Chapter 40
Chapter 40 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 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 40.
We was feeling pretty good after breakfast and took my canoe and went over the river of fishing with a lunch and had a good time and took a look at the raft and found her alright and got home late to supper and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end they were 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 know as much about it as anybody did and as soon as we was half upstairs and her back was turned we slid for the sailor co-board and loaded up a good lunch and took it up to her room and went to bed and got up about half past eleven and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and was going to start with the lunch but says where's the butter I laid out a hunk of it I says on a piece of corn porn 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 seller and fetch it and then mostly right down the lightning rod and come along I'll go and stuff the straw into James clothes to represent his mother in the skies and be ready to bar like a sheep and shove as soon as you get there so out he went and down seller 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 porn 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 and Sally with a candle and I clapped the truck in my heart and clapped my heart on my head and the next second she see me and she says you've been down seller yes ma'am what you been doing down there nothing nothing no ma'am well then what possessed you to go down there this time of night I don't know ma'am you don't know don't
answer me that way Tom I want to know what you've been doing down there I ain't be doing a single thing and Sally I hope to gracious if I have I reckoned she would let me go now and as a general thing she would but I suppose there were so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat about every little thing that weren't yet strict straight so she says very decided you just match into that setting room and stay there till I come you've been up to something you know 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 15 farmers and every one of them had a gun I was most powerful sick and slunk to a chair and set down they were sitting around some of them talking a little in a low voice and all of them fidgety and uneasy but trying to look like they weren't but I know there was because there 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 and 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 honest nest we'd got ourselves into so we could stop fooling around straight off and clear out with Jim before these ribs got out of patients 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 desperate does 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 ship signal and here was and pegging away at the Christians and me are 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 most dropped and a streak of butter come a trickling down my forehead and and Sally she see it and turns white as a sheet and says for the land sake what is the matter with the child he's got the brainfeeder as sure as
you're born and they're using out and everybody runs to see and she snatches off my heart 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 locks 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 wouldn't
you tell me that was what you'd been down there for I wouldn't have 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 and shining through the dark for the link to I couldn't hardly get my words out I was so anxious but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump for it now and not a minute to lose the house full of men yonder with guns his eyes just blazed and he says no is that so I ain't bully why huck if it
was to do over again I bet I could fetch 200 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 ship signal but then we heard the trump of men coming to the door and had them begin to fumble with the padlock and had a man say I told you would be too soon they haven't come the door is locked here I'll lock some of you into the cabin and you live for
him in the dark and kill him when they come and the rest scatter around a piece and listen if you can hear them 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 rights and out through the whole swift but soft Jim first me next and Tom last which was according to Tom's orders now we was in the link to and and had trumpets 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 are scraping around out there all the time and at last he nudged us and we slid out and stooped down not breathing and not making the least noise and slipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun fire and got to eat
all right and me and Jim over it but Tom's British catched fast on his splinter on the top rail and then he hear the steps coming so he had to pull loose which snaps 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 had 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 were they wore boots and yelled but we didn't wear no boots and didn't hear 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 of the robbers but by this time somebody had let them lose and here they come making power
well enough for a million but they was our dogs so we stopped in our tracks to the catch stop and when they see it wasn't nobody but us and no excitement to offer them they only just said how D and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering and then we upsteam again and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was tied and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the river but didn't
make no more noise than we was obliged 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 were 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 the mighty good job it was to hawk it was planned beautiful and it was done beautiful and the 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 had 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 the Duke's shirts for to bandage him but he says give me 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 setter loose boys we done it elegant did we did I wish we'd had the handling of Louis there wouldn't have been no son of st. Louis ascend to heaven wrote down in his biography no sir we'd have whooped him over the border that's what we would have done with him and done it just as slick as nothing at all to man the sweeps man the sweeps but me and Jim was consulting and thinking and after which 30 minutes I says say it Jim so he says well then this is the way it
looked to me Hawk if it was him that us being such free and one of the boys was to get shot would he say go on and save me meaning me about a doctor fright to save this one is that like mass Tom would he say that you bet he wouldn't well then is Jim going to say it no sir I don't watch a step out on this place about a doctor not if it's 40 year I know he was white inside and I reckon he would say what he did say so it was all right now and I told Tom I was 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 lose himself but we wouldn't let him then he give us a piece of his mind but it didn't do no good so when he sees me getting the cane already 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 black the back alleys and everywhere's in the dark and then fetch him here in the canoe in a roundabout way amongst the islands and such 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 would 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 end of chapter 40
