers, and get up and down the lightning Rod, and dig the hole into the cabin, and made the rope ladder, and send it in cooked up in the pie, and send in spoons and things to work with in your apron pocket. Mercy sakes, and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on for company for Jim, and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let drive at us. "'And I got my share, and we dodged out of the path, and let them go by, and when the dogs come they weren't interested in us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by ourselves, and wasn't it bully, Annie?

Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days. So it was you, you little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble, and turned everybody's wits clean inside out, and scared us all most to death. I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out of you this very minute, to think here I've been, night after night, I—you just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the old Harry out of both of you. But Tom, he was so proud and joyful, he just couldn't hold in. and his tongue just went it. She a-chipping in, and spitting fire all along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention, and she says, Well, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it now, for mind I tell you if I catch you meddling with him again—meddling with who?

Tom says, dropping his smile and looking surprised. With who? Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who'd you reckon? Tom looks at me very grave, and says, Tom— Didn't you just tell me he was all right? Hasn't he got away? Him? Says Aunt Sally. The runaway nigger? Deed he hasn't. They've got him back safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again, on bread and water, and loaded down with chains till he's claimed or sold. Tom rose square up in bed with his eye hot and his nostrils opening and shutting like gills, and sings out to me, They ain't no right to shut him up. Shove! And don't you lose a minute. Turn him loose. He ain't no slave. He's as free as any critter that walks this earth. What does the child mean?

I mean every word I say, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go, I'll go. I've known him all his life, and so has Tom there. Old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so, and she set him free in her will. Then what on earth did you want to set him free for, seeing he was already free? Well, that is a question, I must say, and just like women. Why, I wanted the adventure of it, and I'd a weighted neck deep in blood to—goodness alive, Aunt Polly! If she wasn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never—I Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed, for it was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me.

And I peeped out, and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose, and stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles, kind of grinding him into the earth, you know. And then she says, "'Yes, you better turn your head away. I would if I was you, Tom. Oh, "'Deary me,' says Aunt Sally. "'Is he changed so? Why, that ain't Tom. It's Sid. Tom's—toms—why, where is Tom? He was here a minute ago.' "'You mean, where's Huck Finn? That's what you mean. I reckon I ain't raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I see him. That would be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that bed, Huck Finn.' "'So I done it. But—' not feeling brash. Aunt Sally, she was one of the mixed-uptest looking persons I ever see, except one, and that was Uncle Silas when he come in and they told it all to him.

It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn't know nothing at all the rest of the day, and preached a prayer-meeting sermon that night that gave him a rattling reputation, because the oldest man in the world couldn't of understood it. So Tom's Aunt Polly, she told all about who I was and what, And I had to up and tell how I was in such a tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom Sawyer, she chipped in and says, Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally. I'm used to it now, and tain't no need to change, that when Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer, I had to stand it. There weren't no other way, and I knowed he wouldn't mind, because it would be nuts for him being a mystery and he'd make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly satisfied.

And so it turned out, and he led on to be Sid, and made things as soft as he could for me. And his Aunt Polly, she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting Jim free in her will, and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free. And I couldn't ever understand before until that minute and that talk how he could help a body set a nigger free with his bringing up. Well, Aunt Polly, she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and Sid had come all right and safe, she says to herself, Look at that now. I might have expected it, letting him go off that way without anybody to watch him, and so now I've got to go and traipse all the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that creeter's up to this time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of you about it.

Why, "'I never heard nothing from you,' says Aunt Sallie. "'Well, I wonder—why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean by Sid being here. Well, I never got him, sis.' Aunt Polly, she turns round slow and severe and says, "'You, Tom—well, what?' he says, kind of pettish. "'Don't you wot me, you impudent thing. Hand out them letters.' "'What letters?' "'Them letters.' I be bound if I have to take a hold of you while they're in the trunk. There, now, and they're just the same as they was when I got them out of the office. I ain't looked into them. I ain't touched them, but I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if you weren't in no hurry, I'd—well, you do need skinning. There ain't no mistake about it, and I wrote another one to tell you I was coming, and I suppose he—no, it come yesterday.

I ain't read it yet, but it's all right. I've got that one. I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it was just a safe to—not to—so I never said nothing.

43 43 Chapter The Last 3:59

This is chapter forty three chapter the last of Huckleberry Finn. This is a living. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 43 Chapter the last. Out of bondage, paying the captive. Yours truly, Huck Finn. The first time I catched Tom Private, I asked him what was his idea, time of the evasion. What it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before, and he said what he planned in his head from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river on the raft and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and right word ahead, and get out all the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brass band, and then he would be a hero, and so would we.

But I reckon it was about as well the way it was. We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom, they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime. and give him all he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we had him up to the sick-room, and had a high talk, and Tom give Jim $40 for being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted out, and says, "'Dah, now, Huck, what'd I tell you? What'd I tell you up day on Jackson Island? I told you I got a hairy breast, and what's to sign on it?' "'And I tole you I've been rich onct, and gwine to be rich again, and it's come true, and here she is.

Da' now, don't talk to me. Signs is signs. Mine, I tell you. And I know just as well that I was a gwine to be rich again as I's a standin' here dis minute. "'And then Tom he talked along, and talked along, and says, Let's all three slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go for howling adventures amongst the Injins over in the territory for a couple of weeks or two, and I says all right, that suits me, but I ain't got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get none from home, because it's likely Pap's been back before now and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up. "'No, he hain't,' Tom says. "'It's all there yet—six thousand dollars and more, and your pap ain't ever been back since.

Hadn't when I come away anyhow,' Jim says, kind of solemn, "'He ain't a-comin' back no more, Huck.' I says, "'Why, Jim?' "'Nay mind why, Huck, but he ain't comin' back no more.' But I kept at him, so at last he says—' Don't you member the house that was floatin' down the river, and dey was a man in dey kyvered up, and I went in and unkyvered him, and didn't let you come in? Well, then, you can git yo money when you wants it, cause dat was him. Tom's most well now, and got his bullet round his neck on a watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain't nothing more to write about. and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book, I wouldn't a tackled it, and ain't a-goin to no more.

But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally, she's going to adopt me and civilize me, and I can't stand it. I've been there before."

queue_music Chapters 43