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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete
+by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete
+
+Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #76]
+Last Updated: February 23, 2018
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN ***
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES
+
+OF
+
+HUCKLEBERRY FINN
+
+(Tom Sawyer's Comrade)
+
+By Mark Twain
+
+Complete
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I. Civilizing Huck.--Miss Watson.--Tom Sawyer Waits.
+
+CHAPTER II. The Boys Escape Jim.--Torn Sawyer's Gang.--Deep-laid Plans.
+
+CHAPTER III. A Good Going-over.--Grace Triumphant.--“One of Tom Sawyers's
+Lies”.
+
+CHAPTER IV. Huck and the Judge.--Superstition.
+
+CHAPTER V. Huck's Father.--The Fond Parent.--Reform.
+
+CHAPTER VI. He Went for Judge Thatcher.--Huck Decided to Leave.--Political
+Economy.--Thrashing Around.
+
+CHAPTER VII. Laying for Him.--Locked in the Cabin.--Sinking the
+Body.--Resting.
+
+CHAPTER VIII. Sleeping in the Woods.--Raising the Dead.--Exploring the
+Island.--Finding Jim.--Jim's Escape.--Signs.--Balum.
+
+CHAPTER IX. The Cave.--The Floating House.
+
+CHAPTER X. The Find.--Old Hank Bunker.--In Disguise.
+
+CHAPTER XI. Huck and the Woman.--The Search.--Prevarication.--Going to
+Goshen.
+
+CHAPTER XII. Slow Navigation.--Borrowing Things.--Boarding the Wreck.--The
+Plotters.--Hunting for the Boat.
+
+CHAPTER XIII. Escaping from the Wreck.--The Watchman.--Sinking.
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A General Good Time.--The Harem.--French.
+
+CHAPTER XV. Huck Loses the Raft.--In the Fog.--Huck Finds the Raft.--Trash.
+
+CHAPTER XVI. Expectation.--A White Lie.--Floating Currency.--Running by
+Cairo.--Swimming Ashore.
+
+CHAPTER XVII. An Evening Call.--The Farm in Arkansaw.--Interior
+Decorations.--Stephen Dowling Bots.--Poetical Effusions.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. Col. Grangerford.--Aristocracy.--Feuds.--The
+Testament.--Recovering the Raft.--The Wood--pile.--Pork and Cabbage.
+
+CHAPTER XIX. Tying Up Day--times.--An Astronomical Theory.--Running a
+Temperance Revival.--The Duke of Bridgewater.--The Troubles of Royalty.
+
+CHAPTER XX. Huck Explains.--Laying Out a Campaign.--Working the
+Camp--meeting.--A Pirate at the Camp--meeting.--The Duke as a Printer.
+
+CHAPTER XXI. Sword Exercise.--Hamlet's Soliloquy.--They Loafed Around
+Town.--A Lazy Town.--Old Boggs.--Dead.
+
+CHAPTER XXII. Sherburn.--Attending the Circus.--Intoxication in the
+Ring.--The Thrilling Tragedy.
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. Sold.--Royal Comparisons.--Jim Gets Home-sick.
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. Jim in Royal Robes.--They Take a Passenger.--Getting
+Information.--Family Grief.
+
+CHAPTER XXV. Is It Them?--Singing the “Doxologer.”--Awful Square--Funeral
+Orgies.--A Bad Investment .
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. A Pious King.--The King's Clergy.--She Asked His
+Pardon.--Hiding in the Room.--Huck Takes the Money.
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. The Funeral.--Satisfying Curiosity.--Suspicious of
+Huck,--Quick Sales and Small.
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. The Trip to England.--“The Brute!”--Mary Jane Decides to
+Leave.--Huck Parting with Mary Jane.--Mumps.--The Opposition Line.
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. Contested Relationship.--The King Explains the Loss.--A
+Question of Handwriting.--Digging up the Corpse.--Huck Escapes.
+
+CHAPTER XXX. The King Went for Him.--A Royal Row.--Powerful Mellow.
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. Ominous Plans.--News from Jim.--Old Recollections.--A Sheep
+Story.--Valuable Information.
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. Still and Sunday--like.--Mistaken Identity.--Up a Stump.--In
+a Dilemma.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. A Nigger Stealer.--Southern Hospitality.--A Pretty Long
+Blessing.--Tar and Feathers.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. The Hut by the Ash Hopper.--Outrageous.--Climbing the
+Lightning Rod.--Troubled with Witches.
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. Escaping Properly.--Dark Schemes.--Discrimination in
+Stealing.--A Deep Hole.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. The Lightning Rod.--His Level Best.--A Bequest to
+Posterity.--A High Figure.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last Shirt.--Mooning Around.--Sailing Orders.--The
+Witch Pie.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Coat of Arms.--A Skilled Superintendent.--Unpleasant
+Glory.--A Tearful Subject.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. Rats.--Lively Bed--fellows.--The Straw Dummy.
+
+CHAPTER XL. Fishing.--The Vigilance Committee.--A Lively Run.--Jim Advises
+a Doctor.
+
+CHAPTER XLI. The Doctor.--Uncle Silas.--Sister Hotchkiss.--Aunt Sally in
+Trouble.
+
+CHAPTER XLII. Tom Sawyer Wounded.--The Doctor's Story.--Tom
+Confesses.--Aunt Polly Arrives.--Hand Out Them Letters    .
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST. Out of Bondage.--Paying the Captive.--Yours Truly, Huck
+Finn.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+The Widows
+
+Moses and the “Bulrushers”
+
+Miss Watson
+
+Huck Stealing Away
+
+They Tip-toed Along
+
+Jim
+
+Tom Sawyer's Band of Robbers  
+
+Huck Creeps into his Window
+
+Miss Watson's Lecture
+
+The Robbers Dispersed
+
+Rubbing the Lamp
+
+! ! ! !
+
+Judge Thatcher surprised
+
+Jim Listening
+
+“Pap”
+
+Huck and his Father
+
+Reforming the Drunkard
+
+Falling from Grace
+
+Getting out of the Way
+
+Solid Comfort
+
+Thinking it Over
+
+Raising a Howl
+
+“Git Up”
+
+The Shanty
+
+Shooting the Pig
+
+Taking a Rest
+
+In the Woods
+
+Watching the Boat
+
+Discovering the Camp Fire
+
+Jim and the Ghost
+
+Misto Bradish's Nigger
+
+Exploring the Cave
+
+In the Cave
+
+Jim sees a Dead Man
+
+They Found Eight Dollars
+
+Jim and the Snake
+
+Old Hank Bunker
+
+“A Fair Fit”
+
+“Come In”
+
+“Him and another Man”
+
+She puts up a Snack
+
+“Hump Yourself”
+
+On the Raft
+
+He sometimes Lifted a Chicken
+
+“Please don't, Bill”
+
+“It ain't Good Morals”
+
+“Oh! Lordy, Lordy!”
+
+In a Fix
+
+“Hello, What's Up?”
+
+The Wreck
+
+We turned in and Slept
+
+Turning over the Truck
+
+Solomon and his Million Wives
+
+The story of “Sollermun”
+
+“We Would Sell the Raft”
+
+Among the Snags
+
+Asleep on the Raft
+
+“Something being Raftsman”
+
+“Boy, that's a Lie”
+
+“Here I is, Huck”
+
+Climbing up the Bank
+
+“Who's There?”
+
+“Buck”
+
+“It made Her look Spidery”
+
+“They got him out and emptied Him”  
+
+The House
+
+Col. Grangerford
+
+Young Harney Shepherdson
+
+Miss Charlotte
+
+“And asked me if I Liked Her”
+
+“Behind the Wood-pile”
+
+Hiding Day-times
+
+“And Dogs a-Coming”
+
+“By rights I am a Duke!”
+
+“I am the Late Dauphin”
+
+Tail Piece
+
+On the Raft
+
+The King as Juliet
+
+“Courting on the Sly”
+
+“A Pirate for Thirty Years”
+
+Another little Job
+
+Practizing
+
+Hamlet's Soliloquy
+
+“Gimme a Chaw”
+
+A Little Monthly Drunk
+
+The Death of Boggs
+
+Sherburn steps out
+
+A Dead Head
+
+He shed Seventeen Suits
+
+Tragedy
+
+Their Pockets Bulged
+
+Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor
+
+Harmless
+
+Adolphus
+
+He fairly emptied that Young Fellow
+
+“Alas, our Poor Brother”
+
+“You Bet it is”
+
+Leaking
+
+Making up the “Deffisit”
+
+Going for him
+
+The Doctor
+
+The Bag of Money
+
+The Cubby
+
+Supper with the Hare-Lip
+
+Honest Injun
+
+The Duke looks under the Bed
+
+Huck takes the Money
+
+A Crack in the Dining-room Door
+
+The Undertaker
+
+“He had a Rat!”
+
+“Was you in my Room?”
+
+Jawing
+
+In Trouble
+
+Indignation
+
+How to Find Them
+
+He Wrote
+
+Hannah with the Mumps
+
+The Auction
+
+The True Brothers
+
+The Doctor leads Huck
+
+The Duke Wrote
+
+“Gentlemen, Gentlemen!”
+
+“Jim Lit Out”
+
+The King shakes Huck
+
+The Duke went for Him
+
+Spanish Moss
+
+“Who Nailed Him?”
+
+Thinking
+
+He gave him Ten Cents
+
+Striking for the Back Country
+
+Still and Sunday-like
+
+She hugged him tight
+
+“Who do you reckon it is?”
+
+“It was Tom Sawyer”
+
+“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”
+
+A pretty long Blessing
+
+Traveling By Rail
+
+Vittles
+
+A Simple Job
+
+Witches
+
+Getting Wood
+
+One of the Best Authorities
+
+The Breakfast-Horn
+
+Smouching the Knives
+
+Going down the Lightning-Rod
+
+Stealing spoons
+
+Tom advises a Witch Pie
+
+The Rubbage-Pile
+
+“Missus, dey's a Sheet Gone”
+
+In a Tearing Way
+
+One of his Ancestors
+
+Jim's Coat of Arms
+
+A Tough Job
+
+Buttons on their Tails
+
+Irrigation
+
+Keeping off Dull Times
+
+Sawdust Diet
+
+Trouble is Brewing
+
+Fishing
+
+Every one had a Gun
+
+Tom caught on a Splinter
+
+Jim advises a Doctor
+
+The Doctor
+
+Uncle Silas in Danger
+
+Old Mrs. Hotchkiss
+
+Aunt Sally talks to Huck
+
+Tom Sawyer wounded
+
+The Doctor speaks for Jim
+
+Tom rose square up in Bed
+
+“Hand out them Letters”
+
+Out of Bondage
+
+Tom's Liberality
+
+Yours Truly
+
+
+
+
+EXPLANATORY
+
+IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit:  the Missouri negro
+dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the
+ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this
+last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by
+guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and
+support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
+
+I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers
+would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and
+not succeeding.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+HUCKLEBERRY FINN
+
+Scene:  The Mississippi Valley Time:  Forty to fifty years ago
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
+Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.  That book was made
+by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.  There was things
+which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.  That is nothing.  I
+never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt
+Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.  Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she
+is--and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which
+is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.
+
+Now the way that the book winds up is this:  Tom and me found the money
+that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich.  We got six
+thousand dollars apiece--all gold.  It was an awful sight of money when
+it was piled up.  Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out
+at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year
+round--more than a body could tell what to do with.  The Widow Douglas
+she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was
+rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular
+and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand
+it no longer I lit out.  I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead
+again, and was free and satisfied.  But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and
+said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I
+would go back to the widow and be respectable.  So I went back.
+
+The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
+called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by
+it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but
+sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up.  Well, then, the old thing
+commenced again.  The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come
+to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but
+you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little
+over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with
+them,--that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself.  In a
+barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the
+juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.
+
+After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
+Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and
+by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so
+then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in
+dead people.
+
+Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me.  But she
+wouldn't.  She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must
+try to not do it any more.  That is just the way with some people.  They
+get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it.  Here she was
+a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody,
+being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a
+thing that had some good in it.  And she took snuff, too; of course that
+was all right, because she done it herself.
+
+Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on,
+had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a
+spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then
+the widow made her ease up.  I couldn't stood it much longer.  Then for
+an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety.  Miss Watson would say,
+“Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don't scrunch up
+like that, Huckleberry--set up straight;” and pretty soon she would
+say, “Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry--why don't you try to
+behave?”  Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished
+I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm.  All I wanted
+was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular.
+ She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for
+the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place.
+ Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I
+made up my mind I wouldn't try for it.  But I never said so, because it
+would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
+
+Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good
+place.  She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all
+day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.  So I didn't think
+much of it. But I never said so.  I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer
+would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight.  I was glad
+about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
+
+Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome.
+ By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then
+everybody was off to bed.  I went up to my room with a piece of candle,
+and put it on the table.  Then I set down in a chair by the window and
+tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use.  I felt
+so lonesome I most wished I was dead.  The stars were shining, and the
+leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away
+off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a
+dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying
+to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so
+it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard
+that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about
+something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so
+can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night
+grieving.  I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some
+company.  Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I
+flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it
+was all shriveled up.  I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was
+an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared
+and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my
+tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied
+up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away.  But
+I hadn't no confidence.  You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that
+you've found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever
+heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed
+a spider.
+
+I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;
+for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't
+know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town
+go boom--boom--boom--twelve licks; and all still again--stiller than
+ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the
+trees--something was a stirring.  I set still and listened.  Directly I
+could just barely hear a “me-yow! me-yow!” down there.  That was good!
+ Says I, “me-yow! me-yow!” as soft as I could, and then I put out the
+light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed.  Then I slipped
+down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough,
+there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of
+the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our
+heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made
+a noise.  We scrouched down and laid still.  Miss Watson's big nigger,
+named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty
+clear, because there was a light behind him.  He got up and stretched
+his neck out about a minute, listening.  Then he says:
+
+“Who dah?”
+
+He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right
+between us; we could a touched him, nearly.  Well, likely it was
+minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close
+together.  There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I
+dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back,
+right between my shoulders.  Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch.
+ Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since.  If you are with
+the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't
+sleepy--if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why
+you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim
+says:
+
+“Say, who is you?  Whar is you?  Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.
+Well, I know what I's gwyne to do:  I's gwyne to set down here and
+listen tell I hears it agin.”
+
+So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom.  He leaned his back up
+against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched
+one of mine.  My nose begun to itch.  It itched till the tears come into
+my eyes.  But I dasn't scratch.  Then it begun to itch on the inside.
+Next I got to itching underneath.  I didn't know how I was going to set
+still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but
+it seemed a sight longer than that.  I was itching in eleven different
+places now.  I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer,
+but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try.  Just then Jim begun
+to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty soon
+comfortable again.
+
+Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and we
+went creeping away on our hands and knees.  When we was ten foot off Tom
+whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun.  But I said
+no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I
+warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip
+in the kitchen and get some more.  I didn't want him to try.  I said Jim
+might wake up and come.  But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there
+and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.
+Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do
+Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play
+something on him.  I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was
+so still and lonesome.
+
+As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence,
+and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of
+the house.  Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it
+on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake.
+Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance,
+and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again,
+and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.  And next time Jim told
+it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every
+time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they
+rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back
+was all over saddle-boils.  Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he
+got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers.  Niggers would come
+miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any
+nigger in that country.  Strange niggers would stand with their mouths
+open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.  Niggers is
+always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but
+whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things,
+Jim would happen in and say, “Hm!  What you know 'bout witches?” and
+that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.  Jim always kept
+that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a
+charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could
+cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by
+saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it.
+ Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they
+had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldn't touch
+it, because the devil had had his hands on it.  Jim was most ruined for
+a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil
+and been rode by witches.
+
+Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down
+into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where
+there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever
+so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and
+awful still and grand.  We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and
+Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard.
+ So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half,
+to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.
+
+We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the
+secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest
+part of the bushes.  Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our
+hands and knees.  We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave
+opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked
+under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole.  We
+went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and
+sweaty and cold, and there we stopped.  Tom says:
+
+“Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
+Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name
+in blood.”
+
+Everybody was willing.  So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
+wrote the oath on, and read it.  It swore every boy to stick to the
+band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to
+any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and
+his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he
+had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign
+of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that
+mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be
+killed.  And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he
+must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the
+ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with
+blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it
+and be forgot forever.
+
+Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got
+it out of his own head.  He said, some of it, but the rest was out of
+pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had
+it.
+
+Some thought it would be good to kill the _families_ of boys that told
+the secrets.  Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote
+it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
+
+“Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout
+him?”
+
+“Well, hain't he got a father?” says Tom Sawyer.
+
+“Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days.  He
+used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen
+in these parts for a year or more.”
+
+They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
+said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
+wouldn't be fair and square for the others.  Well, nobody could think of
+anything to do--everybody was stumped, and set still.  I was most ready
+to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss
+Watson--they could kill her.  Everybody said:
+
+“Oh, she'll do.  That's all right.  Huck can come in.”
+
+Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,
+and I made my mark on the paper.
+
+“Now,” says Ben Rogers, “what's the line of business of this Gang?”
+
+“Nothing only robbery and murder,” Tom said.
+
+“But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--”
+
+“Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary,”
+ says Tom Sawyer.  “We ain't burglars.  That ain't no sort of style.  We
+are highwaymen.  We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks
+on, and kill the people and take their watches and money.”
+
+“Must we always kill the people?”
+
+“Oh, certainly.  It's best.  Some authorities think different, but
+mostly it's considered best to kill them--except some that you bring to
+the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed.”
+
+“Ransomed?  What's that?”
+
+“I don't know.  But that's what they do.  I've seen it in books; and so
+of course that's what we've got to do.”
+
+“But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?”
+
+“Why, blame it all, we've _got_ to do it.  Don't I tell you it's in the
+books?  Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books,
+and get things all muddled up?”
+
+“Oh, that's all very fine to _say_, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation
+are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it
+to them?--that's the thing I want to get at.  Now, what do you reckon it
+is?”
+
+“Well, I don't know.  But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed,
+it means that we keep them till they're dead.”
+
+“Now, that's something _like_.  That'll answer.  Why couldn't you said
+that before?  We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a
+bothersome lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying
+to get loose.”
+
+“How you talk, Ben Rogers.  How can they get loose when there's a guard
+over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?”
+
+“A guard!  Well, that _is_ good.  So somebody's got to set up all night
+and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them.  I think that's
+foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as
+they get here?”
+
+“Because it ain't in the books so--that's why.  Now, Ben Rogers, do you
+want to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea.  Don't you
+reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct
+thing to do?  Do you reckon _you_ can learn 'em anything?  Not by a good
+deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.”
+
+“All right.  I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow.  Say, do
+we kill the women, too?”
+
+“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on.  Kill
+the women?  No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.  You
+fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them;
+and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any
+more.”
+
+“Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.
+Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows
+waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers.
+But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say.”
+
+Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was
+scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't
+want to be a robber any more.
+
+So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him
+mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets.  But
+Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and
+meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.
+
+Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted
+to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it
+on Sunday, and that settled the thing.  They agreed to get together and
+fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first
+captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.
+
+I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
+breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
+dog-tired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on
+account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned
+off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would
+behave awhile if I could.  Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet
+and prayed, but nothing come of it.  She told me to pray every day, and
+whatever I asked for I would get it.  But it warn't so.  I tried it.
+Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks.  It warn't any good to me without
+hooks.  I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I
+couldn't make it work.  By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to
+try for me, but she said I was a fool.  She never told me why, and I
+couldn't make it out no way.
+
+I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it.
+ I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't
+Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork?  Why can't the widow get
+back her silver snuffbox that was stole?  Why can't Miss Watson fat up?
+No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it.  I went and told the
+widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for
+it was “spiritual gifts.”  This was too many for me, but she told me
+what she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for
+other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about
+myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it.  I went out in the
+woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no
+advantage about it--except for the other people; so at last I reckoned
+I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go.  Sometimes the
+widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make
+a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold
+and knock it all down again.  I judged I could see that there was two
+Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the
+widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help
+for him any more.  I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong
+to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was
+a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was
+so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.
+
+Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable
+for me; I didn't want to see him no more.  He used to always whale me
+when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take
+to the woods most of the time when he was around.  Well, about this time
+he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so
+people said.  They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was
+just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all
+like pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had
+been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all.  They said
+he was floating on his back in the water.  They took him and buried him
+on the bank.  But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think
+of something.  I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on
+his back, but on his face.  So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but
+a woman dressed up in a man's clothes.  So I was uncomfortable again.
+ I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he
+wouldn't.
+
+We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned.  All
+the boys did.  We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but
+only just pretended.  We used to hop out of the woods and go charging
+down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market,
+but we never hived any of them.  Tom Sawyer called the hogs “ingots,”
+ and he called the turnips and stuff “julery,” and we would go to the
+cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed
+and marked.  But I couldn't see no profit in it.  One time Tom sent a
+boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan
+(which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he
+had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish
+merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two
+hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand “sumter”
+ mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard
+of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called
+it, and kill the lot and scoop the things.  He said we must slick up
+our swords and guns, and get ready.  He never could go after even a
+turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it,
+though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them
+till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more
+than what they was before.  I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd
+of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants,
+so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got
+the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill.  But there warn't
+no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants.
+ It warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class
+at that.  We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we
+never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got
+a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the
+teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut.
+
+ I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so.  He said there was
+loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too,
+and elephants and things.  I said, why couldn't we see them, then?  He
+said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I
+would know without asking.  He said it was all done by enchantment.  He
+said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure,
+and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had
+turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite.
+ I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the
+magicians.  Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.
+
+“Why,” said he, “a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they
+would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson.  They
+are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.”
+
+“Well,” I says, “s'pose we got some genies to help _us_--can't we lick
+the other crowd then?”
+
+“How you going to get them?”
+
+“I don't know.  How do _they_ get them?”
+
+“Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies
+come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the
+smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it.
+ They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and
+belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it--or any
+other man.”
+
+“Who makes them tear around so?”
+
+“Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring.  They belong to whoever rubs
+the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says.  If he
+tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill
+it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's
+daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it--and they've
+got to do it before sun-up next morning, too.  And more:  they've got
+to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you
+understand.”
+
+“Well,” says I, “I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping
+the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that.  And what's
+more--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would
+drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.”
+
+“How you talk, Huck Finn.  Why, you'd _have_ to come when he rubbed it,
+whether you wanted to or not.”
+
+“What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church?  All right, then;
+I _would_ come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there
+was in the country.”
+
+“Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn.  You don't seem to
+know anything, somehow--perfect saphead.”
+
+I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
+would see if there was anything in it.  I got an old tin lamp and an
+iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat
+like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't
+no use, none of the genies come.  So then I judged that all that stuff
+was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies.  I reckoned he believed in the
+A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different.  It had all
+the marks of a Sunday-school.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter
+now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and
+write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six
+times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any
+further than that if I was to live forever.  I don't take no stock in
+mathematics, anyway.
+
+At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.
+Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next
+day done me good and cheered me up.  So the longer I went to school the
+easier it got to be.  I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways,
+too, and they warn't so raspy on me.  Living in a house and sleeping in
+a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I
+used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a
+rest to me.  I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the
+new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but
+sure, and doing very satisfactory.  She said she warn't ashamed of me.
+
+One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast.
+ I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left
+shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me,
+and crossed me off. She says, “Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what
+a mess you are always making!”  The widow put in a good word for me, but
+that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.
+ I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and
+wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be.
+ There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one
+of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along
+low-spirited and on the watch-out.
+
+I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go
+through the high board fence.  There was an inch of new snow on the
+ground, and I seen somebody's tracks.  They had come up from the quarry
+and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden
+fence.  It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so.  I
+couldn't make it out.  It was very curious, somehow.  I was going to
+follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first.  I didn't
+notice anything at first, but next I did.  There was a cross in the left
+boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
+
+I was up in a second and shinning down the hill.  I looked over my
+shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody.  I was at Judge
+Thatcher's as quick as I could get there.  He said:
+
+“Why, my boy, you are all out of breath.  Did you come for your
+interest?”
+
+“No, sir,” I says; “is there some for me?”
+
+“Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--over a hundred and fifty
+dollars.  Quite a fortune for you.  You had better let me invest it
+along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it.”
+
+“No, sir,” I says, “I don't want to spend it.  I don't want it at
+all--nor the six thousand, nuther.  I want you to take it; I want to give
+it to you--the six thousand and all.”
+
+He looked surprised.  He couldn't seem to make it out.  He says:
+
+“Why, what can you mean, my boy?”
+
+I says, “Don't you ask me no questions about it, please.  You'll take
+it--won't you?”
+
+He says:
+
+“Well, I'm puzzled.  Is something the matter?”
+
+“Please take it,” says I, “and don't ask me nothing--then I won't have to
+tell no lies.”
+
+He studied a while, and then he says:
+
+“Oho-o!  I think I see.  You want to _sell_ all your property to me--not
+give it.  That's the correct idea.”
+
+Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
+
+“There; you see it says 'for a consideration.'  That means I have bought
+it of you and paid you for it.  Here's a dollar for you.  Now you sign
+it.”
+
+So I signed it, and left.
+
+Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which
+had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do
+magic with it.  He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed
+everything.  So I went to him that night and told him pap was here
+again, for I found his tracks in the snow.  What I wanted to know was,
+what he was going to do, and was he going to stay?  Jim got out his
+hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped
+it on the floor.  It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch.
+ Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same.
+ Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened.
+ But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it
+wouldn't talk without money.  I told him I had an old slick counterfeit
+quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver
+a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show,
+because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it
+every time.  (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got
+from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball
+would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference.  Jim smelt
+it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball
+would think it was good.  He said he would split open a raw Irish potato
+and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next
+morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more,
+and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball.
+ Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.
+
+Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened
+again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right.  He said it
+would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to.  I says, go on.  So the
+hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me.  He says:
+
+“Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do.  Sometimes he
+spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay.  De bes' way is to
+res' easy en let de ole man take his own way.  Dey's two angels hoverin'
+roun' 'bout him.  One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black.
+De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail
+in en bust it all up.  A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch
+him at de las'.  But you is all right.  You gwyne to have considable
+trouble in yo' life, en considable joy.  Sometimes you gwyne to git
+hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne
+to git well agin.  Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life.  One
+uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'.
+ You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by.  You
+wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no
+resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung.”
+
+When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his
+own self!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+I had shut the door to.  Then I turned around and there he was.  I used
+to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much.  I reckoned I
+was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken--that is, after
+the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being
+so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth
+bothring about.
+
+He was most fifty, and he looked it.  His hair was long and tangled and
+greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through
+like he was behind vines.  It was all black, no gray; so was his long,
+mixed-up whiskers.  There warn't no color in his face, where his face
+showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make
+a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl--a tree-toad white, a
+fish-belly white.  As for his clothes--just rags, that was all.  He had
+one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and
+two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then.  His hat
+was laying on the floor--an old black slouch with the top caved in, like
+a lid.
+
+I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair
+tilted back a little.  I set the candle down.  I noticed the window was
+up; so he had clumb in by the shed.  He kept a-looking me all over.  By
+and by he says:
+
+“Starchy clothes--very.  You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,
+_don't_ you?”
+
+“Maybe I am, maybe I ain't,” I says.
+
+“Don't you give me none o' your lip,” says he.  “You've put on
+considerable many frills since I been away.  I'll take you down a peg
+before I get done with you.  You're educated, too, they say--can read and
+write.  You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because
+he can't?  _I'll_ take it out of you.  Who told you you might meddle
+with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you you could?”
+
+“The widow.  She told me.”
+
+“The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
+about a thing that ain't none of her business?”
+
+“Nobody never told her.”
+
+“Well, I'll learn her how to meddle.  And looky here--you drop that
+school, you hear?  I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs
+over his own father and let on to be better'n what _he_ is.  You lemme
+catch you fooling around that school again, you hear?  Your mother
+couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died.  None
+of the family couldn't before _they_ died.  I can't; and here you're
+a-swelling yourself up like this.  I ain't the man to stand it--you hear?
+Say, lemme hear you read.”
+
+I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the
+wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack
+with his hand and knocked it across the house.  He says:
+
+“It's so.  You can do it.  I had my doubts when you told me.  Now looky
+here; you stop that putting on frills.  I won't have it.  I'll lay for
+you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good.
+First you know you'll get religion, too.  I never see such a son.”
+
+He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and
+says:
+
+“What's this?”
+
+“It's something they give me for learning my lessons good.”
+
+He tore it up, and says:
+
+“I'll give you something better--I'll give you a cowhide.”
+
+He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
+
+“_Ain't_ you a sweet-scented dandy, though?  A bed; and bedclothes; and
+a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor--and your own father
+got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard.  I never see such a son.  I
+bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you.
+Why, there ain't no end to your airs--they say you're rich.  Hey?--how's
+that?”
+
+“They lie--that's how.”
+
+“Looky here--mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can
+stand now--so don't gimme no sass.  I've been in town two days, and I
+hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich.  I heard about it
+away down the river, too.  That's why I come.  You git me that money
+to-morrow--I want it.”
+
+“I hain't got no money.”
+
+“It's a lie.  Judge Thatcher's got it.  You git it.  I want it.”
+
+“I hain't got no money, I tell you.  You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell
+you the same.”
+
+“All right.  I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know
+the reason why.  Say, how much you got in your pocket?  I want it.”
+
+“I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to--”
+
+“It don't make no difference what you want it for--you just shell it
+out.”
+
+He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
+going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day.
+When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed
+me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I
+reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me
+to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick
+me if I didn't drop that.
+
+Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged
+him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then
+he swore he'd make the law force him.
+
+The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away
+from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that
+had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn't
+interfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druther
+not take a child away from its father.  So Judge Thatcher and the widow
+had to quit on the business.
+
+That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest.  He said he'd cowhide
+me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him.  I
+borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
+drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying
+on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight;
+then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed
+him again for a week.  But he said _he_ was satisfied; said he was boss
+of his son, and he'd make it warm for _him_.
+
+When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him.
+So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and
+had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just
+old pie to him, so to speak.  And after supper he talked to him about
+temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been
+a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over
+a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the
+judge would help him and not look down on him.  The judge said he could
+hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap
+said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the
+judge said he believed it.  The old man said that what a man wanted
+that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried
+again.  And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his
+hand, and says:
+
+“Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.
+There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more; it's
+the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die before
+he'll go back.  You mark them words--don't forget I said them.  It's a
+clean hand now; shake it--don't be afeard.”
+
+So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried.  The
+judge's wife she kissed it.  Then the old man he signed a pledge--made
+his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something
+like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was
+the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and
+clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his
+new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old
+time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and
+rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most
+froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up.  And when they come
+to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could
+navigate it.
+
+The judge he felt kind of sore.  He said he reckoned a body could reform
+the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went
+for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he
+went for me, too, for not stopping school.  He catched me a couple of
+times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged
+him or outrun him most of the time.  I didn't want to go to school much
+before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap.  That law trial was a
+slow business--appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on it;
+so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge
+for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding.  Every time he got money he
+got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and
+every time he raised Cain he got jailed.  He was just suited--this kind
+of thing was right in his line.
+
+He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so she told him at
+last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble
+for him. Well, _wasn't_ he mad?  He said he would show who was Huck
+Finn's boss.  So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and
+catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and
+crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't
+no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick
+you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was.
+
+He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.
+We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the
+key under his head nights.  He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon,
+and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on.  Every little
+while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the
+ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got
+drunk and had a good time, and licked me.  The widow she found out where
+I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but
+pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was
+used to being where I was, and liked it--all but the cowhide part.
+
+It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking
+and fishing, and no books nor study.  Two months or more run along, and
+my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever
+got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on
+a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever
+bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the
+time.  I didn't want to go back no more.  I had stopped cussing, because
+the widow didn't like it; but now I took to it again because pap hadn't
+no objections.  It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it
+all around.
+
+But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand
+it. I was all over welts.  He got to going away so much, too, and
+locking me in.  Once he locked me in and was gone three days.  It was
+dreadful lonesome.  I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't ever
+going to get out any more.  I was scared.  I made up my mind I would fix
+up some way to leave there.  I had tried to get out of that cabin many
+a time, but I couldn't find no way.  There warn't a window to it big
+enough for a dog to get through.  I couldn't get up the chimbly; it
+was too narrow.  The door was thick, solid oak slabs.  Pap was pretty
+careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away;
+I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I
+was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in
+the time.  But this time I found something at last; I found an old rusty
+wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the
+clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work.  There was an
+old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin
+behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and
+putting the candle out.  I got under the table and raised the blanket,
+and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out--big enough
+to let me through.  Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting
+towards the end of it when I heard pap's gun in the woods.  I got rid of
+the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty
+soon pap come in.
+
+Pap warn't in a good humor--so he was his natural self.  He said he was
+down town, and everything was going wrong.  His lawyer said he reckoned
+he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on
+the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge
+Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be
+another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my
+guardian, and they guessed it would win this time.  This shook me up
+considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more
+and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it.  Then the old man
+got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of,
+and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any,
+and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round,
+including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names
+of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went
+right along with his cussing.
+
+He said he would like to see the widow get me.  He said he would watch
+out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place
+six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they
+dropped and they couldn't find me.  That made me pretty uneasy again,
+but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got
+that chance.
+
+The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had
+got. There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,
+ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two
+newspapers for wadding, besides some tow.  I toted up a load, and went
+back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest.  I thought it all
+over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and
+take to the woods when I run away.  I guessed I wouldn't stay in one
+place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and
+hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor
+the widow couldn't ever find me any more.  I judged I would saw out and
+leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would.  I
+got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old
+man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.
+
+I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark.  While
+I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of
+warmed up, and went to ripping again.  He had been drunk over in town,
+and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.  A body
+would a thought he was Adam--he was just all mud.  Whenever his liquor
+begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says:
+
+“Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like.
+Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him--a
+man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety
+and all the expense of raising.  Yes, just as that man has got that
+son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for
+_him_ and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him.  And they call
+_that_ govment!  That ain't all, nuther.  The law backs that old Judge
+Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property.  Here's what
+the law does:  The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and
+up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets
+him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that
+govment!  A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes
+I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes,
+and I _told_ 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face.  Lots of 'em
+heard me, and can tell what I said.  Says I, for two cents I'd leave the
+blamed country and never come a-near it agin.  Them's the very words.  I
+says look at my hat--if you call it a hat--but the lid raises up and the
+rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly
+a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o'
+stove-pipe.  Look at it, says I--such a hat for me to wear--one of the
+wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights.
+
+“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful.  Why, looky here.
+There was a free nigger there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white as
+a white man.  He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the
+shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine
+clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a
+silver-headed cane--the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State.  And
+what do you think?  They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could
+talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything.  And that ain't the
+wust. They said he could _vote_ when he was at home.  Well, that let me
+out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to?  It was 'lection day,
+and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get
+there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where
+they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out.  I says I'll never vote agin.
+ Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may
+rot for all me--I'll never vote agin as long as I live.  And to see the
+cool way of that nigger--why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't
+shoved him out o' the way.  I says to the people, why ain't this nigger
+put up at auction and sold?--that's what I want to know.  And what do you
+reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in
+the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet.  There,
+now--that's a specimen.  They call that a govment that can't sell a free
+nigger till he's been in the State six months.  Here's a govment that
+calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a
+govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before
+it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free
+nigger, and--”
+
+Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was
+taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and
+barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind
+of language--mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give
+the tub some, too, all along, here and there.  He hopped around the
+cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding
+first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his
+left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick.  But it
+warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his
+toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he raised a howl that
+fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and
+rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he done then laid over
+anything he had ever done previous.  He said so his own self afterwards.
+ He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid
+over him, too; but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.
+
+After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there
+for two drunks and one delirium tremens.  That was always his word.  I
+judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal
+the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other.  He drank and drank, and
+tumbled down on his blankets by and by; but luck didn't run my way.
+ He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy.  He groaned and moaned and
+thrashed around this way and that for a long time.  At last I got so
+sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I
+knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.
+
+I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an
+awful scream and I was up.  There was pap looking wild, and skipping
+around every which way and yelling about snakes.  He said they was
+crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say
+one had bit him on the cheek--but I couldn't see no snakes.  He started
+and run round and round the cabin, hollering “Take him off! take him
+off! he's biting me on the neck!”  I never see a man look so wild in the
+eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he
+rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way,
+and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and
+saying there was devils a-hold of him.  He wore out by and by, and laid
+still a while, moaning.  Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound.
+ I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it
+seemed terrible still.  He was laying over by the corner. By and by he
+raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side.  He says,
+very low:
+
+“Tramp--tramp--tramp; that's the dead; tramp--tramp--tramp; they're coming
+after me; but I won't go.  Oh, they're here! don't touch me--don't! hands
+off--they're cold; let go.  Oh, let a poor devil alone!”
+
+Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him
+alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the
+old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying.  I could
+hear him through the blanket.
+
+By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he
+see me and went for me.  He chased me round and round the place with a
+clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me,
+and then I couldn't come for him no more.  I begged, and told him I
+was only Huck; but he laughed _such_ a screechy laugh, and roared and
+cussed, and kept on chasing me up.  Once when I turned short and
+dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my
+shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket quick
+as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and
+dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a
+minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, and said he would
+sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who.
+
+So he dozed off pretty soon.  By and by I got the old split-bottom chair
+and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the
+gun.  I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, then I
+laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down
+behind it to wait for him to stir.  And how slow and still the time did
+drag along.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+“GIT up!  What you 'bout?”
+
+I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was.  It
+was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep.  Pap was standing over me
+looking sour and sick, too.  He says:
+
+“What you doin' with this gun?”
+
+I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I says:
+
+“Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him.”
+
+“Why didn't you roust me out?”
+
+“Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you.”
+
+“Well, all right.  Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with
+you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast.  I'll be along
+in a minute.”
+
+He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank.  I noticed
+some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of
+bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise.  I reckoned I would have
+great times now if I was over at the town.  The June rise used to be
+always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes
+cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts--sometimes a dozen logs
+together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the
+wood-yards and the sawmill.
+
+I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one out
+for what the rise might fetch along.  Well, all at once here comes a
+canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding
+high like a duck.  I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog,
+clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe.  I just expected
+there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that
+to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd
+raise up and laugh at him.  But it warn't so this time.  It was a
+drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore.  Thinks
+I, the old man will be glad when he sees this--she's worth ten dollars.
+ But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I was running
+her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and
+willows, I struck another idea:  I judged I'd hide her good, and then,
+'stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down the river
+about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a
+rough time tramping on foot.
+
+It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man
+coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked around
+a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a piece just
+drawing a bead on a bird with his gun.  So he hadn't seen anything.
+
+When he got along I was hard at it taking up a “trot” line.  He abused
+me a little for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, and
+that was what made me so long.  I knowed he would see I was wet, and
+then he would be asking questions.  We got five catfish off the lines
+and went home.
+
+While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about
+wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap
+and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing
+than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me; you
+see, all kinds of things might happen.  Well, I didn't see no way for a
+while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of
+water, and he says:
+
+“Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you
+hear? That man warn't here for no good.  I'd a shot him.  Next time you
+roust me out, you hear?”
+
+Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but what he had been
+saying give me the very idea I wanted.  I says to myself, I can fix it
+now so nobody won't think of following me.
+
+About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank.  The
+river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the
+rise. By and by along comes part of a log raft--nine logs fast together.
+ We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore.  Then we had dinner.
+Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch
+more stuff; but that warn't pap's style.  Nine logs was enough for one
+time; he must shove right over to town and sell.  So he locked me in and
+took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three.
+ I judged he wouldn't come back that night.  I waited till I reckoned he
+had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that
+log again.  Before he was t'other side of the river I was out of the
+hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.
+
+I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and
+shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same
+with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug.  I took all the coffee and
+sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the
+bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two
+blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot.  I took fish-lines and
+matches and other things--everything that was worth a cent.  I cleaned
+out the place.  I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out
+at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that.  I fetched
+out the gun, and now I was done.
+
+I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging
+out so many things.  So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside
+by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the
+sawdust.  Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two
+rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up
+at that place and didn't quite touch ground.  If you stood four or five
+foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you wouldn't never notice
+it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely
+anybody would go fooling around there.
+
+It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track.  I
+followed around to see.  I stood on the bank and looked out over the
+river.  All safe.  So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods,
+and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon
+went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie
+farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
+
+I took the axe and smashed in the door.  I beat it and hacked it
+considerable a-doing it.  I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly
+to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down
+on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground--hard packed,
+and no boards.  Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks
+in it--all I could drag--and I started it from the pig, and dragged it to
+the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and
+down it sunk, out of sight.  You could easy see that something had been
+dragged over the ground.  I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he
+would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy
+touches.  Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as
+that.
+
+Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and
+stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner.  Then I
+took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't
+drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into
+the river.  Now I thought of something else.  So I went and got the bag
+of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house.
+ I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the
+bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the
+place--pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking.  Then
+I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through
+the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide
+and full of rushes--and ducks too, you might say, in the season.  There
+was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went
+miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river.  The meal
+sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake.  I dropped
+pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by
+accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it
+wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.
+
+It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some
+willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise.  I
+made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid
+down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan.  I says to myself,
+they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then
+drag the river for me.  And they'll follow that meal track to the lake
+and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers
+that killed me and took the things.  They won't ever hunt the river for
+anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't
+bother no more about me.  All right; I can stop anywhere I want to.
+Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well,
+and nobody ever comes there.  And then I can paddle over to town nights,
+and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the
+place.
+
+I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep.  When
+I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute.  I set up and looked
+around, a little scared.  Then I remembered.  The river looked miles and
+miles across.  The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs
+that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from
+shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and _smelt_ late.
+You know what I mean--I don't know the words to put it in.
+
+I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start
+when I heard a sound away over the water.  I listened.  Pretty soon I
+made it out.  It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from
+oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night.  I peeped out through
+the willow branches, and there it was--a skiff, away across the water.
+ I couldn't tell how many was in it.  It kept a-coming, and when it was
+abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it.  Think's I, maybe
+it's pap, though I warn't expecting him.  He dropped below me with the
+current, and by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water,
+and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him.
+ Well, it _was_ pap, sure enough--and sober, too, by the way he laid his
+oars.
+
+I didn't lose no time.  The next minute I was a-spinning down stream
+soft but quick in the shade of the bank.  I made two mile and a half,
+and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of
+the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing, and
+people might see me and hail me.  I got out amongst the driftwood, and
+then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float.
+
+ I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking
+away into the sky; not a cloud in it.  The sky looks ever so deep when
+you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before.
+ And how far a body can hear on the water such nights!  I heard people
+talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too--every word
+of it.  One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short
+nights now.  T'other one said _this_ warn't one of the short ones, he
+reckoned--and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they
+laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and
+laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out something brisk, and said
+let him alone.  The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his
+old woman--she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn't
+nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it
+was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than
+about a week longer.  After that the talk got further and further away,
+and I couldn't make out the words any more; but I could hear the mumble,
+and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.
+
+I was away below the ferry now.  I rose up, and there was Jackson's
+Island, about two mile and a half down stream, heavy timbered and
+standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like
+a steamboat without any lights.  There warn't any signs of the bar at
+the head--it was all under water now.
+
+It didn't take me long to get there.  I shot past the head at a ripping
+rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and
+landed on the side towards the Illinois shore.  I run the canoe into
+a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow
+branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen the canoe
+from the outside.
+
+I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked
+out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town,
+three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.  A
+monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile up stream, coming along down,
+with a lantern in the middle of it.  I watched it come creeping down,
+and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say, “Stern
+oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!”  I heard that just as plain
+as if the man was by my side.
+
+There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods, and
+laid down for a nap before breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight
+o'clock.  I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about
+things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied.  I
+could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees
+all about, and gloomy in there amongst them.  There was freckled places
+on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the
+freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little
+breeze up there.  A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me
+very friendly.
+
+I was powerful lazy and comfortable--didn't want to get up and cook
+breakfast.  Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep
+sound of “boom!” away up the river.  I rouses up, and rests on my elbow
+and listens; pretty soon I hears it again.  I hopped up, and went and
+looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying
+on the water a long ways up--about abreast the ferry.  And there was the
+ferryboat full of people floating along down.  I knowed what was the
+matter now.  “Boom!” I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's
+side.  You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my
+carcass come to the top.
+
+I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire,
+because they might see the smoke.  So I set there and watched the
+cannon-smoke and listened to the boom.  The river was a mile wide there,
+and it always looks pretty on a summer morning--so I was having a good
+enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to
+eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in
+loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the
+drownded carcass and stop there.  So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and
+if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show.  I
+changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could
+have, and I warn't disappointed.  A big double loaf come along, and I
+most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out
+further.  Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the
+shore--I knowed enough for that.  But by and by along comes another one,
+and this time I won.  I took out the plug and shook out the little dab
+of quicksilver, and set my teeth in.  It was “baker's bread”--what the
+quality eat; none of your low-down corn-pone.
+
+I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching
+the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied.  And
+then something struck me.  I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson
+or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone
+and done it.  So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that
+thing--that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the
+parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for
+only just the right kind.
+
+I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching.  The
+ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance
+to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in
+close, where the bread did.  When she'd got pretty well along down
+towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread,
+and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place.  Where
+the log forked I could peep through.
+
+By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could
+a run out a plank and walked ashore.  Most everybody was on the boat.
+ Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom
+Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more.
+ Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and
+says:
+
+“Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's
+washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge.  I
+hope so, anyway.”
+
+I didn't hope so.  They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly
+in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might.  I could see
+them first-rate, but they couldn't see me.  Then the captain sung out:
+
+“Stand away!” and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that
+it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and
+I judged I was gone.  If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd
+a got the corpse they was after.  Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to
+goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder
+of the island.  I could hear the booming now and then, further and
+further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more.
+ The island was three mile long.  I judged they had got to the foot, and
+was giving it up.  But they didn't yet a while.  They turned around
+the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side,
+under steam, and booming once in a while as they went.  I crossed over
+to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the
+island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and
+went home to the town.
+
+I knowed I was all right now.  Nobody else would come a-hunting after
+me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick
+woods.  I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things
+under so the rain couldn't get at them.  I catched a catfish and haggled
+him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had
+supper.  Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.
+
+When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well
+satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set
+on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the
+stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed;
+there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you
+can't stay so, you soon get over it.
+
+And so for three days and nights.  No difference--just the same thing.
+But the next day I went exploring around down through the island.  I was
+boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know
+all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time.  I found plenty
+strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green
+razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show.  They
+would all come handy by and by, I judged.
+
+Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't
+far from the foot of the island.  I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot
+nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh
+home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake,
+and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after
+it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I
+bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.
+
+My heart jumped up amongst my lungs.  I never waited for to look
+further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as
+fast as ever I could.  Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the
+thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear
+nothing else.  I slunk along another piece further, then listened again;
+and so on, and so on.  If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod
+on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my
+breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too.
+
+When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand
+in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around.  So I
+got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight,
+and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an
+old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree.
+
+I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing,
+I didn't hear nothing--I only _thought_ I heard and seen as much as a
+thousand things.  Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I
+got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the
+time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from
+breakfast.
+
+By the time it was night I was pretty hungry.  So when it was good
+and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the
+Illinois bank--about a quarter of a mile.  I went out in the woods and
+cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there
+all night when I hear a _plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk_, and says
+to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people's voices.  I got
+everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping
+through the woods to see what I could find out.  I hadn't got far when I
+hear a man say:
+
+“We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about
+beat out.  Let's look around.”
+
+I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy.  I tied up in the
+old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.
+
+I didn't sleep much.  I couldn't, somehow, for thinking.  And every time
+I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck.  So the sleep didn't
+do me no good.  By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm
+a-going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me; I'll
+find it out or bust.  Well, I felt better right off.
+
+So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and
+then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows.  The moon was
+shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day.
+ I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound
+asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island.  A
+little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying
+the night was about done.  I give her a turn with the paddle and brung
+her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge
+of the woods.  I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the
+leaves.  I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket
+the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops,
+and knowed the day was coming.  So I took my gun and slipped off towards
+where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two
+to listen.  But I hadn't no luck somehow; I couldn't seem to find the
+place.  But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away
+through the trees.  I went for it, cautious and slow.  By and by I was
+close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground.  It
+most give me the fan-tods. He had a blanket around his head, and his
+head was nearly in the fire.  I set there behind a clump of bushes, in
+about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady.  It was getting
+gray daylight now.  Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove
+off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim!  I bet I was glad to see
+him.  I says:
+
+“Hello, Jim!” and skipped out.
+
+He bounced up and stared at me wild.  Then he drops down on his knees,
+and puts his hands together and says:
+
+“Doan' hurt me--don't!  I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'.  I alwuz
+liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em.  You go en git in de
+river agin, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz
+awluz yo' fren'.”
+
+Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead.  I was ever so
+glad to see Jim.  I warn't lonesome now.  I told him I warn't afraid of
+_him_ telling the people where I was.  I talked along, but he only set
+there and looked at me; never said nothing.  Then I says:
+
+“It's good daylight.  Le's get breakfast.  Make up your camp fire good.”
+
+“What's de use er makin' up de camp fire to cook strawbries en sich
+truck? But you got a gun, hain't you?  Den we kin git sumfn better den
+strawbries.”
+
+“Strawberries and such truck,” I says.  “Is that what you live on?”
+
+“I couldn' git nuffn else,” he says.
+
+“Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?”
+
+“I come heah de night arter you's killed.”
+
+“What, all that time?”
+
+“Yes--indeedy.”
+
+“And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?”
+
+“No, sah--nuffn else.”
+
+“Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?”
+
+“I reck'n I could eat a hoss.  I think I could. How long you ben on de
+islan'?”
+
+“Since the night I got killed.”
+
+“No!  W'y, what has you lived on?  But you got a gun.  Oh, yes, you got
+a gun.  Dat's good.  Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire.”
+
+So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in
+a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and
+coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the
+nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done
+with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him
+with his knife, and fried him.
+
+When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot.
+Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved.  Then
+when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied.  By and by
+Jim says:
+
+“But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty ef it
+warn't you?”
+
+Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart.  He said Tom
+Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had.  Then I says:
+
+“How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?”
+
+He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute.  Then he
+says:
+
+“Maybe I better not tell.”
+
+“Why, Jim?”
+
+“Well, dey's reasons.  But you wouldn' tell on me ef I uz to tell you,
+would you, Huck?”
+
+“Blamed if I would, Jim.”
+
+“Well, I b'lieve you, Huck.  I--_I run off_.”
+
+“Jim!”
+
+“But mind, you said you wouldn' tell--you know you said you wouldn' tell,
+Huck.”
+
+“Well, I did.  I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it.  Honest _injun_,
+I will.  People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for
+keeping mum--but that don't make no difference.  I ain't a-going to tell,
+and I ain't a-going back there, anyways.  So, now, le's know all about
+it.”
+
+“Well, you see, it 'uz dis way.  Ole missus--dat's Miss Watson--she pecks
+on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she
+wouldn' sell me down to Orleans.  But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader
+roun' de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy.  Well, one
+night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I
+hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but
+she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it
+'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'.  De widder she try to
+git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'.  I
+lit out mighty quick, I tell you.
+
+“I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a skift 'long de
+sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid
+in de ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to
+go 'way. Well, I wuz dah all night.  Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time.
+ 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er
+nine every skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over
+to de town en say you's killed.  Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en
+genlmen a-goin' over for to see de place.  Sometimes dey'd pull up at
+de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to
+know all 'bout de killin'.  I 'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but
+I ain't no mo' now.
+
+“I laid dah under de shavin's all day.  I 'uz hungry, but I warn't
+afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to
+de camp-meet'n' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows
+I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to see me
+roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de evenin'.
+De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en take holiday
+soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way.
+
+“Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout two
+mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses.  I'd made up my mine 'bout
+what I's agwyne to do.  You see, ef I kep' on tryin' to git away afoot,
+de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey'd miss dat
+skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de yuther side, en
+whah to pick up my track.  So I says, a raff is what I's arter; it doan'
+_make_ no track.
+
+“I see a light a-comin' roun' de p'int bymeby, so I wade' in en shove'
+a log ahead o' me en swum more'n half way acrost de river, en got in
+'mongst de drift-wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin de
+current tell de raff come along.  Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck
+a-holt.  It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while.  So I clumb
+up en laid down on de planks.  De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de middle,
+whah de lantern wuz.  De river wuz a-risin', en dey wuz a good current;
+so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de mawnin' I'd be twenty-five mile down de
+river, en den I'd slip in jis b'fo' daylight en swim asho', en take to
+de woods on de Illinois side.
+
+“But I didn' have no luck.  When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de
+islan' a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn't no use
+fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan'.  Well, I
+had a notion I could lan' mos' anywhers, but I couldn't--bank too bluff.
+ I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I found' a good place.  I went
+into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as dey
+move de lantern roun' so.  I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some
+matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right.”
+
+“And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time?  Why
+didn't you get mud-turkles?”
+
+“How you gwyne to git 'm?  You can't slip up on um en grab um; en how's
+a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock?  How could a body do it in de night?
+ En I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime.”
+
+“Well, that's so.  You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of
+course. Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon?”
+
+“Oh, yes.  I knowed dey was arter you.  I see um go by heah--watched um
+thoo de bushes.”
+
+Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and
+lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain.  He said it was
+a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the
+same way when young birds done it.  I was going to catch some of them,
+but Jim wouldn't let me.  He said it was death.  He said his father laid
+mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny
+said his father would die, and he did.
+
+And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for
+dinner, because that would bring bad luck.  The same if you shook the
+table-cloth after sundown.  And he said if a man owned a beehive
+and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next
+morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die.
+ Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that, because
+I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting me.
+
+I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them.  Jim
+knowed all kinds of signs.  He said he knowed most everything.  I said
+it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked
+him if there warn't any good-luck signs.  He says:
+
+“Mighty few--an' _dey_ ain't no use to a body.  What you want to know
+when good luck's a-comin' for?  Want to keep it off?”  And he said:  “Ef
+you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's agwyne
+to be rich. Well, dey's some use in a sign like dat, 'kase it's so fur
+ahead. You see, maybe you's got to be po' a long time fust, en so you
+might git discourage' en kill yo'sef 'f you didn' know by de sign dat
+you gwyne to be rich bymeby.”
+
+“Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?”
+
+“What's de use to ax dat question?  Don't you see I has?”
+
+“Well, are you rich?”
+
+“No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin.  Wunst I had
+foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n', en got busted out.”
+
+“What did you speculate in, Jim?”
+
+“Well, fust I tackled stock.”
+
+“What kind of stock?”
+
+“Why, live stock--cattle, you know.  I put ten dollars in a cow.  But
+I ain' gwyne to resk no mo' money in stock.  De cow up 'n' died on my
+han's.”
+
+“So you lost the ten dollars.”
+
+“No, I didn't lose it all.  I on'y los' 'bout nine of it.  I sole de
+hide en taller for a dollar en ten cents.”
+
+“You had five dollars and ten cents left.  Did you speculate any more?”
+
+“Yes.  You know that one-laigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto
+Bradish? Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar
+would git fo' dollars mo' at de en' er de year.  Well, all de niggers
+went in, but dey didn't have much.  I wuz de on'y one dat had much.  So
+I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd
+start a bank mysef. Well, o' course dat nigger want' to keep me out er
+de business, bekase he says dey warn't business 'nough for two banks, so
+he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de en'
+er de year.
+
+“So I done it.  Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirty-five dollars right
+off en keep things a-movin'.  Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had
+ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn' know it; en I bought it off'n
+him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en' er de
+year come; but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex day de
+one-laigged nigger say de bank's busted.  So dey didn' none uv us git no
+money.”
+
+“What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?”
+
+“Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me
+to give it to a nigger name' Balum--Balum's Ass dey call him for short;
+he's one er dem chuckleheads, you know.  But he's lucky, dey say, en I
+see I warn't lucky.  De dream say let Balum inves' de ten cents en he'd
+make a raise for me.  Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in
+church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po' len' to de
+Lord, en boun' to git his money back a hund'd times.  So Balum he tuck
+en give de ten cents to de po', en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to
+come of it.”
+
+“Well, what did come of it, Jim?”
+
+“Nuffn never come of it.  I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no way;
+en Balum he couldn'.  I ain' gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see de
+security.  Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher says!
+Ef I could git de ten _cents_ back, I'd call it squah, en be glad er de
+chanst.”
+
+“Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again
+some time or other.”
+
+“Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it.  I owns mysef, en I's wuth
+eight hund'd dollars.  I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island
+that I'd found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got to it,
+because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile
+wide.
+
+This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot
+high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and
+the bushes so thick.  We tramped and clumb around all over it, and by
+and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on the
+side towards Illinois.  The cavern was as big as two or three rooms
+bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it.  It was cool in
+there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we
+didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time.
+
+Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps
+in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island,
+and they would never find us without dogs.  And, besides, he said them
+little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to
+get wet?
+
+So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern,
+and lugged all the traps up there.  Then we hunted up a place close by
+to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows.  We took some fish off
+of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.
+
+The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one
+side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a
+good place to build a fire on.  So we built it there and cooked dinner.
+
+We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there.
+We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern.  Pretty
+soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was
+right about it.  Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury,
+too, and I never see the wind blow so.  It was one of these regular
+summer storms.  It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black
+outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that
+the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would
+come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the
+pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would
+follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they
+was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and
+blackest--_FST_! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little
+glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm,
+hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again
+in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash,
+and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the
+under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs--where
+it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.
+
+“Jim, this is nice,” I says.  “I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but
+here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread.”
+
+“Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim.  You'd a ben
+down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too;
+dat you would, honey.  Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do
+de birds, chile.”
+
+The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at
+last it was over the banks.  The water was three or four foot deep on
+the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom.  On that side
+it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same
+old distance across--a half a mile--because the Missouri shore was just a
+wall of high bluffs.
+
+Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool
+and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside.  We
+went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung
+so thick we had to back away and go some other way.  Well, on every old
+broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and
+when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on
+account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your
+hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles--they would
+slide off in the water.  The ridge our cavern was in was full of them.
+We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.
+
+One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft--nice pine planks.
+It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and
+the top stood above water six or seven inches--a solid, level floor.  We
+could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go;
+we didn't show ourselves in daylight.
+
+Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before
+daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side.  She was
+a two-story, and tilted over considerable.  We paddled out and got
+aboard--clumb in at an upstairs window.  But it was too dark to see yet,
+so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.
+
+The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island.  Then
+we looked in at the window.  We could make out a bed, and a table, and
+two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there
+was clothes hanging against the wall.  There was something laying on the
+floor in the far corner that looked like a man.  So Jim says:
+
+“Hello, you!”
+
+But it didn't budge.  So I hollered again, and then Jim says:
+
+“De man ain't asleep--he's dead.  You hold still--I'll go en see.”
+
+He went, and bent down and looked, and says:
+
+“It's a dead man.  Yes, indeedy; naked, too.  He's ben shot in de back.
+I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days.  Come in, Huck, but doan' look
+at his face--it's too gashly.”
+
+I didn't look at him at all.  Jim throwed some old rags over him, but
+he needn't done it; I didn't want to see him.  There was heaps of old
+greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles,
+and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls
+was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.
+ There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some
+women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing,
+too.  We put the lot into the canoe--it might come good.  There was a
+boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too.  And there
+was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a
+baby to suck.  We would a took the bottle, but it was broke.  There was
+a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke.  They
+stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them that was any account.
+ The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a
+hurry, and warn't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff.
+
+We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, and
+a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow
+candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty
+old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins and
+beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchet
+and some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some
+monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar,
+and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label
+on them; and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb,
+and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg.  The straps
+was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, though
+it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find
+the other one, though we hunted all around.
+
+And so, take it all around, we made a good haul.  When we was ready to
+shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty
+broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the
+quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good
+ways off.  I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most
+a half a mile doing it.  I crept up the dead water under the bank, and
+hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody.  We got home all safe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he
+come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to.  He said it would fetch bad
+luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us; he said a man
+that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than one
+that was planted and comfortable.  That sounded pretty reasonable, so
+I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from studying over it and
+wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.
+
+We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver
+sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat.  Jim said he reckoned
+the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the
+money was there they wouldn't a left it.  I said I reckoned they killed
+him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that.  I says:
+
+“Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the
+snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday?
+You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin
+with my hands.  Well, here's your bad luck!  We've raked in all this
+truck and eight dollars besides.  I wish we could have some bad luck
+like this every day, Jim.”
+
+“Never you mind, honey, never you mind.  Don't you git too peart.  It's
+a-comin'.  Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'.”
+
+It did come, too.  It was a Tuesday that we had that talk.  Well, after
+dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the
+ridge, and got out of tobacco.  I went to the cavern to get some, and
+found a rattlesnake in there.  I killed him, and curled him up on the
+foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun
+when Jim found him there.  Well, by night I forgot all about the snake,
+and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light
+the snake's mate was there, and bit him.
+
+He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the
+varmint curled up and ready for another spring.  I laid him out in a
+second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to pour
+it down.
+
+He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel.  That all
+comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave
+a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it.  Jim told
+me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the
+body and roast a piece of it.  I done it, and he eat it and said it
+would help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around
+his wrist, too.  He said that that would help.  Then I slid out quiet
+and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going
+to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.
+
+Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his
+head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he
+went to sucking at the jug again.  His foot swelled up pretty big, and
+so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged
+he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's
+whisky.
+
+Jim was laid up for four days and nights.  Then the swelling was all
+gone and he was around again.  I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take
+a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come
+of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time.  And he said
+that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't
+got to the end of it yet.  He said he druther see the new moon over his
+left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin
+in his hand.  Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've
+always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is
+one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do.  Old Hank
+Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he
+got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so
+that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him
+edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so
+they say, but I didn't see it.  Pap told me.  But anyway it all come of
+looking at the moon that way, like a fool.
+
+Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks
+again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big
+hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was
+as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two
+hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us
+into Illinois.  We just set there and watched him rip and tear around
+till he drownded.  We found a brass button in his stomach and a round
+ball, and lots of rubbage.  We split the ball open with the hatchet,
+and there was a spool in it.  Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to
+coat it over so and make a ball of it.  It was as big a fish as was ever
+catched in the Mississippi, I reckon.  Jim said he hadn't ever seen
+a bigger one.  He would a been worth a good deal over at the village.
+ They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house
+there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's as white as snow and makes
+a good fry.
+
+Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a
+stirring up some way.  I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and
+find out what was going on.  Jim liked that notion; but he said I
+must go in the dark and look sharp.  Then he studied it over and said,
+couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl?
+ That was a good notion, too.  So we shortened up one of the calico
+gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it.  Jim
+hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit.  I put on the
+sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in
+and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe.  Jim said
+nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly.  I practiced around
+all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty
+well in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he said
+I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket.  I took
+notice, and done better.
+
+I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.
+
+I started across to the town from a little below the ferry-landing, and
+the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town.  I
+tied up and started along the bank.  There was a light burning in a
+little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered
+who had took up quarters there.  I slipped up and peeped in at the
+window.  There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by
+a candle that was on a pine table.  I didn't know her face; she was a
+stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know.
+ Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid I had
+come; people might know my voice and find me out.  But if this woman had
+been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I wanted to
+know; so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I
+was a girl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+“COME in,” says the woman, and I did.  She says:  “Take a cheer.”
+
+I done it.  She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says:
+
+“What might your name be?”
+
+“Sarah Williams.”
+
+“Where 'bouts do you live?  In this neighborhood?'
+
+“No'm.  In Hookerville, seven mile below.  I've walked all the way and
+I'm all tired out.”
+
+“Hungry, too, I reckon.  I'll find you something.”
+
+“No'm, I ain't hungry.  I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below
+here at a farm; so I ain't hungry no more.  It's what makes me so late.
+My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to
+tell my uncle Abner Moore.  He lives at the upper end of the town, she
+says.  I hain't ever been here before.  Do you know him?”
+
+“No; but I don't know everybody yet.  I haven't lived here quite two
+weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town.  You
+better stay here all night.  Take off your bonnet.”
+
+“No,” I says; “I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on.  I ain't afeared
+of the dark.”
+
+She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in
+by and by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me.
+Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up
+the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better
+off they used to was, and how they didn't know but they'd made a mistake
+coming to our town, instead of letting well alone--and so on and so on,
+till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what
+was going on in the town; but by and by she dropped on to pap and the
+murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along.
+ She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only
+she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what
+a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered.  I
+says:
+
+“Who done it?  We've heard considerable about these goings on down in
+Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn.”
+
+“Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people _here_ that'd
+like to know who killed him.  Some think old Finn done it himself.”
+
+“No--is that so?”
+
+“Most everybody thought it at first.  He'll never know how nigh he come
+to getting lynched.  But before night they changed around and judged it
+was done by a runaway nigger named Jim.”
+
+“Why _he_--”
+
+I stopped.  I reckoned I better keep still.  She run on, and never
+noticed I had put in at all:
+
+“The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed.  So there's a
+reward out for him--three hundred dollars.  And there's a reward out for
+old Finn, too--two hundred dollars.  You see, he come to town the
+morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the
+ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left.  Before night they
+wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see.  Well, next day they
+found out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence
+ten o'clock the night the murder was done.  So then they put it on him,
+you see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn,
+and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the
+nigger all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening
+he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty
+hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them.  Well, he hain't
+come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing
+blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and
+fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get
+Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit.
+ People do say he warn't any too good to do it.  Oh, he's sly, I reckon.
+ If he don't come back for a year he'll be all right.  You can't prove
+anything on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and
+he'll walk in Huck's money as easy as nothing.”
+
+“Yes, I reckon so, 'm.  I don't see nothing in the way of it.  Has
+everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?”
+
+“Oh, no, not everybody.  A good many thinks he done it.  But they'll get
+the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him.”
+
+“Why, are they after him yet?”
+
+“Well, you're innocent, ain't you!  Does three hundred dollars lay
+around every day for people to pick up?  Some folks think the nigger
+ain't far from here.  I'm one of them--but I hain't talked it around.  A
+few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in
+the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to
+that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island.  Don't anybody
+live there? says I. No, nobody, says they.  I didn't say any more, but
+I done some thinking.  I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over
+there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says
+to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway, says
+I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a hunt.  I hain't seen any
+smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him; but husband's
+going over to see--him and another man.  He was gone up the river; but he
+got back to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago.”
+
+I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still.  I had to do something with my
+hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading
+it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it.  When the woman
+stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious
+and smiling a little.  I put down the needle and thread, and let on to
+be interested--and I was, too--and says:
+
+“Three hundred dollars is a power of money.  I wish my mother could get
+it. Is your husband going over there to-night?”
+
+“Oh, yes.  He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a
+boat and see if they could borrow another gun.  They'll go over after
+midnight.”
+
+“Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?”
+
+“Yes.  And couldn't the nigger see better, too?  After midnight he'll
+likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up
+his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one.”
+
+“I didn't think of that.”
+
+The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit
+comfortable.  Pretty soon she says,
+
+“What did you say your name was, honey?”
+
+“M--Mary Williams.”
+
+Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't
+look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered,
+and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too.  I wished the woman would
+say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was.  But
+now she says:
+
+“Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?”
+
+“Oh, yes'm, I did.  Sarah Mary Williams.  Sarah's my first name.  Some
+calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary.”
+
+“Oh, that's the way of it?”
+
+“Yes'm.”
+
+I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway.  I
+couldn't look up yet.
+
+Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor
+they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the
+place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again.  She was right
+about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner
+every little while.  She said she had to have things handy to throw at
+them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace.  She showed
+me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot
+with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't
+know whether she could throw true now.  But she watched for a chance,
+and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said
+“Ouch!” it hurt her arm so.  Then she told me to try for the next one.
+ I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course
+I didn't let on.  I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his
+nose I let drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a
+tolerable sick rat.  She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I
+would hive the next one.  She went and got the lump of lead and fetched
+it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help
+her with.  I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and
+went on talking about her and her husband's matters.  But she broke off
+to say:
+
+“Keep your eye on the rats.  You better have the lead in your lap,
+handy.”
+
+So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped
+my legs together on it and she went on talking.  But only about a
+minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face,
+and very pleasant, and says:
+
+“Come, now, what's your real name?”
+
+“Wh--what, mum?”
+
+“What's your real name?  Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?”
+
+I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do.  But
+I says:
+
+“Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum.  If I'm in the
+way here, I'll--”
+
+“No, you won't.  Set down and stay where you are.  I ain't going to hurt
+you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther.  You just tell me your
+secret, and trust me.  I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help
+you. So'll my old man if you want him to.  You see, you're a runaway
+'prentice, that's all.  It ain't anything.  There ain't no harm in it.
+You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut.  Bless you,
+child, I wouldn't tell on you.  Tell me all about it now, that's a good
+boy.”
+
+So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I
+would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't
+go back on her promise.  Then I told her my father and mother was dead,
+and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty
+mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it
+no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my
+chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and
+I had been three nights coming the thirty miles.  I traveled nights,
+and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from
+home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty.  I said I believed my
+uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck
+out for this town of Goshen.
+
+“Goshen, child?  This ain't Goshen.  This is St. Petersburg.  Goshen's
+ten mile further up the river.  Who told you this was Goshen?”
+
+“Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn
+into the woods for my regular sleep.  He told me when the roads forked I
+must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen.”
+
+“He was drunk, I reckon.  He told you just exactly wrong.”
+
+“Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now.  I got
+to be moving along.  I'll fetch Goshen before daylight.”
+
+“Hold on a minute.  I'll put you up a snack to eat.  You might want it.”
+
+So she put me up a snack, and says:
+
+“Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first?  Answer
+up prompt now--don't stop to study over it.  Which end gets up first?”
+
+“The hind end, mum.”
+
+“Well, then, a horse?”
+
+“The for'rard end, mum.”
+
+“Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?”
+
+“North side.”
+
+“If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with
+their heads pointed the same direction?”
+
+“The whole fifteen, mum.”
+
+“Well, I reckon you _have_ lived in the country.  I thought maybe you
+was trying to hocus me again.  What's your real name, now?”
+
+“George Peters, mum.”
+
+“Well, try to remember it, George.  Don't forget and tell me it's
+Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George
+Elexander when I catch you.  And don't go about women in that old
+calico.  You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe.
+ Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the
+thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and
+poke the thread at it; that's the way a woman most always does, but a
+man always does t'other way.  And when you throw at a rat or anything,
+hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as
+awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw
+stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to
+turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out
+to one side, like a boy.  And, mind you, when a girl tries to catch
+anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she don't clap them
+together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead.  Why, I
+spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I contrived
+the other things just to make certain.  Now trot along to your uncle,
+Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into trouble
+you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what I can
+to get you out of it.  Keep the river road all the way, and next time
+you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one,
+and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon.”
+
+I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks
+and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house.  I
+jumped in, and was off in a hurry.  I went up-stream far enough to
+make the head of the island, and then started across.  I took off the
+sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then.  When I was about the
+middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens; the
+sound come faint over the water but clear--eleven.  When I struck the
+head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but
+I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started
+a good fire there on a high and dry spot.
+
+Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile and a half
+below, as hard as I could go.  I landed, and slopped through the timber
+and up the ridge and into the cavern.  There Jim laid, sound asleep on
+the ground.  I roused him out and says:
+
+“Git up and hump yourself, Jim!  There ain't a minute to lose.  They're
+after us!”
+
+Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he
+worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared.  By
+that time everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was
+ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid.  We
+put out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a
+candle outside after that.
+
+I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece, and took a look;
+but if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and shadows
+ain't good to see by.  Then we got out the raft and slipped along down
+in the shade, past the foot of the island dead still--never saying a
+word.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+IT must a been close on to one o'clock when we got below the island at
+last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow.  If a boat was to come
+along we was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinois
+shore; and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever thought to
+put the gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to eat.  We
+was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things.  It warn't
+good judgment to put _everything_ on the raft.
+
+If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp fire I
+built, and watched it all night for Jim to come.  Anyways, they stayed
+away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn't no
+fault of mine.  I played it as low down on them as I could.
+
+When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a towhead in a
+big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches with
+the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like there
+had been a cave-in in the bank there.  A tow-head is a sandbar that has
+cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.
+
+We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinois
+side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we
+warn't afraid of anybody running across us.  We laid there all day,
+and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and
+up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle.  I told Jim all
+about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim said she was
+a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she wouldn't set
+down and watch a camp fire--no, sir, she'd fetch a dog.  Well, then, I
+said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog?  Jim said he
+bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and he
+believed they must a gone up-town to get a dog and so they lost all that
+time, or else we wouldn't be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen mile
+below the village--no, indeedy, we would be in that same old town again.
+ So I said I didn't care what was the reason they didn't get us as long
+as they didn't.
+
+When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the
+cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing in sight;
+so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug
+wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things
+dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above
+the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of
+reach of steamboat waves.  Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a
+layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for
+to hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather
+or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being seen.  We made an extra
+steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag
+or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern
+on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat
+coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't have
+to light it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they call
+a “crossing”; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being
+still a little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always run the
+channel, but hunted easy water.
+
+This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current
+that was making over four mile an hour.  We catched fish and talked,
+and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.  It was kind of
+solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking
+up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it
+warn't often that we laughed--only a little kind of a low chuckle.  We
+had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to
+us at all--that night, nor the next, nor the next.
+
+Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides,
+nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see.  The
+fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up.
+In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand
+people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful
+spread of lights at two o'clock that still night.  There warn't a sound
+there; everybody was asleep.
+
+Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o'clock at some little
+village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other
+stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting
+comfortable, and took him along.  Pap always said, take a chicken when
+you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy
+find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot.  I never see
+pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to
+say, anyway.
+
+Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a
+watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of
+that kind.  Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if you
+was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn't
+anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it.
+ Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly
+right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things
+from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more--then he reckoned
+it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others.  So we talked it over all
+one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds
+whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons,
+or what.  But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and
+concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons.  We warn't feeling just
+right before that, but it was all comfortable now.  I was glad the way
+it come out, too, because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons
+wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet.
+
+We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morning
+or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening.  Take it all round, we
+lived pretty high.
+
+The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight, with
+a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solid
+sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of itself.
+When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight river ahead,
+and high, rocky bluffs on both sides.  By and by says I, “Hel-_lo_, Jim,
+looky yonder!” It was a steamboat that had killed herself on a rock.
+ We was drifting straight down for her.  The lightning showed her very
+distinct.  She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck above
+water, and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and clear, and a
+chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging on the back of it,
+when the flashes come.
+
+Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all so mysterious-like,
+I felt just the way any other boy would a felt when I see that wreck
+laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river.  I
+wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little, and see what
+there was there.  So I says:
+
+“Le's land on her, Jim.”
+
+But Jim was dead against it at first.  He says:
+
+“I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no wrack.  We's doin' blame' well,
+en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says.  Like as not
+dey's a watchman on dat wrack.”
+
+“Watchman your grandmother,” I says; “there ain't nothing to watch but
+the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going to resk
+his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when
+it's likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?”  Jim
+couldn't say nothing to that, so he didn't try.  “And besides,” I says,
+“we might borrow something worth having out of the captain's stateroom.
+ Seegars, I bet you--and cost five cents apiece, solid cash.  Steamboat
+captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and _they_ don't
+care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it.  Stick a
+candle in your pocket; I can't rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging.
+ Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing?  Not for pie, he
+wouldn't. He'd call it an adventure--that's what he'd call it; and he'd
+land on that wreck if it was his last act.  And wouldn't he throw style
+into it?--wouldn't he spread himself, nor nothing?  Why, you'd think it
+was Christopher C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come.  I wish Tom Sawyer
+_was_ here.”
+
+Jim he grumbled a little, but give in.  He said we mustn't talk any more
+than we could help, and then talk mighty low.  The lightning showed us
+the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard derrick, and
+made fast there.
+
+The deck was high out here.  We went sneaking down the slope of it to
+labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with our
+feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was so
+dark we couldn't see no sign of them.  Pretty soon we struck the forward
+end of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next step fetched us in
+front of the captain's door, which was open, and by Jimminy, away down
+through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in the same second we
+seem to hear low voices in yonder!
+
+Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to come
+along.  I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft; but just
+then I heard a voice wail out and say:
+
+“Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!”
+
+Another voice said, pretty loud:
+
+“It's a lie, Jim Turner.  You've acted this way before.  You always want
+more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, because
+you've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell.  But this time you've said
+it jest one time too many.  You're the meanest, treacherousest hound in
+this country.”
+
+By this time Jim was gone for the raft.  I was just a-biling with
+curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now,
+and so I won't either; I'm a-going to see what's going on here.  So I
+dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft
+in the dark till there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and the
+cross-hall of the texas.  Then in there I see a man stretched on the
+floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one
+of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol.
+ This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, and
+saying:
+
+“I'd _like_ to!  And I orter, too--a mean skunk!”
+
+The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, “Oh, please don't, Bill;
+I hain't ever goin' to tell.”
+
+And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and
+say:
+
+“'Deed you _ain't!_  You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet
+you.” And once he said:  “Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the
+best of him and tied him he'd a killed us both.  And what _for_?  Jist
+for noth'n. Jist because we stood on our _rights_--that's what for.  But
+I lay you ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner.  Put
+_up_ that pistol, Bill.”
+
+Bill says:
+
+“I don't want to, Jake Packard.  I'm for killin' him--and didn't he kill
+old Hatfield jist the same way--and don't he deserve it?”
+
+“But I don't _want_ him killed, and I've got my reasons for it.”
+
+“Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard!  I'll never forgit you
+long's I live!” says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
+
+Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail
+and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill
+to come.  I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat
+slanted so that I couldn't make very good time; so to keep from getting
+run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side.
+ The man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to my
+stateroom, he says:
+
+“Here--come in here.”
+
+And in he come, and Bill after him.  But before they got in I was up
+in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come.  Then they stood there,
+with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked.  I couldn't see
+them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky they'd been having.
+ I was glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much difference
+anyway, because most of the time they couldn't a treed me because I
+didn't breathe.  I was too scared.  And, besides, a body _couldn't_
+breathe and hear such talk.  They talked low and earnest.  Bill wanted
+to kill Turner.  He says:
+
+“He's said he'll tell, and he will.  If we was to give both our shares
+to him _now_ it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way
+we've served him.  Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's evidence; now
+you hear _me_.  I'm for putting him out of his troubles.”
+
+“So'm I,” says Packard, very quiet.
+
+“Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't.  Well, then, that's all
+right.  Le's go and do it.”
+
+“Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit.  You listen to me.
+Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's _got_ to be
+done. But what I say is this:  it ain't good sense to go court'n around
+after a halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way that's
+jist as good and at the same time don't bring you into no resks.  Ain't
+that so?”
+
+“You bet it is.  But how you goin' to manage it this time?”
+
+“Well, my idea is this:  we'll rustle around and gather up whatever
+pickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide
+the truck. Then we'll wait.  Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n two
+hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river.  See?
+He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own
+self.  I reckon that's a considerble sight better 'n killin' of him.
+ I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git aroun' it; it
+ain't good sense, it ain't good morals.  Ain't I right?”
+
+“Yes, I reck'n you are.  But s'pose she _don't_ break up and wash off?”
+
+“Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we?”
+
+“All right, then; come along.”
+
+So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled
+forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse
+whisper, “Jim!” and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a
+moan, and I says:
+
+“Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a
+gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set
+her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the
+wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix.  But if we find their
+boat we can put _all_ of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'll get 'em.
+Quick--hurry!  I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You
+start at the raft, and--”
+
+“Oh, my lordy, lordy!  _raf'_?  Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke
+loose en gone I--en here we is!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted.  Shut up on a wreck with
+such a gang as that!  But it warn't no time to be sentimentering.  We'd
+_got_ to find that boat now--had to have it for ourselves.  So we went
+a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was,
+too--seemed a week before we got to the stern.  No sign of a boat.  Jim
+said he didn't believe he could go any further--so scared he hadn't
+hardly any strength left, he said.  But I said, come on, if we get left
+on this wreck we are in a fix, sure.  So on we prowled again.  We struck
+for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along
+forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the
+edge of the skylight was in the water.  When we got pretty close to the
+cross-hall door there was the skiff, sure enough!  I could just barely
+see her.  I felt ever so thankful.  In another second I would a been
+aboard of her, but just then the door opened.  One of the men stuck his
+head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone;
+but he jerked it in again, and says:
+
+“Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!”
+
+He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and
+set down.  It was Packard.  Then Bill _he_ come out and got in.  Packard
+says, in a low voice:
+
+“All ready--shove off!”
+
+I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak.  But Bill
+says:
+
+“Hold on--'d you go through him?”
+
+“No.  Didn't you?”
+
+“No.  So he's got his share o' the cash yet.”
+
+“Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money.”
+
+“Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?”
+
+“Maybe he won't.  But we got to have it anyway. Come along.”
+
+So they got out and went in.
+
+The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half
+second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me.  I out with my
+knife and cut the rope, and away we went!
+
+We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly even
+breathe.  We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the
+paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a
+hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every
+last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.
+
+When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern
+show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed
+by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to
+understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.
+
+Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft.  Now was the
+first time that I begun to worry about the men--I reckon I hadn't
+had time to before.  I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for
+murderers, to be in such a fix.  I says to myself, there ain't no
+telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would
+I like it?  So says I to Jim:
+
+“The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above
+it, in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and
+then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for
+that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when
+their time comes.”
+
+But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again,
+and this time worse than ever.  The rain poured down, and never a light
+showed; everybody in bed, I reckon.  We boomed along down the river,
+watching for lights and watching for our raft.  After a long time the
+rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering,
+and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we
+made for it.
+
+It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again.  We
+seen a light now away down to the right, on shore.  So I said I would
+go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole
+there on the wreck.  We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told
+Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone
+about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars
+and shoved for the light.  As I got down towards it three or four more
+showed--up on a hillside.  It was a village.  I closed in above the shore
+light, and laid on my oars and floated.  As I went by I see it was a
+lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat.  I skimmed
+around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by and
+by I found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down between
+his knees.  I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to
+cry.
+
+He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only
+me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:
+
+“Hello, what's up?  Don't cry, bub.  What's the trouble?”
+
+I says:
+
+“Pap, and mam, and sis, and--”
+
+Then I broke down.  He says:
+
+“Oh, dang it now, _don't_ take on so; we all has to have our troubles,
+and this 'n 'll come out all right.  What's the matter with 'em?”
+
+“They're--they're--are you the watchman of the boat?”
+
+“Yes,” he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like.  “I'm the captain
+and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head
+deck-hand; and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers.  I ain't as
+rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good
+to Tom, Dick, and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he
+does; but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with
+him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if
+_I'd_ live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin'
+on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it.  Says I--”
+
+I broke in and says:
+
+“They're in an awful peck of trouble, and--”
+
+“_Who_ is?”
+
+“Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your
+ferryboat and go up there--”
+
+“Up where?  Where are they?”
+
+“On the wreck.”
+
+“What wreck?”
+
+“Why, there ain't but one.”
+
+“What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Good land! what are they doin' _there_, for gracious sakes?”
+
+“Well, they didn't go there a-purpose.”
+
+“I bet they didn't!  Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'em
+if they don't git off mighty quick!  Why, how in the nation did they
+ever git into such a scrape?”
+
+“Easy enough.  Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town--”
+
+“Yes, Booth's Landing--go on.”
+
+“She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of
+the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry
+to stay all night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I
+disremember her name--and they lost their steering-oar, and swung
+around and went a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and
+saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and
+the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard
+the wreck.  Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our
+trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was
+right on it; and so _we_ saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but
+Bill Whipple--and oh, he _was_ the best cretur!--I most wish 't it had
+been me, I do.”
+
+“My George!  It's the beatenest thing I ever struck.  And _then_ what
+did you all do?”
+
+“Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't
+make nobody hear.  So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help
+somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it,
+and Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and
+hunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing.  I made the land about a mile
+below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do
+something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current?
+There ain't no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.'  Now if you'll go
+and--”
+
+“By Jackson, I'd _like_ to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will; but
+who in the dingnation's a-going' to _pay_ for it?  Do you reckon your
+pap--”
+
+“Why _that's_ all right.  Miss Hooker she tole me, _particular_, that
+her uncle Hornback--”
+
+“Great guns! is _he_ her uncle?  Looky here, you break for that light
+over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a
+quarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you
+out to Jim Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill.  And don't you fool
+around any, because he'll want to know the news.  Tell him I'll have
+his niece all safe before he can get to town.  Hump yourself, now; I'm
+a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer.”
+
+I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back
+and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in
+the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among
+some woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat
+start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on
+accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would
+a done it.  I wished the widow knowed about it.  I judged she would be
+proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and
+dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest
+in.
+
+Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along
+down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for
+her.  She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance
+for anybody being alive in her.  I pulled all around her and hollered
+a little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still.  I felt a little
+bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they
+could stand it I could.
+
+Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the river
+on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach
+I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the
+wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her
+uncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give
+it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming
+down the river.
+
+It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and when
+it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off.  By the time I
+got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we
+struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned
+in and slept like dead people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole
+off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all
+sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three
+boxes of seegars.  We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of
+our lives.  The seegars was prime.  We laid off all the afternoon in the
+woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good
+time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the
+ferryboat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said
+he didn't want no more adventures.  He said that when I went in the
+texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone he
+nearly died, because he judged it was all up with _him_ anyway it could
+be fixed; for if he didn't get saved he would get drownded; and if he
+did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get
+the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure.  Well, he
+was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a
+nigger.
+
+I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and
+how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each
+other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead
+of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested.  He says:
+
+“I didn' know dey was so many un um.  I hain't hearn 'bout none un um,
+skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a
+pack er k'yards.  How much do a king git?”
+
+“Get?”  I says; “why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want
+it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to
+them.”
+
+“_Ain'_ dat gay?  En what dey got to do, Huck?”
+
+“_They_ don't do nothing!  Why, how you talk! They just set around.”
+
+“No; is dat so?”
+
+“Of course it is.  They just set around--except, maybe, when there's a
+war; then they go to the war.  But other times they just lazy around; or
+go hawking--just hawking and sp--Sh!--d' you hear a noise?”
+
+We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a
+steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.
+
+“Yes,” says I, “and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the
+parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off.
+But mostly they hang round the harem.”
+
+“Roun' de which?”
+
+“Harem.”
+
+“What's de harem?”
+
+“The place where he keeps his wives.  Don't you know about the harem?
+Solomon had one; he had about a million wives.”
+
+“Why, yes, dat's so; I--I'd done forgot it.  A harem's a bo'd'n-house, I
+reck'n.  Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery.  En I reck'n
+de wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket.  Yit dey say
+Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'.  I doan' take no stock in
+dat. Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a
+blim-blammin' all de time?  No--'deed he wouldn't.  A wise man 'ud take
+en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet _down_ de biler-factry
+when he want to res'.”
+
+“Well, but he _was_ the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told
+me so, her own self.”
+
+“I doan k'yer what de widder say, he _warn't_ no wise man nuther.  He
+had some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see.  Does you know 'bout dat
+chile dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?”
+
+“Yes, the widow told me all about it.”
+
+“_Well_, den!  Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'?  You jes'
+take en look at it a minute.  Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women;
+heah's you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's
+de chile.  Bofe un you claims it.  What does I do?  Does I shin aroun'
+mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill _do_ b'long to, en
+han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat
+had any gumption would?  No; I take en whack de bill in _two_, en give
+half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman.  Dat's de way
+Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile.  Now I want to ast you:  what's
+de use er dat half a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it.  En what use is a
+half a chile?  I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um.”
+
+“But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point--blame it, you've missed
+it a thousand mile.”
+
+“Who?  Me?  Go 'long.  Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints.  I reck'n I
+knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as
+dat. De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole
+chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile
+wid a half a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain.  Doan'
+talk to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”
+
+“But I tell you you don't get the point.”
+
+“Blame de point!  I reck'n I knows what I knows.  En mine you, de _real_
+pint is down furder--it's down deeper.  It lays in de way Sollermun was
+raised.  You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen; is dat man
+gwyne to be waseful o' chillen?  No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it.  _He_
+know how to value 'em.  But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million
+chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt.  _He_ as soon chop a
+chile in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'.  A chile er two, mo' er less,
+warn't no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!”
+
+I never see such a nigger.  If he got a notion in his head once, there
+warn't no getting it out again.  He was the most down on Solomon of
+any nigger I ever see.  So I went to talking about other kings, and let
+Solomon slide.  I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off
+in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that
+would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say
+he died there.
+
+“Po' little chap.”
+
+“But some says he got out and got away, and come to America.”
+
+“Dat's good!  But he'll be pooty lonesome--dey ain' no kings here, is
+dey, Huck?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Den he cain't git no situation.  What he gwyne to do?”
+
+“Well, I don't know.  Some of them gets on the police, and some of them
+learns people how to talk French.”
+
+“Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?”
+
+“_No_, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single word.”
+
+“Well, now, I be ding-busted!  How do dat come?”
+
+“I don't know; but it's so.  I got some of their jabber out of a book.
+S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you
+think?”
+
+“I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat is, if he
+warn't white.  I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat.”
+
+“Shucks, it ain't calling you anything.  It's only saying, do you know
+how to talk French?”
+
+“Well, den, why couldn't he _say_ it?”
+
+“Why, he _is_ a-saying it.  That's a Frenchman's _way_ of saying it.”
+
+“Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout
+it.  Dey ain' no sense in it.”
+
+“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”
+
+“No, a cat don't.”
+
+“Well, does a cow?”
+
+“No, a cow don't, nuther.”
+
+“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”
+
+“No, dey don't.”
+
+“It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't
+it?”
+
+“Course.”
+
+“And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different
+from _us_?”
+
+“Why, mos' sholy it is.”
+
+“Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a _Frenchman_ to talk
+different from us?  You answer me that.”
+
+“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man.  Is a cow a
+man?--er is a cow a cat?”
+
+“No, she ain't either of them.”
+
+“Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the
+yuther of 'em.  Is a Frenchman a man?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“_Well_, den!  Dad blame it, why doan' he _talk_ like a man?  You answer
+me _dat_!”
+
+I see it warn't no use wasting words--you can't learn a nigger to argue.
+So I quit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom
+of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was
+after.  We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the
+Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.
+
+Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead
+to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled
+ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything
+but little saplings to tie to.  I passed the line around one of them
+right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and
+the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and
+away she went.  I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and
+scared I couldn't budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me--and
+then there warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see twenty yards.  I
+jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle
+and set her back a stroke.  But she didn't come.  I was in such a hurry
+I hadn't untied her.  I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so
+excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do anything with them.
+
+As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right
+down the towhead.  That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead
+warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot
+out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which way I was
+going than a dead man.
+
+Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank
+or a towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's
+mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time.
+ I whooped and listened.  Away down there somewheres I hears a small
+whoop, and up comes my spirits.  I went tearing after it, listening
+sharp to hear it again.  The next time it come I see I warn't heading
+for it, but heading away to the right of it.  And the next time I was
+heading away to the left of it--and not gaining on it much either, for
+I was flying around, this way and that and t'other, but it was going
+straight ahead all the time.
+
+I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the
+time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops
+that was making the trouble for me.  Well, I fought along, and directly
+I hears the whoop _behind_ me.  I was tangled good now.  That was
+somebody else's whoop, or else I was turned around.
+
+I throwed the paddle down.  I heard the whoop again; it was behind me
+yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its
+place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again,
+and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down-stream, and I
+was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering.
+ I couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don't look
+natural nor sound natural in a fog.
+
+The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a
+cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed
+me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly
+roared, the currrent was tearing by them so swift.
+
+In another second or two it was solid white and still again.  I set
+perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn't
+draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.
+
+I just give up then.  I knowed what the matter was.  That cut bank
+was an island, and Jim had gone down t'other side of it.  It warn't no
+towhead that you could float by in ten minutes.  It had the big timber
+of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than
+half a mile wide.
+
+I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon.  I
+was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don't
+ever think of that.  No, you _feel_ like you are laying dead still on
+the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don't think to
+yourself how fast _you're_ going, but you catch your breath and think,
+my! how that snag's tearing along.  If you think it ain't dismal and
+lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it
+once--you'll see.
+
+Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears
+the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn't do
+it, and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had
+little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me--sometimes just a narrow
+channel between, and some that I couldn't see I knowed was there because
+I'd hear the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash
+that hung over the banks.  Well, I warn't long loosing the whoops down
+amongst the towheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while,
+anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack-o'-lantern.  You never
+knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.
+
+I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to
+keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the
+raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would
+get further ahead and clear out of hearing--it was floating a little
+faster than what I was.
+
+Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn't
+hear no sign of a whoop nowheres.  I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a
+snag, maybe, and it was all up with him.  I was good and tired, so I
+laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more.  I didn't
+want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn't help it;
+so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.
+
+But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars
+was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a
+big bend stern first.  First I didn't know where I was; I thought I was
+dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come
+up dim out of last week.
+
+It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest
+kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see
+by the stars.  I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the
+water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but a
+couple of sawlogs made fast together.  Then I see another speck, and
+chased that; then another, and this time I was right.  It was the raft.
+
+When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his
+knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar.  The
+other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and
+branches and dirt.  So she'd had a rough time.
+
+I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to
+gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:
+
+“Hello, Jim, have I been asleep?  Why didn't you stir me up?”
+
+“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck?  En you ain' dead--you ain'
+drownded--you's back agin?  It's too good for true, honey, it's too good
+for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you.  No, you ain'
+dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck--de same ole
+Huck, thanks to goodness!”
+
+“What's the matter with you, Jim?  You been a-drinking?”
+
+“Drinkin'?  Has I ben a-drinkin'?  Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'?”
+
+“Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”
+
+“How does I talk wild?”
+
+“_How_?  Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all that
+stuff, as if I'd been gone away?”
+
+“Huck--Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye.  _Hain't_ you
+ben gone away?”
+
+“Gone away?  Why, what in the nation do you mean?  I hain't been gone
+anywheres.  Where would I go to?”
+
+“Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is.  Is I _me_, or who
+_is_ I? Is I heah, or whah _is_ I?  Now dat's what I wants to know.”
+
+“Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a
+tangle-headed old fool, Jim.”
+
+“I is, is I?  Well, you answer me dis:  Didn't you tote out de line in
+de canoe fer to make fas' to de tow-head?”
+
+“No, I didn't.  What tow-head?  I hain't see no tow-head.”
+
+“You hain't seen no towhead?  Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en
+de raf' go a-hummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in
+de fog?”
+
+“What fog?”
+
+“Why, de fog!--de fog dat's been aroun' all night.  En didn't you whoop,
+en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us got
+los' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know whah
+he wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible
+time en mos' git drownded?  Now ain' dat so, boss--ain't it so?  You
+answer me dat.”
+
+“Well, this is too many for me, Jim.  I hain't seen no fog, nor no
+islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing.  I been setting here talking with
+you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon
+I done the same.  You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of course
+you've been dreaming.”
+
+“Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”
+
+“Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it
+happen.”
+
+“But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as--”
+
+“It don't make no difference how plain it is; there ain't nothing in it.
+I know, because I've been here all the time.”
+
+Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying
+over it.  Then he says:
+
+“Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain't
+de powerfullest dream I ever see.  En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo'
+dat's tired me like dis one.”
+
+“Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like
+everything sometimes.  But this one was a staving dream; tell me all
+about it, Jim.”
+
+So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as
+it happened, only he painted it up considerable.  Then he said he must
+start in and “'terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning.  He said
+the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but
+the current was another man that would get us away from him.  The whoops
+was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn't
+try hard to make out to understand them they'd just take us into bad
+luck, 'stead of keeping us out of it.  The lot of towheads was troubles
+we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean
+folks, but if we minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate
+them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big
+clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more
+trouble.
+
+It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it
+was clearing up again now.
+
+“Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim,” I
+says; “but what does _these_ things stand for?”
+
+It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar.  You
+could see them first-rate now.
+
+Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash
+again.  He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he
+couldn't seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place
+again right away.  But when he did get the thing straightened around he
+looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:
+
+“What do dey stan' for?  I'se gwyne to tell you.  When I got all wore
+out wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz
+mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become
+er me en de raf'.  En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe
+en soun', de tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo'
+foot, I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could
+make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie.  Dat truck dah is _trash_; en trash
+is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em
+ashamed.”
+
+Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without
+saying anything but that.  But that was enough.  It made me feel so mean
+I could almost kissed _his_ foot to get him to take it back.
+
+It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble
+myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it
+afterwards, neither.  I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I
+wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a
+monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession.  She had
+four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty
+men, likely.  She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open
+camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end.  There was a
+power of style about her.  It _amounted_ to something being a raftsman
+on such a craft as that.
+
+We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got
+hot.  The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on
+both sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.  We
+talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to
+it.  I said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but
+about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them lit
+up, how was we going to know we was passing a town?  Jim said if the two
+big rivers joined together there, that would show.  But I said maybe
+we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the
+same old river again. That disturbed Jim--and me too.  So the question
+was, what to do?  I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed,
+and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and
+was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to
+Cairo.  Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and
+waited.
+
+There warn't nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and
+not pass it without seeing it.  He said he'd be mighty sure to see it,
+because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it
+he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom.  Every
+little while he jumps up and says:
+
+“Dah she is?”
+
+But it warn't.  It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set
+down again, and went to watching, same as before.  Jim said it made him
+all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.  Well, I can
+tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him,
+because I begun to get it through my head that he _was_ most free--and
+who was to blame for it?  Why, _me_.  I couldn't get that out of my
+conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't
+rest; I couldn't stay still in one place.  It hadn't ever come home to
+me before, what this thing was that I was doing.  But now it did; and it
+stayed with me, and scorched me more and more.  I tried to make out to
+myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his
+rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every
+time, “But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a
+paddled ashore and told somebody.”  That was so--I couldn't get around
+that noway.  That was where it pinched.  Conscience says to me, “What
+had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off
+right under your eyes and never say one single word?  What did that poor
+old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean?  Why, she tried to
+learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to
+be good to you every way she knowed how.  _That's_ what she done.”
+
+I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead.  I
+fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was
+fidgeting up and down past me.  We neither of us could keep still.
+ Every time he danced around and says, “Dah's Cairo!” it went through me
+like a shot, and I thought if it _was_ Cairo I reckoned I would die of
+miserableness.
+
+Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself.  He was
+saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he
+would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he
+got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to
+where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the
+two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an
+Ab'litionist to go and steal them.
+
+It most froze me to hear such talk.  He wouldn't ever dared to talk such
+talk in his life before.  Just see what a difference it made in him the
+minute he judged he was about free.  It was according to the old saying,
+“Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell.”  Thinks I, this is what
+comes of my not thinking.  Here was this nigger, which I had as good
+as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would
+steal his children--children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a
+man that hadn't ever done me no harm.
+
+I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.  My
+conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says
+to it, “Let up on me--it ain't too late yet--I'll paddle ashore at the
+first light and tell.”  I felt easy and happy and light as a feather
+right off.  All my troubles was gone.  I went to looking out sharp for a
+light, and sort of singing to myself.  By and by one showed.  Jim sings
+out:
+
+“We's safe, Huck, we's safe!  Jump up and crack yo' heels!  Dat's de
+good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it!”
+
+I says:
+
+“I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim.  It mightn't be, you know.”
+
+He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom
+for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:
+
+“Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on
+accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it
+hadn' ben for Huck; Huck done it.  Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck;
+you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de _only_ fren' ole Jim's
+got now.”
+
+I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says
+this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me.  I went along
+slow then, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad I started
+or whether I warn't.  When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:
+
+“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his
+promise to ole Jim.”
+
+Well, I just felt sick.  But I says, I _got_ to do it--I can't get _out_
+of it.  Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and
+they stopped and I stopped.  One of them says:
+
+“What's that yonder?”
+
+“A piece of a raft,” I says.
+
+“Do you belong on it?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Any men on it?”
+
+“Only one, sir.”
+
+“Well, there's five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head
+of the bend.  Is your man white or black?”
+
+I didn't answer up prompt.  I tried to, but the words wouldn't come. I
+tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn't man
+enough--hadn't the spunk of a rabbit.  I see I was weakening; so I just
+give up trying, and up and says:
+
+“He's white.”
+
+“I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves.”
+
+“I wish you would,” says I, “because it's pap that's there, and maybe
+you'd help me tow the raft ashore where the light is.  He's sick--and so
+is mam and Mary Ann.”
+
+“Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy.  But I s'pose we've got to.
+ Come, buckle to your paddle, and let's get along.”
+
+I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars.  When we had made a
+stroke or two, I says:
+
+“Pap'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you.  Everybody goes
+away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't do it
+by myself.”
+
+“Well, that's infernal mean.  Odd, too.  Say, boy, what's the matter
+with your father?”
+
+“It's the--a--the--well, it ain't anything much.”
+
+They stopped pulling.  It warn't but a mighty little ways to the raft
+now. One says:
+
+“Boy, that's a lie.  What _is_ the matter with your pap?  Answer up
+square now, and it'll be the better for you.”
+
+“I will, sir, I will, honest--but don't leave us, please.  It's
+the--the--Gentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you the
+headline, you won't have to come a-near the raft--please do.”
+
+“Set her back, John, set her back!” says one.  They backed water.  “Keep
+away, boy--keep to looard.  Confound it, I just expect the wind has
+blowed it to us.  Your pap's got the small-pox, and you know it precious
+well.  Why didn't you come out and say so?  Do you want to spread it all
+over?”
+
+“Well,” says I, a-blubbering, “I've told everybody before, and they just
+went away and left us.”
+
+“Poor devil, there's something in that.  We are right down sorry for
+you, but we--well, hang it, we don't want the small-pox, you see.  Look
+here, I'll tell you what to do.  Don't you try to land by yourself, or
+you'll smash everything to pieces.  You float along down about twenty
+miles, and you'll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river.  It
+will be long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell them
+your folks are all down with chills and fever.  Don't be a fool again,
+and let people guess what is the matter.  Now we're trying to do you a
+kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us, that's a good boy.
+ It wouldn't do any good to land yonder where the light is--it's only a
+wood-yard. Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's
+in pretty hard luck.  Here, I'll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this
+board, and you get it when it floats by.  I feel mighty mean to leave
+you; but my kingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox, don't you see?”
+
+“Hold on, Parker,” says the other man, “here's a twenty to put on the
+board for me.  Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll
+be all right.”
+
+“That's so, my boy--good-bye, good-bye.  If you see any runaway niggers
+you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it.”
+
+“Good-bye, sir,” says I; “I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I
+can help it.”
+
+They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I
+knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me
+to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get _started_ right when
+he's little ain't got no show--when the pinch comes there ain't nothing
+to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat.  Then I
+thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd a done right
+and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now?  No, says
+I, I'd feel bad--I'd feel just the same way I do now.  Well, then, says
+I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do
+right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?
+ I was stuck.  I couldn't answer that.  So I reckoned I wouldn't bother
+no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at
+the time.
+
+I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there.  I looked all around; he
+warn't anywhere.  I says:
+
+“Jim!”
+
+“Here I is, Huck.  Is dey out o' sight yit?  Don't talk loud.”
+
+He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out.  I told
+him they were out of sight, so he come aboard.  He says:
+
+“I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was gwyne
+to shove for sho' if dey come aboard.  Den I was gwyne to swim to de
+raf' agin when dey was gone.  But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck!
+ Dat _wuz_ de smartes' dodge!  I tell you, chile, I'spec it save' ole
+Jim--ole Jim ain't going to forgit you for dat, honey.”
+
+Then we talked about the money.  It was a pretty good raise--twenty
+dollars apiece.  Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat
+now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free
+States. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he
+wished we was already there.
+
+Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about hiding
+the raft good.  Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles, and
+getting all ready to quit rafting.
+
+That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away down
+in a left-hand bend.
+
+I went off in the canoe to ask about it.  Pretty soon I found a man out
+in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line.  I ranged up and says:
+
+“Mister, is that town Cairo?”
+
+“Cairo? no.  You must be a blame' fool.”
+
+“What town is it, mister?”
+
+“If you want to know, go and find out.  If you stay here botherin'
+around me for about a half a minute longer you'll get something you
+won't want.”
+
+I paddled to the raft.  Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never
+mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.
+
+We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but
+it was high ground, so I didn't go.  No high ground about Cairo, Jim
+said. I had forgot it.  We laid up for the day on a towhead tolerable
+close to the left-hand bank.  I begun to suspicion something.  So did
+Jim.  I says:
+
+“Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night.”
+
+He says:
+
+“Doan' le's talk about it, Huck.  Po' niggers can't have no luck.  I
+awluz 'spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn't done wid its work.”
+
+“I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim--I do wish I'd never laid
+eyes on it.”
+
+“It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn' know.  Don't you blame yo'self
+'bout it.”
+
+When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure
+enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy!  So it was all up with
+Cairo.
+
+We talked it all over.  It wouldn't do to take to the shore; we couldn't
+take the raft up the stream, of course.  There warn't no way but to wait
+for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the chances.  So we slept
+all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as to be fresh for the work,
+and when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone!
+
+We didn't say a word for a good while.  There warn't anything to
+say.  We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the
+rattlesnake-skin; so what was the use to talk about it?  It would only
+look like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more
+bad luck--and keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep
+still.
+
+By and by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn't no
+way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to buy
+a canoe to go back in.  We warn't going to borrow it when there warn't
+anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set people after
+us.
+
+So we shoved out after dark on the raft.
+
+Anybody that don't believe yet that it's foolishness to handle a
+snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe it
+now if they read on and see what more it done for us.
+
+The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore.  But we
+didn't see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and
+more.  Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next
+meanest thing to fog.  You can't tell the shape of the river, and you
+can't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then along
+comes a steamboat up the river.  We lit the lantern, and judged she
+would see it.  Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to us; they
+go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the reefs; but
+nights like this they bull right up the channel against the whole river.
+
+We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she
+was close.  She aimed right for us.  Often they do that and try to see
+how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off
+a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and thinks
+he's mighty smart.  Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to
+try and shave us; but she didn't seem to be sheering off a bit.  She
+was a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black
+cloud with rows of glow-worms around it; but all of a sudden she bulged
+out, big and scary, with a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining
+like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right
+over us.  There was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the
+engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of steam--and as Jim went
+overboard on one side and I on the other, she come smashing straight
+through the raft.
+
+I dived--and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel
+had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room.  I could
+always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under a
+minute and a half.  Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was
+nearly busting.  I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out of
+my nose, and puffed a bit.  Of course there was a booming current; and
+of course that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she
+stopped them, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she was
+churning along up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though I
+could hear her.
+
+I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer;
+so I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was “treading water,” and
+struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me.  But I made out to see
+that the drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which
+meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.
+
+It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a good
+long time in getting over.  I made a safe landing, and clumb up the
+bank. I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along over
+rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across a
+big old-fashioned double log-house before I noticed it.  I was going to
+rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howling
+and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another peg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+IN about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his
+head out, and says:
+
+“Be done, boys!  Who's there?”
+
+I says:
+
+“It's me.”
+
+“Who's me?”
+
+“George Jackson, sir.”
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+“I don't want nothing, sir.  I only want to go along by, but the dogs
+won't let me.”
+
+“What are you prowling around here this time of night for--hey?”
+
+“I warn't prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat.”
+
+“Oh, you did, did you?  Strike a light there, somebody.  What did you
+say your name was?”
+
+“George Jackson, sir.  I'm only a boy.”
+
+“Look here, if you're telling the truth you needn't be afraid--nobody'll
+hurt you.  But don't try to budge; stand right where you are.  Rouse out
+Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns.  George Jackson, is there
+anybody with you?”
+
+“No, sir, nobody.”
+
+I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light.
+The man sung out:
+
+“Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool--ain't you got any sense?
+Put it on the floor behind the front door.  Bob, if you and Tom are
+ready, take your places.”
+
+“All ready.”
+
+“Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?”
+
+“No, sir; I never heard of them.”
+
+“Well, that may be so, and it mayn't.  Now, all ready.  Step forward,
+George Jackson.  And mind, don't you hurry--come mighty slow.  If there's
+anybody with you, let him keep back--if he shows himself he'll be shot.
+Come along now.  Come slow; push the door open yourself--just enough to
+squeeze in, d' you hear?”
+
+I didn't hurry; I couldn't if I'd a wanted to.  I took one slow step at
+a time and there warn't a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart.
+ The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind
+me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them unlocking and
+unbarring and unbolting.  I put my hand on the door and pushed it a
+little and a little more till somebody said, “There, that's enough--put
+your head in.” I done it, but I judged they would take it off.
+
+The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and
+me at them, for about a quarter of a minute:  Three big men with guns
+pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray
+and about sixty, the other two thirty or more--all of them fine and
+handsome--and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and back of her two
+young women which I couldn't see right well.  The old gentleman says:
+
+“There; I reckon it's all right.  Come in.”
+
+As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it
+and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and
+they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor,
+and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front
+windows--there warn't none on the side.  They held the candle, and took a
+good look at me, and all said, “Why, _he_ ain't a Shepherdson--no, there
+ain't any Shepherdson about him.”  Then the old man said he hoped I
+wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by
+it--it was only to make sure.  So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only
+felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right.  He told me to
+make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but the old
+lady says:
+
+“Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as he can be; and don't
+you reckon it may be he's hungry?”
+
+“True for you, Rachel--I forgot.”
+
+So the old lady says:
+
+“Betsy” (this was a nigger woman), “you fly around and get him something
+to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls go and wake
+up Buck and tell him--oh, here he is himself.  Buck, take this little
+stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him up in some
+of yours that's dry.”
+
+Buck looked about as old as me--thirteen or fourteen or along there,
+though he was a little bigger than me.  He hadn't on anything but a
+shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed.  He came in gaping and digging one
+fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one.
+He says:
+
+“Ain't they no Shepherdsons around?”
+
+They said, no, 'twas a false alarm.
+
+“Well,” he says, “if they'd a ben some, I reckon I'd a got one.”
+
+They all laughed, and Bob says:
+
+“Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've been so slow in
+coming.”
+
+“Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right I'm always kept down; I
+don't get no show.”
+
+“Never mind, Buck, my boy,” says the old man, “you'll have show enough,
+all in good time, don't you fret about that.  Go 'long with you now, and
+do as your mother told you.”
+
+When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a
+roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on.  While I was at it he
+asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to
+tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods
+day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle
+went out.  I said I didn't know; I hadn't heard about it before, no way.
+
+“Well, guess,” he says.
+
+“How'm I going to guess,” says I, “when I never heard tell of it
+before?”
+
+“But you can guess, can't you?  It's just as easy.”
+
+“_Which_ candle?”  I says.
+
+“Why, any candle,” he says.
+
+“I don't know where he was,” says I; “where was he?”
+
+“Why, he was in the _dark_!  That's where he was!”
+
+“Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?”
+
+“Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see?  Say, how long are you
+going to stay here?  You got to stay always.  We can just have booming
+times--they don't have no school now.  Do you own a dog?  I've got a
+dog--and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in.  Do
+you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness?  You bet
+I don't, but ma she makes me.  Confound these ole britches!  I reckon
+I'd better put 'em on, but I'd ruther not, it's so warm.  Are you all
+ready? All right.  Come along, old hoss.”
+
+Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk--that is what they
+had for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that ever I've
+come across yet.  Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes,
+except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women.  They
+all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked.  The young women had
+quilts around them, and their hair down their backs.  They all asked me
+questions, and I told them how pap and me and all the family was living
+on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann
+run off and got married and never was heard of no more, and Bill went
+to hunt them and he warn't heard of no more, and Tom and Mort died,
+and then there warn't nobody but just me and pap left, and he was just
+trimmed down to nothing, on account of his troubles; so when he died
+I took what there was left, because the farm didn't belong to us, and
+started up the river, deck passage, and fell overboard; and that was how
+I come to be here.  So they said I could have a home there as long as I
+wanted it.  Then it was most daylight and everybody went to bed, and I
+went to bed with Buck, and when I waked up in the morning, drat it all,
+I had forgot what my name was. So I laid there about an hour trying to
+think, and when Buck waked up I says:
+
+“Can you spell, Buck?”
+
+“Yes,” he says.
+
+“I bet you can't spell my name,” says I.
+
+“I bet you what you dare I can,” says he.
+
+“All right,” says I, “go ahead.”
+
+“G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n--there now,” he says.
+
+“Well,” says I, “you done it, but I didn't think you could.  It ain't no
+slouch of a name to spell--right off without studying.”
+
+I set it down, private, because somebody might want _me_ to spell it
+next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was
+used to it.
+
+It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too.  I hadn't
+seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much
+style.  It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one
+with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in
+town. There warn't no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed; but heaps
+of parlors in towns has beds in them.  There was a big fireplace that
+was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept clean and red by
+pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another brick; sometimes
+they wash them over with red water-paint that they call Spanish-brown,
+same as they do in town.  They had big brass dog-irons that could hold
+up a saw-log. There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece, with
+a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front, and
+a round place in the middle of it for the sun, and you could see the
+pendulum swinging behind it.  It was beautiful to hear that clock tick;
+and sometimes when one of these peddlers had been along and scoured her
+up and got her in good shape, she would start in and strike a hundred
+and fifty before she got tuckered out.  They wouldn't took any money for
+her.
+
+Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock,
+made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy.  By one of the
+parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other;
+and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't open
+their mouths nor look different nor interested.  They squeaked through
+underneath.  There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out
+behind those things.  On the table in the middle of the room was a kind
+of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and
+grapes piled up in it, which was much redder and yellower and prettier
+than real ones is, but they warn't real because you could see where
+pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk, or whatever it
+was, underneath.
+
+This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red and
+blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all around.  It
+come all the way from Philadelphia, they said.  There was some books,
+too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table.  One was a
+big family Bible full of pictures.  One was Pilgrim's Progress, about a
+man that left his family, it didn't say why.  I read considerable in it
+now and then.  The statements was interesting, but tough.  Another was
+Friendship's Offering, full of beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn't
+read the poetry.  Another was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another was Dr.
+Gunn's Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body
+was sick or dead.  There was a hymn book, and a lot of other books.  And
+there was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too--not bagged
+down in the middle and busted, like an old basket.
+
+They had pictures hung on the walls--mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes,
+and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called “Signing the
+Declaration.” There was some that they called crayons, which one of the
+daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only
+fifteen years old.  They was different from any pictures I ever see
+before--blacker, mostly, than is common.  One was a woman in a slim black
+dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in
+the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with
+a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and
+very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a
+tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other hand
+hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule,
+and underneath the picture it said “Shall I Never See Thee More Alas.”
+  Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight
+to the top of her head, and knotted there in front of a comb like a
+chair-back, and she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird
+laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up, and underneath
+the picture it said “I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas.”
+  There was one where a young lady was at a window looking up at the
+moon, and tears running down her cheeks; and she had an open letter in
+one hand with black sealing wax showing on one edge of it, and she was
+mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath
+the picture it said “And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas.”  These
+was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take
+to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the
+fan-tods.  Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot
+more of these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done
+what they had lost.  But I reckoned that with her disposition she was
+having a better time in the graveyard.  She was at work on what they
+said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and
+every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it
+done, but she never got the chance.  It was a picture of a young woman
+in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump
+off, with her hair all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with
+the tears running down her face, and she had two arms folded across her
+breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two more reaching up
+towards the moon--and the idea was to see which pair would look best,
+and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was saying, she died
+before she got her mind made up, and now they kept this picture over the
+head of the bed in her room, and every time her birthday come they hung
+flowers on it.  Other times it was hid with a little curtain.  The young
+woman in the picture had a kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so
+many arms it made her look too spidery, seemed to me.
+
+This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste
+obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the
+Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head.
+It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name
+of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded:
+
+ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D
+
+And did young Stephen sicken,    And did young Stephen die? And did the
+sad hearts thicken,    And did the mourners cry?
+
+No; such was not the fate of    Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sad
+hearts round him thickened,    'Twas not from sickness' shots.
+
+No whooping-cough did rack his frame,    Nor measles drear with spots;
+Not these impaired the sacred name    Of Stephen Dowling Bots.
+
+Despised love struck not with woe    That head of curly knots, Nor
+stomach troubles laid him low,    Young Stephen Dowling Bots.
+
+O no. Then list with tearful eye,    Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul
+did from this cold world fly    By falling down a well.
+
+They got him out and emptied him;    Alas it was too late; His spirit
+was gone for to sport aloft    In the realms of the good and great.
+
+If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was
+fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by.  Buck
+said she could rattle off poetry like nothing.  She didn't ever have to
+stop to think.  He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't
+find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down
+another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write about
+anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful.
+Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on
+hand with her “tribute” before he was cold.  She called them tributes.
+The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the
+undertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and
+then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was
+Whistler.  She warn't ever the same after that; she never complained,
+but she kinder pined away and did not live long.  Poor thing, many's the
+time I made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get
+out her poor old scrap-book and read in it when her pictures had been
+aggravating me and I had soured on her a little.  I liked all that
+family, dead ones and all, and warn't going to let anything come between
+us.  Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was
+alive, and it didn't seem right that there warn't nobody to make some
+about her now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two
+myself, but I couldn't seem to make it go somehow.  They kept Emmeline's
+room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she
+liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there.
+ The old lady took care of the room herself, though there was plenty
+of niggers, and she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there
+mostly.
+
+Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on
+the windows:  white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vines
+all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink.  There was a little
+old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was ever
+so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing “The Last Link is Broken”
+ and play “The Battle of Prague” on it.  The walls of all the rooms was
+plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house was
+whitewashed on the outside.
+
+It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed
+and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the
+day, and it was a cool, comfortable place.  Nothing couldn't be better.
+ And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of it too!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+COL.  Grangerford was a gentleman, you see.  He was a gentleman all
+over; and so was his family.  He was well born, as the saying is, and
+that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas
+said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy
+in our town; and pap he always said it, too, though he warn't no more
+quality than a mudcat himself.  Col.  Grangerford was very tall and
+very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it
+anywheres; he was clean shaved every morning all over his thin face, and
+he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and
+a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so
+deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at
+you, as you may say.  His forehead was high, and his hair was black and
+straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and
+every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head
+to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it;
+and on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it.  He
+carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it.  There warn't no
+frivolishness about him, not a bit, and he warn't ever loud.  He was
+as kind as he could be--you could feel that, you know, and so you had
+confidence.  Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he
+straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to
+flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first,
+and find out what the matter was afterwards.  He didn't ever have to
+tell anybody to mind their manners--everybody was always good-mannered
+where he was.  Everybody loved to have him around, too; he was sunshine
+most always--I mean he made it seem like good weather.  When he turned
+into a cloudbank it was awful dark for half a minute, and that was
+enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week.
+
+When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got
+up out of their chairs and give them good-day, and didn't set down again
+till they had set down.  Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard where
+the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him, and
+he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed, and
+then they bowed and said, “Our duty to you, sir, and madam;” and _they_
+bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so they drank,
+all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and
+the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers, and
+give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old people too.
+
+Bob was the oldest and Tom next--tall, beautiful men with very broad
+shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes.  They
+dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and
+wore broad Panama hats.
+
+Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud
+and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn't stirred up; but
+when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks,
+like her father.  She was beautiful.
+
+So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind.  She was
+gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty.
+
+Each person had their own nigger to wait on them--Buck too.  My nigger
+had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having anybody do
+anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time.
+
+This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be
+more--three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.
+
+The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers.
+Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or
+fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such junketings
+round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the woods
+daytimes, and balls at the house nights.  These people was mostly
+kinfolks of the family.  The men brought their guns with them.  It was a
+handsome lot of quality, I tell you.
+
+There was another clan of aristocracy around there--five or six
+families--mostly of the name of Shepherdson.  They was as high-toned
+and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords.  The
+Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing, which was
+about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went up there with a
+lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their
+fine horses.
+
+One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a horse
+coming.  We was crossing the road.  Buck says:
+
+“Quick!  Jump for the woods!”
+
+We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves.  Pretty
+soon a splendid young man come galloping down the road, setting his
+horse easy and looking like a soldier.  He had his gun across his
+pommel.  I had seen him before.  It was young Harney Shepherdson.  I
+heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from his
+head.  He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was
+hid.  But we didn't wait.  We started through the woods on a run.  The
+woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet,
+and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he rode away
+the way he come--to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't see.  We never
+stopped running till we got home.  The old gentleman's eyes blazed a
+minute--'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged--then his face sort of smoothed
+down, and he says, kind of gentle:
+
+“I don't like that shooting from behind a bush.  Why didn't you step
+into the road, my boy?”
+
+“The Shepherdsons don't, father.  They always take advantage.”
+
+Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling
+his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped.  The two young
+men looked dark, but never said nothing.  Miss Sophia she turned pale,
+but the color come back when she found the man warn't hurt.
+
+Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by
+ourselves, I says:
+
+“Did you want to kill him, Buck?”
+
+“Well, I bet I did.”
+
+“What did he do to you?”
+
+“Him?  He never done nothing to me.”
+
+“Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?”
+
+“Why, nothing--only it's on account of the feud.”
+
+“What's a feud?”
+
+“Why, where was you raised?  Don't you know what a feud is?”
+
+“Never heard of it before--tell me about it.”
+
+“Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way:  A man has a quarrel with
+another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills _him_;
+then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the
+_cousins_ chip in--and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't
+no more feud.  But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time.”
+
+“Has this one been going on long, Buck?”
+
+“Well, I should _reckon_!  It started thirty year ago, or som'ers along
+there.  There was trouble 'bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle
+it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the
+man that won the suit--which he would naturally do, of course.  Anybody
+would.”
+
+“What was the trouble about, Buck?--land?”
+
+“I reckon maybe--I don't know.”
+
+“Well, who done the shooting?  Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?”
+
+“Laws, how do I know?  It was so long ago.”
+
+“Don't anybody know?”
+
+“Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but they
+don't know now what the row was about in the first place.”
+
+“Has there been many killed, Buck?”
+
+“Yes; right smart chance of funerals.  But they don't always kill.  Pa's
+got a few buckshot in him; but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't weigh
+much, anyway.  Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's been
+hurt once or twice.”
+
+“Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?”
+
+“Yes; we got one and they got one.  'Bout three months ago my cousin
+Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on t'other side
+of the river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame'
+foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming behind
+him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin' after him with his gun in
+his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and 'stead of jumping
+off and taking to the brush, Bud 'lowed he could out-run him; so they
+had it, nip and tuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining all
+the time; so at last Bud seen it warn't any use, so he stopped and faced
+around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know, and the old
+man he rode up and shot him down.  But he didn't git much chance to
+enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our folks laid _him_ out.”
+
+“I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck.”
+
+“I reckon he _warn't_ a coward.  Not by a blame' sight.  There ain't a
+coward amongst them Shepherdsons--not a one.  And there ain't no cowards
+amongst the Grangerfords either.  Why, that old man kep' up his end in a
+fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come
+out winner.  They was all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got
+behind a little woodpile, and kep' his horse before him to stop the
+bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and capered around
+the old man, and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them.
+ Him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the
+Grangerfords had to be _fetched_ home--and one of 'em was dead, and
+another died the next day.  No, sir; if a body's out hunting for cowards
+he don't want to fool away any time amongst them Shepherdsons, becuz
+they don't breed any of that _kind_.”
+
+Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody
+a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept
+them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall.  The
+Shepherdsons done the same.  It was pretty ornery preaching--all about
+brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was
+a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such
+a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and
+preforeordestination, and I don't know what all, that it did seem to me
+to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.
+
+About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their
+chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull.  Buck and
+a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep.  I went up
+to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself.  I found that sweet
+Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took
+me in her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I liked her,
+and I said I did; and she asked me if I would do something for her and
+not tell anybody, and I said I would.  Then she said she'd forgot her
+Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two other books,
+and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and not say
+nothing to nobody.  I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the
+road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two,
+for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor
+in summer-time because it's cool.  If you notice, most folks don't go to
+church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.
+
+Says I to myself, something's up; it ain't natural for a girl to be in
+such a sweat about a Testament.  So I give it a shake, and out drops a
+little piece of paper with “HALF-PAST TWO” wrote on it with a pencil.  I
+ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else.  I couldn't make anything
+out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I got home
+and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me.  She
+pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Testament till
+she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad; and
+before a body could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze, and
+said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anybody.  She was
+mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it
+made her powerful pretty.  I was a good deal astonished, but when I got
+my breath I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I
+had read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could read writing,
+and I told her “no, only coarse-hand,” and then she said the paper
+warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and
+play now.
+
+I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon
+I noticed that my nigger was following along behind.  When we was out
+of sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comes
+a-running, and says:
+
+“Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a whole
+stack o' water-moccasins.”
+
+Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday.  He oughter
+know a body don't love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for
+them. What is he up to, anyway?  So I says:
+
+“All right; trot ahead.”
+
+I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded
+ankle deep as much as another half-mile.  We come to a little flat piece
+of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines,
+and he says:
+
+“You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah's whah dey is.
+I's seed 'm befo'; I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'.”
+
+Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hid
+him.  I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch
+as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying
+there asleep--and, by jings, it was my old Jim!
+
+I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to
+him to see me again, but it warn't.  He nearly cried he was so glad, but
+he warn't surprised.  Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard
+me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he didn't want nobody to
+pick _him_ up and take him into slavery again.  Says he:
+
+“I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considable ways
+behine you towards de las'; when you landed I reck'ned I could ketch
+up wid you on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I see dat
+house I begin to go slow.  I 'uz off too fur to hear what dey say to
+you--I wuz 'fraid o' de dogs; but when it 'uz all quiet agin I knowed
+you's in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for day.  Early
+in de mawnin' some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de fields, en dey
+tuk me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can't track me on accounts
+o' de water, en dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how
+you's a-gitt'n along.”
+
+“Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?”
+
+“Well, 'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn--but
+we's all right now.  I ben a-buyin' pots en pans en vittles, as I got a
+chanst, en a-patchin' up de raf' nights when--”
+
+“_What_ raft, Jim?”
+
+“Our ole raf'.”
+
+“You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?”
+
+“No, she warn't.  She was tore up a good deal--one en' of her was; but
+dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'.  Ef we
+hadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn' ben
+so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich punkin-heads, as de sayin'
+is, we'd a seed de raf'.  But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase now
+she's all fixed up agin mos' as good as new, en we's got a new lot o'
+stuff, in de place o' what 'uz los'.”
+
+“Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim--did you catch her?”
+
+“How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods?  No; some er de niggers
+foun' her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in a
+crick 'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout which un 'um
+she b'long to de mos' dat I come to heah 'bout it pooty soon, so I ups
+en settles de trouble by tellin' 'um she don't b'long to none uv um, but
+to you en me; en I ast 'm if dey gwyne to grab a young white genlman's
+propaty, en git a hid'n for it?  Den I gin 'm ten cents apiece, en dey
+'uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo' raf's 'ud come along en
+make 'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good to me, dese niggers is, en whatever
+I wants 'm to do fur me I doan' have to ast 'm twice, honey.  Dat Jack's
+a good nigger, en pooty smart.”
+
+“Yes, he is.  He ain't ever told me you was here; told me to come, and
+he'd show me a lot of water-moccasins.  If anything happens _he_ ain't
+mixed up in it.  He can say he never seen us together, and it 'll be the
+truth.”
+
+I don't want to talk much about the next day.  I reckon I'll cut it
+pretty short.  I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and
+go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was--didn't seem to be
+anybody stirring.  That warn't usual.  Next I noticed that Buck was
+up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs--nobody
+around; everything as still as a mouse.  Just the same outside.  Thinks
+I, what does it mean?  Down by the wood-pile I comes across my Jack, and
+says:
+
+“What's it all about?”
+
+Says he:
+
+“Don't you know, Mars Jawge?”
+
+“No,” says I, “I don't.”
+
+“Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has.  She run off in de
+night some time--nobody don't know jis' when; run off to get married
+to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know--leastways, so dey 'spec.  De
+fambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour ago--maybe a little mo'--en' I
+_tell_ you dey warn't no time los'.  Sich another hurryin' up guns
+en hosses _you_ never see!  De women folks has gone for to stir up de
+relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de
+river road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him 'fo' he kin
+git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia.  I reck'n dey's gwyne to be mighty
+rough times.”
+
+“Buck went off 'thout waking me up.”
+
+“Well, I reck'n he _did_!  Dey warn't gwyne to mix you up in it.
+ Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a
+Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en you
+bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst.”
+
+I took up the river road as hard as I could put.  By and by I begin to
+hear guns a good ways off.  When I come in sight of the log store and
+the woodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along under the trees
+and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the
+forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched.  There was a
+wood-rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I
+was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn't.
+
+There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open
+place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to get at
+a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside of the
+steamboat landing; but they couldn't come it.  Every time one of them
+showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at.  The
+two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could watch
+both ways.
+
+By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling.  They started
+riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady
+bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle.  All
+the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started
+to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys started on the
+run.  They got half way to the tree I was in before the men noticed.
+Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and took out after
+them.  They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no good, the boys had
+too good a start; they got to the woodpile that was in front of my tree,
+and slipped in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men again.
+One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about
+nineteen years old.
+
+The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away.  As soon as they was
+out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him.  He didn't know what
+to make of my voice coming out of the tree at first.  He was awful
+surprised.  He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the
+men come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or
+other--wouldn't be gone long.  I wished I was out of that tree, but I
+dasn't come down.  Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and
+his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this
+day yet.  He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two
+or three of the enemy.  Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in
+ambush.  Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their
+relations--the Shepherdsons was too strong for them.  I asked him what
+was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia.  He said they'd got across
+the river and was safe.  I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take
+on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him--I
+hain't ever heard anything like it.
+
+All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men had
+slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their
+horses!  The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as they
+swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and
+singing out, “Kill them, kill them!”  It made me so sick I most fell out
+of the tree.  I ain't a-going to tell _all_ that happened--it would make
+me sick again if I was to do that.  I wished I hadn't ever come ashore
+that night to see such things.  I ain't ever going to get shut of
+them--lots of times I dream about them.
+
+I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.
+Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little
+gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the
+trouble was still a-going on.  I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my
+mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I
+was to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss
+Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and
+I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way
+she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess
+wouldn't ever happened.
+
+When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a
+piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and
+tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces,
+and got away as quick as I could.  I cried a little when I was covering
+up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.
+
+It was just dark now.  I never went near the house, but struck through
+the woods and made for the swamp.  Jim warn't on his island, so I
+tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows,
+red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country.  The raft was
+gone!  My souls, but I was scared!  I couldn't get my breath for most
+a minute. Then I raised a yell.  A voice not twenty-five foot from me
+says:
+
+“Good lan'! is dat you, honey?  Doan' make no noise.”
+
+It was Jim's voice--nothing ever sounded so good before.  I run along the
+bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was
+so glad to see me.  He says:
+
+“Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin.  Jack's
+been heah; he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home no
+mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er
+de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack
+comes agin en tells me for certain you _is_ dead.  Lawsy, I's mighty
+glad to git you back again, honey.”
+
+I says:
+
+“All right--that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll think
+I've been killed, and floated down the river--there's something up there
+that 'll help them think so--so don't you lose no time, Jim, but just
+shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can.”
+
+I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in
+the middle of the Mississippi.  Then we hung up our signal lantern, and
+judged that we was free and safe once more.  I hadn't had a bite to eat
+since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk,
+and pork and cabbage and greens--there ain't nothing in the world so good
+when it's cooked right--and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a
+good time.  I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was
+Jim to get away from the swamp.  We said there warn't no home like a
+raft, after all.  Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a
+raft don't.  You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by,
+they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely.  Here is the way we put
+in the time.  It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a mile
+and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as
+night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always
+in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and
+willows, and hid the raft with them.  Then we set out the lines.  Next
+we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool
+off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee
+deep, and watched the daylight come.  Not a sound anywheres--perfectly
+still--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs
+a-cluttering, maybe.  The first thing to see, looking away over the
+water, was a kind of dull line--that was the woods on t'other side; you
+couldn't make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more
+paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and
+warn't black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots
+drifting along ever so far away--trading scows, and such things; and
+long black streaks--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or
+jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and
+by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the
+streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it
+and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off
+of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a
+log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of
+the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can
+throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and
+comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell
+on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way,
+because they've left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they
+do get pretty rank; and next you've got the full day, and everything
+smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!
+
+A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off
+of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast.  And afterwards we would watch
+the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by
+lazy off to sleep.  Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and
+maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the
+other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was
+a stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be
+nothing to hear nor nothing to see--just solid lonesomeness.  Next
+you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it
+chopping, because they're most always doing it on a raft; you'd see the
+axe flash and come down--you don't hear nothing; you see that axe go
+up again, and by the time it's above the man's head then you hear the
+_k'chunk_!--it had took all that time to come over the water.  So we
+would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness.  Once
+there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by was beating
+tin pans so the steamboats wouldn't run over them.  A scow or a
+raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and
+laughing--heard them plain; but we couldn't see no sign of them; it made
+you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air.
+ Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says:
+
+“No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'”
+
+Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the
+middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted
+her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and
+talked about all kinds of things--we was always naked, day and night,
+whenever the mosquitoes would let us--the new clothes Buck's folks made
+for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on
+clothes, nohow.
+
+Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest
+time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe
+a spark--which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water
+you could see a spark or two--on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe
+you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts.
+It's lovely to live on a raft.  We had the sky up there, all speckled
+with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and
+discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.  Jim he
+allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would
+have took too long to _make_ so many.  Jim said the moon could a _laid_
+them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing
+against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it
+could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them
+streak down.  Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the
+nest.
+
+Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the
+dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out
+of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful
+pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and
+her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her
+waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the
+raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't
+tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.
+
+After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or
+three hours the shores was black--no more sparks in the cabin windows.
+ These sparks was our clock--the first one that showed again meant
+morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.
+
+One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to
+the main shore--it was only two hundred yards--and paddled about a mile
+up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get some
+berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed
+the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as
+they could foot it.  I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was
+after anybody I judged it was _me_--or maybe Jim.  I was about to dig out
+from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung
+out and begged me to save their lives--said they hadn't been doing
+nothing, and was being chased for it--said there was men and dogs
+a-coming.  They wanted to jump right in, but I says:
+
+“Don't you do it.  I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got time
+to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you
+take to the water and wade down to me and get in--that'll throw the dogs
+off the scent.”
+
+They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead,
+and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off,
+shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't
+see them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got
+further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at
+all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the
+river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid
+in the cottonwoods and was safe.
+
+One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head
+and very gray whiskers.  He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and
+a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed
+into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses--no, he only had one.  He had
+an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over
+his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.
+
+The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery.  After
+breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out
+was that these chaps didn't know one another.
+
+“What got you into trouble?” says the baldhead to t'other chap.
+
+“Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth--and
+it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it--but I
+stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act
+of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and
+you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off.  So
+I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out _with_
+you. That's the whole yarn--what's yourn?
+
+“Well, I'd ben a-running' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a week,
+and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makin' it
+mighty warm for the rummies, I _tell_ you, and takin' as much as five
+or six dollars a night--ten cents a head, children and niggers free--and
+business a-growin' all the time, when somehow or another a little report
+got around last night that I had a way of puttin' in my time with a
+private jug on the sly.  A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and told
+me the people was getherin' on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and
+they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start,
+and then run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar
+and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure.  I didn't wait for no
+breakfast--I warn't hungry.”
+
+“Old man,” said the young one, “I reckon we might double-team it
+together; what do you think?”
+
+“I ain't undisposed.  What's your line--mainly?”
+
+“Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines;
+theater-actor--tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology
+when there's a chance; teach singing-geography school for a change;
+sling a lecture sometimes--oh, I do lots of things--most anything that
+comes handy, so it ain't work.  What's your lay?”
+
+“I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time.  Layin' on o'
+hands is my best holt--for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I
+k'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out
+the facts for me.  Preachin's my line, too, and workin' camp-meetin's,
+and missionaryin' around.”
+
+Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh
+and says:
+
+“Alas!”
+
+“What 're you alassin' about?” says the bald-head.
+
+“To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded
+down into such company.”  And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye
+with a rag.
+
+“Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?” says the
+baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.
+
+“Yes, it _is_ good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who
+fetched me so low when I was so high?  I did myself.  I don't blame
+_you_, gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody.  I deserve it
+all.  Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave
+somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take
+everything from me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take
+that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken
+heart will be at rest.”  He went on a-wiping.
+
+“Drot your pore broken heart,” says the baldhead; “what are you heaving
+your pore broken heart at _us_ f'r?  _we_ hain't done nothing.”
+
+“No, I know you haven't.  I ain't blaming you, gentlemen.  I brought
+myself down--yes, I did it myself.  It's right I should suffer--perfectly
+right--I don't make any moan.”
+
+“Brought you down from whar?  Whar was you brought down from?”
+
+“Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass--'tis
+no matter.  The secret of my birth--”
+
+“The secret of your birth!  Do you mean to say--”
+
+“Gentlemen,” says the young man, very solemn, “I will reveal it to you,
+for I feel I may have confidence in you.  By rights I am a duke!”
+
+Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.
+Then the baldhead says:  “No! you can't mean it?”
+
+“Yes.  My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled
+to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure
+air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father
+dying about the same time.  The second son of the late duke seized the
+titles and estates--the infant real duke was ignored.  I am the lineal
+descendant of that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and
+here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised
+by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the
+companionship of felons on a raft!”
+
+Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but
+he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we
+was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most
+anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how.  He said we
+ought to bow when we spoke to him, and say “Your Grace,” or “My Lord,”
+ or “Your Lordship”--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain
+“Bridgewater,” which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and
+one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for
+him he wanted done.
+
+Well, that was all easy, so we done it.  All through dinner Jim stood
+around and waited on him, and says, “Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or
+some o' dat?” and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to
+him.
+
+But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say, and
+didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on
+around that duke.  He seemed to have something on his mind.  So, along
+in the afternoon, he says:
+
+“Looky here, Bilgewater,” he says, “I'm nation sorry for you, but you
+ain't the only person that's had troubles like that.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“No you ain't.  You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down
+wrongfully out'n a high place.”
+
+“Alas!”
+
+“No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth.”  And,
+by jings, _he_ begins to cry.
+
+“Hold!  What do you mean?”
+
+“Bilgewater, kin I trust you?” says the old man, still sort of sobbing.
+
+“To the bitter death!”  He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,
+and says, “That secret of your being:  speak!”
+
+“Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!”
+
+You bet you, Jim and me stared this time.  Then the duke says:
+
+“You are what?”
+
+“Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very moment
+on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the
+Sixteen and Marry Antonette.”
+
+“You!  At your age!  No!  You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must
+be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least.”
+
+“Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung
+these gray hairs and this premature balditude.  Yes, gentlemen, you
+see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled,
+trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of France.”
+
+Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to
+do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too.
+ So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort
+_him_. But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done
+with it all could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel
+easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his
+rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him
+“Your Majesty,” and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down
+in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him,
+and doing this and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he
+told us we might set down.  This done him heaps of good, and so he
+got cheerful and comfortable.  But the duke kind of soured on him, and
+didn't look a bit satisfied with the way things was going; still,
+the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the duke's
+great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good
+deal thought of by _his_ father, and was allowed to come to the palace
+considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till by and by the
+king says:
+
+“Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer
+raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour?  It 'll only
+make things oncomfortable.  It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke,
+it ain't your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry?
+ Make the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto.
+ This ain't no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy
+life--come, give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends.”
+
+The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it.  It took
+away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because
+it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the
+raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody
+to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.
+
+It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no
+kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds.  But I
+never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way;
+then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble.  If they
+wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as
+it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so
+I didn't tell him.  If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt
+that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them
+have their own way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we
+covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of
+running--was Jim a runaway nigger?  Says I:
+
+“Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run _south_?”
+
+No, they allowed he wouldn't.  I had to account for things some way, so
+I says:
+
+“My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and
+they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike.  Pa, he 'lowed
+he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little
+one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans.  Pa was
+pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't
+nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim.  That warn't
+enough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way.
+ Well, when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketched
+this piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it.
+ Pa's luck didn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner of
+the raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel;
+Jim and me come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four
+years old, so they never come up no more.  Well, for the next day or
+two we had considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in
+skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was
+a runaway nigger.  We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they don't
+bother us.”
+
+The duke says:
+
+“Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we
+want to.  I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that'll fix it.
+We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to go by
+that town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy.”
+
+Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat
+lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was
+beginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see
+that.  So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see
+what the beds was like.  My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's,
+which was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shuck
+tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dry
+shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it
+makes such a rustling that you wake up.  Well, the duke allowed he would
+take my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn't.  He says:
+
+“I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you that
+a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on.  Your Grace 'll
+take the shuck bed yourself.”
+
+Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was
+going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when
+the duke says:
+
+“'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of
+oppression.  Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I
+submit; 'tis my fate.  I am alone in the world--let me suffer; can bear
+it.”
+
+We got away as soon as it was good and dark.  The king told us to stand
+well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we
+got a long ways below the town.  We come in sight of the little bunch of
+lights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a half
+a mile out, all right.  When we was three-quarters of a mile below we
+hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to rain
+and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told us
+to both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the duke
+crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night.  It was my watch
+below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed,
+because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not
+by a long sight.  My souls, how the wind did scream along!  And every
+second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half
+a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain,
+and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum!
+bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling
+and grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash and
+another sockdolager.  The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,
+but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind.  We didn't have no trouble
+about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant
+that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or
+that and miss them.
+
+I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,
+so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was always
+mighty good that way, Jim was.  I crawled into the wigwam, but the king
+and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show for
+me; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and
+the waves warn't running so high now.  About two they come up again,
+though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, because
+he reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he was
+mistaken about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a
+regular ripper and washed me overboard.  It most killed Jim a-laughing.
+ He was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.
+
+I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by
+the storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showed
+I rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the
+day.
+
+The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him
+and the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game.  Then they got
+tired of it, and allowed they would “lay out a campaign,” as they called
+it. The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot of
+little printed bills and read them out loud.  One bill said, “The
+celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris,” would “lecture on the
+Science of Phrenology” at such and such a place, on the blank day of
+blank, at ten cents admission, and “furnish charts of character at
+twenty-five cents apiece.”  The duke said that was _him_.  In another
+bill he was the “world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the
+Younger, of Drury Lane, London.”  In other bills he had a lot of other
+names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold with
+a “divining-rod,” “dissipating witch spells,” and so on.  By and by he
+says:
+
+“But the histrionic muse is the darling.  Have you ever trod the boards,
+Royalty?”
+
+“No,” says the king.
+
+“You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen Grandeur,” says
+the duke.  “The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do the
+sword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.
+How does that strike you?”
+
+“I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but, you
+see, I don't know nothing about play-actin', and hain't ever seen much
+of it.  I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace.  Do you
+reckon you can learn me?”
+
+“Easy!”
+
+“All right.  I'm jist a-freezn' for something fresh, anyway.  Le's
+commence right away.”
+
+So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was, and
+said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.
+
+“But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my white
+whiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe.”
+
+“No, don't you worry; these country jakes won't ever think of that.
+Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all the
+difference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight
+before she goes to bed, and she's got on her night-gown and her ruffled
+nightcap.  Here are the costumes for the parts.”
+
+He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was
+meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white
+cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match.  The king was
+satisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the
+most splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same
+time, to show how it had got to be done; then he give the book to the
+king and told him to get his part by heart.
+
+There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and
+after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to run
+in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he would
+go down to the town and fix that thing.  The king allowed he would go,
+too, and see if he couldn't strike something.  We was out of coffee, so
+Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some.
+
+When we got there there warn't nobody stirring; streets empty, and
+perfectly dead and still, like Sunday.  We found a sick nigger sunning
+himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young or
+too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in the
+woods.  The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work that
+camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.
+
+The duke said what he was after was a printing-office.  We found it;
+a little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop--carpenters and
+printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked.  It was a dirty,
+littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures of
+horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls.  The duke shed
+his coat and said he was all right now.  So me and the king lit out for
+the camp-meeting.
+
+We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a most
+awful hot day.  There was as much as a thousand people there from
+twenty mile around.  The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched
+everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep
+off the flies.  There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with
+branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of
+watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.
+
+The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was
+bigger and held crowds of people.  The benches was made out of outside
+slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into
+for legs. They didn't have no backs.  The preachers had high platforms
+to stand on at one end of the sheds.  The women had on sun-bonnets;
+and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the
+young ones had on calico.  Some of the young men was barefooted, and
+some of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen
+shirt.  Some of the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks
+was courting on the sly.
+
+The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn.  He lined
+out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,
+there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then
+he lined out two more for them to sing--and so on.  The people woke up
+more and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some
+begun to groan, and some begun to shout.  Then the preacher begun to
+preach, and begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side of
+the platform and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the front
+of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his
+words out with all his might; and every now and then he would hold up
+his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and
+that, shouting, “It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness!  Look upon
+it and live!”  And people would shout out, “Glory!--A-a-_men_!”  And so
+he went on, and the people groaning and crying and saying amen:
+
+“Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (_Amen_!) come,
+sick and sore! (_Amen_!) come, lame and halt and blind! (_Amen_!) come,
+pore and needy, sunk in shame! (_A-A-Men_!) come, all that's worn and
+soiled and suffering!--come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite
+heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse
+is free, the door of heaven stands open--oh, enter in and be at rest!”
+ (_A-A-Men_!  _Glory, Glory Hallelujah!_)
+
+And so on.  You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on
+account of the shouting and crying.  Folks got up everywheres in the
+crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners'
+bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all the
+mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and
+shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.
+
+Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him
+over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, and
+the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it.  He
+told them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in the
+Indian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in
+a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to
+goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat
+without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that
+ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for
+the first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start
+right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest
+of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could
+do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews
+in that ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there
+without money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced
+a pirate he would say to him, “Don't you thank me, don't you give me no
+credit; it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting,
+natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher
+there, the truest friend a pirate ever had!”
+
+And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody.  Then somebody
+sings out, “Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!”  Well,
+a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, “Let _him_
+pass the hat around!”  Then everybody said it, the preacher too.
+
+So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes,
+and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being
+so good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while the
+prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would
+up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and he
+always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or
+six times--and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to
+live in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he said
+as this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and
+besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to
+work on the pirates.
+
+When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had
+collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.  And then he had
+fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a
+wagon when he was starting home through the woods.  The king said,
+take it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the
+missionarying line.  He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't
+amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.
+
+The duke was thinking _he'd_ been doing pretty well till the king come
+to show up, but after that he didn't think so so much.  He had set
+up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that
+printing-office--horse bills--and took the money, four dollars.  And he
+had got in ten dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he
+said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance--so
+they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he took
+in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of them
+paying him in advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions as
+usual, but he said he had just bought the concern and knocked down the
+price as low as he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash.
+ He set up a little piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of
+his own head--three verses--kind of sweet and saddish--the name of it was,
+“Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heart”--and he left that all set
+up and ready to print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it.
+ Well, he took in nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty
+square day's work for it.
+
+Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged
+for, because it was for us.  It had a picture of a runaway nigger with
+a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and “$200 reward” under it.  The
+reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot.  It said
+he run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans,
+last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and send
+him back he could have the reward and expenses.
+
+“Now,” says the duke, “after to-night we can run in the daytime if we
+want to.  Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot
+with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we
+captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat,
+so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down
+to get the reward.  Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim,
+but it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor.  Too much
+like jewelry.  Ropes are the correct thing--we must preserve the unities,
+as we say on the boards.”
+
+We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no trouble
+about running daytimes.  We judged we could make miles enough that night
+to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work in
+the printing office was going to make in that little town; then we could
+boom right along if we wanted to.
+
+We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten
+o'clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't
+hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.
+
+When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:
+
+“Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis
+trip?”
+
+“No,” I says, “I reckon not.”
+
+“Well,” says he, “dat's all right, den.  I doan' mine one er two kings,
+but dat's enough.  Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' much
+better.”
+
+I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hear
+what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so long, and
+had so much trouble, he'd forgot it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+IT was after sun-up now, but we went right on and didn't tie up.  The
+king and the duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty; but after
+they'd jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a good
+deal. After breakfast the king he took a seat on the corner of the raft,
+and pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let his legs
+dangle in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went
+to getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart.  When he had got it pretty
+good him and the duke begun to practice it together.  The duke had to
+learn him over and over again how to say every speech; and he made him
+sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done
+it pretty well; “only,” he says, “you mustn't bellow out _Romeo_!
+that way, like a bull--you must say it soft and sick and languishy,
+so--R-o-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of
+a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass.”
+
+Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out
+of oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight--the duke called
+himself Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around
+the raft was grand to see.  But by and by the king tripped and fell
+overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all
+kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the river.
+
+After dinner the duke says:
+
+“Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so
+I guess we'll add a little more to it.  We want a little something to
+answer encores with, anyway.”
+
+“What's onkores, Bilgewater?”
+
+The duke told him, and then says:
+
+“I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and
+you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy.”
+
+“Hamlet's which?”
+
+“Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare.
+Ah, it's sublime, sublime!  Always fetches the house.  I haven't got
+it in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can piece it out
+from memory.  I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call
+it back from recollection's vaults.”
+
+So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible
+every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would
+squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan; next
+he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear.  It was beautiful
+to see him. By and by he got it.  He told us to give attention.  Then
+he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his
+arms stretched away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky;
+and then he begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that,
+all through his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his
+chest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before.
+ This is the speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it
+to the king:
+
+To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of
+so long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come
+to Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the
+innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling
+the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of.
+There's the respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I
+would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The
+oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The law's delay, and the
+quietus which his pangs might take. In the dead waste and middle of the
+night, when churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But
+that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns,
+Breathes forth contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of
+resolution, like the poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er with care.
+And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops, With this
+regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. 'Tis a
+consummation devoutly to be wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope
+not thy ponderous and marble jaws. But get thee to a nunnery—go!
+
+Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he
+could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and when
+he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he
+would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it off.
+
+The first chance we got, the duke he had some show bills printed; and
+after that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft was a
+most uncommon lively place, for there warn't nothing but sword-fighting
+and rehearsing--as the duke called it--going on all the time. One morning,
+when we was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw, we come in sight
+of a little one-horse town in a big bend; so we tied up about
+three-quarters of a mile above it, in the mouth of a crick which was
+shut in like a tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took
+the canoe and went down there to see if there was any chance in that
+place for our show.
+
+We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there that
+afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in
+all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave
+before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he
+hired the court house, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They
+read like this:
+
+Shaksperean Revival!!!
+
+Wonderful Attraction!
+
+For One Night Only! The world renowned tragedians,
+
+David Garrick the younger, of Drury Lane Theatre, London,
+
+and
+
+Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre, Whitechapel,
+Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the Royal Continental Theatres, in
+their sublime Shaksperean Spectacle entitled The Balcony Scene in
+
+Romeo and Juliet!!!
+
+Romeo...................................... Mr. Garrick.
+
+Juliet..................................... Mr. Kean.
+
+Assisted by the whole strength of the company!
+
+New costumes, new scenery, new appointments!
+
+Also:
+
+The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling Broad-sword conflict In
+Richard III.!!!
+
+Richard III................................ Mr. Garrick.
+
+Richmond................................... Mr. Kean.
+
+also:
+
+(by special request,)
+
+Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy!!
+
+By the Illustrious Kean!
+
+Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!
+
+For One Night Only,
+
+On account of imperative European engagements!
+
+Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.
+
+Then we went loafing around the town. The stores and houses was most all
+old shackly dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they
+was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of
+reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had little
+gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in
+them but jimpson weeds, and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and old curled-up
+boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out
+tin-ware. The fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed on
+at different times; and they leaned every which-way, and had gates that
+didn't generly have but one hinge--a leather one. Some of the fences
+had been whitewashed, some time or another, but the duke said it was in
+Clumbus's time, like enough. There was generly hogs in the garden, and
+people driving them out.
+
+All the stores was along one street.  They had white domestic awnings in
+front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awning-posts.
+There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting
+on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and
+chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretching--a mighty ornery
+lot. They generly had on yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella,
+but didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats, they called one another Bill,
+and Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and
+used considerable many cuss words.  There was as many as one loafer
+leaning up against every awning-post, and he most always had his hands
+in his britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw
+of tobacco or scratch.  What a body was hearing amongst them all the
+time was:
+
+“Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank.”
+
+“Cain't; I hain't got but one chaw left.  Ask Bill.”
+
+Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain't got
+none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a
+chaw of tobacco of their own.  They get all their chawing by borrowing;
+they say to a fellow, “I wisht you'd len' me a chaw, Jack, I jist this
+minute give Ben Thompson the last chaw I had”--which is a lie pretty
+much everytime; it don't fool nobody but a stranger; but Jack ain't no
+stranger, so he says:
+
+“_You_ give him a chaw, did you?  So did your sister's cat's
+grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me,
+Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge
+you no back intrust, nuther.”
+
+“Well, I _did_ pay you back some of it wunst.”
+
+“Yes, you did--'bout six chaws.  You borry'd store tobacker and paid back
+nigger-head.”
+
+Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the
+natural leaf twisted.  When they borrow a chaw they don't generly cut it
+off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with
+their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in
+two; then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it
+when it's handed back, and says, sarcastic:
+
+“Here, gimme the _chaw_, and you take the _plug_.”
+
+All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn't nothing else _but_
+mud--mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places,
+and two or three inches deep in _all_ the places.  The hogs loafed and
+grunted around everywheres.  You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs
+come lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in the way,
+where folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch out and shut her
+eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as
+happy as if she was on salary. And pretty soon you'd hear a loafer
+sing out, “Hi!  _so_ boy! sick him, Tige!” and away the sow would go,
+squealing most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and
+three or four dozen more a-coming; and then you would see all the
+loafers get up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at the fun
+and look grateful for the noise.  Then they'd settle back again till
+there was a dog fight.  There couldn't anything wake them up all over,
+and make them happy all over, like a dog fight--unless it might be
+putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a
+tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death.
+
+On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank,
+and they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in. The people
+had moved out of them.  The bank was caved away under one corner of some
+others, and that corner was hanging over.  People lived in them yet, but
+it was dangersome, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house
+caves in at a time.  Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep
+will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the
+river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back,
+and back, and back, because the river's always gnawing at it.
+
+The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the
+wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time.
+ Families fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them
+in the wagons.  There was considerable whisky drinking going on, and I
+seen three fights.  By and by somebody sings out:
+
+“Here comes old Boggs!--in from the country for his little old monthly
+drunk; here he comes, boys!”
+
+All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having fun out
+of Boggs.  One of them says:
+
+“Wonder who he's a-gwyne to chaw up this time.  If he'd a-chawed up all
+the men he's ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have
+considerable ruputation now.”
+
+Another one says, “I wisht old Boggs 'd threaten me, 'cuz then I'd know
+I warn't gwyne to die for a thousan' year.”
+
+Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an
+Injun, and singing out:
+
+“Cler the track, thar.  I'm on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins is
+a-gwyne to raise.”
+
+He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year
+old, and had a very red face.  Everybody yelled at him and laughed at
+him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and
+lay them out in their regular turns, but he couldn't wait now because
+he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, “Meat
+first, and spoon vittles to top off on.”
+
+He see me, and rode up and says:
+
+“Whar'd you come f'm, boy?  You prepared to die?”
+
+Then he rode on.  I was scared, but a man says:
+
+“He don't mean nothing; he's always a-carryin' on like that when he's
+drunk.  He's the best naturedest old fool in Arkansaw--never hurt nobody,
+drunk nor sober.”
+
+Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down
+so he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells:
+
+“Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you've swindled.
+You're the houn' I'm after, and I'm a-gwyne to have you, too!”
+
+And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue
+to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and
+going on.  By and by a proud-looking man about fifty-five--and he was a
+heap the best dressed man in that town, too--steps out of the store, and
+the crowd drops back on each side to let him come.  He says to Boggs,
+mighty ca'm and slow--he says:
+
+“I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till one o'clock.  Till one
+o'clock, mind--no longer.  If you open your mouth against me only once
+after that time you can't travel so far but I will find you.”
+
+Then he turns and goes in.  The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody
+stirred, and there warn't no more laughing.  Boggs rode off
+blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street;
+and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping
+it up.  Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up,
+but he wouldn't; they told him it would be one o'clock in about fifteen
+minutes, and so he _must_ go home--he must go right away.  But it didn't
+do no good.  He cussed away with all his might, and throwed his hat down
+in the mud and rode over it, and pretty soon away he went a-raging down
+the street again, with his gray hair a-flying. Everybody that could get
+a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they
+could lock him up and get him sober; but it warn't no use--up the street
+he would tear again, and give Sherburn another cussing.  By and by
+somebody says:
+
+“Go for his daughter!--quick, go for his daughter; sometimes he'll listen
+to her.  If anybody can persuade him, she can.”
+
+So somebody started on a run.  I walked down street a ways and stopped.
+In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his
+horse.  He was a-reeling across the street towards me, bare-headed, with
+a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him along.
+He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn't hanging back any, but was
+doing some of the hurrying himself.  Somebody sings out:
+
+“Boggs!”
+
+I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel
+Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a
+pistol raised in his right hand--not aiming it, but holding it out with
+the barrel tilted up towards the sky.  The same second I see a young
+girl coming on the run, and two men with her.  Boggs and the men turned
+round to see who called him, and when they see the pistol the men
+jumped to one side, and the pistol-barrel come down slow and steady to
+a level--both barrels cocked. Boggs throws up both of his hands and says,
+“O Lord, don't shoot!”  Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back,
+clawing at the air--bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards
+on to the ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out.  That young
+girl screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on her
+father, crying, and saying, “Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him!”  The
+crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with
+their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to
+shove them back and shouting, “Back, back! give him air, give him air!”
+
+Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the ground, and turned
+around on his heels and walked off.
+
+They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just
+the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good
+place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in.  They
+laid him on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened
+another one and spread it on his breast; but they tore open his shirt
+first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in.  He made about a
+dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his
+breath, and letting it down again when he breathed it out--and after that
+he laid still; he was dead.  Then they pulled his daughter away from
+him, screaming and crying, and took her off.  She was about sixteen, and
+very sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared.
+
+Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and
+pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people
+that had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them was
+saying all the time, “Say, now, you've looked enough, you fellows;
+'tain't right and 'tain't fair for you to stay thar all the time, and
+never give nobody a chance; other folks has their rights as well as
+you.”
+
+There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe
+there was going to be trouble.  The streets was full, and everybody was
+excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened,
+and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows,
+stretching their necks and listening.  One long, lanky man, with long
+hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a
+crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs
+stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from
+one place to t'other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their
+heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their
+hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with
+his cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn had
+stood, frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes, and sung
+out, “Boggs!” and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says
+“Bang!” staggered backwards, says “Bang!” again, and fell down flat on
+his back. The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect;
+said it was just exactly the way it all happened.  Then as much as a
+dozen people got out their bottles and treated him.
+
+Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched.  In about a
+minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and
+snatching down every clothes-line they come to to do the hanging with.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THEY swarmed up towards Sherburn's house, a-whooping and raging like
+Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromped
+to mush, and it was awful to see.  Children was heeling it ahead of the
+mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way; and every window along
+the road was full of women's heads, and there was nigger boys in every
+tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as the
+mob would get nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out of
+reach.  Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared
+most to death.
+
+They swarmed up in front of Sherburn's palings as thick as they could
+jam together, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the noise.  It
+was a little twenty-foot yard.  Some sung out “Tear down the fence! tear
+down the fence!”  Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and
+smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to
+roll in like a wave.
+
+Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front porch,
+with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly
+ca'm and deliberate, not saying a word.  The racket stopped, and the
+wave sucked back.
+
+Sherburn never said a word--just stood there, looking down.  The
+stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable.  Sherburn run his eye slow
+along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people tried a little to
+out-gaze him, but they couldn't; they dropped their eyes and looked
+sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not the pleasant
+kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread
+that's got sand in it.
+
+Then he says, slow and scornful:
+
+“The idea of _you_ lynching anybody!  It's amusing.  The idea of you
+thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a _man_!  Because you're brave
+enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along
+here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a
+_man_?  Why, a _man's_ safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind--as
+long as it's daytime and you're not behind him.
+
+“Do I know you?  I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the
+South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around.
+The average man's a coward.  In the North he lets anybody walk over him
+that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it.
+In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men
+in the daytime, and robbed the lot.  Your newspapers call you a
+brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other
+people--whereas you're just _as_ brave, and no braver.  Why don't your
+juries hang murderers?  Because they're afraid the man's friends will
+shoot them in the back, in the dark--and it's just what they _would_ do.
+
+“So they always acquit; and then a _man_ goes in the night, with a
+hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal.  Your mistake
+is, that you didn't bring a man with you; that's one mistake, and the
+other is that you didn't come in the dark and fetch your masks.  You
+brought _part_ of a man--Buck Harkness, there--and if you hadn't had him
+to start you, you'd a taken it out in blowing.
+
+“You didn't want to come.  The average man don't like trouble and
+danger. _You_ don't like trouble and danger.  But if only _half_ a
+man--like Buck Harkness, there--shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're
+afraid to back down--afraid you'll be found out to be what you
+are--_cowards_--and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that
+half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big
+things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's
+what an army is--a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in
+them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their
+officers.  But a mob without any _man_ at the head of it is _beneath_
+pitifulness.  Now the thing for _you_ to do is to droop your tails and
+go home and crawl in a hole.  If any real lynching's going to be done it
+will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll
+bring their masks, and fetch a _man_ along.  Now _leave_--and take your
+half-a-man with you”--tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking
+it when he says this.
+
+The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went tearing
+off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking
+tolerable cheap.  I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to.
+
+I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchman
+went by, and then dived in under the tent.  I had my twenty-dollar gold
+piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because
+there ain't no telling how soon you are going to need it, away from
+home and amongst strangers that way.  You can't be too careful.  I ain't
+opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but
+there ain't no use in _wasting_ it on them.
+
+It was a real bully circus.  It was the splendidest sight that ever was
+when they all come riding in, two and two, a gentleman and lady, side
+by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes
+nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and
+comfortable--there must a been twenty of them--and every lady with a
+lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang
+of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of
+dollars, and just littered with diamonds.  It was a powerful fine sight;
+I never see anything so lovely.  And then one by one they got up
+and stood, and went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and
+graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with their
+heads bobbing and skimming along, away up there under the tent-roof, and
+every lady's rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky around her hips,
+and she looking like the most loveliest parasol.
+
+And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one
+foot out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and
+more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center-pole, cracking
+his whip and shouting “Hi!--hi!” and the clown cracking jokes behind
+him; and by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her
+knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how
+the horses did lean over and hump themselves!  And so one after the
+other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I
+ever see, and then scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and
+went just about wild.
+
+Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing things; and
+all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people.  The
+ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him but he was back at him quick
+as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said; and how he ever
+_could_ think of so many of them, and so sudden and so pat, was what I
+couldn't noway understand. Why, I couldn't a thought of them in a year.
+And by and by a drunk man tried to get into the ring--said he wanted to
+ride; said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was.  They argued
+and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't listen, and the whole show
+come to a standstill.  Then the people begun to holler at him and make
+fun of him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip and tear; so that
+stirred up the people, and a lot of men begun to pile down off of the
+benches and swarm towards the ring, saying, “Knock him down! throw him
+out!” and one or two women begun to scream.  So, then, the ringmaster
+he made a little speech, and said he hoped there wouldn't be no
+disturbance, and if the man would promise he wouldn't make no more
+trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on the horse.
+ So everybody laughed and said all right, and the man got on. The minute
+he was on, the horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort around,
+with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and the
+drunk man hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air every
+jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing
+till tears rolled down.  And at last, sure enough, all the circus men
+could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went like the very nation,
+round and round the ring, with that sot laying down on him and hanging
+to his neck, with first one leg hanging most to the ground on one side,
+and then t'other one on t'other side, and the people just crazy.  It
+warn't funny to me, though; I was all of a tremble to see his danger.
+ But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle and grabbed the bridle,
+a-reeling this way and that; and the next minute he sprung up and
+dropped the bridle and stood! and the horse a-going like a house afire
+too.  He just stood up there, a-sailing around as easy and comfortable
+as if he warn't ever drunk in his life--and then he begun to pull off his
+clothes and sling them.  He shed them so thick they kind of clogged up
+the air, and altogether he shed seventeen suits. And, then, there he
+was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you
+ever saw, and he lit into that horse with his whip and made him fairly
+hum--and finally skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to
+the dressing-room, and everybody just a-howling with pleasure and
+astonishment.
+
+Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he _was_ the
+sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon.  Why, it was one of his own
+men!  He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on
+to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I wouldn't
+a been in that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand dollars.  I don't
+know; there may be bullier circuses than what that one was, but I
+never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good enough for _me_; and
+wherever I run across it, it can have all of _my_ custom every time.
+
+Well, that night we had _our_ show; but there warn't only about twelve
+people there--just enough to pay expenses.  And they laughed all the
+time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before
+the show was over, but one boy which was asleep.  So the duke said these
+Arkansaw lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted
+was low comedy--and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he
+reckoned.  He said he could size their style.  So next morning he got
+some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off
+some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village.  The bills said:
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+WELL, all day him and the king was hard at it, rigging up a stage and
+a curtain and a row of candles for footlights; and that night the house
+was jam full of men in no time.  When the place couldn't hold no more,
+the duke he quit tending door and went around the back way and come on
+to the stage and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech,
+and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most thrillingest one
+that ever was; and so he went on a-bragging about the tragedy, and about
+Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main principal part in it;
+and at last when he'd got everybody's expectations up high enough, he
+rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the king come a-prancing
+out on all fours, naked; and he was painted all over,
+ring-streaked-and-striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a
+rainbow.  And--but never mind the rest of his outfit; it was just wild,
+but it was awful funny. The people most killed themselves laughing; and
+when the king got done capering and capered off behind the scenes, they
+roared and clapped and stormed and haw-hawed till he come back and done
+it over again, and after that they made him do it another time. Well, it
+would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut.
+
+Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says
+the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on accounts of
+pressing London engagements, where the seats is all sold already for it
+in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has
+succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them, he will be deeply
+obleeged if they will mention it to their friends and get them to come
+and see it.
+
+Twenty people sings out:
+
+“What, is it over?  Is that _all_?”
+
+The duke says yes.  Then there was a fine time.  Everybody sings
+out, “Sold!” and rose up mad, and was a-going for that stage and them
+tragedians.  But a big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts:
+
+“Hold on!  Just a word, gentlemen.”  They stopped to listen.  “We are
+sold--mighty badly sold.  But we don't want to be the laughing stock of
+this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as long
+as we live.  _No_.  What we want is to go out of here quiet, and talk
+this show up, and sell the _rest_ of the town!  Then we'll all be in the
+same boat.  Ain't that sensible?” (“You bet it is!--the jedge is right!”
+ everybody sings out.) “All right, then--not a word about any sell.  Go
+along home, and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy.”
+
+Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid
+that show was.  House was jammed again that night, and we sold this
+crowd the same way.  When me and the king and the duke got home to the
+raft we all had a supper; and by and by, about midnight, they made Jim
+and me back her out and float her down the middle of the river, and
+fetch her in and hide her about two mile below town.
+
+The third night the house was crammed again--and they warn't new-comers
+this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights.  I
+stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had
+his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat--and I see it
+warn't no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight.  I smelt sickly eggs
+by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the
+signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four
+of them went in.  I shoved in there for a minute, but it was too various
+for me; I couldn't stand it.  Well, when the place couldn't hold no more
+people the duke he give a fellow a quarter and told him to tend door
+for him a minute, and then he started around for the stage door, I after
+him; but the minute we turned the corner and was in the dark he says:
+
+“Walk fast now till you get away from the houses, and then shin for the
+raft like the dickens was after you!”
+
+I done it, and he done the same.  We struck the raft at the same time,
+and in less than two seconds we was gliding down stream, all dark and
+still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a
+word. I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the
+audience, but nothing of the sort; pretty soon he crawls out from under
+the wigwam, and says:
+
+“Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, duke?”  He hadn't been
+up-town at all.
+
+We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the village.
+Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke fairly
+laughed their bones loose over the way they'd served them people.  The
+duke says:
+
+“Greenhorns, flatheads!  I knew the first house would keep mum and let
+the rest of the town get roped in; and I knew they'd lay for us the
+third night, and consider it was _their_ turn now.  Well, it _is_ their
+turn, and I'd give something to know how much they'd take for it.  I
+_would_ just like to know how they're putting in their opportunity.
+ They can turn it into a picnic if they want to--they brought plenty
+provisions.”
+
+Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in that
+three nights.  I never see money hauled in by the wagon-load like that
+before.  By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says:
+
+“Don't it s'prise you de way dem kings carries on, Huck?”
+
+“No,” I says, “it don't.”
+
+“Why don't it, Huck?”
+
+“Well, it don't, because it's in the breed.  I reckon they're all
+alike.”
+
+“But, Huck, dese kings o' ourn is reglar rapscallions; dat's jist what
+dey is; dey's reglar rapscallions.”
+
+“Well, that's what I'm a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions, as
+fur as I can make out.”
+
+“Is dat so?”
+
+“You read about them once--you'll see.  Look at Henry the Eight; this 'n
+'s a Sunday-school Superintendent to _him_.  And look at Charles Second,
+and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward
+Second, and Richard Third, and forty more; besides all them Saxon
+heptarchies that used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain.  My,
+you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom.  He _was_ a
+blossom.  He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head
+next morning.  And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was
+ordering up eggs.  'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says.  They fetch her up.
+Next morning, 'Chop off her head!'  And they chop it off.  'Fetch up
+Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes, Next morning, 'Chop off her
+head'--and they chop it off.  'Ring up Fair Rosamun.'  Fair Rosamun
+answers the bell.  Next morning, 'Chop off her head.'  And he made every
+one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had
+hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a
+book, and called it Domesday Book--which was a good name and stated the
+case.  You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip
+of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history.  Well, Henry he
+takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How
+does he go at it--give notice?--give the country a show?  No.  All of a
+sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks
+out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on.  That was
+_his_ style--he never give anybody a chance.  He had suspicions of his
+father, the Duke of Wellington.  Well, what did he do?  Ask him to show
+up?  No--drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat.  S'pose people
+left money laying around where he was--what did he do?  He collared it.
+ S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set
+down there and see that he done it--what did he do?  He always done the
+other thing. S'pose he opened his mouth--what then?  If he didn't shut it
+up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time.  That's the kind of a bug
+Henry was; and if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled
+that town a heap worse than ourn done.  I don't say that ourn is lambs,
+because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they
+ain't nothing to _that_ old ram, anyway.  All I say is, kings is kings,
+and you got to make allowances.  Take them all around, they're a mighty
+ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.”
+
+“But dis one do _smell_ so like de nation, Huck.”
+
+“Well, they all do, Jim.  We can't help the way a king smells; history
+don't tell no way.”
+
+“Now de duke, he's a tolerble likely man in some ways.”
+
+“Yes, a duke's different.  But not very different.  This one's
+a middling hard lot for a duke.  When he's drunk there ain't no
+near-sighted man could tell him from a king.”
+
+“Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um, Huck.  Dese is all I
+kin stan'.”
+
+“It's the way I feel, too, Jim.  But we've got them on our hands, and we
+got to remember what they are, and make allowances.  Sometimes I wish we
+could hear of a country that's out of kings.”
+
+What was the use to tell Jim these warn't real kings and dukes?  It
+wouldn't a done no good; and, besides, it was just as I said:  you
+couldn't tell them from the real kind.
+
+I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn.  He often
+done that.  When I waked up just at daybreak he was sitting there with
+his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself.  I
+didn't take notice nor let on.  I knowed what it was about.  He was
+thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low
+and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his
+life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white
+folks does for their'n.  It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so.
+ He was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I
+was asleep, and saying, “Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! it's
+mighty hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'!”  He
+was a mighty good nigger, Jim was.
+
+But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young
+ones; and by and by he says:
+
+“What makes me feel so bad dis time 'uz bekase I hear sumpn over yonder
+on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time
+I treat my little 'Lizabeth so ornery.  She warn't on'y 'bout fo' year
+ole, en she tuck de sk'yarlet fever, en had a powful rough spell; but
+she got well, en one day she was a-stannin' aroun', en I says to her, I
+says:
+
+“'Shet de do'.'
+
+“She never done it; jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up at me.  It make me
+mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says:
+
+“'Doan' you hear me?  Shet de do'!'
+
+“She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin' up.  I was a-bilin'!  I says:
+
+“'I lay I _make_ you mine!'
+
+“En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat sont her a-sprawlin'.
+Den I went into de yuther room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten minutes; en when
+I come back dah was dat do' a-stannin' open _yit_, en dat chile stannin'
+mos' right in it, a-lookin' down and mournin', en de tears runnin' down.
+ My, but I _wuz_ mad!  I was a-gwyne for de chile, but jis' den--it was a
+do' dat open innerds--jis' den, 'long come de wind en slam it to, behine
+de chile, ker-BLAM!--en my lan', de chile never move'!  My breff mos'
+hop outer me; en I feel so--so--I doan' know HOW I feel.  I crope out,
+all a-tremblin', en crope aroun' en open de do' easy en slow, en poke my
+head in behine de chile, sof' en still, en all uv a sudden I says POW!
+jis' as loud as I could yell.  _She never budge!_  Oh, Huck, I bust out
+a-cryin' en grab her up in my arms, en say, 'Oh, de po' little thing!
+ De Lord God Amighty fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive
+hisself as long's he live!'  Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb
+deef en dumb--en I'd ben a-treat'n her so!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+NEXT day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow towhead out in
+the middle, where there was a village on each side of the river, and the
+duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for working them towns.  Jim
+he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn't take but a few
+hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to
+lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope.  You see, when we left him
+all alone we had to tie him, because if anybody happened on to him all
+by himself and not tied it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway
+nigger, you know. So the duke said it _was_ kind of hard to have to lay
+roped all day, and he'd cipher out some way to get around it.
+
+He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it.  He dressed
+Jim up in King Lear's outfit--it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a
+white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his theater paint
+and painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck all over a dead,
+dull, solid blue, like a man that's been drownded nine days.  Blamed if
+he warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see.  Then the duke took
+and wrote out a sign on a shingle so:
+
+Sick Arab--but harmless when not out of his head.
+
+And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or five
+foot in front of the wigwam.  Jim was satisfied.  He said it was a sight
+better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all
+over every time there was a sound.  The duke told him to make himself
+free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling around, he must hop
+out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or two like
+a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out and leave him alone.
+ Which was sound enough judgment; but you take the average man, and he
+wouldn't wait for him to howl.  Why, he didn't only look like he was
+dead, he looked considerable more than that.
+
+These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there was
+so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe
+the news might a worked along down by this time.  They couldn't hit no
+project that suited exactly; so at last the duke said he reckoned he'd
+lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put up
+something on the Arkansaw village; and the king he allowed he would drop
+over to t'other village without any plan, but just trust in Providence
+to lead him the profitable way--meaning the devil, I reckon.  We had all
+bought store clothes where we stopped last; and now the king put his'n
+on, and he told me to put mine on.  I done it, of course.  The king's
+duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy.  I never
+knowed how clothes could change a body before.  Why, before, he looked
+like the orneriest old rip that ever was; but now, when he'd take off
+his new white beaver and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that grand
+and good and pious that you'd say he had walked right out of the ark,
+and maybe was old Leviticus himself.  Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I
+got my paddle ready.  There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away
+up under the point, about three mile above the town--been there a couple
+of hours, taking on freight.  Says the king:
+
+“Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St.
+Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place.  Go for the steamboat,
+Huckleberry; we'll come down to the village on her.”
+
+I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride.
+ I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went
+scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water.  Pretty soon we come to
+a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on a log swabbing the
+sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm weather; and he had a
+couple of big carpet-bags by him.
+
+“Run her nose in shore,” says the king.  I done it.  “Wher' you bound
+for, young man?”
+
+“For the steamboat; going to Orleans.”
+
+“Git aboard,” says the king.  “Hold on a minute, my servant 'll he'p you
+with them bags.  Jump out and he'p the gentleman, Adolphus”--meaning me,
+I see.
+
+I done so, and then we all three started on again.  The young chap was
+mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage such weather.
+He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him he'd come
+down the river and landed at the other village this morning, and now he
+was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up there.  The
+young fellow says:
+
+“When I first see you I says to myself, 'It's Mr. Wilks, sure, and he
+come mighty near getting here in time.'  But then I says again, 'No, I
+reckon it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river.'  You
+_ain't_ him, are you?”
+
+“No, my name's Blodgett--Elexander Blodgett--_Reverend_ Elexander
+Blodgett, I s'pose I must say, as I'm one o' the Lord's poor servants.
+ But still I'm jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving
+in time, all the same, if he's missed anything by it--which I hope he
+hasn't.”
+
+“Well, he don't miss any property by it, because he'll get that all
+right; but he's missed seeing his brother Peter die--which he mayn't
+mind, nobody can tell as to that--but his brother would a give anything
+in this world to see _him_ before he died; never talked about nothing
+else all these three weeks; hadn't seen him since they was boys
+together--and hadn't ever seen his brother William at all--that's the deef
+and dumb one--William ain't more than thirty or thirty-five.  Peter and
+George were the only ones that come out here; George was the married
+brother; him and his wife both died last year.  Harvey and William's the
+only ones that's left now; and, as I was saying, they haven't got here
+in time.”
+
+“Did anybody send 'em word?”
+
+“Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter
+said then that he sorter felt like he warn't going to get well this
+time. You see, he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too young to
+be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and so he
+was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn't seem
+to care much to live.  He most desperately wanted to see Harvey--and
+William, too, for that matter--because he was one of them kind that can't
+bear to make a will.  He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he'd
+told in it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the
+property divided up so George's g'yirls would be all right--for George
+didn't leave nothing.  And that letter was all they could get him to put
+a pen to.”
+
+“Why do you reckon Harvey don't come?  Wher' does he live?”
+
+“Oh, he lives in England--Sheffield--preaches there--hasn't ever been in
+this country.  He hasn't had any too much time--and besides he mightn't a
+got the letter at all, you know.”
+
+“Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his brothers, poor soul.
+You going to Orleans, you say?”
+
+“Yes, but that ain't only a part of it.  I'm going in a ship, next
+Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives.”
+
+“It's a pretty long journey.  But it'll be lovely; wisht I was a-going.
+Is Mary Jane the oldest?  How old is the others?”
+
+“Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's about
+fourteen--that's the one that gives herself to good works and has a
+hare-lip.”
+
+“Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so.”
+
+“Well, they could be worse off.  Old Peter had friends, and they
+ain't going to let them come to no harm.  There's Hobson, the Babtis'
+preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford,
+and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the
+widow Bartley, and--well, there's a lot of them; but these are the ones
+that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes, when
+he wrote home; so Harvey 'll know where to look for friends when he gets
+here.”
+
+Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied
+that young fellow.  Blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody and
+everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about
+Peter's business--which was a tanner; and about George's--which was a
+carpenter; and about Harvey's--which was a dissentering minister; and so
+on, and so on.  Then he says:
+
+“What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?”
+
+“Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn't stop
+there.  When they're deep they won't stop for a hail.  A Cincinnati boat
+will, but this is a St. Louis one.”
+
+“Was Peter Wilks well off?”
+
+“Oh, yes, pretty well off.  He had houses and land, and it's reckoned he
+left three or four thousand in cash hid up som'ers.”
+
+“When did you say he died?”
+
+“I didn't say, but it was last night.”
+
+“Funeral to-morrow, likely?”
+
+“Yes, 'bout the middle of the day.”
+
+“Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to go, one time or
+another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we're all right.”
+
+“Yes, sir, it's the best way.  Ma used to always say that.”
+
+When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she
+got off.  The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost
+my ride, after all.  When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up
+another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says:
+
+“Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new
+carpet-bags.  And if he's gone over to t'other side, go over there and
+git him.  And tell him to git himself up regardless.  Shove along, now.”
+
+I see what _he_ was up to; but I never said nothing, of course.  When
+I got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a
+log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had
+said it--every last word of it.  And all the time he was a-doing it he
+tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for
+a slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't a-going to try to; but he
+really done it pretty good.  Then he says:
+
+“How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?”
+
+The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef
+and dumb person on the histronic boards.  So then they waited for a
+steamboat.
+
+About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along,
+but they didn't come from high enough up the river; but at last there
+was a big one, and they hailed her.  She sent out her yawl, and we went
+aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted
+to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and
+said they wouldn't land us.  But the king was ca'm.  He says:
+
+“If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and
+put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't it?”
+
+So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the
+village they yawled us ashore.  About two dozen men flocked down when
+they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says:
+
+“Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher' Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they
+give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say,
+“What d' I tell you?”  Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle:
+
+“I'm sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he _did_
+live yesterday evening.”
+
+Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to smash, and fell up
+against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his
+back, and says:
+
+“Alas, alas, our poor brother--gone, and we never got to see him; oh,
+it's too, too hard!”
+
+Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to
+the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a carpet-bag and
+bust out a-crying.  If they warn't the beatenest lot, them two frauds,
+that ever I struck.
+
+Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all
+sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill
+for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about
+his brother's last moments, and the king he told it all over again on
+his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead tanner
+like they'd lost the twelve disciples.  Well, if ever I struck anything
+like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human
+race.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people
+tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on
+their coats as they come.  Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd,
+and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march.  The windows and
+dooryards was full; and every minute somebody would say, over a fence:
+
+“Is it _them_?”
+
+And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say:
+
+“You bet it is.”
+
+When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the
+three girls was standing in the door.  Mary Jane _was_ red-headed, but
+that don't make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her
+face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles
+was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for
+them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they had it!
+ Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again
+at last and have such good times.
+
+Then the king he hunched the duke private--I see him do it--and then he
+looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so
+then him and the duke, with a hand across each other's shoulder, and
+t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody
+dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise stopping,
+people saying “Sh!” and all the men taking their hats off and drooping
+their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall.  And when they got there
+they bent over and looked in the coffin, and took one sight, and then
+they bust out a-crying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most; and
+then they put their arms around each other's necks, and hung their chins
+over each other's shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four,
+I never see two men leak the way they done.  And, mind you, everybody
+was doing the same; and the place was that damp I never see anything
+like it. Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and t'other on
+t'other side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the
+coffin, and let on to pray all to themselves.  Well, when it come
+to that it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and
+everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud--the poor girls,
+too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a
+word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand
+on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running
+down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give
+the next woman a show.  I never see anything so disgusting.
+
+Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and
+works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and
+flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother
+to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long
+journey of four thousand mile, but it's a trial that's sweetened and
+sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he
+thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's heart, because out
+of their mouths they can't, words being too weak and cold, and all that
+kind of rot and slush, till it was just sickening; and then he blubbers
+out a pious goody-goody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes to crying
+fit to bust.
+
+And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the
+crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their
+might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church
+letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and
+hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and
+bully.
+
+Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his
+nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the
+family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up
+with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying
+yonder could speak he knows who he would name, for they was names that
+was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and so he will
+name the same, to wit, as follows, vizz.:--Rev. Mr. Hobson, and Deacon
+Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and
+Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley.
+
+Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town a-hunting
+together--that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t'other
+world, and the preacher was pinting him right.  Lawyer Bell was away up
+to Louisville on business.  But the rest was on hand, and so they all
+come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him;
+and then they shook hands with the duke and didn't say nothing, but just
+kept a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads whilst
+he made all sorts of signs with his hands and said “Goo-goo--goo-goo-goo”
+ all the time, like a baby that can't talk.
+
+So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty
+much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts
+of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to
+George's family, or to Peter.  And he always let on that Peter wrote him
+the things; but that was a lie:  he got every blessed one of them out of
+that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.
+
+Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the
+king he read it out loud and cried over it.  It give the dwelling-house
+and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard
+(which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and
+land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold
+to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid down
+cellar.  So these two frauds said they'd go and fetch it up, and have
+everything square and above-board; and told me to come with a candle.
+ We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag
+they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them
+yaller-boys.  My, the way the king's eyes did shine!  He slaps the duke
+on the shoulder and says:
+
+“Oh, _this_ ain't bully nor noth'n!  Oh, no, I reckon not!  Why,
+_bully_, it beats the Nonesuch, _don't_ it?”
+
+The duke allowed it did.  They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them
+through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the
+king says:
+
+“It ain't no use talkin'; bein' brothers to a rich dead man and
+representatives of furrin heirs that's got left is the line for you and
+me, Bilge.  Thish yer comes of trust'n to Providence.  It's the best
+way, in the long run.  I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no better
+way.”
+
+Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on
+trust; but no, they must count it.  So they counts it, and it comes out
+four hundred and fifteen dollars short.  Says the king:
+
+“Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen
+dollars?”
+
+They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it.  Then
+the duke says:
+
+“Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake--I reckon
+that's the way of it.  The best way's to let it go, and keep still about
+it.  We can spare it.”
+
+“Oh, shucks, yes, we can _spare_ it.  I don't k'yer noth'n 'bout
+that--it's the _count_ I'm thinkin' about.  We want to be awful square
+and open and above-board here, you know.  We want to lug this h-yer
+money up stairs and count it before everybody--then ther' ain't noth'n
+suspicious.  But when the dead man says ther's six thous'n dollars, you
+know, we don't want to--”
+
+“Hold on,” says the duke.  “Le's make up the deffisit,” and he begun to
+haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.
+
+“It's a most amaz'n' good idea, duke--you _have_ got a rattlin' clever
+head on you,” says the king.  “Blest if the old Nonesuch ain't a heppin'
+us out agin,” and _he_ begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them
+up.
+
+It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear.
+
+“Say,” says the duke, “I got another idea.  Le's go up stairs and count
+this money, and then take and _give it to the girls_.”
+
+“Good land, duke, lemme hug you!  It's the most dazzling idea 'at ever a
+man struck.  You have cert'nly got the most astonishin' head I ever see.
+Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it.  Let 'em
+fetch along their suspicions now if they want to--this 'll lay 'em out.”
+
+When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king
+he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pile--twenty
+elegant little piles.  Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their
+chops.  Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin
+to swell himself up for another speech.  He says:
+
+“Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by
+them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers.  He has done generous by
+these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left
+fatherless and motherless.  Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he
+would a done _more_ generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin'
+his dear William and me.  Now, _wouldn't_ he?  Ther' ain't no question
+'bout it in _my_ mind.  Well, then, what kind o' brothers would it be
+that 'd stand in his way at sech a time?  And what kind o' uncles would
+it be that 'd rob--yes, _rob_--sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved
+so at sech a time?  If I know William--and I _think_ I do--he--well, I'll
+jest ask him.” He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to
+the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and
+leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to catch his
+meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for joy,
+and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up.  Then the king says,
+“I knowed it; I reckon _that 'll_ convince anybody the way _he_ feels
+about it.  Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the money--take it
+_all_.  It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful.”
+
+Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the
+duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet.  And
+everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the
+hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:
+
+“You _dear_ good souls!--how _lovely_!--how _could_ you!”
+
+Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased
+again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and
+before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside,
+and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody
+saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they was
+all busy listening.  The king was saying--in the middle of something he'd
+started in on--
+
+“--they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased.  That's why they're
+invited here this evenin'; but tomorrow we want _all_ to come--everybody;
+for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fitten that
+his funeral orgies sh'd be public.”
+
+And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and
+every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke
+he couldn't stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper,
+“_Obsequies_, you old fool,” and folds it up, and goes to goo-gooing and
+reaching it over people's heads to him.  The king he reads it and puts
+it in his pocket, and says:
+
+“Poor William, afflicted as he is, his _heart's_ aluz right.  Asks me
+to invite everybody to come to the funeral--wants me to make 'em all
+welcome.  But he needn't a worried--it was jest what I was at.”
+
+Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping in his
+funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before.  And
+when he done it the third time he says:
+
+“I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it
+ain't--obsequies bein' the common term--but because orgies is the right
+term. Obsequies ain't used in England no more now--it's gone out.  We
+say orgies now in England.  Orgies is better, because it means the thing
+you're after more exact.  It's a word that's made up out'n the Greek
+_orgo_, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew _jeesum_, to plant, cover
+up; hence in_ter._  So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public
+funeral.”
+
+He was the _worst_ I ever struck.  Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed
+right in his face.  Everybody was shocked.  Everybody says, “Why,
+_doctor_!” and Abner Shackleford says:
+
+“Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news?  This is Harvey Wilks.”
+
+The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:
+
+“Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician?  I--”
+
+“Keep your hands off of me!” says the doctor.  “_You_ talk like an
+Englishman, _don't_ you?  It's the worst imitation I ever heard.  _You_
+Peter Wilks's brother!  You're a fraud, that's what you are!”
+
+Well, how they all took on!  They crowded around the doctor and tried to
+quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey 'd
+showed in forty ways that he _was_ Harvey, and knowed everybody by name,
+and the names of the very dogs, and begged and _begged_ him not to hurt
+Harvey's feelings and the poor girl's feelings, and all that.  But it
+warn't no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended
+to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what
+he did was a fraud and a liar.  The poor girls was hanging to the king
+and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on _them_.  He
+says:
+
+“I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend; and I warn you as a
+friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of
+harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing
+to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew,
+as he calls it.  He is the thinnest kind of an impostor--has come here
+with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and
+you take them for _proofs_, and are helped to fool yourselves by these
+foolish friends here, who ought to know better.  Mary Jane Wilks, you
+know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too.  Now listen
+to me; turn this pitiful rascal out--I _beg_ you to do it.  Will you?”
+
+Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome!  She
+says:
+
+“_Here_ is my answer.”  She hove up the bag of money and put it in the
+king's hands, and says, “Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for
+me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us no receipt for
+it.”
+
+Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the
+hare-lip done the same on the other.  Everybody clapped their hands and
+stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his
+head and smiled proud.  The doctor says:
+
+“All right; I wash _my_ hands of the matter.  But I warn you all that a
+time 's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of this
+day.” And away he went.
+
+“All right, doctor,” says the king, kinder mocking him; “we'll try and
+get 'em to send for you;” which made them all laugh, and they said it
+was a prime good hit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+WELL, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off
+for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would do for
+Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle Harvey, which was
+a little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her sisters and
+sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it.
+The king said the cubby would do for his valley--meaning me.
+
+So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was
+plain but nice.  She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps
+took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he said
+they warn't.  The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was
+a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor.  There was an
+old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all sorts
+of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room
+with.  The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for
+these fixings, and so don't disturb them.  The duke's room was pretty
+small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby.
+
+That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there,
+and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on them,
+and the niggers waited on the rest.  Mary Jane she set at the head of
+the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits
+was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried
+chickens was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to
+force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop,
+and said so--said “How _do_ you get biscuits to brown so nice?” and
+“Where, for the land's sake, _did_ you get these amaz'n pickles?” and
+all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a
+supper, you know.
+
+And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen
+off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up
+the things.  The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest
+if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes.  She says:
+
+“Did you ever see the king?”
+
+“Who?  William Fourth?  Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church.”  I
+knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on.  So when I says he
+goes to our church, she says:
+
+“What--regular?”
+
+“Yes--regular.  His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the
+pulpit.”
+
+“I thought he lived in London?”
+
+“Well, he does.  Where _would_ he live?”
+
+“But I thought _you_ lived in Sheffield?”
+
+I see I was up a stump.  I had to let on to get choked with a chicken
+bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again.  Then I says:
+
+“I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield.  That's
+only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths.”
+
+“Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea.”
+
+“Well, who said it was?”
+
+“Why, you did.”
+
+“I _didn't_ nuther.”
+
+“You did!”
+
+“I didn't.”
+
+“You did.”
+
+“I never said nothing of the kind.”
+
+“Well, what _did_ you say, then?”
+
+“Said he come to take the sea _baths_--that's what I said.”
+
+“Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the
+sea?”
+
+“Looky here,” I says; “did you ever see any Congress-water?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?”
+
+“Why, no.”
+
+“Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea
+bath.”
+
+“How does he get it, then?”
+
+“Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels.  There
+in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his water
+hot.  They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea.
+They haven't got no conveniences for it.”
+
+“Oh, I see, now.  You might a said that in the first place and saved
+time.”
+
+When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was
+comfortable and glad.  Next, she says:
+
+“Do you go to church, too?”
+
+“Yes--regular.”
+
+“Where do you set?”
+
+“Why, in our pew.”
+
+“_Whose_ pew?”
+
+“Why, _ourn_--your Uncle Harvey's.”
+
+“His'n?  What does _he_ want with a pew?”
+
+“Wants it to set in.  What did you _reckon_ he wanted with it?”
+
+“Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit.”
+
+Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher.  I see I was up a stump again, so I
+played another chicken bone and got another think.  Then I says:
+
+“Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?”
+
+“Why, what do they want with more?”
+
+“What!--to preach before a king?  I never did see such a girl as you.
+They don't have no less than seventeen.”
+
+“Seventeen!  My land!  Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that,
+not if I _never_ got to glory.  It must take 'em a week.”
+
+“Shucks, they don't _all_ of 'em preach the same day--only _one_ of 'em.”
+
+“Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?”
+
+“Oh, nothing much.  Loll around, pass the plate--and one thing or
+another.  But mainly they don't do nothing.”
+
+“Well, then, what are they _for_?”
+
+“Why, they're for _style_.  Don't you know nothing?”
+
+“Well, I don't _want_ to know no such foolishness as that.  How is
+servants treated in England?  Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our
+niggers?”
+
+“_No_!  A servant ain't nobody there.  They treat them worse than dogs.”
+
+“Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's
+week, and Fourth of July?”
+
+“Oh, just listen!  A body could tell _you_ hain't ever been to England
+by that.  Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year's
+end to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger
+shows, nor nowheres.”
+
+“Nor church?”
+
+“Nor church.”
+
+“But _you_ always went to church.”
+
+Well, I was gone up again.  I forgot I was the old man's servant.  But
+next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was
+different from a common servant and _had_ to go to church whether he
+wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the
+law.  But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she
+warn't satisfied.  She says:
+
+“Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?”
+
+“Honest injun,” says I.
+
+“None of it at all?”
+
+“None of it at all.  Not a lie in it,” says I.
+
+“Lay your hand on this book and say it.”
+
+I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and
+said it.  So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:
+
+“Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll
+believe the rest.”
+
+“What is it you won't believe, Joe?” says Mary Jane, stepping in with
+Susan behind her.  “It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him,
+and him a stranger and so far from his people.  How would you like to be
+treated so?”
+
+“That's always your way, Maim--always sailing in to help somebody before
+they're hurt.  I hain't done nothing to him.  He's told some stretchers,
+I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's every bit
+and grain I _did_ say.  I reckon he can stand a little thing like that,
+can't he?”
+
+“I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's here in
+our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it.  If you
+was in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't to
+say a thing to another person that will make _them_ feel ashamed.”
+
+“Why, Mam, he said--”
+
+“It don't make no difference what he _said_--that ain't the thing.  The
+thing is for you to treat him _kind_, and not be saying things to make
+him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks.”
+
+I says to myself, _this_ is a girl that I'm letting that old reptile rob
+her of her money!
+
+Then Susan _she_ waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give
+Hare-lip hark from the tomb!
+
+Says I to myself, and this is _another_ one that I'm letting him rob her
+of her money!
+
+Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely
+again--which was her way; but when she got done there warn't hardly
+anything left o' poor Hare-lip.  So she hollered.
+
+“All right, then,” says the other girls; “you just ask his pardon.”
+
+She done it, too; and she done it beautiful.  She done it so beautiful
+it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so
+she could do it again.
+
+I says to myself, this is _another_ one that I'm letting him rob her of
+her money.  And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves
+out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends.  I felt so
+ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up;
+I'll hive that money for them or bust.
+
+So then I lit out--for bed, I said, meaning some time or another.  When
+I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over.  I says to myself,
+shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds?  No--that
+won't do. He might tell who told him; then the king and the duke would
+make it warm for me.  Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane?  No--I
+dasn't do it. Her face would give them a hint, sure; they've got the
+money, and they'd slide right out and get away with it.  If she was to
+fetch in help I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done with,
+I judge.  No; there ain't no good way but one.  I got to steal that
+money, somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they won't suspicion
+that I done it. They've got a good thing here, and they ain't a-going
+to leave till they've played this family and this town for all they're
+worth, so I'll find a chance time enough. I'll steal it and hide it; and
+by and by, when I'm away down the river, I'll write a letter and tell
+Mary Jane where it's hid.  But I better hive it tonight if I can,
+because the doctor maybe hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has; he
+might scare them out of here yet.
+
+So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms.  Upstairs the hall was
+dark, but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it with
+my hands; but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let
+anybody else take care of that money but his own self; so then I went to
+his room and begun to paw around there.  But I see I couldn't do nothing
+without a candle, and I dasn't light one, of course.  So I judged I'd
+got to do the other thing--lay for them and eavesdrop.  About that time
+I hears their footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed; I
+reached for it, but it wasn't where I thought it would be; but I touched
+the curtain that hid Mary Jane's frocks, so I jumped in behind that and
+snuggled in amongst the gowns, and stood there perfectly still.
+
+They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done was to
+get down and look under the bed.  Then I was glad I hadn't found the bed
+when I wanted it.  And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to hide under
+the bed when you are up to anything private.  They sets down then, and
+the king says:
+
+“Well, what is it?  And cut it middlin' short, because it's better for
+us to be down there a-whoopin' up the mournin' than up here givin' 'em a
+chance to talk us over.”
+
+“Well, this is it, Capet.  I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable.  That
+doctor lays on my mind.  I wanted to know your plans.  I've got a
+notion, and I think it's a sound one.”
+
+“What is it, duke?”
+
+“That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, and clip
+it down the river with what we've got.  Specially, seeing we got it so
+easy--_given_ back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of
+course we allowed to have to steal it back.  I'm for knocking off and
+lighting out.”
+
+That made me feel pretty bad.  About an hour or two ago it would a been
+a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed, The
+king rips out and says:
+
+“What!  And not sell out the rest o' the property?  March off like
+a passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o'
+property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?--and all good,
+salable stuff, too.”
+
+The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't
+want to go no deeper--didn't want to rob a lot of orphans of _everything_
+they had.
+
+“Why, how you talk!” says the king.  “We sha'n't rob 'em of nothing at
+all but jest this money.  The people that _buys_ the property is the
+suff'rers; because as soon 's it's found out 'at we didn't own it--which
+won't be long after we've slid--the sale won't be valid, and it 'll all
+go back to the estate.  These yer orphans 'll git their house back agin,
+and that's enough for _them_; they're young and spry, and k'n easy
+earn a livin'.  _they_ ain't a-goin to suffer.  Why, jest think--there's
+thous'n's and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off.  Bless you, _they_
+ain't got noth'n' to complain of.”
+
+Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said all
+right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and that
+doctor hanging over them.  But the king says:
+
+“Cuss the doctor!  What do we k'yer for _him_?  Hain't we got all the
+fools in town on our side?  And ain't that a big enough majority in any
+town?”
+
+So they got ready to go down stairs again.  The duke says:
+
+“I don't think we put that money in a good place.”
+
+That cheered me up.  I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a hint of
+no kind to help me.  The king says:
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know
+the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds
+up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and
+not borrow some of it?”
+
+“Your head's level agin, duke,” says the king; and he comes a-fumbling
+under the curtain two or three foot from where I was.  I stuck tight to
+the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what them
+fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I tried to think what
+I'd better do if they did catch me.  But the king he got the bag before
+I could think more than about a half a thought, and he never suspicioned
+I was around.  They took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw
+tick that was under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two
+amongst the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only
+makes up the feather-bed, and don't turn over the straw tick only about
+twice a year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting stole now.
+
+But I knowed better.  I had it out of there before they was half-way
+down stairs.  I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I
+could get a chance to do better.  I judged I better hide it outside
+of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the
+house a good ransacking:  I knowed that very well.  Then I turned in,
+with my clothes all on; but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted
+to, I was in such a sweat to get through with the business.  By and by I
+heard the king and the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid
+with my chin at the top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was
+going to happen.  But nothing did.
+
+So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't
+begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring.  So I tiptoed
+along, and got down stairs all right.  There warn't a sound anywheres.
+ I peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that
+was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs.  The door
+was open into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a
+candle in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but
+I see there warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I
+shoved on by; but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there.
+ Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me.  I
+run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I
+see to hide the bag was in the coffin.  The lid was shoved along about
+a foot, showing the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over
+it, and his shroud on.  I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just
+down beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was
+so cold, and then I run back across the room and in behind the door.
+
+The person coming was Mary Jane.  She went to the coffin, very soft, and
+kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see
+she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was to me.  I
+slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I'd make sure them
+watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the crack, and everything
+was all right.  They hadn't stirred.
+
+I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing
+playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much
+resk about it.  Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right; because
+when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to
+Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but that ain't the
+thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the
+money 'll be found when they come to screw on the lid.  Then the king
+'ll get it again, and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody
+another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I _wanted_ to slide
+down and get it out of there, but I dasn't try it.  Every minute it was
+getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin
+to stir, and I might get catched--catched with six thousand dollars in my
+hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take care of.  I don't wish to be
+mixed up in no such business as that, I says to myself.
+
+When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the
+watchers was gone.  There warn't nobody around but the family and the
+widow Bartley and our tribe.  I watched their faces to see if anything
+had been happening, but I couldn't tell.
+
+Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and they
+set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs, and then
+set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors till
+the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was full.  I see the coffin
+lid was the way it was before, but I dasn't go to look in under it, with
+folks around.
+
+Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took
+seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an hour
+the people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the
+dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was
+all very still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holding
+handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a
+little.  There warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on
+the floor and blowing noses--because people always blows them more at a
+funeral than they do at other places except church.
+
+When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his
+black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last
+touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable,
+and making no more sound than a cat.  He never spoke; he moved people
+around, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and done
+it with nods, and signs with his hands.  Then he took his place over
+against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever
+see; and there warn't no more smile to him than there is to a ham.
+
+They had borrowed a melodeum--a sick one; and when everything was ready
+a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and
+colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one
+that had a good thing, according to my notion.  Then the Reverend Hobson
+opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the most
+outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was only
+one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right
+along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait--you
+couldn't hear yourself think.  It was right down awkward, and nobody
+didn't seem to know what to do.  But pretty soon they see that
+long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say,
+“Don't you worry--just depend on me.”  Then he stooped down and begun
+to glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people's
+heads.  So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and
+more outrageous all the time; and at last, when he had gone around two
+sides of the room, he disappears down cellar.  Then in about two seconds
+we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or
+two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn
+talk where he left off.  In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's
+back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided and
+glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his
+mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher,
+over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, “_He
+had a rat_!”  Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to
+his place.  You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people,
+because naturally they wanted to know.  A little thing like that don't
+cost nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be
+looked up to and liked.  There warn't no more popular man in town than
+what that undertaker was.
+
+Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome; and
+then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and
+at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the
+coffin with his screw-driver.  I was in a sweat then, and watched him
+pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along as
+soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast.  So there I was!  I
+didn't know whether the money was in there or not.  So, says I, s'pose
+somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?--now how do I know whether
+to write to Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't find
+nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get
+hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at
+all; the thing's awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it
+a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch
+the whole business!
+
+They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces
+again--I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy.  But nothing come of
+it; the faces didn't tell me nothing.
+
+The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up,
+and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his
+congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must
+hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home.  He was
+very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could
+stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be done.  And he
+said of course him and William would take the girls home with them; and
+that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed
+and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too--tickled
+them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and told
+him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready.  Them
+poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them
+getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to
+chip in and change the general tune.
+
+Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and all
+the property for auction straight off--sale two days after the funeral;
+but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.
+
+So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy
+got the first jolt.  A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king
+sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called
+it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their
+mother down the river to Orleans.  I thought them poor girls and them
+niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each
+other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it.  The girls
+said they hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold
+away from the town.  I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of
+them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks
+and crying; and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had
+to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no
+account and the niggers would be back home in a week or two.
+
+The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out
+flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the
+children that way.  It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he
+bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell
+you the duke was powerful uneasy.
+
+Next day was auction day.  About broad day in the morning the king and
+the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look
+that there was trouble.  The king says:
+
+“Was you in my room night before last?”
+
+“No, your majesty”--which was the way I always called him when nobody but
+our gang warn't around.
+
+“Was you in there yisterday er last night?”
+
+“No, your majesty.”
+
+“Honor bright, now--no lies.”
+
+“Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth.  I hain't been
+a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed
+it to you.”
+
+The duke says:
+
+“Have you seen anybody else go in there?”
+
+“No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe.”
+
+“Stop and think.”
+
+I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:
+
+“Well, I see the niggers go in there several times.”
+
+Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever
+expected it, and then like they _had_.  Then the duke says:
+
+“What, all of them?”
+
+“No--leastways, not all at once--that is, I don't think I ever see them
+all come _out_ at once but just one time.”
+
+“Hello!  When was that?”
+
+“It was the day we had the funeral.  In the morning.  It warn't early,
+because I overslept.  I was just starting down the ladder, and I see
+them.”
+
+“Well, go on, _go_ on!  What did they do?  How'd they act?”
+
+“They didn't do nothing.  And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I
+see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in
+there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up;
+and found you _warn't_ up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the
+way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you
+up.”
+
+“Great guns, _this_ is a go!” says the king; and both of them looked
+pretty sick and tolerable silly.  They stood there a-thinking and
+scratching their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a
+little raspy chuckle, and says:
+
+“It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand.  They let on
+to be _sorry_ they was going out of this region!  And I believed they
+_was_ sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody.  Don't ever tell _me_
+any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent.  Why, the way
+they played that thing it would fool _anybody_.  In my opinion, there's
+a fortune in 'em.  If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a
+better lay-out than that--and here we've gone and sold 'em for a song.
+ Yes, and ain't privileged to sing the song yet.  Say, where _is_ that
+song--that draft?”
+
+“In the bank for to be collected.  Where _would_ it be?”
+
+“Well, _that's_ all right then, thank goodness.”
+
+Says I, kind of timid-like:
+
+“Is something gone wrong?”
+
+The king whirls on me and rips out:
+
+“None o' your business!  You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own
+affairs--if you got any.  Long as you're in this town don't you forgit
+_that_--you hear?”  Then he says to the duke, “We got to jest swaller it
+and say noth'n':  mum's the word for _us_.”
+
+As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and
+says:
+
+“Quick sales _and_ small profits!  It's a good business--yes.”
+
+The king snarls around on him and says:
+
+“I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out so quick.  If the
+profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to
+carry, is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?”
+
+“Well, _they'd_ be in this house yet and we _wouldn't_ if I could a got
+my advice listened to.”
+
+The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped
+around and lit into _me_ again.  He give me down the banks for not
+coming and _telling_ him I see the niggers come out of his room acting
+that way--said any fool would a _knowed_ something was up.  And then
+waltzed in and cussed _himself_ awhile, and said it all come of him not
+laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd be
+blamed if he'd ever do it again.  So they went off a-jawing; and I felt
+dreadful glad I'd worked it all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't
+done the niggers no harm by it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+BY and by it was getting-up time.  So I come down the ladder and started
+for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls' room the door was open, and
+I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and she'd
+been packing things in it--getting ready to go to England.  But she
+had stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her
+hands, crying.  I felt awful bad to see it; of course anybody would.  I
+went in there and says:
+
+“Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people in trouble, and I
+can't--most always.  Tell me about it.”
+
+So she done it.  And it was the niggers--I just expected it.  She said
+the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she didn't
+know _how_ she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and
+the children warn't ever going to see each other no more--and then busted
+out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:
+
+“Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't _ever_ going to see each other any
+more!”
+
+“But they _will_--and inside of two weeks--and I _know_ it!” says I.
+
+Laws, it was out before I could think!  And before I could budge she
+throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it _again_, say it
+_again_, say it _again_!
+
+I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close
+place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very
+impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and
+eased-up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out.  So I went to
+studying it out.  I says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells
+the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable many resks,
+though I ain't had no experience, and can't say for certain; but it
+looks so to me, anyway; and yet here's a case where I'm blest if it
+don't look to me like the truth is better and actuly _safer_ than a lie.
+ I must lay it by in my mind, and think it over some time or other, it's
+so kind of strange and unregular. I never see nothing like it.  Well, I
+says to myself at last, I'm a-going to chance it; I'll up and tell the
+truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of
+powder and touching it off just to see where you'll go to. Then I says:
+
+“Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you
+could go and stay three or four days?”
+
+“Yes; Mr. Lothrop's.  Why?”
+
+“Never mind why yet.  If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will see
+each other again inside of two weeks--here in this house--and _prove_ how
+I know it--will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?”
+
+“Four days!” she says; “I'll stay a year!”
+
+“All right,” I says, “I don't want nothing more out of _you_ than just
+your word--I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible.”  She
+smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, “If you don't mind it,
+I'll shut the door--and bolt it.”
+
+Then I come back and set down again, and says:
+
+“Don't you holler.  Just set still and take it like a man.  I got to
+tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a
+bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for
+it.  These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of
+frauds--regular dead-beats.  There, now we're over the worst of it, you
+can stand the rest middling easy.”
+
+It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal
+water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher
+all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck
+that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she
+flung herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed
+her sixteen or seventeen times--and then up she jumps, with her face
+afire like sunset, and says:
+
+“The brute!  Come, don't waste a minute--not a _second_--we'll have them
+tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!”
+
+Says I:
+
+“Cert'nly.  But do you mean _before_ you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or--”
+
+“Oh,” she says, “what am I _thinking_ about!” she says, and set right
+down again.  “Don't mind what I said--please don't--you _won't,_ now,
+_will_ you?” Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that
+I said I would die first.  “I never thought, I was so stirred up,” she
+says; “now go on, and I won't do so any more.  You tell me what to do,
+and whatever you say I'll do it.”
+
+“Well,” I says, “it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so
+I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not--I
+druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would
+get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another
+person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble.  Well, we
+got to save _him_, hain't we?  Of course.  Well, then, we won't blow on
+them.”
+
+Saying them words put a good idea in my head.  I see how maybe I could
+get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave.
+But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard
+to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working
+till pretty late to-night.  I says:
+
+“Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay
+at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther.  How fur is it?”
+
+“A little short of four miles--right out in the country, back here.”
+
+“Well, that 'll answer.  Now you go along out there, and lay low
+till nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home
+again--tell them you've thought of something.  If you get here before
+eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait _till_
+eleven, and _then_ if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the
+way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news around, and get
+these beats jailed.”
+
+“Good,” she says, “I'll do it.”
+
+“And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along
+with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand,
+and you must stand by me all you can.”
+
+“Stand by you! indeed I will.  They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!”
+ she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said
+it, too.
+
+“If I get away I sha'n't be here,” I says, “to prove these rapscallions
+ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I _was_ here.  I could swear
+they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something.
+Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're
+people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be.  I'll tell you
+how to find them.  Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper.  There--'Royal
+Nonesuch, Bricksville.'  Put it away, and don't lose it.  When the
+court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to
+Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch,
+and ask for some witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here
+before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary.  And they'll come a-biling, too.”
+
+I judged we had got everything fixed about right now.  So I says:
+
+“Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry.  Nobody don't
+have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction
+on accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till
+they get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to
+count, and they ain't going to get no money.  It's just like the way
+it was with the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be
+back before long.  Why, they can't collect the money for the _niggers_
+yet--they're in the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary.”
+
+“Well,” she says, “I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start
+straight for Mr. Lothrop's.”
+
+“'Deed, _that_ ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane,” I says, “by no manner
+of means; go _before_ breakfast.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?”
+
+“Well, I never thought--and come to think, I don't know.  What was it?”
+
+“Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people.  I don't
+want no better book than what your face is.  A body can set down and
+read it off like coarse print.  Do you reckon you can go and face your
+uncles when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never--”
+
+“There, there, don't!  Yes, I'll go before breakfast--I'll be glad to.
+And leave my sisters with them?”
+
+“Yes; never mind about them.  They've got to stand it yet a while.  They
+might suspicion something if all of you was to go.  I don't want you to
+see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was
+to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something.
+ No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of
+them. I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say
+you've went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or
+to see a friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning.”
+
+“Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to
+them.”
+
+“Well, then, it sha'n't be.”  It was well enough to tell _her_ so--no
+harm in it.  It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's
+the little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below;
+it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing.  Then
+I says:  “There's one more thing--that bag of money.”
+
+“Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think
+_how_ they got it.”
+
+“No, you're out, there.  They hain't got it.”
+
+“Why, who's got it?”
+
+“I wish I knowed, but I don't.  I _had_ it, because I stole it from
+them; and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm
+afraid it ain't there no more.  I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm
+just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest.  I
+come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I
+come to, and run--and it warn't a good place.”
+
+“Oh, stop blaming yourself--it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow
+it--you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault.  Where did you hide it?”
+
+I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I
+couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that
+corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach.  So
+for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:
+
+“I'd ruther not _tell_ you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't
+mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and
+you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to.  Do you
+reckon that 'll do?”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+So I wrote:  “I put it in the coffin.  It was in there when you was
+crying there, away in the night.  I was behind the door, and I was
+mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane.”
+
+It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by
+herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own
+roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it
+to her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the
+hand, hard, and says:
+
+“_Good_-bye.  I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if
+I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of
+you a many and a many a time, and I'll _pray_ for you, too!”--and she was
+gone.
+
+Pray for me!  I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more
+nearer her size.  But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that
+kind.  She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there
+warn't no back-down to her, I judge.  You may say what you want to, but
+in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in
+my opinion she was just full of sand.  It sounds like flattery, but it
+ain't no flattery.  And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she
+lays over them all.  I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see
+her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon
+I've thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying
+she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good
+for me to pray for _her_, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.
+
+Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see
+her go.  When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:
+
+“What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that
+you all goes to see sometimes?”
+
+They says:
+
+“There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly.”
+
+“That's the name,” I says; “I most forgot it.  Well, Miss Mary Jane she
+told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of
+them's sick.”
+
+“Which one?”
+
+“I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--”
+
+“Sakes alive, I hope it ain't _Hanner_?”
+
+“I'm sorry to say it,” I says, “but Hanner's the very one.”
+
+“My goodness, and she so well only last week!  Is she took bad?”
+
+“It ain't no name for it.  They set up with her all night, Miss Mary
+Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours.”
+
+“Only think of that, now!  What's the matter with her?”
+
+I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:
+
+“Mumps.”
+
+“Mumps your granny!  They don't set up with people that's got the
+mumps.”
+
+“They don't, don't they?  You better bet they do with _these_ mumps.
+ These mumps is different.  It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said.”
+
+“How's it a new kind?”
+
+“Because it's mixed up with other things.”
+
+“What other things?”
+
+“Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and
+yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all.”
+
+“My land!  And they call it the _mumps_?”
+
+“That's what Miss Mary Jane said.”
+
+“Well, what in the nation do they call it the _mumps_ for?”
+
+“Why, because it _is_ the mumps.  That's what it starts with.”
+
+“Well, ther' ain't no sense in it.  A body might stump his toe, and take
+pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains
+out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull
+up and say, 'Why, he stumped his _toe_.'  Would ther' be any sense
+in that? _No_.  And ther' ain't no sense in _this_, nuther.  Is it
+ketching?”
+
+“Is it _ketching_?  Why, how you talk.  Is a _harrow_ catching--in the
+dark? If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another,
+ain't you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the
+whole harrow along, can you?  Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a
+harrow, as you may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you
+come to get it hitched on good.”
+
+“Well, it's awful, I think,” says the hare-lip.  “I'll go to Uncle
+Harvey and--”
+
+“Oh, yes,” I says, “I _would_.  Of _course_ I would.  I wouldn't lose no
+time.”
+
+“Well, why wouldn't you?”
+
+“Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see.  Hain't your uncles
+obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can?  And do you
+reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that
+journey by yourselves?  _you_ know they'll wait for you.  So fur, so
+good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he?  Very well, then; is a
+_preacher_ going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive
+a _ship clerk?_--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard?  Now
+_you_ know he ain't.  What _will_ he do, then?  Why, he'll say, 'It's a
+great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the best way they
+can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps,
+and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months
+it takes to show on her if she's got it.'  But never mind, if you think
+it's best to tell your uncle Harvey--”
+
+“Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good
+times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's
+got it or not?  Why, you talk like a muggins.”
+
+“Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors.”
+
+“Listen at that, now.  You do beat all for natural stupidness.  Can't
+you _see_ that _they'd_ go and tell?  Ther' ain't no way but just to not
+tell anybody at _all_.”
+
+“Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you _are_ right.”
+
+“But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while,
+anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?”
+
+“Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that.  She says, 'Tell them to
+give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over
+the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what _is_ the name of that rich family your
+uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one that--”
+
+“Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?”
+
+“Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to
+remember them, half the time, somehow.  Yes, she said, say she has run
+over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy
+this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had
+it than anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till they say
+they'll come, and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home; and
+if she is, she'll be home in the morning anyway.  She said, don't say
+nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll be
+perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their buying
+the house; I know it, because she told me so herself.”
+
+“All right,” they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and
+give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.
+
+Everything was all right now.  The girls wouldn't say nothing because
+they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther
+Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of
+Doctor Robinson.  I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat--I
+reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself.  Of course he
+would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not
+being brung up to it.
+
+Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the end
+of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the old man
+he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of the
+auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and then, or a little
+goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing
+for sympathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself generly.
+
+But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was
+sold--everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard.  So
+they'd got to work that off--I never see such a girafft as the king was
+for wanting to swallow _everything_.  Well, whilst they was at it a
+steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-whooping
+and yelling and laughing and carrying on, and singing out:
+
+“_Here's_ your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old
+Peter Wilks--and you pays your money and you takes your choice!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THEY was fetching a very nice-looking old gentleman along, and a
+nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling.  And, my souls,
+how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up.  But I didn't see no
+joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke and the king some
+to see any.  I reckoned they'd turn pale.  But no, nary a pale did
+_they_ turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but
+just went a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that's
+googling out buttermilk; and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed
+down sorrowful on them new-comers like it give him the stomach-ache in
+his very heart to think there could be such frauds and rascals in the
+world.  Oh, he done it admirable.  Lots of the principal people
+gethered around the king, to let him see they was on his side.  That old
+gentleman that had just come looked all puzzled to death.  Pretty
+soon he begun to speak, and I see straight off he pronounced _like_ an
+Englishman--not the king's way, though the king's _was_ pretty good for
+an imitation.  I can't give the old gent's words, nor I can't imitate
+him; but he turned around to the crowd, and says, about like this:
+
+“This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for; and I'll
+acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't very well fixed to meet it and
+answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he's broke his
+arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here last night in the
+night by a mistake.  I am Peter Wilks' brother Harvey, and this is his
+brother William, which can't hear nor speak--and can't even make signs to
+amount to much, now't he's only got one hand to work them with.  We are
+who we say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can
+prove it. But up till then I won't say nothing more, but go to the hotel
+and wait.”
+
+So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, and
+blethers out:
+
+“Broke his arm--_very_ likely, _ain't_ it?--and very convenient, too,
+for a fraud that's got to make signs, and ain't learnt how.  Lost
+their baggage! That's _mighty_ good!--and mighty ingenious--under the
+_circumstances_!”
+
+So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or four,
+or maybe half a dozen.  One of these was that doctor; another one was
+a sharp-looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old-fashioned kind
+made out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of the steamboat and
+was talking to him in a low voice, and glancing towards the king now and
+then and nodding their heads--it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone
+up to Louisville; and another one was a big rough husky that come along
+and listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the
+king now. And when the king got done this husky up and says:
+
+“Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd you come to this
+town?”
+
+“The day before the funeral, friend,” says the king.
+
+“But what time o' day?”
+
+“In the evenin'--'bout an hour er two before sundown.”
+
+“_How'd_ you come?”
+
+“I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati.”
+
+“Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the _mornin_'--in a
+canoe?”
+
+“I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'.”
+
+“It's a lie.”
+
+Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an
+old man and a preacher.
+
+“Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar.  He was up at the Pint
+that mornin'.  I live up there, don't I?  Well, I was up there, and
+he was up there.  I see him there.  He come in a canoe, along with Tim
+Collins and a boy.”
+
+The doctor he up and says:
+
+“Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?”
+
+“I reckon I would, but I don't know.  Why, yonder he is, now.  I know
+him perfectly easy.”
+
+It was me he pointed at.  The doctor says:
+
+“Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not; but if
+_these_ two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all.  I think it's our
+duty to see that they don't get away from here till we've looked into
+this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you.  We'll take
+these fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other couple, and I
+reckon we'll find out _something_ before we get through.”
+
+It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's friends; so
+we all started.  It was about sundown.  The doctor he led me along by
+the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go my hand.
+
+We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles, and
+fetched in the new couple.  First, the doctor says:
+
+“I don't wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they're
+frauds, and they may have complices that we don't know nothing about.
+ If they have, won't the complices get away with that bag of gold Peter
+Wilks left?  It ain't unlikely.  If these men ain't frauds, they won't
+object to sending for that money and letting us keep it till they prove
+they're all right--ain't that so?”
+
+Everybody agreed to that.  So I judged they had our gang in a pretty
+tight place right at the outstart.  But the king he only looked
+sorrowful, and says:
+
+“Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain't got no disposition
+to throw anything in the way of a fair, open, out-and-out investigation
+o' this misable business; but, alas, the money ain't there; you k'n send
+and see, if you want to.”
+
+“Where is it, then?”
+
+“Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her I took and hid it
+inside o' the straw tick o' my bed, not wishin' to bank it for the few
+days we'd be here, and considerin' the bed a safe place, we not bein'
+used to niggers, and suppos'n' 'em honest, like servants in England.
+ The niggers stole it the very next mornin' after I had went down
+stairs; and when I sold 'em I hadn't missed the money yit, so they got
+clean away with it.  My servant here k'n tell you 'bout it, gentlemen.”
+
+The doctor and several said “Shucks!” and I see nobody didn't altogether
+believe him.  One man asked me if I see the niggers steal it.  I said
+no, but I see them sneaking out of the room and hustling away, and I
+never thought nothing, only I reckoned they was afraid they had waked up
+my master and was trying to get away before he made trouble with them.
+ That was all they asked me.  Then the doctor whirls on me and says:
+
+“Are _you_ English, too?”
+
+I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, “Stuff!”
+
+Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we had
+it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about
+supper, nor ever seemed to think about it--and so they kept it up, and
+kept it up; and it _was_ the worst mixed-up thing you ever see.  They
+made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n;
+and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a _seen_ that the
+old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies.  And by and by
+they had me up to tell what I knowed.  The king he give me a left-handed
+look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the
+right side.  I begun to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there,
+and all about the English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn't get pretty
+fur till the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says:
+
+“Set down, my boy; I wouldn't strain myself if I was you.  I reckon
+you ain't used to lying, it don't seem to come handy; what you want is
+practice.  You do it pretty awkward.”
+
+I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let off,
+anyway.
+
+The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says:
+
+“If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell--” The king broke in and
+reached out his hand, and says:
+
+“Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend that he's wrote so often
+about?”
+
+The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked
+pleased, and they talked right along awhile, and then got to one side
+and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and says:
+
+“That 'll fix it.  I'll take the order and send it, along with your
+brother's, and then they'll know it's all right.”
+
+So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and twisted
+his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something;
+and then they give the pen to the duke--and then for the first time the
+duke looked sick.  But he took the pen and wrote.  So then the lawyer
+turns to the new old gentleman and says:
+
+“You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your names.”
+
+The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it.  The lawyer looked
+powerful astonished, and says:
+
+“Well, it beats _me_”--and snaked a lot of old letters out of his pocket,
+and examined them, and then examined the old man's writing, and then
+_them_ again; and then says:  “These old letters is from Harvey Wilks;
+and here's _these_ two handwritings, and anybody can see they didn't
+write them” (the king and the duke looked sold and foolish, I tell
+you, to see how the lawyer had took them in), “and here's _this_ old
+gentleman's hand writing, and anybody can tell, easy enough, _he_ didn't
+write them--fact is, the scratches he makes ain't properly _writing_ at
+all.  Now, here's some letters from--”
+
+The new old gentleman says:
+
+“If you please, let me explain.  Nobody can read my hand but my brother
+there--so he copies for me.  It's _his_ hand you've got there, not mine.”
+
+“_Well_!” says the lawyer, “this _is_ a state of things.  I've got some
+of William's letters, too; so if you'll get him to write a line or so we
+can com--”
+
+“He _can't_ write with his left hand,” says the old gentleman.  “If he
+could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his own letters
+and mine too.  Look at both, please--they're by the same hand.”
+
+The lawyer done it, and says:
+
+“I believe it's so--and if it ain't so, there's a heap stronger
+resemblance than I'd noticed before, anyway.  Well, well, well!  I
+thought we was right on the track of a solution, but it's gone to grass,
+partly.  But anyway, one thing is proved--_these_ two ain't either of 'em
+Wilkses”--and he wagged his head towards the king and the duke.
+
+Well, what do you think?  That muleheaded old fool wouldn't give in
+_then_! Indeed he wouldn't.  Said it warn't no fair test.  Said his
+brother William was the cussedest joker in the world, and hadn't tried
+to write--_he_ see William was going to play one of his jokes the minute
+he put the pen to paper.  And so he warmed up and went warbling and
+warbling right along till he was actuly beginning to believe what he was
+saying _himself_; but pretty soon the new gentleman broke in, and says:
+
+“I've thought of something.  Is there anybody here that helped to lay
+out my br--helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying?”
+
+“Yes,” says somebody, “me and Ab Turner done it.  We're both here.”
+
+Then the old man turns towards the king, and says:
+
+“Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his breast?”
+
+Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or he'd a
+squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut under, it took
+him so sudden; and, mind you, it was a thing that was calculated to make
+most _anybody_ sqush to get fetched such a solid one as that without any
+notice, because how was _he_ going to know what was tattooed on the man?
+ He whitened a little; he couldn't help it; and it was mighty still in
+there, and everybody bending a little forwards and gazing at him.  Says
+I to myself, _now_ he'll throw up the sponge--there ain't no more use.
+ Well, did he?  A body can't hardly believe it, but he didn't.  I reckon
+he thought he'd keep the thing up till he tired them people out, so
+they'd thin out, and him and the duke could break loose and get away.
+ Anyway, he set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile, and says:
+
+“Mf!  It's a _very_ tough question, _ain't_ it!  _yes_, sir, I k'n
+tell you what's tattooed on his breast.  It's jest a small, thin, blue
+arrow--that's what it is; and if you don't look clost, you can't see it.
+ _now_ what do you say--hey?”
+
+Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean out-and-out
+cheek.
+
+The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard, and
+his eye lights up like he judged he'd got the king _this_ time, and
+says:
+
+“There--you've heard what he said!  Was there any such mark on Peter
+Wilks' breast?”
+
+Both of them spoke up and says:
+
+“We didn't see no such mark.”
+
+“Good!” says the old gentleman.  “Now, what you _did_ see on his breast
+was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was
+young), and a W, with dashes between them, so:  P--B--W”--and he marked
+them that way on a piece of paper.  “Come, ain't that what you saw?”
+
+Both of them spoke up again, and says:
+
+“No, we _didn't_.  We never seen any marks at all.”
+
+Well, everybody _was_ in a state of mind now, and they sings out:
+
+“The whole _bilin_' of 'm 's frauds!  Le's duck 'em! le's drown 'em!
+le's ride 'em on a rail!” and everybody was whooping at once, and there
+was a rattling powwow.  But the lawyer he jumps on the table and yells,
+and says:
+
+“Gentlemen--gentle_men!_  Hear me just a word--just a _single_ word--if you
+_please_!  There's one way yet--let's go and dig up the corpse and look.”
+
+That took them.
+
+“Hooray!” they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the lawyer
+and the doctor sung out:
+
+“Hold on, hold on!  Collar all these four men and the boy, and fetch
+_them_ along, too!”
+
+“We'll do it!” they all shouted; “and if we don't find them marks we'll
+lynch the whole gang!”
+
+I _was_ scared, now, I tell you.  But there warn't no getting away, you
+know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for the
+graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole
+town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only nine in the
+evening.
+
+As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent Mary Jane out of town;
+because now if I could tip her the wink she'd light out and save me, and
+blow on our dead-beats.
+
+Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like
+wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the
+lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst
+the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most dangersome I ever
+was in; and I was kinder stunned; everything was going so different from
+what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed so I could take my own time
+if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to
+save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the
+world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks.  If they
+didn't find them--
+
+I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't think
+about nothing else.  It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful
+time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me by the
+wrist--Hines--and a body might as well try to give Goliar the slip.  He
+dragged me right along, he was so excited, and I had to run to keep up.
+
+When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed over it
+like an overflow.  And when they got to the grave they found they had
+about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody hadn't
+thought to fetch a lantern.  But they sailed into digging anyway by the
+flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a
+mile off, to borrow one.
+
+So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, and the rain
+started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the lightning come
+brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them people never took
+no notice of it, they was so full of this business; and one minute
+you could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the
+shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second the
+dark wiped it all out, and you couldn't see nothing at all.
+
+At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then
+such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to
+scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark, that way, it
+was awful.  Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and tugging so,
+and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and
+panting.
+
+All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare,
+and somebody sings out:
+
+“By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his breast!”
+
+Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and
+give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit
+out and shinned for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell.
+
+I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew--leastways, I had it all
+to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then glares, and the
+buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting of
+the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it along!
+
+When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody out in the storm, so
+I never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight through the
+main one; and when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my eye and
+set it. No light there; the house all dark--which made me feel sorry and
+disappointed, I didn't know why.  But at last, just as I was sailing by,
+_flash_ comes the light in Mary Jane's window! and my heart swelled up
+sudden, like to bust; and the same second the house and all was behind
+me in the dark, and wasn't ever going to be before me no more in this
+world. She _was_ the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand.
+
+The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the
+towhead, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first
+time the lightning showed me one that wasn't chained I snatched it and
+shoved. It was a canoe, and warn't fastened with nothing but a rope.
+ The towhead was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the
+middle of the river, but I didn't lose no time; and when I struck the
+raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp
+if I could afforded it.  But I didn't.  As I sprung aboard I sung out:
+
+“Out with you, Jim, and set her loose!  Glory be to goodness, we're shut
+of them!”
+
+Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he was so
+full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot up
+in my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he was old King
+Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and it most scared the livers and
+lights out of me.  But Jim fished me out, and was going to hug me and
+bless me, and so on, he was so glad I was back and we was shut of the
+king and the duke, but I says:
+
+“Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast!  Cut loose and
+let her slide!”
+
+So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it _did_
+seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and
+nobody to bother us.  I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and crack
+my heels a few times--I couldn't help it; but about the third crack
+I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well, and held my breath and
+listened and waited; and sure enough, when the next flash busted out
+over the water, here they come!--and just a-laying to their oars and
+making their skiff hum!  It was the king and the duke.
+
+So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and it was
+all I could do to keep from crying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+WHEN they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar,
+and says:
+
+“Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup!  Tired of our company,
+hey?”
+
+I says:
+
+“No, your majesty, we warn't--_please_ don't, your majesty!”
+
+“Quick, then, and tell us what _was_ your idea, or I'll shake the
+insides out o' you!”
+
+“Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty.
+ The man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he
+had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry
+to see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when they was all took by
+surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets go
+of me and whispers, 'Heel it now, or they'll hang ye, sure!' and I lit
+out.  It didn't seem no good for _me_ to stay--I couldn't do nothing,
+and I didn't want to be hung if I could get away.  So I never stopped
+running till I found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to hurry,
+or they'd catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you and the
+duke wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was
+awful glad when we see you coming; you may ask Jim if I didn't.”
+
+Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said, “Oh,
+yes, it's _mighty_ likely!” and shook me up again, and said he reckoned
+he'd drownd me.  But the duke says:
+
+“Leggo the boy, you old idiot!  Would _you_ a done any different?  Did
+you inquire around for _him_ when you got loose?  I don't remember it.”
+
+So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in
+it. But the duke says:
+
+“You better a blame' sight give _yourself_ a good cussing, for you're
+the one that's entitled to it most.  You hain't done a thing from the
+start that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky
+with that imaginary blue-arrow mark.  That _was_ bright--it was right
+down bully; and it was the thing that saved us.  For if it hadn't been
+for that they'd a jailed us till them Englishmen's baggage come--and
+then--the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to the
+graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the
+excited fools hadn't let go all holts and made that rush to get a
+look we'd a slept in our cravats to-night--cravats warranted to _wear_,
+too--longer than _we'd_ need 'em.”
+
+They was still a minute--thinking; then the king says, kind of
+absent-minded like:
+
+“Mf!  And we reckoned the _niggers_ stole it!”
+
+That made me squirm!
+
+“Yes,” says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, “_we_
+did.”
+
+After about a half a minute the king drawls out:
+
+“Leastways, I did.”
+
+The duke says, the same way:
+
+“On the contrary, I did.”
+
+The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
+
+“Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?”
+
+The duke says, pretty brisk:
+
+“When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was _you_
+referring to?”
+
+“Shucks!” says the king, very sarcastic; “but I don't know--maybe you was
+asleep, and didn't know what you was about.”
+
+The duke bristles up now, and says:
+
+“Oh, let _up_ on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame' fool?
+Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?”
+
+“_Yes_, sir!  I know you _do_ know, because you done it yourself!”
+
+“It's a lie!”--and the duke went for him.  The king sings out:
+
+“Take y'r hands off!--leggo my throat!--I take it all back!”
+
+The duke says:
+
+“Well, you just own up, first, that you _did_ hide that money there,
+intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig
+it up, and have it all to yourself.”
+
+“Wait jest a minute, duke--answer me this one question, honest and fair;
+if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and
+take back everything I said.”
+
+“You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't.  There, now!”
+
+“Well, then, I b'lieve you.  But answer me only jest this one more--now
+_don't_ git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and
+hide it?”
+
+The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:
+
+“Well, I don't care if I _did_, I didn't _do_ it, anyway.  But you not
+only had it in mind to do it, but you _done_ it.”
+
+“I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest.  I won't say
+I warn't goin' to do it, because I _was_; but you--I mean somebody--got in
+ahead o' me.”
+
+“It's a lie!  You done it, and you got to _say_ you done it, or--”
+
+The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
+
+“'Nough!--I _own up!_”
+
+I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier
+than what I was feeling before.  So the duke took his hands off and
+says:
+
+“If you ever deny it again I'll drown you.  It's _well_ for you to set
+there and blubber like a baby--it's fitten for you, after the way
+you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble
+everything--and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own
+father.  You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it
+saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em.
+ It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to _believe_
+that rubbage.  Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make
+up the deffisit--you wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch
+and one thing or another, and scoop it _all_!”
+
+The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:
+
+“Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me.”
+
+“Dry up!  I don't want to hear no more out of you!” says the duke.  “And
+_now_ you see what you GOT by it.  They've got all their own money back,
+and all of _ourn_ but a shekel or two _besides_.  G'long to bed, and
+don't you deffersit _me_ no more deffersits, long 's _you_ live!”
+
+So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort,
+and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an
+hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the
+lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms.  They
+both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow
+enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag
+again.  That made me feel easy and satisfied.  Of course when they got
+to snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along
+down the river.  We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty
+long ways from home.  We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on
+them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards.  It was the
+first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and
+dismal.  So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they
+begun to work the villages again.
+
+First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough
+for them both to get drunk on.  Then in another village they started
+a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than a
+kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped
+in and pranced them out of town.  Another time they tried to go at
+yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and
+give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out.  They tackled
+missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and
+a little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck.  So at
+last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she
+floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the
+half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
+
+And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in
+the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time.
+Jim and me got uneasy.  We didn't like the look of it.  We judged they
+was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever.  We turned it
+over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break
+into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-money
+business, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an
+agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such
+actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold
+shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we
+hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of
+a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told
+us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see
+if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. (“House to
+rob, you _mean_,” says I to myself; “and when you get through robbing it
+you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the
+raft--and you'll have to take it out in wondering.”) And he said if he
+warn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and
+we was to come along.
+
+So we stayed where we was.  The duke he fretted and sweated around, and
+was in a mighty sour way.  He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't
+seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing.
+Something was a-brewing, sure.  I was good and glad when midday come
+and no king; we could have a change, anyway--and maybe a chance for _the_
+change on top of it.  So me and the duke went up to the village, and
+hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the
+back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers
+bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all
+his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to
+them.  The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king
+begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and
+shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like
+a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a
+long day before they ever see me and Jim again.  I got down there all
+out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:
+
+“Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!”
+
+But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam.  Jim was
+gone!  I set up a shout--and then another--and then another one; and run
+this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't
+no use--old Jim was gone.  Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help
+it. But I couldn't set still long.  Pretty soon I went out on the road,
+trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and
+asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Whereabouts?” says I.
+
+“Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here.  He's a runaway
+nigger, and they've got him.  Was you looking for him?”
+
+“You bet I ain't!  I run across him in the woods about an hour or two
+ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out--and told me to lay
+down and stay where I was; and I done it.  Been there ever since; afeard
+to come out.”
+
+“Well,” he says, “you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him.
+He run off f'm down South, som'ers.”
+
+“It's a good job they got him.”
+
+“Well, I _reckon_!  There's two hunderd dollars reward on him.  It's
+like picking up money out'n the road.”
+
+“Yes, it is--and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him
+_first_. Who nailed him?”
+
+“It was an old fellow--a stranger--and he sold out his chance in him for
+forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait.  Think
+o' that, now!  You bet _I'd_ wait, if it was seven year.”
+
+“That's me, every time,” says I.  “But maybe his chance ain't worth
+no more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap.  Maybe there's something
+ain't straight about it.”
+
+“But it _is_, though--straight as a string.  I see the handbill myself.
+ It tells all about him, to a dot--paints him like a picture, and tells
+the plantation he's frum, below Newr_leans_.  No-sirree-_bob_, they
+ain't no trouble 'bout _that_ speculation, you bet you.  Say, gimme a
+chaw tobacker, won't ye?”
+
+I didn't have none, so he left.  I went to the raft, and set down in the
+wigwam to think.  But I couldn't come to nothing.  I thought till I wore
+my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble.  After all
+this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it
+was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because
+they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make
+him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty
+dirty dollars.
+
+Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to
+be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd _got_ to be a
+slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to
+tell Miss Watson where he was.  But I soon give up that notion for two
+things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness
+for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again;
+and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger,
+and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and
+disgraced. And then think of _me_!  It would get all around that Huck
+Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see
+anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots
+for shame.  That's just the way:  a person does a low-down thing, and
+then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he
+can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.  That was my fix exactly. The more I
+studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the
+more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when
+it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence
+slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being
+watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a
+poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was
+showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going
+to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further,
+I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared.  Well, I tried the best I
+could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung
+up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me
+kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and
+if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as
+I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.”
+
+It made me shiver.  And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I
+couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better.  So
+I kneeled down.  But the words wouldn't come.  Why wouldn't they?  It
+warn't no use to try and hide it from Him.  Nor from _me_, neither.  I
+knowed very well why they wouldn't come.  It was because my heart warn't
+right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing
+double.  I was letting _on_ to give up sin, but away inside of me I was
+holding on to the biggest one of all.  I was trying to make my mouth
+_say_ I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write
+to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I
+knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it.  You can't pray a lie--I found
+that out.
+
+So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to
+do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and
+then see if I can pray.  Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as
+light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone.  So I
+got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down
+and wrote:
+
+Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below
+Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the
+reward if you send.
+
+_Huck Finn._
+
+I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever
+felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now.  But I didn't do it
+straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking
+how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost
+and going to hell.  And went on thinking.  And got to thinking over our
+trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time:  in the day
+and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we
+a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing.  But somehow I
+couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the
+other kind.  I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of
+calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when
+I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp,
+up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call
+me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how
+good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling
+the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was
+the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the _only_ one he's
+got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
+
+It was a close place.  I took it up, and held it in my hand.  I was
+a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and
+I knowed it.  I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then
+says to myself:
+
+“All right, then, I'll _go_ to hell”--and tore it up.
+
+It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said.  And I let
+them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.  I shoved the
+whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again,
+which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't.  And
+for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again;
+and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as
+long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
+
+Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some
+considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that
+suited me.  So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down
+the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my
+raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in.  I slept the
+night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast,
+and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or
+another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore.  I landed
+below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods,
+and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and
+sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter
+of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.
+
+Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on
+it, “Phelps's Sawmill,” and when I come to the farm-houses, two or
+three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't
+see nobody around, though it was good daylight now.  But I didn't mind,
+because I didn't want to see nobody just yet--I only wanted to get the
+lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from
+the village, not from below.  So I just took a look, and shoved along,
+straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was
+the duke.  He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch--three-night
+performance--like that other time.  They had the cheek, them frauds!  I
+was right on him before I could shirk.  He looked astonished, and says:
+
+“Hel-_lo_!  Where'd _you_ come from?”  Then he says, kind of glad and
+eager, “Where's the raft?--got her in a good place?”
+
+I says:
+
+“Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace.”
+
+Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:
+
+“What was your idea for asking _me_?” he says.
+
+“Well,” I says, “when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says
+to myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went
+a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait.  A man up and offered
+me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch
+a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat,
+and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him
+along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after
+him.  We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the
+country till we tired him out.  We never got him till dark; then we
+fetched him over, and I started down for the raft.  When I got there and
+see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to
+leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in
+the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property
+no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down and
+cried.  I slept in the woods all night.  But what _did_ become of the
+raft, then?--and Jim--poor Jim!”
+
+“Blamed if I know--that is, what's become of the raft.  That old fool had
+made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery
+the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but
+what he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and
+found the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and
+shook us, and run off down the river.'”
+
+“I wouldn't shake my _nigger_, would I?--the only nigger I had in the
+world, and the only property.”
+
+“We never thought of that.  Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him
+_our_ nigger; yes, we did consider him so--goodness knows we had trouble
+enough for him.  So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke,
+there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another
+shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn.  Where's
+that ten cents? Give it here.”
+
+I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to
+spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the
+money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday.  He never
+said nothing.  The next minute he whirls on me and says:
+
+“Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us?  We'd skin him if he done
+that!”
+
+“How can he blow?  Hain't he run off?”
+
+“No!  That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's
+gone.”
+
+“_Sold_ him?”  I says, and begun to cry; “why, he was _my_ nigger, and
+that was my money.  Where is he?--I want my nigger.”
+
+“Well, you can't _get_ your nigger, that's all--so dry up your
+blubbering. Looky here--do you think _you'd_ venture to blow on us?
+ Blamed if I think I'd trust you.  Why, if you _was_ to blow on us--”
+
+He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes
+before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
+
+“I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow.
+I got to turn out and find my nigger.”
+
+He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on
+his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead.  At last he says:
+
+“I'll tell you something.  We got to be here three days.  If you'll
+promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you
+where to find him.”
+
+So I promised, and he says:
+
+“A farmer by the name of Silas Ph--” and then he stopped.  You see, he
+started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to
+study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind.  And so he
+was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of
+the way the whole three days.  So pretty soon he says:
+
+“The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--and he
+lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette.”
+
+“All right,” I says, “I can walk it in three days.  And I'll start this
+very afternoon.”
+
+“No you wont, you'll start _now_; and don't you lose any time about it,
+neither, nor do any gabbling by the way.  Just keep a tight tongue in
+your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with
+_us_, d'ye hear?”
+
+That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for.  I
+wanted to be left free to work my plans.
+
+“So clear out,” he says; “and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want
+to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim _is_ your nigger--some
+idiots don't require documents--leastways I've heard there's such down
+South here.  And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus,
+maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for
+getting 'em out.  Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to; but
+mind you don't work your jaw any _between_ here and there.”
+
+So I left, and struck for the back country.  I didn't look around, but I
+kinder felt like he was watching me.  But I knowed I could tire him out
+at that.  I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before
+I stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'.  I
+reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling
+around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could
+get away.  I didn't want no trouble with their kind.  I'd seen all I
+wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny;
+the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint
+dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and
+like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers
+the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's
+spirits whispering--spirits that's been dead ever so many years--and you
+always think they're talking about _you_.  As a general thing it makes a
+body wish _he_ was dead, too, and done with it all.
+
+Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they
+all look alike.  A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out
+of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different
+length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when
+they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the
+big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the
+nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks--hewed logs,
+with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes
+been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big
+broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house
+back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other
+side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against
+the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side;
+ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by
+the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there
+in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away
+off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place
+by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then
+the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods.
+
+I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and
+started for the kitchen.  When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum
+of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again;
+and then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for that _is_ the
+lonesomest sound in the whole world.
+
+I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting
+to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for
+I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth
+if I left it alone.
+
+When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went
+for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still.  And
+such another powwow as they made!  In a quarter of a minute I was a kind
+of a hub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made out of dogs--circle of
+fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses
+stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you
+could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
+
+A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her
+hand, singing out, “Begone _you_ Tige! you Spot! begone sah!” and she
+fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling,
+and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back,
+wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me.  There ain't
+no harm in a hound, nohow.
+
+And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger
+boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their
+mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way
+they always do.  And here comes the white woman running from the house,
+about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick
+in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the
+same way the little niggers was doing.  She was smiling all over so she
+could hardly stand--and says:
+
+“It's _you_, at last!--_ain't_ it?”
+
+I out with a “Yes'm” before I thought.
+
+She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands
+and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over;
+and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, “You
+don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law
+sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you!  Dear, dear, it
+does seem like I could eat you up!  Children, it's your cousin Tom!--tell
+him howdy.”
+
+But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and
+hid behind her.  So she run on:
+
+“Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away--or did you get
+your breakfast on the boat?”
+
+I said I had got it on the boat.  So then she started for the house,
+leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after.  When we got
+there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on
+a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
+
+“Now I can have a _good_ look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry
+for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come
+at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more.  What kep'
+you?--boat get aground?”
+
+“Yes'm--she--”
+
+“Don't say yes'm--say Aunt Sally.  Where'd she get aground?”
+
+I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the
+boat would be coming up the river or down.  But I go a good deal on
+instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up--from down towards
+Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names
+of bars down that way.  I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the
+name of the one we got aground on--or--Now I struck an idea, and fetched
+it out:
+
+“It warn't the grounding--that didn't keep us back but a little.  We
+blowed out a cylinder-head.”
+
+“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
+
+“No'm.  Killed a nigger.”
+
+“Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.  Two years ago
+last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old
+Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man.  And
+I think he died afterwards.  He was a Baptist.  Your uncle Silas knowed
+a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well.  Yes, I
+remember now, he _did_ die.  Mortification set in, and they had to
+amputate him. But it didn't save him.  Yes, it was mortification--that
+was it.  He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious
+resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at.  Your uncle's been up
+to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an
+hour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road,
+didn't you?--oldish man, with a--”
+
+“No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally.  The boat landed just at daylight,
+and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town
+and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too
+soon; and so I come down the back way.”
+
+“Who'd you give the baggage to?”
+
+“Nobody.”
+
+“Why, child, it 'll be stole!”
+
+“Not where I hid it I reckon it won't,” I says.
+
+“How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?”
+
+It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
+
+“The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something
+to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the officers'
+lunch, and give me all I wanted.”
+
+I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good.  I had my mind on the
+children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump
+them a little, and find out who I was.  But I couldn't get no show, Mrs.
+Phelps kept it up and run on so.  Pretty soon she made the cold chills
+streak all down my back, because she says:
+
+“But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word
+about Sis, nor any of them.  Now I'll rest my works a little, and you
+start up yourn; just tell me _everything_--tell me all about 'm all every
+one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told
+you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of.”
+
+Well, I see I was up a stump--and up it good.  Providence had stood by
+me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now.  I see it
+warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead--I'd got to throw up my hand.  So
+I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth.
+ I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind
+the bed, and says:
+
+“Here he comes!  Stick your head down lower--there, that'll do; you can't
+be seen now.  Don't you let on you're here.  I'll play a joke on him.
+Children, don't you say a word.”
+
+I see I was in a fix now.  But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't
+nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from
+under when the lightning struck.
+
+I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in; then
+the bed hid him.  Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
+
+“Has he come?”
+
+“No,” says her husband.
+
+“Good-_ness_ gracious!” she says, “what in the warld can have become of
+him?”
+
+“I can't imagine,” says the old gentleman; “and I must say it makes me
+dreadful uneasy.”
+
+“Uneasy!” she says; “I'm ready to go distracted!  He _must_ a come; and
+you've missed him along the road.  I _know_ it's so--something tells me
+so.”
+
+“Why, Sally, I _couldn't_ miss him along the road--_you_ know that.”
+
+“But oh, dear, dear, what _will_ Sis say!  He must a come!  You must a
+missed him.  He--”
+
+“Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed.  I don't know
+what in the world to make of it.  I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind
+acknowledging 't I'm right down scared.  But there's no hope that he's
+come; for he _couldn't_ come and me miss him.  Sally, it's terrible--just
+terrible--something's happened to the boat, sure!”
+
+“Why, Silas!  Look yonder!--up the road!--ain't that somebody coming?”
+
+He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs.
+Phelps the chance she wanted.  She stooped down quick at the foot of the
+bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the
+window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and
+I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside.  The old gentleman stared,
+and says:
+
+“Why, who's that?”
+
+“Who do you reckon 't is?”
+
+“I hain't no idea.  Who _is_ it?”
+
+“It's _Tom Sawyer!_”
+
+By jings, I most slumped through the floor!  But there warn't no time to
+swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on
+shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and
+cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary,
+and the rest of the tribe.
+
+But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was like
+being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was.  Well, they froze
+to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't
+hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family--I mean the
+Sawyer family--than ever happened to any six Sawyer families.  And I
+explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of
+White River, and it took us three days to fix it.  Which was all right,
+and worked first-rate; because _they_ didn't know but what it would take
+three days to fix it.  If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done
+just as well.
+
+Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty
+uncomfortable all up the other.  Being Tom Sawyer was easy and
+comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a
+steamboat coughing along down the river.  Then I says to myself, s'pose
+Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat?  And s'pose he steps in here any
+minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep
+quiet?
+
+Well, I couldn't _have_ it that way; it wouldn't do at all.  I must go
+up the road and waylay him.  So I told the folks I reckoned I would go
+up to the town and fetch down my baggage.  The old gentleman was for
+going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and
+I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+SO I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a
+wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and
+waited till he come along.  I says “Hold on!” and it stopped alongside,
+and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed
+two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says:
+
+“I hain't ever done you no harm.  You know that.  So, then, what you
+want to come back and ha'nt _me_ for?”
+
+I says:
+
+“I hain't come back--I hain't been _gone_.”
+
+When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite
+satisfied yet.  He says:
+
+“Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you.  Honest injun
+now, you ain't a ghost?”
+
+“Honest injun, I ain't,” I says.
+
+“Well--I--I--well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't somehow
+seem to understand it no way.  Looky here, warn't you ever murdered _at
+all?_”
+
+“No.  I warn't ever murdered at all--I played it on them.  You come in
+here and feel of me if you don't believe me.”
+
+So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me
+again he didn't know what to do.  And he wanted to know all about it
+right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it
+hit him where he lived.  But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and
+told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told
+him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do?  He
+said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him.  So he thought and
+thought, and pretty soon he says:
+
+“It's all right; I've got it.  Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on
+it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the
+house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece, and
+take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you;
+and you needn't let on to know me at first.”
+
+I says:
+
+“All right; but wait a minute.  There's one more thing--a thing that
+_nobody_ don't know but me.  And that is, there's a nigger here that
+I'm a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is _Jim_--old Miss
+Watson's Jim.”
+
+He says:
+
+“What!  Why, Jim is--”
+
+He stopped and went to studying.  I says:
+
+“I know what you'll say.  You'll say it's dirty, low-down business; but
+what if it is?  I'm low down; and I'm a-going to steal him, and I want
+you keep mum and not let on.  Will you?”
+
+His eye lit up, and he says:
+
+“I'll _help_ you steal him!”
+
+Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot.  It was the most
+astonishing speech I ever heard--and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell
+considerable in my estimation.  Only I couldn't believe it.  Tom Sawyer
+a _nigger-stealer!_
+
+“Oh, shucks!”  I says; “you're joking.”
+
+“I ain't joking, either.”
+
+“Well, then,” I says, “joking or no joking, if you hear anything said
+about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that _you_ don't know
+nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him.”
+
+Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his
+way and I drove mine.  But of course I forgot all about driving slow on
+accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too
+quick for that length of a trip.  The old gentleman was at the door, and
+he says:
+
+“Why, this is wonderful!  Whoever would a thought it was in that mare
+to do it?  I wish we'd a timed her.  And she hain't sweated a hair--not
+a hair. It's wonderful.  Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that
+horse now--I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before,
+and thought 'twas all she was worth.”
+
+That's all he said.  He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see.
+But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was
+a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the
+plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church
+and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was
+worth it, too.  There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and
+done the same way, down South.
+
+In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt
+Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty
+yards, and says:
+
+“Why, there's somebody come!  I wonder who 'tis?  Why, I do believe it's
+a stranger.  Jimmy” (that's one of the children) “run and tell Lize to
+put on another plate for dinner.”
+
+Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger
+don't come _every_ year, and so he lays over the yaller-fever, for
+interest, when he does come.  Tom was over the stile and starting for
+the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we
+was all bunched in the front door.  Tom had his store clothes on, and an
+audience--and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer.  In them circumstances
+it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was
+suitable.  He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no,
+he come ca'm and important, like the ram.  When he got a-front of us he
+lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box
+that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them,
+and says:
+
+“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”
+
+“No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I'm sorry to say 't your driver
+has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more.
+Come in, come in.”
+
+Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late--he's out
+of sight.”
+
+“Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with
+us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's.”
+
+“Oh, I _can't_ make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it.  I'll
+walk--I don't mind the distance.”
+
+“But we won't _let_ you walk--it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do
+it. Come right in.”
+
+“Oh, _do_,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a
+bit in the world.  You must stay.  It's a long, dusty three mile, and
+we can't let you walk.  And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on
+another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us.  Come
+right in and make yourself at home.”
+
+So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be
+persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger
+from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson--and he made
+another bow.
+
+Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and
+everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and
+wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last,
+still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the
+mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was
+going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of
+her hand, and says:
+
+“You owdacious puppy!”
+
+He looked kind of hurt, and says:
+
+“I'm surprised at you, m'am.”
+
+“You're s'rp--Why, what do you reckon I am?  I've a good notion to take
+and--Say, what do you mean by kissing me?”
+
+He looked kind of humble, and says:
+
+“I didn't mean nothing, m'am.  I didn't mean no harm.  I--I--thought you'd
+like it.”
+
+“Why, you born fool!”  She took up the spinning stick, and it looked
+like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it.
+ “What made you think I'd like it?”
+
+“Well, I don't know.  Only, they--they--told me you would.”
+
+“_They_ told you I would.  Whoever told you's _another_ lunatic.  I
+never heard the beat of it.  Who's _they_?”
+
+“Why, everybody.  They all said so, m'am.”
+
+It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her
+fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
+
+“Who's 'everybody'?  Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot
+short.”
+
+He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
+
+“I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it.  They told me to.  They all told
+me to.  They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it.  They all said
+it--every one of them.  But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no more--I
+won't, honest.”
+
+“You won't, won't you?  Well, I sh'd _reckon_ you won't!”
+
+“No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again--till you ask me.”
+
+“Till I _ask_ you!  Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days!
+ I lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask
+you--or the likes of you.”
+
+“Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so.  I can't make it out, somehow.
+They said you would, and I thought you would.  But--” He stopped and
+looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye
+somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, “Didn't
+_you_ think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?”
+
+“Why, no; I--I--well, no, I b'lieve I didn't.”
+
+Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:
+
+“Tom, didn't _you_ think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid
+Sawyer--'”
+
+“My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you impudent
+young rascal, to fool a body so--” and was going to hug him, but he
+fended her off, and says:
+
+“No, not till you've asked me first.”
+
+So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed
+him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he
+took what was left.  And after they got a little quiet again she says:
+
+“Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise.  We warn't looking for _you_
+at all, but only Tom.  Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but
+him.”
+
+“It's because it warn't _intended_ for any of us to come but Tom,” he
+says; “but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me
+come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a
+first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me
+to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger.  But it
+was a mistake, Aunt Sally.  This ain't no healthy place for a stranger
+to come.”
+
+“No--not impudent whelps, Sid.  You ought to had your jaws boxed; I
+hain't been so put out since I don't know when.  But I don't care, I
+don't mind the terms--I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to
+have you here. Well, to think of that performance!  I don't deny it, I
+was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack.”
+
+We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and
+the kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven
+families--and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that's laid
+in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of
+old cold cannibal in the morning.  Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long
+blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn't cool it a bit,
+neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times.
+ There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me
+and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn't no use, they
+didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid
+to try to work up to it.  But at supper, at night, one of the little
+boys says:
+
+“Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?”
+
+“No,” says the old man, “I reckon there ain't going to be any; and you
+couldn't go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and
+me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the
+people; so I reckon they've drove the owdacious loafers out of town
+before this time.”
+
+So there it was!--but I couldn't help it.  Tom and me was to sleep in the
+same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night and went up to
+bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the
+lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn't believe anybody was
+going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn't hurry up
+and give them one they'd get into trouble sure.
+
+On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was murdered,
+and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn't come back no more, and
+what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all about our
+Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much of the raft voyage as I had
+time to; and as we struck into the town and up through the the middle of
+it--it was as much as half-after eight, then--here comes a raging rush of
+people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin
+pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by;
+and as they went by I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a
+rail--that is, I knowed it _was_ the king and the duke, though they was
+all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the
+world that was human--just looked like a couple of monstrous big
+soldier-plumes.  Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for
+them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any
+hardness against them any more in the world.  It was a dreadful thing to
+see.  Human beings _can_ be awful cruel to one another.
+
+We see we was too late--couldn't do no good.  We asked some stragglers
+about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very
+innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the
+middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody give a signal, and
+the house rose up and went for them.
+
+So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I was
+before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow--though
+I hadn't done nothing.  But that's always the way; it don't make no
+difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't
+got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.  If I had a yaller dog that
+didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him.
+It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet
+ain't no good, nohow.  Tom Sawyer he says the same.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+WE stopped talking, and got to thinking.  By and by Tom says:
+
+“Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before!  I bet I
+know where Jim is.”
+
+“No!  Where?”
+
+“In that hut down by the ash-hopper.  Why, looky here.  When we was at
+dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What did you think the vittles was for?”
+
+“For a dog.”
+
+“So 'd I. Well, it wasn't for a dog.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because part of it was watermelon.”
+
+“So it was--I noticed it.  Well, it does beat all that I never thought
+about a dog not eating watermelon.  It shows how a body can see and
+don't see at the same time.”
+
+“Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked it
+again when he came out.  He fetched uncle a key about the time we got up
+from table--same key, I bet.  Watermelon shows man, lock shows prisoner;
+and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a little plantation,
+and where the people's all so kind and good.  Jim's the prisoner.  All
+right--I'm glad we found it out detective fashion; I wouldn't give shucks
+for any other way.  Now you work your mind, and study out a plan to
+steal Jim, and I will study out one, too; and we'll take the one we like
+the best.”
+
+What a head for just a boy to have!  If I had Tom Sawyer's head I
+wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown
+in a circus, nor nothing I can think of.  I went to thinking out a plan,
+but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right
+plan was going to come from.  Pretty soon Tom says:
+
+“Ready?”
+
+“Yes,” I says.
+
+“All right--bring it out.”
+
+“My plan is this,” I says.  “We can easy find out if it's Jim in there.
+Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the
+island.  Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the
+old man's britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river
+on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and
+Jim used to do before.  Wouldn't that plan work?”
+
+“_Work_?  Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats a-fighting.  But it's
+too blame' simple; there ain't nothing _to_ it.  What's the good of a
+plan that ain't no more trouble than that?  It's as mild as goose-milk.
+ Why, Huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap
+factory.”
+
+I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing different; but
+I knowed mighty well that whenever he got _his_ plan ready it wouldn't
+have none of them objections to it.
+
+And it didn't.  He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was
+worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man
+as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides.  So I was satisfied,
+and said we would waltz in on it.  I needn't tell what it was here,
+because I knowed it wouldn't stay the way, it was.  I knowed he would be
+changing it around every which way as we went along, and heaving in new
+bullinesses wherever he got a chance.  And that is what he done.
+
+Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in
+earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of slavery.
+That was the thing that was too many for me.  Here was a boy that was
+respectable and well brung up; and had a character to lose; and folks at
+home that had characters; and he was bright and not leather-headed; and
+knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but kind; and yet here he was,
+without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to
+this business, and make himself a shame, and his family a shame,
+before everybody.  I _couldn't_ understand it no way at all.  It was
+outrageous, and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so; and so be
+his true friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save
+himself. And I _did_ start to tell him; but he shut me up, and says:
+
+“Don't you reckon I know what I'm about?  Don't I generly know what I'm
+about?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Didn't I _say_ I was going to help steal the nigger?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“_Well_, then.”
+
+That's all he said, and that's all I said.  It warn't no use to say any
+more; because when he said he'd do a thing, he always done it.  But I
+couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing; so I just
+let it go, and never bothered no more about it.  If he was bound to have
+it so, I couldn't help it.
+
+When we got home the house was all dark and still; so we went on down to
+the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it.  We went through the yard
+so as to see what the hounds would do.  They knowed us, and didn't make
+no more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything comes by
+in the night.  When we got to the cabin we took a look at the front and
+the two sides; and on the side I warn't acquainted with--which was the
+north side--we found a square window-hole, up tolerable high, with just
+one stout board nailed across it.  I says:
+
+“Here's the ticket.  This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if we
+wrench off the board.”
+
+Tom says:
+
+“It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as
+playing hooky.  I should _hope_ we can find a way that's a little more
+complicated than _that_, Huck Finn.”
+
+“Well, then,” I says, “how 'll it do to saw him out, the way I done
+before I was murdered that time?”
+
+“That's more _like_,” he says.  “It's real mysterious, and troublesome,
+and good,” he says; “but I bet we can find a way that's twice as long.
+ There ain't no hurry; le's keep on looking around.”
+
+Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a lean-to that
+joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank.  It was as long
+as the hut, but narrow--only about six foot wide.  The door to it was at
+the south end, and was padlocked.  Tom he went to the soap-kettle and
+searched around, and fetched back the iron thing they lift the lid with;
+so he took it and prized out one of the staples.  The chain fell down,
+and we opened the door and went in, and shut it, and struck a match,
+and see the shed was only built against a cabin and hadn't no connection
+with it; and there warn't no floor to the shed, nor nothing in it but
+some old rusty played-out hoes and spades and picks and a crippled plow.
+ The match went out, and so did we, and shoved in the staple again, and
+the door was locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful.  He says;
+
+“Now we're all right.  We'll _dig_ him out.  It 'll take about a week!”
+
+Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door--you only have
+to pull a buckskin latch-string, they don't fasten the doors--but that
+warn't romantical enough for Tom Sawyer; no way would do him but he must
+climb up the lightning-rod.  But after he got up half way about three
+times, and missed fire and fell every time, and the last time most
+busted his brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up; but after he
+was rested he allowed he would give her one more turn for luck, and this
+time he made the trip.
+
+In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger cabins
+to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jim--if it
+_was_ Jim that was being fed.  The niggers was just getting through
+breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim's nigger was piling up
+a tin pan with bread and meat and things; and whilst the others was
+leaving, the key come from the house.
+
+This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his wool was
+all tied up in little bunches with thread.  That was to keep witches
+off.  He said the witches was pestering him awful these nights, and
+making him see all kinds of strange things, and hear all kinds of
+strange words and noises, and he didn't believe he was ever witched so
+long before in his life.  He got so worked up, and got to running on so
+about his troubles, he forgot all about what he'd been a-going to do.
+ So Tom says:
+
+“What's the vittles for?  Going to feed the dogs?”
+
+The nigger kind of smiled around gradually over his face, like when you
+heave a brickbat in a mud-puddle, and he says:
+
+“Yes, Mars Sid, A dog.  Cur'us dog, too.  Does you want to go en look at
+'im?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+I hunched Tom, and whispers:
+
+“You going, right here in the daybreak?  _that_ warn't the plan.”
+
+“No, it warn't; but it's the plan _now_.”
+
+So, drat him, we went along, but I didn't like it much.  When we got in
+we couldn't hardly see anything, it was so dark; but Jim was there, sure
+enough, and could see us; and he sings out:
+
+“Why, _Huck_!  En good _lan_'! ain' dat Misto Tom?”
+
+I just knowed how it would be; I just expected it.  I didn't know
+nothing to do; and if I had I couldn't a done it, because that nigger
+busted in and says:
+
+“Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen?”
+
+We could see pretty well now.  Tom he looked at the nigger, steady and
+kind of wondering, and says:
+
+“Does _who_ know us?”
+
+“Why, dis-yer runaway nigger.”
+
+“I don't reckon he does; but what put that into your head?”
+
+“What _put_ it dar?  Didn' he jis' dis minute sing out like he knowed
+you?”
+
+Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way:
+
+“Well, that's mighty curious.  _Who_ sung out? _when_ did he sing out?
+ _what_ did he sing out?” And turns to me, perfectly ca'm, and says,
+“Did _you_ hear anybody sing out?”
+
+Of course there warn't nothing to be said but the one thing; so I says:
+
+“No; I ain't heard nobody say nothing.”
+
+Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him before,
+and says:
+
+“Did you sing out?”
+
+“No, sah,” says Jim; “I hain't said nothing, sah.”
+
+“Not a word?”
+
+“No, sah, I hain't said a word.”
+
+“Did you ever see us before?”
+
+“No, sah; not as I knows on.”
+
+So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and
+says, kind of severe:
+
+“What do you reckon's the matter with you, anyway?  What made you think
+somebody sung out?”
+
+“Oh, it's de dad-blame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do.
+ Dey's awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey sk'yers me so.
+ Please to don't tell nobody 'bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he'll scole
+me; 'kase he say dey _ain't_ no witches.  I jis' wish to goodness he was
+heah now--_den_ what would he say!  I jis' bet he couldn' fine no way to
+git aroun' it _dis_ time.  But it's awluz jis' so; people dat's _sot_,
+stays sot; dey won't look into noth'n'en fine it out f'r deyselves, en
+when _you_ fine it out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan' b'lieve you.”
+
+Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody; and told him to
+buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then looks at Jim, and
+says:
+
+“I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger.  If I was to
+catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give
+him up, I'd hang him.”  And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to
+look at the dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to Jim
+and says:
+
+“Don't ever let on to know us.  And if you hear any digging going on
+nights, it's us; we're going to set you free.”
+
+Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it; then the nigger
+come back, and we said we'd come again some time if the nigger wanted
+us to; and he said he would, more particular if it was dark, because the
+witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it was good to have folks
+around then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+IT would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down
+into the woods; because Tom said we got to have _some_ light to see how
+to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble;
+what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called
+fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a
+dark place.  We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down
+to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied:
+
+“Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be.
+And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan.
+ There ain't no watchman to be drugged--now there _ought_ to be a
+watchman.  There ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to.  And
+there's Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of his
+bed:  why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off
+the chain.  And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the
+punkin-headed nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger.  Jim
+could a got out of that window-hole before this, only there wouldn't be
+no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on his leg.  Why, drat it,
+Huck, it's the stupidest arrangement I ever see. You got to invent _all_
+the difficulties.  Well, we can't help it; we got to do the best we can
+with the materials we've got. Anyhow, there's one thing--there's more
+honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties and dangers,
+where there warn't one of them furnished to you by the people who it was
+their duty to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all out of your
+own head.  Now look at just that one thing of the lantern.  When you
+come down to the cold facts, we simply got to _let on_ that a lantern's
+resky.  Why, we could work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to,
+I believe.  Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt up something to
+make a saw out of the first chance we get.”
+
+“What do we want of a saw?”
+
+“What do we _want_ of it?  Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed
+off, so as to get the chain loose?”
+
+“Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain
+off.”
+
+“Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn.  You _can_ get up the
+infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing.  Why, hain't you ever read
+any books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny,
+nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes?  Who ever heard of getting a
+prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that?  No; the way all the
+best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just
+so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put some dirt and
+grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see
+no sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound.
+Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip
+off your chain, and there you are.  Nothing to do but hitch your
+rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the
+moat--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know--and
+there's your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and
+fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or
+Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck.  I wish there was a moat
+to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one.”
+
+I says:
+
+“What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under
+the cabin?”
+
+But he never heard me.  He had forgot me and everything else.  He had
+his chin in his hand, thinking.  Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his
+head; then sighs again, and says:
+
+“No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it.”
+
+“For what?”  I says.
+
+“Why, to saw Jim's leg off,” he says.
+
+“Good land!”  I says; “why, there ain't _no_ necessity for it.  And what
+would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?”
+
+“Well, some of the best authorities has done it.  They couldn't get the
+chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved.  And a leg would
+be better still.  But we got to let that go.  There ain't necessity
+enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't
+understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so
+we'll let it go.  But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we
+can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough.  And we
+can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way.  And I've et
+worse pies.”
+
+“Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk,” I says; “Jim ain't got no use for a
+rope ladder.”
+
+“He _has_ got use for it.  How _you_ talk, you better say; you don't
+know nothing about it.  He's _got_ to have a rope ladder; they all do.”
+
+“What in the nation can he _do_ with it?”
+
+“_Do_ with it?  He can hide it in his bed, can't he?”  That's what they
+all do; and _he's_ got to, too.  Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do
+anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the
+time. S'pose he _don't_ do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed,
+for a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews?
+ Of course they will.  And you wouldn't leave them any?  That would be a
+_pretty_ howdy-do, _wouldn't_ it!  I never heard of such a thing.”
+
+“Well,” I says, “if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have
+it, all right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no
+regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing up
+our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble
+with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born.  Now, the way I look at
+it, a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing,
+and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick,
+as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no
+experience, and so he don't care what kind of a--”
+
+“Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep
+still--that's what I'D do.  Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping
+by a hickry-bark ladder?  Why, it's perfectly ridiculous.”
+
+“Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my
+advice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline.”
+
+He said that would do.  And that gave him another idea, and he says:
+
+“Borrow a shirt, too.”
+
+“What do we want of a shirt, Tom?”
+
+“Want it for Jim to keep a journal on.”
+
+“Journal your granny--_Jim_ can't write.”
+
+“S'pose he _can't_ write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if
+we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron
+barrel-hoop?”
+
+“Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better
+one; and quicker, too.”
+
+“_Prisoners_ don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull
+pens out of, you muggins.  They _always_ make their pens out of the
+hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or
+something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks
+and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because they've got
+to do it by rubbing it on the wall.  _They_ wouldn't use a goose-quill
+if they had it. It ain't regular.”
+
+“Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?”
+
+“Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort
+and women; the best authorities uses their own blood.  Jim can do that;
+and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message
+to let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the
+bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window.  The
+Iron Mask always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too.”
+
+“Jim ain't got no tin plates.  They feed him in a pan.”
+
+“That ain't nothing; we can get him some.”
+
+“Can't nobody _read_ his plates.”
+
+“That ain't got anything to _do_ with it, Huck Finn.  All _he's_ got to
+do is to write on the plate and throw it out.  You don't _have_ to be
+able to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner
+writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else.”
+
+“Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?”
+
+“Why, blame it all, it ain't the _prisoner's_ plates.”
+
+“But it's _somebody's_ plates, ain't it?”
+
+“Well, spos'n it is?  What does the _prisoner_ care whose--”
+
+He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing.  So we
+cleared out for the house.
+
+Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the
+clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went
+down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too.  I called it borrowing,
+because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn't
+borrowing, it was stealing.  He said we was representing prisoners; and
+prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody
+don't blame them for it, either.  It ain't no crime in a prisoner to
+steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's his right; and
+so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to
+steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves
+out of prison with.  He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very
+different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when
+he warn't a prisoner.  So we allowed we would steal everything there was
+that come handy.  And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that,
+when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he
+made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it
+was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we
+_needed_. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon.  But he said I didn't
+need it to get out of prison with; there's where the difference was.
+ He said if I'd a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim
+to kill the seneskal with, it would a been all right.  So I let it go at
+that, though I couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner
+if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like
+that every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon.
+
+Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled
+down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he
+carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep
+watch.  By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile
+to talk.  He says:
+
+“Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed.”
+
+“Tools?”  I says.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Tools for what?”
+
+“Why, to dig with.  We ain't a-going to _gnaw_ him out, are we?”
+
+“Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a
+nigger out with?”  I says.
+
+He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:
+
+“Huck Finn, did you _ever_ hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels,
+and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with?
+ Now I want to ask you--if you got any reasonableness in you at all--what
+kind of a show would _that_ give him to be a hero?  Why, they might as
+well lend him the key and done with it.  Picks and shovels--why, they
+wouldn't furnish 'em to a king.”
+
+“Well, then,” I says, “if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do
+we want?”
+
+“A couple of case-knives.”
+
+“To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Confound it, it's foolish, Tom.”
+
+“It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the _right_ way--and
+it's the regular way.  And there ain't no _other_ way, that ever I heard
+of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these
+things. They always dig out with a case-knife--and not through dirt, mind
+you; generly it's through solid rock.  And it takes them weeks and weeks
+and weeks, and for ever and ever.  Why, look at one of them prisoners in
+the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that
+dug himself out that way; how long was _he_ at it, you reckon?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“Well, guess.”
+
+“I don't know.  A month and a half.”
+
+“_Thirty-seven year_--and he come out in China.  _That's_ the kind.  I
+wish the bottom of _this_ fortress was solid rock.”
+
+“_Jim_ don't know nobody in China.”
+
+“What's _that_ got to do with it?  Neither did that other fellow.  But
+you're always a-wandering off on a side issue.  Why can't you stick to
+the main point?”
+
+“All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he _comes_ out; and Jim
+don't, either, I reckon.  But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too old to
+be dug out with a case-knife.  He won't last.”
+
+“Yes he will _last_, too.  You don't reckon it's going to take
+thirty-seven years to dig out through a _dirt_ foundation, do you?”
+
+“How long will it take, Tom?”
+
+“Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't
+take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans.
+ He'll hear Jim ain't from there.  Then his next move will be to
+advertise Jim, or something like that.  So we can't resk being as long
+digging him out as we ought to.  By rights I reckon we ought to be
+a couple of years; but we can't.  Things being so uncertain, what I
+recommend is this:  that we really dig right in, as quick as we can;
+and after that, we can _let on_, to ourselves, that we was at it
+thirty-seven years.  Then we can snatch him out and rush him away the
+first time there's an alarm.  Yes, I reckon that 'll be the best way.”
+
+“Now, there's _sense_ in that,” I says.  “Letting on don't cost nothing;
+letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind
+letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year.  It wouldn't strain
+me none, after I got my hand in.  So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a
+couple of case-knives.”
+
+“Smouch three,” he says; “we want one to make a saw out of.”
+
+“Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it,” I says,
+“there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the
+weather-boarding behind the smoke-house.”
+
+He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:
+
+“It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck.  Run along and
+smouch the knives--three of them.”  So I done it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the
+lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our
+pile of fox-fire, and went to work.  We cleared everything out of the
+way, about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log.  Tom
+said he was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and
+when we got through there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there
+was any hole there, because Jim's counter-pin hung down most to the
+ground, and you'd have to raise it up and look under to see the hole.
+ So we dug and dug with the case-knives till most midnight; and then
+we was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn't see
+we'd done anything hardly.  At last I says:
+
+“This ain't no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year job,
+Tom Sawyer.”
+
+He never said nothing.  But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped
+digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking.
+Then he says:
+
+“It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work.  If we was prisoners
+it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no
+hurry; and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while
+they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and
+we could keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right,
+and the way it ought to be done.  But _we_ can't fool along; we got to
+rush; we ain't got no time to spare.  If we was to put in another
+night this way we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get
+well--couldn't touch a case-knife with them sooner.”
+
+“Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?”
+
+“I'll tell you.  It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like
+it to get out; but there ain't only just the one way:  we got to dig him
+out with the picks, and _let on_ it's case-knives.”
+
+“_Now_ you're _talking_!”  I says; “your head gets leveler and leveler
+all the time, Tom Sawyer,” I says.  “Picks is the thing, moral or no
+moral; and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow.
+ When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school
+book, I ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's done.  What I
+want is my nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my
+Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing
+I'm a-going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school
+book out with; and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks
+about it nuther.”
+
+“Well,” he says, “there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like
+this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by
+and see the rules broke--because right is right, and wrong is wrong,
+and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and
+knows better.  It might answer for _you_ to dig Jim out with a pick,
+_without_ any letting on, because you don't know no better; but it
+wouldn't for me, because I do know better.  Gimme a case-knife.”
+
+He had his own by him, but I handed him mine.  He flung it down, and
+says:
+
+“Gimme a _case-knife_.”
+
+I didn't know just what to do--but then I thought.  I scratched around
+amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took
+it and went to work, and never said a word.
+
+He was always just that particular.  Full of principle.
+
+So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about,
+and made the fur fly.  We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as
+long as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for
+it. When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing
+his level best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his
+hands was so sore.  At last he says:
+
+“It ain't no use, it can't be done.  What you reckon I better do?  Can't
+you think of no way?”
+
+“Yes,” I says, “but I reckon it ain't regular.  Come up the stairs, and
+let on it's a lightning-rod.”
+
+So he done it.
+
+Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house,
+for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I
+hung around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin
+plates.  Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever see
+the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel
+and jimpson weeds under the window-hole--then we could tote them back and
+he could use them over again.  So Tom was satisfied.  Then he says:
+
+“Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim.”
+
+“Take them in through the hole,” I says, “when we get it done.”
+
+He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard
+of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying.  By and by he
+said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to
+decide on any of them yet.  Said we'd got to post Jim first.
+
+That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took
+one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard
+Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him.  Then we
+whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half
+the job was done.  We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and
+pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile,
+and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle
+and gradual.  He was so glad to see us he most cried; and called us
+honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was for having us
+hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with right away,
+and clearing out without losing any time.  But Tom he showed him how
+unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our plans,
+and how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an alarm; and
+not to be the least afraid, because we would see he got away, _sure_.
+ So Jim he said it was all right, and we set there and talked over old
+times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim told
+him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt
+Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and
+both of them was kind as they could be, Tom says:
+
+“_Now_ I know how to fix it.  We'll send you some things by them.”
+
+I said, “Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass
+ideas I ever struck;” but he never paid no attention to me; went right
+on.  It was his way when he'd got his plans set.
+
+So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and other
+large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the
+lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and
+we would put small things in uncle's coat-pockets and he must steal them
+out; and we would tie things to aunt's apron-strings or put them in her
+apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and told him what they would be and
+what they was for.  And told him how to keep a journal on the shirt with
+his blood, and all that. He told him everything.  Jim he couldn't see
+no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed
+better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just
+as Tom said.
+
+Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good
+sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to
+bed, with hands that looked like they'd been chawed.  Tom was in high
+spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the
+most intellectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we would
+keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to
+get out; for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the
+more he got used to it.  He said that in that way it could be strung out
+to as much as eighty year, and would be the best time on record.  And he
+said it would make us all celebrated that had a hand in it.
+
+In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass
+candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in
+his pocket.  Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's
+notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a
+corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how
+it would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most
+mashed all his teeth out; and there warn't ever anything could a worked
+better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it was only
+just a piece of rock or something like that that's always getting into
+bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing but what he
+jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first.
+
+And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
+couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on
+piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room
+in there to get your breath.  By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to
+door!  The nigger Nat he only just hollered “Witches” once, and keeled
+over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was
+dying.  Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat,
+and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back
+again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other door too.
+Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and
+asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again.  He raised up,
+and blinked his eyes around, and says:
+
+“Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a
+million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in dese
+tracks.  I did, mos' sholy.  Mars Sid, I _felt_ um--I _felt_ um, sah; dey
+was all over me.  Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's on one
+er dem witches jis' wunst--on'y jis' wunst--it's all I'd ast.  But mos'ly
+I wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does.”
+
+Tom says:
+
+“Well, I tell you what I think.  What makes them come here just at this
+runaway nigger's breakfast-time?  It's because they're hungry; that's
+the reason.  You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for _you_ to
+do.”
+
+“But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie?  I doan'
+know how to make it.  I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'.”
+
+“Well, then, I'll have to make it myself.”
+
+“Will you do it, honey?--will you?  I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo' foot,
+I will!”
+
+“All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and
+showed us the runaway nigger.  But you got to be mighty careful.  When
+we come around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the
+pan, don't you let on you see it at all.  And don't you look when Jim
+unloads the pan--something might happen, I don't know what.  And above
+all, don't you _handle_ the witch-things.”
+
+“_Hannel 'M_, Mars Sid?  What _is_ you a-talkin' 'bout?  I wouldn'
+lay de weight er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion
+dollars, I wouldn't.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THAT was all fixed.  So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pile
+in the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces
+of bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched
+around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well as
+we could, to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it full
+of flour and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nails
+that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and
+sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in Aunt
+Sally's apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and t'other we stuck
+in the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because we
+heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the runaway nigger's
+house this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the
+pewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coat-pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come
+yet, so we had to wait a little while.
+
+And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly
+wait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one
+hand and cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble with the
+other, and says:
+
+“I've hunted high and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what _has_
+become of your other shirt.”
+
+My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard
+piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the
+road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the
+children in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cry
+out of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around
+the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for
+about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold out
+for half price if there was a bidder.  But after that we was all right
+again--it was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold.
+Uncle Silas he says:
+
+“It's most uncommon curious, I can't understand it.  I know perfectly
+well I took it _off_, because--”
+
+“Because you hain't got but one _on_.  Just _listen_ at the man!  I know
+you took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gethering
+memory, too, because it was on the clo's-line yesterday--I see it there
+myself. But it's gone, that's the long and the short of it, and you'll
+just have to change to a red flann'l one till I can get time to make a
+new one. And it 'll be the third I've made in two years.  It just keeps
+a body on the jump to keep you in shirts; and whatever you do manage to
+_do_ with 'm all is more'n I can make out.  A body 'd think you _would_
+learn to take some sort of care of 'em at your time of life.”
+
+“I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can.  But it oughtn't to be
+altogether my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have
+nothing to do with them except when they're on me; and I don't believe
+I've ever lost one of them _off_ of me.”
+
+“Well, it ain't _your_ fault if you haven't, Silas; you'd a done it
+if you could, I reckon.  And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther.
+ Ther's a spoon gone; and _that_ ain't all.  There was ten, and now
+ther's only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never
+took the spoon, _that's_ certain.”
+
+“Why, what else is gone, Sally?”
+
+“Ther's six _candles_ gone--that's what.  The rats could a got the
+candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with the
+whole place, the way you're always going to stop their holes and don't
+do it; and if they warn't fools they'd sleep in your hair, Silas--_you'd_
+never find it out; but you can't lay the _spoon_ on the rats, and that I
+know.”
+
+“Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been remiss; but
+I won't let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes.”
+
+“Oh, I wouldn't hurry; next year 'll do.  Matilda Angelina Araminta
+_Phelps!_”
+
+Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the
+sugar-bowl without fooling around any.  Just then the nigger woman steps
+on to the passage, and says:
+
+“Missus, dey's a sheet gone.”
+
+“A _sheet_ gone!  Well, for the land's sake!”
+
+“I'll stop up them holes to-day,” says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.
+
+“Oh, _do_ shet up!--s'pose the rats took the _sheet_?  _where's_ it gone,
+Lize?”
+
+“Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss' Sally.  She wuz on de
+clo'sline yistiddy, but she done gone:  she ain' dah no mo' now.”
+
+“I reckon the world _is_ coming to an end.  I _never_ see the beat of it
+in all my born days.  A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can--”
+
+“Missus,” comes a young yaller wench, “dey's a brass cannelstick
+miss'n.”
+
+“Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!”
+
+Well, she was just a-biling.  I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned
+I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated.  She
+kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and
+everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking
+kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket.  She stopped,
+with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was in
+Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says:
+
+“It's _just_ as I expected.  So you had it in your pocket all the time;
+and like as not you've got the other things there, too.  How'd it get
+there?”
+
+“I reely don't know, Sally,” he says, kind of apologizing, “or you know
+I would tell.  I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen before
+breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put
+my Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ain't in; but
+I'll go and see; and if the Testament is where I had it, I'll know I
+didn't put it in, and that will show that I laid the Testament down and
+took up the spoon, and--”
+
+“Oh, for the land's sake!  Give a body a rest!  Go 'long now, the whole
+kit and biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got back my
+peace of mind.”
+
+I'D a heard her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it
+out; and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead.  As we was
+passing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and the
+shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and
+laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out.  Tom
+see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says:
+
+“Well, it ain't no use to send things by _him_ no more, he ain't
+reliable.” Then he says:  “But he done us a good turn with the spoon,
+anyway, without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without _him_
+knowing it--stop up his rat-holes.”
+
+There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole
+hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape.  Then we heard
+steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes
+the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in t'other,
+looking as absent-minded as year before last.  He went a mooning around,
+first to one rat-hole and then another, till he'd been to them all.
+ Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candle
+and thinking.  Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs,
+saying:
+
+“Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it.  I could
+show her now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats.  But never
+mind--let it go.  I reckon it wouldn't do no good.”
+
+And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left.  He was a
+mighty nice old man.  And always is.
+
+Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said
+we'd got to have it; so he took a think.  When he had ciphered it out
+he told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the
+spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to
+counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of
+them up my sleeve, and Tom says:
+
+“Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons _yet_.”
+
+She says:
+
+“Go 'long to your play, and don't bother me.  I know better, I counted
+'m myself.”
+
+“Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine.”
+
+She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count--anybody
+would.
+
+“I declare to gracious ther' _ain't_ but nine!” she says.  “Why, what in
+the world--plague _take_ the things, I'll count 'm again.”
+
+So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she
+says:
+
+“Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther's _ten_ now!” and she looked huffy
+and bothered both.  But Tom says:
+
+“Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten.”
+
+“You numskull, didn't you see me _count 'm?_”
+
+“I know, but--”
+
+“Well, I'll count 'm _again_.”
+
+So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time.
+ Well, she _was_ in a tearing way--just a-trembling all over, she was so
+mad.  But she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd start
+to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times they
+come out right, and three times they come out wrong.  Then she grabbed
+up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the cat
+galley-west; and she said cle'r out and let her have some peace, and if
+we come bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she'd skin
+us.  So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apron-pocket whilst
+she was a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right, along
+with her shingle nail, before noon.  We was very well satisfied with
+this business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took,
+because he said _now_ she couldn't ever count them spoons twice alike
+again to save her life; and wouldn't believe she'd counted them right if
+she _did_; and said that after she'd about counted her head off for the
+next three days he judged she'd give it up and offer to kill anybody
+that wanted her to ever count them any more.
+
+So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of
+her closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a
+couple of days till she didn't know how many sheets she had any more,
+and she didn't _care_, and warn't a-going to bullyrag the rest of her
+soul out about it, and wouldn't count them again not to save her life;
+she druther die first.
+
+So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon
+and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up
+counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it would
+blow over by and by.
+
+But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie.  We
+fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it
+done at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and we
+had to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through, and
+we got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out with
+the smoke; because, you see, we didn't want nothing but a crust, and we
+couldn't prop it up right, and she would always cave in.  But of course
+we thought of the right way at last--which was to cook the ladder, too,
+in the pie.  So then we laid in with Jim the second night, and tore
+up the sheet all in little strings and twisted them together, and long
+before daylight we had a lovely rope that you could a hung a person
+with.  We let on it took nine months to make it.
+
+And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go
+into the pie.  Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope
+enough for forty pies if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left over
+for soup, or sausage, or anything you choose.  We could a had a whole
+dinner.
+
+But we didn't need it.  All we needed was just enough for the pie, and
+so we throwed the rest away.  We didn't cook none of the pies in the
+wash-pan--afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a noble
+brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged
+to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over from
+England with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early
+ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old pots and things
+that was valuable, not on account of being any account, because they
+warn't, but on account of them being relicts, you know, and we snaked
+her out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on the first
+pies, because we didn't know how, but she come up smiling on the last
+one.  We took and lined her with dough, and set her in the coals, and
+loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut down the
+lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot, with the long
+handle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned out a
+pie that was a satisfaction to look at. But the person that et it would
+want to fetch a couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that rope
+ladder wouldn't cramp him down to business I don't know nothing what I'm
+talking about, and lay him in enough stomach-ache to last him till next
+time, too.
+
+Nat didn't look when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan; and we put the
+three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jim
+got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted
+into the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick,
+and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the
+window-hole.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+MAKING them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and Jim
+allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all.  That's the
+one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall.  But he had to have
+it; Tom said he'd _got_ to; there warn't no case of a state prisoner not
+scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms.
+
+“Look at Lady Jane Grey,” he says; “look at Gilford Dudley; look at old
+Northumberland!  Why, Huck, s'pose it _is_ considerble trouble?--what
+you going to do?--how you going to get around it?  Jim's _got_ to do his
+inscription and coat of arms.  They all do.”
+
+Jim says:
+
+“Why, Mars Tom, I hain't got no coat o' arm; I hain't got nuffn but dish
+yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat.”
+
+“Oh, you don't understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different.”
+
+“Well,” I says, “Jim's right, anyway, when he says he ain't got no coat
+of arms, because he hain't.”
+
+“I reckon I knowed that,” Tom says, “but you bet he'll have one before
+he goes out of this--because he's going out _right_, and there ain't
+going to be no flaws in his record.”
+
+So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim
+a-making his'n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon,
+Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms.  By and by he said he'd
+struck so many good ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but there
+was one which he reckoned he'd decide on.  He says:
+
+“On the scutcheon we'll have a bend _or_ in the dexter base, a saltire
+_murrey_ in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under
+his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron _vert_ in a
+chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field _azure_, with the
+nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway nigger,
+_sable_, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister; and a
+couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me; motto, _Maggiore
+Fretta, Minore Otto._  Got it out of a book--means the more haste the
+less speed.”
+
+“Geewhillikins,” I says, “but what does the rest of it mean?”
+
+“We ain't got no time to bother over that,” he says; “we got to dig in
+like all git-out.”
+
+“Well, anyway,” I says, “what's _some_ of it?  What's a fess?”
+
+“A fess--a fess is--_you_ don't need to know what a fess is.  I'll show
+him how to make it when he gets to it.”
+
+“Shucks, Tom,” I says, “I think you might tell a person.  What's a bar
+sinister?”
+
+“Oh, I don't know.  But he's got to have it.  All the nobility does.”
+
+That was just his way.  If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to you,
+he wouldn't do it.  You might pump at him a week, it wouldn't make no
+difference.
+
+He'd got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to
+finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a
+mournful inscription--said Jim got to have one, like they all done.  He
+made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so:
+
+1.  Here a captive heart busted. 2.  Here a poor prisoner, forsook by
+the world and friends, fretted his sorrowful life. 3.  Here a lonely
+heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after thirty-seven
+years of solitary captivity. 4.  Here, homeless and friendless, after
+thirty-seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger,
+natural son of Louis XIV.
+
+Tom's voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke down.
+When he got done he couldn't no way make up his mind which one for Jim
+to scrabble on to the wall, they was all so good; but at last he allowed
+he would let him scrabble them all on.  Jim said it would take him a
+year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a nail, and he
+didn't know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he would block
+them out for him, and then he wouldn't have nothing to do but just
+follow the lines.  Then pretty soon he says:
+
+“Come to think, the logs ain't a-going to do; they don't have log walls
+in a dungeon:  we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock.  We'll fetch
+a rock.”
+
+Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him
+such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn't ever get out.
+ But Tom said he would let me help him do it.  Then he took a look to
+see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens.  It was most pesky
+tedious hard work and slow, and didn't give my hands no show to get
+well of the sores, and we didn't seem to make no headway, hardly; so Tom
+says:
+
+“I know how to fix it.  We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and
+mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock.
+There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it,
+and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it,
+too.”
+
+It warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a grindstone
+nuther; but we allowed we'd tackle it.  It warn't quite midnight yet,
+so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work.  We smouched the
+grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation tough
+job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn't keep her from falling
+over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time.  Tom said she was
+going to get one of us, sure, before we got through.  We got her half
+way; and then we was plumb played out, and most drownded with sweat.  We
+see it warn't no use; we got to go and fetch Jim. So he raised up his
+bed and slid the chain off of the bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round
+his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down there, and Jim
+and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along like nothing; and
+Tom superintended.  He could out-superintend any boy I ever see.  He
+knowed how to do everything.
+
+Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the grindstone
+through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough.  Then Tom
+marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them,
+with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the
+lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his candle
+quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone under
+his straw tick and sleep on it.  Then we helped him fix his chain back
+on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves.  But Tom thought of
+something, and says:
+
+“You got any spiders in here, Jim?”
+
+“No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom.”
+
+“All right, we'll get you some.”
+
+“But bless you, honey, I doan' _want_ none.  I's afeard un um.  I jis'
+'s soon have rattlesnakes aroun'.”
+
+Tom thought a minute or two, and says:
+
+“It's a good idea.  And I reckon it's been done.  It _must_ a been done;
+it stands to reason.  Yes, it's a prime good idea.  Where could you keep
+it?”
+
+“Keep what, Mars Tom?”
+
+“Why, a rattlesnake.”
+
+“De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom!  Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to
+come in heah I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid
+my head.”
+
+“Why, Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it after a little.  You could tame
+it.”
+
+“_Tame_ it!”
+
+“Yes--easy enough.  Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting,
+and they wouldn't _think_ of hurting a person that pets them.  Any book
+will tell you that.  You try--that's all I ask; just try for two or three
+days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that he'll love you;
+and sleep with you; and won't stay away from you a minute; and will let
+you wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth.”
+
+“_Please_, Mars Tom--_doan_' talk so!  I can't _stan_' it!  He'd _let_
+me shove his head in my mouf--fer a favor, hain't it?  I lay he'd wait a
+pow'ful long time 'fo' I _ast_ him.  En mo' en dat, I doan' _want_ him
+to sleep wid me.”
+
+“Jim, don't act so foolish.  A prisoner's _got_ to have some kind of a
+dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's more
+glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other
+way you could ever think of to save your life.”
+
+“Why, Mars Tom, I doan' _want_ no sich glory.  Snake take 'n bite
+Jim's chin off, den _whah_ is de glory?  No, sah, I doan' want no sich
+doin's.”
+
+“Blame it, can't you _try_?  I only _want_ you to try--you needn't keep
+it up if it don't work.”
+
+“But de trouble all _done_ ef de snake bite me while I's a tryin' him.
+Mars Tom, I's willin' to tackle mos' anything 'at ain't onreasonable,
+but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I's
+gwyne to _leave_, dat's _shore_.”
+
+“Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bull-headed about it.
+ We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on
+their tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll have
+to do.”
+
+“I k'n stan' _dem_, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout
+um, I tell you dat.  I never knowed b'fo' 't was so much bother and
+trouble to be a prisoner.”
+
+“Well, it _always_ is when it's done right.  You got any rats around
+here?”
+
+“No, sah, I hain't seed none.”
+
+“Well, we'll get you some rats.”
+
+“Why, Mars Tom, I doan' _want_ no rats.  Dey's de dadblamedest creturs
+to 'sturb a body, en rustle roun' over 'im, en bite his feet, when he's
+tryin' to sleep, I ever see.  No, sah, gimme g'yarter-snakes, 'f I's
+got to have 'm, but doan' gimme no rats; I hain' got no use f'r um,
+skasely.”
+
+“But, Jim, you _got_ to have 'em--they all do.  So don't make no more
+fuss about it.  Prisoners ain't ever without rats.  There ain't no
+instance of it.  And they train them, and pet them, and learn them
+tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies.  But you got to play
+music to them.  You got anything to play music on?”
+
+“I ain' got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o' paper, en a juice-harp;
+but I reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juice-harp.”
+
+“Yes they would _they_ don't care what kind of music 'tis.  A
+jews-harp's plenty good enough for a rat.  All animals like music--in a
+prison they dote on it.  Specially, painful music; and you can't get no
+other kind out of a jews-harp.  It always interests them; they come out
+to see what's the matter with you.  Yes, you're all right; you're fixed
+very well.  You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep,
+and early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp; play 'The Last Link
+is Broken'--that's the thing that 'll scoop a rat quicker 'n anything
+else; and when you've played about two minutes you'll see all the rats,
+and the snakes, and spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you,
+and come.  And they'll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good
+time.”
+
+“Yes, _dey_ will, I reck'n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is _Jim_
+havin'? Blest if I kin see de pint.  But I'll do it ef I got to.  I
+reck'n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de
+house.”
+
+Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else; and
+pretty soon he says:
+
+“Oh, there's one thing I forgot.  Could you raise a flower here, do you
+reckon?”
+
+“I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it's tolable dark in heah,
+en I ain' got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a pow'ful sight
+o' trouble.”
+
+“Well, you try it, anyway.  Some other prisoners has done it.”
+
+“One er dem big cat-tail-lookin' mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars
+Tom, I reck'n, but she wouldn't be wuth half de trouble she'd coss.”
+
+“Don't you believe it.  We'll fetch you a little one and you plant it in
+the corner over there, and raise it.  And don't call it mullen, call it
+Pitchiola--that's its right name when it's in a prison.  And you want to
+water it with your tears.”
+
+“Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom.”
+
+“You don't _want_ spring water; you want to water it with your tears.
+ It's the way they always do.”
+
+“Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid
+spring water whiles another man's a _start'n_ one wid tears.”
+
+“That ain't the idea.  You _got_ to do it with tears.”
+
+“She'll die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan' skasely
+ever cry.”
+
+So Tom was stumped.  But he studied it over, and then said Jim would
+have to worry along the best he could with an onion.  He promised
+he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's
+coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would “jis' 's soon have
+tobacker in his coffee;” and found so much fault with it, and with the
+work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping the rats, and
+petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on top of
+all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and journals,
+and things, which made it more trouble and worry and responsibility to
+be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom most lost all
+patience with him; and said he was just loadened down with more gaudier
+chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for
+himself, and yet he didn't know enough to appreciate them, and they was
+just about wasted on him.  So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn't
+behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+IN the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and
+fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour
+we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put
+it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed.  But while we was gone for
+spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found
+it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out,
+and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was
+a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what
+they could to keep off the dull times for her.  So she took and dusted
+us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching
+another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn't
+the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock.
+ I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was.
+
+We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and
+caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet's
+nest, but we didn't.  The family was at home.  We didn't give it right
+up, but stayed with them as long as we could; because we allowed we'd
+tire them out or they'd got to tire us out, and they done it.  Then we
+got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right
+again, but couldn't set down convenient.  And so we went for the snakes,
+and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in
+a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was supper-time, and
+a rattling good honest day's work:  and hungry?--oh, no, I reckon not!
+ And there warn't a blessed snake up there when we went back--we didn't
+half tie the sack, and they worked out somehow, and left.  But it didn't
+matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres.  So
+we judged we could get some of them again.  No, there warn't no real
+scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell.  You'd see
+them dripping from the rafters and places every now and then; and they
+generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck, and most
+of the time where you didn't want them.  Well, they was handsome and
+striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of them; but that never
+made no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed what
+they might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it; and
+every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference
+what she was doing, she would just lay that work down and light out.  I
+never see such a woman.  And you could hear her whoop to Jericho.  You
+couldn't get her to take a-holt of one of them with the tongs.  And if
+she turned over and found one in bed she would scramble out and lift a
+howl that you would think the house was afire.  She disturbed the old
+man so that he said he could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes
+created.  Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the
+house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn't over it yet; she warn't
+near over it; when she was setting thinking about something you could
+touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump
+right out of her stockings.  It was very curious.  But Tom said all
+women was just so.  He said they was made that way for some reason or
+other.
+
+We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she
+allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever
+loaded up the place again with them.  I didn't mind the lickings,
+because they didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we
+had to lay in another lot.  But we got them laid in, and all the other
+things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd
+all swarm out for music and go for him.  Jim didn't like the spiders,
+and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for him, and make it
+mighty warm for him.  And he said that between the rats and the snakes
+and the grindstone there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely; and
+when there was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was
+always lively, he said, because _they_ never all slept at one time, but
+took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and
+when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had one
+gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang having a circus over him,
+and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would take a chance at
+him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't
+ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.
+
+Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape.
+ The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he
+would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh;
+the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the
+grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust,
+and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache.  We reckoned we was all
+going to die, but didn't.  It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever
+see; and Tom said the same.
+
+But as I was saying, we'd got all the work done now, at last; and we was
+all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim.  The old man had wrote
+a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get their
+runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such
+plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and
+New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me
+the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now
+for the nonnamous letters.
+
+“What's them?”  I says.
+
+“Warnings to the people that something is up.  Sometimes it's done one
+way, sometimes another.  But there's always somebody spying around that
+gives notice to the governor of the castle.  When Louis XVI. was going
+to light out of the Tooleries, a servant-girl done it.  It's a very good
+way, and so is the nonnamous letters.  We'll use them both.  And it's
+usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she
+stays in, and he slides out in her clothes.  We'll do that, too.”
+
+“But looky here, Tom, what do we want to _warn_ anybody for that
+something's up?  Let them find it out for themselves--it's their
+lookout.”
+
+“Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them.  It's the way they've acted
+from the very start--left us to do _everything_.  They're so confiding
+and mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all.  So if we
+don't _give_ them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere
+with us, and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll go
+off perfectly flat; won't amount to nothing--won't be nothing _to_ it.”
+
+“Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like.”
+
+“Shucks!” he says, and looked disgusted.  So I says:
+
+“But I ain't going to make no complaint.  Any way that suits you suits
+me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?”
+
+“You'll be her.  You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that
+yaller girl's frock.”
+
+“Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she
+prob'bly hain't got any but that one.”
+
+“I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the
+nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door.”
+
+“All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my
+own togs.”
+
+“You wouldn't look like a servant-girl _then_, would you?”
+
+“No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, _anyway_.”
+
+“That ain't got nothing to do with it.  The thing for us to do is just
+to do our _duty_, and not worry about whether anybody _sees_ us do it or
+not. Hain't you got no principle at all?”
+
+“All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl.  Who's Jim's
+mother?”
+
+“I'm his mother.  I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally.”
+
+“Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves.”
+
+“Not much.  I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed
+to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's
+gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together.  When a
+prisoner of style escapes it's called an evasion.  It's always called
+so when a king escapes, f'rinstance.  And the same with a king's son;
+it don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural
+one.”
+
+So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's
+frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the
+way Tom told me to.  It said:
+
+Beware.  Trouble is brewing.  Keep a sharp lookout. _Unknown_ _Friend_.
+
+Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and
+crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a coffin on
+the back door.  I never see a family in such a sweat.  They couldn't a
+been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them
+behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air.  If
+a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said “ouch!” if anything fell,
+she jumped and said “ouch!” if you happened to touch her, when she
+warn't noticing, she done the same; she couldn't face noway and be
+satisfied, because she allowed there was something behind her every
+time--so she was always a-whirling around sudden, and saying “ouch,” and
+before she'd got two-thirds around she'd whirl back again, and say it
+again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but she dasn't set up.  So the
+thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work
+more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right.
+
+So he said, now for the grand bulge!  So the very next morning at the
+streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we
+better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going
+to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night.  Tom he went down the
+lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep,
+and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back.  This letter
+said:
+
+Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend.  There is a desprate gang of
+cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your runaway
+nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will
+stay in the house and not bother them.  I am one of the gang, but have
+got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and
+will betray the helish design. They will sneak down from northards,
+along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the
+nigger's cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn
+if I see any danger; but stead of that I will _baa_ like a sheep soon as
+they get in and not blow at all; then whilst they are getting his
+chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them at your
+leasure.  Don't do anything but just the way I am telling you, if you do
+they will suspicion something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I do not wish
+any reward but to know I have done the right thing. _Unknown Friend._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+WE was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went
+over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a
+look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper,
+and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end they
+was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done
+supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a
+word about the new letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as much
+about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and her
+back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good
+lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about
+half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and
+was going to start with the lunch, but says:
+
+“Where's the butter?”
+
+“I laid out a hunk of it,” I says, “on a piece of a corn-pone.”
+
+“Well, you _left_ it laid out, then--it ain't here.”
+
+“We can get along without it,” I says.
+
+“We can get along _with_ it, too,” he says; “just you slide down cellar
+and fetch it.  And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come
+along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his
+mother in disguise, and be ready to _baa_ like a sheep and shove soon as
+you get there.”
+
+So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as
+a person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of
+corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs
+very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes
+Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped
+my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she says:
+
+“You been down cellar?”
+
+“Yes'm.”
+
+“What you been doing down there?”
+
+“Noth'n.”
+
+“_Noth'n!_”
+
+“No'm.”
+
+“Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?”
+
+“I don't know 'm.”
+
+“You don't _know_?  Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what
+you been _doing_ down there.”
+
+“I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I
+have.”
+
+I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I
+s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat
+about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says,
+very decided:
+
+“You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come.  You
+been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it
+is before I'M done with you.”
+
+So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room.
+My, but there was a crowd there!  Fifteen farmers, and every one of them
+had a gun.  I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down.
+They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice,
+and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't;
+but I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their hats,
+and putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their
+seats, and fumbling with their buttons.  I warn't easy myself, but I
+didn't take my hat off, all the same.
+
+I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if
+she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this
+thing, and what a thundering hornet's-nest we'd got ourselves into, so
+we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim before
+these rips got out of patience and come for us.
+
+At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I _couldn't_ answer
+them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because these men
+was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right NOW and
+lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to
+midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the
+sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and
+me a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was
+that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter
+beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty
+soon, when one of them says, “I'M for going and getting in the cabin
+_first_ and right _now_, and catching them when they come,” I most
+dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and
+Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says:
+
+“For the land's sake, what _is_ the matter with the child?  He's got the
+brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!”
+
+And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes
+the bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and
+hugged me, and says:
+
+“Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it
+ain't no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours,
+and when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by
+the color and all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear,
+dear, whyd'nt you _tell_ me that was what you'd been down there for, I
+wouldn't a cared.  Now cler out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of
+you till morning!”
+
+I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one,
+and shinning through the dark for the lean-to.  I couldn't hardly get my
+words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must
+jump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full of men, yonder,
+with guns!
+
+His eyes just blazed; and he says:
+
+“No!--is that so?  _ain't_ it bully!  Why, Huck, if it was to do over
+again, I bet I could fetch two hundred!  If we could put it off till--”
+
+“Hurry!  _Hurry_!”  I says.  “Where's Jim?”
+
+“Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him.
+ He's dressed, and everything's ready.  Now we'll slide out and give the
+sheep-signal.”
+
+But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them
+begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say:
+
+“I _told_ you we'd be too soon; they haven't come--the door is locked.
+Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the
+dark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece,
+and listen if you can hear 'em coming.”
+
+So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on
+us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed.  But we got under all
+right, and out through the hole, swift but soft--Jim first, me next,
+and Tom last, which was according to Tom's orders.  Now we was in the
+lean-to, and heard trampings close by outside.  So we crept to the door,
+and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make
+out nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he would listen
+for the steps to get further, and when he nudged us Jim must glide out
+first, and him last.  So he set his ear to the crack and listened, and
+listened, and listened, and the steps a-scraping around out there all
+the time; and at last he nudged us, and we slid out, and stooped down,
+not breathing, and not making the least noise, and slipped stealthy
+towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all right, and me and Jim
+over it; but Tom's britches catched fast on a splinter on the top
+rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he had to pull loose, which
+snapped the splinter and made a noise; and as he dropped in our tracks
+and started somebody sings out:
+
+“Who's that?  Answer, or I'll shoot!”
+
+But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved.  Then there
+was a rush, and a _Bang, Bang, Bang!_ and the bullets fairly whizzed
+around us! We heard them sing out:
+
+“Here they are!  They've broke for the river!  After 'em, boys, and turn
+loose the dogs!”
+
+So here they come, full tilt.  We could hear them because they wore
+boots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell.  We was
+in the path to the mill; and when they got pretty close on to us we
+dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind
+them.  They'd had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the
+robbers; but by this time somebody had let them loose, and here they
+come, making powwow enough for a million; but they was our dogs; so we
+stopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when they see it warn't
+nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only just said
+howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering; and
+then we up-steam again, and whizzed along after them till we was nearly
+to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was
+tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the
+river, but didn't make no more noise than we was obleeged to. Then we
+struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island where my raft was; and
+we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down the
+bank, till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out.  And when
+we stepped on to the raft I says:
+
+“_Now_, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a
+slave no more.”
+
+“En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck.  It 'uz planned beautiful, en
+it 'uz done beautiful; en dey ain't _nobody_ kin git up a plan dat's mo'
+mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz.”
+
+We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because
+he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.
+
+When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did
+before. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in
+the wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but
+he says:
+
+“Gimme the rags; I can do it myself.  Don't stop now; don't fool around
+here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set
+her loose!  Boys, we done it elegant!--'deed we did.  I wish _we'd_ a
+had the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint
+Louis, ascend to heaven!' wrote down in _his_ biography; no, sir, we'd
+a whooped him over the _border_--that's what we'd a done with _him_--and
+done it just as slick as nothing at all, too.  Man the sweeps--man the
+sweeps!”
+
+But me and Jim was consulting--and thinking.  And after we'd thought a
+minute, I says:
+
+“Say it, Jim.”
+
+So he says:
+
+“Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck.  Ef it wuz _him_ dat 'uz
+bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on
+en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?'  Is dat like
+Mars Tom Sawyer?  Would he say dat?  You _bet_ he wouldn't!  _well_,
+den, is _Jim_ gywne to say it?  No, sah--I doan' budge a step out'n dis
+place 'dout a _doctor_, not if it's forty year!”
+
+I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say--so
+it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor.
+ He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and
+wouldn't budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose
+himself; but we wouldn't let him.  Then he give us a piece of his mind,
+but it didn't do no good.
+
+So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:
+
+“Well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when you
+get to the village.  Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and
+fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse
+full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the
+back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the
+canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him and take
+his chalk away from him, and don't give it back to him till you get him
+back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it
+again. It's the way they all do.”
+
+So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he
+see the doctor coming till he was gone again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I got
+him up.  I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting
+yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about
+midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and
+shot him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and
+not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because we wanted to
+come home this evening and surprise the folks.
+
+“Who is your folks?” he says.
+
+“The Phelpses, down yonder.”
+
+“Oh,” he says.  And after a minute, he says:
+
+“How'd you say he got shot?”
+
+“He had a dream,” I says, “and it shot him.”
+
+“Singular dream,” he says.
+
+So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started.  But
+when he sees the canoe he didn't like the look of her--said she was big
+enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two.  I says:
+
+“Oh, you needn't be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy
+enough.”
+
+“What three?”
+
+“Why, me and Sid, and--and--and _the guns_; that's what I mean.”
+
+“Oh,” he says.
+
+But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head,
+and said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one.  But they was
+all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait
+till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better
+go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to.  But
+I said I didn't; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he
+started.
+
+I struck an idea pretty soon.  I says to myself, spos'n he can't fix
+that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail, as the saying is?
+spos'n it takes him three or four days?  What are we going to do?--lay
+around there till he lets the cat out of the bag?  No, sir; I know what
+_I'll_ do.  I'll wait, and when he comes back if he says he's got to
+go any more I'll get down there, too, if I swim; and we'll take and tie
+him, and keep him, and shove out down the river; and when Tom's done
+with him we'll give him what it's worth, or all we got, and then let him
+get ashore.
+
+So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I
+waked up the sun was away up over my head!  I shot out and went for the
+doctor's house, but they told me he'd gone away in the night some time
+or other, and warn't back yet.  Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad
+for Tom, and I'll dig out for the island right off.  So away I shoved,
+and turned the corner, and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's
+stomach! He says:
+
+“Why, _Tom!_  Where you been all this time, you rascal?”
+
+“I hain't been nowheres,” I says, “only just hunting for the runaway
+nigger--me and Sid.”
+
+“Why, where ever did you go?” he says.  “Your aunt's been mighty
+uneasy.”
+
+“She needn't,” I says, “because we was all right.  We followed the men
+and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we thought we
+heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and
+crossed over, but couldn't find nothing of them; so we cruised along
+up-shore till we got kind of tired and beat out; and tied up the canoe
+and went to sleep, and never waked up till about an hour ago; then we
+paddled over here to hear the news, and Sid's at the post-office to see
+what he can hear, and I'm a-branching out to get something to eat for
+us, and then we're going home.”
+
+So then we went to the post-office to get “Sid”; but just as I
+suspicioned, he warn't there; so the old man he got a letter out of the
+office, and we waited awhile longer, but Sid didn't come; so the old man
+said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it, when he got done
+fooling around--but we would ride.  I couldn't get him to let me stay
+and wait for Sid; and he said there warn't no use in it, and I must come
+along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all right.
+
+When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and
+cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of hern that
+don't amount to shucks, and said she'd serve Sid the same when he come.
+
+And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers' wives, to dinner;
+and such another clack a body never heard.  Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the
+worst; her tongue was a-going all the time.  She says:
+
+“Well, Sister Phelps, I've ransacked that-air cabin over, an' I b'lieve
+the nigger was crazy.  I says to Sister Damrell--didn't I, Sister
+Damrell?--s'I, he's crazy, s'I--them's the very words I said.  You all
+hearn me: he's crazy, s'I; everything shows it, s'I.  Look at that-air
+grindstone, s'I; want to tell _me_'t any cretur 't's in his right mind
+'s a goin' to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone, s'I?
+ Here sich 'n' sich a person busted his heart; 'n' here so 'n' so
+pegged along for thirty-seven year, 'n' all that--natcherl son o' Louis
+somebody, 'n' sich everlast'n rubbage.  He's plumb crazy, s'I; it's what
+I says in the fust place, it's what I says in the middle, 'n' it's what
+I says last 'n' all the time--the nigger's crazy--crazy 's Nebokoodneezer,
+s'I.”
+
+“An' look at that-air ladder made out'n rags, Sister Hotchkiss,” says
+old Mrs. Damrell; “what in the name o' goodness _could_ he ever want
+of--”
+
+“The very words I was a-sayin' no longer ago th'n this minute to Sister
+Utterback, 'n' she'll tell you so herself.  Sh-she, look at that-air rag
+ladder, sh-she; 'n' s'I, yes, _look_ at it, s'I--what _could_ he a-wanted
+of it, s'I.  Sh-she, Sister Hotchkiss, sh-she--”
+
+“But how in the nation'd they ever _git_ that grindstone _in_ there,
+_anyway_? 'n' who dug that-air _hole_? 'n' who--”
+
+“My very _words_, Brer Penrod!  I was a-sayin'--pass that-air sasser o'
+m'lasses, won't ye?--I was a-sayin' to Sister Dunlap, jist this minute,
+how _did_ they git that grindstone in there, s'I.  Without _help_, mind
+you--'thout _help_!  _that's_ wher 'tis.  Don't tell _me_, s'I; there
+_wuz_ help, s'I; 'n' ther' wuz a _plenty_ help, too, s'I; ther's ben a
+_dozen_ a-helpin' that nigger, 'n' I lay I'd skin every last nigger on
+this place but _I'd_ find out who done it, s'I; 'n' moreover, s'I--”
+
+“A _dozen_ says you!--_forty_ couldn't a done every thing that's been
+done. Look at them case-knife saws and things, how tedious they've been
+made; look at that bed-leg sawed off with 'm, a week's work for six men;
+look at that nigger made out'n straw on the bed; and look at--”
+
+“You may _well_ say it, Brer Hightower!  It's jist as I was a-sayin'
+to Brer Phelps, his own self.  S'e, what do _you_ think of it, Sister
+Hotchkiss, s'e? Think o' what, Brer Phelps, s'I?  Think o' that bed-leg
+sawed off that a way, s'e?  _think_ of it, s'I?  I lay it never sawed
+_itself_ off, s'I--somebody _sawed_ it, s'I; that's my opinion, take it
+or leave it, it mayn't be no 'count, s'I, but sich as 't is, it's my
+opinion, s'I, 'n' if any body k'n start a better one, s'I, let him _do_
+it, s'I, that's all.  I says to Sister Dunlap, s'I--”
+
+“Why, dog my cats, they must a ben a house-full o' niggers in there
+every night for four weeks to a done all that work, Sister Phelps.  Look
+at that shirt--every last inch of it kivered over with secret African
+writ'n done with blood!  Must a ben a raft uv 'm at it right along, all
+the time, amost.  Why, I'd give two dollars to have it read to me; 'n'
+as for the niggers that wrote it, I 'low I'd take 'n' lash 'm t'll--”
+
+“People to _help_ him, Brother Marples!  Well, I reckon you'd _think_
+so if you'd a been in this house for a while back.  Why, they've stole
+everything they could lay their hands on--and we a-watching all the time,
+mind you. They stole that shirt right off o' the line! and as for that
+sheet they made the rag ladder out of, ther' ain't no telling how
+many times they _didn't_ steal that; and flour, and candles, and
+candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and most a thousand
+things that I disremember now, and my new calico dress; and me and
+Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day _and_ night, as I was
+a-telling you, and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight
+nor sound of them; and here at the last minute, lo and behold you, they
+slides right in under our noses and fools us, and not only fools _us_
+but the Injun Territory robbers too, and actuly gets _away_ with that
+nigger safe and sound, and that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs
+right on their very heels at that very time!  I tell you, it just bangs
+anything I ever _heard_ of. Why, _sperits_ couldn't a done better and
+been no smarter. And I reckon they must a _been_ sperits--because, _you_
+know our dogs, and ther' ain't no better; well, them dogs never even got
+on the _track_ of 'm once!  You explain _that_ to me if you can!--_any_
+of you!”
+
+“Well, it does beat--”
+
+“Laws alive, I never--”
+
+“So help me, I wouldn't a be--”
+
+“_House_-thieves as well as--”
+
+“Goodnessgracioussakes, I'd a ben afeard to live in sich a--”
+
+“'Fraid to _live_!--why, I was that scared I dasn't hardly go to bed, or
+get up, or lay down, or _set_ down, Sister Ridgeway.  Why, they'd steal
+the very--why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was
+in by the time midnight come last night.  I hope to gracious if I warn't
+afraid they'd steal some o' the family!  I was just to that pass I
+didn't have no reasoning faculties no more.  It looks foolish enough
+_now_, in the daytime; but I says to myself, there's my two poor boys
+asleep, 'way up stairs in that lonesome room, and I declare to goodness
+I was that uneasy 't I crep' up there and locked 'em in!  I _did_.  And
+anybody would. Because, you know, when you get scared that way, and it
+keeps running on, and getting worse and worse all the time, and your
+wits gets to addling, and you get to doing all sorts o' wild things,
+and by and by you think to yourself, spos'n I was a boy, and was away up
+there, and the door ain't locked, and you--” She stopped, looking kind
+of wondering, and then she turned her head around slow, and when her eye
+lit on me--I got up and took a walk.
+
+Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that
+room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little.
+ So I done it.  But I dasn't go fur, or she'd a sent for me.  And when
+it was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and
+told her the noise and shooting waked up me and “Sid,” and the door was
+locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the lightning-rod,
+and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn't never want to try _that_
+no more.  And then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas
+before; and then she said she'd forgive us, and maybe it was all right
+enough anyway, and about what a body might expect of boys, for all boys
+was a pretty harum-scarum lot as fur as she could see; and so, as long
+as no harm hadn't come of it, she judged she better put in her time
+being grateful we was alive and well and she had us still, stead of
+fretting over what was past and done.  So then she kissed me, and patted
+me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a brown study; and pretty
+soon jumps up, and says:
+
+“Why, lawsamercy, it's most night, and Sid not come yet!  What _has_
+become of that boy?”
+
+I see my chance; so I skips up and says:
+
+“I'll run right up to town and get him,” I says.
+
+“No you won't,” she says.  “You'll stay right wher' you are; _one's_
+enough to be lost at a time.  If he ain't here to supper, your uncle 'll
+go.”
+
+Well, he warn't there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.
+
+He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn't run across Tom's
+track. Aunt Sally was a good _deal_ uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said
+there warn't no occasion to be--boys will be boys, he said, and you'll
+see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right.  So she had
+to be satisfied.  But she said she'd set up for him a while anyway, and
+keep a light burning so he could see it.
+
+And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her
+candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like
+I couldn't look her in the face; and she set down on the bed and talked
+with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and didn't
+seem to want to ever stop talking about him; and kept asking me every
+now and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe
+drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres suffering or
+dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down
+silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home
+in the morning, sure; and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me,
+and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her
+good, and she was in so much trouble.  And when she was going away she
+looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and says:
+
+“The door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window and
+the rod; but you'll be good, _won't_ you?  And you won't go?  For _my_
+sake.”
+
+Laws knows I _wanted_ to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all
+intending to go; but after that I wouldn't a went, not for kingdoms.
+
+But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless.
+And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around
+front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window with her
+eyes towards the road and the tears in them; and I wished I could do
+something for her, but I couldn't, only to swear that I wouldn't never
+do nothing to grieve her any more.  And the third time I waked up at
+dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle was most out,
+and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+THE old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't get no
+track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not saying
+nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not
+eating anything. And by and by the old man says:
+
+“Did I give you the letter?”
+
+“What letter?”
+
+“The one I got yesterday out of the post-office.”
+
+“No, you didn't give me no letter.”
+
+“Well, I must a forgot it.”
+
+So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had
+laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her.  She says:
+
+“Why, it's from St. Petersburg--it's from Sis.”
+
+I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn't stir.  But
+before she could break it open she dropped it and run--for she see
+something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old
+doctor; and Jim, in _her_ calico dress, with his hands tied behind him;
+and a lot of people.  I hid the letter behind the first thing that come
+handy, and rushed.  She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:
+
+“Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!”
+
+And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other,
+which showed he warn't in his right mind; then she flung up her hands,
+and says:
+
+“He's alive, thank God!  And that's enough!” and she snatched a kiss of
+him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders
+right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue
+could go, every jump of the way.
+
+I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the
+old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house.  The men
+was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to
+all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run
+away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a
+whole family scared most to death for days and nights.  But the others
+said, don't do it, it wouldn't answer at all; he ain't our nigger, and
+his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure.  So that cooled
+them down a little, because the people that's always the most anxious
+for to hang a nigger that hain't done just right is always the very
+ones that ain't the most anxious to pay for him when they've got their
+satisfaction out of him.
+
+They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side the
+head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to
+know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes
+on him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to
+a big staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands, too, and
+both legs, and said he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to
+eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold at auction because
+he didn't come in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and
+said a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the
+cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime; and
+about this time they was through with the job and was tapering off with
+a kind of generl good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and
+takes a look, and says:
+
+“Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't
+a bad nigger.  When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut
+the bullet out without some help, and he warn't in no condition for
+me to leave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little
+worse, and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn't let
+me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill
+me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do
+anything at all with him; so I says, I got to have _help_ somehow; and
+the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says
+he'll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well.  Of course I
+judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I _was_! and there I had
+to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night.  It
+was a fix, I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills, and
+of course I'd of liked to run up to town and see them, but I dasn't,
+because the nigger might get away, and then I'd be to blame; and yet
+never a skiff come close enough for me to hail.  So there I had to stick
+plumb until daylight this morning; and I never see a nigger that was a
+better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he was risking his freedom to do it,
+and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough he'd been worked
+main hard lately.  I liked the nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a
+nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars--and kind treatment, too.  I
+had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he
+would a done at home--better, maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I
+_was_, with both of 'm on my hands, and there I had to stick till about
+dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck
+would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped
+on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped
+up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was
+about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a
+flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and
+towed her over very nice and quiet, and the nigger never made the least
+row nor said a word from the start.  He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen;
+that's what I think about him.”
+
+Somebody says:
+
+“Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say.”
+
+Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful
+to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was
+according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good
+heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him.  Then they
+all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some
+notice took of it, and reward.  So every one of them promised, right out
+and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more.
+
+Then they come out and locked him up.  I hoped they was going to say he
+could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten
+heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but they
+didn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but
+I judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as
+soon as I'd got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of
+me--explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot
+when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night paddling
+around hunting the runaway nigger.
+
+But I had plenty time.  Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day
+and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged
+him.
+
+Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt
+Sally was gone to get a nap.  So I slips to the sick-room, and if I
+found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that
+would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and
+pale, not fire-faced the way he was when he come.  So I set down and
+laid for him to wake.  In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding
+in, and there I was, up a stump again!  She motioned me to be still, and
+set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be joyful
+now, because all the symptoms was first-rate, and he'd been sleeping
+like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuller all the
+time, and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind.
+
+So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his
+eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says:
+
+“Hello!--why, I'm at _home_!  How's that?  Where's the raft?”
+
+“It's all right,” I says.
+
+“And _Jim_?”
+
+“The same,” I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash.  But he never
+noticed, but says:
+
+“Good!  Splendid!  _Now_ we're all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?”
+
+I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says:  “About what, Sid?”
+
+“Why, about the way the whole thing was done.”
+
+“What whole thing?”
+
+“Why, _the_ whole thing.  There ain't but one; how we set the runaway
+nigger free--me and Tom.”
+
+“Good land!  Set the run--What _is_ the child talking about!  Dear, dear,
+out of his head again!”
+
+“_No_, I ain't out of my _head_; I know all what I'm talking about.  We
+_did_ set him free--me and Tom.  We laid out to do it, and we _done_ it.
+ And we done it elegant, too.”  He'd got a start, and she never checked
+him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and
+I see it warn't no use for _me_ to put in.  “Why, Aunty, it cost us a
+power of work--weeks of it--hours and hours, every night, whilst you was
+all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt,
+and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the
+warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things,
+and you can't think what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and
+inscriptions, and one thing or another, and you can't think _half_ the
+fun it was.  And we had to make up the pictures of coffins and things,
+and nonnamous letters from the robbers, and get up and down the
+lightning-rod, and dig the hole into the cabin, and made the rope ladder
+and send it in cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and things to work
+with in your apron pocket--”
+
+“Mercy sakes!”
+
+“--and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company for
+Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that
+you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before
+we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let
+drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let
+them go by, and when the dogs come they warn't interested in us, but
+went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the
+raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by
+ourselves, and _wasn't_ it bully, Aunty!”
+
+“Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days!  So it was
+_you_, you little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble,
+and turned everybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to
+death.  I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out
+o' you this very minute.  To think, here I've been, night after night,
+a--_you_ just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the Old
+Harry out o' both o' ye!”
+
+But Tom, he _was_ so proud and joyful, he just _couldn't_ hold in,
+and his tongue just _went_ it--she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all
+along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and she
+says:
+
+“_Well_, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it _now_, for mind I
+tell you if I catch you meddling with him again--”
+
+“Meddling with _who_?”  Tom says, dropping his smile and looking
+surprised.
+
+“With _who_?  Why, the runaway nigger, of course.  Who'd you reckon?”
+
+Tom looks at me very grave, and says:
+
+“Tom, didn't you just tell me he was all right?  Hasn't he got away?”
+
+“_Him_?” says Aunt Sally; “the runaway nigger?  'Deed he hasn't.
+ They've got him back, safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again,
+on bread and water, and loaded down with chains, till he's claimed or
+sold!”
+
+Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening
+and shutting like gills, and sings out to me:
+
+“They hain't no _right_ to shut him up!  SHOVE!--and don't you lose a
+minute.  Turn him loose! he ain't no slave; he's as free as any cretur
+that walks this earth!”
+
+“What _does_ the child mean?”
+
+“I mean every word I _say_, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go, _I'll_
+go. I've knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there.  Old Miss
+Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to
+sell him down the river, and _said_ so; and she set him free in her
+will.”
+
+“Then what on earth did _you_ want to set him free for, seeing he was
+already free?”
+
+“Well, that _is_ a question, I must say; and just like women!  Why,
+I wanted the _adventure_ of it; and I'd a waded neck-deep in blood
+to--goodness alive, _Aunt Polly!_”
+
+If she warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as
+sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!
+
+Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and
+cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed,
+for it was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me.  And I peeped
+out, and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and
+stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles--kind of grinding
+him into the earth, you know.  And then she says:
+
+“Yes, you _better_ turn y'r head away--I would if I was you, Tom.”
+
+“Oh, deary me!” says Aunt Sally; “_Is_ he changed so?  Why, that ain't
+_Tom_, it's Sid; Tom's--Tom's--why, where is Tom?  He was here a minute
+ago.”
+
+“You mean where's Huck _Finn_--that's what you mean!  I reckon I hain't
+raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I
+_see_ him.  That _would_ be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that
+bed, Huck Finn.”
+
+So I done it.  But not feeling brash.
+
+Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever
+see--except one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told
+it all to him.  It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn't
+know nothing at all the rest of the day, and preached a prayer-meeting
+sermon that night that gave him a rattling ruputation, because the
+oldest man in the world couldn't a understood it.  So Tom's Aunt Polly,
+she told all about who I was, and what; and I had to up and tell how
+I was in such a tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom
+Sawyer--she chipped in and says, “Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally, I'm
+used to it now, and 'tain't no need to change”--that when Aunt Sally took
+me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand it--there warn't no other way, and
+I knowed he wouldn't mind, because it would be nuts for him, being
+a mystery, and he'd make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly
+satisfied.  And so it turned out, and he let on to be Sid, and made
+things as soft as he could for me.
+
+And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting
+Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took
+all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn't
+ever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how he _could_
+help a body set a nigger free with his bringing-up.
+
+Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and
+_Sid_ had come all right and safe, she says to herself:
+
+“Look at that, now!  I might have expected it, letting him go off that
+way without anybody to watch him.  So now I got to go and trapse all
+the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that
+creetur's up to _this_ time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any
+answer out of you about it.”
+
+“Why, I never heard nothing from you,” says Aunt Sally.
+
+“Well, I wonder!  Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean
+by Sid being here.”
+
+“Well, I never got 'em, Sis.”
+
+Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:
+
+“You, Tom!”
+
+“Well--_what_?” he says, kind of pettish.
+
+“Don't you what _me_, you impudent thing--hand out them letters.”
+
+“What letters?”
+
+“_Them_ letters.  I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I'll--”
+
+“They're in the trunk.  There, now.  And they're just the same as they
+was when I got them out of the office.  I hain't looked into them, I
+hain't touched them.  But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if
+you warn't in no hurry, I'd--”
+
+“Well, you _do_ need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it.  And I
+wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he--”
+
+“No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but _it's_ all right, I've
+got that one.”
+
+I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it
+was just as safe to not to.  So I never said nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST
+
+THE first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea, time
+of the evasion?--what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked all
+right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before?
+And he said, what he had planned in his head from the start, if we got
+Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river on the raft, and
+have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about
+his being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style,
+and pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and get out all
+the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight
+procession and a brass-band, and then he would be a hero, and so would
+we.  But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was.
+
+We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle
+Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom,
+they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him
+all he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do.  And we had
+him up to the sick-room, and had a high talk; and Tom give Jim forty
+dollars for being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so good,
+and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted out, and says:
+
+“Dah, now, Huck, what I tell you?--what I tell you up dah on Jackson
+islan'?  I _tole_ you I got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it; en
+I _tole_ you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich _agin_; en it's
+come true; en heah she is!  _dah_, now! doan' talk to _me_--signs is
+_signs_, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz gwineter be
+rich agin as I's a-stannin' heah dis minute!”
+
+And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le's all three
+slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go for
+howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for a
+couple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I
+ain't got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get
+none from home, because it's likely pap's been back before now, and got
+it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.
+
+“No, he hain't,” Tom says; “it's all there yet--six thousand dollars
+and more; and your pap hain't ever been back since.  Hadn't when I come
+away, anyhow.”
+
+Jim says, kind of solemn:
+
+“He ain't a-comin' back no mo', Huck.”
+
+I says:
+
+“Why, Jim?”
+
+“Nemmine why, Huck--but he ain't comin' back no mo.”
+
+But I kept at him; so at last he says:
+
+“Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a
+man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let you
+come in?  Well, den, you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase dat
+wuz him.”
+
+Tom's most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard
+for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain't
+nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd
+a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it,
+and ain't a-going to no more.  But I reckon I got to light out for the
+Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me
+and sivilize me, and I can't stand it.  I been there before.
+
+THE END. YOURS TRULY, _HUCK FINN_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
+Complete, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
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diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 55a1765..637573d 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 # Ubuntu
 FROM ubuntu:bionic
-ENV UNAME="data-science"
+ENV UNAME="data-science-workflow"
 MAINTAINER gmarxcc
 LABEL version="0.1"
 ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
 ENV LANG=C.UTF-8 LC_ALL=C.UTF-8
 
 RUN apt-get update \
-&& apt-get install -y python3
+&& apt-get install -y python3 curl 
diff --git a/Readme.md b/Readme.md
index 2cfcfd5..e2cc4d4 100644
--- a/Readme.md
+++ b/Readme.md
@@ -13,11 +13,29 @@ The key benefit of Docker is that it allows users to package an application with
 
 ## Installing and using a Docker image ##
 
+In this case we are going to create a new Docker image to work with. The image is based on **Ubuntu Bionic:18.04** and it is created using `docker build`, by using the next `Dockerfile`:
+
+``` shell
+
+```
+ and calling the `docker build` command:
+ 
+ ``` shell
+ docker build -t gmarxcc/workflow:0.1 .
+ ```
+
+
 ### Docker Pull ###
-**Create a basic container not image**
+
+``` shell
+docker pull gmarxcc/workflow:0.1
+```
 
 ### Docker Run ###
 
+``` shell
+docker run -it -v `pwd/data:/home `gmarxcc/workflow:0.1 
+```
 
 We recommend that you create a new directory, navigate to this new directory, and then run the following when you’re on macOS or Linux:
 
@@ -41,6 +59,15 @@ $ docker run --rm -it -v ${PWD}:/data datascienceworkshops/data-science-at-the-c
 In the above commands, the option `-v` instructs docker to map the current directory to the `/data` directory inside the container, so this is the place to get data in and out of the Docker container.
 
 ### Testing the container ###
+
+####  Command-line example ####
+
+``` shell
+curl -s http://gmarx.jumpingcrab.com/examples-data/76-0.txt | tr '[:upper:]'  '[:lower:]' | grep -oE '\w+' | sort | uniq -c | sort  -nr | head -n 10
+```
+
+#### Python example ####
+
 **creating the factor operation on docker**
 
 For testing the container a factorial function is created in Python 3: 
@@ -72,6 +99,13 @@ if __name__ == "__main__":
 
 ```
 
+#### Nginx server example ####
+
+``` shell
+docker pull nginxdemos/hello
+docker run -P -d nginxdemos/hello
+docker ps 
+```
 
 # Command line basics #
 This new way to work requires an overall understanding about we should call the command line, and according to [^2] it is mainly defined by:*(i)the command-line tools, (ii)the terminal, (iii)the shell, and (iv)the operating system*.