Chapter 38
Chapter 38 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 38.
Making them pens was a distressed tough job, and so was the soul, and Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the 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 Grey, he says. Look at Guilford Dudley. Look at old Nothumberland. Why Huck?
Suppose it is considerable trouble. What you going to do? How you going to get around it? Jim's got to do his inscription and coat of arms. They all do.
Jim says, why, Master Tom? I ain't got no coat of arms. I ain't got nothing but this year old shit, and you knows I get to keep the journal on that. Oh, you don't understand, Jim.
A coat of arms is very different. Well, I says, Jim's right anyway when he says he ain'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 and there ain't going to be no flaws in his record. So whilst me and Jim file the way at the pens on a brick-bath apiece, Jim are making his
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 struck so many good ones. He didn't hardly know which to take, but there was one he reckoned he'd decide on. He says, on this conchon we'll have a bent O.R. in the Dexter base, a Salter Mure, M-U-R-R-E-Y,
in the fests, with a dog, count chart for common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled for slavery with a chevron vat, V-E-R-T, in a chieftain grid, and three infected lines on a field, Azure, A-Z-U-R-E, with the numeral points rampant on a downcent, indented, a runaway nigger, Sable, S-A-B-L-E, with his bundle over his shoulder, on a bar sinister, and a couple of ghouls for supporters, which is you and me, Moto, Maggiore, Freta, Minore,
Oto, got it out of a book, means the more haste the less speed. Gee Wilkins, 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, get 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. Shock storm, I says.
I think you might tell a person. What's a bar sinister? Oh, I don't know, but he's got to have it. All the nobility does. That was just his way.
If he 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 month full 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 hat 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 37 years of
solitary captivity. Four, here homeless and friendless, after 37 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
on to the wall. They were 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 aren't a going to do. They don't have log walls in the dungeon. We got to do 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 peacing long time to dig them into the 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 pants.
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 mumful 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 nother but we allowed we would tackle it. It wasn't quite midnight yet so we cleared out for the mill leaving Jim at work.
We smudged 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 half way and then we was plumb played out and most drowned with sweat.
We see it weren't no use, we get to go and fetch Jim so he raised up his bed and slid the chain off the bed leg and wrapped it round and round his neck and we crawled out through a 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. The nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage and the lintoo 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 hind, Master. All right, we'll get you some. But bless you honey, I don't want none. As a fad of them, I 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, Master? Why? A rattlesnake. Do goodness gracious alive, Master. Why if there was a rattlesnake to come in here?
I'd take and burst right out of that log 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? Because you'll 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 round your neck and put his head in your mouth.
Please, Master, don't talk so. I can't stand it. He'd let me shove his head in my mouth for a favour, ain't it? I lay here with a powerful long time for I to ask him. Even more than 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 ain'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, Master?
I don't want no such glory. Snake takes and bites Jim's chin off. Then where is the glory? No, sir. I don't want no such 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'm straying him.
Master, I is willing to tackle most anything that ain't unreasonable. But if you and Ock 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 you some gutter snakes.
And you can tie some buttons on their tails and let on their rattlesnakes. And I reckon that you'll have to do. I can stand them as thumb. But blame me if I couldn't get along without them. I tell you that.
I never knowed before towards so much bother and 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 see none.
Well, we'll get you some rats. Why, master? I don't want no rats. There's the baddest and blameless creatures to stop a body. And Russell run over them and bite his feet when he's trying to sleep.
I ever seen. No, sir. Give me the gutter snakes if I's got to have them. But don't give me no rats. I ain't got no use from.
But Jim, you got to have them. 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 kua skump and a piece of paper and a Jews harp.
But I reckon they wouldn't take no stock in a Jews harp. Yes, they would. They don't care what kind of music it is. A Jews harp's plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music.
In a prison, they don't own it. Especially painful music. And you can't get no other kind out of a Jews harp. It always interests them. They come out to see what's the matter with you.
Yes, you're alright. 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 will scoop a rat quicker than anything else. And when you've played about two minutes, you will 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, Maastrom. But what kind of time is Jim having? Blessed if I can see the point.
But I'll do it if I got to. I reckon I better keep the animals 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, Maastrom.
But it's tolerable dark in here. And I ain't got no use for no flower. No how. And should be a powerful sight of trouble. Well, you try it anyway.
Some other prisoners has done it. One of them big cat-tail looking mollustocks could grow in here, Maastrom. I reckon. But she wouldn't be what half the trouble she'd cause. 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 Mullen. Call it Pichiola. That's its right name when it's in a prison.
And you want to water it with your tears. Why? I got plenty spring water, Maastrom. You don't want spring water. You want to water it with your tears.
It's the way they always do. Why, Maastrom? I lay I can raise one of them Mullenstocks twist with the spring water while 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, Maastrom. She surely will. Because 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 tobacco in his coffee and found so much fault with
it and with the walk and bother of raising the Mullen and Jews harping the rats and petting and fluttering 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 loaded down with more godier
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 there 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. End of chapter 38
