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Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

Release Date: May, 2002 [Etext #3237]
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[The actual date this file first posted = 02/05/01]

Edition: 10

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Click here to start MP3 Text Speech

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 any- body,
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 be- have?"
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 some- body that was dead,
and a whippowill and a dog cry- ing 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 shoul- ders.

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 under- neath.

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 dis- turbance,
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 some- thing
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 hill- top 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 men- tioned 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 busi- ness 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 rob- bery;
it's burglary,"
says Tom Sawyer.

"We ain't burglars.

That ain't no sort of style.

We are high- waymen.

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 ran- somed 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 rob- bers.

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 to- gether 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 peo- ple;
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 Wat- son'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,
be- cause 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 pre- tended.

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 superinten- dent 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 rub- bing 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,
any- way.

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 noth- ing -- 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 con- sidable 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 Gen- eral 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 beauti- ful 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 objec- tions.

It was pretty good times up in the woods there,
take it all around.

But by and by pap got too handy
with his hick'ry,
and I couldn't stand it.

I was all over welts.

He got
to going away so much,
too,
and locking me in.

Once he locked me in and was gone three days.

It was dreadful lonesome.

I judged he had got drowned,
and I wasn't ever going
to get out any more.

I was scared.

I made up my mind I would fix up some way
to leave there.

I had tried
to get out of that cabin many a time,
but I couldn't find no way.

There warn't a window
to it big 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 every- thing 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.

his 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 awful- est 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 gov- ment,
though he give the tub some,
too,
all along,
here and there.

He hopped around the cabin con- siderable,
first on one leg and then on the other,
hold- ing 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 after- wards.

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 terri- ble 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.

RGIT 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 float- ing 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 lay- ing 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 trust- ing
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 fel- low 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 some- thing 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 sack- ful 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.

Every- thing 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 land- ing.

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 stab- board!"
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 break- fast.

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 quick- silver,
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,
watch- ing
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 Mis- souri 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 explor- ing 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 an- other 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 out- side 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 fantods.

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 lone- some 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 rub- bage
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,
be- cause 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 my- sef.

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 under- side 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 rum- bling,
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 some- times,
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 with- out 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 mon- strous 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 com- fortable.

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 him- self 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 neighbor- hood?'
"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 rela- tions 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 hun- dred 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 mid- night
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 guit 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 any- body 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 ex- actly 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 every- thing 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,
lay- ing 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 noth- ing 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 yon- der!"
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 wasnUt.

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 state- rooms,
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 be- fore 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 mur- derers,
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;
every- body 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 some- times I'm the freight and passengers.

I ain't as rich as old Jim Hornback,
and I can't be so blame'
gener- ous 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 spon- dulicks 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 feel- ing 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 Soller- mun,
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;
be- cause 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 any- thing 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 boom- ing 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 busi- ness
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 lone- some 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,
be- cause 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 good- ness!"
"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 keep- ing 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 mid- dle,
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 con- science,
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 free- dom,
and you could a paddled ashore and told some- body."

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 chil- dren,
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 sing- ing
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 yon- der,
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 every- body 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 your- self,
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 cross- ings;
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 howl- ing 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,
some- body.

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 Shepherd- sons?"
"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 any- body
with you,
let him keep back -- if he shows him- self 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 four- teen 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 butter- milk -- 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;
some- times 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 mantel- piece,
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,
under- neath.

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.

An- other 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 High- land 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 under- neath 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 under- taker 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 any- thing 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 be- twixt 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 him- self 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 morn- ing 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,
be- cause 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 hand- some lot of quality,
I tell you.

There was another clan of aristocracy around there -- five or six families -- mostly of the name of Shep- herdson.

They was as high-toned and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords.

The Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steam- boat 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 run- ning 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 Granger- ford 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,
any- way.

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 Shepherd- sons -- 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 crip- pled,
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 Shep- herdsons,
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 ser- mon,
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 yester- day.

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 sur- prised.

Said he swum along behind me that night,
and heard me yell every time,
but dasn't answer,
be- cause 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 satis- fied,
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 came 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 be- come 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 day- light 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 every- thing 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 break- fast.

And afterwards we would watch the lonesome- ness 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 ex- pecting 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 medi- cines;
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 for- get 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 confi- dence 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 free- dom;
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 companion- ship 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 look- in'
at this very moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin,
Looy the Seventeen,
son of Looy the Six- teen and Marry Antonette."

"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne;
you must be six or seven hun- dred years old,
at the very least."

"Trouble has done it,
Bilgewater,
trouble has done it;
trouble has brung these gray hairs and this prema- ture balditude.

Yes,
gentlemen,
you see before you,
in blue jeans and misery,
the wanderin',
exiled,
tram- pled-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 on- comfortable.

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 be- lieved he was a runaway nigger.

We don't run day- times 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 every- thing;
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 an- other 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 over- board.

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 admis- sion,
and
"furnish charts of character at twenty-five cents apiece."

The duke said that was HIM.

In an- other bill he was the
"world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian,
Garrick the Younger,
of Drury Lane,
Lon- don."

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 Sun- day.

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 con- dition 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'
planta- tion,
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 any- body 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! Al- ways 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 recollec- tion'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 courthouse,
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 scenes,
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 town.

The stores and houses was most all old,
shackly,
dried up frame con- cerns 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 over- flowed.

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 tinware.

The fences was made of different kinds of boards,
nailed on at dif- ferent 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 white- washed some time or another,
but the duke said it was in Clumbus'
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 peo- ple 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,
be- cause 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 some- body 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 natured- est 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 Sher- burn 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 min- utes,
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 min- utes 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,
squirm- ing 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.

Every- body that seen the shooting was telling how it hap- pened,
and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows,
stretching their necks and listen- ing.

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 bob- bing their heads
to show they understood,
and stoop- ing 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 hang- ing 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,
look- ing down.

The stillness was awful creepy and uncom- fortable.

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 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 cour- age 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 per- fectly 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 crack- ing 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:

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

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

LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.

"There,"
says he,
"if that line don't fetch them,
I don't know Arkansaw!"
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 expecta- tions 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 per- formed 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 ad- vise 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 rapscal- lions;
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 Super- intendent
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 morn- ing.

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,
be- sides,
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
'Liza- beth! 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 his- self 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 any- body 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 judg- ment;
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 be- fore.

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 lay- ing 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. Rob- inson,
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 some- times,
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 Har- vey'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 load- ing,
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 pad- dle 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 steam- boat 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 Marsy 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 shoul- der,
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 shoul- ders;
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 dis- gusting.

Well,
by and by the king he gets up and comes for- ward 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 sym- pathy 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 cry- ing 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. Robin- son,
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,
Biljy,
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 any- thing;
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 to- morrow 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 inTER.

So,
you see,
funeral orgies is an open er public funeral."

He was the WORST I ever struck.

Well,
the iron- jawed man he laughed right in his face.

Everybody was shocked.

Everybody says,
"Why,
DOCTOR!"
and Abner Shackleford says:

"Why,
Robinson,
hain't you heard the news?

This is Harvey Wilks."

The king he smiled eager,
and shoved out his flapper,
and says:

"Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and phy- sician?

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 every- body 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 cry- ing;
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 noth- ing?"
"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 ac- count 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,
Maim,
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 reptle 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 to- night 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. Up- stairs 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,
be- cause 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 com- fortable.

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 snor- ing.

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 re- mainders 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,
show- ing 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 keep- ing 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 soother- ing 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 get- ting 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 under- taker'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 congrega- tion 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 every- body 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 scandal- ous
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 morn- ing.

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 busi- ness -- 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 ex- cited 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 red- dened 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 any- body 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 some- thing 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 break- fast -- 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 neigh- bor 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 cry- ing 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 some- body 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 Eng- land 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 Proc- tors,
but only about the Apthorps -- which
'll be per- fectly 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 sym- pathy 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 want- ing
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 gentle- man 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 puz- zled
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 sun- down."

"HOW'D you come?"
"I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincin- nati."

"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,
gentle- men."

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 investiga- tion,
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 any- body 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 ex- amined 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 any- body 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 slution,
but it's gone
to grass,
partly.

But any- way,
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 right along till he was actuly beginning
to believe what he was saying HIM- SELF;
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:

"Peraps 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 rat- tling powwow.

But the lawyer he jumps on the table and yells,
and says:

"Gentlemen -- gentleMEN! Hear me just a word -- just a SINGLE word -- if you PLEASE! There's one way yet -- let's go and dig up the corpse and look."

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,
some- how,
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 grave- yard 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 light- ning,
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 shoulder- ing 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 break- fast! 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 hap- pened,
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 whis- pers,
'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 every- thing 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 every- thing -- and I a-trusting you all the time,
like you was my own father.

You ought
to been ashamed of your- self
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 mesmeriz- ing,
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 chance 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 bullyrag- ging 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 screech- ing;
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 re- ward 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 NewrLEANS.

No-sirree-BOB,
they ain't no trouble
'bout THAT speculation,
you bet you.

Say,
gimme a chaw tobacker,
won't ye?"
I didn't have none,
so he left.

I went
to the raft,
and set down in the wigwam
to think.

But I couldn't come
to nothing.

I thought till I wore my head sore,
but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble.

After all this long journey,
and after all we'd done
for them scoundrels,
here it was all come
to nothing,
everything all busted up and ruined,
because they could have the heart
to serve Jim such a trick as that,
and make him a slave again all his life,
and amongst strangers,
too,
for forty dirty dollars.

Once I said
to myself it would be a thousand times better
for Jim
to be a slave at home where his family was,
as long as he'd GOT
to be a slave,
and so I'd better write a letter
to Tom Sawyer and tell him
to tell Miss Watson where he was.

But I soon give up that notion
for two things:

she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness
for leaving her,
and so she'd sell him straight down the river again;
and if she didn't,
everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger,
and they'd make Jim feel it all the time,
and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced.

And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger
to get his freedom;
and if I was ever
to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready
to get down and lick his boots
for shame.

That's just the way:

a person does a low-down thing,
and then he don't want
to take no consequences of it.

Thinks as long as he can hide,
it 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 feel- ing.

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,
some- times 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 sleep- ing;
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 de- cide,
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;
be- cause 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 be- fore 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 dog- gery 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 noth- ing,
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 lone- some 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 whisper- ing -- 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 plan- tations,
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 sail- ing 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 t