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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete
-by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
-
-
-Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete
-
-Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
-
-Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #76]
-[This file last updated May 3, 2011]
-
-Language: English
-
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger. Previous editions produced by Ron Burkey
-and Internet Wiretap
-
-
-
-
-
-ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
-
-By Mark Twain
-
-
-
-NOTICE
-
-PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons
-attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-
-BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief 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.
-
-
-
-
-
-ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
-
-Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
-Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made
-by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which
-he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never
-seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or
-the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she is--and
-Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is
-mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.
-
-Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money
-that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six
-thousand dollars apiece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money when
-it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at
-interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round
---more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took
-me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough
-living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and
-decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no
-longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again,
-and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he
-was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back
-to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.
-
-The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
-called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.
-She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat
-and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced
-again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time.
-When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to
-wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the
-victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them,--that
-is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds
-and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of
-swaps around, and the things go better.
-
-After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
-Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by
-she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then
-I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead
-people.
-
-Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
-wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must
-try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They
-get down on 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 warn't particular. She
-said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the
-whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well,
-I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my
-mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only
-make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
-
-Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good
-place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all
-day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much
-of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would
-go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about
-that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
-
-Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By
-and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody
-was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it
-on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to
-think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I
-most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled
-in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing
-about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about
-somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper
-something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the
-cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of
-a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's
-on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in
-its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so
-down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a
-spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in
-the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't
-need anybody to tell me that 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 set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;
-for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't
-know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go
-boom--boom--boom--twelve licks; and all still again--stiller than ever.
-Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees
---something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could
-just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That was good! Says I,
-"me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and
-scrambled out of the window on to 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.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-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 dah?"
-
-He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right
-between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes
-and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close
-together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I
-dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right
-between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well,
-I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality,
-or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy--if you
-are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all
-over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:
-
-"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.
-Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen
-tell I hears it agin."
-
-So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up
-against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched
-one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into
-my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside.
-Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set
-still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it
-seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different
-places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I
-set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe
-heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty soon comfortable
-again.
-
-Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and we
-went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom
-whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said
-no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I
-warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip
-in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim
-might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there
-and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.
-Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do
-Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play
-something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was
-so still and lonesome.
-
-As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence,
-and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of
-the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on
-a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake.
-Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched 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, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked
-up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece
-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 rode 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 Jo Harper and Ben
-Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we
-unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the
-big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.
-
-We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the
-secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest
-part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands
-and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up.
-Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall
-where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a
-narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold,
-and there we stopped. Tom says:
-
-"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
-Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name
-in blood."
-
-Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote
-the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and
-never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in
-the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family
-must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed
-them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band.
-And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he
-did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if
-anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his
-throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered
-all around, and his name blotted off 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 hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout
-him?"
-
-"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.
-
-"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He
-used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen
-in these parts for a year or more."
-
-They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said
-every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be
-fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to
-do--everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but
-all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson--they
-could kill her. Everybody said:
-
-"Oh, she'll do. 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 per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed,
-it means that we keep them till they're dead."
-
-"Now, that's something LIKE. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said that
-before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome
-lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying to get
-loose."
-
-"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard
-over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"
-
-"A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody's got to set up all night and
-never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's
-foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they
-get here?"
-
-"Because it ain't in the books 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 'em anything? Not by a good deal.
-No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."
-
-"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we
-kill the women, too?"
-
-"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill
-the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You
-fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and
-by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any
-more."
-
-"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.
-Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows
-waiting to be ransomed, that 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 cry-baby, and that made him
-mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom
-give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet
-next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.
-
-Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted
-to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it
-on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and
-fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first
-captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.
-
-I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
-breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
-dog-tired.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-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 awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and
-prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and
-whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it.
-Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without
-hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't
-make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but
-she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out
-no way.
-
-I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I
-says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't
-Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get
-back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up?
-No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the
-widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it
-was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what
-she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for other
-people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself.
-This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods
-and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no
-advantage about it--except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I
-wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the
-widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a
-body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and
-knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two
-Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the
-widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for
-him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the
-widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was 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 whale me
-when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to
-the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he
-was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people
-said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just
-his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like
-pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been
-in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he was
-floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the
-bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of
-something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his
-back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a
-woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I
-judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he
-wouldn't.
-
-We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All
-the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, 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 "julery," and we would go to the cave and
-powwow 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 A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two
-hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter"
-mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard
-of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called
-it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our
-swords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a
-turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it,
-though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them
-till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than
-what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of
-Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I
-was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the
-word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn't no
-Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. It
-warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class at
-that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we
-never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a
-rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher
-charged in, and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no
-di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them
-there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and
-things. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so
-ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without
-asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was
-hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we
-had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole
-thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all
-right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom
-Sawyer said I was a numskull.
-
-"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 around so?"
-
-"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the
-lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells
-them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full
-of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughter
-from China for you to marry, they've got to do it--and they've got to do
-it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they've got to waltz that
-palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand."
-
-"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping
-the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's
-more--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would
-drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp."
-
-"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd HAVE to come when he rubbed it,
-whether you wanted to or not."
-
-"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then;
-I WOULD come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there
-was in the country."
-
-"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to
-know anything, somehow--perfect saphead."
-
-I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
-would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron
-ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like
-an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't no
-use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was
-only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs
-and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks
-of a Sunday-school.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter
-now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and
-write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six
-times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any
-further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in
-mathematics, anyway.
-
-At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.
-Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next
-day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the
-easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways,
-too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a
-bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used
-to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to
-me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new
-ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure,
-and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me.
-
-One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I
-reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder
-and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and
-crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess
-you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but that
-warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I
-started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering
-where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is
-ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them
-kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited
-and on the watch-out.
-
-I went down 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 had come up from the quarry
-and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden
-fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I
-couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to
-follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't
-notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left
-boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
-
-I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my
-shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge
-Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:
-
-"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your
-interest?"
-
-"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"
-
-"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--over a hundred and fifty
-dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along
-with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."
-
-"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all
---nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it
-to you--the six thousand and all."
-
-He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:
-
-"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
-
-I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take it
---won't you?"
-
-He says:
-
-"Well, I'm puzzled. 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:
-
-"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to SELL all your property to me--not
-give it. That's the correct idea."
-
-Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
-
-"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have bought
-it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign
-it."
-
-So I signed it, and left.
-
-Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had
-been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic
-with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed
-everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again,
-for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he
-was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and
-said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the
-floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried
-it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got
-down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it
-warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't
-talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter
-that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little,
-and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was
-so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I
-reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I
-said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it,
-because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it
-and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it
-was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the
-quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you
-couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so
-anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well,
-I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.
-
-Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again.
-This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would tell my
-whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hair-ball talked
-to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
-
-"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he
-spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to
-res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin'
-roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black.
-De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail
-in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him
-at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble
-in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en
-sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well
-agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light
-en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to
-marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way
-fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in
-de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."
-
-When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap--his
-own self!
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-I HAD shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used
-to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was
-scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken--that is, after the
-first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so
-unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth
-bothring about.
-
-He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and
-greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he
-was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up
-whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it
-was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick,
-a white to make a body's flesh crawl--a tree-toad white, a fish-belly
-white. As for his clothes--just rags, that was all. He had one ankle
-resting on 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 clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By
-and by he says:
-
-"Starchy clothes--very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, DON'T
-you?"
-
-"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
-
-"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on
-considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg
-before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say--can read and
-write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he
-can't? I'LL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such
-hifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you you could?"
-
-"The widow. She told me."
-
-"The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
-about a thing that ain't none of her business?"
-
-"Nobody never told her."
-
-"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here--you drop that
-school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs
-over his own father and let on to be better'n what HE is. You lemme
-catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother
-couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of
-the family couldn't before THEY died. I can't; and here you're
-a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--you hear?
-Say, lemme hear you read."
-
-I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the
-wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack
-with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
-
-"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
-here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for
-you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good.
-First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son."
-
-He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and
-says:
-
-"What's this?"
-
-"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."
-
-He tore it up, and says:
-
-"I'll give you something better--I'll give you a cowhide."
-
-He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
-
-"AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a
-look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor--and your own father
-got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I
-bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you.
-Why, there ain't no end to your airs--they say you're rich. Hey?--how's
-that?"
-
-"They lie--that's how."
-
-"Looky here--mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can
-stand now--so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I
-hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away
-down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money
-to-morrow--I want it."
-
-"I hain't got no money."
-
-"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."
-
-"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell
-you the same."
-
-"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know
-the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."
-
-"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to--"
-
-"It don't make no difference what you want it for--you just shell it
-out."
-
-He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
-going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day.
-When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me
-for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I
-reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me
-to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me
-if I didn't drop that.
-
-Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged
-him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then
-he swore he'd make the law force him.
-
-The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from
-him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had
-just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn't
-interfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druther
-not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow
-had to quit on the business.
-
-That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me
-till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I
-borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
-drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying
-on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight;
-then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed
-him again for a week. But he said HE was satisfied; said he was boss of
-his son, and he'd make it warm for HIM.
-
-When he got out the new judge said he was 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-going 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's started in on a new life, and'll die before
-he'll go back. You mark them words--don't forget I said them. It's a
-clean hand now; shake it--don't be afeard."
-
-So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The
-judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge--made
-his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something
-like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was
-the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and
-clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his
-new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old
-time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and
-rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most
-froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they come
-to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could
-navigate it.
-
-The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform
-the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went
-for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he
-went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of
-times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him
-or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much
-before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That law trial was a
-slow business--appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on
-it; so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the
-judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money
-he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and
-every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited--this kind
-of thing was right in his line.
-
-He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so she told him at last
-that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him.
-Well, WASN'T he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss. So
-he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me
-up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the
-Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't no houses but an old
-log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if
-you didn't know where it was.
-
-He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.
-We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key
-under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we
-fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he
-locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and
-traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and
-had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where I was by
-and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap drove
-him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was used to
-being where I was, and liked it--all but the cowhide part.
-
-It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking
-and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and
-my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got
-to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on a
-plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever
-bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the
-time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing, because
-the widow didn't like it; but now I took to it again because pap hadn't
-no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it
-all around.
-
-But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand
-it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking
-me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful
-lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't ever going to get
-out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix up some way
-to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I
-couldn't find no way. There warn't a window to it big enough for a dog
-to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly; it was too narrow. The
-door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to leave a
-knife or anything in the cabin when he was away; I reckon I had hunted
-the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I was most all the time
-at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time. But this
-time I found something at last; I found an old rusty wood-saw without any
-handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof.
-I greased it up and went to work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed
-against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep
-the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out. I
-got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a
-section of the big bottom log out--big enough to let me through. Well,
-it was a good long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I
-heard pap's gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and
-dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in.
-
-Pap warn't in a good humor--so he was his natural self. He said he was
-down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned
-he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on
-the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge
-Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be
-another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my
-guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up
-considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more
-and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man
-got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of,
-and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any,
-and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round,
-including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names
-of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went
-right along with his cussing.
-
-He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch
-out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place
-six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they
-dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, but
-only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that
-chance.
-
-The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got.
-There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,
-ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two
-newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went
-back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all
-over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and
-take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one
-place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and
-hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor
-the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and
-leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got
-so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man
-hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.
-
-I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While
-I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of
-warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town,
-and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body
-would a thought he was Adam--he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor
-begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says:
-
-"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like.
-Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him--a
-man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and
-all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son
-raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for HIM
-and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call THAT
-govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher
-up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law
-does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and
-jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in
-clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't
-get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to
-just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I TOLD 'em so; I told
-old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I
-said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come
-a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat--if you
-call it a hat--but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till
-it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like
-my head was shoved up through a jint o' stove-pipe. Look at it, says I
---such a hat for me to wear--one of the wealthiest men in this town if I
-could git my rights.
-
-"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here.
-There was a free nigger there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white as a
-white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the
-shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine
-clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a
-silver-headed cane--the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And
-what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could
-talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the
-wust. They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me
-out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and
-I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get
-there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where
-they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin.
-Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot
-for all me--I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool
-way of that nigger--why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't
-shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger
-put up at auction and sold?--that's what I want to know. And what do you
-reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in
-the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There,
-now--that's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free
-nigger till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that
-calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a
-govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before it
-can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free
-nigger, and--"
-
-Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was
-taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and
-barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of
-language--mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give the
-tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the cabin
-considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one
-shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot
-all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it warn't good
-judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking
-out of the front end of it; so now he raised a howl that fairly made a
-body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and
-held his toes; and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had
-ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards. He had heard
-old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too;
-but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.
-
-After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for
-two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged
-he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key,
-or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank, and tumbled down
-on his blankets by and by; but luck didn't run my way. He didn't go
-sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed around
-this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldn't
-keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about
-I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.
-
-I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an
-awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping
-around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was
-crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say
-one had bit him on the cheek--but I couldn't see no snakes. He started
-and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take him off! take him off!
-he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so wild in the eyes.
-Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he rolled
-over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and
-striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying
-there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by and by, and laid still a
-while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could
-hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed
-terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he raised up
-part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, very low:
-
-"Tramp--tramp--tramp; that's the dead; tramp--tramp--tramp; they're
-coming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me
---don't! hands off--they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!"
-
-Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him
-alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the
-old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could
-hear him through the blanket.
-
-By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he
-see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a
-clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me,
-and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged, and told him I was
-only Huck; but he laughed SUCH a screechy laugh, and roared and cussed,
-and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and dodged under his
-arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders, and I
-thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket quick as lightning, and
-saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and dropped down with his
-back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me.
-He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and
-then he would see who was who.
-
-So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the old split-bottom chair
-and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the
-gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, then I
-laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down
-behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did
-drag along.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-"GIT up! What you 'bout?"
-
-I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. It
-was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over me
-looking sour and sick, too. He says:
-
-"What you doin' with this gun?"
-
-I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I says:
-
-"Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him."
-
-"Why didn't you roust me out?"
-
-"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you."
-
-"Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with you
-and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be along in a
-minute."
-
-He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed
-some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of
-bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have
-great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be
-always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes
-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
-wood-yards 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, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high
-like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog, clothes and
-all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected there'd be
-somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to fool folks,
-and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd raise up and
-laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. It was a drift-canoe sure
-enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore. Thinks I, the old man
-will be glad when he sees this--she's worth ten dollars. But when I
-got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I was running her into a
-little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and willows, I struck
-another idea: I judged I'd hide her good, and then, 'stead of taking to
-the woods when I run off, I'd go down the river about fifty mile and camp
-in one place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot.
-
-It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man
-coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked around
-a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a piece just
-drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen anything.
-
-When he got along I was hard at it taking up a "trot" line. He abused me
-a little for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, and that
-was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he
-would be asking questions. We got five 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 certainer thing
-than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me; you
-see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see no way for a
-while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of
-water, and he says:
-
-"Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you
-hear? That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time you
-roust me out, you hear?"
-
-Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but what he had been saying
-give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so
-nobody won't think of following me.
-
-About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river
-was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise.
-By and by along comes part of a log raft--nine logs fast together. We
-went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner.
-Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch
-more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs was enough for one
-time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and
-took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three. I
-judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had
-got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that log
-again. Before he was 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 corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and
-shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same
-with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and
-sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the
-bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two
-blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and
-matches and other things--everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned
-out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out
-at the woodpile, 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 warn't likely anybody
-would go fooling around there.
-
-It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I
-followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the
-river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods,
-and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon
-went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms.
-I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
-
-I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it
-considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly
-to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down
-on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground--hard packed,
-and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks
-in it--all I could drag--and I started it from the pig, and dragged it
-to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and
-down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been
-dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he
-would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy
-touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as
-that.
-
-Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and 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 got the bag of
-meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. I
-took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom
-of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the place
---pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then I
-carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the
-willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and
-full of rushes--and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a
-slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles
-away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted
-out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap's
-whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident.
-Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn't
-leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.
-
-It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some
-willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made
-fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in
-the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll
-follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then drag the
-river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go
-browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that
-killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for
-anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't
-bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to.
-Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well,
-and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights,
-and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place.
-
-I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I
-woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked
-around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and
-miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs
-that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from
-shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and SMELT late.
-You know what I mean--I don't know the words to put it in.
-
-I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start
-when I heard a sound away over the water. 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 a still night. I peeped out through
-the willow branches, and there it was--a skiff, away across the water. I
-couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it was
-abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it. Think's I, maybe
-it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me with the
-current, and by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water, and
-he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him. Well,
-it WAS pap, sure enough--and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars.
-
-I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down stream soft
-but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then
-struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river,
-because 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,
-and he said it over again, and they laughed again; then they waked up
-another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped
-out something brisk, and said let him alone. The first fellow said he
-'lowed to tell it to his old woman--she would think it was pretty good;
-but he said that warn't nothing to some things he had said in his 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 down stream, heavy timbered and
-standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like
-a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the bar at the
-head--it was all under water now.
-
-It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping
-rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and
-landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a
-deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow
-branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen the canoe
-from the outside.
-
-I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked out
-on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town, three
-mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A monstrous
-big lumber-raft was about a mile up stream, coming along down, with a
-lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping down, and when
-it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say, "Stern oars,
-there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as plain as if
-the man was by my side.
-
-There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods, and
-laid down for a nap before breakfast.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight
-o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about
-things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I could
-see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all
-about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places on
-the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the
-freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze
-up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very
-friendly.
-
-I was powerful lazy and comfortable--didn't want to get up and cook
-breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep
-sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow
-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 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
-drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and if
-any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show. I changed
-to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I
-warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I most got it
-with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of
-course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore--I knowed
-enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I
-won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver,
-and set my teeth in. It was "baker's bread"--what the quality eat; none
-of your low-down corn-pone.
-
-I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching
-the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied. And then
-something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or
-somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and
-done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing
---that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson
-prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just
-the right kind.
-
-I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The
-ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance
-to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in
-close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down
-towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread,
-and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where the
-log forked I could peep through.
-
-By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a
-run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap,
-and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer,
-and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was
-talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says:
-
-"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's
-washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I
-hope so, anyway."
-
-I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly
-in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see
-them first-rate, but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out:
-
-"Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it
-made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I
-judged I was gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a
-got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to
-goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder
-of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and
-further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more. The
-island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and was
-giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot
-of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under
-steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that
-side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they
-quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the
-town.
-
-I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after me.
-I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick
-woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under
-so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish and haggled him
-open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had
-supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.
-
-When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well
-satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set
-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
-razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They
-would all come handy by and by, I judged.
-
-Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far
-from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot
-nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh home.
-About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went
-sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get
-a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to
-the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.
-
-My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further,
-but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my 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 nothing else. I
-slunk along another piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so
-on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and
-broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two
-and I only got half, and the short half, too.
-
-When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in
-my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got
-all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I
-put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last
-year's camp, and then clumb a tree.
-
-I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I
-didn't hear nothing--I only THOUGHT I heard and seen as much as a
-thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I
-got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time.
-All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast.
-
-By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and
-dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the
-Illinois bank--about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and
-cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all
-night when I hear a PLUNKETY-PLUNK, PLUNKETY-PLUNK, and says to myself,
-horses coming; and next I hear people's voices. I got everything into
-the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods
-to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when I hear a man say:
-
-"We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about
-beat out. Let's look around."
-
-I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the
-old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.
-
-I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every time
-I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't do
-me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm
-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 the 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 begin to blanket the river.
-But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, and knowed
-the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had
-run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I
-hadn't no luck somehow; I couldn't seem to find the place. But by and
-by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I
-went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was close enough to have a
-look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fan-tods.
-He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I
-set there behind a clump of bushes, in about six foot of him, and kept my
-eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he
-gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss
-Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says:
-
-"Hello, Jim!" and skipped out.
-
-He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees,
-and puts his hands together and says:
-
-"Doan' hurt me--don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz
-liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in de
-river agin, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz awluz
-yo' fren'."
-
-Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so
-glad to see Jim. I warn't lonesome now. I told him I warn't afraid of
-HIM telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he only set
-there and looked at me; never said nothing. Then I says:
-
-"It's good daylight. Le's get breakfast. Make up your camp fire good."
-
-"What's de use er makin' up de camp fire to cook strawbries en sich
-truck? But you got a gun, hain't you? Den we kin git sumfn better den
-strawbries."
-
-"Strawberries and such truck," I says. "Is that what you live on?"
-
-"I couldn' git nuffn else," he says.
-
-"Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?"
-
-"I come heah de night arter you's killed."
-
-"What, all that time?"
-
-"Yes--indeedy."
-
-"And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?"
-
-"No, sah--nuffn else."
-
-"Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?"
-
-"I reck'n I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on de
-islan'?"
-
-"Since the night I got killed."
-
-"No! W'y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a
-gun. Dat's good. Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire."
-
-So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a
-grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and coffee,
-and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the nigger was
-set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done with
-witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him with
-his knife, and fried him.
-
-When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot.
-Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then
-when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By and by
-Jim says:
-
-"But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty ef it
-warn't you?"
-
-Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom
-Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says:
-
-"How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?"
-
-He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he
-says:
-
-"Maybe I better not tell."
-
-"Why, Jim?"
-
-"Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I uz to tell you,
-would you, Huck?"
-
-"Blamed if I would, Jim."
-
-"Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I--I RUN OFF."
-
-"Jim!"
-
-"But mind, you said you wouldn' tell--you know you said you wouldn' 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-going to tell,
-and I ain't a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all about
-it."
-
-"Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole missus--dat's Miss Watson--she pecks
-on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she
-wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader
-roun' de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one
-night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I
-hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but
-she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it
-'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'. De widder she try to
-git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'. I
-lit out mighty quick, I tell you.
-
-"I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a ski
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