THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (TOM SAWYER'S COMRADE) SCENE : The Mississippi Valley TIME: Forty to Fifty Years Ago BY MARK TWAIN ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS UNIFORM EDITION OF MARK TWAIN'S WORKS Red Cloth. Crown 8vo. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. Illustrated. $ THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT, Etc. A CONNECTICUT YANKEE. Illustrated. HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Illustrated. PRINCE AND PAUPER. Illustrated. LIFE ON THB MISSISSIPPI. Illustrated. THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEVBURG, Etc. Illustrated. TOM SAWYER ABROAD, Etc. Illustrated. ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. Illustrated. PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. Illustrated. SKETCHES NEW AND OLD. Illustrated. THB $30,000 BEQUEST, Etc. Illustrated. INNOCENTS ABROAD. Illustrated. ROUGHING IT. Illustrated. A TRAMP ABROAD. Illustrated. THE GILDED AGE. Illustrated. FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR. Illustrated. JOAN OF ARC. Illustrated. Other Books by Mark Twain CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN. With Frontispiece. ) EDITORIAL WILD OATS. Illustrated. A HORSE'S TALE. Illustrated. EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY. Illustrated. EVE'S DIARY. Illustrated. A DOG'S TALE. Illustrated. THE JUMPING FROG. Illustrated. How TO TELL A STORY, Etc. A DOUBLE-BARRELLED DETECTIVE STORY. Illustrated. Is SHAKESPEARE DEAD? net Copyright, 1884, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS. Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. NOTICE PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted ; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished ; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, PER G. G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE. 222755' EXPLANATORY IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect ; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect ; the ordinary " Pike County " dialect ; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-hazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Civilizing Huck Miss Watson Tom Sawyer Waits CHAPTER II The Boys Escape Jim Tom Sawyer's Gang Deep-laid Plans . . 6 CHAPTER III A Good Going-over Grace Triumphant" One of Tom Sawyer's Lies" .........i 14 CHAPTER IV Huck and the Judge Superstition ,,,,,, 2O CHAPTER V Huck's Father The Fond Parent Reform .,,,.,, 25 CHAPTER VI He Went for Judge Thatcher Huck Decides to Leave Political Economy Thrashing Around 31 CHAPTER VII Laying for Him Locked in the Cabin Sinking the Body Rest ing 40 CHAPTER VIII Sleeping in the Woods Raising the Dead Exploring the Island Finding Jim Jim's Escape Signs Balum 49 Vlll CHAPTER IX PAGE The Cave The Floating House 64 CHAPTER X The Find Old Hank Bunker In Disguise , - . . , . 70 CHAPTER XI Huck and the Woman The Search Prevarication Going to Goshen. ...,,.. 75 CHAPTER XII Slow Navigation Borrowing Things Boarding the Wreck The Plotters Hunting for the Boat 85 CHAPTER XIII Escaping from the Wreck The Watchman Sinking .... 95 CHAPTER XIV A General Good Time The Harem French ....... 102 CHAPTER XV Huck Loses the Raft In the Fog Huck Finds the Raft Trash 108 CHAPTER XVI Expectation A White Lie Floating Currency Running by Cairo Swimming Ashore 116 CHAPTER XVII An Evening Call The Farm in Arkansaw Interio:: Decorations Stephen Bowling Bots Poetical Effusions 128 CHAPTER XVIII Col. Grangerford Aristocracy Feuds The Testament Recov ering the Raft The Wood-pile Pork and Cabbage . . . 140 CHAPTER XIX Tying Up Daytimes An Astronomical Theory Running a Temperance Revival The Duke of Bridgewater The Trou bles of Royalty 156 CHAPTER XX PAGE Huck Explains Laying Out a Campaign Working the Camp- meeting A Pirate at the Camp-meeting The Duke as a Printer 168 CHAPTER XXI Sword Exercise Hamlet's Soliloquy They Loafed Around Town A Lazy Town Old Boggs Dead 180 CHAPTER XXII Sherburn Attending the Circus Intoxication in the Ring The Thrilling Tragedy 193 CHAPTER XXIII Sold Royal Comparisons Jim Gets Homesick 2OI CHAPTER XXIV Jim in Royal Robes They Take a Passenger Getting Informa tion Family Grief 209 CHAPTER XXV Is It Them ? Singing the ' ' Doxologer " Awful Square Funeral Orgies A Bad Investment 217 CHAPTER XXVI A Pious King The King's Clergy She Asked His Pardon Hiding in the Room Huck Takes the Money 227 CHAPTER XXVII The Funeral Satisfying Curiosity Suspicious of Huck Quick Sales and Small Profits 238 CHAPTER XXVIII The Trip to England " The Brute !" Mary Jane Decides to Leave Huck Parting with Mary Jane Mumps The Op position Line 347 CHAPTER XXIX Contested Relationship The King Explains the Loss A Question of Handwriting Digging up the Corpse Huck Escapes . . 260 CHAPTER XXX PAGE The King Went for Him A Royal Row Powerful Mellow . . 273 CHAPTER XXXI Ominous Plans News from Jim Old Recollections A Sheep Story Valuable Information 278 CHAPTER XXXII Still and Sunday-like Mistaken Identity Up a Stump In a Dilemma 290 CHAPTER XXXIII A Nigger Stealer Southern Hospitality A Pretty Long Blessing Tar and Feathers 298 CHAPTER XXXIV The Hut by the Ash-hopper Outrageous Climbing the Light ning-rod Troubled with Witches 308 CHAPTER XXXV Escaping Properly Dark Schemes Discrimination in Stealing A Deep Hole 316 CHAPTER XXXVI The Lightning-rod His Level Best A Bequest to Posterity A High Figure 326 CHAPTER XXXVII The Last Shirt Mooning Around Sailing Orders The Witch Pie 333 CHAPTER XXXVIII The Coat of Arms A Skilled Superintendent Unpleasant Glory A Tearful Subject 342 CHAPTER XXXIX Rats Lively Bed-fellows The Straw Dummy 351 CHAPTER XL Fishing The Vigilance Committee A Lively Run Jim Advises a Doctor 358 XI CHAPTER XLI PAGB The Doctor Uncle Silas Sister Hotchkiss Aunt Sally in Trouble v . .. . ..,.. 366 CHAPTER XLII Tom Sawyer Wounded The Doctor's Story Tom Confesses Aunt Polly Arrives Hand Out Them Letters ....,, 375 CHAPTER THE LAST Out of Bondage Paying the Captive Yours Truly, Huck Finn - ^86 ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR Frontispiece TOM SAWYER'S BAND OF ROBBERS . . . Facing page IO THE ROBBERS DISPERSED a 16 SOLID COMFORT n 32 HUCKLEBERRY FINN u 42 JIM AND THE GHOST H 56 MISTO BRADISH'S NIGGER 62 JIM SEES A DEAD MAN it 66 "A FAIR FIT" 72 " ' HELLO, WHAT'S UP ?' " U 98 "WE TURNED IN AND SLEPT" .... U 1 02 SOLOMON AND HIS MILLION WIVES . . . (4 104 AMONG THE SNAGS it no YOUNG HARNEY SHEPHERDSON .... M 146 "AND DOGS A-COMING" (1 1 60 "'l AM THE LATE DAUPHIN'" .... t4 164 "COURTING ON THE SLY" . . . . . . n 174 HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY tf 182 "'GIMME A CHAW'" U 186 THE DUKE LOOKS UNDER THE BED . . U 234 THE AUCTION U 258 "SHE HUGGED HIM TIGHT" (1 292 THE BREAKFAST-HORN u 322 TOM ADVISES A WITCH PIE it 332 " YOURS TRULY, HUCK FINN " it 384 THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN 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 any body 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 dol lars 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 I HP 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 mat ter with them, that is, nothing, only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different ; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better. After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him ; but by-and-by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time ; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too ; of course that was all right, because she done it herself. Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, " Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry ;" and " Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry set up straight ;" and pretty soon she would say, " Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry why don't you try to behave ?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres ; all I wanted was a change, I warn't par ticular. 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 trou ble, 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, for ever 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 some thing cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lone some 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-whoo- ing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die ; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle ; and before I could budge it was all shrivelled 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 confi dence. 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 some thing was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a " me-yow f 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 tip-toeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stoop ing 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 set ting 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, listen ing. Then he says : "Who dah?" He listened some more ; then he come tip-toeing down and stood right between us ; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it ; and then my ear begun to itch ; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty 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 any wheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says : "Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do : I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin." So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes ; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore and then I was pretty soon comfort able again. Tom he made a sign to me kind of a little noise with his mouth and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away ; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I 8 waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't^wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans ; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by- and-by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire ; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, " Hm ! What you know 'bout witches ?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five- center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying 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 so stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill top we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe ; and the stars over us was spar kling 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 hill-side, 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 hun dred 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 IO of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets ; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued ; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever. Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of pirate books and robber books, and every gang that was high- toned had it. Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says: " Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family ; what you going to do 'bout him ?" " Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer. " Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more." They talked it over, and they was going to rule me II 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?" 12 " 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 / 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 '11 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 try ing 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 together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Har per 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 what ever 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 Wat son to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way. I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork ? Why can't the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up ? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was " spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant I must help other people, and do everything I could 15 for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it except for the other people ; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Provi dence in a way to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery. Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me ; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway ; said this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap ; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried i6 him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, be cause I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by-and-by, though I wished he wouldn't. We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," and he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the cave and pow-wow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blaz ing 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 thou sand " 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, THE ROBBERS DISPERSED 17 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 any thing but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer- class at that. We busted it up, and chased the chil dren 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 hun dreds of sodiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he called ma gicians, 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 num skull. " Why," says he, " a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would hash you up like nothing be- 2HF fore you could say Jack Robinson. They are uo 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-roll- ing, 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 superin tendent 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 be fore I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp." " How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not." 19 "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 differ ent. It had all the marks of a Sunday-school. CHAPTER IV WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway. At first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfac tory. 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 21 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, feel ing worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind ; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out. I went down the front garden and dumb 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." 22 " No, sir," I says, " I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it ; I want to give it to you the six thousand and all." He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says : " Why, what can you mean, my boy ?" I says, " Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take it won't you ?" He says: "Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?" " Please take it," says I, " and don't ask me nothing then I won't have to tell no lies." He studied a while, and then he says : " Oho-o ! I think I see. You want to sell all your property to me not give it. That's the correct idea." Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says : " There ; you see it says ' for a consideration.' That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign it." So I signed it, and left. Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair- ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held At 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 coun terfeit 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 differ ence. 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 24 shiny, en t'other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by- en-by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung." When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there set 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 mis taken that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unex pected ; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothering about. He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray ; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed ; it was white ; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl a tree- toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on 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 can dle down. I noticed the window was up ; so he had 26 dumb 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, dorit 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 ? /'// 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 peo ple to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lem- me 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. / 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 27 you told me. Now looky here ; you stop that put ting 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 les sons 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 pun- gle, 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 whiskey; 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 29 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 sym pathy, 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 '11 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." 3Q 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 some thing like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night sometime he got powerful thirsty and dumb 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 some body found him after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take sound ings 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 shot-gun, 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, wasrit 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 32 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 whiskey, 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 33 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 to town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed 3HF 34 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 ^or my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up considerable, be cause I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a con siderable 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 whiskey, and an old book and two newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded. I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adam he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment. This time he says: " Call this a govment ! why, just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him a man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for him and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call that gov ment ! 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 no tion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, 36 and I tola 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 be low 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 37 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 gov ment, 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, thiev ing, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and " Pap was a-going 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 consid erable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes ; and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too ; but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe. After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets by-and-by; but luck didn't run my way. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning. I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs: and then he would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheek but I couldn't see no snakes. He started and run round and round the cabin, hollering " Take him off! take him off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting ; then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by-and- by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the cor ner. By-and-by he raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, very low i 39 " 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 load ed, and then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did drag along. CHAPTER VII " GlT 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 look ing sour and sick, too. He says : " What you doin' with this gun?" I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I says-. " Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him." "Why didn't you roust me out?" " Well, I tried to, but I couldn't ; I couldn't budge you." " Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be along in a minute." He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark ; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be always luck for me ; because as soon as that rise begins here comes cord- wood floating down, and pieces of log rafts some times a dozen logs together ; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the wood-yards and the saw-mill. 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, rid ing high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. It was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I dumb 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 apiece 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 42 of us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off be fore 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 drift-wood going by on the rise. By-and- by along comes part of a log raft nine logs fast to gether. 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. HUCKLEBERRY FINN 43 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 whiskey-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 every thing that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out at the wood-pile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done. I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back 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. 44 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. No body could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that. Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blood ed the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the place pap done everything with his clasp-knife, about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the wil lows 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 45 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 whet stone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal-sack with a string, so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again. It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow ; then I took a bite to eat, and by- and-by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me. All right ; I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me ; I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place. I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift-logs that went a-slipping 46 along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and smelt late. You know what I mean I don't know the words to put it in. I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just go ing 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 drift-wood, and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky ; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine ; I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear on the water 47 such nights ! I heard people talking at the ferry- landing. I heard what they said, too every word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights now. T'other one said this warn't one of the short ones, he reckoned and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed again ; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh ; he ripped out something brisk, and said let him alone. The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his old woman she would think it was pretty good ; but he said that warn't nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than about a week longer. After that the talk got further and further away, and I couldn't make out the words anymore; 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. 48 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 drift-wood 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 mid dle 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 most ly 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 ferry-boat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the matter now. " Boom !" I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferry-boat's side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my carcass come to the top. I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for 4HF 50 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 morn ing 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 look out, and if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore I knowed enough for that. But by-and-by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was " baker's bread " what the quality eat ; none of your low-down corn-pone. I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching the bread and watching the ferry* boat, and very well satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind. I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The ferry-boat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread, and laid down behind a log on the back 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, fur ther 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 giv ing it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot of the island and started up the chan nel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town. I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast. When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well satisfied;' but by-and-by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened to the currents washing along, and counted the stars and drift-logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed ; there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it. And so for three days and nights. No difference just the same thing. But the next day I went 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 ' 53 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 wait ed for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tip-toes as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else. I slunk along another piece further, then listened again ; and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too. When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in my craw ; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So J 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 54 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 be fore 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 plunk- ety-plunk, plunkety-plunk, and says to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people's voices. I got every thing 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 think ing. And every time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't do me no good. By-and-by I says to myself, I can't live this way I'm a-going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me; I'll find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off. So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I poked along well on to an hour, everything still 55 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 lit tle while I see a pale streak over the tree-tops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck somehow ; I couldn't seem to find the place. But by-and-by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I went for it, cau tious and slow. By-and-by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fan-tods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim ! I bet I was glad to see him. I says : " Hello, Jim !" and skipped out. He bounced up and stared at me wild. The*n he drops down on his knees, and puts his hands together and says : " Doan' hurt me don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos*. I awluz liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in de river agin, 56 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 57 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 bet ter 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 tnjun, I will. People would call me a low down .Ablitionist 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." 58 " 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 nig ger trader roun' de place considable lately, en I be gin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I hear ole missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack 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 hun gry, 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 59 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 Ian' 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 raft 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 dumb 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 Ian' mos' anywhers, but I couldn't bank too bluff. I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I foun' a good place. I went into de 6o woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as dey move de lantern roun' so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right." " And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why didn't you get mud-turkles ?" " How you gwyne to git 'm? You can't slip up on um en grab um ; en how's a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in de night? En I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime." " Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of course. Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon ?" " Oh yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah watched um thoo de bushes." Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and he did. And Jim said you musn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table-cloth after sun-down. 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- 6i 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. W'unst 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' dol lars mo' at de en' er de year. Well, all de niggers went in, but dey didn't have much. I wuz de on'y one dat had much. So I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd start a bank mysef. Well, o' course dat nigger want' to keep me out er de business, bekase he says dey warn't business 'nough for two banks, so he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de en' er de year. " So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirty- five dollars right off en keep things a-movin'. Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn' know it ; en I bought it off'n him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en' er de year come; but somebody stole de wood- flat dat night, en nex' day de one-laigged nigger say de bank's busted. So dey didn' none uv us git no money." "What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?" " Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me to give it to a nigger name' Balum Balum's Ass dey call him for short; he's one er dem chuckle-heads, you know. But he's lucky, dey say, en I see I warn't lucky. De dream say let Balum inves' de ten cents en he'd make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po' len* to de Lord, en boun' to git his money back a hund'd tknes. So Balum he tuck en give de MISTO BRADISH'S NIGGER 63 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 secu rity. 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 dumb 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 cav ern was as big as two or three rooms bunched togeth er, 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 bfrds 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 65 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 dark ened up, and begun to thunder and lighten ; so the birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue- black outside, and lovely ; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby ; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves ; and then a per fect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild ; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest fst ! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree -tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before ; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know. SHF 66 " 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 ca noe. It was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We went wind ing 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 cav ern 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 \ 67 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 up-stairs window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight. The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we looked in at the win dow. 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 scat tered around over the floor, and old whiskey bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth ; and 68 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 fish-line as thick as my little finger with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, and a 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 wood en 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 peo ple 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 1 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 yi 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 an other spring. I laid him out in a second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whiskey-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 72 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 be gun to come, and so I judged he was all right ; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whiskey. 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 be lieve him next time. And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it ; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say ; and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool. Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again ; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, 73 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 practised 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. 74 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 lit tle 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 76 a half, and she'd send him along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her re lations 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 7 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 77 the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the ferry-boat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone ; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see ; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with. The judge give him some, and that evening he got drunk, and was around till after 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 any thing on him, you know ; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in Huck's money as easy as nothing." " Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?" " Oh no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him." " Why, are they after him yet ?" " Well, you're innocent, ain't you 1 Does three hun- 78 dred dollars lay round every day for people to pick up ? Some folks thinks the nigger ain't far from here. I'm one of them but I hain't talked it around. A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't 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 hid ing 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 look ing at me pretty curious and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to be interest ed 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 bor row another gun. They'll go over after midnight." 79 " 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 8o 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 hard ly what to do. But I says : 8i " 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 any thing. 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 mustn't go back on her prom ise. 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 travelled 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 6 HP 82 sleep. He told me when the roads forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen." " He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong." " Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight." " Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it." So she put me up a snack, and says : " Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first ? Answer up prompt now don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first ?" " The hind end, mum." " Well, then, a horse ?" " The for'rard end, mum." " Which side of a tree does the moss grow on ?" " North side." "If fifteen cows is browsing on a hill-side, 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 83 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 al ways does, but a man always does t'other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tip-toe and fetch your hand up over your head as 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 '11 be in a condi tion when you get to Goshen, I reckon." I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up - stream far enough to make the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then. When I was about the middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens ; the sound come faint over the water but clear eleven. When I struck the head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started a good fire there on a high and dry spot. Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile and a half below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the timber and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound asleep on the ground. I roused him out and says : " Git up and hump yourself, Jim ! There ain't a minute to lose. They're after us !" Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word ; but the way he worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By that time everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We put out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a candle outside after that. I took the canoe out from 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 tow-head in a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cotton-wood 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 sand-bar that has cotton-woods 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, 86 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 tow-head 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 cotton-wood thicket, and looked up and down and across ; nothing in sight ; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for to hold it to its place ; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly ; the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't have to light it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they call a " crossing;" for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water; so up -bound boats didn't always run the channel, but hunted easy water. This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all that night, nor the next, nor the next. Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hill-sides, 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 al ways said, take a chicken when you get a chance, 88 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, any way. 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 crab-apples 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 crab-apples 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, 89 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-/t I thought I was a goner, for whenever i6o 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 '11 throw the dogs off the scent." They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our tow-head, 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 tow-head and hid in the cotton-woods 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 car pet-bags. The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about "AND DOGS A-COMING" as ornery. After breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these chaps didn't know one another. " What got you into trouble ?" says the baldhead to t'other chap. " Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth and it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it but I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out with you. That's the whole yarn what's yourn ?" "Well, I'd ben a-runnin' a little temperance re vival thar 'bout a week, and was the pet of the wom en-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, chil dren 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 geth- erin' 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?" l62 "Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medi cines ; theatre-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 any thing 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 baldhead. " Tothink 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. " Bern 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 ? / 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 fr? 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 my self. 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 freedom ; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the titles and estates the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal descendant of that infant I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater ; and here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft !" Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but he said it warn't much use, 164 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 pleas ing to him. But the old man got pretty silent by -and -by didn't have much to say, and didn't look pretty com fortable 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 " 'I AM THE LATE DAUPHIN 165 the hand and squeezed it, and says, " That secret of your being : speak !" " Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin !" You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says : " You are what ?" " Yes, my friend, it is too true your eyes is lookin' at this very moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette." " You ! At your age ! No ! You mean you're the late Charlemagne ; you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least." " Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it ; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this pre mature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of France." Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to do, we was so sorry and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort him. But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all could do him any good ; though he said it often made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him " Your Majesty," and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of good, i66 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 Bilge- water 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 '11 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 un comfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendli ness on the raft ; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right arid 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 167 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. THEY asked us considerable many questions ; want ed 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 noth- thing 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 steam boat 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 1 69 coming out in skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a runaway nig ger. We don't run daytimes no more now ; nights they don't bother us." The duke says : " Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we want to. I'll think the thing over I'll invent a plan that '11 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 over hauling 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 '11 take the shuck bed yourself." Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, be ing afraid there was going to be some more trouble amongst them ; so we was pretty glad when the duke says: " "Pis 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 ; I 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 longways 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-wack ! bum! bum! bum- ble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit and then rip comes another flash and another sock dolager. 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 admission, and " furnish charts of character at twenty-five cents apiece." The duke said that was him. In another bill he was the "world -renowned Shakespearian tra gedian, 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-actn', 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 oncom- mon 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 173 before she goes to bed, and she's got on her night gown and her ruffled nightcap. Here are the cos tumes 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 night-shirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was satis fied ; 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-meet ing, 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, lit- 174 tered-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 drip ping, 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 chil dren 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 "COURTING ON THE SLY"' 175 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 peo ple 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 preach er 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 every body. Then somebody sings out, " Take up a col lection 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 every body said it, the preacher too. So the king went all through the crowd with his 177 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 run ning 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 in vited 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 whiskey, 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 hid 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, 12 HF 178 but he took in three subscriptions for half a dol lar apiece on condition of them paying him in ad vance; they were going to pay in cord -wood 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' plan tation, 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 ex penses. " 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 hand bill and say we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so we got this lit tle 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. 179 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 power ful 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 practise 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 practise 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 sail or's horn-pipe ; 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 cele brated thing in Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sub lime ! Always fetches the house. I haven't got it in the book I've only got one volume but I reckon I can piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call it back from rec ollection'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 for wards, 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 1 82 any acting ever / 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 ! HAMLET S SOLILOQUY 183 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 live ly 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 cy press-trees, and all of us but Jim took the canoe and went down there to see if there was any chance in that place for our show. We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there that afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he hired the court-house, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They read like this: 1 84 Shaksperean Revival ! ! ! Wonderful Attraction ! For One Night Only ! The world renowned tragedians, David Garrick the younger, of Drury Lane Theatre, London, and Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre, Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the Royal Continental Theatres, in their sublime Shaksperean Spectacle entitled The Balcony Scene in Romeo and Juliet ! ! ! Romeo Mr. Garrick Juliet Mr. Kean Assisted by the whole strength of the company ! New costumes, new scenery, new appointments ! Also : The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling Broad-sword conflict In Richard III. ! ! ! Richard III Mr. Garrick Richmond Mr. Kean Also: (by special request) Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy ! ! By the Illustrious Kean ! Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris ! For One Night Only, On account of imperative European engagements! Admission 25 cents ; children and servants, 10 cents. Then we went loafing around town. The stores and houses was most all old, shackly, dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted ; they was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was 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 bot tles, and rags, and played-out tin-ware. 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's time, like enough. There was generly hogs in the garden, and people driving them out. All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in front, and the country peo ple hitched their horses to the awning-posts. There was empty dry-goods 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 1 86 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 loaf ers never has a cent in the world, nor a chaw of to bacco 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 Thomp son the last chaw I had " which is a lie pretty much every time ; 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 sis ter'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 //#." 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 " ' GIMME A CHAW' 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 milk ing 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 any thing 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 danger- some, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always mov ing back, and back, and back, because the river's al ways gnawing at it. 1 88 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 whiskey-drink ing going on, and I seen three fights. By -and -by somebody sings out : " Here comes old Boggs ! in from the country for his little old monthly drunk ; here he comes, boys !" All the loafers looked glad ; I reckoned they was used to having fun out of Boggs. One of them says : " Wonder who he's a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If he'd a-chawed up all the men he's ben a gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have considera ble 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 ne couldn't wait now because he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, " Meat first, and spoon vittles to top off on." He see me, and rode up and says: " Whar'd you come f'm, boy ? You prepared to die?" Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says : " He don't mean nothing ; he's always a-carryin' on like that when he's drunk. He's the best-naturedest old fool in Arkansaw never hurt nobody, drunk nor sober." Boggs rode up before the biggest stove 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 minutes, and so he must go home he must go right away. But it didn't do no good. He cussed away with all his might, and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode over it, and pretty soon away he went a -raging down the street again, with his gray hair a-flying. Everybody that could get a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they could lock him up and get him sober ; but it warn't no use up the street he would tear again, and give Sher- burn 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 per suade 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 192 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 stove-pipe 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 snatch ing down every clothes-line they come to to do the hanging with. CHAPTER XXII THEY swarmed up the street towards Sherburn's house, a-whooping and raging like Injuns, and every thing had to clear the way or get run over and tromped to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heel ing 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 cry ing 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 deliber ate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave sucked back. Sherburn never said a word just stood there, look- is HF