3/21/23, 8:11 PM The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, By Mark Twain

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn
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Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Author: Mark Twain

Illustrator: E. W. Kemble

Release date: June 29, 2004 [eBook #76]

Most recently updated: March 10, 2023

Language: English

Credits: David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN ***

ADVENTURES
OF
H U C K L E B E R RY
FINN
(Tom Sawyer’s Comrade)

By Mark Twain

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CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Civilizing Huck.—Miss Watson.—Tom Sawyer Waits.

CHAPTER II.
The Boys Escape Jim.—Torn Sawyer’s Gang.—Deep-laid Plans.

CHAPTER III.
A Good Going-over.—Grace Triumphant.—“One of Tom
Sawyers’s Lies”.

CHAPTER IV.
Huck and the Judge.—Superstition.

CHAPTER V.
Huck’s Father.—The Fond Parent.—Reform.

CHAPTER VI.
He Went for Judge Thatcher.—Huck Decided to Leave.—Political
Economy.—Thrashing Around.

CHAPTER VII.
Laying for Him.—Locked in the Cabin.—Sinking the Body.—
Resting.

CHAPTER VIII.
Sleeping in the Woods.—Raising the Dead.—Exploring the Island.
—Finding Jim.—Jim’s Escape.—Signs.—Balum.

CHAPTER IX.
The Cave.—The Floating House.

CHAPTER X.
The Find.—Old Hank Bunker.—In Disguise.

CHAPTER XI.
Huck and the Woman.—The Search.—Prevarication.—Going to
Goshen.

CHAPTER XII.
Slow Navigation.—Borrowing Things.—Boarding the Wreck.—
The Plotters.—Hunting for the Boat.

CHAPTER XIII.
Escaping from the Wreck.—The Watchman.—Sinking.

CHAPTER XIV.
A General Good Time.—The Harem.—French.

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CHAPTER XV.
Huck Loses the Raft.—In the Fog.—Huck Finds the Raft.—Trash.

CHAPTER XVI.
Expectation.—A White Lie.—Floating Currency.—Running by
Cairo.—Swimming Ashore.

CHAPTER XVII.
An Evening Call.—The Farm in Arkansaw.—Interior Decorations.
—Stephen Dowling Bots.—Poetical Effusions.

CHAPTER XVIII.
Col. Grangerford.—Aristocracy.—Feuds.—The Testament.—
Recovering the Raft.—The Wood—pile.—Pork and Cabbage.

CHAPTER XIX.
Tying Up Day—times.—An Astronomical Theory.—Running a
Temperance Revival.—The Duke of Bridgewater.—The Troubles
of Royalty.

CHAPTER XX.
Huck Explains.—Laying Out a Campaign.—Working the Camp—
meeting.—A Pirate at the Camp—meeting.—The Duke as a
Printer.

CHAPTER XXI.
Sword Exercise.—Hamlet’s Soliloquy.—They Loafed Around
Town.—A Lazy Town.—Old Boggs.—Dead.

CHAPTER XXII.
Sherburn.—Attending the Circus.—Intoxication in the Ring.—The
Thrilling Tragedy.

CHAPTER XXIII.
Sold.—Royal Comparisons.—Jim Gets Home-sick.

CHAPTER XXIV.
Jim in Royal Robes.—They Take a Passenger.—Getting
Information.—Family Grief.

CHAPTER XXV.
Is It Them?—Singing the “Doxologer.”—Awful Square—Funeral
Orgies.—A Bad Investment .

CHAPTER XXVI.
A Pious King.—The King’s Clergy.—She Asked His Pardon.—
Hiding in the Room.—Huck Takes the Money.

CHAPTER XXVII.
The Funeral.—Satisfying Curiosity.—Suspicious of Huck,—Quick
Sales and Small.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Trip to England.—“The Brute!”—Mary Jane Decides to
Leave.—Huck Parting with Mary Jane.—Mumps.—The
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Opposition Line.

CHAPTER XXIX.
Contested Relationship.—The King Explains the Loss.—A
Question of Handwriting.—Digging up the Corpse.—Huck
Escapes.

CHAPTER XXX.
The King Went for Him.—A Royal Row.—Powerful Mellow.

CHAPTER XXXI.
Ominous Plans.—News from Jim.—Old Recollections.—A Sheep
Story.—Valuable Information.

CHAPTER XXXII.
Still and Sunday—like.—Mistaken Identity.—Up a Stump.—In a
Dilemma.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
A Nigger Stealer.—Southern Hospitality.—A Pretty Long
Blessing.—Tar and Feathers.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Hut by the Ash Hopper.—Outrageous.—Climbing the
Lightning Rod.—Troubled with Witches.

CHAPTER XXXV.
Escaping Properly.—Dark Schemes.—Discrimination in Stealing.
—A Deep Hole.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Lightning Rod.—His Level Best.—A Bequest to Posterity.—
A High Figure.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Last Shirt.—Mooning Around.—Sailing Orders.—The Witch
Pie.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Coat of Arms.—A Skilled Superintendent.—Unpleasant
Glory.—A Tearful Subject.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
Rats.—Lively Bed—fellows.—The Straw Dummy.

CHAPTER XL.
Fishing.—The Vigilance Committee.—A Lively Run.—Jim
Advises a Doctor.

CHAPTER XLI.
The Doctor.—Uncle Silas.—Sister Hotchkiss.—Aunt Sally in
Trouble.

CHAPTER XLII.
Tom Sawyer Wounded.—The Doctor’s Story.—Tom Confesses.—
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Aunt Polly Arrives.—Hand Out Them Letters.

CHAPTER THE LAST.

Out of Bondage.—Paying the Captive.—Yours Truly, Huck Finn.

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ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Widows
Moses and the “Bulrushers”
Miss Watson
Huck Stealing Away
They Tip-toed Along
Jim
Tom Sawyer’s Band of Robbers
Huck Creeps into his Window
Miss Watson’s Lecture
The Robbers Dispersed
Rubbing the Lamp
!!!!
Judge Thatcher surprised
Jim Listening
“Pap”
Huck and his Father
Reforming the Drunkard
Falling from Grace
Getting out of the Way
Solid Comfort
Thinking it Over
Raising a Howl
“Git Up”
The Shanty
Shooting the Pig
Taking a Rest
In the Woods
Watching the Boat
Discovering the Camp Fire
Jim and the Ghost
Misto Bradish’s Nigger
Exploring the Cave
In the Cave
Jim sees a Dead Man
They Found Eight Dollars
Jim and the Snake
Old Hank Bunker
“A Fair Fit”
“Come In”
“Him and another Man”
She puts up a Snack

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“Hump Yourself”
On the Raft
He sometimes Lifted a Chicken
“Please don’t, Bill”
“It ain’t Good Morals”
“Oh! Lordy, Lordy!”
In a Fix
“Hello, What’s Up?”
The Wreck
We turned in and Slept
Turning over the Truck
Solomon and his Million Wives
The story of “Sollermun”
“We Would Sell the Raft”
Among the Snags
Asleep on the Raft
“Something being Raftsman”
“Boy, that’s a Lie”
“Here I is, Huck”
Climbing up the Bank
“Who’s There?”
“Buck”
“It made Her look Spidery”
“They got him out and emptied Him”
The House
Col. Grangerford
Young Harney Shepherdson
Miss Charlotte
“And asked me if I Liked Her”
“Behind the Wood-pile”
Hiding Day-times
“And Dogs a-Coming”
“By rights I am a Duke!”
“I am the Late Dauphin”
Tail Piece
On the Raft
The King as Juliet
“Courting on the Sly”
“A Pirate for Thirty Years”
Another little Job
Practizing
Hamlet’s Soliloquy
“Gimme a Chaw”
A Little Monthly Drunk
The Death of Boggs
Sherburn steps out
A Dead Head

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He shed Seventeen Suits

Tragedy
Their Pockets Bulged
Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor
Harmless
Adolphus
He fairly emptied that Young Fellow
“Alas, our Poor Brother”
“You Bet it is”
Leaking
Making up the “Deffisit”
Going for him
The Doctor
The Bag of Money
The Cubby
Supper with the Hare-Lip
Honest Injun
The Duke looks under the Bed
Huck takes the Money
A Crack in the Dining-room Door
The Undertaker
“He had a Rat!”
“Was you in my Room?”
Jawing
In Trouble
Indignation
How to Find Them
He Wrote
Hannah with the Mumps
The Auction
The True Brothers
The Doctor leads Huck
The Duke Wrote
“Gentlemen, Gentlemen!”
“Jim Lit Out”
The King shakes Huck
The Duke went for Him
Spanish Moss
“Who Nailed Him?”
Thinking
He gave him Ten Cents
Striking for the Back Country
Still and Sunday-like
She hugged him tight
“Who do you reckon it is?”
“It was Tom Sawyer”
“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”

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A pretty long Blessing

Traveling By Rail
Vittles
A Simple Job
Witches
Getting Wood
One of the Best Authorities
The Breakfast-Horn
Smouching the Knives
Going down the Lightning-Rod
Stealing spoons
Tom advises a Witch Pie
The Rubbage-Pile
“Missus, dey’s a Sheet Gone”
In a Tearing Way
One of his Ancestors
Jim’s Coat of Arms
A Tough Job
Buttons on their Tails
Irrigation
Keeping off Dull Times
Sawdust Diet
Trouble is Brewing
Fishing
Every one had a Gun
Tom caught on a Splinter
Jim advises a Doctor
The Doctor
Uncle Silas in Danger
Old Mrs. Hotchkiss
Aunt Sally talks to Huck
Tom Sawyer wounded
The Doctor speaks for Jim
Tom rose square up in Bed
“Hand out them Letters”
Out of Bondage
Tom’s Liberality
Yours Truly

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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.

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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.

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HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.”

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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 bewitched
him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and
then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to
show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him
down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he
spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all
over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all
over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so
he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come
miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than
any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their
mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.
Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen
fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about
such things, Jim would happen in and say, “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
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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

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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.”

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“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.

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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 a while if I could. Then Miss Watson she
took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told
me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But
it 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 myself, there ain’t nothing
in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a
body could get by praying for it was “spiritual gifts.” This was too
many for me, but she told me what she meant—I must help other
people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out
for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was
including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and
turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn’t see no
advantage about it—except for the other people; so 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

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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.

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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.

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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.”
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“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,
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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!

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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:

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“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

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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

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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
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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
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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
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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.

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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.

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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
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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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
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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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’.”

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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

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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:

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“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

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water under the bank, and hadn’t no accidents and didn’t see
nobody. We got home all safe.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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CHAPTER XI.
“Come in,” says the woman, and I did. She says: “Take a cheer.”
I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and
says:
“What might your name be?”
“Sarah Williams.”
“Where ’bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?’
“No’m. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I’ve walked all the
way and I’m all tired out.”
“Hungry, too, I reckon. I’ll find you something.”
“No’m, I ain’t hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles
below here at a farm; so I ain’t hungry no more. It’s what makes
me so late. My mother’s down sick, and out of money and
everything, and I come to tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at
the upper end of the town, she says. I hain’t ever been here before.
Do you know him?”
“No; but I don’t know everybody yet. I haven’t lived here quite
two weeks. It’s a considerable ways to the upper end of the town.
You better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet.”
“No,” I says; “I’ll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain’t
afeared of the dark.”
She said she wouldn’t let me go by myself, but her husband
would be in by and by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she’d send
him along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and
about her relations up the river, and her relations down the river,
and about how much better off they used to was, and how they
didn’t know but they’d made a mistake coming to our town,
instead of letting well alone—and so on and so on, till I was afeard
I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was going on
in the town; but by and by she dropped on to pap and the murder,
and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told
about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only
she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and
what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was
murdered. I says:
“Who done it? We’ve heard considerable about these goings on
down in Hookerville, but we don’t know who ’twas that killed
Huck Finn.”
“Well, I reckon there’s a right smart chance of people here
that’d like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it
himself.”
“No—is that so?”
“Most everybody thought it at first. He’ll never know how nigh
he come to getting lynched. But before night they changed around
and judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim.”
“Why he—”
I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never
noticed I had put in at all:
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“The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So
there’s a reward out for him—three hundred dollars. And there’s a
reward out for old Finn, too—two hundred dollars. You see, he
come to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and
was out with ’em on the ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up
and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone,
you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone; they
found out he hadn’t ben seen sence ten o’clock the night the
murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see; and while
they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and went boo-
hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all
over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he
got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of
mighty hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well,
he hain’t come back sence, and they ain’t looking for him back till
this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed
his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and
then he’d get Huck’s money without having to bother a long time
with a lawsuit. People do say he warn’t any too good to do it. Oh,
he’s sly, I reckon. If he don’t come back for a year he’ll be all
right. You can’t prove anything on him, you know; everything will
be quieted down then, and he’ll walk in Huck’s money as easy as
nothing.”
“Yes, I reckon so, ’m. I don’t see nothing in the way of it. Has
everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?”
“Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But
they’ll get the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it
out of him.”
“Why, are they after him yet?”
“Well, you’re innocent, ain’t you! Does three hundred dollars
lay around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the
nigger ain’t far from here. I’m one of them—but I hain’t talked it
around. A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives
next door in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly
anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call
Jackson’s Island. Don’t anybody live there? says I. No, nobody,
says they. I didn’t say any more, but I done some thinking. I was
pretty near certain I’d seen smoke over there, about the head of the
island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like as not that
nigger’s hiding over there; anyway, says I, it’s worth the trouble to
give the place a hunt. I hain’t seen any smoke sence, so I reckon
maybe he’s gone, if it was him; but husband’s going over to see—
him and another man. He was gone up the river; but he got back
to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago.”

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I had got so uneasy I couldn’t set still. I had to do something

with my hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to
threading it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it.
When the woman stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking
at me pretty curious and smiling a little. I put down the needle and
thread, and let on to be interested—and I was, too—and says:
“Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother
could get it. Is your husband going over there to-night?”
“Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to
get a boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They’ll go
over after midnight.”
“Couldn’t they see better if they was to wait till daytime?”
“Yes. And couldn’t the nigger see better, too? After midnight
he’ll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods
and hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he’s got
one.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn’t feel a
bit comfortable. Pretty soon she says,
“What did you say your name was, honey?”
“M—Mary Williams.”
Somehow it didn’t seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so
I didn’t look up—seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of
cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished
the woman would say something more; the longer she set still the
uneasier I was. But now she says:
“Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come
in?”
“Oh, yes’m, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah’s my first name.
Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary.”
“Oh, that’s the way of it?”
“Yes’m.”

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I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there,

anyway. I couldn’t look up yet.
Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and
how poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they
owned the place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again.
She was right about the rats. You’d see one stick his nose out of a
hole in the corner every little while. She said she had to have
things handy to throw at them when she was alone, or they
wouldn’t give her no peace. She showed me a bar of lead twisted
up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly, but
she’d wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn’t know
whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance,
and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and
said “Ouch!” it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the
next one. I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back,
but of course I didn’t let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that
showed his nose I let drive, and if he’d a stayed where he was he’d
a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was first-rate, and she
reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of
lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which
she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she
put the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her
husband’s matters. But she broke off to say:
“Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,
handy.”
So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I
clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only
about a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight
in the face, and very pleasant, and says:
“Come, now, what’s your real name?”
“Wh—what, mum?”
“What’s your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?—or what is
it?”
I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn’t know hardly what to do.
But I says:
“Please to don’t poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I’m in
the way here, I’ll—”
“No, you won’t. Set down and stay where you are. I ain’t going
to hurt you, and I ain’t going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me
your secret, and trust me. I’ll keep it; and, what’s more, I’ll help
you. So’ll my old man if you want him to. You see, you’re a
runaway ’prentice, that’s all. It ain’t anything. There ain’t no harm
in it. You’ve been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut.
Bless you, child, I wouldn’t tell on you. Tell me all about it now,
that’s a good boy.”
So I said it wouldn’t be no use to try to play it any longer, and I
would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she
musn’t go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and
mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old
farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he
treated me so bad I couldn’t stand it no longer; he went away to be
gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of
his daughter’s old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three
nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid daytimes
and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home

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lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my

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

So she put me up a snack, and says:

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

old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men,
maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don’t
hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle
still and poke the thread at it; that’s the way a woman most always
does, but a man always does t’other way. And when you throw at a
rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up
over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six
or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was
a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist and
elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind you,
when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees
apart; she don’t clap them together, the way you did when you
catched the lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you
was threading the needle; and I contrived the other things just to
make certain. Now trot along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams
George Elexander Peters, and if you get into trouble you send
word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I’ll do what I can to
get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time
you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road’s a rocky
one, and your feet’ll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I
reckon.”
I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my
tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece
below the house. I jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up-
stream far enough to make the head of the island, and then started
across. I took off the sun-bonnet, for I didn’t want no blinders on
then. When I was about the middle I heard the clock begin to
strike, so I stops and listens; the sound come faint over the water
but clear—eleven. When I struck the head of the island I never
waited to blow, though I was most winded, but I shoved right into
the timber where my old camp used to be, and started a good fire
there on a high and dry spot.
Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile
and a half below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped
through the timber and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim
laid, sound asleep on the ground. I roused him out and says:
“Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose.
They’re after us!”

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

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CHAPTER XII.
It must a been close on to one o’clock when we got below the
island at last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat
was to come along we was going to take to the canoe and break for
the Illinois shore; and it was well a boat didn’t come, for we hadn’t
ever thought to put the gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or
anything to eat. We was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of
so many things. It warn’t good judgment to put everything on the
raft.
If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp
fire I built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways,
they stayed away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled
them it warn’t no fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as
I could.
When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a
towhead in a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off
cottonwood branches with the hatchet, and covered up the raft
with them so she looked like there had been a cave-in in the bank
there. A tow-head is a sandbar that has cottonwoods on it as thick
as harrow-teeth.
We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on
the Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at
that place, so we warn’t afraid of anybody running across us. We
laid there all day, and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down
the Missouri shore, and up-bound steamboats fight the big river in
the middle. I told Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that
woman; and Jim said she was a smart one, and if she was to start
after us herself she wouldn’t set down and watch a camp fire—no,
sir, she’d fetch a dog. Well, then, I said, why couldn’t she tell her
husband to fetch a dog? Jim said he bet she did think of it by the
time the men was ready to start, and he believed they must a gone
up-town to get a dog and so they lost all that time, or else we
wouldn’t be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen mile below the
village—no, indeedy, we would be in that same old town again. So
I said I didn’t care what was the reason they didn’t get us as long
as they didn’t.
When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out
of the cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across;
nothing in sight; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft
and built a snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and
rainy, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam,
and raised it a foot or more above the level of the raft, so now the
blankets and all the traps was out of reach of steamboat waves.
Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about
five or six inches deep with a frame around it for to hold it to its
place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly; the
wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra
steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a
snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old
lantern on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we
see a steamboat coming down-stream, to keep from getting run
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over; but we wouldn’t have to light it for up-stream boats unless

we see we was in what they call a “crossing”; for the river was
pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water; so
up-bound boats didn’t always run the channel, but hunted easy
water.
This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a
current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish
and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off
sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river,
laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel
like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed—only a little
kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general
thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all—that night, nor the
next, nor the next.
Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black
hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could
you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the
whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was
twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed
it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o’clock that still
night. There warn’t a sound there; everybody was asleep.
Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o’clock at
some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents’ worth of meal or
bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that
warn’t roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said,
take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don’t want
him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good
deed ain’t ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn’t want the
chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.

Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed

a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or
things of that kind. Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow
things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the
widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no
decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was
partly right and pap was partly right; so the best way would be for
us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn’t
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borrow them any more—then he reckoned it wouldn’t be no harm

to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night, drifting
along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to drop
the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or what.
But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and
concluded to drop crabapples and p’simmons. We warn’t feeling
just right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the
way it come out, too, because crabapples ain’t ever good, and the
p’simmons wouldn’t be ripe for two or three months yet.
We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the
morning or didn’t go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all
round, we lived pretty high.
The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after
midnight, with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain
poured down in a solid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the
raft take care of itself. When the lightning glared out we could see
a big straight river ahead, and high, rocky bluffs on both sides. By
and by says I, “Hel-lo, Jim, looky yonder!” It was a steamboat that
had killed herself on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her.
The lightning showed her very distinct. She was leaning over, with
part of her upper deck above water, and you could see every little
chimbly-guy clean and clear, and a chair by the big bell, with an
old slouch hat hanging on the back of it, when the flashes come.
Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all so
mysterious-like, I felt just the way any other boy would a felt
when I see that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in
the middle of the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink
around a little, and see what there was there. So I says:
“Le’s land on her, Jim.”
But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:
“I doan’ want to go fool’n ’long er no wrack. We’s doin’ blame’
well, en we better let blame’ well alone, as de good book says.
Like as not dey’s a watchman on dat wrack.”
“Watchman your grandmother,” I says; “there ain’t nothing to
watch but the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon
anybody’s going to resk his life for a texas and a pilot-house such
a night as this, when it’s likely to break up and wash off down the
river any minute?” Jim couldn’t say nothing to that, so he didn’t
try. “And besides,” I says, “we might borrow something worth
having out of the captain’s stateroom. Seegars, I bet you—and cost
five cents apiece, solid cash. Steamboat captains is always rich,
and get sixty dollars a month, and they don’t care a cent what a
thing costs, you know, long as they want it. Stick a candle in your
pocket; I can’t rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you
reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he
wouldn’t. He’d call it an adventure—that’s what he’d call it; and
he’d land on that wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn’t he
throw style into it?—wouldn’t he spread himself, nor nothing?
Why, you’d think it was Christopher C’lumbus discovering
Kingdom-Come. I wish Tom Sawyer was here.”
Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn’t talk
any more than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The
lightning showed us the wreck again just in time, and we fetched
the stabboard derrick, and made fast there.
The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope
of it to labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way
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slow with our feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the
guys, for it was so dark we couldn’t see no sign of them. Pretty
soon we struck the forward end of the skylight, and clumb on to it;
and the next step fetched us in front of the captain’s door, which
was open, and by Jimminy, away down through the texas-hall we
see a light! and all in the same second we seem to hear low voices
in yonder!
Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told
me to come along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the
raft; but just then I heard a voice wail out and say:
“Oh, please don’t, boys; I swear I won’t ever tell!”
Another voice said, pretty loud:
“It’s a lie, Jim Turner. You’ve acted this way before. You always
want more’n your share of the truck, and you’ve always got it, too,
because you’ve swore ’t if you didn’t you’d tell. But this time
you’ve said it jest one time too many. You’re the meanest,
treacherousest hound in this country.”
By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with
curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn’t back out
now, and so I won’t either; I’m a-going to see what’s going on
here. So I dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and
crept aft in the dark till there warn’t but one stateroom betwixt me
and the cross-hall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched
on the floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over
him, and one of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other
one had a pistol. This one kept pointing the pistol at the man’s
head on the floor, and saying:
“I’d like to! And I orter, too—a mean skunk!”

The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, “Oh, please
don’t, Bill; I hain’t ever goin’ to tell.”
And every time he said that the man with the lantern would
laugh and say:
“’Deed you ain’t! You never said no truer thing ’n that, you bet
you.” And once he said: “Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn’t got
the best of him and tied him he’d a killed us both. And what for?
Jist for noth’n. Jist because we stood on our rights—that’s what
for. But I lay you ain’t a-goin’ to threaten nobody any more, Jim
Turner. Put up that pistol, Bill.”
Bill says:

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“I don’t want to, Jake Packard. I’m for killin’ him—and didn’t
he kill old Hatfield jist the same way—and don’t he deserve it?”
“But I don’t want him killed, and I’ve got my reasons for it.”
“Bless yo’ heart for them words, Jake Packard! I’ll never forgit
you long’s I live!” says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didn’t take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on
a nail and started towards where I was there in the dark, and
motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two
yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn’t make very good time;
so to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a
stateroom on the upper side. The man came a-pawing along in the
dark, and when Packard got to my stateroom, he says:
“Here—come in here.”
And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was
up in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood
there, with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I
couldn’t see them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky
they’d been having. I was glad I didn’t drink whisky; but it
wouldn’t made much difference anyway, because most of the time
they couldn’t a treed me because I didn’t breathe. I was too scared.
And, besides, a body couldn’t breathe and hear such talk. They
talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
“He’s said he’ll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our
shares to him now it wouldn’t make no difference after the row
and the way we’ve served him. Shore’s you’re born, he’ll turn
State’s evidence; now you hear me. I’m for putting him out of his
troubles.”
“So’m I,” says Packard, very quiet.
“Blame it, I’d sorter begun to think you wasn’t. Well, then,
that’s all right. Le’s go and do it.”
“Hold on a minute; I hain’t had my say yit. You listen to me.
Shooting’s good, but there’s quieter ways if the thing’s got to be
done. But what I say is this: it ain’t good sense to go court’n
around after a halter if you can git at what you’re up to in some
way that’s jist as good and at the same time don’t bring you into no
resks. Ain’t that so?”
“You bet it is. But how you goin’ to manage it this time?”
“Well, my idea is this: we’ll rustle around and gather up
whatever pickins we’ve overlooked in the staterooms, and shove
for shore and hide the truck. Then we’ll wait. Now I say it ain’t a-
goin’ to be more’n two hours befo’ this wrack breaks up and
washes off down the river. See? He’ll be drownded, and won’t
have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that’s a
considerble sight better ’n killin’ of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’
a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t
good morals. Ain’t I right?”

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“Yes, I reck’n you are. But s’pose she don’t break up and wash
off?”
“Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can’t we?”
“All right, then; come along.”
So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled
forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, “Jim!” and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort
of a moan, and I says:
“Quick, Jim, it ain’t no time for fooling around and moaning;
there’s a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don’t hunt up their
boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can’t get
away from the wreck there’s one of ’em going to be in a bad fix.
But if we find their boat we can put all of ’em in a bad fix—for the
sheriff ’ll get ’em. Quick—hurry! I’ll hunt the labboard side, you
hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and—”
“Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf’? Dey ain’ no raf’ no mo’; she done
broke loose en gone I—en here we is!”

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CHAPTER XIII.
Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck
with such a gang as that! But it warn’t no time to be
sentimentering. We’d got to find that boat now—had to have it for
ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard
side, and slow work it was, too—seemed a week before we got to
the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn’t believe he could go
any further—so scared he hadn’t hardly any strength left, he said.
But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix,
sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas,
and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight,
hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was
in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there
was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so
thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just
then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only
about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he
jerked it in again, and says:
“Heave that blame lantern out o’ sight, Bill!”
He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in
himself and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and
got in. Packard says, in a low voice:
“All ready—shove off!”
I couldn’t hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill
says:
“Hold on—’d you go through him?”
“No. Didn’t you?”
“No. So he’s got his share o’ the cash yet.”
“Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money.”
“Say, won’t he suspicion what we’re up to?”
“Maybe he won’t. But we got to have it anyway. Come along.”
So they got out and went in.
The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and
in a half second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me.
I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went!
We didn’t touch an oar, and we didn’t speak nor whisper, nor
hardly even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past
the tip of the paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or
two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the
darkness soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe,
and knowed it.
When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see
the lantern show like a little spark at the texas door for a second,
and we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and
was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble
now as Jim Turner was.
Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now
was the first time that I begun to worry about the men—I reckon I

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hadn’t had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was,

even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain’t
no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then
how would I like it? So says I to Jim:
“The first light we see we’ll land a hundred yards below it or
above it, in a place where it’s a good hiding-place for you and the
skiff, and then I’ll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get
somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so
they can be hung when their time comes.”
But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm
again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and
never a light showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed
along down the river, watching for lights and watching for our raft.
After a long time the rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the
lightning kept whimpering, and by and by a flash showed us a
black thing ahead, floating, and we made for it.
It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again.
We seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I
would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang
had stole there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile,
and I told Jim to float along down, and show a light when he
judged he had gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I
come; then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got
down towards it three or four more showed—up on a hillside. It
was a village. I closed in above the shore light, and laid on my oars
and floated. As I went by I see it was a lantern hanging on the
jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. I skimmed around for the
watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by and by I
found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down
between his knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves,
and begun to cry.
He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was
only me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:
“Hello, what’s up? Don’t cry, bub. What’s the trouble?”

I says:
“Pap, and mam, and sis, and—”
Then I broke down. He says:
“Oh, dang it now, don’t take on so; we all has to have our
troubles, and this ’n ’ll come out all right. What’s the matter with
’em?”
“They’re—they’re—are you the watchman of the boat?”
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“Yes,” he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. “I’m the

captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman
and head deck-hand; and sometimes I’m the freight and
passengers. I ain’t as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can’t be so
blame’ generous and good to Tom, Dick, and Harry as what he is,
and slam around money the way he does; but I’ve told him a many
a time ’t I wouldn’t trade places with him; for, says I, a sailor’s
life’s the life for me, and I’m derned if I’d live two mile out o’
town, where there ain’t nothing ever goin’ on, not for all his
spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I—”
I broke in and says:
“They’re in an awful peck of trouble, and—”
“Who is?”
“Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you’d take
your ferryboat and go up there—”
“Up where? Where are they?”
“On the wreck.”
“What wreck?”
“Why, there ain’t but one.”
“What, you don’t mean the Walter Scott?”
“Yes.”
“Good land! what are they doin’ there, for gracious sakes?”
“Well, they didn’t go there a-purpose.”
“I bet they didn’t! Why, great goodness, there ain’t no chance
for ’em if they don’t git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation
did they ever git into such a scrape?”
“Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town
—”
“Yes, Booth’s Landing—go on.”
“She was a-visiting there at Booth’s Landing, and just in the
edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the
horse-ferry to stay all night at her friend’s house, Miss What-you-
may-call-her I disremember her name—and they lost their
steering-oar, and swung around and went a-floating down, stern
first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the
ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but
Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well,
about an hour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow,
and it was so dark we didn’t notice the wreck till we was right on
it; and so we saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill
Whipple—and oh, he was the best cretur!—I most wish ’t it had
been me, I do.”
“My George! It’s the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then
what did you all do?”
“Well, we hollered and took on, but it’s so wide there we
couldn’t make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get
ashore and get help somehow. I was the only one that could swim,
so I made a dash for it, and Miss Hooker she said if I didn’t strike
help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he’d fix the
thing. I made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along
ever since, trying to get people to do something, but they said,
’What, in such a night and such a current? There ain’t no sense in
it; go for the steam ferry.’ Now if you’ll go and—”

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“By Jackson, I’d like to, and, blame it, I don’t know but I will;
but who in the dingnation’s a-going’ to pay for it? Do you reckon
your pap—”
“Why that’s all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, particular, that
her uncle Hornback—”
“Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that
light over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and
about a quarter of a mile out you’ll come to the tavern; tell ’em to
dart you out to Jim Hornback’s, and he’ll foot the bill. And don’t
you fool around any, because he’ll want to know the news. Tell
him I’ll have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump
yourself, now; I’m a-going up around the corner here to roust out
my engineer.”
I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went
back and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up
shore in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself
in among some woodboats; for I couldn’t rest easy till I could see
the ferryboat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther
comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for
not many would a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I
judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions,
because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and
good people takes the most interest in.

Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding
along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I
struck out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there
warn’t much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all
around her and hollered a little, but there wasn’t any answer; all
dead still. I felt a little bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not
much, for I reckoned if they could stand it I could.
Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the
river on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of
eye-reach I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and
smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker’s remainders, because the
captain would know her uncle Hornback would want them; and
then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up and went for the shore,
and I laid into my work and went a-booming down the river.
It did seem a powerful long time before Jim’s light showed up;
and when it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By
the time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the
east; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff,
and turned in and slept like dead people.

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CHAPTER XIV.

By and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang
had stole off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and
clothes, and all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a
spyglass, and three boxes of seegars. We hadn’t ever been this rich
before in neither of our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off
all the afternoon in the woods talking, and me reading the books,
and having a general good time. I told Jim all about what
happened inside the wreck and at the ferryboat, and I said these
kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn’t want no more
adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he crawled
back to get on the raft and found her gone he nearly died, because
he judged it was all up with him anyway it could be fixed; for if he
didn’t get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved,
whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the
reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he
was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level
head for a nigger.
I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and
such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put
on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your
lordship, and so on, ’stead of mister; and Jim’s eyes bugged out,
and he was interested. He says:
“I didn’ know dey was so many un um. I hain’t hearn ’bout none
un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem
kings dat’s in a pack er k’yards. How much do a king git?”
“Get?” I says; “why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they
want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything
belongs to them.”
“Ain’’ dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?”
“They don’t do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set
around.”
“No; is dat so?”
“Of course it is. They just set around—except, maybe, when
there’s a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just
lazy around; or go hawking—just hawking and sp—Sh!—d’ you
hear a noise?”
We skipped out and looked; but it warn’t nothing but the flutter
of a steamboat’s wheel away down, coming around the point; so
we come back.
“Yes,” says I, “and other times, when things is dull, they fuss
with the parlyment; and if everybody don’t go just so he whacks
their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem.”
“Roun’ de which?”
“Harem.”
“What’s de harem?”

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“The place where he keeps his wives. Don’t you know about the
harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives.”
“Why, yes, dat’s so; I—I’d done forgot it. A harem’s a bo’d’n-
house, I reck’n. Mos’ likely dey has rackety times in de nussery.
En I reck’n de wives quarrels considable; en dat ’crease de racket.
Yit dey say Sollermun de wises’ man dat ever live’. I doan’ take no
stock in dat. Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de
mids’ er sich a blim-blammin’ all de time? No—’deed he
wouldn’t. A wise man ’ud take en buil’ a biler-factry; en den he
could shet down de biler-factry when he want to res’.”
“Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow
she told me so, her own self.”
“I doan k’yer what de widder say, he warn’t no wise man nuther.
He had some er de dad-fetchedes’ ways I ever see. Does you know
’bout dat chile dat he ’uz gwyne to chop in two?”
“Yes, the widow told me all about it.”
“Well, den! Warn’ dat de beatenes’ notion in de worl’? You jes’
take en look at it a minute. Dah’s de stump, dah—dat’s one er de
women; heah’s you—dat’s de yuther one; I’s Sollermun; en dish
yer dollar bill’s de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do?
Does I shin aroun’ mongs’ de neighbors en fine out which un you
de bill do b’long to, en han’ it over to de right one, all safe en
soun’, de way dat anybody dat had any gumption would? No; I
take en whack de bill in two, en give half un it to you, en de yuther
half to de yuther woman. Dat’s de way Sollermun was gwyne to
do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what’s de use er dat half a
bill?—can’t buy noth’n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I
wouldn’ give a dern for a million un um.”
“But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point—blame it,
you’ve missed it a thousand mile.”
“Who? Me? Go ’long. Doan’ talk to me ’bout yo’ pints. I reck’n
I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as
dat. De ’spute warn’t ’bout a half a chile, de ’spute was ’bout a
whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a ’spute ’bout a
whole chile wid a half a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n
de rain. Doan’ talk to me ’bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by
de back.”

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“But I tell you you don’t get the point.”

“Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you,
de real pint is down furder—it’s down deeper. It lays in de way
Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two
chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; he
can’t ’ford it. He know how to value ’em. But you take a man dat’s
got ’bout five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s
diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’.
A chile er two, mo’ er less, warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad
fatch him!”
I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once,
there warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on
Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other
kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got
his head cut off in France long time ago; and about his little boy
the dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him
up in jail, and some say he died there.
“Po’ little chap.”
“But some says he got out and got away, and come to America.”
“Dat’s good! But he’ll be pooty lonesome—dey ain’ no kings
here, is dey, Huck?”
“No.”
“Den he cain’t git no situation. What he gwyne to do?”
“Well, I don’t know. Some of them gets on the police, and some
of them learns people how to talk French.”
“Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we
does?”
“No, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said—not a
single word.”
“Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?”
“I don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a
book. S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy
—what would you think?”
“I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head—dat
is, if he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ’low no nigger to call me dat.”
“Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you
know how to talk French?”
“Well, den, why couldn’t he say it?”
“Why, he is a-saying it. That’s a Frenchman’s way of saying it.”
“Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no
mo’ ’bout it. Dey ain’ no sense in it.”
“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”
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“No, a cat don’t.”

“Well, does a cow?”
“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”
“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”
“No, dey don’t.”
“It’s natural and right for ’em to talk different from each other,
ain’t it?”
“Course.”
“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk
different from us?”
“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”
“Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a Frenchman to
talk different from us? You answer me that.”
“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
“No.”
“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a
cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?”
“No, she ain’t either of them.”
“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the
yuther of ’em. Is a Frenchman a man?”
“Yes.”
“Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he talk like a man? You
answer me dat!”
I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger
to argue. So I quit.

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CHAPTER XV.

We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the

bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was
what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat
and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of
trouble.
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for
a towhead to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in a fog; but
when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast,
there warn’t anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line
around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was
a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore
it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down,
and it made me so sick and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half
a minute it seemed to me—and then there warn’t no raft in sight;
you couldn’t see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run
back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke.
But she didn’t come. I was in such a hurry I hadn’t untied her. I got
up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I
couldn’t hardly do anything with them.
As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy,
right down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the
towhead warn’t sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot
of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn’t no more idea
which way I was going than a dead man.
Thinks I, it won’t do to paddle; first I know I’ll run into the
bank or a towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet
it’s mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such
a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I
hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after
it, listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come I see I
warn’t heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the
next time I was heading away to the left of it—and not gaining on
it much either, for I was flying around, this way and that and
t’other, but it was going straight ahead all the time.
I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all
the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the
whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along,
and directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good now.
That was somebody else’s whoop, or else I was turned around.
I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was
behind me yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept
changing its place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in
front of me again, and I knowed the current had swung the canoe’s
head down-stream, and I was all right if that was Jim and not some
other raftsman hollering. I couldn’t tell nothing about voices in a
fog, for nothing don’t look natural nor sound natural in a fog.
The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-
booming down on a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it,
and the current throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a

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lot of snags that fairly roared, the currrent was tearing by them so
swift.
In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I
didn’t draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.
I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank
was an island, and Jim had gone down t’other side of it. It warn’t
no towhead that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big
timber of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long and
more than half a mile wide.
I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I
reckon. I was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour;
but you don’t ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying
dead still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you
don’t think to yourself how fast you’re going, but you catch your
breath and think, my! how that snag’s tearing along. If you think it
ain’t dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the
night, you try it once—you’ll see.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I
hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I
couldn’t do it, and directly I judged I’d got into a nest of towheads,
for I had little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me—
sometimes just a narrow channel between, and some that I
couldn’t see I knowed was there because I’d hear the wash of the
current against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the
banks. Well, I warn’t long loosing the whoops down amongst the
towheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway,
because it was worse than chasing a Jack-o’-lantern. You never
knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so
much.
I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five
times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I
judged the raft must be butting into the bank every now and then,
or else it would get further ahead and clear out of hearing—it was
floating a little faster than what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I
couldn’t hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had
fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was
good and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t
bother no more. I didn’t want to go to sleep, of course; but I was
so sleepy I couldn’t help it; so I thought I would take jest one little
cat-nap.

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But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up

the stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was
spinning down a big bend stern first. First I didn’t know where I
was; I thought I was dreaming; and when things began to come
back to me they seemed to come up dim out of last week.
It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the
thickest kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I
could see by the stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a
black speck on the water. I took after it; but when I got to it it
warn’t nothing but a couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I
see another speck, and chased that; then another, and this time I
was right. It was the raft.
When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down
between his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the
steering-oar. The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was
littered up with leaves and branches and dirt. So she’d had a rough
time.
I made fast and laid down under Jim’s nose on the raft, and
began to gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:
“Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you stir me up?”
“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead—you
ain’ drownded—you’s back agin? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s
too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you.
No, you ain’ dead! you’s back agin, ’live en soun’, jis de same ole
Huck—de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!”
“What’s the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?”
“Drinkin’? Has I ben a-drinkin’? Has I had a chance to be a-
drinkin’?”
“Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”
“How does I talk wild?”
“How? Why, hain’t you been talking about my coming back,
and all that stuff, as if I’d been gone away?”
“Huck—Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye.
Hain’t you ben gone away?”
“Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain’t
been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?”
“Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or
who is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat’s what I wants to know.”
“Well, I think you’re here, plain enough, but I think you’re a
tangle-headed old fool, Jim.”
“I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn’t you tote out de line
in de canoe fer to make fas’ to de tow-head?”

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“No, I didn’t. What tow-head? I hain’t see no tow-head.”

“You hain’t seen no towhead? Looky here, didn’t de line pull
loose en de raf’ go a-hummin’ down de river, en leave you en de
canoe behine in de fog?”
“What fog?”
“Why, de fog!—de fog dat’s been aroun’ all night. En didn’t you
whoop, en didn’t I whoop, tell we got mix’ up in de islands en one
un us got los’ en t’other one was jis’ as good as los’, ’kase he didn’
know whah he wuz? En didn’t I bust up agin a lot er dem islands
en have a turrible time en mos’ git drownded? Now ain’ dat so,
boss—ain’t it so? You answer me dat.”
“Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain’t seen no fog, nor no
islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking
with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and
I reckon I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in that time, so
of course you’ve been dreaming.”
“Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”
“Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’t any of
it happen.”
“But, Huck, it’s all jis’ as plain to me as—”
“It don’t make no difference how plain it is; there ain’t nothing
in it. I know, because I’ve been here all the time.”
Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but set there
studying over it. Then he says:
“Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it
ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t ever had no
dream b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body like
everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me
all about it, Jim.”
So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through,
just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he
said he must start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a
warning. He said the first towhead stood for a man that would try
to do us some good, but the current was another man that would
get us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come
to us every now and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to
understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, ’stead of
keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles we was
going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean
folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and
aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and
into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t
have no more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it
was clearing up again now.
“Oh, well, that’s all interpreted well enough as far as it goes,
Jim,” I says; “but what does these things stand for?”
It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar.
You could see them first-rate now.
Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the
trash again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that
he couldn’t seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its

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place again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened
around he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:
“What do dey stan’ for? I’se gwyne to tell you. When I got all
wore out wid work, en wid de callin’ for you, en went to sleep, my
heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’
mo’ what become er me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you
back agin, all safe en soun’, de tears come, en I could a got down
on my knees en kiss yo’ foot, I’s so thankful. En all you wuz
thinkin’ ’bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a
lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt
on de head er dey fren’s en makes ’em ashamed.”
Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in
there without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It
made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to
take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and
humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry
for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and
I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel
that way.

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CHAPTER XVI.

We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways
behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a
procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged
she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big
wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle,
and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a power of style about
her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as
that.
We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up
and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid
timber on both sides; you couldn’t see a break in it hardly ever, or
a light. We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would
know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn’t, because I had
heard say there warn’t but about a dozen houses there, and if they
didn’t happen to have them lit up, how was we going to know we
was passing a town? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together
there, that would show. But I said maybe we might think we was
passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river
again. That disturbed Jim—and me too. So the question was, what
to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell
them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was
a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to
Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it
and waited.
There warn’t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the
town, and not pass it without seeing it. He said he’d be mighty
sure to see it, because he’d be a free man the minute he seen it, but
if he missed it he’d be in a slave country again and no more show
for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:
“Dah she is?”
But it warn’t. It was Jack-o’-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he
set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it
made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.
Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too,
to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was
most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get
that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling
me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay still in one place. It hadn’t
ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was
doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me
more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to
blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it
warn’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, “But you
knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled
ashore and told somebody.” That was so—I couldn’t get around
that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me,
“What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her
nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word?
What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her
so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn
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you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she
knowed how. That’s what she done.”
I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was
dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself,
and Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us
could keep still. Every time he danced around and says, “Dah’s
Cairo!” it went through me like a shot, and I thought if it was
Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.
Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself.
He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a
free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a
single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which
was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then
they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master
wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist to go and steal them.
It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared to
talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made
in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to
the old saying, “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.”
Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this
nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right
out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children
that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever
done me no harm.
I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.
My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I
says to it, “Let up on me—it ain’t too late yet—I’ll paddle ashore
at the first light and tell.” I felt easy and happy and light as a
feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out
sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By and by one
showed. Jim sings out:
“We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels! Dat’s
de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!”
I says:
“I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you
know.”
He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the
bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved
off, he says:
“Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on
accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it
hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forgit you,
Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole
Jim’s got now.”
I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he
says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went
along slow then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was
glad I started or whether I warn’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim
says:
“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlman dat
ever kep’ his promise to ole Jim.”
Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it—I can’t get out of
it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns,
and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:
“What’s that yonder?”
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“A piece of a raft,” I says.

“Do you belong on it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any men on it?”
“Only one, sir.”
“Well, there’s five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the
head of the bend. Is your man white or black?”
I didn’t answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t
come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I
warn’t man enough—hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was
weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says:
“He’s white.”
“I reckon we’ll go and see for ourselves.”
“I wish you would,” says I, “because it’s pap that’s there, and
maybe you’d help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He’s
sick—and so is mam and Mary Ann.”
“Oh, the devil! we’re in a hurry, boy. But I s’pose we’ve got to.
Come, buckle to your paddle, and let’s get along.”
I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had
made a stroke or two, I says:
“Pap’ll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you.
Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft
ashore, and I can’t do it by myself.”
“Well, that’s infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what’s the
matter with your father?”
“It’s the—a—the—well, it ain’t anything much.”
They stopped pulling. It warn’t but a mighty little ways to the
raft now. One says:
“Boy, that’s a lie. What is the matter with your pap? Answer up
square now, and it’ll be the better for you.”

“I will, sir, I will, honest—but don’t leave us, please. It’s the—
the—Gentlemen, if you’ll only pull ahead, and let me heave you
the headline, you won’t have to come a-near the raft—please do.”
“Set her back, John, set her back!” says one. They backed water.
“Keep away, boy—keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the
wind has blowed it to us. Your pap’s got the small-pox, and you
know it precious well. Why didn’t you come out and say so? Do
you want to spread it all over?”
“Well,” says I, a-blubbering, “I’ve told everybody before, and
they just went away and left us.”

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“Poor devil, there’s something in that. We are right down sorry

for you, but we—well, hang it, we don’t want the small-pox, you
see. Look here, I’ll tell you what to do. Don’t you try to land by
yourself, or you’ll smash everything to pieces. You float along
down about twenty miles, and you’ll come to a town on the left-
hand side of the river. It will be long after sun-up then, and when
you ask for help you tell them your folks are all down with chills
and fever. Don’t be a fool again, and let people guess what is the
matter. Now we’re trying to do you a kindness; so you just put
twenty miles between us, that’s a good boy. It wouldn’t do any
good to land yonder where the light is—it’s only a wood-yard.
Say, I reckon your father’s poor, and I’m bound to say he’s in
pretty hard luck. Here, I’ll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this
board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave
you; but my kingdom! it won’t do to fool with small-pox, don’t
you see?”
“Hold on, Parker,” says the other man, “here’s a twenty to put
on the board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told
you, and you’ll be all right.”
“That’s so, my boy—good-bye, good-bye. If you see any
runaway niggers you get help and nab them, and you can make
some money by it.”
“Good-bye, sir,” says I; “I won’t let no runaway niggers get by
me if I can help it.”
They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low,
because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t
no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get
started right when he’s little ain’t got no show—when the pinch
comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his
work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to
myself, hold on; s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up, would
you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d
feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use
you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t
no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was
stuck. I couldn’t answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn’t bother no
more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at
the time.
I went into the wigwam; Jim warn’t there. I looked all around;
he warn’t anywhere. I says:
“Jim!”
“Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o’ sight yit? Don’t talk loud.”

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He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I
told him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:
“I was a-listenin’ to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was
gwyne to shove for sho’ if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to
swim to de raf’ agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did
fool ’em, Huck! Dat wuz de smartes’ dodge! I tell you, chile,
I’spec it save’ ole Jim—ole Jim ain’t going to forgit you for dat,
honey.”
Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise—
twenty dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a
steamboat now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted
to go in the free States. He said twenty mile more warn’t far for the
raft to go, but he wished we was already there.
Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular
about hiding the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in
bundles, and getting all ready to quit rafting.
That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town
away down in a left-hand bend.
I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man
out in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and
says:
“Mister, is that town Cairo?”
“Cairo? no. You must be a blame’ fool.”
“What town is it, mister?”
“If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin’
around me for about a half a minute longer you’ll get something
you won’t want.”
I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said
never mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.
We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out
again; but it was high ground, so I didn’t go. No high ground about
Cairo, Jim said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a
towhead tolerable close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion
something. So did Jim. I says:
“Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night.”
He says:
“Doan’ le’s talk about it, Huck. Po’ niggers can’t have no luck. I
awluz ’spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn’t done wid its work.”
“I wish I’d never seen that snake-skin, Jim—I do wish I’d never
laid eyes on it.”
“It ain’t yo’ fault, Huck; you didn’ know. Don’t you blame
yo’self ’bout it.”
When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore,
sure enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all
up with Cairo.
We talked it all over. It wouldn’t do to take to the shore; we
couldn’t take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn’t no
way but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the
chances. So we slept all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as
to be fresh for the work, and when we went back to the raft about
dark the canoe was gone!
We didn’t say a word for a good while. There warn’t anything to
say. We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the

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rattlesnake-skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would

only look like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to
fetch more bad luck—and keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed
enough to keep still.
By and by we talked about what we better do, and found there
warn’t no way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a
chance to buy a canoe to go back in. We warn’t going to borrow it
when there warn’t anybody around, the way pap would do, for that
might set people after us.
So we shoved out after dark on the raft.
Anybody that don’t believe yet that it’s foolishness to handle a
snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe it
now if they read on and see what more it done for us.
The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we
didn’t see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours
and more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the
next meanest thing to fog. You can’t tell the shape of the river, and
you can’t see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then
along comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and
judged she would see it. Up-stream boats didn’t generly come
close to us; they go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water
under the reefs; but nights like this they bull right up the channel
against the whole river.
We could hear her pounding along, but we didn’t see her good
till she was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and
try to see how close they can come without touching; sometimes
the wheel bites off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out
and laughs, and thinks he’s mighty smart. Well, here she comes,
and we said she was going to try and shave us; but she didn’t seem
to be sheering off a bit. She was a big one, and she was coming in
a hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with rows of glow-worms
around it; but all of a sudden she bulged out, big and scary, with a
long row of wide-open furnace doors shining like red-hot teeth,
and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right over us. There
was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the engines, a
powwow of cussing, and whistling of steam—and as Jim went
overboard on one side and I on the other, she come smashing
straight through the raft.
I dived—and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot
wheel had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of
room. I could always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon
I stayed under a minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a
hurry, for I was nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and
blowed the water out of my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there
was a booming current; and of course that boat started her engines
again ten seconds after she stopped them, for they never cared
much for raftsmen; so now she was churning along up the river,
out of sight in the thick weather, though I could hear her.
I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn’t get any
answer; so I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was
“treading water,” and struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me.
But I made out to see that the drift of the current was towards the
left-hand shore, which meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed
off and went that way.
It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a
good long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb
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up the bank. I couldn’t see but a little ways, but I went poking
along over rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I
run across a big old-fashioned double log-house before I noticed it.
I was going to rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out
and went to howling and barking at me, and I knowed better than
to move another peg.

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CHAPTER XVII.

In about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without

putting his head out, and says:
“Be done, boys! Who’s there?”
I says:
“It’s me.”
“Who’s me?”
“George Jackson, sir.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the
dogs won’t let me.”
“What are you prowling around here this time of night for—
hey?”
“I warn’t prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the
steamboat.”
“Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did
you say your name was?”
“George Jackson, sir. I’m only a boy.”
“Look here, if you’re telling the truth you needn’t be afraid—
nobody’ll hurt you. But don’t try to budge; stand right where you
are. Rouse out Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns.
George Jackson, is there anybody with you?”
“No, sir, nobody.”
I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a
light. The man sung out:
“Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool—ain’t you got any
sense? Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and
Tom are ready, take your places.”
“All ready.”
“Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?”
“No, sir; I never heard of them.”
“Well, that may be so, and it mayn’t. Now, all ready. Step
forward, George Jackson. And mind, don’t you hurry—come
mighty slow. If there’s anybody with you, let him keep back—if he
shows himself he’ll be shot. Come along now. Come slow; push
the door open yourself—just enough to squeeze in, d’ you hear?”
I didn’t hurry; I couldn’t if I’d a wanted to. I took one slow step
at a time and there warn’t a sound, only I thought I could hear my
heart. The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a
little behind me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard
them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the
door and pushed it a little and a little more till somebody said,
“There, that’s enough—put your head in.” I done it, but I judged
they would take it off.
The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at
me, and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big
men with guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you;
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the oldest, gray and about sixty, the other two thirty or more—all
of them fine and handsome—and the sweetest old gray-headed
lady, and back of her two young women which I couldn’t see right
well. The old gentleman says:
“There; I reckon it’s all right. Come in.”
As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and
barred it and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with
their guns, and they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag
carpet on the floor, and got together in a corner that was out of the
range of the front windows—there warn’t none on the side. They
held the candle, and took a good look at me, and all said, “Why, he
ain’t a Shepherdson—no, there ain’t any Shepherdson about him.”
Then the old man said he hoped I wouldn’t mind being searched
for arms, because he didn’t mean no harm by it—it was only to
make sure. So he didn’t pry into my pockets, but only felt outside
with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to make
myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but the old lady
says:
“Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing’s as wet as he can be; and
don’t you reckon it may be he’s hungry?”
“True for you, Rachel—I forgot.”
So the old lady says:
“Betsy” (this was a nigger woman), “you fly around and get him
something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you
girls go and wake up Buck and tell him—oh, here he is himself.
Buck, take this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him
and dress him up in some of yours that’s dry.”
Buck looked about as old as me—thirteen or fourteen or along
there, though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn’t on anything
but a shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping
and digging one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along
with the other one. He says:

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“Ain’t they no Shepherdsons around?”

They said, no, ’twas a false alarm.
“Well,” he says, “if they’d a ben some, I reckon I’d a got one.”
They all laughed, and Bob says:
“Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you’ve been so
slow in coming.”
“Well, nobody come after me, and it ain’t right I’m always kept
down; I don’t get no show.”
“Never mind, Buck, my boy,” says the old man, “you’ll have
show enough, all in good time, don’t you fret about that. Go ’long
with you now, and do as your mother told you.”
When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and
a roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it
he asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he
started to tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had
catched in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where
Moses was when the candle went out. I said I didn’t know; I
hadn’t heard about it before, no way.
“Well, guess,” he says.
“How’m I going to guess,” says I, “when I never heard tell of it
before?”
“But you can guess, can’t you? It’s just as easy.”
“Which candle?” I says.
“Why, any candle,” he says.
“I don’t know where he was,” says I; “where was he?”
“Why, he was in the dark! That’s where he was!”
“Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?”
“Why, blame it, it’s a riddle, don’t you see? Say, how long are
you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have
booming times—they don’t have no school now. Do you own a
dog? I’ve got a dog—and he’ll go in the river and bring out chips
that you throw in. Do you like to comb up Sundays, and all that
kind of foolishness? You bet I don’t, but ma she makes me.
Confound these ole britches! I reckon I’d better put ’em on, but I’d
ruther not, it’s so warm. Are you all ready? All right. Come along,
old hoss.”
Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk—that is
what they had for me down there, and there ain’t nothing better
that ever I’ve come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them
smoked cob pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and
the two young women. They all smoked and talked, and I eat and
talked. The young women had quilts around them, and their hair
down their backs. They all asked me questions, and I told them
how pap and me and all the family was living on a little farm down
at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann run off and
got married and never was heard of no more, and Bill went to hunt
them and he warn’t heard of no more, and Tom and Mort died, and
then there warn’t nobody but just me and pap left, and he was just
trimmed down to nothing, on account of his troubles; so when he
died I took what there was left, because the farm didn’t belong to
us, and started up the river, deck passage, and fell overboard; and
that was how I come to be here. So they said I could have a home
there as long as I wanted it. Then it was most daylight and
everybody went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck, and when I
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waked up in the morning, drat it all, I had forgot what my name

was. So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and when Buck
waked up I says:
“Can you spell, Buck?”
“Yes,” he says.
“I bet you can’t spell my name,” says I.
“I bet you what you dare I can,” says he.
“All right,” says I, “go ahead.”
“G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n—there now,” he says.
“Well,” says I, “you done it, but I didn’t think you could. It ain’t
no slouch of a name to spell—right off without studying.”
I set it down, private, because somebody might want me to spell
it next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I
was used to it.
It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I
hadn’t seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and
had so much style. It didn’t have an iron latch on the front door,
nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn,
the same as houses in town. There warn’t no bed in the parlor, nor
a sign of a bed; but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them.
There was a big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the
bricks was kept clean and red by pouring water on them and
scrubbing them with another brick; sometimes they wash them
over with red water-paint that they call Spanish-brown, same as
they do in town. They had big brass dog-irons that could hold up a
saw-log. There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece, with
a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front,
and a round place in the middle of it for the sun, and you could see
the pendulum swinging behind it. It was beautiful to hear that
clock tick; and sometimes when one of these peddlers had been
along and scoured her up and got her in good shape, she would
start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she got tuckered out.
They wouldn’t took any money for her.
Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock,
made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of
the parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the
other; and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but
didn’t open their mouths nor look different nor interested. They
squeaked through underneath. There was a couple of big wild-
turkey-wing fans spread out behind those things. On the table in
the middle of the room was a kind of a lovely crockery basket that
had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it,
which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is,
but they warn’t real because you could see where pieces had got
chipped off and showed the white chalk, or whatever it was,
underneath.
This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red
and blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all
around. It come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There
was some books, too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of
the table. One was a big family Bible full of pictures. One was
Pilgrim’s Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn’t say
why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was
interesting, but tough. Another was Friendship’s Offering, full of
beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn’t read the poetry. Another was
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Henry Clay’s Speeches, and another was Dr. Gunn’s Family

Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body was sick
or dead. There was a hymn book, and a lot of other books. And
there was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too—not
bagged down in the middle and busted, like an old basket.
They had pictures hung on the walls—mainly Washingtons and
Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called
“Signing the Declaration.” There was some that they called
crayons, which one of the daughters which was dead made her
own self when she was only fifteen years old. They was different
from any pictures I ever see before—blacker, mostly, than is
common. One was a woman in a slim black dress, belted small
under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the
sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with a black veil,
and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and very wee
black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a
tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her
other hand hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief
and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said “Shall I Never
See Thee More Alas.” Another one was a young lady with her hair
all combed up straight to the top of her head, and knotted there in
front of a comb like a chair-back, and she was crying into a
handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other
hand with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said “I Shall
Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas.” There was one where
a young lady was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears
running down her cheeks; and she had an open letter in one hand
with black sealing wax showing on one edge of it, and she was
mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and
underneath the picture it said “And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art
Gone Alas.” These was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn’t
somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I was down a little
they always give me the fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died,
because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do, and a
body could see by what she had done what they had lost. But I
reckoned that with her disposition she was having a better time in
the graveyard. She was at work on what they said was her greatest
picture when she took sick, and every day and every night it was
her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it done, but she never
got the chance. It was a picture of a young woman in a long white
gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off, with
her hair all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with the
tears running down her face, and she had two arms folded across
her breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two more
reaching up towards the moon—and the idea was to see which pair
would look best, and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I
was saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now
they kept this picture over the head of the bed in her room, and
every time her birthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times
it was hid with a little curtain. The young woman in the picture
had a kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so many arms it
made her look too spidery, seemed to me.

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This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used
to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it
out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out
of her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote
about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a
well and was drownded:

ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC’D

And did young Stephen sicken,

    And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
    And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of

    Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
    ’Twas not from sickness’ shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,

    Nor measles drear with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
    Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe

    That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
    Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,

    Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly
    By falling down a well.

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They got him out and emptied him;

    Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
    In the realms of the good and great.

If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she

was fourteen, there ain’t no telling what she could a done by and
by. Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn’t
ever have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and
if she couldn’t find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it
out and slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn’t
particular; she could write about anything you choose to give her
to write about just so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a
woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her
“tribute” before he was cold. She called them tributes. The
neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the
undertaker—the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but
once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person’s
name, which was Whistler. She warn’t ever the same after that; she
never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live
long. Poor thing, many’s the time I made myself go up to the little
room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrap-book and
read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had
soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all, and
warn’t going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline
made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it
didn’t seem right that there warn’t nobody to make some about her
now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself,
but I couldn’t seem to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline’s
room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she
liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept
there. The old lady took care of the room herself, though there was
plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a good deal and read her
Bible there mostly.
Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful
curtains on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them of
castles with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to
drink. There was a little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I
reckon, and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies
sing “The Last Link is Broken” and play “The Battle of Prague”
on it. The walls of all the rooms was plastered, and most had
carpets on the floors, and the whole house was whitewashed on the
outside.
It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was
roofed and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the
middle of the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing
couldn’t be better. And warn’t the cooking good, and just bushels
of it too!

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CHAPTER XVIII.

Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a

gentleman all over; and so was his family. He was well born, as
the saying is, and that’s worth as much in a man as it is in a horse,
so the Widow Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was
of the first aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it, too,
though he warn’t no more quality than a mudcat himself. Col.
Grangerford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly
complexion, not a sign of red in it anywheres; he was clean shaved
every morning all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind
of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose, and
heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back
that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as
you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and
straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin,
and every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from
head to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at
it; and on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it.
He carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it. There warn’t
no frivolishness about him, not a bit, and he warn’t ever loud. He
was as kind as he could be—you could feel that, you know, and so
you had confidence. Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see;
but when he straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the
lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you
wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was
afterwards. He didn’t ever have to tell anybody to mind their
manners—everybody was always good-mannered where he was.
Everybody loved to have him around, too; he was sunshine most
always—I mean he made it seem like good weather. When he
turned into a cloudbank it was awful dark for half a minute, and
that was enough; there wouldn’t nothing go wrong again for a
week.
When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the
family got up out of their chairs and give them good-day, and
didn’t set down again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob
went to the sideboard where the decanter was, and mixed a glass
of bitters and handed it to him, and he held it in his hand and
waited till Tom’s and Bob’s was mixed, and then they bowed and
said, “Our duty to you, sir, and madam;” and they bowed the least
bit in the world and said thank you, and so they drank, all three,
and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and the
mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers,
and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old people too.
Bob was the oldest and Tom next—tall, beautiful men with very
broad shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black
eyes. They dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old
gentleman, and wore broad Panama hats.
Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall
and proud and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn’t
stirred up; but when she was she had a look that would make you
wilt in your tracks, like her father. She was beautiful.
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So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She
was gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty.
Each person had their own nigger to wait on them—Buck too.
My nigger had a monstrous easy time, because I warn’t used to
having anybody do anything for me, but Buck’s was on the jump
most of the time.
This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be
more—three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.
The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred
niggers. Sometimes a stack of people would come there,
horseback, from ten or fifteen mile around, and stay five or six
days, and have such junketings round about and on the river, and
dances and picnics in the woods daytimes, and balls at the house
nights. These people was mostly kinfolks of the family. The men
brought their guns with them. It was a handsome lot of quality, I
tell you.
There was another clan of aristocracy around there—five or six
families—mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-
toned and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of
Grangerfords. The Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same
steamboat landing, which was about two mile above our house; so
sometimes when I went up there with a lot of our folks I used to
see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their fine horses.
One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and
heard a horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:
“Quick! Jump for the woods!”

We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the
leaves. Pretty soon a splendid young man come galloping down
the road, setting his horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had
his gun across his pommel. I had seen him before. It was young
Harney Shepherdson. I heard Buck’s gun go off at my ear, and
Harney’s hat tumbled off from his head. He grabbed his gun and
rode straight to the place where we was hid. But we didn’t wait.
We started through the woods on a run. The woods warn’t thick, so
I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, and twice I seen
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Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he rode away the way
he come—to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn’t see. We never
stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman’s eyes blazed
a minute—’twas pleasure, mainly, I judged—then his face sort of
smoothed down, and he says, kind of gentle:
“I don’t like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn’t you
step into the road, my boy?”
“The Shepherdsons don’t, father. They always take advantage.”
Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck
was telling his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped.
The two young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss
Sophia she turned pale, but the color come back when she found
the man warn’t hurt.

Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees
by ourselves, I says:
“Did you want to kill him, Buck?”
“Well, I bet I did.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Him? He never done nothing to me.”
“Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?”
“Why, nothing—only it’s on account of the feud.”
“What’s a feud?”
“Why, where was you raised? Don’t you know what a feud is?”
“Never heard of it before—tell me about it.”
“Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with
another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him;
then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then
the cousins chip in—and by and by everybody’s killed off, and
there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long
time.”
“Has this one been going on long, Buck?”
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“Well, I should reckon! It started thirty year ago, or som’ers

along there. There was trouble ’bout something, and then a lawsuit
to settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and
shot the man that won the suit—which he would naturally do, of
course. Anybody would.”
“What was the trouble about, Buck?—land?”
“I reckon maybe—I don’t know.”
“Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a
Shepherdson?”
“Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago.”
“Don’t anybody know?”
“Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people;
but they don’t know now what the row was about in the first
place.”
“Has there been many killed, Buck?”
“Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don’t always kill.
Pa’s got a few buckshot in him; but he don’t mind it ’cuz he don’t
weigh much, anyway. Bob’s been carved up some with a bowie,
and Tom’s been hurt once or twice.”
“Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?”
“Yes; we got one and they got one. ’Bout three months ago my
cousin Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on
t’other side of the river, and didn’t have no weapon with him,
which was blame’ foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a
horse a-coming behind him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-
linkin’ after him with his gun in his hand and his white hair a-
flying in the wind; and ’stead of jumping off and taking to the
brush, Bud ’lowed he could out-run him; so they had it, nip and
tuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining all the time; so
at last Bud seen it warn’t any use, so he stopped and faced around
so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know, and the old man
he rode up and shot him down. But he didn’t git much chance to
enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our folks laid him out.”
“I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck.”
“I reckon he warn’t a coward. Not by a blame’ sight. There ain’t
a coward amongst them Shepherdsons—not a one. And there ain’t
no cowards amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man
kep’ up his end in a fight one day for half an hour against three
Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was all a-horseback; he
lit off of his horse and got behind a little woodpile, and kep’ his
horse before him to stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed
on their horses and capered around the old man, and peppered
away at him, and he peppered away at them. Him and his horse
both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the Grangerfords
had to be fetched home—and one of ’em was dead, and another
died the next day. No, sir; if a body’s out hunting for cowards he
don’t want to fool away any time amongst them Shepherdsons,
becuz they don’t breed any of that kind.”
Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody
a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept
them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall.
The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—
all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but
everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over
going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and
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good works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don’t

know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest
Sundays I had run across yet.
About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some
in their chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull.
Buck and a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound
asleep. I went up to our room, and judged I would take a nap
myself. I found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which
was next to ours, and she took me in her room and shut the door
very soft, and asked me if I liked her, and I said I did; and she
asked me if I would do something for her and not tell anybody, and
I said I would. Then she said she’d forgot her Testament, and left it
in the seat at church between two other books, and would I slip out
quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to
nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the road,
and there warn’t anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or
two, for there warn’t any lock on the door, and hogs likes a
puncheon floor in summer-time because it’s cool. If you notice,
most folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to; but a hog
is different.

Says I to myself, something’s up; it ain’t natural for a girl to be

in such a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out
drops a little piece of paper with “Half-past two” wrote on it with a
pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn’t find anything else. I couldn’t
make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and
when I got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door
waiting for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she
looked in the Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she
read it she looked glad; and before a body could think she grabbed
me and give me a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the
world, and not to tell anybody. She was mighty red in the face for
a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it made her powerful pretty.
I was a good deal astonished, but when I got my breath I asked her
what the paper was about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I
said no, and she asked me if I could read writing, and I told her
“no, only coarse-hand,” and then she said the paper warn’t

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anything but a book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and

play now.
I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty
soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When
we was out of sight of the house he looked back and around a
second, and then comes a-running, and says:
“Mars Jawge, if you’ll come down into de swamp I’ll show you
a whole stack o’ water-moccasins.”
Thinks I, that’s mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He
oughter know a body don’t love water-moccasins enough to go
around hunting for them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says:
“All right; trot ahead.”
I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and
waded ankle deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a
little flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and
bushes and vines, and he says:
“You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah’s
whah dey is. I’s seed ’m befo’; I don’t k’yer to see ’em no mo’.”
Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the
trees hid him. I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little
open patch as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and
found a man laying there asleep—and, by jings, it was my old Jim!
I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand
surprise to him to see me again, but it warn’t. He nearly cried he
was so glad, but he warn’t surprised. Said he swum along behind
me that night, and heard me yell every time, but dasn’t answer,
because he didn’t want nobody to pick him up and take him into
slavery again. Says he:
“I got hurt a little, en couldn’t swim fas’, so I wuz a considable
ways behine you towards de las’; when you landed I reck’ned I
could ketch up wid you on de lan’ ’dout havin’ to shout at you, but
when I see dat house I begin to go slow. I ’uz off too fur to hear
what dey say to you—I wuz ’fraid o’ de dogs; but when it ’uz all
quiet agin I knowed you’s in de house, so I struck out for de woods
to wait for day. Early in de mawnin’ some er de niggers come
along, gwyne to de fields, en dey tuk me en showed me dis place,
whah de dogs can’t track me on accounts o’ de water, en dey
brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how you’s a-gitt’n
along.”
“Why didn’t you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?”
“Well, ’twarn’t no use to ’sturb you, Huck, tell we could do
sumfn—but we’s all right now. I ben a-buyin’ pots en pans en
vittles, as I got a chanst, en a-patchin’ up de raf’ nights when—”
“What raft, Jim?”
“Our ole raf’.”
“You mean to say our old raft warn’t smashed all to flinders?”
“No, she warn’t. She was tore up a good deal—one en’ of her
was; but dey warn’t no great harm done, on’y our traps was mos’
all los’. Ef we hadn’ dive’ so deep en swum so fur under water, en
de night hadn’ ben so dark, en we warn’t so sk’yerd, en ben sich
punkin-heads, as de sayin’ is, we’d a seed de raf’. But it’s jis’ as
well we didn’t, ’kase now she’s all fixed up agin mos’ as good as
new, en we’s got a new lot o’ stuff, in de place o’ what ’uz los’.”

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“Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim—did you
catch her?”
“How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No; some er
de niggers foun’ her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben’, en
dey hid her in a crick ’mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much
jawin’ ’bout which un ’um she b’long to de mos’ dat I come to
heah ’bout it pooty soon, so I ups en settles de trouble by tellin’
’um she don’t b’long to none uv um, but to you en me; en I ast ’m
if dey gwyne to grab a young white genlman’s propaty, en git a
hid’n for it? Den I gin ’m ten cents apiece, en dey ’uz mighty well
satisfied, en wisht some mo’ raf’s ’ud come along en make ’m rich
agin. Dey’s mighty good to me, dese niggers is, en whatever I
wants ’m to do fur me I doan’ have to ast ’m twice, honey. Dat
Jack’s a good nigger, en pooty smart.”
“Yes, he is. He ain’t ever told me you was here; told me to
come, and he’d show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything
happens he ain’t mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us
together, and it ’ll be the truth.”
I don’t want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I’ll cut it
pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over
and go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was—didn’t seem
to be anybody stirring. That warn’t usual. Next I noticed that Buck
was up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down
stairs—nobody around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the
same outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the wood-
pile I comes across my Jack, and says:
“What’s it all about?”
Says he:
“Don’t you know, Mars Jawge?”
“No,” says I, “I don’t.”
“Well, den, Miss Sophia’s run off! ’deed she has. She run off in
de night some time—nobody don’t know jis’ when; run off to get
married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know—leastways,
so dey ’spec. De fambly foun’ it out ’bout half an hour ago—
maybe a little mo’—en’ I tell you dey warn’t no time los’. Sich
another hurryin’ up guns en hosses you never see! De women folks
has gone for to stir up de relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys
tuck dey guns en rode up de river road for to try to ketch dat young
man en kill him ’fo’ he kin git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I
reck’n dey’s gwyne to be mighty rough times.”
“Buck went off ’thout waking me up.”
“Well, I reck’n he did! Dey warn’t gwyne to mix you up in it.
Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en ’lowed he’s gwyne to fetch
home a Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey’ll be plenty un ’m dah, I
reck’n, en you bet you he’ll fetch one ef he gits a chanst.”
I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by I begin
to hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log
store and the woodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along
under the trees and brush till I got to a good place, and then I
clumb up into the forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and
watched. There was a wood-rank four foot high a little ways in
front of the tree, and first I was going to hide behind that; but
maybe it was luckier I didn’t.
There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in
the open place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying
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to get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank

alongside of the steamboat landing; but they couldn’t come it.
Every time one of them showed himself on the river side of the
woodpile he got shot at. The two boys was squatting back to back
behind the pile, so they could watch both ways.

By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They

started riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys,
draws a steady bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them
out of his saddle. All the men jumped off of their horses and
grabbed the hurt one and started to carry him to the store; and that
minute the two boys started on the run. They got half way to the
tree I was in before the men noticed. Then the men see them, and
jumped on their horses and took out after them. They gained on
the boys, but it didn’t do no good, the boys had too good a start;
they got to the woodpile that was in front of my tree, and slipped
in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men again. One of
the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about
nineteen years old.
The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as
they was out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn’t
know what to make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He
was awful surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him
know when the men come in sight again; said they was up to some
devilment or other—wouldn’t be gone long. I wished I was out of
that tree, but I dasn’t come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and
’lowed that him and his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap)
would make up for this day yet. He said his father and his two
brothers was killed, and two or three of the enemy. Said the
Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said his father and
brothers ought to waited for their relations—the Shepherdsons was
too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young
Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they’d got across the river and
was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because
he didn’t manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him—I hain’t
ever heard anything like it.
All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns—the
men had slipped around through the woods and come in from
behind without their horses! The boys jumped for the river—both
of them hurt—and as they swum down the current the men run
along the bank shooting at them and singing out, “Kill them, kill
them!” It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain’t a-
going to tell all that happened—it would make me sick again if I
was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night to see
such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them—lots of times I
dream about them.

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I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.
Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen
little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I
reckoned the trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty
downhearted; so I made up my mind I wouldn’t ever go anear that
house again, because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow. I
judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet
Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and I judged I
ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way she
acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful
mess wouldn’t ever happened.
When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river
bank a piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the
water, and tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up
their faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I
was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.
It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck
through the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn’t on his
island, so I tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded
through the willows, red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that
awful country. The raft was gone! My souls, but I was scared! I
couldn’t get my breath for most a minute. Then I raised a yell. A
voice not twenty-five foot from me says:
“Good lan’! is dat you, honey? Doan’ make no noise.”
It was Jim’s voice—nothing ever sounded so good before. I run
along the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and
hugged me, he was so glad to see me. He says:
“Laws bless you, chile, I ’uz right down sho’ you’s dead agin.
Jack’s been heah; he say he reck’n you’s ben shot, kase you didn’
come home no mo’; so I’s jes’ dis minute a startin’ de raf’ down
towards de mouf er de crick, so’s to be all ready for to shove out
en leave soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain you is
dead. Lawsy, I’s mighty glad to git you back again, honey.”
I says:
“All right—that’s mighty good; they won’t find me, and they’ll
think I’ve been killed, and floated down the river—there’s
something up there that ’ll help them think so—so don’t you lose
no time, Jim, but just shove off for the big water as fast as ever
you can.”
I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in
the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern,
and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn’t had a
bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers
and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens—there ain’t
nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked right—and whilst I
eat my supper we talked and had a good time. I was powerful glad
to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the
swamp. We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other
places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You
feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

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CHAPTER XIX.

Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they
swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is
the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down
there—sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid
up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped
navigating and tied up—nearly always in the dead water under a
towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid
the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the
river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set
down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep,
and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly
still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the
bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away
over the water, was a kind of dull line—that was the woods on
t’other side; you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place
in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river
softened up away off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you
could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away—trading
scows, and such things; and long black streaks—rafts; sometimes
you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so
still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a streak
on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there’s
a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that
streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water,
and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-
cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t’other side of
the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so
you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze
springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and
fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers;
but sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish laying
around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next
you’ve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the
song-birds just going it!
A little smoke couldn’t be noticed now, so we would take some
fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards
we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy
along, and by and by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by, and
look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing
along up-stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn’t tell
nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-
wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn’t be nothing to hear
nor nothing to see—just solid lonesomeness. Next you’d see a raft
sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping,
because they’re most always doing it on a raft; you’d see the axe
flash and come down—you don’t hear nothing; you see that axe go
up again, and by the time it’s above the man’s head then you hear
the k’chunk!—it had took all that time to come over the water. So
we would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness.
Once there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by
was beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn’t run over them. A
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scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and

cussing and laughing—heard them plain; but we couldn’t see no
sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying
on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I
says:
“No; spirits wouldn’t say, ‘Dern the dern fog.’”
Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to
about the middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the
current wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs
in the water, and talked about all kinds of things—we was always
naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us—the
new clothes Buck’s folks made for me was too good to be
comfortable, and besides I didn’t go much on clothes, nohow.
Sometimes we’d have that whole river all to ourselves for the
longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the
water; and maybe a spark—which was a candle in a cabin
window; and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two
—on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a
fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It’s lovely to
live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and
we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about
whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he allowed they
was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have
took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid
them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn’t say nothing
against it, because I’ve seen a frog lay most as many, so of course
it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see
them streak down. Jim allowed they’d got spoiled and was hove
out of the nest.
Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping
along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole
world of sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain
down in the river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a
corner and her lights would wink out and her powwow shut off
and leave the river still again; and by and by her waves would get
to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and
after that you wouldn’t hear nothing for you couldn’t tell how
long, except maybe frogs or something.
After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for
two or three hours the shores was black—no more sparks in the
cabin windows. These sparks was our clock—the first one that
showed again meant morning was coming, so we hunted a place to
hide and tie up right away.
One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a
chute to the main shore—it was only two hundred yards—and
paddled about a mile up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see
if I couldn’t get some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a
kind of a cowpath crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men
tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a
goner, for whenever anybody was after anybody I judged it was
me—or maybe Jim. I was about to dig out from there in a hurry,
but they was pretty close to me then, and sung out and begged me
to save their lives—said they hadn’t been doing nothing, and was
being chased for it—said there was men and dogs a-coming. They
wanted to jump right in, but I says:

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“Don’t you do it. I don’t hear the dogs and horses yet; you’ve
got time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little
ways; then you take to the water and wade down to me and get in
—that’ll throw the dogs off the scent.”
They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our
towhead, and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and
the men away off, shouting. We heard them come along towards
the crick, but couldn’t see them; they seemed to stop and fool
around a while; then, as we got further and further away all the
time, we couldn’t hardly hear them at all; by the time we had left a
mile of woods behind us and struck the river, everything was quiet,
and we paddled over to the towhead and hid in the cottonwoods
and was safe.
One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a
bald head and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up
slouch hat on, and a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue
jeans britches stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses—
no, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with
slick brass buttons flung over his arm, and both of them had big,
fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.
The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery.
After breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that
come out was that these chaps didn’t know one another.
“What got you into trouble?” says the baldhead to t’other chap.
“Well, I’d been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth—
and it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it—
but I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in
the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of
town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help
you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and
would scatter out with you. That’s the whole yarn—what’s yourn?
“Well, I’d ben a-running’ a little temperance revival thar ’bout a
week, and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was
makin’ it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin’ as
much as five or six dollars a night—ten cents a head, children and
niggers free—and business a-growin’ all the time, when somehow
or another a little report got around last night that I had a way of

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puttin’ in my time with a private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted

me out this mornin’, and told me the people was getherin’ on the
quiet with their dogs and horses, and they’d be along pretty soon
and give me ’bout half an hour’s start, and then run me down if
they could; and if they got me they’d tar and feather me and ride
me on a rail, sure. I didn’t wait for no breakfast—I warn’t hungry.”
“Old man,” said the young one, “I reckon we might double-team
it together; what do you think?”
“I ain’t undisposed. What’s your line—mainly?”
“Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theater-
actor—tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and
phrenology when there’s a chance; teach singing-geography school
for a change; sling a lecture sometimes—oh, I do lots of things—
most anything that comes handy, so it ain’t work. What’s your
lay?”
“I’ve done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin’
on o’ hands is my best holt—for cancer and paralysis, and sich
things; and I k’n tell a fortune pretty good when I’ve got
somebody along to find out the facts for me. Preachin’s my line,
too, and workin’ camp-meetin’s, and missionaryin’ around.”
Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man
hove a sigh and says:
“Alas!”
“What ’re you alassin’ about?” says the bald-head.
“To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be
degraded down into such company.” And he begun to wipe the
corner of his eye with a rag.
“Dern your skin, ain’t the company good enough for you?” says
the baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.
“Yes, it is good enough for me; it’s as good as I deserve; for
who fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don’t
blame you, gentlemen—far from it; I don’t blame anybody. I
deserve it all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know—
there’s a grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it’s
always done, and take everything from me—loved ones, property,
everything; but it can’t take that. Some day I’ll lie down in it and
forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at rest.” He went on
a-wiping.
“Drot your pore broken heart,” says the baldhead; “what are you
heaving your pore broken heart at us f’r? We hain’t done nothing.”
“No, I know you haven’t. I ain’t blaming you, gentlemen. I
brought myself down—yes, I did it myself. It’s right I should
suffer—perfectly right—I don’t make any moan.”
“Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down
from?”
“Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes—let it
pass—’tis no matter. The secret of my birth—”
“The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say—”
“Gentlemen,” says the young man, very solemn, “I will reveal it
to you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a
duke!”

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Jim’s eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine
did, too. Then the baldhead says: “No! you can’t mean it?”
“Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of
Bridgewater, fled to this country about the end of the last century,
to breathe the pure air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving
a son, his own father dying about the same time. The second son
of the late duke seized the titles and estates—the infant real duke
was ignored. I am the lineal descendant of that infant—I am the
rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and here am I, forlorn, torn from my
high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged,
worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the companionship of felons
on a raft!”
Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort
him, but he said it warn’t much use, he couldn’t be much
comforted; said if we was a mind to acknowledge him, that would
do him more good than most anything else; so we said we would,
if he would tell us how. He said we ought to bow when we spoke
to him, and say “Your Grace,” or “My Lord,” or “Your
Lordship”—and he wouldn’t mind it if we called him plain
“Bridgewater,” which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name;
and one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little
thing for him he wanted done.
Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim
stood around and waited on him, and says, “Will yo’ Grace have
some o’ dis or some o’ dat?” and so on, and a body could see it
was mighty pleasing to him.
But the old man got pretty silent by and by—didn’t have much
to say, and didn’t look pretty comfortable over all that petting that
was going on around that duke. He seemed to have something on
his mind. So, along in the afternoon, he says:
“Looky here, Bilgewater,” he says, “I’m nation sorry for you,
but you ain’t the only person that’s had troubles like that.”
“No?”
“No you ain’t. You ain’t the only person that’s ben snaked down
wrongfully out’n a high place.”
“Alas!”

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“No, you ain’t the only person that’s had a secret of his birth.”
And, by jings, he begins to cry.
“Hold! What do you mean?”
“Bilgewater, kin I trust you?” says the old man, still sort of
sobbing.
“To the bitter death!” He took the old man by the hand and
squeezed it, and says, “That secret of your being: speak!”
“Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!”

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:
“You are what?”
“Yes, my friend, it is too true—your eyes is lookin’ at this very
moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen,
son of Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette.”
“You! At your age! No! You mean you’re the late Charlemagne;
you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least.”
“Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has
brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes,
gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the
wanderin’, exiled, trampled-on, and sufferin’ rightful King of
France.”
Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn’t know
hardly what to do, we was so sorry—and so glad and proud we’d
got him with us, too. So we set in, like we done before with the
duke, and tried to comfort him. But he said it warn’t no use,
nothing but to be dead and done with it all could do him any good;
though he said it often made him feel easier and better for a while
if people treated him according to his rights, and got down on one
knee to speak to him, and always called him “Your Majesty,” and
waited on him first at meals, and didn’t set down in his presence
till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing
this and that and t’other for him, and standing up till he told us we
might set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got
cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and
didn’t look a bit satisfied with the way things was going; still, the
king acted real friendly towards him, and said the duke’s great-
grandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal

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thought of by his father, and was allowed to come to the palace

considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till by and
by the king says:
“Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-
yer raft, Bilgewater, and so what’s the use o’ your bein’ sour? It ’ll
only make things oncomfortable. It ain’t my fault I warn’t born a
duke, it ain’t your fault you warn’t born a king—so what’s the use
to worry? Make the best o’ things the way you find ’em, says I—
that’s my motto. This ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here—
plenty grub and an easy life—come, give us your hand, duke, and
le’s all be friends.”
The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It
took away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over
it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any
unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a
raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind
towards the others.
It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars
warn’t no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and
frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it’s
the best way; then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into
no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn’t
no objections, ’long as it would keep peace in the family; and it
warn’t no use to tell Jim, so I didn’t tell him. If I never learnt
nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with
his kind of people is to let them have their own way.

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CHAPTER XX.

They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know

what we covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the
daytime instead of running—was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:
“Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run south?”
No, they allowed he wouldn’t. I had to account for things some
way, so I says:
“My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was
born, and they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa,
he ’lowed he’d break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben,
who’s got a little one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile
below Orleans. Pa was pretty poor, and had some debts; so when
he’d squared up there warn’t nothing left but sixteen dollars and
our nigger, Jim. That warn’t enough to take us fourteen hundred
mile, deck passage nor no other way. Well, when the river rose pa
had a streak of luck one day; he ketched this piece of a raft; so we
reckoned we’d go down to Orleans on it. Pa’s luck didn’t hold out;
a steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft one night, and
we all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and me
come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four years
old, so they never come up no more. Well, for the next day or two
we had considerable trouble, because people was always coming
out in skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they
believed he was a runaway nigger. We don’t run daytimes no more
now; nights they don’t bother us.”
The duke says:
“Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the
daytime if we want to. I’ll think the thing over—I’ll invent a plan
that’ll fix it. We’ll let it alone for to-day, because of course we
don’t want to go by that town yonder in daylight—it mightn’t be
healthy.”
Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat
lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves
was beginning to shiver—it was going to be pretty ugly, it was
easy to see that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our
wigwam, to see what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick
better than Jim’s, which was a corn-shuck tick; there’s always cobs
around about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and
when you roll over the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over
in a pile of dead leaves; it makes such a rustling that you wake up.
Well, the duke allowed he would take my bed; but the king
allowed he wouldn’t. He says:
“I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to
you that a corn-shuck bed warn’t just fitten for me to sleep on.
Your Grace ’ll take the shuck bed yourself.”
Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there
was going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was
pretty glad when the duke says:
“’Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron
heel of oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit;
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I yield, I submit; ’tis my fate. I am alone in the world—let me

suffer; can bear it.”
We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us
to stand well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a
light till we got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of
the little bunch of lights by and by—that was the town, you know
—and slid by, about a half a mile out, all right. When we was
three-quarters of a mile below we hoisted up our signal lantern;
and about ten o’clock it come on to rain and blow and thunder and
lighten like everything; so the king told us to both stay on watch
till the weather got better; then him and the duke crawled into the
wigwam and turned in for the night. It was my watch below till
twelve, but I wouldn’t a turned in anyway if I’d had a bed, because
a body don’t see such a storm as that every day in the week, not by
a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every
second or two there’d come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a
half a mile around, and you’d see the islands looking dusty
through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then
comes a h-whack!—bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-
bum-bum—and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling
away, and quit—and then rip comes another flash and another
sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,
but I hadn’t any clothes on, and didn’t mind. We didn’t have no
trouble about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around
so constant that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw
her head this way or that and miss them.
I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by
that time, so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me;
he was always mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the
wigwam, but the king and the duke had their legs sprawled around
so there warn’t no show for me; so I laid outside—I didn’t mind
the rain, because it was warm, and the waves warn’t running so
high now. About two they come up again, though, and Jim was
going to call me; but he changed his mind, because he reckoned
they warn’t high enough yet to do any harm; but he was mistaken
about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular
ripper and washed me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. He
was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.
I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by
and by the storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light
that showed I rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding
quarters for the day.
The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and
him and the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then
they got tired of it, and allowed they would “lay out a campaign,”
as they called it. The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and
fetched up a lot of little printed bills and read them out loud. One
bill said, “The celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris,”
would “lecture on the Science of Phrenology” at such and such a
place, on the blank day of blank, at ten cents admission, and
“furnish charts of character at twenty-five cents apiece.” The duke
said that was him. In another bill he was the “world-renowned
Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane,
London.” In other bills he had a lot of other names and done other
wonderful things, like finding water and gold with a “divining-
rod,” “dissipating witch spells,” and so on. By and by he says:

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“But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the
boards, Royalty?”
“No,” says the king.
“You shall, then, before you’re three days older, Fallen
Grandeur,” says the duke. “The first good town we come to we’ll
hire a hall and do the sword fight in Richard III. and the balcony
scene in Romeo and Juliet. How does that strike you?”
“I’m in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater;
but, you see, I don’t know nothing about play-actin’, and hain’t
ever seen much of it. I was too small when pap used to have ’em at
the palace. Do you reckon you can learn me?”
“Easy!”
“All right. I’m jist a-freezn’ for something fresh, anyway. Le’s
commence right away.”
So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who
Juliet was, and said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could
be Juliet.
“But if Juliet’s such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my
white whiskers is goin’ to look oncommon odd on her, maybe.”
“No, don’t you worry; these country jakes won’t ever think of
that. Besides, you know, you’ll be in costume, and that makes all
the difference in the world; Juliet’s in a balcony, enjoying the
moonlight before she goes to bed, and she’s got on her night-gown
and her ruffled nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts.”

He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was

meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t’other chap, and a long
white cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king
was satisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over
in the most splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting
at the same time, to show how it had got to be done; then he give
the book to the king and told him to get his part by heart.
There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the
bend, and after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea
about how to run in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim;
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so he allowed he would go down to the town and fix that thing.

The king allowed he would go, too, and see if he couldn’t strike
something. We was out of coffee, so Jim said I better go along
with them in the canoe and get some.
When we got there there warn’t nobody stirring; streets empty,
and perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger
sunning himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn’t
too young or too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about
two mile back in the woods. The king got the directions, and
allowed he’d go and work that camp-meeting for all it was worth,
and I might go, too.
The duke said what he was after was a printing-office. We found
it; a little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop—carpenters
and printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a
dirty, littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with
pictures of horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls.
The duke shed his coat and said he was all right now. So me and
the king lit out for the camp-meeting.
We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a
most awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there
from twenty mile around. The woods was full of teams and
wagons, hitched everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs
and stomping to keep off the flies. There was sheds made out of
poles and roofed over with branches, where they had lemonade
and gingerbread to sell, and piles of watermelons and green corn
and such-like truck.
The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only
they was bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made
out of outside slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to
drive sticks into for legs. They didn’t have no backs. The preachers
had high platforms to stand on at one end of the sheds. The women
had on sun-bonnets; and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some
gingham ones, and a few of the young ones had on calico. Some of
the young men was barefooted, and some of the children didn’t
have on any clothes but just a tow-linen shirt. Some of the old
women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting on
the sly.

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The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn.
He lined out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand
to hear it, there was so many of them and they done it in such a
rousing way; then he lined out two more for them to sing—and so
on. The people woke up more and more, and sung louder and
louder; and towards the end some begun to groan, and some begun
to shout. Then the preacher begun to preach, and begun in earnest,
too; and went weaving first to one side of the platform and then
the other, and then a-leaning down over the front of it, with his
arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out
with all his might; and every now and then he would hold up his
Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and
that, shouting, “It’s the brazen serpent in the wilderness! Look
upon it and live!” And people would shout out, “Glory!—A-a-
men!” And so he went on, and the people groaning and crying and
saying amen:
“Oh, come to the mourners’ bench! come, black with sin!
(amen!) come, sick and sore! (amen!) come, lame and halt and
blind! (amen!) come, pore and needy, sunk in shame! (a-a-men!)
come, all that’s worn and soiled and suffering!—come with a
broken spirit! come with a contrite heart! come in your rags and
sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is free, the door of heaven
stands open—oh, enter in and be at rest!” (a-a-men! glory, glory
hallelujah!)
And so on. You couldn’t make out what the preacher said any
more, on account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up
everywheres in the crowd, and worked their way just by main
strength to the mourners’ bench, with the tears running down their
faces; and when all the mourners had got up there to the front
benches in a crowd, they sung and shouted and flung themselves
down on the straw, just crazy and wild.
Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could
hear him over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the
platform, and the preacher he begged him to speak to the people,
and he done it. He told them he was a pirate—been a pirate for
thirty years out in the Indian Ocean—and his crew was thinned out

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considerable last spring in a fight, and he was home now to take

out some fresh men, and thanks to goodness he’d been robbed last
night and put ashore off of a steamboat without a cent, and he was
glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that ever happened to him,
because he was a changed man now, and happy for the first time in
his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start right off and
work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of his
life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could do it
better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews in
that ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there
without money, he would get there anyway, and every time he
convinced a pirate he would say to him, “Don’t you thank me,
don’t you give me no credit; it all belongs to them dear people in
Pokeville camp-meeting, natural brothers and benefactors of the
race, and that dear preacher there, the truest friend a pirate ever
had!”

And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then

somebody sings out, “Take up a collection for him, take up a
collection!” Well, a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but
somebody sings out, “Let him pass the hat around!” Then
everybody said it, the preacher too.
So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing
his eyes, and blessing the people and praising them and thanking
them for being so good to the poor pirates away off there; and
every little while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running
down their cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss
him for to remember him by; and he always done it; and some of
them he hugged and kissed as many as five or six times—and he
was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to live in
their houses, and said they’d think it was an honor; but he said as
this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn’t do no good,
and besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off
and go to work on the pirates.
When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found
he had collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And
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then he had fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he

found under a wagon when he was starting home through the
woods. The king said, take it all around, it laid over any day he’d
ever put in in the missionarying line. He said it warn’t no use
talking, heathens don’t amount to shucks alongside of pirates to
work a camp-meeting with.
The duke was thinking he’d been doing pretty well till the king
come to show up, but after that he didn’t think so so much. He had
set up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that printing-
office—horse bills—and took the money, four dollars. And he had
got in ten dollars’ worth of advertisements for the paper, which he
said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance
—so they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a year,
but he took in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on
condition of them paying him in advance; they were going to pay
in cordwood and onions as usual, but he said he had just bought
the concern and knocked down the price as low as he could afford
it, and was going to run it for cash. He set up a little piece of
poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own head—three verses
—kind of sweet and saddish—the name of it was, “Yes, crush,
cold world, this breaking heart”—and he left that all set up and
ready to print in the paper, and didn’t charge nothing for it. Well,
he took in nine dollars and a half, and said he’d done a pretty
square day’s work for it.
Then he showed us another little job he’d printed and hadn’t
charged for, because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway
nigger with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and “$200
reward” under it. The reading was all about Jim, and just described
him to a dot. It said he run away from St. Jacques’ plantation, forty
mile below New Orleans, last winter, and likely went north, and
whoever would catch him and send him back he could have the
reward and expenses.

“Now,” says the duke, “after to-night we can run in the daytime
if we want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim
hand and foot with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show
this handbill and say we captured him up the river, and were too
poor to travel on a steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit
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from our friends and are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs
and chains would look still better on Jim, but it wouldn’t go well
with the story of us being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes
are the correct thing—we must preserve the unities, as we say on
the boards.”
We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn’t be no
trouble about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles
enough that night to get out of the reach of the powwow we
reckoned the duke’s work in the printing office was going to make
in that little town; then we could boom right along if we wanted to.
We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten
o’clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and
didn’t hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.
When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he
says:
“Huck, does you reck’n we gwyne to run acrost any mo’ kings
on dis trip?”
“No,” I says, “I reckon not.”
“Well,” says he, “dat’s all right, den. I doan’ mine one er two
kings, but dat’s enough. Dis one’s powerful drunk, en de duke ain’
much better.”
I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he
could hear what it was like; but he said he had been in this country
so long, and had so much trouble, he’d forgot it.

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CHAPTER XXI.

It was after sun-up now, but we went right on and didn’t tie up.
The king and the duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty;
but after they’d jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered
them up a good deal. After breakfast the king he took a seat on the
corner of the raft, and pulled off his boots and rolled up his
britches, and let his legs dangle in the water, so as to be
comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went to getting his Romeo and
Juliet by heart. When he had got it pretty good him and the duke
begun to practice it together. The duke had to learn him over and
over again how to say every speech; and he made him sigh, and
put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done it pretty
well; “only,” he says, “you mustn’t bellow out Romeo! that way,
like a bull—you must say it soft and sick and languishy, so—R-o-
o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet’s a dear sweet mere child of a
girl, you know, and she doesn’t bray like a jackass.”
Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke
made out of oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight—the
duke called himself Richard III.; and the way they laid on and
pranced around the raft was grand to see. But by and by the king
tripped and fell overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had
a talk about all kinds of adventures they’d had in other times along
the river.
After dinner the duke says:
“Well, Capet, we’ll want to make this a first-class show, you
know, so I guess we’ll add a little more to it. We want a little
something to answer encores with, anyway.”
“What’s onkores, Bilgewater?”
The duke told him, and then says:
“I’ll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor’s
hornpipe; and you—well, let me see—oh, I’ve got it—you can do
Hamlet’s soliloquy.”
“Hamlet’s which?”
“Hamlet’s soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in
Shakespeare. Ah, it’s sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house.
I haven’t got it in the book—I’ve only got one volume—but I
reckon I can piece it out from memory. I’ll just walk up and down
a minute, and see if I can call it back from recollection’s vaults.”

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So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning

horrible every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows;
next he would squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back
and kind of moan; next he would sigh, and next he’d let on to drop
a tear. It was beautiful to see him. By and by he got it. He told us
to give attention. Then he strikes a most noble attitude, with one
leg shoved forwards, and his arms stretched away up, and his head
tilted back, looking up at the sky; and then he begins to rip and
rave and grit his teeth; and after that, all through his speech, he
howled, and spread around, and swelled up his chest, and just
knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before. This is the
speech—I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the
king:

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin

That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to
Dunsinane,
But that the fear of something after death Murders the innocent
sleep,
Great nature’s second course,
And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune
Than fly to others that we know not of.
There’s the respect must give us pause:
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The law’s delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take.
In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn
In customary suits of solemn black,
But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler
returns,
Breathes forth contagion on the world,
And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i’ the adage,
Is sicklied o’er with care.
And all the clouds that lowered o’er our housetops,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

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But soft you, the fair Ophelia:

Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws.
But get thee to a nunnery—go!

Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got
it so he could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it;
and when he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly
lovely the way he would rip and tear and rair up behind when he
was getting it off.
The first chance we got, the duke he had some show bills
printed; and after that, for two or three days as we floated along,
the raft was a most uncommon lively place, for there warn’t
nothing but sword-fighting and rehearsing—as the duke called it—
going on all the time. One morning, when we was pretty well
down the State of Arkansaw, we come in sight of a little one-horse
town in a big bend; so we tied up about three-quarters of a mile
above it, in the mouth of a crick which was shut in like a tunnel by
the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took the canoe and went
down there to see if there was any chance in that place for our
show.
We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there
that afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to
come in, in all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The
circus would leave before night, so our show would have a pretty
good chance. The duke he hired the court house, and we went
around and stuck up our bills. They read like this:

Shaksperean Revival!!!
Wonderful Attraction!
For One Night Only!
The world renowned tragedians,
David Garrick the younger, of Drury Lane Theatre, London,
and
Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre,
Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the
Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime
Shaksperean Spectacle entitled
The Balcony Scene
in
Romeo and Juliet!!!

Romeo...................................... Mr. Garrick.

Juliet..................................... Mr. Kean.

Assisted by the whole strength of the company!

New costumes, new scenery, new appointments!

Also:
The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling
Broad-sword conflict
In Richard III.!!!

Richard III................................ Mr. Garrick.

Richmond................................... Mr. Kean.

also:
(by special request,)
Hamlet’s Immortal Soliloquy!!
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By the Illustrious Kean!

Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!
For One Night Only,
On account of imperative European engagements!
Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.

Then we went loafing around the town. The stores and houses
was most all old shackly dried-up frame concerns that hadn’t ever
been painted; they was set up three or four foot above ground on
stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was
overflowed. The houses had little gardens around them, but they
didn’t seem to raise hardly anything in them but jimpson weeds,
and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and old curled-up boots and shoes,
and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out tin-ware. The
fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed on at different
times; and they leaned every which-way, and had gates that didn’t
generly have but one hinge—a leather one. Some of the fences had
been whitewashed, some time or another, but the duke said it was
in Clumbus’s time, like enough. There was generly hogs in the
garden, and people driving them out.
All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic
awnings in front, and the country people hitched their horses to the
awning-posts. There was empty drygoods boxes under the
awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them
with their Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping and
yawning and stretching—a mighty ornery lot. They generly had on
yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella, but didn’t wear no
coats nor waistcoats, they called one another Bill, and Buck, and
Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and used
considerable many cuss words. There was as many as one loafer
leaning up against every awning-post, and he most always had his
hands in his britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to
lend a chaw of tobacco or scratch. What a body was hearing
amongst them all the time was:
“Gimme a chaw ’v tobacker, Hank.”
“Cain’t; I hain’t got but one chaw left. Ask Bill.”

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Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he

ain’t got none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in
the world, nor a chaw of tobacco of their own. They get all their
chawing by borrowing; they say to a fellow, “I wisht you’d len’ me
a chaw, Jack, I jist this minute give Ben Thompson the last chaw I
had”—which is a lie pretty much everytime; it don’t fool nobody
but a stranger; but Jack ain’t no stranger, so he says:
“You give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister’s cat’s
grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you’ve awready borry’d
off’n me, Lafe Buckner, then I’ll loan you one or two ton of it, and
won’t charge you no back intrust, nuther.”
“Well, I did pay you back some of it wunst.”
“Yes, you did—’bout six chaws. You borry’d store tobacker and
paid back nigger-head.”
Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws
the natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw they don’t
generly cut it off with a knife, but set the plug in between their
teeth, and gnaw with their teeth and tug at the plug with their
hands till they get it in two; then sometimes the one that owns the
tobacco looks mournful at it when it’s handed back, and says,
sarcastic:
“Here, gimme the chaw, and you take the plug.”
All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn’t nothing else
but mud—mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some
places, and two or three inches deep in all the places. The hogs
loafed and grunted around everywheres. You’d see a muddy sow
and a litter of pigs come lazying along the street and whollop
herself right down in the way, where folks had to walk around her,
and she’d stretch out and shut her eyes and wave her ears whilst
the pigs was milking her, and look as happy as if she was on
salary. And pretty soon you’d hear a loafer sing out, “Hi! so boy!
sick him, Tige!” and away the sow would go, squealing most
horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and three or four
dozen more a-coming; and then you would see all the loafers get
up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at the fun and look
grateful for the noise. Then they’d settle back again till there was a
dog fight. There couldn’t anything wake them up all over, and
make them happy all over, like a dog fight—unless it might be
putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a
tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death.
On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the
bank, and they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in.
The people had moved out of them. The bank was caved away
under one corner of some others, and that corner was hanging
over. People lived in them yet, but it was dangersome, because
sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house caves in at a time.
Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep will start in and
cave along and cave along till it all caves into the river in one
summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back, and
back, and back, because the river’s always gnawing at it.
The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the
wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time.
Families fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat
them in the wagons. There was considerable whisky drinking
going on, and I seen three fights. By and by somebody sings out:

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“Here comes old Boggs!—in from the country for his little old
monthly drunk; here he comes, boys!”
All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having
fun out of Boggs. One of them says:
“Wonder who he’s a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If he’d a-
chawed up all the men he’s ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last
twenty year he’d have considerable ruputation now.”
Another one says, “I wisht old Boggs ’d threaten me, ’cuz then
I’d know I warn’t gwyne to die for a thousan’ year.”
Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and
yelling like an Injun, and singing out:
“Cler the track, thar. I’m on the waw-path, and the price uv
coffins is a-gwyne to raise.”

He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over

fifty year old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him
and laughed at him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said
he’d attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns, but he
couldn’t wait now because he’d come to town to kill old Colonel
Sherburn, and his motto was, “Meat first, and spoon vittles to top
off on.”
He see me, and rode up and says:
“Whar’d you come f’m, boy? You prepared to die?”
Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says:
“He don’t mean nothing; he’s always a-carryin’ on like that
when he’s drunk. He’s the best naturedest old fool in Arkansaw—
never hurt nobody, drunk nor sober.”
Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his
head down so he could see under the curtain of the awning and
yells:
“Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you’ve
swindled. You’re the houn’ I’m after, and I’m a-gwyne to have
you, too!”
And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his
tongue to, and the whole street packed with people listening and
laughing and going on. By and by a proud-looking man about
fifty-five—and he was a heap the best dressed man in that town,
too—steps out of the store, and the crowd drops back on each side
to let him come. He says to Boggs, mighty ca’m and slow—he
says:
“I’m tired of this, but I’ll endure it till one o’clock. Till one
o’clock, mind—no longer. If you open your mouth against me only
once after that time you can’t travel so far but I will find you.”
Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober;
nobody stirred, and there warn’t no more laughing. Boggs rode off
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blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the

street; and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store,
still keeping it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get
him to shut up, but he wouldn’t; they told him it would be one
o’clock in about fifteen minutes, and so he must go home—he
must go right away. But it didn’t do no good. He cussed away with
all his might, and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode over
it, and pretty soon away he went a-raging down the street again,
with his gray hair a-flying. Everybody that could get a chance at
him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they could lock
him up and get him sober; but it warn’t no use—up the street he
would tear again, and give Sherburn another cussing. By and by
somebody says:
“Go for his daughter!—quick, go for his daughter; sometimes
he’ll listen to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can.”
So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a ways and
stopped. In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but
not on his horse. He was a-reeling across the street towards me,
bare-headed, with a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms
and hurrying him along. He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he
warn’t hanging back any, but was doing some of the hurrying
himself. Somebody sings out:
“Boggs!”
I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel
Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a
pistol raised in his right hand—not aiming it, but holding it out
with the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same second I see a
young girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Boggs and
the men turned round to see who called him, and when they see the
pistol the men jumped to one side, and the pistol-barrel come
down slow and steady to a level—both barrels cocked. Boggs
throws up both of his hands and says, “O Lord, don’t shoot!”
Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back, clawing at the air
—bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards on to the
ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out. That young girl
screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on
her father, crying, and saying, “Oh, he’s killed him, he’s killed
him!” The crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and
jammed one another, with their necks stretched, trying to see, and
people on the inside trying to shove them back and shouting,
“Back, back! give him air, give him air!”

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Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the ground, and

turned around on his heels and walked off.
They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing
around just the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed
and got a good place at the window, where I was close to him and
could see in. They laid him on the floor and put one large Bible
under his head, and opened another one and spread it on his breast;
but they tore open his shirt first, and I seen where one of the
bullets went in. He made about a dozen long gasps, his breast
lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and letting it
down again when he breathed it out—and after that he laid still; he
was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from him,
screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, and
very sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared.
Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and
scrouging and pushing and shoving to get at the window and have
a look, but people that had the places wouldn’t give them up, and
folks behind them was saying all the time, “Say, now, you’ve
looked enough, you fellows; ’tain’t right and ’tain’t fair for you to
stay thar all the time, and never give nobody a chance; other folks
has their rights as well as you.”
There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking
maybe there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and
everybody was excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was
telling how it happened, and there was a big crowd packed around
each one of these fellows, stretching their necks and listening. One
long, lanky man, with long hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat
on the back of his head, and a crooked-handled cane, marked out
the places on the ground where Boggs stood and where Sherburn
stood, and the people following him around from one place to
t’other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their heads
to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their
hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground
with his cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where
Sherburn had stood, frowning and having his hat-brim down over
his eyes, and sung out, “Boggs!” and then fetched his cane down
slow to a level, and says “Bang!” staggered backwards, says
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“Bang!” again, and fell down flat on his back. The people that had
seen the thing said he done it perfect; said it was just exactly the
way it all happened. Then as much as a dozen people got out their
bottles and treated him.
Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched.
In about a minute everybody was saying it; so away they went,
mad and yelling, and snatching down every clothes-line they come
to to do the hanging with.

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CHAPTER XXII.

They swarmed up towards Sherburn’s house, a-whooping and

raging like Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run
over and tromped to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was
heeling it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to get out of the
way; and every window along the road was full of women’s heads,
and there was nigger boys in every tree, and bucks and wenches
looking over every fence; and as soon as the mob would get nearly
to them they would break and skaddle back out of reach. Lots of
the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to
death.
They swarmed up in front of Sherburn’s palings as thick as they
could jam together, and you couldn’t hear yourself think for the
noise. It was a little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out “Tear down
the fence! tear down the fence!” Then there was a racket of ripping
and tearing and smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall
of the crowd begins to roll in like a wave.
Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front
porch, with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand,
perfectly ca’m and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket
stopped, and the wave sucked back.
Sherburn never said a word—just stood there, looking down.
The stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run
his eye slow along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people
tried a little to out-gaze him, but they couldn’t; they dropped their
eyes and looked sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of
laughed; not the pleasant kind, but the kind that makes you feel
like when you are eating bread that’s got sand in it.
Then he says, slow and scornful:
“The idea of you lynching anybody! It’s amusing. The idea of
you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because
you’re brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out
women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit
enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man’s safe in the
hands of ten thousand of your kind—as long as it’s daytime and
you’re not behind him.
“Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and
raised in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the
average all around. The average man’s a coward. In the North he
lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and
prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man all by
himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the daytime, and robbed
the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you
think you are braver than any other people—whereas you’re just
as brave, and no braver. Why don’t your juries hang murderers?
Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the
back, in the dark—and it’s just what they would do.
“So they always acquit; and then a man goes in the night, with a
hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your
mistake is, that you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one
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mistake, and the other is that you didn’t come in the dark and fetch
your masks. You brought part of a man—Buck Harkness, there—
and if you hadn’t had him to start you, you’d a taken it out in
blowing.
“You didn’t want to come. The average man don’t like trouble
and danger. You don’t like trouble and danger. But if only half a
man—like Buck Harkness, there—shouts ’Lynch him! lynch him!’
you’re afraid to back down—afraid you’ll be found out to be what
you are—cowards—and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves
on to that half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come raging up here,
swearing what big things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing
out is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with
courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from
their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at
the head of it is beneath pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do is
to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real
lynching’s going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern
fashion; and when they come they’ll bring their masks, and fetch a
man along. Now leave—and take your half-a-man with you”—
tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says
this.
The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and
went tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it
after them, looking tolerable cheap. I could a stayed if I wanted to,
but I didn’t want to.
I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the
watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my
twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I
better save it, because there ain’t no telling how soon you are
going to need it, away from home and amongst strangers that way.
You can’t be too careful. I ain’t opposed to spending money on
circuses when there ain’t no other way, but there ain’t no use in
wasting it on them.

It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever
was when they all come riding in, two and two, a gentleman and
lady, side by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts,
and no shoes nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs
easy and comfortable—there must a been twenty of them—and
every lady with a lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and
looking just like a gang of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in
clothes that cost millions of dollars, and just littered with
diamonds. It was a powerful fine sight; I never see anything so
lovely. And then one by one they got up and stood, and went a-
weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and graceful, the men
looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with their heads bobbing
and skimming along, away up there under the tent-roof, and every

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lady’s rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky around her hips, and
she looking like the most loveliest parasol.
And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first
one foot out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more
and more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center-
pole, cracking his whip and shouting “Hi!—hi!” and the clown
cracking jokes behind him; and by and by all hands dropped the
reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips and every
gentleman folded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over
and hump themselves! And so one after the other they all skipped
off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then
scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and went just
about wild.
Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing
things; and all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the
people. The ringmaster couldn’t ever say a word to him but he was
back at him quick as a wink with the funniest things a body ever
said; and how he ever could think of so many of them, and so
sudden and so pat, was what I couldn’t noway understand. Why, I
couldn’t a thought of them in a year. And by and by a drunk man
tried to get into the ring—said he wanted to ride; said he could ride
as well as anybody that ever was. They argued and tried to keep
him out, but he wouldn’t listen, and the whole show come to a
standstill. Then the people begun to holler at him and make fun of
him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip and tear; so that
stirred up the people, and a lot of men begun to pile down off of
the benches and swarm towards the ring, saying, “Knock him
down! throw him out!” and one or two women begun to scream.
So, then, the ringmaster he made a little speech, and said he hoped
there wouldn’t be no disturbance, and if the man would promise he
wouldn’t make no more trouble he would let him ride if he thought
he could stay on the horse. So everybody laughed and said all
right, and the man got on. The minute he was on, the horse begun
to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, with two circus men
hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and the drunk man
hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air every jump,
and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing
till tears rolled down. And at last, sure enough, all the circus men
could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went like the very
nation, round and round the ring, with that sot laying down on him
and hanging to his neck, with first one leg hanging most to the
ground on one side, and then t’other one on t’other side, and the
people just crazy. It warn’t funny to me, though; I was all of a
tremble to see his danger. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle
and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling this way and that; and the next
minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood! and the
horse a-going like a house afire too. He just stood up there, a-
sailing around as easy and comfortable as if he warn’t ever drunk
in his life—and then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling
them. He shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and
altogether he shed seventeen suits. And, then, there he was, slim
and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw,
and he lit into that horse with his whip and made him fairly hum—
and finally skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to the
dressing-room, and everybody just a-howling with pleasure and
astonishment.

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Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he was
the sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of
his own men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and
never let on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in
so, but I wouldn’t a been in that ringmaster’s place, not for a
thousand dollars. I don’t know; there may be bullier circuses than
what that one was, but I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was
plenty good enough for me; and wherever I run across it, it can
have all of my custom every time.
Well, that night we had our show; but there warn’t only about
twelve people there—just enough to pay expenses. And they
laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody
left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was
asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come
up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low comedy—and
maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He
said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big
sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off
some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills
said:

AT THE COURT HOUSE!

FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
The World-Renowned Tragedians
DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
AND
EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
Of the London and Continental
Theatres,
In their Thrilling Tragedy of
THE KING’S CAMELOPARD
OR
THE ROYAL NONESUCH!!!
Admission 50 cents.

Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all—which said:

LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.

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“There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I dont know
Arkansaw!”

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CHAPTER XXIII.

Well, all day him and the king was hard at it, rigging up a stage
and a curtain and a row of candles for footlights; and that night the
house was jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn’t
hold no more, the duke he quit tending door and went around the
back way and come on to the stage and stood up before the curtain
and made a little speech, and praised up this tragedy, and said it
was the most thrillingest one that ever was; and so he went on a-
bragging about the tragedy, and about Edmund Kean the Elder,
which was to play the main principal part in it; and at last when
he’d got everybody’s expectations up high enough, he rolled up
the curtain, and the next minute the king come a-prancing out on
all fours, naked; and he was painted all over, ring-streaked-and-
striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow. And—but
never mind the rest of his outfit; it was just wild, but it was awful
funny. The people most killed themselves laughing; and when the
king got done capering and capered off behind the scenes, they
roared and clapped and stormed and haw-hawed till he come back
and done it over again, and after that they made him do it another
time. Well, it would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old
idiot cut.
Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people,
and says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more,
on accounts of pressing London engagements, where the seats is
all sold already for it in Drury Lane; and then he makes them
another bow, and says if he has succeeded in pleasing them and
instructing them, he will be deeply obleeged if they will mention it
to their friends and get them to come and see it.
Twenty people sings out:
“What, is it over? Is that all?”
The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody sings
out, “Sold!” and rose up mad, and was a-going for that stage and
them tragedians. But a big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench
and shouts:
“Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen.” They stopped to listen. “We
are sold—mighty badly sold. But we don’t want to be the laughing
stock of this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this
thing as long as we live. No. What we want is to go out of here
quiet, and talk this show up, and sell the rest of the town! Then
we’ll all be in the same boat. Ain’t that sensible?” (“You bet it is!
—the jedge is right!” everybody sings out.) “All right, then—not a
word about any sell. Go along home, and advise everybody to
come and see the tragedy.”
Next day you couldn’t hear nothing around that town but how
splendid that show was. House was jammed again that night, and
we sold this crowd the same way. When me and the king and the
duke got home to the raft we all had a supper; and by and by, about
midnight, they made Jim and me back her out and float her down
the middle of the river, and fetch her in and hide her about two
mile below town.

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The third night the house was crammed again—and they warn’t
new-comers this time, but people that was at the show the other
two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every
man that went in had his pockets bulging, or something muffled up
under his coat—and I see it warn’t no perfumery, neither, not by a
long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages,
and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being
around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in. I
shoved in there for a minute, but it was too various for me; I
couldn’t stand it. Well, when the place couldn’t hold no more
people the duke he give a fellow a quarter and told him to tend
door for him a minute, and then he started around for the stage
door, I after him; but the minute we turned the corner and was in
the dark he says:
“Walk fast now till you get away from the houses, and then shin
for the raft like the dickens was after you!”
I done it, and he done the same. We struck the raft at the same
time, and in less than two seconds we was gliding down stream, all
dark and still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody
saying a word. I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of
it with the audience, but nothing of the sort; pretty soon he crawls
out from under the wigwam, and says:
“Well, how’d the old thing pan out this time, duke?” He hadn’t
been up-town at all.
We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the
village. Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke
fairly laughed their bones loose over the way they’d served them
people. The duke says:
“Greenhorns, flatheads! I knew the first house would keep mum
and let the rest of the town get roped in; and I knew they’d lay for
us the third night, and consider it was their turn now. Well, it is
their turn, and I’d give something to know how much they’d take
for it. I would just like to know how they’re putting in their
opportunity. They can turn it into a picnic if they want to—they
brought plenty provisions.”
Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in
that three nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagon-load
like that before. By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim
says:

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“Don’t it s’prise you de way dem kings carries on, Huck?”

“No,” I says, “it don’t.”
“Why don’t it, Huck?”
“Well, it don’t, because it’s in the breed. I reckon they’re all
alike.”
“But, Huck, dese kings o’ ourn is reglar rapscallions; dat’s jist
what dey is; dey’s reglar rapscallions.”
“Well, that’s what I’m a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions,
as fur as I can make out.”
“Is dat so?”
“You read about them once—you’ll see. Look at Henry the
Eight; this ’n ’s a Sunday-school Superintendent to him. And look
at Charles Second, and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and
James Second, and Edward Second, and Richard Third, and forty
more; besides all them Saxon heptarchies that used to rip around
so in old times and raise Cain. My, you ought to seen old Henry
the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to
marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning.
And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up
eggs. ‘Fetch up Nell Gwynn,’ he says. They fetch her up. Next
morning, ‘Chop off her head!’ And they chop it off. ‘Fetch up Jane
Shore,’ he says; and up she comes, Next morning, ‘Chop off her
head’—and they chop it off. ‘Ring up Fair Rosamun.’ Fair
Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, ‘Chop off her head.’
And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he
kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way,
and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book
—which was a good name and stated the case. You don’t know
kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one of the
cleanest I’ve struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he
wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at
it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he
heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a
declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was
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his style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of

his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him
to show up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat.
S’pose people left money laying around where he was—what did
he do? He collared it. S’pose he contracted to do a thing, and you
paid him, and didn’t set down there and see that he done it—what
did he do? He always done the other thing. S’pose he opened his
mouth—what then? If he didn’t shut it up powerful quick he’d lose
a lie every time. That’s the kind of a bug Henry was; and if we’d a
had him along ’stead of our kings he’d a fooled that town a heap
worse than ourn done. I don’t say that ourn is lambs, because they
ain’t, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain’t
nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and
you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they’re a
mighty ornery lot. It’s the way they’re raised.”

“But dis one do smell so like de nation, Huck.”

“Well, they all do, Jim. We can’t help the way a king smells;
history don’t tell no way.”
“Now de duke, he’s a tolerble likely man in some ways.”
“Yes, a duke’s different. But not very different. This one’s a
middling hard lot for a duke. When he’s drunk there ain’t no near-
sighted man could tell him from a king.”
“Well, anyways, I doan’ hanker for no mo’ un um, Huck. Dese is
all I kin stan’.”
“It’s the way I feel, too, Jim. But we’ve got them on our hands,
and we got to remember what they are, and make allowances.
Sometimes I wish we could hear of a country that’s out of kings.”
What was the use to tell Jim these warn’t real kings and dukes?
It wouldn’t a done no good; and, besides, it was just as I said: you
couldn’t tell them from the real kind.
I went to sleep, and Jim didn’t call me when it was my turn. He
often done that. When I waked up just at daybreak he was sitting
there with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and
mourning to himself. I didn’t take notice nor let on. I knowed what
it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children,
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away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn’t

ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he
cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It
don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so. He was often moaning and
mourning that way nights, when he judged I was asleep, and
saying, “Po’ little ’Lizabeth! po’ little Johnny! it’s mighty hard; I
spec’ I ain’t ever gwyne to see you no mo’, no mo’!” He was a
mighty good nigger, Jim was.
But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and
young ones; and by and by he says:
“What makes me feel so bad dis time ’uz bekase I hear sumpn
over yonder on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it
mine me er de time I treat my little ’Lizabeth so ornery. She warn’t
on’y ’bout fo’ year ole, en she tuck de sk’yarlet fever, en had a
powful rough spell; but she got well, en one day she was a-
stannin’ aroun’, en I says to her, I says:
“‘Shet de do’.’
“She never done it; jis’ stood dah, kiner smilin’ up at me. It
make me mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says:
“‘Doan’ you hear me? Shet de do’!’
“She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin’ up. I was a-bilin’! I
says:
“‘I lay I make you mine!’
“En wid dat I fetch’ her a slap side de head dat sont her a-
sprawlin’. Den I went into de yuther room, en ’uz gone ’bout ten
minutes; en when I come back dah was dat do’ a-stannin’ open yit,
en dat chile stannin’ mos’ right in it, a-lookin’ down and mournin’,
en de tears runnin’ down. My, but I wuz mad! I was a-gwyne for de
chile, but jis’ den—it was a do’ dat open innerds—jis’ den, ’long
come de wind en slam it to, behine de chile, ker-blam!—en my
lan’, de chile never move’! My breff mos’ hop outer me; en I feel
so—so—I doan’ know how I feel. I crope out, all a-tremblin’, en
crope aroun’ en open de do’ easy en slow, en poke my head in
behine de chile, sof’ en still, en all uv a sudden I says pow! jis’ as
loud as I could yell. She never budge! Oh, Huck, I bust out a-
cryin’ en grab her up in my arms, en say, ‘Oh, de po’ little thing!
De Lord God Amighty fogive po’ ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to
fogive hisself as long’s he live!’ Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb,
Huck, plumb deef en dumb—en I’d ben a-treat’n her so!”

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CHAPTER XXIV.

Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow

towhead out in the middle, where there was a village on each side
of the river, and the duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for
working them towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped
it wouldn’t take but a few hours, because it got mighty heavy and
tiresome to him when he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied
with the rope. You see, when we left him all alone we had to tie
him, because if anybody happened on to him all by himself and
not tied it wouldn’t look much like he was a runaway nigger, you
know. So the duke said it was kind of hard to have to lay roped all
day, and he’d cipher out some way to get around it.
He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it.
He dressed Jim up in King Lear’s outfit—it was a long curtain-
calico gown, and a white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he
took his theater paint and painted Jim’s face and hands and ears
and neck all over a dead, dull, solid blue, like a man that’s been
drownded nine days. Blamed if he warn’t the horriblest looking
outrage I ever see. Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a
shingle so:

Sick Arab—but harmless when not out of his head.

And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or
five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was
a sight better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and
trembling all over every time there was a sound. The duke told
him to make himself free and easy, and if anybody ever come
meddling around, he must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on a
little, and fetch a howl or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned
they would light out and leave him alone. Which was sound
enough judgment; but you take the average man, and he wouldn’t
wait for him to howl. Why, he didn’t only look like he was dead,
he looked considerable more than that.
These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because
there was so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn’t be
safe, because maybe the news might a worked along down by this
time. They couldn’t hit no project that suited exactly; so at last the
duke said he reckoned he’d lay off and work his brains an hour or
two and see if he couldn’t put up something on the Arkansaw
village; and the king he allowed he would drop over to t’other
village without any plan, but just trust in Providence to lead him
the profitable way—meaning the devil, I reckon. We had all
bought store clothes where we stopped last; and now the king put
his’n on, and he told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. The
king’s duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I
never knowed how clothes could change a body before. Why,
before, he looked like the orneriest old rip that ever was; but now,
when he’d take off his new white beaver and make a bow and do a
smile, he looked that grand and good and pious that you’d say he
had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old Leviticus
himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my paddle ready.
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There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away up under the
point, about three mile above the town—been there a couple of
hours, taking on freight. Says the king:
“Seein’ how I’m dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down
from St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the
steamboat, Huckleberry; we’ll come down to the village on her.”
I didn’t have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat
ride. I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then
went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon
we come to a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on
a log swabbing the sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm
weather; and he had a couple of big carpet-bags by him.
“Run her nose in shore,” says the king. I done it. “Wher’ you
bound for, young man?”
“For the steamboat; going to Orleans.”
“Git aboard,” says the king. “Hold on a minute, my servant ’ll
he’p you with them bags. Jump out and he’p the gentleman,
Adolphus”—meaning me, I see.

I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young
chap was mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his
baggage such weather. He asked the king where he was going, and
the king told him he’d come down the river and landed at the other
village this morning, and now he was going up a few mile to see
an old friend on a farm up there. The young fellow says:
“When I first see you I says to myself, ‘It’s Mr. Wilks, sure, and
he come mighty near getting here in time.’ But then I says again,
‘No, I reckon it ain’t him, or else he wouldn’t be paddling up the
river.’ You ain’t him, are you?”
“No, my name’s Blodgett—Elexander Blodgett—Reverend
Elexander Blodgett, I s’pose I must say, as I’m one o’ the Lord’s
poor servants. But still I’m jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for
not arriving in time, all the same, if he’s missed anything by it—
which I hope he hasn’t.”
“Well, he don’t miss any property by it, because he’ll get that all
right; but he’s missed seeing his brother Peter die—which he
mayn’t mind, nobody can tell as to that—but his brother would a
give anything in this world to see him before he died; never talked
about nothing else all these three weeks; hadn’t seen him since
they was boys together—and hadn’t ever seen his brother William
at all—that’s the deef and dumb one—William ain’t more than
thirty or thirty-five. Peter and George were the only ones that
come out here; George was the married brother; him and his wife

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both died last year. Harvey and William’s the only ones that’s left
now; and, as I was saying, they haven’t got here in time.”
“Did anybody send ’em word?”
“Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took;
because Peter said then that he sorter felt like he warn’t going to
get well this time. You see, he was pretty old, and George’s g’yirls
was too young to be much company for him, except Mary Jane,
the red-headed one; and so he was kinder lonesome after George
and his wife died, and didn’t seem to care much to live. He most
desperately wanted to see Harvey—and William, too, for that
matter—because he was one of them kind that can’t bear to make a
will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he’d told in it
where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the
property divided up so George’s g’yirls would be all right—for
George didn’t leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get
him to put a pen to.”
“Why do you reckon Harvey don’t come? Wher’ does he live?”
“Oh, he lives in England—Sheffield—preaches there—hasn’t
ever been in this country. He hasn’t had any too much time—and
besides he mightn’t a got the letter at all, you know.”
“Too bad, too bad he couldn’t a lived to see his brothers, poor
soul. You going to Orleans, you say?”
“Yes, but that ain’t only a part of it. I’m going in a ship, next
Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives.”
“It’s a pretty long journey. But it’ll be lovely; wisht I was a-
going. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?”
“Mary Jane’s nineteen, Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s about
fourteen—that’s the one that gives herself to good works and has a
hare-lip.”
“Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so.”
“Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they
ain’t going to let them come to no harm. There’s Hobson, the
Babtis’ preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and
Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson,
and their wives, and the widow Bartley, and—well, there’s a lot of
them; but these are the ones that Peter was thickest with, and used
to write about sometimes, when he wrote home; so Harvey ’ll
know where to look for friends when he gets here.”

Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly
emptied that young fellow. Blamed if he didn’t inquire about
everybody and everything in that blessed town, and all about the
Wilkses; and about Peter’s business—which was a tanner; and
about George’s—which was a carpenter; and about Harvey’s—

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which was a dissentering minister; and so on, and so on. Then he

says:
“What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat
for?”
“Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she
mightn’t stop there. When they’re deep they won’t stop for a hail.
A Cincinnati boat will, but this is a St. Louis one.”
“Was Peter Wilks well off?”
“Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it’s
reckoned he left three or four thousand in cash hid up som’ers.”
“When did you say he died?”
“I didn’t say, but it was last night.”
“Funeral to-morrow, likely?”
“Yes, ’bout the middle of the day.”
“Well, it’s all terrible sad; but we’ve all got to go, one time or
another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we’re all
right.”
“Yes, sir, it’s the best way. Ma used to always say that.”
When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty
soon she got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard,
so I lost my ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made
me paddle up another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got
ashore and says:
“Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the
new carpet-bags. And if he’s gone over to t’other side, go over
there and git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove
along, now.”
I see what he was up to; but I never said nothing, of course.
When I got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set
down on a log, and the king told him everything, just like the
young fellow had said it—every last word of it. And all the time he
was a-doing it he tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it
pretty well, too, for a slouch. I can’t imitate him, and so I ain’t a-
going to try to; but he really done it pretty good. Then he says:
“How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?”
The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a
deef and dumb person on the histronic boards. So then they waited
for a steamboat.
About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come
along, but they didn’t come from high enough up the river; but at
last there was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl,
and we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they
found we only wanted to go four or five mile they was booming
mad, and gave us a cussing, and said they wouldn’t land us. But
the king was ca’m. He says:
“If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took
on and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry ’em, can’t
it?”
So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we
got to the village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men
flocked down when they see the yawl a-coming, and when the
king says:

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“Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks

lives?” they give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads,
as much as to say, “What d’ I tell you?” Then one of them says,
kind of soft and gentle:
“I’m sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he did
live yesterday evening.”
Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to smash, and
fell up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried
down his back, and says:
“Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see
him; oh, it’s too, too hard!”

Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic

signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn’t drop a
carpet-bag and bust out a-crying. If they warn’t the beatenest lot,
them two frauds, that ever I struck.
Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and
said all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags
up the hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told
the king all about his brother’s last moments, and the king he told
it all over again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on
about that dead tanner like they’d lost the twelve disciples. Well, if
ever I struck anything like it, I’m a nigger. It was enough to make
a body ashamed of the human race.

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CHAPTER XXV.

The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see
the people tearing down on the run from every which way, some of
them putting on their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in
the middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a
soldier march. The windows and dooryards was full; and every
minute somebody would say, over a fence:
“Is it them?”
And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back
and say:
“You bet it is.”
When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed,
and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane was red-
headed, but that don’t make no difference, she was most awful
beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she
was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms,
and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the hare-lip jumped for
the duke, and there they had it! Everybody most, leastways
women, cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have such
good times.
Then the king he hunched the duke private—I see him do it—
and then he looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on
two chairs; so then him and the duke, with a hand across each
other’s shoulder, and t’other hand to their eyes, walked slow and
solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give them room,
and all the talk and noise stopping, people saying “Sh!” and all the
men taking their hats off and drooping their heads, so you could a
heard a pin fall. And when they got there they bent over and
looked in the coffin, and took one sight, and then they bust out a-
crying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most; and then they
put their arms around each other’s necks, and hung their chins over
each other’s shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four,
I never see two men leak the way they done. And, mind you,
everybody was doing the same; and the place was that damp I
never see anything like it. Then one of them got on one side of the
coffin, and t’other on t’other side, and they kneeled down and
rested their foreheads on the coffin, and let on to pray all to
themselves. Well, when it come to that it worked the crowd like
you never see anything like it, and everybody broke down and
went to sobbing right out loud—the poor girls, too; and every
woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a word, and
kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand on
their head, and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running
down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing,
and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so
disgusting.

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Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes forward a little,

and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears
and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor
brother to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after
the long journey of four thousand mile, but it’s a trial that’s
sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these
holy tears, and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his
brother’s heart, because out of their mouths they can’t, words
being too weak and cold, and all that kind of rot and slush, till it
was just sickening; and then he blubbers out a pious goody-goody
Amen, and turns himself loose and goes to crying fit to bust.
And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over
in the crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with
all their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as
good as church letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that
soul-butter and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and
sound so honest and bully.
Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him
and his nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends
of the family would take supper here with them this evening, and
help set up with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor
brother laying yonder could speak he knows who he would name,
for they was names that was very dear to him, and mentioned often
in his letters; and so he will name the same, to wit, as follows,
vizz.:—Rev. Mr. Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben
Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson,
and their wives, and the widow Bartley.
Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town
a-hunting together—that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick
man to t’other world, and the preacher was pinting him right.
Lawyer Bell was away up to Louisville on business. But the rest
was on hand, and so they all come and shook hands with the king
and thanked him and talked to him; and then they shook hands
with the duke and didn’t say nothing, but just kept a-smiling and
bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads whilst he made all

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sorts of signs with his hands and said “Goo-goo—goo-goo-goo”

all the time, like a baby that can’t talk.
So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about
pretty much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and
mentioned all sorts of little things that happened one time or
another in the town, or to George’s family, or to Peter. And he
always let on that Peter wrote him the things; but that was a lie: he
got every blessed one of them out of that young flathead that we
canoed up to the steamboat.
Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and
the king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-
house and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the
tanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some other
houses and land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand
dollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six
thousand cash was hid down cellar. So these two frauds said they’d
go and fetch it up, and have everything square and above-board;
and told me to come with a candle. We shut the cellar door behind
us, and when they found the bag they spilt it out on the floor, and it
was a lovely sight, all them yaller-boys. My, the way the king’s
eyes did shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder and says:
“Oh, this ain’t bully nor noth’n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why,
Bilji, it beats the Nonesuch, don’t it?”
The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted
them through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor;
and the king says:
“It ain’t no use talkin’; bein’ brothers to a rich dead man and
representatives of furrin heirs that’s got left is the line for you and
me, Bilge. Thish yer comes of trust’n to Providence. It’s the best
way, in the long run. I’ve tried ’em all, and ther’ ain’t no better
way.”
Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it
on trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes
out four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king:
“Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and
fifteen dollars?”
They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it.
Then the duke says:
“Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake—
I reckon that’s the way of it. The best way’s to let it go, and keep
still about it. We can spare it.”
“Oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it. I don’t k’yer noth’n ’bout that
—it’s the count I’m thinkin’ about. We want to be awful square
and open and above-board here, you know. We want to lug this h-
yer money up stairs and count it before everybody—then ther’
ain’t noth’n suspicious. But when the dead man says ther’s six
thous’n dollars, you know, we don’t want to—”
“Hold on,” says the duke. “Le’s make up the deffisit,” and he
begun to haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.

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“It’s a most amaz’n’ good idea, duke—you have got a rattlin’

clever head on you,” says the king. “Blest if the old Nonesuch
ain’t a heppin’ us out agin,” and he begun to haul out yaller-jackets
and stack them up.
It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean
and clear.
“Say,” says the duke, “I got another idea. Le’s go up stairs and
count this money, and then take and give it to the girls.”
“Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It’s the most dazzling idea
’at ever a man struck. You have cert’nly got the most astonishin’
head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther’ ain’t no mistake
’bout it. Let ’em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to—
this ’ll lay ’em out.”
When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and
the king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a
pile—twenty elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it,
and licked their chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I
see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech. He says:
“Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done
generous by them that’s left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has
done generous by these yer poor little lambs that he loved and
sheltered, and that’s left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we
that knowed him knows that he would a done more generous by
’em if he hadn’t ben afeard o’ woundin’ his dear William and me.
Now, wouldn’t he? Ther’ ain’t no question ’bout it in my mind.
Well, then, what kind o’ brothers would it be that ’d stand in his
way at sech a time? And what kind o’ uncles would it be that ’d
rob—yes, rob—sech poor sweet lambs as these ’at he loved so at
sech a time? If I know William—and I think I do—he—well, I’ll
jest ask him.” He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to
the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and
leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to catch his
meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for
joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the
king says, “I knowed it; I reckon that’ll convince anybody the way

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he feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the money
—take it all. It’s the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful.”

Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the
duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet.
And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most
shook the hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:
“You dear good souls!—how lovely!—how could you!”
Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the
diseased again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and
all that; and before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in
there from outside, and stood a-listening and looking, and not
saying anything; and nobody saying anything to him either,
because the king was talking and they was all busy listening. The
king was saying—in the middle of something he’d started in on—
“—they bein’ partickler friends o’ the diseased. That’s why
they’re invited here this evenin’; but tomorrow we want all to
come—everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked
everybody, and so it’s fitten that his funeral orgies sh’d be public.”
And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself
talk, and every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again,
till the duke he couldn’t stand it no more; so he writes on a little
scrap of paper, “obsequies, you old fool,” and folds it up, and goes
to goo-gooing and reaching it over people’s heads to him. The king
he reads it and puts it in his pocket, and says:
“Poor William, afflicted as he is, his heart’s aluz right. Asks me
to invite everybody to come to the funeral—wants me to make ’em
all welcome. But he needn’t a worried—it was jest what I was at.”
Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca’m, and goes to
dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then, just like
he done before. And when he done it the third time he says:
“I say orgies, not because it’s the common term, because it ain’t
—obsequies bein’ the common term—but because orgies is the
right term. Obsequies ain’t used in England no more now—it’s
gone out. We say orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because

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it means the thing you’re after more exact. It’s a word that’s made
up out’n the Greek orgo, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew
jeesum, to plant, cover up; hence inter. So, you see, funeral orgies
is an open er public funeral.”
He was the worst I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he
laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody
says, “Why, doctor!” and Abner Shackleford says:
“Why, Robinson, hain’t you heard the news? This is Harvey
Wilks.”
The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:
“Is it my poor brother’s dear good friend and physician? I—”
“Keep your hands off of me!” says the doctor. “You talk like an
Englishman, don’t you? It’s the worst imitation I ever heard. You
Peter Wilks’s brother! You’re a fraud, that’s what you are!”

Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor
and tried to quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell
him how Harvey ’d showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and
knowed everybody by name, and the names of the very dogs, and
begged and begged him not to hurt Harvey’s feelings and the poor
girl’s feelings, and all that. But it warn’t no use; he stormed right
along, and said any man that pretended to be an Englishman and
couldn’t imitate the lingo no better than what he did was a fraud
and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king and crying; and
all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on them. He says:
“I was your father’s friend, and I’m your friend; and I warn you
as a friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep
you out of harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel
and have nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his
idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of
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an impostor—has come here with a lot of empty names and facts

which he picked up somewheres, and you take them for proofs,
and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here,
who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for
your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me;
turn this pitiful rascal out—I beg you to do it. Will you?”
Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was
handsome! She says:
“Here is my answer.” She hove up the bag of money and put it
in the king’s hands, and says, “Take this six thousand dollars, and
invest for me and my sisters any way you want to, and don’t give
us no receipt for it.”
Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan
and the hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped
their hands and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst
the king held up his head and smiled proud. The doctor says:
“All right; I wash my hands of the matter. But I warn you all that
a time ’s coming when you’re going to feel sick whenever you
think of this day.” And away he went.
“All right, doctor,” says the king, kinder mocking him; “we’ll
try and get ’em to send for you;” which made them all laugh, and
they said it was a prime good hit.

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CHAPTER XXVI.
Well, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how
they was off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room,
which would do for Uncle William, and she’d give her own room
to Uncle Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would turn into
the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot; and up garret was a
little cubby, with a pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do
for his valley—meaning me.
So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms,
which was plain but nice. She said she’d have her frocks and a lot
of other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey’s
way, but he said they warn’t. The frocks was hung along the wall,
and before them was a curtain made out of calico that hung down
to the floor. There was an old hair trunk in one corner, and a
guitar-box in another, and all sorts of little knickknacks and
jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room with. The king said
it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings,
and so don’t disturb them. The duke’s room was pretty small, but
plenty good enough, and so was my cubby.
That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women
was there, and I stood behind the king and the duke’s chairs and
waited on them, and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she
set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said
how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and
how ornery and tough the fried chickens was—and all that kind of
rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and
the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said so—said
“How do you get biscuits to brown so nice?” and “Where, for the
land’s sake, did you get these amaz’n pickles?” and all that kind of
humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper,
you know.

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And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the
kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the
niggers clean up the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me
about England, and blest if I didn’t think the ice was getting
mighty thin sometimes. She says:
“Did you ever see the king?”
“Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have—he goes to our
church.” I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So
when I says he goes to our church, she says:
“What—regular?”
“Yes—regular. His pew’s right over opposite ourn—on t’other
side the pulpit.”
“I thought he lived in London?”
“Well, he does. Where would he live?”
“But I thought you lived in Sheffield?”
I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a
chicken bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again.
Then I says:
“I mean he goes to our church regular when he’s in Sheffield.
That’s only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the
sea baths.”
“Why, how you talk—Sheffield ain’t on the sea.”
“Well, who said it was?”
“Why, you did.”
“I didn’t nuther.”
“You did!”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I never said nothing of the kind.”
“Well, what did you say, then?”
“Said he come to take the sea baths—that’s what I said.”
“Well, then, how’s he going to take the sea baths if it ain’t on
the sea?”
“Looky here,” I says; “did you ever see any Congress-water?”
“Yes.”
“Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?”
“Why, no.”
“Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a
sea bath.”
“How does he get it, then?”
“Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water—in
barrels. There in the palace at Sheffield they’ve got furnaces, and
he wants his water hot. They can’t bile that amount of water away
off there at the sea. They haven’t got no conveniences for it.”
“Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and
saved time.”
When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I
was comfortable and glad. Next, she says:
“Do you go to church, too?”
“Yes—regular.”
“Where do you set?”
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“Why, in our pew.”

“Whose pew?”
“Why, ourn—your Uncle Harvey’s.”
“His’n? What does he want with a pew?”
“Wants it to set in. What did you reckon he wanted with it?”
“Why, I thought he’d be in the pulpit.”
Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump
again, so I played another chicken bone and got another think.
Then I says:
“Blame it, do you suppose there ain’t but one preacher to a
church?”
“Why, what do they want with more?”
“What!—to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as
you. They don’t have no less than seventeen.”
“Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn’t set out such a string as
that, not if I never got to glory. It must take ’em a week.”
“Shucks, they don’t all of ’em preach the same day—only one
of ’em.”
“Well, then, what does the rest of ’em do?”
“Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate—and one thing
or another. But mainly they don’t do nothing.”
“Well, then, what are they for?”
“Why, they’re for style. Don’t you know nothing?”
“Well, I don’t want to know no such foolishness as that. How is
servants treated in England? Do they treat ’em better ’n we treat
our niggers?”
“No! A servant ain’t nobody there. They treat them worse than
dogs.”
“Don’t they give ’em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and
New Year’s week, and Fourth of July?”
“Oh, just listen! A body could tell you hain’t ever been to
England by that. Why, Hare-l—why, Joanna, they never see a
holiday from year’s end to year’s end; never go to the circus, nor
theater, nor nigger shows, nor nowheres.”
“Nor church?”
“Nor church.”
“But you always went to church.”
Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man’s servant.
But next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a
valley was different from a common servant and had to go to
church whether he wanted to or not, and set with the family, on
account of its being the law. But I didn’t do it pretty good, and
when I got done I see she warn’t satisfied. She says:
“Honest injun, now, hain’t you been telling me a lot of lies?”

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“Honest injun,” says I.

“None of it at all?”
“None of it at all. Not a lie in it,” says I.
“Lay your hand on this book and say it.”
I see it warn’t nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it
and said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:
“Well, then, I’ll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I’ll
believe the rest.”
“What is it you won’t believe, Joe?” says Mary Jane, stepping in
with Susan behind her. “It ain’t right nor kind for you to talk so to
him, and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would
you like to be treated so?”
“That’s always your way, Maim—always sailing in to help
somebody before they’re hurt. I hain’t done nothing to him. He’s
told some stretchers, I reckon, and I said I wouldn’t swallow it all;
and that’s every bit and grain I did say. I reckon he can stand a
little thing like that, can’t he?”
“I don’t care whether ’twas little or whether ’twas big; he’s here
in our house and a stranger, and it wasn’t good of you to say it. If
you was in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you
oughtn’t to say a thing to another person that will make them feel
ashamed.”
“Why, Mam, he said—”
“It don’t make no difference what he said—that ain’t the thing.
The thing is for you to treat him kind, and not be saying things to
make him remember he ain’t in his own country and amongst his
own folks.”
I says to myself, this is a girl that I’m letting that old reptile rob
her of her money!
Then Susan she waltzed in; and if you’ll believe me, she did
give Hare-lip hark from the tomb!
Says I to myself, and this is another one that I’m letting him rob
her of her money!

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Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and
lovely again—which was her way; but when she got done there
warn’t hardly anything left o’ poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.
“All right, then,” says the other girls; “you just ask his pardon.”
She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so
beautiful it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a
thousand lies, so she could do it again.
I says to myself, this is another one that I’m letting him rob her
of her money. And when she got through they all jest laid
theirselves out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst
friends. I felt so ornery and low down and mean that I says to
myself, my mind’s made up; I’ll hive that money for them or bust.
So then I lit out—for bed, I said, meaning some time or another.
When I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to
myself, shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds?
No—that won’t do. He might tell who told him; then the king and
the duke would make it warm for me. Shall I go, private, and tell
Mary Jane? No—I dasn’t do it. Her face would give them a hint,
sure; they’ve got the money, and they’d slide right out and get
away with it. If she was to fetch in help I’d get mixed up in the
business before it was done with, I judge. No; there ain’t no good
way but one. I got to steal that money, somehow; and I got to steal
it some way that they won’t suspicion that I done it. They’ve got a
good thing here, and they ain’t a-going to leave till they’ve played
this family and this town for all they’re worth, so I’ll find a chance
time enough. I’ll steal it and hide it; and by and by, when I’m away
down the river, I’ll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it’s hid.
But I better hive it tonight if I can, because the doctor maybe
hasn’t let up as much as he lets on he has; he might scare them out
of here yet.
So, thinks I, I’ll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the hall
was dark, but I found the duke’s room, and started to paw around it
with my hands; but I recollected it wouldn’t be much like the king
to let anybody else take care of that money but his own self; so
then I went to his room and begun to paw around there. But I see I
couldn’t do nothing without a candle, and I dasn’t light one, of
course. So I judged I’d got to do the other thing—lay for them and
eavesdrop. About that time I hears their footsteps coming, and was
going to skip under the bed; I reached for it, but it wasn’t where I
thought it would be; but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane’s
frocks, so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in amongst the
gowns, and stood there perfectly still.

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They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke
done was to get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I
hadn’t found the bed when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it’s
kind of natural to hide under the bed when you are up to anything
private. They sets down then, and the king says:
“Well, what is it? And cut it middlin’ short, because it’s better
for us to be down there a-whoopin’ up the mournin’ than up here
givin’ ’em a chance to talk us over.”
“Well, this is it, Capet. I ain’t easy; I ain’t comfortable. That
doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I’ve got a
notion, and I think it’s a sound one.”
“What is it, duke?”
“That we better glide out of this before three in the morning,
and clip it down the river with what we’ve got. Specially, seeing
we got it so easy—given back to us, flung at our heads, as you may
say, when of course we allowed to have to steal it back. I’m for
knocking off and lighting out.”
That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it
would a been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and
disappointed, The king rips out and says:
“What! And not sell out the rest o’ the property? March off like
a passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous’n’ dollars’ worth o’
property layin’ around jest sufferin’ to be scooped in?—and all
good, salable stuff, too.”
The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he
didn’t want to go no deeper—didn’t want to rob a lot of orphans of
everything they had.
“Why, how you talk!” says the king. “We sha’n’t rob ’em of
nothing at all but jest this money. The people that buys the
property is the suff’rers; because as soon ’s it’s found out ’at we
didn’t own it—which won’t be long after we’ve slid—the sale
won’t be valid, and it ’ll all go back to the estate. These yer
orphans ’ll git their house back agin, and that’s enough for them;
they’re young and spry, and k’n easy earn a livin’. They ain’t a-
goin to suffer. Why, jest think—there’s thous’n’s and thous’n’s that
ain’t nigh so well off. Bless you, they ain’t got noth’n’ to complain
of.”
Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said
all right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay,
and that doctor hanging over them. But the king says:
“Cuss the doctor! What do we k’yer for him? Hain’t we got all
the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority
in any town?”
So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says:
“I don’t think we put that money in a good place.”
That cheered me up. I’d begun to think I warn’t going to get a
hint of no kind to help me. The king says:
“Why?”
“Because Mary Jane ’ll be in mourning from this out; and first
you know the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to
box these duds up and put ’em away; and do you reckon a nigger
can run across money and not borrow some of it?”
“Your head’s level agin, duke,” says the king; and he comes a-
fumbling under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I
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stuck tight to the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I
wondered what them fellows would say to me if they catched me;
and I tried to think what I’d better do if they did catch me. But the
king he got the bag before I could think more than about a half a
thought, and he never suspicioned I was around. They took and
shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick that was under the
feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst the straw and
said it was all right now, because a nigger only makes up the
feather-bed, and don’t turn over the straw tick only about twice a
year, and so it warn’t in no danger of getting stole now.

But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-
way down stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there
till I could get a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it
outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they
would give the house a good ransacking: I knowed that very well.
Then I turned in, with my clothes all on; but I couldn’t a gone to
sleep if I’d a wanted to, I was in such a sweat to get through with
the business. By and by I heard the king and the duke come up; so
I rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the top of my ladder,
and waited to see if anything was going to happen. But nothing
did.
So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones
hadn’t begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.

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CHAPTER XXVII.
I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed
along, and got down stairs all right. There warn’t a sound
anywheres. I peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and
see the men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their
chairs. The door was open into the parlor, where the corpse was
laying, and there was a candle in both rooms. I passed along, and
the parlor door was open; but I see there warn’t nobody in there
but the remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; but the front door
was locked, and the key wasn’t there. Just then I heard somebody
coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the parlor and
took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the bag
was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing
the dead man’s face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his
shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down
beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they
was so cold, and then I run back across the room and in behind the
door.
The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very
soft, and kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her
handkerchief, and I see she begun to cry, though I couldn’t hear
her, and her back was to me. I slid out, and as I passed the dining-
room I thought I’d make sure them watchers hadn’t seen me; so I
looked through the crack, and everything was all right. They
hadn’t stirred.
I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing
playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so
much resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right;
because when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could
write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get
it; but that ain’t the thing that’s going to happen; the thing that’s
going to happen is, the money ’ll be found when they come to
screw on the lid. Then the king ’ll get it again, and it ’ll be a long
day before he gives anybody another chance to smouch it from
him. Of course I wanted to slide down and get it out of there, but I
dasn’t try it. Every minute it was getting earlier now, and pretty
soon some of them watchers would begin to stir, and I might get
catched—catched with six thousand dollars in my hands that
nobody hadn’t hired me to take care of. I don’t wish to be mixed
up in no such business as that, I says to myself.
When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up,
and the watchers was gone. There warn’t nobody around but the
family and the widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces
to see if anything had been happening, but I couldn’t tell.
Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his
man, and they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple
of chairs, and then set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more
from the neighbors till the hall and the parlor and the dining-room
was full. I see the coffin lid was the way it was before, but I dasn’t
go to look in under it, with folks around.

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Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls
took seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half
an hour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked
down at the dead man’s face a minute, and some dropped in a tear,
and it was all very still and solemn, only the girls and the beats
holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent,
and sobbing a little. There warn’t no other sound but the scraping
of the feet on the floor and blowing noses—because people always
blows them more at a funeral than they do at other places except
church.
When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in
his black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last
touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and
comfortable, and making no more sound than a cat. He never
spoke; he moved people around, he squeezed in late ones, he
opened up passageways, and done it with nods, and signs with his
hands. Then he took his place over against the wall. He was the
softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn’t no
more smile to him than there is to a ham.

They had borrowed a melodeum—a sick one; and when

everything was ready a young woman set down and worked it, and
it was pretty skreeky and colicky, and everybody joined in and
sung, and Peter was the only one that had a good thing, according
to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and
solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the most outrageous
row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was only one
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dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right

along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait—
you couldn’t hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and
nobody didn’t seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see
that long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much
as to say, “Don’t you worry—just depend on me.” Then he stooped
down and begun to glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing
over the people’s heads. So he glided along, and the powwow and
racket getting more and more outrageous all the time; and at last,
when he had gone around two sides of the room, he disappears
down cellar. Then in about two seconds we heard a whack, and the
dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then
everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk
where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker’s
back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided
and glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and
shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out
towards the preacher, over the people’s heads, and says, in a kind
of a coarse whisper, “He had a rat!” Then he drooped down and
glided along the wall again to his place. You could see it was a
great satisfaction to the people, because naturally they wanted to
know. A little thing like that don’t cost nothing, and it’s just the
little things that makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There
warn’t no more popular man in town than what that undertaker
was.

Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and
tiresome; and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his
usual rubbage, and at last the job was through, and the undertaker
begun to sneak up on the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a
sweat then, and watched him pretty keen. But he never meddled at
all; just slid the lid along as soft as mush, and screwed it down
tight and fast. So there I was! I didn’t know whether the money
was in there or not. So, says I, s’pose somebody has hogged that
bag on the sly?—now how do I know whether to write to Mary
Jane or not? S’pose she dug him up and didn’t find nothing, what
would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and
jailed; I’d better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all; the
thing’s awful mixed now; trying to better it, I’ve worsened it a
hundred times, and I wish to goodness I’d just let it alone, dad
fetch the whole business!
They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to
watching faces again—I couldn’t help it, and I couldn’t rest easy.
But nothing come of it; the faces didn’t tell me nothing.
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The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened

everybody up, and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out
the idea that his congregation over in England would be in a sweat
about him, so he must hurry and settle up the estate right away and
leave for home. He was very sorry he was so pushed, and so was
everybody; they wished he could stay longer, but they said they
could see it couldn’t be done. And he said of course him and
William would take the girls home with them; and that pleased
everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed and
amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too—tickled
them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and
told him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready.
Them poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache
to see them getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn’t see no safe
way for me to chip in and change the general tune.
Well, blamed if the king didn’t bill the house and the niggers
and all the property for auction straight off—sale two days after
the funeral; but anybody could buy private beforehand if they
wanted to.
So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the
girls’ joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along,
and the king sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts
as they called it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to
Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans. I thought
them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for
grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made
me down sick to see it. The girls said they hadn’t ever dreamed of
seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can’t
ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable
girls and niggers hanging around each other’s necks and crying;
and I reckon I couldn’t a stood it all, but would a had to bust out
and tell on our gang if I hadn’t knowed the sale warn’t no account
and the niggers would be back home in a week or two.
The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many
come out flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the
mother and the children that way. It injured the frauds some; but
the old fool he bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or
do, and I tell you the duke was powerful uneasy.
Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the
king and the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see
by their look that there was trouble. The king says:
“Was you in my room night before last?”
“No, your majesty”—which was the way I always called him
when nobody but our gang warn’t around.

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“Was you in there yisterday er last night?”

“No, your majesty.”
“Honor bright, now—no lies.”
“Honor bright, your majesty, I’m telling you the truth. I hain’t
been a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the
duke and showed it to you.”
The duke says:
“Have you seen anybody else go in there?”
“No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe.”
“Stop and think.”
I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:
“Well, I see the niggers go in there several times.”
Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn’t
ever expected it, and then like they had. Then the duke says:
“What, all of them?”
“No—leastways, not all at once—that is, I don’t think I ever see
them all come out at once but just one time.”
“Hello! When was that?”
“It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn’t
early, because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I
see them.”
“Well, go on, go on! What did they do? How’d they act?”
“They didn’t do nothing. And they didn’t act anyway much, as
fur as I see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they’d
shoved in there to do up your majesty’s room, or something,
s’posing you was up; and found you warn’t up, and so they was
hoping to slide out of the way of trouble without waking you up, if
they hadn’t already waked you up.”
“Great guns, this is a go!” says the king; and both of them
looked pretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking
and scratching their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a
kind of a little raspy chuckle, and says:
“It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let
on to be sorry they was going out of this region! And I believed
they was sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don’t ever
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tell me any more that a nigger ain’t got any histrionic talent. Why,
the way they played that thing it would fool anybody. In my
opinion, there’s a fortune in ’em. If I had capital and a theater, I
wouldn’t want a better lay-out than that—and here we’ve gone and
sold ’em for a song. Yes, and ain’t privileged to sing the song yet.
Say, where is that song—that draft?”
“In the bank for to be collected. Where would it be?”
“Well, that’s all right then, thank goodness.”
Says I, kind of timid-like:
“Is something gone wrong?”
The king whirls on me and rips out:
“None o’ your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y’r
own affairs—if you got any. Long as you’re in this town don’t you
forgit that—you hear?” Then he says to the duke, “We got to jest
swaller it and say noth’n’: mum’s the word for us.”
As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles
again, and says:
“Quick sales and small profits! It’s a good business—yes.”

The king snarls around on him and says:

“I was trying to do for the best in sellin’ ’em out so quick. If the
profits has turned out to be none, lackin’ considable, and none to
carry, is it my fault any more’n it’s yourn?”
“Well, they’d be in this house yet and we wouldn’t if I could a
got my advice listened to.”
The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then
swapped around and lit into me again. He give me down the banks
for not coming and telling him I see the niggers come out of his
room acting that way—said any fool would a knowed something
was up. And then waltzed in and cussed himself awhile, and said it
all come of him not laying late and taking his natural rest that
morning, and he’d be blamed if he’d ever do it again. So they went
off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I’d worked it all off on to the
niggers, and yet hadn’t done the niggers no harm by it.

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CHAPTER XXVIII.
By and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder
and started for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls’ room the
door was open, and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk,
which was open and she’d been packing things in it—getting ready
to go to England. But she had stopped now with a folded gown in
her lap, and had her face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad to
see it; of course anybody would. I went in there and says:
“Miss Mary Jane, you can’t a-bear to see people in trouble, and
I can’t—most always. Tell me about it.”
So she done it. And it was the niggers—I just expected it. She
said the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her;
she didn’t know how she was ever going to be happy there,
knowing the mother and the children warn’t ever going to see each
other no more—and then busted out bitterer than ever, and flung
up her hands, and says:
“Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain’t ever going to see each other
any more!”
“But they will—and inside of two weeks—and I know it!” says
I.
Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could budge
she throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it again,
say it again, say it again!
I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a
close place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there,
very impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kind of
happy and eased-up, like a person that’s had a tooth pulled out. So
I went to studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a body that ups
and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable
many resks, though I ain’t had no experience, and can’t say for
certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here’s a case where
I’m blest if it don’t look to me like the truth is better and actuly
safer than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and think it over some
time or other, it’s so kind of strange and unregular. I never see
nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last, I’m a-going to chance
it; I’ll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem most like
setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see
where you’ll go to. Then I says:
“Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways
where you could go and stay three or four days?”
“Yes; Mr. Lothrop’s. Why?”
“Never mind why yet. If I’ll tell you how I know the niggers
will see each other again inside of two weeks—here in this house
—and prove how I know it—will you go to Mr. Lothrop’s and stay
four days?”
“Four days!” she says; “I’ll stay a year!”
“All right,” I says, “I don’t want nothing more out of you than
just your word—I druther have it than another man’s kiss-the-

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Bible.” She smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, “If you
don’t mind it, I’ll shut the door—and bolt it.”
Then I come back and set down again, and says:
“Don’t you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to
tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it’s a
bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain’t no help for
it. These uncles of yourn ain’t no uncles at all; they’re a couple of
frauds—regular dead-beats. There, now we’re over the worst of it,
you can stand the rest middling easy.”
It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the
shoal water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher
and higher all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where
we first struck that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear
through to where she flung herself on to the king’s breast at the
front door and he kissed her sixteen or seventeen times—and then
up she jumps, with her face afire like sunset, and says:
“The brute! Come, don’t waste a minute—not a second—we’ll
have them tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!”

Says I:
“Cert’nly. But do you mean before you go to Mr. Lothrop’s, or
—”
“Oh,” she says, “what am I thinking about!” she says, and set
right down again. “Don’t mind what I said—please don’t—you
won’t, now, will you?” Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind
of a way that I said I would die first. “I never thought, I was so
stirred up,” she says; “now go on, and I won’t do so any more. You
tell me what to do, and whatever you say I’ll do it.”
“Well,” I says, “it’s a rough gang, them two frauds, and I’m
fixed so I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to

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or not—I druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them
this town would get me out of their claws, and I’d be all right; but
there’d be another person that you don’t know about who’d be in
big trouble. Well, we got to save him, hain’t we? Of course. Well,
then, we won’t blow on them.”
Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how
maybe I could get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed
here, and then leave. But I didn’t want to run the raft in the
daytime without anybody aboard to answer questions but me; so I
didn’t want the plan to begin working till pretty late to-night. I
says:
“Miss Mary Jane, I’ll tell you what we’ll do, and you won’t
have to stay at Mr. Lothrop’s so long, nuther. How fur is it?”
“A little short of four miles—right out in the country, back
here.”
“Well, that ’ll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low
till nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home
again—tell them you’ve thought of something. If you get here
before eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don’t turn up
wait till eleven, and then if I don’t turn up it means I’m gone, and
out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news
around, and get these beats jailed.”
“Good,” she says, “I’ll do it.”
“And if it just happens so that I don’t get away, but get took up
along with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing
beforehand, and you must stand by me all you can.”
“Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha’n’t touch a hair of your
head!” she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap
when she said it, too.
“If I get away I sha’n’t be here,” I says, “to prove these
rapscallions ain’t your uncles, and I couldn’t do it if I was here. I
could swear they was beats and bummers, that’s all, though that’s
worth something. Well, there’s others can do that better than what I
can, and they’re people that ain’t going to be doubted as quick as
I’d be. I’ll tell you how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece
of paper. There—‘Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville.’ Put it away, and
don’t lose it. When the court wants to find out something about
these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say they’ve got the
men that played the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesses
—why, you’ll have that entire town down here before you can
hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they’ll come a-biling, too.”

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I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:

“Just let the auction go right along, and don’t worry. Nobody
don’t have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the
auction on accounts of the short notice, and they ain’t going out of
this till they get that money; and the way we’ve fixed it the sale
ain’t going to count, and they ain’t going to get no money. It’s just
like the way it was with the niggers—it warn’t no sale, and the
niggers will be back before long. Why, they can’t collect the
money for the niggers yet—they’re in the worst kind of a fix, Miss
Mary.”
“Well,” she says, “I’ll run down to breakfast now, and then I’ll
start straight for Mr. Lothrop’s.”
“’Deed, that ain’t the ticket, Miss Mary Jane,” I says, “by no
manner of means; go before breakfast.”
“Why?”
“What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss
Mary?”
“Well, I never thought—and come to think, I don’t know. What
was it?”
“Why, it’s because you ain’t one of these leather-face people. I
don’t want no better book than what your face is. A body can set
down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go
and face your uncles when they come to kiss you good-morning,
and never—”
“There, there, don’t! Yes, I’ll go before breakfast—I’ll be glad
to. And leave my sisters with them?”
“Yes; never mind about them. They’ve got to stand it yet a
while. They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I
don’t want you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this
town; if a neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning
your face would tell something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary
Jane, and I’ll fix it with all of them. I’ll tell Miss Susan to give
your love to your uncles and say you’ve went away for a few
hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a friend, and
you’ll be back to-night or early in the morning.”
“Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won’t have my love given
to them.”
“Well, then, it sha’n’t be.” It was well enough to tell her so—no
harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it’s
the little things that smooths people’s roads the most, down here
below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn’t cost
nothing. Then I says: “There’s one more thing—that bag of
money.”
“Well, they’ve got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think
how they got it.”
“No, you’re out, there. They hain’t got it.”
“Why, who’s got it?”
“I wish I knowed, but I don’t. I had it, because I stole it from
them; and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but
I’m afraid it ain’t there no more. I’m awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane,
I’m just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did
honest. I come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the
first place I come to, and run—and it warn’t a good place.”

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“Oh, stop blaming yourself—it’s too bad to do it, and I won’t

allow it—you couldn’t help it; it wasn’t your fault. Where did you
hide it?”
I didn’t want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and
I couldn’t seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her
see that corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his
stomach. So for a minute I didn’t say nothing; then I says:
“I’d ruther not tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you
don’t mind letting me off; but I’ll write it for you on a piece of
paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop’s, if you
want to. Do you reckon that ’ll do?”
“Oh, yes.”
So I wrote: “I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was
crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was
mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane.”

It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all

by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her
own roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up
and give it to her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she
shook me by the hand, hard, and says:
“Good-bye. I’m going to do everything just as you’ve told me;
and if I don’t ever see you again, I sha’n’t ever forget you and I’ll
think of you a many and a many a time, and I’ll pray for you,
too!”—and she was gone.
Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she’d take a job that
was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same—she
was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the
notion—there warn’t no back-down to her, I judge. You may say
what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than
any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It
sounds like flattery, but it ain’t no flattery. And when it comes to
beauty—and goodness, too—she lays over them all. I hain’t ever
seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I
hain’t ever seen her since, but I reckon I’ve thought of her a many
and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray for
me; and if ever I’d a thought it would do any good for me to pray
for her, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or bust.
Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because
nobody see her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:
“What’s the name of them people over on t’other side of the
river that you all goes to see sometimes?”
They says:
“There’s several; but it’s the Proctors, mainly.”
“That’s the name,” I says; “I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary
Jane she told me to tell you she’s gone over there in a dreadful
hurry—one of them’s sick.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it’s—”
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“Sakes alive, I hope it ain’t Hanner?”

“I’m sorry to say it,” I says, “but Hanner’s the very one.”
“My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took
bad?”
“It ain’t no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss
Mary Jane said, and they don’t think she’ll last many hours.”
“Only think of that, now! What’s the matter with her?”
I couldn’t think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I
says:
“Mumps.”
“Mumps your granny! They don’t set up with people that’s got
the mumps.”
“They don’t, don’t they? You better bet they do with these
mumps. These mumps is different. It’s a new kind, Miss Mary
Jane said.”

“How’s it a new kind?”

“Because it’s mixed up with other things.”
“What other things?”
“Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and
consumption, and yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don’t know
what all.”
“My land! And they call it the mumps?”
“That’s what Miss Mary Jane said.”
“Well, what in the nation do they call it the mumps for?”
“Why, because it is the mumps. That’s what it starts with.”
“Well, ther’ ain’t no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and
take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his
brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him,
and some numskull up and say, ‘Why, he stumped his toe.’ Would

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ther’ be any sense in that? No. And ther’ ain’t no sense in this,
nuther. Is it ketching?”
“Is it ketching? Why, how you talk. Is a harrow catching—in the
dark? If you don’t hitch on to one tooth, you’re bound to on
another, ain’t you? And you can’t get away with that tooth without
fetching the whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of
mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you may say—and it ain’t no
slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to get it hitched on good.”
“Well, it’s awful, I think,” says the hare-lip. “I’ll go to Uncle
Harvey and—”
“Oh, yes,” I says, “I would. Of course I would. I wouldn’t lose
no time.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you?”
“Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain’t your
uncles obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can?
And do you reckon they’d be mean enough to go off and leave you
to go all that journey by yourselves? You know they’ll wait for
you. So fur, so good. Your uncle Harvey’s a preacher, ain’t he?
Very well, then; is a preacher going to deceive a steamboat clerk?
is he going to deceive a ship clerk?—so as to get them to let Miss
Mary Jane go aboard? Now you know he ain’t. What will he do,
then? Why, he’ll say, ‘It’s a great pity, but my church matters has
got to get along the best way they can; for my niece has been
exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it’s my
bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes
to show on her if she’s got it.’ But never mind, if you think it’s best
to tell your uncle Harvey—”
“Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be
having good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out
whether Mary Jane’s got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins.”
“Well, anyway, maybe you’d better tell some of the neighbors.”
“Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can’t
you see that they’d go and tell? Ther’ ain’t no way but just to not
tell anybody at all.”
“Well, maybe you’re right—yes, I judge you are right.”
“But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she’s gone out a
while, anyway, so he won’t be uneasy about her?”
“Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, ‘Tell
them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and
say I’ve run over the river to see Mr.’—Mr.—what is the name of
that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much of?—I
mean the one that—”
“Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain’t it?”
“Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can’t ever seem
to remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she
has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the
auction and buy this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter
would ruther they had it than anybody else; and she’s going to
stick to them till they say they’ll come, and then, if she ain’t too
tired, she’s coming home; and if she is, she’ll be home in the
morning anyway. She said, don’t say nothing about the Proctors,
but only about the Apthorps—which ’ll be perfectly true, because
she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know it,
because she told me so herself.”

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“All right,” they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and
give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.
Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn’t say nothing
because they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke
would ruther Mary Jane was off working for the auction than
around in reach of Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I
had done it pretty neat—I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn’t a done it
no neater himself. Of course he would a throwed more style into it,
but I can’t do that very handy, not being brung up to it.
Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards
the end of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and
the old man he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up
there longside of the auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture
now and then, or a little goody-goody saying of some kind, and the
duke he was around goo-gooing for sympathy all he knowed how,
and just spreading himself generly.

But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was

sold—everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So
they’d got to work that off—I never see such a girafft as the king
was for wanting to swallow everything. Well, whilst they was at it
a steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-
whooping and yelling and laughing and carrying on, and singing
out:
“Here’s your opposition line! here’s your two sets o’ heirs to old
Peter Wilks—and you pays your money and you takes your
choice!”

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CHAPTER XXIX.

They was fetching a very nice-looking old gentleman along, and

a nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my
souls, how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But I
didn’t see no joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke
and the king some to see any. I reckoned they’d turn pale. But no,
nary a pale did they turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned
what was up, but just went a goo-gooing around, happy and
satisfied, like a jug that’s googling out buttermilk; and as for the
king, he just gazed and gazed down sorrowful on them new-
comers like it give him the stomach-ache in his very heart to think
there could be such frauds and rascals in the world. Oh, he done it
admirable. Lots of the principal people gethered around the king,
to let him see they was on his side. That old gentleman that had
just come looked all puzzled to death. Pretty soon he begun to
speak, and I see straight off he pronounced like an Englishman—
not the king’s way, though the king’s was pretty good for an
imitation. I can’t give the old gent’s words, nor I can’t imitate him;
but he turned around to the crowd, and says, about like this:
“This is a surprise to me which I wasn’t looking for; and I’ll
acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain’t very well fixed to meet it
and answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he’s
broke his arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here
last night in the night by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks’ brother
Harvey, and this is his brother William, which can’t hear nor speak
—and can’t even make signs to amount to much, now’t he’s only
got one hand to work them with. We are who we say we are; and
in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can prove it. But up till
then I won’t say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait.”
So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs,
and blethers out:
“Broke his arm—very likely, ain’t it?—and very convenient,
too, for a fraud that’s got to make signs, and ain’t learnt how. Lost
their baggage! That’s mighty good!—and mighty ingenious—
under the circumstances!”
So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or
four, or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; another
one was a sharp-looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old-
fashioned kind made out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of
the steamboat and was talking to him in a low voice, and glancing
towards the king now and then and nodding their heads—it was
Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville; and another
one was a big rough husky that come along and listened to all the
old gentleman said, and was listening to the king now. And when
the king got done this husky up and says:
“Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when’d you come to
this town?”
“The day before the funeral, friend,” says the king.
“But what time o’ day?”
“In the evenin’—’bout an hour er two before sundown.”
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“How’d you come?”

“I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati.”
“Well, then, how’d you come to be up at the Pint in the
mornin’—in a canoe?”
“I warn’t up at the Pint in the mornin’.”
“It’s a lie.”
Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that
way to an old man and a preacher.
“Preacher be hanged, he’s a fraud and a liar. He was up at the
Pint that mornin’. I live up there, don’t I? Well, I was up there, and
he was up there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with
Tim Collins and a boy.”
The doctor he up and says:
“Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?”
“I reckon I would, but I don’t know. Why, yonder he is, now. I
know him perfectly easy.”
It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:
“Neighbors, I don’t know whether the new couple is frauds or
not; but if these two ain’t frauds, I am an idiot, that’s all. I think
it’s our duty to see that they don’t get away from here till we’ve
looked into this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of
you. We’ll take these fellows to the tavern and affront them with
t’other couple, and I reckon we’ll find out something before we get
through.”
It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king’s
friends; so we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led
me along by the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never
let go my hand.

We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles,
and fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor says:
“I don’t wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think
they’re frauds, and they may have complices that we don’t know
nothing about. If they have, won’t the complices get away with
that bag of gold Peter Wilks left? It ain’t unlikely. If these men
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ain’t frauds, they won’t object to sending for that money and
letting us keep it till they prove they’re all right—ain’t that so?”
Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a
pretty tight place right at the outstart. But the king he only looked
sorrowful, and says:
“Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain’t got no
disposition to throw anything in the way of a fair, open, out-and-
out investigation o’ this misable business; but, alas, the money
ain’t there; you k’n send and see, if you want to.”
“Where is it, then?”
“Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her I took and
hid it inside o’ the straw tick o’ my bed, not wishin’ to bank it for
the few days we’d be here, and considerin’ the bed a safe place, we
not bein’ used to niggers, and suppos’n’ ’em honest, like servants
in England. The niggers stole it the very next mornin’ after I had
went down stairs; and when I sold ’em I hadn’t missed the money
yit, so they got clean away with it. My servant here k’n tell you
’bout it, gentlemen.”
The doctor and several said “Shucks!” and I see nobody didn’t
altogether believe him. One man asked me if I see the niggers steal
it. I said no, but I see them sneaking out of the room and hustling
away, and I never thought nothing, only I reckoned they was afraid
they had waked up my master and was trying to get away before
he made trouble with them. That was all they asked me. Then the
doctor whirls on me and says:
“Are you English, too?”
I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, “Stuff!”
Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there
we had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a
word about supper, nor ever seemed to think about it—and so they
kept it up, and kept it up; and it was the worst mixed-up thing you
ever see. They made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old
gentleman tell his’n; and anybody but a lot of prejudiced
chuckleheads would a seen that the old gentleman was spinning
truth and t’other one lies. And by and by they had me up to tell
what I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look out of the
corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right side.
I begun to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all
about the English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn’t get pretty fur till
the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says:
“Set down, my boy; I wouldn’t strain myself if I was you. I
reckon you ain’t used to lying, it don’t seem to come handy; what
you want is practice. You do it pretty awkward.”
I didn’t care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let
off, anyway.
The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says:
“If you’d been in town at first, Levi Bell—” The king broke in
and reached out his hand, and says:
“Why, is this my poor dead brother’s old friend that he’s wrote
so often about?”
The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and
looked pleased, and they talked right along awhile, and then got to
one side and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and says:

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“That ’ll fix it. I’ll take the order and send it, along with your
brother’s, and then they’ll know it’s all right.”
So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and
twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled
off something; and then they give the pen to the duke—and then
for the first time the duke looked sick. But he took the pen and
wrote. So then the lawyer turns to the new old gentleman and says:
“You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your
names.”

The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn’t read it. The
lawyer looked powerful astonished, and says:
“Well, it beats me”—and snaked a lot of old letters out of his
pocket, and examined them, and then examined the old man’s
writing, and then them again; and then says: “These old letters is
from Harvey Wilks; and here’s these two handwritings, and
anybody can see they didn’t write them” (the king and the duke
looked sold and foolish, I tell you, to see how the lawyer had took
them in), “and here’s this old gentleman’s hand writing, and
anybody can tell, easy enough, he didn’t write them—fact is, the
scratches he makes ain’t properly writing at all. Now, here’s some
letters from—”
The new old gentleman says:
“If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my hand but my
brother there—so he copies for me. It’s his hand you’ve got there,
not mine.”
“Well!” says the lawyer, “this is a state of things. I’ve got some
of William’s letters, too; so if you’ll get him to write a line or so
we can com—”
“He can’t write with his left hand,” says the old gentleman. “If
he could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his own
letters and mine too. Look at both, please—they’re by the same
hand.”
The lawyer done it, and says:
“I believe it’s so—and if it ain’t so, there’s a heap stronger
resemblance than I’d noticed before, anyway. Well, well, well! I
thought we was right on the track of a solution, but it’s gone to
grass, partly. But anyway, one thing is proved—these two ain’t
either of ’em Wilkses”—and he wagged his head towards the king
and the duke.
Well, what do you think? That muleheaded old fool wouldn’t
give in then! Indeed he wouldn’t. Said it warn’t no fair test. Said
his brother William was the cussedest joker in the world, and
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hadn’t tried to write—he see William was going to play one of his
jokes the minute he put the pen to paper. And so he warmed up and
went warbling and warbling right along till he was actuly
beginning to believe what he was saying himself; but pretty soon
the new gentleman broke in, and says:
“I’ve thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped to
lay out my br—helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying?”
“Yes,” says somebody, “me and Ab Turner done it. We’re both
here.”
Then the old man turns towards the king, and says:
“Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his
breast?”
Blamed if the king didn’t have to brace up mighty quick, or he’d
a squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut under, it
took him so sudden; and, mind you, it was a thing that was
calculated to make most anybody sqush to get fetched such a solid
one as that without any notice, because how was he going to know
what was tattooed on the man? He whitened a little; he couldn’t
help it; and it was mighty still in there, and everybody bending a
little forwards and gazing at him. Says I to myself, Now he’ll
throw up the sponge—there ain’t no more use. Well, did he? A
body can’t hardly believe it, but he didn’t. I reckon he thought
he’d keep the thing up till he tired them people out, so they’d thin
out, and him and the duke could break loose and get away.
Anyway, he set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile, and says:
“Mf! It’s a very tough question, ain’t it! Yes, sir, I k’n tell you
what’s tattooed on his breast. It’s jest a small, thin, blue arrow—
that’s what it is; and if you don’t look clost, you can’t see it. Now
what do you say—hey?”
Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean out-and-
out cheek.
The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his
pard, and his eye lights up like he judged he’d got the king this
time, and says:
“There—you’ve heard what he said! Was there any such mark
on Peter Wilks’ breast?”
Both of them spoke up and says:
“We didn’t see no such mark.”
“Good!” says the old gentleman. “Now, what you did see on his
breast was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped
when he was young), and a W, with dashes between them, so: P—
B—W”—and he marked them that way on a piece of paper.
“Come, ain’t that what you saw?”
Both of them spoke up again, and says:
“No, we didn’t. We never seen any marks at all.”
Well, everybody was in a state of mind now, and they sings out:
“The whole bilin’ of ’m ’s frauds! Le’s duck ’em! le’s drown
’em! le’s ride ’em on a rail!” and everybody was whooping at
once, and there was a rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps
on the table and yells, and says:
“Gentlemen—gentlemen! Hear me just a word—just a single
word—if you PLEASE! There’s one way yet—let’s go and dig up
the corpse and look.”

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That took them.

“Hooray!” they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the
lawyer and the doctor sung out:
“Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and
fetch them along, too!”
“We’ll do it!” they all shouted; “and if we don’t find them
marks we’ll lynch the whole gang!”
I was scared, now, I tell you. But there warn’t no getting away,
you know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along,
straight for the graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the
river, and the whole town at our heels, for we made noise enough,
and it was only nine in the evening.
As we went by our house I wished I hadn’t sent Mary Jane out
of town; because now if I could tip her the wink she’d light out
and save me, and blow on our dead-beats.
Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on
like wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up,
and the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to
shiver amongst the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and
most dangersome I ever was in; and I was kinder stunned;
everything was going so different from what I had allowed for;
stead of being fixed so I could take my own time if I wanted to,
and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and
set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the world
betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks. If they
didn’t find them—
I couldn’t bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn’t
think about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a
beautiful time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me
by the wrist—Hines—and a body might as well try to give Goliar
the slip. He dragged me right along, he was so excited, and I had
to run to keep up.
When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and
washed over it like an overflow. And when they got to the grave
they found they had about a hundred times as many shovels as
they wanted, but nobody hadn’t thought to fetch a lantern. But
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they sailed into digging anyway by the flicker of the lightning, and
sent a man to the nearest house, a half a mile off, to borrow one.
So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, and
the rain started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the
lightning come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but
them people never took no notice of it, they was so full of this
business; and one minute you could see everything and every face
in that big crowd, and the shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the
grave, and the next second the dark wiped it all out, and you
couldn’t see nothing at all.
At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and
then such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there
was, to scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark,
that way, it was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and
tugging so, and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was
so excited and panting.
All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white
glare, and somebody sings out:
“By the living jingo, here’s the bag of gold on his breast!”
Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my
wrist and give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and
the way I lit out and shinned for the road in the dark there ain’t
nobody can tell.
I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew—leastways, I had
it all to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then glares,
and the buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the
splitting of the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it along!
When I struck the town I see there warn’t nobody out in the
storm, so I never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight
through the main one; and when I begun to get towards our house I
aimed my eye and set it. No light there; the house all dark—which
made me feel sorry and disappointed, I didn’t know why. But at
last, just as I was sailing by, flash comes the light in Mary Jane’s
window! and my heart swelled up sudden, like to bust; and the
same second the house and all was behind me in the dark, and
wasn’t ever going to be before me no more in this world. She was
the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand.
The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could
make the towhead, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and
the first time the lightning showed me one that wasn’t chained I
snatched it and shoved. It was a canoe, and warn’t fastened with
nothing but a rope. The towhead was a rattling big distance off,
away out there in the middle of the river, but I didn’t lose no time;
and when I struck the raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid
down to blow and gasp if I could afforded it. But I didn’t. As I
sprung aboard I sung out:
“Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness,
we’re shut of them!”

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Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he
was so full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my
heart shot up in my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I
forgot he was old King Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and
it most scared the livers and lights out of me. But Jim fished me
out, and was going to hug me and bless me, and so on, he was so
glad I was back and we was shut of the king and the duke, but I
says:
“Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose
and let her slide!”
So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it
did seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big
river, and nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump
up and crack my heels a few times—I couldn’t help it; but about
the third crack I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well, and
held my breath and listened and waited; and sure enough, when the
next flash busted out over the water, here they come!—and just a-
laying to their oars and making their skiff hum! It was the king and
the duke.
So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and it
was all I could do to keep from crying.

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CHAPTER XXX.

When they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by
the collar, and says:
“Tryin’ to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our
company, hey?”
I says:
“No, your majesty, we warn’t—please don’t, your majesty!”
“Quick, then, and tell us what was your idea, or I’ll shake the
insides out o’ you!”
“Honest, I’ll tell you everything just as it happened, your
majesty. The man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and
kept saying he had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and
he was sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when they
was all took by surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for
the coffin, he lets go of me and whispers, ‘Heel it now, or they’ll
hang ye, sure!’ and I lit out. It didn’t seem no good for me to stay
—I couldn’t do nothing, and I didn’t want to be hung if I could get
away. So I never stopped running till I found the canoe; and when
I got here I told Jim to hurry, or they’d catch me and hang me yet,
and said I was afeard you and the duke wasn’t alive now, and I was
awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful glad when we see you
coming; you may ask Jim if I didn’t.”
Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said,
“Oh, yes, it’s mighty likely!” and shook me up again, and said he
reckoned he’d drownd me. But the duke says:
“Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would you a done any different?
Did you inquire around for him when you got loose? I don’t
remember it.”
So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and
everybody in it. But the duke says:
“You better a blame’ sight give yourself a good cussing, for
you’re the one that’s entitled to it most. You hain’t done a thing
from the start that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool
and cheeky with that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That was bright
—it was right down bully; and it was the thing that saved us. For if
it hadn’t been for that they’d a jailed us till them Englishmen’s
baggage come—and then—the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick
took ’em to the graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger
kindness; for if the excited fools hadn’t let go all holts and made
that rush to get a look we’d a slept in our cravats to-night—cravats
warranted to wear, too—longer than we’d need ’em.”
They was still a minute—thinking; then the king says, kind of
absent-minded like:
“Mf! And we reckoned the niggers stole it!”
That made me squirm!
“Yes,” says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic,
“We did.”
After about a half a minute the king drawls out:

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“Leastways, I did.”
The duke says, the same way:
“On the contrary, I did.”
The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
“Looky here, Bilgewater, what’r you referrin’ to?”
The duke says, pretty brisk:
“When it comes to that, maybe you’ll let me ask, what was you
referring to?”
“Shucks!” says the king, very sarcastic; “but I don’t know—
maybe you was asleep, and didn’t know what you was about.”
The duke bristles up now, and says:
“Oh, let up on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a
blame’ fool? Don’t you reckon I know who hid that money in that
coffin?”
“Yes, sir! I know you do know, because you done it yourself!”
“It’s a lie!”—and the duke went for him. The king sings out:
“Take y’r hands off!—leggo my throat!—I take it all back!”

The duke says:

“Well, you just own up, first, that you did hide that money there,
intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and
dig it up, and have it all to yourself.”
“Wait jest a minute, duke—answer me this one question, honest
and fair; if you didn’t put the money there, say it, and I’ll b’lieve
you, and take back everything I said.”
“You old scoundrel, I didn’t, and you know I didn’t. There,
now!”
“Well, then, I b’lieve you. But answer me only jest this one
more—now don’t git mad; didn’t you have it in your mind to hook
the money and hide it?”
The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:
“Well, I don’t care if I did, I didn’t do it, anyway. But you not
only had it in mind to do it, but you done it.”
“I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that’s honest. I won’t
say I warn’t goin’ to do it, because I was; but you—I mean
somebody—got in ahead o’ me.”
“It’s a lie! You done it, and you got to say you done it, or—”
The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
“’Nough!—I own up!”
I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more
easier than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands
off and says:

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“If you ever deny it again I’ll drown you. It’s well for you to set
there and blubber like a baby—it’s fitten for you, after the way
you’ve acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble
everything—and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my
own father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and
hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a
word for ’em. It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft
enough to believe that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you
was so anxious to make up the deffisit—you wanted to get what
money I’d got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another, and
scoop it all!”
The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:
“Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn’t
me.”
“Dry up! I don’t want to hear no more out of you!” says the
duke. “And now you see what you got by it. They’ve got all their
own money back, and all of ourn but a shekel or two besides.
G’long to bed, and don’t you deffersit me no more deffersits, long
’s you live!”
So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for
comfort, and before long the duke tackled his bottle; and so in
about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the
tighter they got the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in
each other’s arms. They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed
the king didn’t get mellow enough to forget to remember to not
deny about hiding the money-bag again. That made me feel easy
and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we had a long
gabble, and I told Jim everything.

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CHAPTER XXXI.

We dasn’t stop again at any town for days and days; kept right
along down the river. We was down south in the warm weather
now, and a mighty long ways from home. We begun to come to
trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs
like long, gray beards. It was the first I ever see it growing, and it
made the woods look solemn and dismal. So now the frauds
reckoned they was out of danger, and they begun to work the
villages again.
First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn’t make
enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they
started a dancing-school; but they didn’t know no more how to
dance than a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the
general public jumped in and pranced them out of town. Another
time they tried to go at yellocution; but they didn’t yellocute long
till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing, and
made them skip out. They tackled missionarying, and
mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of
everything; but they couldn’t seem to have no luck. So at last they
got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated
along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half
a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads
together in the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three
hours at a time. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn’t like the look of
it. We judged they was studying up some kind of worse deviltry
than ever. We turned it over and over, and at last we made up our
minds they was going to break into somebody’s house or store, or
was going into the counterfeit-money business, or something. So
then we was pretty scared, and made up an agreement that we
wouldn’t have nothing in the world to do with such actions, and if
we ever got the least show we would give them the cold shake and
clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we hid
the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a
shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and
told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around
to see if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there
yet. (“House to rob, you mean,” says I to myself; “and when you
get through robbing it you’ll come back here and wonder what has
become of me and Jim and the raft—and you’ll have to take it out
in wondering.”) And he said if he warn’t back by midday the duke
and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along.
So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated
around, and was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for
everything, and we couldn’t seem to do nothing right; he found
fault with every little thing. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was
good and glad when midday come and no king; we could have a
change, anyway—and maybe a chance for the change on top of it.
So me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around
there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back room
of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyragging
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him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all his
might, and so tight he couldn’t walk, and couldn’t do nothing to
them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the
king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit
out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the
river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind
that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again.
I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung
out:
“Set her loose, Jim! we’re all right now!”
But there warn’t no answer, and nobody come out of the
wigwam. Jim was gone! I set up a shout—and then another—and
then another one; and run this way and that in the woods,
whooping and screeching; but it warn’t no use—old Jim was gone.
Then I set down and cried; I couldn’t help it. But I couldn’t set still
long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I
better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he’d
seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:
“Yes.”
“Whereabouts?” says I.
“Down to Silas Phelps’ place, two mile below here. He’s a
runaway nigger, and they’ve got him. Was you looking for him?”
“You bet I ain’t! I run across him in the woods about an hour or
two ago, and he said if I hollered he’d cut my livers out—and told
me to lay down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there
ever since; afeard to come out.”
“Well,” he says, “you needn’t be afeard no more, becuz they’ve
got him. He run off f’m down South, som’ers.”
“It’s a good job they got him.”
“Well, I reckon! There’s two hunderd dollars reward on him. It’s
like picking up money out’n the road.”
“Yes, it is—and I could a had it if I’d been big enough; I see
him first. Who nailed him?”

“It was an old fellow—a stranger—and he sold out his chance in

him for forty dollars, becuz he’s got to go up the river and can’t
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wait. Think o’ that, now! You bet I’d wait, if it was seven year.”
“That’s me, every time,” says I. “But maybe his chance ain’t
worth no more than that, if he’ll sell it so cheap. Maybe there’s
something ain’t straight about it.”
“But it is, though—straight as a string. I see the handbill myself.
It tells all about him, to a dot—paints him like a picture, and tells
the plantation he’s frum, below Newrleans. No-sirree-bob, they
ain’t no trouble ’bout that speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a
chaw tobacker, won’t ye?”
I didn’t have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in
the wigwam to think. But I couldn’t come to nothing. I thought till
I wore my head sore, but I couldn’t see no way out of the trouble.
After all this long journey, and after all we’d done for them
scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted
up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such
a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst
strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for
Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he’d got
to be a slave, and so I’d better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell
him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that
notion for two things: she’d be mad and disgusted at his rascality
and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she’d sell him straight
down the river again; and if she didn’t, everybody naturally
despises an ungrateful nigger, and they’d make Jim feel it all the
time, and so he’d feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me!
It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his
freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I’d
be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That’s just the
way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don’t want to
take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain’t
no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about
this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more
wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last,
when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of
Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my
wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in
heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman’s nigger that
hadn’t ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there’s
One that’s always on the lookout, and ain’t a-going to allow no
such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most
dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could
to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung
up wicked, and so I warn’t so much to blame; but something inside
of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you could a
gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d a learnt you there that
people that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to
everlasting fire.”
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and
see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be
better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why
wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor
from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It
was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square;
it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up
sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of
all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing
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and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger’s owner and
tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and
He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie—I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what
to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter—
and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt
as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So
I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set
down and wrote:

Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here

two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got
him and he will give him up for the reward if you
send.

HUCK FINN.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had
ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t
do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—
thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I
come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And
got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before
me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes
moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and
singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no
places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see
him standing my watch on top of his’n, ’stead of calling me, so I
could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come
back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp,
up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would
always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could
think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck
the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard,
and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever
had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I
happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-
trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things,

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and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and

then says to myself:
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I
let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I
shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up
wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and
the other warn’t. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim
out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I
would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I
might as well go the whole hog.
Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over
some considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a
plan that suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island
that was down the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I
crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then
turned in. I slept the night through, and got up before it was light,
and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up
some others and one thing or another in a bundle, and took the
canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below where I judged was
Phelps’s place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled up
the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk her
where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of
a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.
Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a
sign on it, “Phelps’s Sawmill,” and when I come to the farm-
houses, two or three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes
peeled, but didn’t see nobody around, though it was good daylight
now. But I didn’t mind, because I didn’t want to see nobody just
yet—I only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to my
plan, I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below.
So I just took a look, and shoved along, straight for town. Well, the
very first man I see when I got there was the duke. He was sticking
up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch—three-night performance—like
that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I was right on
him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says:
“Hel-lo! Where’d you come from?” Then he says, kind of glad
and eager, “Where’s the raft?—got her in a good place?”
I says:
“Why, that’s just what I was going to ask your grace.”
Then he didn’t look so joyful, and says:
“What was your idea for asking me?” he says.
“Well,” I says, “when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I
says to myself, we can’t get him home for hours, till he’s soberer;
so I went a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man
up and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river
and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was
dragging him to the boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope
and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me
and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn’t have no dog,
and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him
out. We never got him till dark; then we fetched him over, and I
started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I
says to myself, ’They’ve got into trouble and had to leave; and
they’ve took my nigger, which is the only nigger I’ve got in the

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world, and now I’m in a strange country, and ain’t got no property
no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;’ so I set
down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what did
become of the raft, then?—and Jim—poor Jim!”
“Blamed if I know—that is, what’s become of the raft. That old
fool had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found
him in the doggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him
and got every cent but what he’d spent for whisky; and when I got
him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, ‘That
little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the
river.’”
“I wouldn’t shake my nigger, would I?—the only nigger I had
in the world, and the only property.”
“We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we’d come to
consider him our nigger; yes, we did consider him so—goodness
knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft
was gone and we flat broke, there warn’t anything for it but to try
the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I’ve pegged along ever
since, dry as a powder-horn. Where’s that ten cents? Give it here.”

I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged

him to spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it
was all the money I had, and I hadn’t had nothing to eat since
yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me
and says:
“Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We’d skin him if
he done that!”
“How can he blow? Hain’t he run off?”
“No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the
money’s gone.”
“Sold him?” I says, and begun to cry; “why, he was my nigger,
and that was my money. Where is he?—I want my nigger.”
“Well, you can’t get your nigger, that’s all—so dry up your
blubbering. Looky here—do you think you’d venture to blow on
us? Blamed if I think I’d trust you. Why, if you was to blow on us
—”
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He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes
before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
“I don’t want to blow on nobody; and I ain’t got no time to
blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger.”
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills
fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At
last he says:
“I’ll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you’ll
promise you won’t blow, and won’t let the nigger blow, I’ll tell
you where to find him.”
So I promised, and he says:
“A farmer by the name of Silas Ph—” and then he stopped. You
see, he started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way,
and begun to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing
his mind. And so he was. He wouldn’t trust me; he wanted to make
sure of having me out of the way the whole three days. So pretty
soon he says:
“The man that bought him is named Abram Foster—Abram G.
Foster—and he lives forty mile back here in the country, on the
road to Lafayette.”
“All right,” I says, “I can walk it in three days. And I’ll start this
very afternoon.”
“No you wont, you’ll start now; and don’t you lose any time
about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight
tongue in your head and move right along, and then you won’t get
into trouble with us, d’ye hear?”
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I
wanted to be left free to work my plans.
“So clear out,” he says; “and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever
you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim is your
nigger—some idiots don’t require documents—leastways I’ve
heard there’s such down South here. And when you tell him the
handbill and the reward’s bogus, maybe he’ll believe you when
you explain to him what the idea was for getting ’em out. Go ’long
now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you don’t work
your jaw any between here and there.”

So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn’t look around,
but I kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could
tire him out at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a
mile before I stopped; then I doubled back through the woods
towards Phelps’. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off
without fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim’s mouth till
these fellows could get away. I didn’t want no trouble with their

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kind. I’d seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely
shut of them.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and
sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them
kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it
seem so lonesome and like everybody’s dead and gone; and if a
breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel
mournful, because you feel like it’s spirits whispering—spirits
that’s been dead ever so many years—and you always think
they’re talking about you. As a general thing it makes a body wish
he was dead, too, and done with it all.
Phelps’ was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and
they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made
out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a
different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women
to stand on when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly
grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth,
like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for
the white folks—hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud
or mortar, and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or
another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed
passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house back of the
kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t’other side the
smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the
back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side;
ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by
the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep
there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three
shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and
gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a
garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and
after the fields the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper,
and started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim
hum of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down
again; and then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead—for that
is the lonesomest sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just
trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when
the time come; for I’d noticed that Providence always did put the
right words in my mouth if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up
and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept
still. And such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a
minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say—spokes
made out of dogs—circle of fifteen of them packed together
around me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-
barking and howling; and more a-coming; you could see them
sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-
pin in her hand, singing out, “Begone you Tige! you Spot! begone
sah!” and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and
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sent them howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second
half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and
making friends with me. There ain’t no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little
nigger boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they
hung on to their mother’s gown, and peeped out from behind her at
me, bashful, the way they always do. And here comes the white
woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old,
bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her
comes her little white children, acting the same way the little
niggers was doing. She was smiling all over so she could hardly
stand—and says:
“It’s you, at last!—ain’t it?”
I out with a “Yes’m” before I thought.

She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by

both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes,
and run down over; and she couldn’t seem to hug and shake
enough, and kept saying, “You don’t look as much like your
mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don’t care for
that, I’m so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like I could
eat you up! Children, it’s your cousin Tom!—tell him howdy.”
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their
mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:
“Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away—or did
you get your breakfast on the boat?”
I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house,
leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we
got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself
down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my
hands, and says:
“Now I can have a good look at you; and, laws-a-me, I’ve been
hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and
it’s come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and
more. What kep’ you?—boat get aground?”
“Yes’m—she—”
“Don’t say yes’m—say Aunt Sally. Where’d she get aground?”
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I didn’t rightly know what to say, because I didn’t know

whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a
good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming
up—from down towards Orleans. That didn’t help me much,
though; for I didn’t know the names of bars down that way. I see
I’d got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got
aground on—or—Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
“It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little.
We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a nigger.”
“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two
years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from
Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-
head and crippled a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a
Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that
knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he did die.
Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn’t
save him. Yes, it was mortification—that was it. He turned blue all
over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he
was a sight to look at. Your uncle’s been up to the town every day
to fetch you. And he’s gone again, not more’n an hour ago; he’ll be
back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn’t you?
—oldish man, with a—”
“No, I didn’t see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at
daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went
looking around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in
the time and not get here too soon; and so I come down the back
way.”
“Who’d you give the baggage to?”
“Nobody.”
“Why, child, it ’ll be stole!”
“Not where I hid it I reckon it won’t,” I says.
“How’d you get your breakfast so early on the boat?”
It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
“The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have
something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas
to the officers’ lunch, and give me all I wanted.”
I was getting so uneasy I couldn’t listen good. I had my mind on
the children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and
pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn’t get no
show, Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made
the cold chills streak all down my back, because she says:
“But here we’re a-running on this way, and you hain’t told me a
word about Sis, nor any of them. Now I’ll rest my works a little,
and you start up yourn; just tell me everything—tell me all about
’m all every one of ’m; and how they are, and what they’re doing,
and what they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can
think of.”
Well, I see I was up a stump—and up it good. Providence had
stood by me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground
now. I see it warn’t a bit of use to try to go ahead—I’d got to throw
up my hand. So I says to myself, here’s another place where I got

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to resk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me

and hustled me in behind the bed, and says:
“Here he comes! Stick your head down lower—there, that’ll do;
you can’t be seen now. Don’t you let on you’re here. I’ll play a
joke on him. Children, don’t you say a word.”
I see I was in a fix now. But it warn’t no use to worry; there
warn’t nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to
stand from under when the lightning struck.
I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come
in; then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
“Has he come?”
“No,” says her husband.
“Good-ness gracious!” she says, “what in the warld can have
become of him?”
“I can’t imagine,” says the old gentleman; “and I must say it
makes me dreadful uneasy.”
“Uneasy!” she says; “I’m ready to go distracted! He must a
come; and you’ve missed him along the road. I know it’s so—
something tells me so.”
“Why, Sally, I couldn’t miss him along the road—you know
that.”
“But oh, dear, dear, what will Sis say! He must a come! You
must a missed him. He—”
“Oh, don’t distress me any more’n I’m already distressed. I
don’t know what in the world to make of it. I’m at my wit’s end,
and I don’t mind acknowledging ’t I’m right down scared. But
there’s no hope that he’s come; for he couldn’t come and me miss
him. Sally, it’s terrible—just terrible—something’s happened to
the boat, sure!”
“Why, Silas! Look yonder!—up the road!—ain’t that somebody
coming?”
He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give
Mrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the
foot of the bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he
turned back from the window there she stood, a-beaming and a-
smiling like a house afire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty
alongside. The old gentleman stared, and says:
“Why, who’s that?”
“Who do you reckon ’t is?”

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“I hain’t no idea. Who is it?”

“It’s Tom Sawyer!”
By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn’t no
time to swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and
shook, and kept on shaking; and all the time how the woman did
dance around and laugh and cry; and then how they both did fire
off questions about Sid, and Mary, and the rest of the tribe.
But if they was joyful, it warn’t nothing to what I was; for it was
like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well,
they froze to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so
tired it couldn’t hardly go any more, I had told them more about
my family—I mean the Sawyer family—than ever happened to
any six Sawyer families. And I explained all about how we blowed
out a cylinder-head at the mouth of White River, and it took us
three days to fix it. Which was all right, and worked first-rate;
because they didn’t know but what it would take three days to fix
it. If I’d a called it a bolthead it would a done just as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and
pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy
and comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by
I hear a steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to
myself, s’pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s’pose
he steps in here any minute, and sings out my name before I can
throw him a wink to keep quiet? Well, I couldn’t have it that way;
it wouldn’t do at all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I
told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town and fetch down
my baggage. The old gentleman was for going along with me, but
I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I druther he wouldn’t
take no trouble about me.

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CHAPTER XXXIII.

So I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I

see a wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I
stopped and waited till he come along. I says “Hold on!” and it
stopped alongside, and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and
stayed so; and he swallowed two or three times like a person that’s
got a dry throat, and then says:
“I hain’t ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what
you want to come back and ha’nt me for?”
I says:
“I hain’t come back—I hain’t been gone.”
When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn’t
quite satisfied yet. He says:
“Don’t you play nothing on me, because I wouldn’t on you.
Honest injun now, you ain’t a ghost?”
“Honest injun, I ain’t,” I says.
“Well—I—I—well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can’t
somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn’t you
ever murdered at all?”
“No. I warn’t ever murdered at all—I played it on them. You
come in here and feel of me if you don’t believe me.”
So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see
me again he didn’t know what to do. And he wanted to know all
about it right off, because it was a grand adventure, and
mysterious, and so it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it
alone till by and by; and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a
little piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did
he reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don’t
disturb him. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says:
“It’s all right; I’ve got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let
on it’s your’n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get
to the house about the time you ought to; and I’ll go towards town
a piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an
hour after you; and you needn’t let on to know me at first.”
I says:
“All right; but wait a minute. There’s one more thing—a thing
that nobody don’t know but me. And that is, there’s a nigger here
that I’m a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is Jim—old
Miss Watson’s Jim.”
He says:
“What! Why, Jim is—”
He stopped and went to studying. I says:
“I know what you’ll say. You’ll say it’s dirty, low-down
business; but what if it is? I’m low down; and I’m a-going to steal
him, and I want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?”
His eye lit up, and he says:
“I’ll help you steal him!”

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Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most
astonishing speech I ever heard—and I’m bound to say Tom
Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn’t believe
it. Tom Sawyer a nigger stealer!
“Oh, shucks!” I says; “you’re joking.”
“I ain’t joking, either.”
“Well, then,” I says, “joking or no joking, if you hear anything
said about a runaway nigger, don’t forget to remember that you
don’t know nothing about him, and I don’t know nothing about
him.”
Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove
off his way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about
driving slow on accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I
got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old
gentleman was at the door, and he says:
“Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in
that mare to do it? I wish we’d a timed her. And she hain’t sweated
a hair—not a hair. It’s wonderful. Why, I wouldn’t take a hundred
dollars for that horse now—I wouldn’t, honest; and yet I’d a sold
her for fifteen before, and thought ’twas all she was worth.”
That’s all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever
see. But it warn’t surprising; because he warn’t only just a farmer,
he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down
back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own
expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing
for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other
farmer-preachers like that, and done the same way, down South.
In about half an hour Tom’s wagon drove up to the front stile,
and Aunt Sally she see it through the window, because it was only
about fifty yards, and says:
“Why, there’s somebody come! I wonder who ’tis? Why, I do
believe it’s a stranger. Jimmy” (that’s one of the children) “run and
tell Lize to put on another plate for dinner.”
Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a
stranger don’t come every year, and so he lays over the yaller-
fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and
starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the
village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his
store clothes on, and an audience—and that was always nuts for
Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn’t no trouble to him to
throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn’t a boy to
meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca’m and
important, like the ram. When he got a-front of us he lifts his hat
ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had
butterflies asleep in it and he didn’t want to disturb them, and says:
“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”

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“No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I’m sorry to say ’t your
driver has deceived you; Nichols’s place is down a matter of three
mile more. Come in, come in.”
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late
—he’s out of sight.”
“Yes, he’s gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your
dinner with us; and then we’ll hitch up and take you down to
Nichols’s.”
“Oh, I can’t make you so much trouble; I couldn’t think of it.
I’ll walk—I don’t mind the distance.”
“But we won’t let you walk—it wouldn’t be Southern
hospitality to do it. Come right in.”
“Oh, do,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain’t a bit of trouble to us, not a
bit in the world. You must stay. It’s a long, dusty three mile, and
we can’t let you walk. And, besides, I’ve already told ’em to put on
another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn’t disappoint
us. Come right in and make yourself at home.”
So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let
himself be persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he
was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William
Thompson—and he made another bow.
Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about
Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little
nervious, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my
scrape; and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed
Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his
chair comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up
and wiped it off with the back of her hand, and says:
“You owdacious puppy!”
He looked kind of hurt, and says:
“I’m surprised at you, m’am.”
“You’re s’rp—Why, what do you reckon I am? I’ve a good
notion to take and—Say, what do you mean by kissing me?”
He looked kind of humble, and says:

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“I didn’t mean nothing, m’am. I didn’t mean no harm. I—I—

thought you’d like it.”
“Why, you born fool!” She took up the spinning stick, and it
looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack
with it. “What made you think I’d like it?”
“Well, I don’t know. Only, they—they—told me you would.”
“They told you I would. Whoever told you’s another lunatic. I
never heard the beat of it. Who’s they?”
“Why, everybody. They all said so, m’am.”
It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her
fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
“Who’s ‘everybody’? Out with their names, or ther’ll be an idiot
short.”
He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
“I’m sorry, and I warn’t expecting it. They told me to. They all
told me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she’d like it. They all
said it—every one of them. But I’m sorry, m’am, and I won’t do it
no more—I won’t, honest.”
“You won’t, won’t you? Well, I sh’d reckon you won’t!”
“No’m, I’m honest about it; I won’t ever do it again—till you
ask me.”
“Till I ask you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days!
I lay you’ll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I
ask you—or the likes of you.”
“Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so. I can’t make it out,
somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But—”
He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run
across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old
gentleman’s, and says, “Didn’t you think she’d like me to kiss her,
sir?”
“Why, no; I—I—well, no, I b’lieve I didn’t.”
Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:
“Tom, didn’t you think Aunt Sally ’d open out her arms and say,
‘Sid Sawyer—‘”
“My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you
impudent young rascal, to fool a body so—” and was going to hug
him, but he fended her off, and says:
“No, not till you’ve asked me first.”
So she didn’t lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and
kissed him over and over again, and then turned him over to the
old man, and he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet
again she says:
“Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn’t looking
for you at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody
coming but him.”
“It’s because it warn’t intended for any of us to come but Tom,”
he says; “but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let
me come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it
would be a first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house
first, and for me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to
be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain’t no
healthy place for a stranger to come.”

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“No—not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws

boxed; I hain’t been so put out since I don’t know when. But I
don’t care, I don’t mind the terms—I’d be willing to stand a
thousand such jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that
performance! I don’t deny it, I was most putrified with
astonishment when you give me that smack.”

We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house
and the kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for
seven families—and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat
that’s laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a
hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a
pretty long blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn’t cool it
a bit, neither, the way I’ve seen them kind of interruptions do lots
of times. There was a considerable good deal of talk all the
afternoon, and me and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it
warn’t no use, they didn’t happen to say nothing about any
runaway nigger, and we was afraid to try to work up to it. But at
supper, at night, one of the little boys says:
“Pa, mayn’t Tom and Sid and me go to the show?”
“No,” says the old man, “I reckon there ain’t going to be any;
and you couldn’t go if there was; because the runaway nigger told
Burton and me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he
would tell the people; so I reckon they’ve drove the owdacious
loafers out of town before this time.”
So there it was!—but I couldn’t help it. Tom and me was to
sleep in the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night
and went up to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the
window and down the lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I
didn’t believe anybody was going to give the king and the duke a
hint, and so if I didn’t hurry up and give them one they’d get into
trouble sure.
On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was
murdered, and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn’t come
back no more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I
told Tom all about our Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much
of the raft voyage as I had time to; and as we struck into the town
and up through the the middle of it--it was as much as half-after
eight, then—here comes a raging rush of people with torches, and
an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing
horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by; and as they
went by I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a rail—
that is, I knowed it was the king and the duke, though they was all
over tar and feathers, and didn’t look like nothing in the world that
was human—just looked like a couple of monstrous big soldier-
plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them
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poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever feel any hardness
against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see.
Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.

We see we was too late—couldn’t do no good. We asked some

stragglers about it, and they said everybody went to the show
looking very innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old
king was in the middle of his cavortings on the stage; then
somebody give a signal, and the house rose up and went for them.
So we poked along back home, and I warn’t feeling so brash as I
was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame,
somehow—though I hadn’t done nothing. But that’s always the
way; it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a
person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him
anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a
person’s conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more
room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good,
nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.

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CHAPTER XXXIV.
We stopped talking, and got to thinking. By and by Tom says:
“Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before! I
bet I know where Jim is.”
“No! Where?”
“In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we
was at dinner, didn’t you see a nigger man go in there with some
vittles?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think the vittles was for?”
“For a dog.”
“So ’d I. Well, it wasn’t for a dog.”
“Why?”
“Because part of it was watermelon.”
“So it was—I noticed it. Well, it does beat all that I never
thought about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body
can see and don’t see at the same time.”
“Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he
locked it again when he came out. He fetched uncle a key about
the time we got up from table—same key, I bet. Watermelon
shows man, lock shows prisoner; and it ain’t likely there’s two
prisoners on such a little plantation, and where the people’s all so
kind and good. Jim’s the prisoner. All right—I’m glad we found it
out detective fashion; I wouldn’t give shucks for any other way.
Now you work your mind, and study out a plan to steal Jim, and I
will study out one, too; and we’ll take the one we like the best.”
What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer’s head
I wouldn’t trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor
clown in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out
a plan, but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well
where the right plan was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom
says:
“Ready?”
“Yes,” I says.
“All right—bring it out.”
“My plan is this,” I says. “We can easy find out if it’s Jim in
there. Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft
over from the island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the
key out of the old man’s britches after he goes to bed, and shove
off down the river on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and
running nights, the way me and Jim used to do before. Wouldn’t
that plan work?”
“Work? Why, cert’nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But
it’s too blame’ simple; there ain’t nothing to it. What’s the good of
a plan that ain’t no more trouble than that? It’s as mild as goose-
milk. Why, Huck, it wouldn’t make no more talk than breaking
into a soap factory.”

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I never said nothing, because I warn’t expecting nothing

different; but I knowed mighty well that whenever he got his plan
ready it wouldn’t have none of them objections to it.
And it didn’t. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it
was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as
free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I
was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it. I needn’t tell what
it was here, because I knowed it wouldn’t stay the way, it was. I
knowed he would be changing it around every which way as we
went along, and heaving in new bullinesses wherever he got a
chance. And that is what he done.
Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer
was in earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of
slavery. That was the thing that was too many for me. Here was a
boy that was respectable and well brung up; and had a character to
lose; and folks at home that had characters; and he was bright and
not leather-headed; and knowing and not ignorant; and not mean,
but kind; and yet here he was, without any more pride, or
rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to this business, and make
himself a shame, and his family a shame, before everybody. I
couldn’t understand it no way at all. It was outrageous, and I
knowed I ought to just up and tell him so; and so be his true friend,
and let him quit the thing right where he was and save himself.
And I did start to tell him; but he shut me up, and says:
“Don’t you reckon I know what I’m about? Don’t I generly
know what I’m about?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t I say I was going to help steal the nigger?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then.”
That’s all he said, and that’s all I said. It warn’t no use to say
any more; because when he said he’d do a thing, he always done
it. But I couldn’t make out how he was willing to go into this
thing; so I just let it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he
was bound to have it so, I couldn’t help it.
When we got home the house was all dark and still; so we went
on down to the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it. We went
through the yard so as to see what the hounds would do. They
knowed us, and didn’t make no more noise than country dogs is
always doing when anything comes by in the night. When we got
to the cabin we took a look at the front and the two sides; and on
the side I warn’t acquainted with—which was the north side—we
found a square window-hole, up tolerable high, with just one stout
board nailed across it. I says:
“Here’s the ticket. This hole’s big enough for Jim to get through
if we wrench off the board.”
Tom says:
“It’s as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as
playing hooky. I should hope we can find a way that’s a little more
complicated than that, Huck Finn.”

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“Well, then,” I says, “how ’ll it do to saw him out, the way I
done before I was murdered that time?”
“That’s more like,” he says. “It’s real mysterious, and
troublesome, and good,” he says; “but I bet we can find a way
that’s twice as long. There ain’t no hurry; le’s keep on looking
around.”
Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a lean-to
that joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was
as long as the hut, but narrow—only about six foot wide. The door
to it was at the south end, and was padlocked. Tom he went to the
soap-kettle and searched around, and fetched back the iron thing
they lift the lid with; so he took it and prized out one of the staples.
The chain fell down, and we opened the door and went in, and shut
it, and struck a match, and see the shed was only built against a
cabin and hadn’t no connection with it; and there warn’t no floor
to the shed, nor nothing in it but some old rusty played-out hoes
and spades and picks and a crippled plow. The match went out,
and so did we, and shoved in the staple again, and the door was
locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful. He says;
“Now we’re all right. We’ll dig him out. It ’ll take about a
week!”
Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door—you
only have to pull a buckskin latch-string, they don’t fasten the
doors—but that warn’t romantical enough for Tom Sawyer; no
way would do him but he must climb up the lightning-rod. But
after he got up half way about three times, and missed fire and fell
every time, and the last time most busted his brains out, he thought
he’d got to give it up; but after he was rested he allowed he would
give her one more turn for luck, and this time he made the trip.
In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the
nigger cabins to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that
fed Jim—if it was Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just
getting through breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim’s
nigger was piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things; and
whilst the others was leaving, the key come from the house.
This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his
wool was all tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep
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witches off. He said the witches was pestering him awful these
nights, and making him see all kinds of strange things, and hear all
kinds of strange words and noises, and he didn’t believe he was
ever witched so long before in his life. He got so worked up, and
got to running on so about his troubles, he forgot all about what
he’d been a-going to do. So Tom says:
“What’s the vittles for? Going to feed the dogs?”
The nigger kind of smiled around gradually over his face, like
when you heave a brickbat in a mud-puddle, and he says:
“Yes, Mars Sid, a dog. Cur’us dog, too. Does you want to go en
look at ’im?”
“Yes.”
I hunched Tom, and whispers:
“You going, right here in the daybreak? That warn’t the plan.”
“No, it warn’t; but it’s the plan now.”
So, drat him, we went along, but I didn’t like it much. When we
got in we couldn’t hardly see anything, it was so dark; but Jim was
there, sure enough, and could see us; and he sings out:
“Why, Huck! En good lan’! ain’ dat Misto Tom?”
I just knowed how it would be; I just expected it. I didn’t know
nothing to do; and if I had I couldn’t a done it, because that nigger
busted in and says:
“Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen?”
We could see pretty well now. Tom he looked at the nigger,
steady and kind of wondering, and says:
“Does who know us?”
“Why, dis-yer runaway nigger.”
“I don’t reckon he does; but what put that into your head?”
“What put it dar? Didn’ he jis’ dis minute sing out like he
knowed you?”
Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way:
“Well, that’s mighty curious. Who sung out? When did he sing
out? what did he sing out?” And turns to me, perfectly ca’m, and
says, “Did you hear anybody sing out?”
Of course there warn’t nothing to be said but the one thing; so I
says:
“No; I ain’t heard nobody say nothing.”
Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him
before, and says:
“Did you sing out?”
“No, sah,” says Jim; “I hain’t said nothing, sah.”
“Not a word?”
“No, sah, I hain’t said a word.”
“Did you ever see us before?”
“No, sah; not as I knows on.”
So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and
distressed, and says, kind of severe:
“What do you reckon’s the matter with you, anyway? What
made you think somebody sung out?”
“Oh, it’s de dad-blame’ witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do.
Dey’s awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos’ kill me, dey sk’yers me so.
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Please to don’t tell nobody ’bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he’ll
scole me; ’kase he say dey ain’t no witches. I jis’ wish to goodness
he was heah now—den what would he say! I jis’ bet he couldn’
fine no way to git aroun’ it dis time. But it’s awluz jis’ so; people
dat’s sot, stays sot; dey won’t look into noth’n’en fine it out f’r
deyselves, en when you fine it out en tell um ’bout it, dey doan’
b’lieve you.”

Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn’t tell nobody; and
told him to buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then
looks at Jim, and says:
“I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to
catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn’t
give him up, I’d hang him.” And whilst the nigger stepped to the
door to look at the dime and bite it to see if it was good, he
whispers to Jim and says:
“Don’t ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging
going on nights, it’s us; we’re going to set you free.”
Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it; then
the nigger come back, and we said we’d come again some time if
the nigger wanted us to; and he said he would, more particular if it
was dark, because the witches went for him mostly in the dark, and
it was good to have folks around then.

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CHAPTER XXXV.
It would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck
down into the woods; because Tom said we got to have some light
to see how to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get
us into trouble; what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks
that’s called fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when
you lay them in a dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in
the weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied:
“Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can
be. And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan.
There ain’t no watchman to be drugged—now there ought to be a
watchman. There ain’t even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to.
And there’s Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the
leg of his bed: why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and
slip off the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the
key to the punkin-headed nigger, and don’t send nobody to watch
the nigger. Jim could a got out of that window-hole before this,
only there wouldn’t be no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain
on his leg. Why, drat it, Huck, it’s the stupidest arrangement I ever
see. You got to invent all the difficulties. Well, we can’t help it; we
got to do the best we can with the materials we’ve got. Anyhow,
there’s one thing—there’s more honor in getting him out through a
lot of difficulties and dangers, where there warn’t one of them
furnished to you by the people who it was their duty to furnish
them, and you had to contrive them all out of your own head. Now
look at just that one thing of the lantern. When you come down to
the cold facts, we simply got to let on that a lantern’s resky. Why,
we could work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to, I
believe. Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt up something to
make a saw out of the first chance we get.”
“What do we want of a saw?”
“What do we want of it? Hain’t we got to saw the leg of Jim’s
bed off, so as to get the chain loose?”
“Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip
the chain off.”
“Well, if that ain’t just like you, Huck Finn. You can get up the
infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain’t you ever
read any books at all?—Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor
Benvenuto Chelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes?
Who ever heard of getting a prisoner loose in such an old-maidy
way as that? No; the way all the best authorities does is to saw the
bed-leg in two, and leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it
can’t be found, and put some dirt and grease around the sawed
place so the very keenest seneskal can’t see no sign of it’s being
sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound. Then, the night
you’re ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip off your
chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder
to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moat—
because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know—and
there’s your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up
and fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native
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Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It’s gaudy, Huck. I wish

there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the
escape, we’ll dig one.”
I says:
“What do we want of a moat when we’re going to snake him out
from under the cabin?”
But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else.
He had his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and
shakes his head; then sighs again, and says:
“No, it wouldn’t do—there ain’t necessity enough for it.”
“For what?” I says.
“Why, to saw Jim’s leg off,” he says.
“Good land!” I says; “why, there ain’t no necessity for it. And
what would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?”

“Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn’t
get the chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a
leg would be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain’t
necessity enough in this case; and, besides, Jim’s a nigger, and
wouldn’t understand the reasons for it, and how it’s the custom in
Europe; so we’ll let it go. But there’s one thing—he can have a
rope ladder; we can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder
easy enough. And we can send it to him in a pie; it’s mostly done
that way. And I’ve et worse pies.”
“Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk,” I says; “Jim ain’t got no use
for a rope ladder.”
“He has got use for it. How you talk, you better say; you don’t
know nothing about it. He’s got to have a rope ladder; they all do.”
“What in the nation can he do with it?”
“Do with it? He can hide it in his bed, can’t he?” That’s what
they all do; and he’s got to, too. Huck, you don’t ever seem to want
to do anything that’s regular; you want to be starting something
fresh all the time. S’pose he don’t do nothing with it? ain’t it there
in his bed, for a clew, after he’s gone? and don’t you reckon they’ll
want clews? Of course they will. And you wouldn’t leave them

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any? That would be a pretty howdy-do, wouldn’t it! I never heard

of such a thing.”
“Well,” I says, “if it’s in the regulations, and he’s got to have it,
all right, let him have it; because I don’t wish to go back on no
regulations; but there’s one thing, Tom Sawyer—if we go to
tearing up our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we’re going to get
into trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you’re born. Now, the
way I look at it, a hickry-bark ladder don’t cost nothing, and don’t
waste nothing, and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in
a straw tick, as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he
ain’t had no experience, and so he don’t care what kind of a—”
“Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I’d keep
still—that’s what I’d do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner
escaping by a hickry-bark ladder? Why, it’s perfectly ridiculous.”
“Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you’ll take my
advice, you’ll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline.”
He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he
says:
“Borrow a shirt, too.”
“What do we want of a shirt, Tom?”
“Want it for Jim to keep a journal on.”
“Journal your granny—Jim can’t write.”
“S’pose he can’t write—he can make marks on the shirt, can’t
he, if we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of
an old iron barrel-hoop?”
“Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him
a better one; and quicker, too.”
“Prisoners don’t have geese running around the donjon-keep to
pull pens out of, you muggins. They always make their pens out of
the hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick
or something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes
them weeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too,
because they’ve got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. They
wouldn’t use a goose-quill if they had it. It ain’t regular.”
“Well, then, what’ll we make him the ink out of?”
“Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that’s the
common sort and women; the best authorities uses their own
blood. Jim can do that; and when he wants to send any little
common ordinary mysterious message to let the world know
where he’s captivated, he can write it on the bottom of a tin plate
with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask always
done that, and it’s a blame’ good way, too.”
“Jim ain’t got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan.”
“That ain’t nothing; we can get him some.”
“Can’t nobody read his plates.”
“That ain’t got anything to do with it, Huck Finn. All he’s got to
do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don’t have to be
able to read it. Why, half the time you can’t read anything a
prisoner writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else.”
“Well, then, what’s the sense in wasting the plates?”
“Why, blame it all, it ain’t the prisoner’s plates.”
“But it’s somebody’s plates, ain’t it?”
“Well, spos’n it is? What does the prisoner care whose—”
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He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn

blowing. So we cleared out for the house.

Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt

off of the clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it,
and we went down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called
it borrowing, because that was what pap always called it; but Tom
said it warn’t borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was
representing prisoners; and prisoners don’t care how they get a
thing so they get it, and nobody don’t blame them for it, either. It
ain’t no crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away
with, Tom said; it’s his right; and so, as long as we was
representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to steal anything on
this place we had the least use for to get ourselves out of prison
with. He said if we warn’t prisoners it would be a very different
thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he
warn’t a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there
was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day,
after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and
eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without
telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we
could steal anything we needed. Well, I says, I needed the
watermelon. But he said I didn’t need it to get out of prison with;
there’s where the difference was. He said if I’d a wanted it to hide
a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would
a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldn’t see no
advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and
chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see a
chance to hog a watermelon.
Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody
was settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard;
then Tom he carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a
piece to keep watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set
down on the woodpile to talk. He says:
“Everything’s all right now except tools; and that’s easy fixed.”
“Tools?” I says.
“Yes.”
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“Tools for what?”

“Why, to dig with. We ain’t a-going to gnaw him out, are we?”
“Ain’t them old crippled picks and things in there good enough
to dig a nigger out with?” I says.
He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and
says:
“Huck Finn, did you ever hear of a prisoner having picks and
shovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig
himself out with? Now I want to ask you—if you got any
reasonableness in you at all—what kind of a show would that give
him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and
done with it. Picks and shovels—why, they wouldn’t furnish ’em
to a king.”
“Well, then,” I says, “if we don’t want the picks and shovels,
what do we want?”
“A couple of case-knives.”
“To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?”
“Yes.”
“Confound it, it’s foolish, Tom.”
“It don’t make no difference how foolish it is, it’s the right way
—and it’s the regular way. And there ain’t no other way, that ever I
heard of, and I’ve read all the books that gives any information
about these things. They always dig out with a case-knife—and
not through dirt, mind you; generly it’s through solid rock. And it
takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever.
Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the
Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that
way; how long was he at it, you reckon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, guess.”
“I don’t know. A month and a half.”
“Thirty-seven year—and he come out in China. That’s the kind.
I wish the bottom of this fortress was solid rock.”
“Jim don’t know nobody in China.”
“What’s that got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But
you’re always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can’t you stick
to the main point?”
“All right—I don’t care where he comes out, so he comes out;
and Jim don’t, either, I reckon. But there’s one thing, anyway—
Jim’s too old to be dug out with a case-knife. He won’t last.”
“Yes he will last, too. You don’t reckon it’s going to take thirty-
seven years to dig out through a dirt foundation, do you?”
“How long will it take, Tom?”
“Well, we can’t resk being as long as we ought to, because it
mayn’t take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by
New Orleans. He’ll hear Jim ain’t from there. Then his next move
will be to advertise Jim, or something like that. So we can’t resk
being as long digging him out as we ought to. By rights I reckon
we ought to be a couple of years; but we can’t. Things being so
uncertain, what I recommend is this: that we really dig right in, as
quick as we can; and after that, we can let on, to ourselves, that we
was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush

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him away the first time there’s an alarm. Yes, I reckon that ’ll be
the best way.”
“Now, there’s sense in that,” I says. “Letting on don’t cost
nothing; letting on ain’t no trouble; and if it’s any object, I don’t
mind letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn’t
strain me none, after I got my hand in. So I’ll mosey along now,
and smouch a couple of case-knives.”

“Smouch three,” he says; “we want one to make a saw out of.”
“Tom, if it ain’t unregular and irreligious to sejest it,” I says,
“there’s an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the
weather-boarding behind the smoke-house.”
He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:
“It ain’t no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and
smouch the knives—three of them.” So I done it.

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CHAPTER XXXVI.

As soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we

went down the lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to,
and got out our pile of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared
everything out of the way, about four or five foot along the middle
of the bottom log. Tom said he was right behind Jim’s bed now,
and we’d dig in under it, and when we got through there couldn’t
nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole there, because
Jim’s counter-pin hung down most to the ground, and you’d have
to raise it up and look under to see the hole. So we dug and dug
with the case-knives till most midnight; and then we was dog-
tired, and our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn’t see we’d
done anything hardly. At last I says:
“This ain’t no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year
job, Tom Sawyer.”
He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he
stopped digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he
was thinking. Then he says:
“It ain’t no use, Huck, it ain’t a-going to work. If we was
prisoners it would, because then we’d have as many years as we
wanted, and no hurry; and we wouldn’t get but a few minutes to
dig, every day, while they was changing watches, and so our hands
wouldn’t get blistered, and we could keep it up right along, year in
and year out, and do it right, and the way it ought to be done. But
we can’t fool along; we got to rush; we ain’t got no time to spare.
If we was to put in another night this way we’d have to knock off
for a week to let our hands get well—couldn’t touch a case-knife
with them sooner.”
“Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?”
“I’ll tell you. It ain’t right, and it ain’t moral, and I wouldn’t like
it to get out; but there ain’t only just the one way: we got to dig
him out with the picks, and let on it’s case-knives.”
“Now you’re talking!” I says; “your head gets leveler and
leveler all the time, Tom Sawyer,” I says. “Picks is the thing, moral
or no moral; and as for me, I don’t care shucks for the morality of
it, nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a
Sunday-school book, I ain’t no ways particular how it’s done so
it’s done. What I want is my nigger; or what I want is my
watermelon; or what I want is my Sunday-school book; and if a
pick’s the handiest thing, that’s the thing I’m a-going to dig that
nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with;
and I don’t give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about it
nuther.”
“Well,” he says, “there’s excuse for picks and letting-on in a
case like this; if it warn’t so, I wouldn’t approve of it, nor I
wouldn’t stand by and see the rules broke—because right is right,
and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong
when he ain’t ignorant and knows better. It might answer for you
to dig Jim out with a pick, without any letting on, because you

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don’t know no better; but it wouldn’t for me, because I do know

better. Gimme a case-knife.”
He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it
down, and says:
“Gimme a case-knife.”
I didn’t know just what to do—but then I thought. I scratched
around amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him,
and he took it and went to work, and never said a word.
He was always just that particular. Full of principle.
So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn
about, and made the fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour,
which was as long as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of
a hole to show for it. When I got up stairs I looked out at the
window and see Tom doing his level best with the lightning-rod,
but he couldn’t come it, his hands was so sore. At last he says:
“It ain’t no use, it can’t be done. What you reckon I better do?
Can’t you think of no way?”
“Yes,” I says, “but I reckon it ain’t regular. Come up the stairs,
and let on it’s a lightning-rod.”
So he done it.

Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in

the house, for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow
candles; and I hung around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance,
and stole three tin plates. Tom says it wasn’t enough; but I said
nobody wouldn’t ever see the plates that Jim throwed out, because
they’d fall in the dog-fennel and jimpson weeds under the
window-hole—then we could tote them back and he could use
them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then he says:
“Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim.”
“Take them in through the hole,” I says, “when we get it done.”
He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody
ever heard of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying.
By and by he said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there

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warn’t no need to decide on any of them yet. Said we’d got to post
Jim first.
That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and
took one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole,
and heard Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn’t wake him.
Then we whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two
hours and a half the job was done. We crept in under Jim’s bed and
into the cabin, and pawed around and found the candle and lit it,
and stood over Jim awhile, and found him looking hearty and
healthy, and then we woke him up gentle and gradual. He was so
glad to see us he most cried; and called us honey, and all the pet
names he could think of; and was for having us hunt up a cold-
chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with right away, and clearing
out without losing any time. But Tom he showed him how
unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our
plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time there was
an alarm; and not to be the least afraid, because we would see he
got away, sure. So Jim he said it was all right, and we set there and
talked over old times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of
questions, and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day
or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was
comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of them was kind as
they could be, Tom says:
“Now I know how to fix it. We’ll send you some things by
them.”
I said, “Don’t do nothing of the kind; it’s one of the most
jackass ideas I ever struck;” but he never paid no attention to me;
went right on. It was his way when he’d got his plans set.
So he told Jim how we’d have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie
and other large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must
be on the lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him
open them; and we would put small things in uncle’s coat-pockets
and he must steal them out; and we would tie things to aunt’s
apron-strings or put them in her apron-pocket, if we got a chance;
and told him what they would be and what they was for. And told
him how to keep a journal on the shirt with his blood, and all that.
He told him everything. Jim he couldn’t see no sense in the most
of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed better than
him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just as Tom
said.
Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right
down good sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole,
and so home to bed, with hands that looked like they’d been
chawed. Tom was in high spirits. He said it was the best fun he
ever had in his life, and the most intellectural; and said if he only
could see his way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives
and leave Jim to our children to get out; for he believed Jim would
come to like it better and better the more he got used to it. He said
that in that way it could be strung out to as much as eighty year,
and would be the best time on record. And he said it would make
us all celebrated that had a hand in it.
In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the
brass candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the
pewter spoon in his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins,
and while I got Nat’s notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick
into the middle of a corn-pone that was in Jim’s pan, and we went

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along with Nat to see how it would work, and it just worked noble;
when Jim bit into it it most mashed all his teeth out; and there
warn’t ever anything could a worked better. Tom said so himself.
Jim he never let on but what it was only just a piece of rock or
something like that that’s always getting into bread, you know; but
after that he never bit into nothing but what he jabbed his fork into
it in three or four places first.
And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here
comes a couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim’s bed;
and they kept on piling in till there was eleven of them, and there
warn’t hardly room in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot
to fasten that lean-to door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered
“Witches” once, and keeled over on to the floor amongst the dogs,
and begun to groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the door open
and flung out a slab of Jim’s meat, and the dogs went for it, and in
two seconds he was out himself and back again and shut the door,
and I knowed he’d fixed the other door too. Then he went to work
on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and asking him if he’d
been imagining he saw something again. He raised up, and blinked
his eyes around, and says:
“Mars Sid, you’ll say I’s a fool, but if I didn’t b’lieve I see most
a million dogs, er devils, er some’n, I wisht I may die right heah in
dese tracks. I did, mos’ sholy. Mars Sid, I felt um—I felt um, sah;
dey was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jis’ wisht I could git my han’s
on one er dem witches jis’ wunst—on’y jis’ wunst—it’s all I’d ast.
But mos’ly I wisht dey’d lemme ’lone, I does.”
Tom says:
“Well, I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just
at this runaway nigger’s breakfast-time? It’s because they’re
hungry; that’s the reason. You make them a witch pie; that’s the
thing for you to do.”

“But my lan’, Mars Sid, how’s I gwyne to make ’m a witch pie?

I doan’ know how to make it. I hain’t ever hearn er sich a thing
b’fo’.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to make it myself.”

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“Will you do it, honey?—will you? I’ll wusshup de groun’ und’

yo’ foot, I will!”
“All right, I’ll do it, seeing it’s you, and you’ve been good to us
and showed us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty
careful. When we come around, you turn your back; and then
whatever we’ve put in the pan, don’t you let on you see it at all.
And don’t you look when Jim unloads the pan—something might
happen, I don’t know what. And above all, don’t you handle the
witch-things.”
“Hannel ’m, Mars Sid? What is you a-talkin’ ’bout? I wouldn’
lay de weight er my finger on um, not f’r ten hund’d thous’n
billion dollars, I wouldn’t.”

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CHAPTER XXXVII.
That was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the
rubbage-pile in the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and
rags, and pieces of bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such
truck, and scratched around and found an old tin washpan, and
stopped up the holes as well as we could, to bake the pie in, and
took it down cellar and stole it full of flour and started for
breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nails that Tom said would
be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and sorrows on the
dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in Aunt Sally’s
apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and t’other we stuck
in the band of Uncle Silas’s hat, which was on the bureau, because
we heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the
runaway nigger’s house this morning, and then went to breakfast,
and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle Silas’s coat-pocket,
and Aunt Sally wasn’t come yet, so we had to wait a little while.
And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn’t
hardly wait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out
coffee with one hand and cracking the handiest child’s head with
her thimble with the other, and says:
“I’ve hunted high and I’ve hunted low, and it does beat all what
has become of your other shirt.”
My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and
a hard piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got
met on the road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and
took one of the children in the eye and curled him up like a
fishing-worm, and let a cry out of him the size of a warwhoop, and
Tom he turned kinder blue around the gills, and it all amounted to
a considerable state of things for about a quarter of a minute or as
much as that, and I would a sold out for half price if there was a
bidder. But after that we was all right again—it was the sudden
surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas he says:
“It’s most uncommon curious, I can’t understand it. I know
perfectly well I took it off, because—”
“Because you hain’t got but one on. Just listen at the man! I
know you took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-
gethering memory, too, because it was on the clo’s-line yesterday
—I see it there myself. But it’s gone, that’s the long and the short
of it, and you’ll just have to change to a red flann’l one till I can
get time to make a new one. And it ’ll be the third I’ve made in
two years. It just keeps a body on the jump to keep you in shirts;
and whatever you do manage to do with ’m all is more’n I can
make out. A body ’d think you would learn to take some sort of
care of ’em at your time of life.”
“I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn’t to be
altogether my fault, because, you know, I don’t see them nor have
nothing to do with them except when they’re on me; and I don’t
believe I’ve ever lost one of them off of me.”
“Well, it ain’t your fault if you haven’t, Silas; you’d a done it if
you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain’t all that’s gone, nuther.
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Ther’s a spoon gone; and that ain’t all. There was ten, and now
ther’s only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never
took the spoon, that’s certain.”
“Why, what else is gone, Sally?”
“Ther’s six candles gone—that’s what. The rats could a got the
candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don’t walk off with
the whole place, the way you’re always going to stop their holes
and don’t do it; and if they warn’t fools they’d sleep in your hair,
Silas—you’d never find it out; but you can’t lay the spoon on the
rats, and that I know.”
“Well, Sally, I’m in fault, and I acknowledge it; I’ve been
remiss; but I won’t let to-morrow go by without stopping up them
holes.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t hurry; next year ’ll do. Matilda Angelina
Araminta Phelps!”
Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out
of the sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger
woman steps on to the passage, and says:
“Missus, dey’s a sheet gone.”

“A sheet gone! Well, for the land’s sake!”

“I’ll stop up them holes to-day,” says Uncle Silas, looking
sorrowful.
“Oh, do shet up!—s’pose the rats took the sheet? Where’s it
gone, Lize?”
“Clah to goodness I hain’t no notion, Miss’ Sally. She wuz on de
clo’sline yistiddy, but she done gone: she ain’ dah no mo’ now.”
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“I reckon the world is coming to an end. I never see the beat of

it in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can
—”
“Missus,” comes a young yaller wench, “dey’s a brass
cannelstick miss’n.”
“Cler out from here, you hussy, er I’ll take a skillet to ye!”
Well, she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I
reckoned I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather
moderated. She kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection
all by herself, and everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at
last Uncle Silas, looking kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out
of his pocket. She stopped, with her mouth open and her hands up;
and as for me, I wished I was in Jeruslem or somewheres. But not
long, because she says:
“It’s just as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time;
and like as not you’ve got the other things there, too. How’d it get
there?”
“I reely don’t know, Sally,” he says, kind of apologizing, “or
you know I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts
Seventeen before breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not
noticing, meaning to put my Testament in, and it must be so,
because my Testament ain’t in; but I’ll go and see; and if the
Testament is where I had it, I’ll know I didn’t put it in, and that
will show that I laid the Testament down and took up the spoon,
and—”
“Oh, for the land’s sake! Give a body a rest! Go ’long now, the
whole kit and biling of ye; and don’t come nigh me again till I’ve
got back my peace of mind.”
I’d a heard her if she’d a said it to herself, let alone speaking it
out; and I’d a got up and obeyed her if I’d a been dead. As we was
passing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat,
and the shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked
it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and
went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and
says:
“Well, it ain’t no use to send things by him no more, he ain’t
reliable.” Then he says: “But he done us a good turn with the
spoon, anyway, without knowing it, and so we’ll go and do him
one without him knowing it—stop up his rat-holes.”
There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a
whole hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape.
Then we heard steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and
hid; and here comes the old man, with a candle in one hand and a
bundle of stuff in t’other, looking as absent-minded as year before
last. He went a mooning around, first to one rat-hole and then
another, till he’d been to them all. Then he stood about five
minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candle and thinking. Then
he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs, saying:
“Well, for the life of me I can’t remember when I done it. I
could show her now that I warn’t to blame on account of the rats.
But never mind—let it go. I reckon it wouldn’t do no good.”
And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He
was a mighty nice old man. And always is.
Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but
he said we’d got to have it; so he took a think. When he had
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ciphered it out he told me how we was to do; then we went and

waited around the spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and
then Tom went to counting the spoons and laying them out to one
side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve, and Tom says:
“Why, Aunt Sally, there ain’t but nine spoons yet.”
She says:
“Go ’long to your play, and don’t bother me. I know better, I
counted ’m myself.”
“Well, I’ve counted them twice, Aunty, and I can’t make but
nine.”
She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count
—anybody would.
“I declare to gracious ther’ ain’t but nine!” she says. “Why, what
in the world—plague take the things, I’ll count ’m again.”
So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done
counting, she says:
“Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther’s ten now!” and she
looked huffy and bothered both. But Tom says:
“Why, Aunty, I don’t think there’s ten.”
“You numskull, didn’t you see me count ’m?”
“I know, but—”
“Well, I’ll count ’m again.”

So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other
time. Well, she was in a tearing way—just a-trembling all over, she
was so mad. But she counted and counted till she got that addled
she’d start to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so,
three times they come out right, and three times they come out
wrong. Then she grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the
house and knocked the cat galley-west; and she said cle’r out and
let her have some peace, and if we come bothering around her
again betwixt that and dinner she’d skin us. So we had the odd
spoon, and dropped it in her apron-pocket whilst she was a-giving
us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right, along with her
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shingle nail, before noon. We was very well satisfied with this
business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took,
because he said now she couldn’t ever count them spoons twice
alike again to save her life; and wouldn’t believe she’d counted
them right if she did; and said that after she’d about counted her
head off for the next three days he judged she’d give it up and
offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them any more.
So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out
of her closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a
couple of days till she didn’t know how many sheets she had any
more, and she didn’t care, and warn’t a-going to bullyrag the rest
of her soul out about it, and wouldn’t count them again not to save
her life; she druther die first.
So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the
spoon and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the
mixed-up counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn’t no
consequence, it would blow over by and by.
But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie.
We fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and
we got it done at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one
day; and we had to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we
got through, and we got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and
eyes put out with the smoke; because, you see, we didn’t want
nothing but a crust, and we couldn’t prop it up right, and she
would always cave in. But of course we thought of the right way at
last—which was to cook the ladder, too, in the pie. So then we laid
in with Jim the second night, and tore up the sheet all in little
strings and twisted them together, and long before daylight we had
a lovely rope that you could a hung a person with. We let on it
took nine months to make it.
And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it
wouldn’t go into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way,
there was rope enough for forty pies if we’d a wanted them, and
plenty left over for soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We
could a had a whole dinner.

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But we didn’t need it. All we needed was just enough for the
pie, and so we throwed the rest away. We didn’t cook none of the
pies in the wash-pan—afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle
Silas he had a noble brass warming-pan which he thought
considerable of, because it belonged to one of his ancesters with a
long wooden handle that come over from England with William
the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early ships and
was hid away up garret with a lot of other old pots and things that
was valuable, not on account of being any account, because they
warn’t, but on account of them being relicts, you know, and we
snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on
the first pies, because we didn’t know how, but she come up
smiling on the last one. We took and lined her with dough, and set
her in the coals, and loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a
dough roof, and shut down the lid, and put hot embers on top, and
stood off five foot, with the long handle, cool and comfortable, and
in fifteen minutes she turned out a pie that was a satisfaction to
look at. But the person that et it would want to fetch a couple of
kags of toothpicks along, for if that rope ladder wouldn’t cramp
him down to business I don’t know nothing what I’m talking
about, and lay him in enough stomach-ache to last him till next
time, too.
Nat didn’t look when we put the witch pie in Jim’s pan; and we
put the three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles;
and so Jim got everything all right, and as soon as he was by
himself he busted into the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his
straw tick, and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it
out of the window-hole.

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CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Making them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the
saw; and Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest
of all. That’s the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the
wall. But he had to have it; Tom said he’d got to; there warn’t no
case of a state prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave
behind, and his coat of arms.
“Look at Lady Jane Grey,” he says; “look at Gilford Dudley;
look at old Northumberland! Why, Huck, s’pose it is considerble
trouble?—what you going to do?—how you going to get around
it? Jim’s got to do his inscription and coat of arms. They all do.”
Jim says:
“Why, Mars Tom, I hain’t got no coat o’ arm; I hain’t got nuffn
but dish yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on
dat.”
“Oh, you don’t understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very
different.”
“Well,” I says, “Jim’s right, anyway, when he says he ain’t got
no coat of arms, because he hain’t.”
“I reckon I knowed that,” Tom says, “but you bet he’ll have one
before he goes out of this—because he’s going out right, and there
ain’t going to be no flaws in his record.”
So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat
apiece, Jim a-making his’n out of the brass and I making mine out
of the spoon, Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms. By and
by he said he’d struck so many good ones he didn’t hardly know
which to take, but there was one which he reckoned he’d decide
on. He says:
“On the scutcheon we’ll have a bend or in the dexter base, a
saltire murrey in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common
charge, and under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a
chevron vert in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a
field azure, with the nombril points rampant on a dancette
indented; crest, a runaway nigger, sable, with his bundle over his
shoulder on a bar sinister; and a couple of gules for supporters,
which is you and me; motto, Maggiore fretta, minore atto. Got it
out of a book—means the more haste the less speed.”
“Geewhillikins,” I says, “but what does the rest of it mean?”
“We ain’t got no time to bother over that,” he says; “we got to
dig in like all git-out.”
“Well, anyway,” I says, “what’s some of it? What’s a fess?”
“A fess—a fess is—you don’t need to know what a fess is. I’ll
show him how to make it when he gets to it.”
“Shucks, Tom,” I says, “I think you might tell a person. What’s
a bar sinister?”
“Oh, I don’t know. But he’s got to have it. All the nobility does.”
That was just his way. If it didn’t suit him to explain a thing to
you, he wouldn’t do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn’t

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make no difference.
He’d got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started
in to finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan
out a mournful inscription—said Jim got to have one, like they all
done. He made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read
them off, so:
1. Here a captive heart busted.
2. Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends,
fretted his sorrowful life.
3. Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest,
after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity.
4. Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of
bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis
XIV.

Tom’s voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most

broke down. When he got done he couldn’t no way make up his
mind which one for Jim to scrabble on to the wall, they was all so
good; but at last he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on.
Jim said it would take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck on
to the logs with a nail, and he didn’t know how to make letters,
besides; but Tom said he would block them out for him, and then
he wouldn’t have nothing to do but just follow the lines. Then
pretty soon he says:
“Come to think, the logs ain’t a-going to do; they don’t have log
walls in a dungeon: we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock.
We’ll fetch a rock.”
Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take
him such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn’t
ever get out. But Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he
took a look to see how me and Jim was getting along with the
pens. It was most pesky tedious hard work and slow, and didn’t
give my hands no show to get well of the sores, and we didn’t
seem to make no headway, hardly; so Tom says:
“I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms
and mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that
same rock. There’s a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and
we’ll smouch it, and carve the things on it, and file out the pens
and the saw on it, too.”

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It warn’t no slouch of an idea; and it warn’t no slouch of a

grindstone nuther; but we allowed we’d tackle it. It warn’t quite
midnight yet, so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work.
We smouched the grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it
was a most nation tough job. Sometimes, do what we could, we
couldn’t keep her from falling over, and she come mighty near
mashing us every time. Tom said she was going to get one of us,
sure, before we got through. We got her half way; and then we was
plumb played out, and most drownded with sweat. We see it
warn’t no use; we got to go and fetch Jim. So he raised up his bed
and slid the chain off of the bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round
his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down there, and
Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along like
nothing; and Tom superintended. He could out-superintend any
boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything.
Our hole was pretty big, but it warn’t big enough to get the
grindstone through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big
enough. Then Tom marked out them things on it with the nail, and
set Jim to work on them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt
from the rubbage in the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to
work till the rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go to
bed, and hide the grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it.
Then we helped him fix his chain back on the bed-leg, and was
ready for bed ourselves. But Tom thought of something, and says:
“You got any spiders in here, Jim?”
“No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain’t, Mars Tom.”
“All right, we’ll get you some.”
“But bless you, honey, I doan’ want none. I’s afeard un um. I jis’
’s soon have rattlesnakes aroun’.”
Tom thought a minute or two, and says:
“It’s a good idea. And I reckon it’s been done. It must a been
done; it stands to reason. Yes, it’s a prime good idea. Where could
you keep it?”
“Keep what, Mars Tom?”
“Why, a rattlesnake.”
“De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a
rattlesnake to come in heah I’d take en bust right out thoo dat log
wall, I would, wid my head.”
“Why, Jim, you wouldn’t be afraid of it after a little. You could
tame it.”
“Tame it!”
“Yes—easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and
petting, and they wouldn’t think of hurting a person that pets them.
Any book will tell you that. You try—that’s all I ask; just try for
two or three days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that
he’ll love you; and sleep with you; and won’t stay away from you
a minute; and will let you wrap him round your neck and put his
head in your mouth.”
“Please, Mars Tom—doan’ talk so! I can’t stan’ it! He’d let me
shove his head in my mouf—fer a favor, hain’t it? I lay he’d wait a
pow’ful long time ’fo’ I ast him. En mo’ en dat, I doan’ want him
to sleep wid me.”
“Jim, don’t act so foolish. A prisoner’s got to have some kind of
a dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain’t ever been tried, why, there’s

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more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than
any other way you could ever think of to save your life.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ want no sich glory. Snake take ’n bite
Jim’s chin off, den whah is de glory? No, sah, I doan’ want no sich
doin’s.”
“Blame it, can’t you try? I only want you to try—you needn’t
keep it up if it don’t work.”
“But de trouble all done ef de snake bite me while I’s a tryin’
him. Mars Tom, I’s willin’ to tackle mos’ anything ’at ain’t
onreasonable, but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for
me to tame, I’s gwyne to leave, dat’s shore.”
“Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you’re so bull-headed about it.
We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons
on their tails, and let on they’re rattlesnakes, and I reckon that ’ll
have to do.”

“I k’n stan’ dem, Mars Tom, but blame’ ’f I couldn’ get along
widout um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b’fo’ ’t was so much
bother and trouble to be a prisoner.”
“Well, it always is when it’s done right. You got any rats around
here?”
“No, sah, I hain’t seed none.”
“Well, we’ll get you some rats.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ want no rats. Dey’s de dadblamedest
creturs to ’sturb a body, en rustle roun’ over ’im, en bite his feet,
when he’s tryin’ to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g’yarter-
snakes, ’f I’s got to have ’m, but doan’ gimme no rats; I hain’ got
no use f’r um, skasely.”
“But, Jim, you got to have ’em—they all do. So don’t make no
more fuss about it. Prisoners ain’t ever without rats. There ain’t no
instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them
tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play
music to them. You got anything to play music on?”
“I ain’ got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o’ paper, en a
juice-harp; but I reck’n dey wouldn’ take no stock in a juice-harp.”
“Yes they would. They don’t care what kind of music ’tis. A
jews-harp’s plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music—
in a prison they dote on it. Specially, painful music; and you can’t
get no other kind out of a jews-harp. It always interests them; they
come out to see what’s the matter with you. Yes, you’re all right;
you’re fixed very well. You want to set on your bed nights before
you go to sleep, and early in the mornings, and play your jews-
harp; play ‘The Last Link is Broken’—that’s the thing that ’ll
scoop a rat quicker ’n anything else; and when you’ve played

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about two minutes you’ll see all the rats, and the snakes, and
spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you, and come. And
they’ll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good time.”
“Yes, dey will, I reck’n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is Jim
havin’? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I’ll do it ef I got to. I reck’n I
better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de
house.”
Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn’t nothing else;
and pretty soon he says:
“Oh, there’s one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here,
do you reckon?”
“I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it’s tolable dark
in heah, en I ain’ got no use f’r no flower, nohow, en she’d be a
pow’ful sight o’ trouble.”
“Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it.”
“One er dem big cat-tail-lookin’ mullen-stalks would grow in
heah, Mars Tom, I reck’n, but she wouldn’t be wuth half de trouble
she’d coss.”
“Don’t you believe it. We’ll fetch you a little one and you plant
it in the corner over there, and raise it. And don’t call it mullen,
call it Pitchiola—that’s its right name when it’s in a prison. And
you want to water it with your tears.”
“Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom.”
“You don’t want spring water; you want to water it with your
tears. It’s the way they always do.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks
twyste wid spring water whiles another man’s a start’n one wid
tears.”

“That ain’t the idea. You got to do it with tears.”

“She’ll die on my han’s, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan’
skasely ever cry.”
So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim
would have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He
promised he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private,
in Jim’s coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would “jis’ ’s soon
have tobacker in his coffee;” and found so much fault with it, and
with the work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping
the rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and
things, on top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and
inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more trouble
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and worry and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever

undertook, that Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he
was just loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner
ever had in the world to make a name for himself, and yet he
didn’t know enough to appreciate them, and they was just about
wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn’t behave
so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.

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CHAPTER XXXIX.
In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-
trap and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in
about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then
we took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally’s bed. But
while we was gone for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin
Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there, and opened the door of
it to see if the rats would come out, and they did; and Aunt Sally
she come in, and when we got back she was a-standing on top of
the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what they could to
keep off the dull times for her. So she took and dusted us both with
the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching another
fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn’t the
likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock. I
never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was.
We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs,
and caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a
hornet’s nest, but we didn’t. The family was at home. We didn’t
give it right up, but stayed with them as long as we could; because
we allowed we’d tire them out or they’d got to tire us out, and they
done it. Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and
was pretty near all right again, but couldn’t set down convenient.
And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen
garters and house-snakes, and put them in a bag, and put it in our
room, and by that time it was supper-time, and a rattling good
honest day’s work: and hungry?—oh, no, I reckon not! And there
warn’t a blessed snake up there when we went back—we didn’t
half tie the sack, and they worked out somehow, and left. But it
didn’t matter much, because they was still on the premises
somewheres. So we judged we could get some of them again. No,
there warn’t no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a
considerable spell. You’d see them dripping from the rafters and
places every now and then; and they generly landed in your plate,
or down the back of your neck, and most of the time where you
didn’t want them. Well, they was handsome and striped, and there
warn’t no harm in a million of them; but that never made no
difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed what
they might, and she couldn’t stand them no way you could fix it;
and every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn’t make no
difference what she was doing, she would just lay that work down
and light out. I never see such a woman. And you could hear her
whoop to Jericho. You couldn’t get her to take a-holt of one of
them with the tongs. And if she turned over and found one in bed
she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would think the
house was afire. She disturbed the old man so that he said he could
most wish there hadn’t ever been no snakes created. Why, after
every last snake had been gone clear out of the house for as much
as a week Aunt Sally warn’t over it yet; she warn’t near over it;
when she was setting thinking about something you could touch
her on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump
right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all

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women was just so. He said they was made that way for some
reason or other.
We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way,
and she allowed these lickings warn’t nothing to what she would
do if we ever loaded up the place again with them. I didn’t mind
the lickings, because they didn’t amount to nothing; but I minded
the trouble we had to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in,
and all the other things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as
Jim’s was when they’d all swarm out for music and go for him.
Jim didn’t like the spiders, and the spiders didn’t like Jim; and so
they’d lay for him, and make it mighty warm for him. And he said
that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone there
warn’t no room in bed for him, skasely; and when there was, a
body couldn’t sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively, he
said, because they never all slept at one time, but took turn about,
so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the
rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had one
gang under him, in his way, and t’other gang having a circus over
him, and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would take a
chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out this
time he wouldn’t ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.
Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good
shape. The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit
Jim he would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink
was fresh; the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all
carved on the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we
had et up the sawdust, and it give us a most amazing stomach-
ache. We reckoned we was all going to die, but didn’t. It was the
most undigestible sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the same.

But as I was saying, we’d got all the work done now, at last; and
we was all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim. The old
man had wrote a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to
come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn’t got no answer,
because there warn’t no such plantation; so he allowed he would
advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans papers; and when
he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold shivers, and I
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see we hadn’t no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the

nonnamous letters.
“What’s them?” I says.
“Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it’s
done one way, sometimes another. But there’s always somebody
spying around that gives notice to the governor of the castle. When
Louis XVI. was going to light out of the Tooleries, a servant-girl
done it. It’s a very good way, and so is the nonnamous letters.
We’ll use them both. And it’s usual for the prisoner’s mother to
change clothes with him, and she stays in, and he slides out in her
clothes. We’ll do that, too.”
“But looky here, Tom, what do we want to warn anybody for
that something’s up? Let them find it out for themselves—it’s their
lookout.”
“Yes, I know; but you can’t depend on them. It’s the way
they’ve acted from the very start—left us to do everything. They’re
so confiding and mullet-headed they don’t take notice of nothing
at all. So if we don’t give them notice there won’t be nobody nor
nothing to interfere with us, and so after all our hard work and
trouble this escape ’ll go off perfectly flat; won’t amount to
nothing—won’t be nothing to it.”
“Well, as for me, Tom, that’s the way I’d like.”
“Shucks!” he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:
“But I ain’t going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you
suits me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?”
“You’ll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook
that yaller girl’s frock.”
“Why, Tom, that ’ll make trouble next morning; because, of
course, she prob’bly hain’t got any but that one.”
“I know; but you don’t want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the
nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door.”
“All right, then, I’ll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my
own togs.”
“You wouldn’t look like a servant-girl then, would you?”
“No, but there won’t be nobody to see what I look like,
anyway.”
“That ain’t got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is
just to do our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us
do it or not. Hain’t you got no principle at all?”
“All right, I ain’t saying nothing; I’m the servant-girl. Who’s
Jim’s mother?”
“I’m his mother. I’ll hook a gown from Aunt Sally.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim
leaves.”
“Not much. I’ll stuff Jim’s clothes full of straw and lay it on his
bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim ’ll take the nigger
woman’s gown off of me and wear it, and we’ll all evade together.
When a prisoner of style escapes it’s called an evasion. It’s always
called so when a king escapes, f’rinstance. And the same with a
king’s son; it don’t make no difference whether he’s a natural one
or an unnatural one.”
So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the
yaller wench’s frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under

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the front door, the way Tom told me to. It said:

Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout. UNKNOWN
FRIEND.

Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a

skull and crossbones on the front door; and next night another one
of a coffin on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat.
They couldn’t a been worse scared if the place had a been full of
ghosts laying for them behind everything and under the beds and
shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped
and said “ouch!” if anything fell, she jumped and said “ouch!” if
you happened to touch her, when she warn’t noticing, she done the
same; she couldn’t face noway and be satisfied, because she
allowed there was something behind her every time—so she was
always a-whirling around sudden, and saying “ouch,” and before
she’d got two-thirds around she’d whirl back again, and say it
again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but she dasn’t set up. So the
thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he never see a
thing work more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right.
So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning
at the streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was
wondering what we better do with it, because we heard them say at
supper they was going to have a nigger on watch at both doors all
night. Tom he went down the lightning-rod to spy around; and the
nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back of
his neck and come back. This letter said:

Don’t betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a

desprate gang of cutthroats from over in the Indian
Territory going to steal your runaway nigger to-night,
and they have been trying to scare you so as you will
stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of
the gang, but have got religgion and wish to quit it
and lead an honest life again, and will betray the
helish design. They will sneak down from northards,
along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key,
and go in the nigger’s cabin to get him. I am to be off
a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger; but
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stead of that I will BA like a sheep soon as they get in

and not blow at all; then whilst they are getting his
chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can
kill them at your leasure. Don’t do anything but just
the way I am telling you, if you do they will
suspicion something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I
do not wish any reward but to know I have done the
right thing.

UNKNOWN FRIEND

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CHAPTER XL.

We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe

and went over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good
time, and took a look at the raft and found her all right, and got
home late to supper, and found them in such a sweat and worry
they didn’t know which end they was standing on, and made us go
right off to bed the minute we was done supper, and wouldn’t tell
us what the trouble was, and never let on a word about the new
letter, but didn’t need to, because we knowed as much about it as
anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and her back
was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good
lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about
half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally’s dress that he stole
and was going to start with the lunch, but says:
“Where’s the butter?”
“I laid out a hunk of it,” I says, “on a piece of a corn-pone.”
“Well, you left it laid out, then—it ain’t here.”
“We can get along without it,” I says.
“We can get along with it, too,” he says; “just you slide down
cellar and fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod
and come along. I’ll go and stuff the straw into Jim’s clothes to
represent his mother in disguise, and be ready to ba like a sheep
and shove soon as you get there.”
So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big
as a person’s fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of
corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs
very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes
Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and
clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and
she says:
“You been down cellar?”
“Yes’m.”
“What you been doing down there?”
“Noth’n.”
“Noth’n!”
“No’m.”
“Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of
night?”
“I don’t know ’m.”
“You don’t know? Don’t answer me that way. Tom, I want to
know what you been doing down there.”
“I hain’t been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to
gracious if I have.”
I reckoned she’d let me go now, and as a generl thing she
would; but I s’pose there was so many strange things going on she
was just in a sweat about every little thing that warn’t yard-stick
straight; so she says, very decided:

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“You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come.
You been up to something you no business to, and I lay I’ll find
out what it is before I’m done with you.”
So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the
setting-room. My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers,
and every one of them had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and
slunk to a chair and set down. They was setting around, some of
them talking a little, in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and
uneasy, but trying to look like they warn’t; but I knowed they was,
because they was always taking off their hats, and putting them on,
and scratching their heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling
with their buttons. I warn’t easy myself, but I didn’t take my hat
off, all the same.

I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and
lick me, if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how
we’d overdone this thing, and what a thundering hornet’s-nest
we’d got ourselves into, so we could stop fooling around straight
off, and clear out with Jim before these rips got out of patience and
come for us.
At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I couldn’t
answer them straight, I didn’t know which end of me was up;
because these men was in such a fidget now that some was
wanting to start right now and lay for them desperadoes, and
saying it warn’t but a few minutes to midnight; and others was
trying to get them to hold on and wait for the sheep-signal; and
here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me a-shaking
all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that scared; and
the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning to melt
and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty soon, when
one of them says, “I’m for going and getting in the cabin first and
right now, and catching them when they come,” I most dropped;
and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and
Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says:
“For the land’s sake, what is the matter with the child? He’s got
the brain-fever as shore as you’re born, and they’re oozing out!”
And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out
comes the bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed
me, and hugged me, and says:
“Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I
am it ain’t no worse; for luck’s against us, and it never rains but it
pours, and when I see that truck I thought we’d lost you, for I
knowed by the color and all it was just like your brains would be if
—Dear, dear, whyd’nt you tell me that was what you’d been down
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there for, I wouldn’t a cared. Now cler out to bed, and don’t lemme
see no more of you till morning!”
I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in
another one, and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I
couldn’t hardly get my words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom
as quick as I could we must jump for it now, and not a minute to
lose—the house full of men, yonder, with guns!
His eyes just blazed; and he says:
“No!—is that so? ain’t it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over
again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till—”
“Hurry! hurry!” I says. “Where’s Jim?”
“Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch
him. He’s dressed, and everything’s ready. Now we’ll slide out and
give the sheep-signal.”
But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and
heard them begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man
say:
“I told you we’d be too soon; they haven’t come—the door is
locked. Here, I’ll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for
’em in the dark and kill ’em when they come; and the rest scatter
around a piece, and listen if you can hear ’em coming.”
So in they come, but couldn’t see us in the dark, and most trod
on us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got
under all right, and out through the hole, swift but soft—Jim first,
me next, and Tom last, which was according to Tom’s orders. Now
we was in the lean-to, and heard trampings close by outside. So we
crept to the door, and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the
crack, but couldn’t make out nothing, it was so dark; and
whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get further, and
when he nudged us Jim must glide out first, and him last. So he set
his ear to the crack and listened, and listened, and listened, and the
steps a-scraping around out there all the time; and at last he
nudged us, and we slid out, and stooped down, not breathing, and
not making the least noise, and slipped stealthy towards the fence
in Injun file, and got to it all right, and me and Jim over it; but
Tom’s britches catched fast on a splinter on the top rail, and then
he hear the steps coming, so he had to pull loose, which snapped
the splinter and made a noise; and as he dropped in our tracks and
started somebody sings out:

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“Who’s that? Answer, or I’ll shoot!”

But we didn’t answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved.
Then there was a rush, and a bang, bang, bang! and the bullets
fairly whizzed around us! We heard them sing out:
“Here they are! They’ve broke for the river! After ’em, boys,
and turn loose the dogs!”
So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they
wore boots and yelled, but we didn’t wear no boots and didn’t yell.
We was in the path to the mill; and when they got pretty close on
to us we dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then
dropped in behind them. They’d had all the dogs shut up, so they
wouldn’t scare off the robbers; but by this time somebody had let
them loose, and here they come, making powwow enough for a
million; but they was our dogs; so we stopped in our tracks till
they catched up; and when they see it warn’t nobody but us, and
no excitement to offer them, they only just said howdy, and tore
right ahead towards the shouting and clattering; and then we up-
steam again, and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to
the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe
was tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle
of the river, but didn’t make no more noise than we was obleeged
to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island where
my raft was; and we could hear them yelling and barking at each
other all up and down the bank, till we was so far away the sounds
got dim and died out. And when we stepped on to the raft I says:
“Now, old Jim, you’re a free man again, and I bet you won’t
ever be a slave no more.”
“En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It ’uz planned
beautiful, en it ’uz done beautiful; en dey ain’t nobody kin git up a
plan dat’s mo’ mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz.”
We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all
because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.
When me and Jim heard that we didn’t feel so brash as what we
did before. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we
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laid him in the wigwam and tore up one of the duke’s shirts for to
bandage him, but he says:
“Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don’t stop now; don’t fool
around here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man
the sweeps, and set her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!—’deed
we did. I wish we’d a had the handling of Louis XVI., there
wouldn’t a been no ‘Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!’ wrote
down in his biography; no, sir, we’d a whooped him over the
border—that’s what we’d a done with him—and done it just as
slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps—man the sweeps!”
But me and Jim was consulting—and thinking. And after we’d
thought a minute, I says:
“Say it, Jim.”
So he says:
“Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz him dat
’uz bein’ sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say,
‘Go on en save me, nemmine ’bout a doctor f’r to save dis one?’ Is
dat like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he
wouldn’t! Well, den, is Jim gywne to say it? No, sah—I doan’
budge a step out’n dis place ’dout a doctor; not if it’s forty year!”

I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he’d say what he

did say—so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a
doctor. He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck
to it and wouldn’t budge; so he was for crawling out and setting
the raft loose himself; but we wouldn’t let him. Then he give us a
piece of his mind, but it didn’t do no good.
So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:
“Well, then, if you’re bound to go, I’ll tell you the way to do
when you get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor
tight and fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and
put a purse full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all
around the back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch
him here in the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands,

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and search him and take his chalk away from him, and don’t give
it back to him till you get him back to the village, or else he will
chalk this raft so he can find it again. It’s the way they all do.”
So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods
when he see the doctor coming till he was gone again.

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CHAPTER XLI.
The doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man
when I got him up. I told him me and my brother was over on
Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon, and camped on a
piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must a kicked his
gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot him in the leg, and we
wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it,
nor let anybody know, because we wanted to come home this
evening and surprise the folks.
“Who is your folks?” he says.
“The Phelpses, down yonder.”
“Oh,” he says. And after a minute, he says:
“How’d you say he got shot?”
“He had a dream,” I says, “and it shot him.”
“Singular dream,” he says.
So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started.
But when he sees the canoe he didn’t like the look of her—said
she was big enough for one, but didn’t look pretty safe for two. I
says:
“Oh, you needn’t be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy
enough.”
“What three?”
“Why, me and Sid, and—and—and the guns; that’s what I
mean.”
“Oh,” he says.
But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his
head, and said he reckoned he’d look around for a bigger one. But
they was all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for
me to wait till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or
maybe I better go down home and get them ready for the surprise
if I wanted to. But I said I didn’t; so I told him just how to find the
raft, and then he started.
I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos’n he can’t fix
that leg just in three shakes of a sheep’s tail, as the saying is?
spos’n it takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?—
lay around there till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know
what I’ll do. I’ll wait, and when he comes back if he says he’s got
to go any more I’ll get down there, too, if I swim; and we’ll take
and tie him, and keep him, and shove out down the river; and
when Tom’s done with him we’ll give him what it’s worth, or all
we got, and then let him get ashore.
So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next
time I waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot out and
went for the doctor’s house, but they told me he’d gone away in
the night some time or other, and warn’t back yet. Well, thinks I,
that looks powerful bad for Tom, and I’ll dig out for the island
right off. So away I shoved, and turned the corner, and nearly
rammed my head into Uncle Silas’s stomach! He says:

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“Why, Tom! Where you been all this time, you rascal?”

“I hain’t been nowheres,” I says, “only just hunting for the

runaway nigger—me and Sid.”
“Why, where ever did you go?” he says. “Your aunt’s been
mighty uneasy.”
“She needn’t,” I says, “because we was all right. We followed
the men and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we
thought we heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took
out after them and crossed over, but couldn’t find nothing of them;
so we cruised along up-shore till we got kind of tired and beat out;
and tied up the canoe and went to sleep, and never waked up till
about an hour ago; then we paddled over here to hear the news,
and Sid’s at the post-office to see what he can hear, and I’m a-
branching out to get something to eat for us, and then we’re going
home.”
So then we went to the post-office to get “Sid”; but just as I
suspicioned, he warn’t there; so the old man he got a letter out of
the office, and we waited awhile longer, but Sid didn’t come; so
the old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it,
when he got done fooling around—but we would ride. I couldn’t
get him to let me stay and wait for Sid; and he said there warn’t no
use in it, and I must come along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all
right.
When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she
laughed and cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them
lickings of hern that don’t amount to shucks, and said she’d serve
Sid the same when he come.
And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers’ wives, to
dinner; and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs.
Hotchkiss was the worst; her tongue was a-going all the time. She
says:
“Well, Sister Phelps, I’ve ransacked that-air cabin over, an’ I
b’lieve the nigger was crazy. I says to Sister Damrell—didn’t I,
Sister Damrell?—s’I, he’s crazy, s’I—them’s the very words I said.

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You all hearn me: he’s crazy, s’I; everything shows it, s’I. Look at
that-air grindstone, s’I; want to tell me’t any cretur ’t’s in his right
mind ’s a goin’ to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone,
s’I? Here sich ’n’ sich a person busted his heart; ’n’ here so ’n’ so
pegged along for thirty-seven year, ’n’ all that—natcherl son o’
Louis somebody, ’n’ sich everlast’n rubbage. He’s plumb crazy,
s’I; it’s what I says in the fust place, it’s what I says in the middle,
’n’ it’s what I says last ’n’ all the time—the nigger’s crazy—crazy
‘s Nebokoodneezer, s’I.”

“An’ look at that-air ladder made out’n rags, Sister Hotchkiss,”

says old Mrs. Damrell; “what in the name o’ goodness could he
ever want of—”
“The very words I was a-sayin’ no longer ago th’n this minute to
Sister Utterback, ’n’ she’ll tell you so herself. Sh-she, look at that-
air rag ladder, sh-she; ’n’ s’I, yes, look at it, s’I—what could he a-
wanted of it, s’I. Sh-she, Sister Hotchkiss, sh-she—”
“But how in the nation’d they ever git that grindstone in there,
anyway? ’n’ who dug that-air hole? ’n’ who—”
“My very words, Brer Penrod! I was a-sayin’—pass that-air
sasser o’ m’lasses, won’t ye?—I was a-sayin’ to Sister Dunlap, jist
this minute, how did they git that grindstone in there, s’I. Without
help, mind you—’thout help! Thar’s wher ’tis. Don’t tell me, s’I;
there wuz help, s’I; ’n’ ther’ wuz a plenty help, too, s’I; ther’s ben a
dozen a-helpin’ that nigger, ’n’ I lay I’d skin every last nigger on
this place but I’d find out who done it, s’I; ’n’ moreover, s’I—”
“A dozen says you!—forty couldn’t a done every thing that’s
been done. Look at them case-knife saws and things, how tedious
they’ve been made; look at that bed-leg sawed off with ’m, a
week’s work for six men; look at that nigger made out’n straw on
the bed; and look at—”
“You may well say it, Brer Hightower! It’s jist as I was a-sayin’
to Brer Phelps, his own self. S’e, what do you think of it, Sister
Hotchkiss, s’e? Think o’ what, Brer Phelps, s’I? Think o’ that bed-
leg sawed off that a way, s’e? think of it, s’I? I lay it never sawed
itself off, s’I—somebody sawed it, s’I; that’s my opinion, take it or
leave it, it mayn’t be no ’count, s’I, but sich as ’t is, it’s my
opinion, s’I, ’n’ if any body k’n start a better one, s’I, let him do it,
s’I, that’s all. I says to Sister Dunlap, s’I—”
“Why, dog my cats, they must a ben a house-full o’ niggers in
there every night for four weeks to a done all that work, Sister
Phelps. Look at that shirt—every last inch of it kivered over with
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secret African writ’n done with blood! Must a ben a raft uv ’m at it

right along, all the time, amost. Why, I’d give two dollars to have
it read to me; ’n’ as for the niggers that wrote it, I ’low I’d take ’n’
lash ’m t’ll—”
“People to help him, Brother Marples! Well, I reckon you’d
think so if you’d a been in this house for a while back. Why,
they’ve stole everything they could lay their hands on—and we a-
watching all the time, mind you. They stole that shirt right off o’
the line! and as for that sheet they made the rag ladder out of, ther’
ain’t no telling how many times they didn’t steal that; and flour,
and candles, and candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-
pan, and most a thousand things that I disremember now, and my
new calico dress; and me and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the
constant watch day and night, as I was a-telling you, and not a one
of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight nor sound of them; and
here at the last minute, lo and behold you, they slides right in
under our noses and fools us, and not only fools us but the Injun
Territory robbers too, and actuly gets away with that nigger safe
and sound, and that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs right on
their very heels at that very time! I tell you, it just bangs anything I
ever heard of. Why, sperits couldn’t a done better and been no
smarter. And I reckon they must a been sperits—because, you
know our dogs, and ther’ ain’t no better; well, them dogs never
even got on the track of ’m once! You explain that to me if you
can!—any of you!”
“Well, it does beat—”
“Laws alive, I never—”
“So help me, I wouldn’t a be—”
“House-thieves as well as—”
“Goodnessgracioussakes, I’d a ben afeard to live in sich a—”
“’Fraid to live!—why, I was that scared I dasn’t hardly go to
bed, or get up, or lay down, or set down, Sister Ridgeway. Why,
they’d steal the very—why, goodness sakes, you can guess what
kind of a fluster I was in by the time midnight come last night. I
hope to gracious if I warn’t afraid they’d steal some o’ the family!
I was just to that pass I didn’t have no reasoning faculties no more.
It looks foolish enough now, in the daytime; but I says to myself,
there’s my two poor boys asleep, ’way up stairs in that lonesome
room, and I declare to goodness I was that uneasy ’t I crep’ up
there and locked ’em in! I did. And anybody would. Because, you
know, when you get scared that way, and it keeps running on, and
getting worse and worse all the time, and your wits gets to addling,
and you get to doing all sorts o’ wild things, and by and by you
think to yourself, spos’n I was a boy, and was away up there, and
the door ain’t locked, and you—” She stopped, looking kind of
wondering, and then she turned her head around slow, and when
her eye lit on me—I got up and took a walk.
Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in
that room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a
little. So I done it. But I dasn’t go fur, or she’d a sent for me. And
when it was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in
and told her the noise and shooting waked up me and “Sid,” and
the door was locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went
down the lightning-rod, and both of us got hurt a little, and we
didn’t never want to try that no more. And then I went on and told
her all what I told Uncle Silas before; and then she said she’d
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forgive us, and maybe it was all right enough anyway, and about
what a body might expect of boys, for all boys was a pretty harum-
scarum lot as fur as she could see; and so, as long as no harm
hadn’t come of it, she judged she better put in her time being
grateful we was alive and well and she had us still, stead of fretting
over what was past and done. So then she kissed me, and patted
me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a brown study; and
pretty soon jumps up, and says:
“Why, lawsamercy, it’s most night, and Sid not come yet! What
has become of that boy?”
I see my chance; so I skips up and says:
“I’ll run right up to town and get him,” I says.
“No you won’t,” she says. “You’ll stay right wher’ you are;
one’s enough to be lost at a time. If he ain’t here to supper, your
uncle ’ll go.”
Well, he warn’t there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.
He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn’t run across
Tom’s track. Aunt Sally was a good deal uneasy; but Uncle Silas
he said there warn’t no occasion to be—boys will be boys, he said,
and you’ll see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right.
So she had to be satisfied. But she said she’d set up for him a
while anyway, and keep a light burning so he could see it.

And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and

fetched her candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I
felt mean, and like I couldn’t look her in the face; and she set
down on the bed and talked with me a long time, and said what a
splendid boy Sid was, and didn’t seem to want to ever stop talking
about him; and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned
he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe drownded, and might be
laying at this minute somewheres suffering or dead, and she not by
him to help him, and so the tears would drip down silent, and I
would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in the
morning, sure; and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me,
and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done
her good, and she was in so much trouble. And when she was

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going away she looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and
says:
“The door ain’t going to be locked, Tom, and there’s the
window and the rod; but you’ll be good, won’t you? And you
won’t go? For my sake.”
Laws knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom, and
was all intending to go; but after that I wouldn’t a went, not for
kingdoms.
But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept
very restless. And twice I went down the rod away in the night,
and slipped around front, and see her setting there by her candle in
the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them;
and I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn’t, only to
swear that I wouldn’t never do nothing to grieve her any more.
And the third time I waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was
there yet, and her candle was most out, and her old gray head was
resting on her hand, and she was asleep.

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CHAPTER XLII.
The old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn’t
get no track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and
not saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting
cold, and not eating anything. And by and by the old man says:
“Did I give you the letter?”
“What letter?”
“The one I got yesterday out of the post-office.”
“No, you didn’t give me no letter.”
“Well, I must a forgot it.”
So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres
where he had laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She
says:
“Why, it’s from St. Petersburg—it’s from Sis.”
I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn’t stir.
But before she could break it open she dropped it and run—for she
see something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and
that old doctor; and Jim, in her calico dress, with his hands tied
behind him; and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first
thing that come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom,
crying, and says:
“Oh, he’s dead, he’s dead, I know he’s dead!”
And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or
other, which showed he warn’t in his right mind; then she flung up
her hands, and says:
“He’s alive, thank God! And that’s enough!” and she snatched a
kiss of him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and
scattering orders right and left at the niggers and everybody else,
as fast as her tongue could go, every jump of the way.
I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim;
and the old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the
house. The men was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang
Jim for an example to all the other niggers around there, so they
wouldn’t be trying to run away like Jim done, and making such a
raft of trouble, and keeping a whole family scared most to death
for days and nights. But the others said, don’t do it, it wouldn’t
answer at all; he ain’t our nigger, and his owner would turn up and
make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled them down a little,
because the people that’s always the most anxious for to hang a
nigger that hain’t done just right is always the very ones that ain’t
the most anxious to pay for him when they’ve got their satisfaction
out of him.
They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or
two side the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and
he never let on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin,
and put his own clothes on him, and chained him again, and not to
no bed-leg this time, but to a big staple drove into the bottom log,
and chained his hands, too, and both legs, and said he warn’t to
have nothing but bread and water to eat after this till his owner
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come, or he was sold at auction because he didn’t come in a

certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and said a couple of
farmers with guns must stand watch around about the cabin every
night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime; and about this
time they was through with the job and was tapering off with a
kind of generl good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes
and takes a look, and says:
“Don’t be no rougher on him than you’re obleeged to, because
he ain’t a bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I
couldn’t cut the bullet out without some help, and he warn’t in no
condition for me to leave to go and get help; and he got a little
worse and a little worse, and after a long time he went out of his
head, and wouldn’t let me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I
chalked his raft he’d kill me, and no end of wild foolishness like
that, and I see I couldn’t do anything at all with him; so I says, I
got to have help somehow; and the minute I says it out crawls this
nigger from somewheres and says he’ll help, and he done it, too,
and done it very well. Of course I judged he must be a runaway
nigger, and there I was! and there I had to stick right straight along
all the rest of the day and all night. It was a fix, I tell you! I had a
couple of patients with the chills, and of course I’d of liked to run
up to town and see them, but I dasn’t, because the nigger might get
away, and then I’d be to blame; and yet never a skiff come close
enough for me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight
this morning; and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or
faithfuller, and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all
tired out, too, and I see plain enough he’d been worked main hard
lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger
like that is worth a thousand dollars—and kind treatment, too. I
had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he
would a done at home—better, maybe, because it was so quiet; but
there I was, with both of ’m on my hands, and there I had to stick
till about dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by,
and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet
with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned
them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and
tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had
no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we
muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very
nice and quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a
word from the start. He ain’t no bad nigger, gentlemen; that’s what
I think about him.”

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Somebody says:
“Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I’m obleeged to say.”
Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty
thankful to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was
glad it was according to my judgment of him, too; because I
thought he had a good heart in him and was a good man the first
time I see him. Then they all agreed that Jim had acted very well,
and was deserving to have some notice took of it, and reward. So
every one of them promised, right out and hearty, that they
wouldn’t cuss him no more.
Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going
to say he could have one or two of the chains took off, because
they was rotten heavy, or could have meat and greens with his
bread and water; but they didn’t think of it, and I reckoned it
warn’t best for me to mix in, but I judged I’d get the doctor’s yarn
to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soon as I’d got through the
breakers that was laying just ahead of me—explanations, I mean,
of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot when I was telling
how him and me put in that dratted night paddling around hunting
the runaway nigger.
But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all
day and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning
around I dodged him.
Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said
Aunt Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and
if I found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the
family that would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very
peaceful, too; and pale, not fire-faced the way he was when he
come. So I set down and laid for him to wake. In about half an
hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there I was, up a stump
again! She motioned me to be still, and set down by me, and begun
to whisper, and said we could all be joyful now, because all the
symptoms was first-rate, and he’d been sleeping like that for ever
so long, and looking better and peacefuller all the time, and ten to
one he’d wake up in his right mind.

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So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and

opened his eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says:
“Hello!—why, I’m at home! How’s that? Where’s the raft?”
“It’s all right,” I says.
“And Jim?”
“The same,” I says, but couldn’t say it pretty brash. But he
never noticed, but says:
“Good! Splendid! Now we’re all right and safe! Did you tell
Aunty?”
I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says: “About
what, Sid?”
“Why, about the way the whole thing was done.”
“What whole thing?”
“Why, the whole thing. There ain’t but one; how we set the
runaway nigger free—me and Tom.”
“Good land! Set the run—What is the child talking about! Dear,
dear, out of his head again!”
“No, I ain’t out of my HEAD; I know all what I’m talking about.
We did set him free—me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we
done it. And we done it elegant, too.” He’d got a start, and she
never checked him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him
clip along, and I see it warn’t no use for me to put in. “Why, Aunty,
it cost us a power of work—weeks of it—hours and hours, every
night, whilst you was all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and
the sheet, and the shirt, and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates,
and case-knives, and the warming-pan, and the grindstone, and
flour, and just no end of things, and you can’t think what work it
was to make the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or
another, and you can’t think half the fun it was. And we had to
make up the pictures of coffins and things, and nonnamous letters
from the robbers, and get up and down the lightning-rod, and dig
the hole into the cabin, and made the rope ladder and send it in
cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and things to work with in
your apron pocket—”
“Mercy sakes!”
“—and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for
company for Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the
butter in his hat that you come near spiling the whole business,
because the men come before we was out of the cabin, and we had
to rush, and they heard us and let drive at us, and I got my share,
and we dodged out of the path and let them go by, and when the
dogs come they warn’t interested in us, but went for the most
noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft, and was all
safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by ourselves, and
wasn’t it bully, Aunty!”
“Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was
you, you little rapscallions, that’s been making all this trouble, and
turned everybody’s wits clean inside out and scared us all most to
death. I’ve as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out
o’ you this very minute. To think, here I’ve been, night after night,
a—you just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I’ll tan the
Old Harry out o’ both o’ ye!”
But Tom, he was so proud and joyful, he just couldn’t hold in,
and his tongue just went it—she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all

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along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and
she says:
“Well, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it now, for mind
I tell you if I catch you meddling with him again—”
“Meddling with who?” Tom says, dropping his smile and
looking surprised.
“With who? Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who’d you
reckon?”
Tom looks at me very grave, and says:
“Tom, didn’t you just tell me he was all right? Hasn’t he got
away?”
“Him?” says Aunt Sally; “the runaway nigger? ’Deed he hasn’t.
They’ve got him back, safe and sound, and he’s in that cabin
again, on bread and water, and loaded down with chains, till he’s
claimed or sold!”

Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils
opening and shutting like gills, and sings out to me:
“They hain’t no right to shut him up! Shove!—and don’t you
lose a minute. Turn him loose! he ain’t no slave; he’s as free as any
cretur that walks this earth!”
“What does the child mean?”
“I mean every word I say, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don’t go,
I’ll go. I’ve knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old
Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever
was going to sell him down the river, and said so; and she set him
free in her will.”
“Then what on earth did you want to set him free for, seeing he
was already free?”
“Well, that is a question, I must say; and just like women! Why,
I wanted the adventure of it; and I’d a waded neck-deep in blood
to—goodness alive, AUNT POLLY!”
If she warn’t standing right there, just inside the door, looking as
sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may
never!

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Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her,
and cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under
the bed, for it was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me. And I
peeped out, and in a little while Tom’s Aunt Polly shook herself
loose and stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles—
kind of grinding him into the earth, you know. And then she says:
“Yes, you better turn y’r head away—I would if I was you,
Tom.”
“Oh, deary me!” says Aunt Sally; “is he changed so? Why, that
ain’t Tom, it’s Sid; Tom’s—Tom’s—why, where is Tom? He was
here a minute ago.”
“You mean where’s Huck Finn—that’s what you mean! I reckon
I hain’t raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know
him when I see him. That would be a pretty howdy-do. Come out
from under that bed, Huck Finn.”
So I done it. But not feeling brash.
Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I
ever see—except one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in
and they told it all to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may
say, and he didn’t know nothing at all the rest of the day, and
preached a prayer-meeting sermon that night that gave him a
rattling ruputation, because the oldest man in the world couldn’t a
understood it. So Tom’s Aunt Polly, she told all about who I was,
and what; and I had to up and tell how I was in such a tight place
that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom Sawyer—she chipped in
and says, “Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally, I’m used to it now,
and ’tain’t no need to change”—that when Aunt Sally took me for
Tom Sawyer I had to stand it—there warn’t no other way, and I
knowed he wouldn’t mind, because it would be nuts for him, being
a mystery, and he’d make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly
satisfied. And so it turned out, and he let on to be Sid, and made
things as soft as he could for me.
And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss
Watson setting Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom
Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and bother to set a free
nigger free! and I couldn’t ever understand before, until that
minute and that talk, how he could help a body set a nigger free
with his bringing-up.
Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that
Tom and Sid had come all right and safe, she says to herself:
“Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off
that way without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and
trapse all the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find
out what that creetur’s up to this time; as long as I couldn’t seem
to get any answer out of you about it.”
“Why, I never heard nothing from you,” says Aunt Sally.
“Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you
could mean by Sid being here.”
“Well, I never got ’em, Sis.”
Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:
“You, Tom!”
“Well—what?” he says, kind of pettish.
“Don’t you what me, you impudent thing—hand out them
letters.”

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“What letters?”
“Them letters. I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I’ll—”
“They’re in the trunk. There, now. And they’re just the same as
they was when I got them out of the office. I hain’t looked into
them, I hain’t touched them. But I knowed they’d make trouble,
and I thought if you warn’t in no hurry, I’d—”
“Well, you do need skinning, there ain’t no mistake about it.
And I wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s’pose he
—”
“No, it come yesterday; I hain’t read it yet, but it’s all right, I’ve
got that one.”
I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn’t, but I reckoned
maybe it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.

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CHAPTER THE LAST

The first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his
idea, time of the evasion?—what it was he’d planned to do if the
evasion worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that
was already free before? And he said, what he had planned in his
head from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run
him down the river on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the
mouth of the river, and then tell him about his being free, and take
him back up home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his
lost time, and write word ahead and get out all the niggers around,
and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight procession
and a brass-band, and then he would be a hero, and so would we.
But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was.
We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly
and Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the
doctor nurse Tom, they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed
him up prime, and give him all he wanted to eat, and a good time,
and nothing to do. And we had him up to the sick-room, and had a
high talk; and Tom give Jim forty dollars for being prisoner for us
so patient, and doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased most to
death, and busted out, and says:

“Dah, now, Huck, what I tell you?—what I tell you up dah on

Jackson islan’? I tole you I got a hairy breas’, en what’s de sign un
it; en I tole you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich agin; en
it’s come true; en heah she is! Dah, now! doan’ talk to me—signs
is signs, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis’ ’s well ’at I ’uz gwineter
be rich agin as I’s a-stannin’ heah dis minute!”

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And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le’s
all three slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and
go for howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the
Territory, for a couple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that
suits me, but I ain’t got no money for to buy the outfit, and I
reckon I couldn’t get none from home, because it’s likely pap’s
been back before now, and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and
drunk it up.
“No, he hain’t,” Tom says; “it’s all there yet—six thousand
dollars and more; and your pap hain’t ever been back since. Hadn’t
when I come away, anyhow.”
Jim says, kind of solemn:
“He ain’t a-comin’ back no mo’, Huck.”
I says:
“Why, Jim?”
“Nemmine why, Huck—but he ain’t comin’ back no mo.”
But I kept at him; so at last he says:
“Doan’ you ’member de house dat was float’n down de river, en
dey wuz a man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him
and didn’ let you come in? Well, den, you kin git yo’ money when
you wants it, kase dat wuz him.”
Tom’s most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a
watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and
so there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of
it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I
wouldn’t a tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more. But I reckon I
got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt
Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I
been there before.
THE END. YOURS TRULY, HUCK FINN.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN ***

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