HUCK_FIN.

1885
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
by Mark Twain

NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be
prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

By Order of the Author
Per G. G., Chief Ordnance

EXPLANATORY

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri
negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western
dialect; the ordinary "Pike-County" dialect; and four modified
varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a
hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work; 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

CHAPTER ONE

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 wasn't really
anything the matter with them. That is, nothing only everything was
cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things
get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go
better.
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
Bulrushers; and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but
by-and-by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable
long time; so then I didn't care no more about him; because I don't
take no stock in dead people.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But
she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and
I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some
people. They get down on the thing when they don't know nothing
about it. Here she was a bothering about Moses, which was no kin to
her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power
of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she
took snuff too; of course that was all right, because she done it
herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on,
had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now, with a
spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then
the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then
for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would
say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry"; and "don't scrunch
up like that, Huckleberry- set up straight"; and pretty soon she would
say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry- why don't you
try to behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I
wished I was there. She got mad, then, but I didn't mean no harm.
All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't
particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she
wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go
to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where
she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never
said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the
good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go
around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I
didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she
reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and, she said, not by a
considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me
to be together.
Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and
lonesome. By-and-by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and
then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of
candle and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the
window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use.
I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars was 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 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 horse-shoe that you've found, instead of nailing it
up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way
to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.
I set down again, a shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a
smoke; for the house was all as still as death, now, and so the
widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away
off in the town go boom- boom- boom-twelve licks- and all still again-
stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap, down in the dark
amongst the trees- something was a stirring. I set still and listened.
Directly I could just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That
was good! Says I, "me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put
out the light and scrambled out of the window onto the shed. Then I
slipped down to the ground and crawled in amongst the trees, and
sure enough there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
CHAPTER TWO

We went tip-toeing 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 tip-toeing 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 of 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? What is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.
Well, I knows what I's gwyne to do. I's gwyne to set down here and
listen tell I hears it agin."
So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his
back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them
most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the
tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch
on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I
was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or
seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching
in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it
more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to
try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore- and
then I was pretty soon comfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me- kind of a little noise with his mouth- and
we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot
off, Tom whispered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun;
but I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd
find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough,
and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want
him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to
resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid
five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat
to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim
was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited,
and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden
fence, and by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other
side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and
hung it on the 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 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 around 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 so 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 hill-top, we looked
away down into the village and could see three or four lights
twinkling, where there was sick folks, may be; and the stars over us
was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a
whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and
found Jo Harper, and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys,
hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the
river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went
ashore.
We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep
the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the
thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles and crawled in on
our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the
cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages and pretty soon
ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a
hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all
damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:
"Now we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his
name in blood."
Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the
band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done
anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill
that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he
mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their
breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong
to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if
he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to
the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then
have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and
his name blotted off the list with blood and never mentioned again
by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot, forever.
Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he
got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was
out of pirate books, and robber books, and every gang that was
high-toned had it.
Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told
the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and
wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family- what you going to do
'bout him?"
"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him, these days.
He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't
been seen in these parts for a year or more."
They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think
of anything to do- everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most
ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered
them Miss Watson- they could kill her. Everybody said:
"Oh, she'll do, 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 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- that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do
you want to do things regular, or don't you?- that's the idea. Don't
you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the
correct thing to do? Do you reckon you can learn 'em anything? Not
by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the
regular way."
"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say- do
we kill the women, too?"
"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on.
Kill the women? No- nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.
You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to
them; and by-and-by they fall in love with you and never want to go
home any more."
"Well, if that's the way, I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in
it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and
fellows waiting to be ransomed, that they won't be no place for the
robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."
Little Tommy Barnes was asleep, now, and when they waked him up he
was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and
didn't want to be a robber any more.
So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that
made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the
secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we
would all go home and meet next week and rob somebody and kill some
people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he
wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be
wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed
to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we
elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the
Gang, and so started home.
I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
dog-tired.
CHAPTER THREE

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 snuff-box 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 agoing 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 drowned, about
twelve miles above town, so people said. They judged it was him,
anyway; said this drowned man was just his size, and was ragged, and
had uncommon long hair- which was all like pap- but they couldn't make
nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it
warn't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his
back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I
warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I
knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on
his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed
up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the
old man would turn up again by-and-by, though I wished he wouldn't.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned.
All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, we hadn't killed any
people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and
go charging down on hog-drovers 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 pow-wow 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 Arabs 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 broom-sticks, 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 Arabs, and there warn't no camels nor no
elephants. It warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a
primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up
the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam,
though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and
a tract; and then the teacher charged in and made us drop everything
and cut. I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said
there was loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was Arabs
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, allright, then the thing for
us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a
numskull.
"Why," says 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 flatheads 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 sap-head."
I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an
iron ring and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat
like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it
warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that
stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed
in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It
had all the marks of a Sunday school.
CHAPTER FOUR

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 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 better let me invest it
along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."
"No sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all-
nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it
to you- the six thousand and all."
He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:
"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please.
You'll take it- won't you?" He says:
"Well I'm puzzled. I's something the matter?"
"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing- then I won't
have to tell no lies."
He studied a while, and then he says:
"Oho-o. I think I see. You want to sell all your property to me- not
give it. That's the correct idea."
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
"There- you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have
bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now,
you sign it."
So I signed it, and left. Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball
as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach
of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a
spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that
night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the
snow. What I wanted to know, was, what he was going to do, and was
he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball, and said something over
it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty
solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then
another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees
and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use; he said
it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money.
I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no
good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it
wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was
so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I
reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the
judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball
would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim
smelt it, and bit it, and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the
hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw
Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all
night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't
feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute,
let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that, 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 'tother 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 'tother one is dark. One is rich en
'tother 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 set
pap, his own self!
CHAPTER FIVE

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 bothering 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 'tother 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
considerble many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg
before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say; can read
and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you,
because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might
meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?- who told you you could?"
"The widow. She told me."
"The widow, hey?- and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
about a thing that ain't none of her business?"
"Nobody never told her."
"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here- you drop that
school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs
over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme
catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother
couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None
of the family couldn't, before they died. I can't; and here you're
a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it- you
hear? Say- lemme hear you read."
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and
the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a
whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for
you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you
good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a
son."
He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a
boy, and says:
"What's this?"
"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."
He tore it up, and says-
"I'll give you something better- I'll give you a cowhide."
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says-
"Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and
a look'n-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor- and your own
father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a
son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done
with you. Why there ain't no end to your airs- they say you're rich.
Hey?- how's that?"
"They lie- that's how."
"Looky here- mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can
stand, now- so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and
I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away
down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money
to-morrow- I want it."
"I hain't got no money."
"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."
"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll
tell you the same."
"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll
know the reason why. Say- how much you got in your pocket? I want it."
"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to-"
"It don't make no difference what you want it for- you just shell it
out."
He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all
day. When he had got out on the shed, he put his head in again, and
cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him;
and when I reckoned he was gone, he come back and put his head in
again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going
to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that.
Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and
bullyragged him and tried to make him give up the money, but he
couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him.
The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away
from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge
that had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said
courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help
it; said he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So
Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.
That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide
me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I
borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
drunk and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and
carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till
most midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him
before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was
satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him.
When he got out the new judge said he was agoing 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 agoing 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 ahold of it; shake it.
There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more;
it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and 'll die
before he'll go back. You mark them words- don't forget I said them.
It's a clean hand now; shake it- don't be afeard."
So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The
judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge-
made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or
something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful
room, which was the spare room, and in the night sometime he got
powerful thirsty and clumb out onto 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 ole man with a shot-gun, maybe, but he didn't know no other
way.
CHAPTER SIX

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 miles, in a
skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and
there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the
timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it
was.
He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run
off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put
the key under his head, nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I
reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every
little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three
miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky and fetched
it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow
she found out where I was, by-and-by, and she sent a man over to try
to get hold of me, but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't
long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it,
all but the cowhide part.
It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day,
smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run
along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see
how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to
wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up
regular, and be forever bothering over a book and have old Miss Watson
pecking at you all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had
stopped cussing, because the widow didn't like it; but now I took to
it again because pap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up
in the woods there take it all around.
But by-and-by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't
stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and
locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was
dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drowned 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
enought 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 came in.
Pap warn't in a good humor- so he was his natural self. He said he
was down to town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he
reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money, if they ever
got started on the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long
time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people
allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me
to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win, this
time. This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want to go
back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as
they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything
and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again
to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off
with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable
parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called them
what's-his-name, when he got to them, and went right along with his
cussing.
He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would
watch out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of
a place six or seven mile off, to stow me in, where they might hunt
till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty
uneasy again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on
hand till he got that chance.
The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got.
There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,
ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two
newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and
went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it
all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines,
and take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in
one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night
times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that
the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I
would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I
reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I
was staying, till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was
asleep or drownded.
I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark.
While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort
of warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in
town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.
A body would a thought he was Adam, he was just all mud. Whenever
his liquor begun to work, he most always went for the govment. This
time he says:
"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like.
Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him- a
man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety
and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son
raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for
him and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call
that govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge
Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what
the law does. The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and
upards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets
him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that
govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this.
Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good
and all. Yes, and I told 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face.
Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two
cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come anear 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 ahold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted 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 'tother. He drank, and drank,
and tumbled down on his blankets, by-and-by; but luck didn't run my
way. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned, and
moaned, and thrashed around this way and that, for a long time. At
last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open, all I could do, and
so before I knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle
burning.
I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an
awful scream and I was up. There was pap, looking wild and skipping
around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was
crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and
say one had bit him on the cheek- but I couldn't see no snakes. He
started and run round and round the cabin, hollering "take him off!
take him off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so
wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down
panting; then he rolled over and over, wonderful fast, kicking
things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with
his hands, and screaming, and saying there was devils ahold of him. He
wore out, by-and-by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid
stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the
wolves, away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was
laying over by the corner. By-and-by he raised up, part way, and
listened, with his head to one side. He says very low:
"Tramp- tramp- tramp; that's the dead; tramp- tramp- tramp;
they're coming after me; but I won't go- Oh, they're here! don't touch
me- don't! hands off- they're cold; let go- Oh, let a poor devil
alone!"
Then he went down on all fours and crawled off begging them to let
him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in
under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying.
I could hear him through the blanket.
By-and-by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild,
and he see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place,
with a clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death and saying he
would kill me and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged,
and told him I was only Huck, but he laughed such a screechy laugh,
and roared and cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned
short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket
between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of
the jacket quick as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was
all tired out, and dropped down with his back against the door, and
said he would rest a minute and then kill me. He put his knife under
him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who
was who.
So he dozed off, pretty soon. By-and-by I got the old splitbottom
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,
and then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and
set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the
time did drag along.
CHAPTER SEVEN

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
cord-wood 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 'tother one
out for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once, here comes
a canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long,
riding high like a duck. I shot head first off of the bank, like a
frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just
expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often
done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most
to it they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. It
was a drift-canoe, sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore.
Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this- she's worth
ten dollars. But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I
was running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with
vines and willows, I struck another idea; I judged I'd hide her
good, and then, stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go
down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and
not have such a rough time tramping on foot.
It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man
coming, all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked
around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a
piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen
anything.
When he got along, I was hard at it taking up a "trot" line. He
abused me a little for being so slow, but I told him I fell in the
river and that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was
wet, and then he would be asking questions. We got five cat-fish off
of 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 side of the river
I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the
water away off yonder.
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid,
and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the
same with the side of bacon; then the whisky jug; I took all the
coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the
wadding; I took the bucket and gourd, I took a dipper and a tin cup,
and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I
took fish-lines and matches and other things- everything that was
worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there
wasn't any, only the one out at the wood pile, 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 in
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 ever 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 bloodied the axe
good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the
corner. Then I took the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket
(so he couldn't drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then
dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I
went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe and
fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand,
and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't
no knives and forks on the place- pap done everything with his
clasp-knife, about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a
hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the
house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes-
and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a slough or a
creek leading out of it on the other side, that went miles away, I
don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted out
and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap's
whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by
accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it
wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.
It was about dark, now; so I dropped the canoe down the river
under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to
rise. I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and
by-and-by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I
says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to
the shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal
track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of
it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They
won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll
soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me. All
right; I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good
enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes
there. And then I can paddle over to town, nights, and slink around
and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place.
I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed, I was asleep. When
I woke up I didn't know where I was, for a minute. I set up and looked
around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and
miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift
logs that went a slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards
out from shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and
smelt late. You know what I mean- I don't know the words to put it in.
I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and
start, when I heard a sound away over the water. 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. Thinks I,
maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me,
with the current, and by-and-by he come 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 to 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 soon I would be passing the ferry landing
and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the
drift-wood and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her
float. I laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe,
looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so
deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed
it before. And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I
heard people talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said,
too, every word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long
days and the short nights, now. 'Tother 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 tune. 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 dead water
and landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe
into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the
willow branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen
the canoe from the outside.
I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island and looked
out on the big river and the black driftwood, and away over to the
town, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.
A monstrous big lumber raft was about a mile up stream, coming along
down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping
down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say,
"Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as
plain as if the man was by my side.
There was a little gray in the sky, now; so I stepped into the woods
and laid down for a nap before breakfast.
CHAPTER EIGHT

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 think I hears a
deep sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up and rests my
elbow and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up and
went and looked out 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
ferry-boat's side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water,
trying to make my carcass come to the top.
I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a
fire, because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the
cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide,
there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning- so I was having
a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders, if I only had a
bite to eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put
quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off because they
always go right to the drownded carcass and stop there. So says I,
I'll keep a lookout, and if any of them's floating around after me,
I'll give them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to
see what luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed. A big double
loaf come along, and I most got it, with a long stick, but my foot
slipped and she floated out further. Of course I was where the current
set in the closest to the shore- I knowed enough for that. But
by-and-by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the
plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in.
It was "baker's bread"- what the quality eat- none of your low-down
corn-pone.
I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log,
munching the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well
satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the
widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find
me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain't no doubt but
there is something in that thing. That is, there's something in it
when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work
for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind.
I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke and went on watching. The
ferry-boat 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 of the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped
over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town.
I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after
me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the
thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my
things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a cat-fish
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
satisfied; but by-and-by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and
set on the bank and listened to the currents washing 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 tip-toes
as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second,
amongst the thick leaves, and listened; but my breath come so hard I
couldn't hear nothing else. I slunk along another piece further,
then listened again; and so on, and so on; if I see a stump, I took it
for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a
person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the
short half, too.
When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much
sand in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling
around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them
out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to
look like an old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree.
I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I
didn't hear nothing- I only thought I heard and seen as much as a
thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last
I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the
time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from
breakfast.
By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good
and dark, I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to
the Illinois bank- about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the
woods and cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would
stay there all night, when I hear a plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk,
and says to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people's voices.
I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went
creeping through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn't
got far when I hear a man say:
"We better camp here, if we can find a good place; the horses is
about beat out. Let's look around."
I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in
the old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.
I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every
time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep
didn't do me no good. By-and-by I says to myself, I can't live this
way; I'm agoing 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 onto 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 set 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 tree-tops, and knowed the day was coming. So I
took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp
fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck,
somehow; I couldn't seem to find the place. But by-and-by, sure
enough, I catched a glimpse of fire, away through the trees. I went
for it, cautious and slow. By-and-by I was close enough to have a
look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the
fan-tods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in
the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes, in about six foot of
him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight,
now. Pretty soon he gapped, and stretched himself, and hove off the
blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him.
I says:
"Hello, Jim!" and skipped out.
He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his
knees, and puts his hands together and says:
"Doan' hurt me- don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I
awluz 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."
"Yes- indeedy."
"What, all that time?"
"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 reckon 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 cat-fish, too, and Jim
cleaned him with his knife, and fried him.
When breakfast was ready, we lolled on the grass and eat it
smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most
about starved. Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off
and lazied.
By-and-by Jim says:
"But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty, ef
it warn't you?"
Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said
Tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I
says:
"How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?"
He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then
he says:
"Maybe I better not tell."
"Why, Jim?"
"Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I 'uz to tell
you, would you, Huck?"
"Blamed if I would, Jim."
"Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I- I run off."
"But mind, you said you wouldn't tell- you know you said you
wouldn't 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
agoing to tell, and I ain't agoing 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 ole 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 of 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 skit 'long de
sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirrin' 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 skit 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 agoin' 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 shavins all day. I 'uz hungry, but I warn't
afeared; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to
de camp meetn' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey
knows I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to
see me roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de
evenin'. De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en
take holiday, soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way.
"Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went
'bout two mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my
mine 'bout what I's agwyne to do. You see ef I kep' on tryin' to git
away afoot, de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over,
dey'd miss dat skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de
yuther side en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I's
arter; it doan' make no track.
"I see a light a-comin'roun'de p'int, bymeby, so I wade' in en
shove' a log ahead o' me, en swum more'n half-way acrost de river,
en got in 'mongst de drift-wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder
swum agin de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern
uv it, en tuck aholt. 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 arisin' 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 Illinoi 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' anywheres, but I couldn't- bank too
bluff. I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I foun' 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 musn'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 bee-hive,
and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next
morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die.
Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that,
because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting
me.
I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of
them. Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most
everything. I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad
luck, and so I asked him if there warn't any goodluck signs. He says:
"Mighty few- an' dey ain' 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 be rich bymeby."
"Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?"
"What's de use to ax dat question? don' 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't 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'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 dat 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'have much. I wuz de on'y one dat had much. So
I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd
start a bank mysef. Well o' course dat nigger want' keep me out er
de business, bekase he say 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 chuckle-heads, 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 get 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 hundred dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'."
CHAPTER NINE

I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the
island, that I'd found when I was exploring; so we started, and soon
got to it, because the island was only three miles long and a
quarter of a mile wide.
This place was a tolerable long steep hill or ridge, about forty
foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so
steep and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over
it, and by-and-by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to
the top on the side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two
or three rooms bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in
it. It was cool in there. Jim was for putting our traps in there,
right away, but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there
all the time.
Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the
traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the
island, and they would never find us without dogs. And besides, he
said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want
the things to get wet?
So we went back and got the canoe and paddled up abreast the cavern,
and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close
by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some
fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for
dinner.
The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and
on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit and was
flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and
cooked dinner.
We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in
there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern.
Pretty soon it darkened up and begun to thunder and lighten; so the
birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained
like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of
these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all
blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by
so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby;
and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and
turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of
a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms
as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the
bluest and blackest- fst! it was as bright as glory and you'd have a
little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about, away off yonder in the
storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as
sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an
awful crash and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky
towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down
stairs, where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.
"Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but
here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."
"Well, you wouldn't a ben here, 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd
a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded,
too, dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain,
en so do de birds, chile."
The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till
at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep
on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that
side it was a good many miles wide; but on the Missouri side it was
the same old distance across- a half a mile- because the Missouri
shore was just a wall of high bluffs.
Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was
mighty cool and shady in the deep woods even if the sun was blazing
outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees; and sometimes
the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way.
Well, on every old broken-down tree, you could see rabbits, and
snakes, and such things; and when the island had been overflowed a day
or two, they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could
paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not
the snakes and turtles- they would slide off in the water. The ridge
our cavern was in, was full of them. We could a had pets enough if
we'd wanted them.
One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft- nice pine
planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot
long, and the top stood above water six or seven inches, a solid level
floor. We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight, sometimes, but
we let them go; we didn't show ourselves in daylight.
Another night, when we was up at the head of the island, just before
daylight, here comes a frame house down, on the west side. She was a
two-story, and tilted over, considerable. We paddled out and got
aboard- clumb in at an up-stairs window. But it was too dark to see
yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.
The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island.
Then we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table,
and two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor;
and there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something
laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim
says:
"Hello, you!"
But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:
"De man ain't asleep- he's dead. You hold still- I'll go en see."
He went and bent down and looked, and says:
"It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's 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 under-clothes, 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 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 bed-quilt 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 fish-line as thick as my
little finger, with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of
buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, and a horse-shoe, and some vials
of medicine that didn't have no label on them; and just as we was
leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found a
ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of
it, but barring that, it was a good enough leg, though it was too long
for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the other
one, though we hunted all around.
And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready
to shove off, we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it
was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up
with the quilt, because if he set up, people could tell he was a
nigger a good ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and
drifted down most a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water
under the bank, and hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody. We
got home all safe.
CHAPTER TEN

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
varmit curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a
second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky jug and begun to
pour it down.
He was barefooted, and the snake bit him 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 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 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 aholt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what
had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time.
And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that
maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the
new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than
take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way
myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon
over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest
things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged
about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of
the shot tower and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of
a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn
doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see
it. Pap told me. But anyway, it all come of looking at the moon that
way, like a fool.
Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks
again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big
hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a cat-fish 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 trowser-legs to my knees and got
into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair
fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a
body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of
stove-pipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime,
hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things,
and by-and-by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't
walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at
my britches pocket. I took notice, and done better.
I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.
I started across to the town from a little below the ferry
landing, and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of
the town. I tied up and started along the bank. There was a light
burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long
time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there. I slipped up
and peeped in at the window. There was a woman about forty year old in
there, knitting by a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know
her face; she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that
town that I didn't know. Now this was lucky, because I was
weakening; I was getting afraid I had come; people might know my voice
and find me out. But if this woman had been in such a little town
two days she could tell me all I wanted to know; so I knocked at the
door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

"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 mile
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
afeard 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 this town;
but by-and-by she dropped onto 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 thinks 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.
"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 ferry-boat 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 give 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 into 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
round every day for people to pick up? Some folks thinks 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 my 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."
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 afeard 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."
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 she 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, but 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 any 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
mustn'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 day-times and slept, and
the bag of bread and meat I carried from home 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 day-break 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 day-light."
"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 most 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-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 'tother way. And when you throw at a rat
or anything, hitch yourself up a tip-toe, and fetch your hand up
over your head as awkard as you can, and miss your rat about six or
seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a
pivot t