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  • THE 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 skift 'long de sho' som'ers

  • 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a- stirring yit, so I hid in de ole tumble-

  • down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go 'way.

  • Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time.

  • 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er nine every

  • skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over to de town en say you's

  • killed.

  • Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en genlmen a-goin' over for to see de place.

  • Sometimes dey'd pull up at de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de

  • talk I got to know all 'bout de killin'.

  • I 'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but I ain't no mo' now.

  • "I laid dah under de shavin's all day.

  • I 'uz hungry, but I warn't afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to

  • start to de camp-meet'n' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows

  • I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so

  • dey wouldn' 'spec to see me roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark

  • in de evenin'.

  • De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en take holiday soon as de

  • ole folks 'uz out'n de way.

  • "Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout two mile er more

  • to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my mine 'bout what I's agwyne

  • to do.

  • You see, ef I kep' on tryin' to git away afoot, de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a

  • skift to cross over, dey'd miss dat skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan'

  • on de yuther side, en whah to pick up my track.

  • So I says, a raff is what I's arter; it doan' MAKE no track.

  • "I see a light a-comin' roun' de p'int bymeby, so I wade' in en shove' a log ahead

  • o' me en swum more'n half way acrost de river, en got in 'mongst de drift-wood, en

  • kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin de current tell de raff come along.

  • Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck a- holt.

  • It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while.

  • So I clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de middle,

  • whah de lantern wuz.

  • De river wuz a-risin', en dey wuz a good current; so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de

  • mawnin' I'd be twenty-five mile down de river, en den I'd slip in jis b'fo'

  • daylight en swim asho', en take to de woods on de Illinois side.

  • "But I didn' have no luck.

  • When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de islan' a man begin to come aft wid de

  • lantern, I see it warn't no use fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer

  • de islan'.

  • Well, I had a notion I could lan' mos' anywhers, but I couldn't--bank too bluff.

  • I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I found' a good place.

  • I went into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as dey move de

  • lantern roun' so.

  • I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I

  • 'uz all right." "And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to

  • eat all this time?

  • Why didn't you get mud-turkles?" "How you gwyne to git 'm?

  • You can't slip up on um en grab um; en how's a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock?

  • How could a body do it in de night?

  • En I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime."

  • "Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the

  • time, of course.

  • Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon?" "Oh, yes.

  • I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah--watched um thoo de

  • bushes."

  • Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting.

  • Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain.

  • He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was

  • the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, but Jim

  • wouldn't let me.

  • He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once,

  • and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and

  • he did.

  • And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because

  • that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table-cloth after

  • sundown.

  • And he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died, the bees must be told about

  • it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work

  • and die.

  • Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that, because I had tried

  • them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting me.

  • I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them.

  • Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything.

  • I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him if

  • there warn't any good-luck signs. He says:

  • "Mighty few--an' DEY ain't no use to a body.

  • What you want to know when good luck's a- comin' for?

  • Want to keep it off?"

  • And he said: "Ef you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's agwyne

  • to be rich. Well, dey's some use in a sign like dat,

  • 'kase it's so fur ahead.

  • You see, maybe you's got to be po' a long time fust, en so you might git discourage'

  • en kill yo'sef 'f you didn' know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby."

  • "Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?"

  • "What's de use to ax dat question? Don't you see I has?"

  • "Well, are you rich?"

  • "No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin.

  • Wunst I had foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n', en got busted out."

  • "What did you speculate in, Jim?"

  • "Well, fust I tackled stock." "What kind of stock?"

  • "Why, live stock--cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow.

  • But I ain' gwyne to resk no mo' money in stock.

  • De cow up 'n' died on my han's." "So you lost the ten dollars."

  • "No, I didn't lose it all.

  • I on'y los' 'bout nine of it. I sole de hide en taller for a dollar en

  • ten cents." "You had five dollars and ten cents left.

  • Did you speculate any more?"

  • "Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto Bradish?

  • Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar would git fo' dollars mo'

  • at de en' er de year.

  • Well, all de niggers went in, but dey didn't have much.

  • I wuz de on'y one dat had much.

  • So I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd start a bank

  • mysef.

  • Well, o' course dat nigger want' to keep me out er de business, bekase he says dey

  • warn't business 'nough for two banks, so he say I could put in my five dollars en he

  • pay me thirty-five at de en' er de year.

  • "So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirty-five

  • dollars right off en keep things a-movin'.

  • Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn' know it;

  • en I bought it off'n him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en' er

  • de year come; but somebody stole de wood-

  • flat dat night, en nex day de one-laigged nigger say de bank's busted.

  • So dey didn' none uv us git no money." "What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?"

  • "Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me to give it to a

  • nigger name' Balum--Balum's Ass dey call him for short; he's one er dem

  • chuckleheads, you know.

  • But he's lucky, dey say, en I see I warn't lucky.

  • De dream say let Balum inves' de ten cents en he'd make a raise for me.

  • Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat

  • whoever give to de po' len' to de Lord, en boun' to git his money back a hund'd times.

  • So Balum he tuck en give de ten cents to de po', en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to

  • come of it." "Well, what did come of it, Jim?"

  • "Nuffn never come of it.

  • I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no way; en Balum he couldn'.

  • I ain' gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see de security.

  • Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher says!

  • Ef I could git de ten CENTS back, I'd call it squah, en be glad er de chanst."

  • "Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again some time or

  • other." "Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it.

  • I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars.

  • I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'."

  • >

  • Chapter IX.

  • I WANTED to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I'd

  • found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got to it, because the island was

  • only three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide.

  • This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot high.

  • We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and the bushes so thick.

  • We tramped and clumb around all over it, and by and by found a good big cavern in

  • the rock, most up to the top on the side towards Illinois.

  • The cavern was as big as two or three rooms bunched together, and Jim could stand up

  • straight in it. It was cool in there.

  • Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we didn't want to be

  • climbing up and down there all the time.

  • Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps in the cavern,

  • we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, and they would never find us

  • without dogs.

  • And, besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want

  • the things to get wet?

  • So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, and lugged

  • all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide

  • the canoe in, amongst the thick willows.

  • We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for

  • dinner.

  • The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one side of the

  • door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a good place to build a fire

  • on.

  • So we built it there and cooked dinner. We spread the blankets inside for a carpet,

  • and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things handy at the

  • back of the cavern.

  • Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was right

  • about it.

  • Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the

  • wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms.

  • It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the

  • rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and

  • spider-webby; and here would come a blast

  • of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves;

  • and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to

  • tossing their arms as if they was just

  • wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest--FST! it was as bright

  • as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off

  • yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards

  • further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear

  • the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down

  • the sky towards the under side of the

  • world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs--where it's long stairs and they

  • bounce a good deal, you know. "Jim, this is nice," I says.

  • "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here.

  • Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."

  • "Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim.

  • You'd a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too; dat

  • you would, honey.

  • Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile."

  • The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at last it was

  • over the banks.

  • The water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the

  • Illinois bottom.

  • On that side it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same

  • old distance across--a half a mile--because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high

  • bluffs.

  • Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool and shady in

  • the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside.

  • We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung so

  • thick we had to back away and go some other way.

  • Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such

  • things; and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame,

  • on account of being hungry, that you could

  • paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and

  • turtles--they would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of

  • them.

  • We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.

  • One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft--nice pine planks.

  • It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the top stood

  • above water six or seven inches--a solid, level floor.

  • We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go; we didn't

  • show ourselves in daylight.

  • Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before daylight, here

  • comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was a two-story, and tilted over

  • considerable.

  • We paddled out and got aboard --clumb in at an upstairs window.

  • But it was too dark to see yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for

  • daylight.

  • The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island.

  • Then we looked in at the window.

  • We could make out a bed, and a table, and two old chairs, and lots of things around

  • about on the floor, and there was clothes hanging against the wall.

  • There was something laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man.

  • So Jim says: "Hello, you!"

  • But it didn't budge.

  • So I hollered again, and then Jim says: "De man ain't asleep--he's dead.

  • You hold still--I'll go en see." He went, and bent down and looked, and

  • says:

  • "It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too.

  • He's ben shot in de back. I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days.

  • Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his face-- it's too gashly."

  • I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he

  • needn't done it; I didn't want to see him.

  • There was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old

  • whisky bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls

  • was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.

  • There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some women's underclothes

  • hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too.

  • We put the lot into the canoe--it might come good.

  • There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too.

  • And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to

  • suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was

  • broke.

  • There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke.

  • They stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them that was any account.

  • The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and

  • warn't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff.

  • We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher- knife without any handle, and a bran-new

  • Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin

  • candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup,

  • and a ratty old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins and beeswax

  • and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchet and some nails, and a

  • fishline as thick as my little finger with

  • some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, and a

  • horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on them; and just as

  • we was leaving I found a tolerable good

  • curry-comb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg.

  • The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg,

  • though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the

  • other one, though we hunted all around.

  • And so, take it all around, we made a good haul.

  • When we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it

  • was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the

  • quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off.

  • I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most a half a mile doing it.

  • I crept up the dead water under the bank, and hadn't no accidents and didn't see

  • nobody. We got home all safe.

  • >

  • Chapter X. AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the

  • dead man and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to.

  • He said it would fetch bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt

  • us; he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than

  • one that was planted and comfortable.

  • That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from

  • studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.

  • We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the

  • lining of an old blanket overcoat.

  • Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a

  • knowed the money was there they wouldn't a left it.

  • I said I reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that.

  • I says:

  • "Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the snake-skin

  • that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday?

  • You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands.

  • Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this truck and eight

  • dollars besides.

  • I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim."

  • "Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart.

  • It's a-comin'.

  • Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'." It did come, too.

  • It was a Tuesday that we had that talk.

  • Well, after dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the

  • ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and found

  • a rattlesnake in there.

  • I killed him, and curled him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking

  • there'd be some fun when Jim found him there.

  • Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on

  • the blanket while I struck a light the snake's mate was there, and bit him.

  • He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the varmint curled up

  • and ready for another spring.

  • I laid him out in a second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun

  • to pour it down. He was barefooted, and the snake bit him

  • right on the heel.

  • That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a

  • dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it.

  • Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body

  • and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it would

  • help cure him.

  • He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too.

  • He said that that would help.

  • Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I

  • warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.

  • Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched

  • around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug

  • again.

  • His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to

  • come, and so I judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than

  • pap's whisky.

  • Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone and he was

  • around again.

  • I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a- holt of a snake-skin again with my hands,

  • now that I see what had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him

  • next time.

  • And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't

  • got to the end of it yet.

  • He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand

  • times than take up a snake-skin in his hand.

  • Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that

  • looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and

  • foolishest things a body can do.

  • Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got

  • drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a

  • kind of a layer, as you may say; and they

  • slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they

  • say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me.

  • But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool.

  • Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again; and

  • about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit

  • and set it and catch a catfish that was as

  • big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds.

  • We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois.

  • We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded.

  • We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage.

  • We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it.

  • Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it.

  • It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon.

  • Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at

  • the village.

  • They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there; everybody

  • buys some of him; his meat's as white as snow and makes a good fry.

  • Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring up

  • some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the

  • river and find out what was going on.

  • Jim liked that notion; but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp.

  • Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress

  • up like a girl?

  • That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns,

  • and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it.

  • Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit.

  • I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and

  • see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe.

  • Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly.

  • I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do

  • pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he said I must quit

  • pulling up my gown to get at my britches- pocket.

  • I took notice, and done better. I started up the Illinois shore in the

  • canoe just after dark.

  • I started across to the town from a little below the ferry-landing, and the drift of

  • the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town.

  • I tied up and started along the bank.

  • There was a light burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long

  • time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there.

  • I slipped up and peeped in at the window.

  • There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by a candle that was on a

  • pine table.

  • I didn't know her face; she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town

  • that I didn't know.

  • Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid I had come;

  • people might know my voice and find me out.

  • But if this woman had been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I

  • wanted to know; so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was

  • a girl.

  • >

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN By Mark Twain

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