The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Part 7
by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
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Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Part 7
Chapters XXXI. to XXXV.
Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Release Date: June 28, 2004 [EBook #7106]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN, PART 7. ***
Produced by David Widger
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
By Mark Twain
Part 7.
CHAPTER XXXI.
WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along down
the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long
ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them,
hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the first I
ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal. So
now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they begun to work
the villages again.
First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough for
them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a
dancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo
does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped in and
pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution;
but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a
solid good cussing, and made them skip out. They tackled missionarying,
and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of
everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they got
just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated along,
thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day at a
time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in
the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time.
Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged they
was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it over
and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break into
somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-money
business, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an
agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such
actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold
shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we hid
the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a
shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told us
all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if
anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ("House to rob,
you MEAN," says I to myself; "and when you get through robbing it you'll
come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft--and
you'll have to take it out in wondering.") And he said if he warn't back
by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come
along.
So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and
was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't
seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing.
Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and
no king; we could have a change, anyway--and maybe a chance for THE
chance on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the village, and
hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back
room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers
bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all
his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to
them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun
to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and shook
the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer,
for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a long day
before they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all out of
breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:
"Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!"
But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was
gone! I set up a shout--and then another--and then another one; and run
this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't no
use--old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help it.
But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road,
trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and
asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:
"Yes."
"Whereabouts?" says I.
"Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here. He's a runaway
nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?"
"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two
ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out--and told me to lay
down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard
to come out."
"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him.
He run off f'm down South, som'ers."
"It's a good job they got him."
"Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. It's like
picking up money out'n the road."
"Yes, it is--and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him
FIRST. Who nailed him?"
"It was an old fellow--a stranger--and he sold out his chance in him for
forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think
o' that, now! You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year."
"That's me, every time," says I. "But maybe his chance ain't worth no
more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't
straight about it."
"But it IS, though--straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It
tells all about him, to a dot--paints him like a picture, and tells the
plantation he's frum, below NewrLEANS. No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no
trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker,
won't ye?"
I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the
wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore
my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all
this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it
was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because
they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him
a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty
dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a
slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave,
and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss
Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things:
she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for
leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if
she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd
make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced.
And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a
nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that
town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's
just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to
take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no
disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the
more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down
and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden
that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and
letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up
there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that
hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's
always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable
doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks
I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up
somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so
much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, "There was the
Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a
learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that
nigger goes to everlasting fire."
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I
couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I
kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It
warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I
knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't
right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing
double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was
holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY
I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that
nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was
a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do.
At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and then
see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a
feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece
of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below
Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the
reward if you send.
HUCK FINN.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever
felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it
straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking
how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost
and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our
trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day
and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we
a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I
couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the
other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of
calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I
come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up
there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me
honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how
good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling
the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was
the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got
now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was
a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and
I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then
says to myself:
"All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them
stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole
thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which
was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a
starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I
could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I
was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some
considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that
suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down
the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my
raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept the
night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and
put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or another
in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below
where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and
then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk
her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a
mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.
Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it,
"Phelps's Sawmill," and when I come to the farm-houses, two or three
hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody
around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind, because I
didn't want to see nobody just yet--I only wanted to get the lay of the
land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the
village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along,
straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was
the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch--three-night
performance--like that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I
was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says:
"Hel-LO! Where'd YOU come from?" Then he says, kind of glad and eager,
"Where's the raft?--got her in a good place?"
I says:
"Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace."
Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:
"What was your idea for asking ME?" he says.
"Well," I says, "when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says to
myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went
a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered
me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a
sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and
the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him
along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after
him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the
country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark; then we
fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and
see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to
leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in
the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no
more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down and
cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what DID become of the raft,
then?--and Jim--poor Jim!"
"Blamed if I know--that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had
made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery
the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but what
he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found
the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook
us, and run off down the river.'"
"I wouldn't shake my NIGGER, would I?--the only nigger I had in the
world, and the only property."
"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him
OUR nigger; yes, we did consider him so--goodness knows we had trouble
enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke,
there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake.
And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where's that ten
cents? Give it here."
I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to
spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the
money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never
said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:
"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done
that!"
"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"
"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's
gone."
"SOLD him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he was MY nigger, and that
was my money. Where is he?--I want my nigger."
"Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all--so dry up your blubbering.
Looky here--do you think YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think
I'd trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us--"
He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before.
I went on a-whimpering, and says:
"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow.
I got to turn out and find my nigger."
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on
his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:
"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll
promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you
where to find him."
So I promised, and he says:
"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph--" and then he stopped. You see, he
started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to
study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he
was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the
way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:
"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--and he
lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette."
"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this
very afternoon."
"No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you lose any time about it,
neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in
your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with
US, d'ye hear?"
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted
to be left free to work my plans.
"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want
to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim IS your nigger--some idiots
don't require documents--leastways I've heard there's such down South
here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe
he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting
'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you
don't work your jaw any BETWEEN here and there."
So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I
kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out
at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I
stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. I
reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling
around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get
away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I wanted
to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.
CHAPTER XXXII.
WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny;
the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint
dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and
like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers
the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits
whispering--spirits that's been dead ever so many years--and you always
think they're talking about YOU. As a general thing it makes a body wish
HE was dead, too, and done with it all.
Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they
all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of
logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length,
to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are
going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard,
but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed
off; big double log-house for the white folks--hewed logs, with the
chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been
whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad,
open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house back of
the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the
smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the back
fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ash-hopper and
big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by the kitchen door,
with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more
hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away off in a corner;
some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence;
outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton
fields begins, and after the fields the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and
started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of
a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and then
I knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for that IS the lonesomest
sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting
to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for
I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if
I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went for
me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such
another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a
hub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made out of dogs--circle of
fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses
stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you
could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her
hand, singing out, "Begone YOU Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and she
fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling,
and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back,
wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't
no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger
boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their
mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way
they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house,
about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in
her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same
way the little niggers was going. She was smiling all over so she could
hardly stand--and says:
"It's YOU, at last!--AIN'T it?"
I out with a "Yes'm" before I thought.
She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands and
shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and
she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, "You don't
look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I
don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem
like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!--tell him
howdy."
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and
hid behind her. So she run on:
"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away--or did you get
your breakfast on the boat?"
I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house,
leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got
there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on
a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
"Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry for
it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last!
We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep' you?--boat
get aground?"
"Yes'm--she--"
"Don't say yes'm--say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?"
I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat
would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct;
and my instinct said she would be coming up--from down towards Orleans.
That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names of bars
down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the
one we got aground on--or--Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
"It warn't the grounding--that didn't keep us back but a little. We
blowed out a cylinder-head."
"Good gracious! anybody hurt?"
"No'm. Killed a nigger."
"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago
last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old
Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I
think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a
family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember
now, he DID die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him.
But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification--that was it. He
turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection.
They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up to the town
every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago;
he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn't
you?--oldish man, with a--"
"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight,
and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town
and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too
soon; and so I come down the back way."
"Who'd you give the baggage to?"
"Nobody."
"Why, child, it 'll be stole!"
"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says.
"How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?"
It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
"The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something
to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the officers'
lunch, and give me all I wanted."
I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the
children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump them
a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs.
Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills
streak all down my back, because she says:
"But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word
about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you
start up yourn; just tell me EVERYTHING--tell me all about 'm all every
one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told
you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of."
Well, I see I was up a stump--and up it good. Providence had stood by me
this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it
warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead--I'd got to throw up my hand. So
I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth. I
opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the
bed, and says:
"Here he comes! Stick your head down lower--there, that'll do; you can't
be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on him.
Children, don't you say a word."
I see I was in a fix now. But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't
nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from
under when the lightning struck.
I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in; then
the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
"Has he come?"
"No," says her husband.
"Good-NESS gracious!" she says, "what in the warld can have become of
him?"
"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say it makes me
dreadful uneasy."
"Uneasy!" she says; "I'm ready to go distracted! He MUST a come; and
you've missed him along the road. I KNOW it's so--something tells me
so."
"Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the road--YOU know that."
"But oh, dear, dear, what WILL Sis say! He must a come! You must a
missed him. He--"
"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know
what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind
acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's
come; for he COULDN'T come and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible--just
terrible--something's happened to the boat, sure!"
"Why, Silas! Look yonder!--up the road!--ain't that somebody coming?"
He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps
the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and
give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the window
there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and I
standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and
says:
"Why, who's that?"
"Who do you reckon 't is?"
"I hain't no idea. Who IS it?"
"It's TOM SAWYER!"
By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time to
swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on
shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and
cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary,
and the rest of the tribe.
But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was like
being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they froze
to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't
hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family--I mean the
Sawyer family--than ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And I
explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of
White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right,
and worked first-rate; because THEY didn't know but what it would take
three days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done just
as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty
uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and
comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a
steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, s'pose
Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s'pose he steps in here any
minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep
quiet?
Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it wouldn't do at all. I must go up
the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go up to
the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for going
along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I
druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SO I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a wagon
coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited till
he come along. I says "Hold on!" and it stopped alongside, and his mouth
opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed two or three
times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says:
"I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you want
to come back and ha'nt ME for?"
I says:
"I hain't come back--I hain't been GONE."
When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite
satisfied yet. He says:
"Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injun,
you ain't a ghost?"
"Honest injun, I ain't," I says.
"Well--I--I--well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't
somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn't you ever
murdered AT ALL?"
"No. I warn't ever murdered at all--I played it on them. You come in
here and feel of me if you don't believe me."
So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me again
he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it right off,
because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it hit him where
he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and told his driver
to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told him the kind of a
fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He said, let him
alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and thought, and
pretty soon he says:
"It's all right; I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on
it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the
house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece, and
take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you;
and you needn't let on to know me at first."
I says:
"All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing--a thing that
NOBODY don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that I'm
a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is JIM--old Miss Watson's
Jim."
He says:
"What! Why, Jim is--"
He stopped and went to studying. I says:
"I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low-down business; but
what if it is? I'm low down; and I'm a-going to steal him, and I want
you keep mum and not let on. Will you?"
His eye lit up, and he says:
"I'll HELP you steal him!"
Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most
astonishing speech I ever heard--and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell
considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a
NIGGER-STEALER!
"Oh, shucks!" I says; "you're joking."
"I ain't joking, either."
"Well, then," I says, "joking or no joking, if you hear anything said
about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that YOU don't know
nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him."
Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way
and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on
accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too
quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and
he says:
"Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in that mare to
do it? I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair--not a
hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that
horse now--I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen
before, and thought 'twas all she was worth."
That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see.
But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a
preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the
plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church
and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was
worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and
done the same way, down South.
In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt
Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty
yards, and says:
"Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe it's
a stranger. Jimmy" (that's one of the children) "run and tell Lize to
put on another plate for dinner."
Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger
don't come EVERY year, and so he lays over the yaller-fever, for
interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting for the
house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we was all
bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an
audience--and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances
it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was
suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no,
he come ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got a-front of us he
lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box
that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, and
says:
"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?"
"No, my boy," says the old gentleman, "I'm sorry to say 't your driver
has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more.
Come in, come in."
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, "Too late--he's out
of sight."
"Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with
us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's."
"Oh, I CAN'T make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it. I'll walk
--I don't mind the distance."
"But we won't LET you walk--it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do it.
Come right in."
"Oh, DO," says Aunt Sally; "it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in
the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we can't
let you walk. And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on another
plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us. Come right in
and make yourself at home."
So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be
persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger from
Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson--and he made another
bow.
Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and
everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and
wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last,
still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the
mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was
going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her
hand, and says:
"You owdacious puppy!"
He looked kind of hurt, and says:
"I'm surprised at you, m'am."
"You're s'rp--Why, what do you reckon I am? I've a good notion to take
and--Say, what do you mean by kissing me?"
He looked kind of humble, and says:
"I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I--I--thought
you'd like it."
"Why, you born fool!" She took up the spinning stick, and it looked like
it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. "What
made you think I'd like it?"
"Well, I don't know. Only, they--they--told me you would."
"THEY told you I would. Whoever told you's ANOTHER lunatic. I never
heard the beat of it. Who's THEY?"
"Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am."
It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her fingers
worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
"Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot short."
He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told
me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said
it--every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no more
--I won't, honest."
"You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd RECKON you won't!"
"No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again--till you ask me."
"Till I ASK you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I
lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask you
--or the likes of you."
"Well," he says, "it does surprise me so. I can't make it out, somehow.
They said you would, and I thought you would. But--" He stopped and
looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye
somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, "Didn't YOU
think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?"
"Why, no; I--I--well, no, I b'lieve I didn't."
Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:
"Tom, didn't YOU think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid
Sawyer--'"
"My land!" she says, breaking in and jumping for him, "you impudent young
rascal, to fool a body so--" and was going to hug him, but he fended her
off, and says:
"No, not till you've asked me first."
So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed him
over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he took
what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says:
"Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for YOU at
all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but him."
"It's because it warn't INTENDED for any of us to come but Tom," he says;
"but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come, too;
so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a first-rate
surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me to by and by
tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it was a
mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger to
come."
"No--not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I
hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I
don't mind the terms--I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to
have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it, I
was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack."
We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the
kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven families
--and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that's laid in a
cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old cold
cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long blessing
over it, but it was worth it; and it didn't cool it a bit, neither, the
way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times. There was a
considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me and Tom was on
the lookout all the time; but it warn't no use, they didn't happen to say
nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid to try to work up to
it. But at supper, at night, one of the little boys says:
"Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?"
"No," says the old man, "I reckon there ain't going to be any; and you
couldn't go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and me
all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the people;
so I reckon they've drove the owdacious loafers out of town before this
time."
So there it was!--but I couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep in the
same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night and went up to bed
right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the
lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn't believe anybody was
going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn't hurry up
and give them one they'd get into trouble sure.
On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was murdered,
and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn't come back no more, and
what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all about our
Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much of the raft voyage as I had time
to; and as we struck into the town and up through the--here comes a
raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling,
and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to let
them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king and the duke
astraddle of a rail--that is, I knowed it WAS the king and the duke,
though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing
in the world that was human--just looked like a couple of monstrous big
soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for
them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any
hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to
see. Human beings CAN be awful cruel to one another.
We see we was too late--couldn't do no good. We asked some stragglers
about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very innocent;
and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the middle of
his cavortings on the stage; then somebody give a signal, and the house
rose up and went for them.
So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I was
before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow--though I
hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way; it don't make no
difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got
no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that
didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him.
It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet
ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WE stopped talking, and got to thinking. By and by Tom says:
"Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before! I bet I
know where Jim is."
"No! Where?"
"In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we was at
dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles?"
"Yes."
"What did you think the vittles was for?"
"For a dog."
"So 'd I. Well, it wasn't for a dog."
"Why?"
"Because part of it was watermelon."
"So it was--I noticed it. Well, it does beat all that I never thought
about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see and don't
see at the same time."
"Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked it
again when he came out. He fetched uncle a key about the time we got up
from table--same key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock shows prisoner;
and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a little plantation,
and where the people's all so kind and good. Jim's the prisoner. All
right--I'm glad we found it out detective fashion; I wouldn't give
shucks for any other way. Now you work your mind, and study out a plan
to steal Jim, and I will study out one, too; and we'll take the one we
like the best."
What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer's head I
wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown in
a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan, but
only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right plan
was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says:
"Ready?"
"Yes," I says.
"All right--bring it out."
"My plan is this," I says. "We can easy find out if it's Jim in there.
Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the
island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the
old man's britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river on
the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and Jim
used to do before. Wouldn't that plan work?"
"WORK? Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it's too
blame' simple; there ain't nothing TO it. What's the good of a plan that
ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goose-milk. Why, Huck,
it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap factory."
I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing different; but I
knowed mighty well that whenever he got HIS plan ready it wouldn't have
none of them objections to it.
And it didn't. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was
worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as
mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and
said we would waltz in on it. I needn't tell what it was here, because I
knowed it wouldn't stay the way, it was. I knowed he would be changing
it around every which way as we went along, and heaving in new
bullinesses wherever he got a chance. And that is what he done.
Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in
earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of slavery.
That was the thing that was too many for me. Here was a boy that was
respectable and well brung up; and had a character to lose; and folks at
home that had characters; and he was bright and not leather-headed; and
knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but kind; and yet here he was,
without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to this
business, and make himself a shame, and his family a shame, before
everybody. I COULDN'T understand it no way at all. It was outrageous,
and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so; and so be his true
friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save himself.
And I DID start to tell him; but he shut me up, and says:
"Don't you reckon I know what I'm about? Don't I generly know what I'm
about?"
"Yes."
"Didn't I SAY I was going to help steal the nigger?"
"Yes."
"WELL, then."
That's all he said, and that's all I said. It warn't no use to say any
more; because when he said he'd do a thing, he always done it. But I
couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing; so I just let
it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound to have it
so, I couldn't help it.
When we got home the house was all dark and still; so we went on down to
the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it. We went through the yard so
as to see what the hounds would do. They knowed us, and didn't make no
more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything comes by in
the night. When we got to the cabin we took a look at the front and the
two sides; and on the side I warn't acquainted with--which was the north
side--we found a square window-hole, up tolerable high, with just one
stout board nailed across it. I says:
"Here's the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if we
wrench off the board."
Tom says:
"It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as playing
hooky. I should HOPE we can find a way that's a little more complicated
than THAT, Huck Finn."
"Well, then," I says, "how 'll it do to saw him out, the way I done
before I was murdered that time?"
"That's more LIKE," he says. "It's real mysterious, and troublesome, and
good," he says; "but I bet we can find a way that's twice as long. There
ain't no hurry; le's keep on looking around."
Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a lean-to that
joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was as long
as the hut, but narrow--only about six foot wide. The door to it was at
the south end, and was padlocked. Tom he went to the soap-kettle and
searched around, and fetched back the iron thing they lift the lid with;
so he took it and prized out one of the staples. The chain fell down,
and we opened the door and went in, and shut it, and struck a match, and
see the shed was only built against a cabin and hadn't no connection with
it; and there warn't no floor to the shed, nor nothing in it but some old
rusty played-out hoes and spades and picks and a crippled plow. The
match went out, and so did we, and shoved in the staple again, and the
door was locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful. He says;
"Now we're all right. We'll DIG him out. It 'll take about a week!"
Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door--you only have
to pull a buckskin latch-string, they don't fasten the doors--but that
warn't romantical enough for Tom Sawyer; no way would do him but he must
climb up the lightning-rod. But after he got up half way about three
times, and missed fire and fell every time, and the last time most busted
his brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up; but after he was
rested he allowed he would give her one more turn for luck, and this time
he made the trip.
In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger cabins
to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jim--if it WAS
Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting through breakfast
and starting for the fields; and Jim's nigger was piling up a tin pan
with bread and meat and things; and whilst the others was leaving, the
key come from the house.
This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his wool was all
tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep witches off. He
said the witches was pestering him awful these nights, and making him see
all kinds of strange things, and hear all kinds of strange words and
noises, and he didn't believe he was ever witched so long before in his
life. He got so worked up, and got to running on so about his troubles,
he forgot all about what he'd been a-going to do. So Tom says:
"What's the vittles for? Going to feed the dogs?"
The nigger kind of smiled around gradually over his face, like when you
heave a brickbat in a mud-puddle, and he says:
"Yes, Mars Sid, A dog. Cur'us dog, too. Does you want to go en look at
'im?"
"Yes."
I hunched Tom, and whispers:
"You going, right here in the daybreak? THAT warn't the plan."
"No, it warn't; but it's the plan NOW."
So, drat him, we went along, but I didn't like it much. When we got in
we couldn't hardly see anything, it was so dark; but Jim was there, sure
enough, and could see us; and he sings out:
"Why, HUCK! En good LAN'! ain' dat Misto Tom?"
I just knowed how it would be; I just expected it. I didn't know nothing
to do; and if I had I couldn't a done it, because that nigger busted in
and says:
"Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen?"
We could see pretty well now. Tom he looked at the nigger, steady and
kind of wondering, and says:
"Does WHO know us?"
"Why, dis-yer runaway nigger."
"I don't reckon he does; but what put that into your head?"
"What PUT it dar? Didn' he jis' dis minute sing out like he knowed you?"
Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way:
"Well, that's mighty curious. WHO sung out? WHEN did he sing out? WHAT
did he sing out?" And turns to me, perfectly ca'm, and says, "Did YOU
hear anybody sing out?"
Of course there warn't nothing to be said but the one thing; so I says:
"No; I ain't heard nobody say nothing."
Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him before,
and says:
"Did you sing out?"
"No, sah," says Jim; "I hain't said nothing, sah."
"Not a word?"
"No, sah, I hain't said a word."
"Did you ever see us before?"
"No, sah; not as I knows on."
So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and
says, kind of severe:
"What do you reckon's the matter with you, anyway? What made you think
somebody sung out?"
"Oh, it's de dad-blame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do. Dey's
awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey sk'yers me so. Please to
don't tell nobody 'bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he'll scole me; 'kase
he say dey AIN'T no witches. I jis' wish to goodness he was heah now
--DEN what would he say! I jis' bet he couldn' fine no way to git aroun'
it DIS time. But it's awluz jis' so; people dat's SOT, stays sot; dey
won't look into noth'n'en fine it out f'r deyselves, en when YOU fine it
out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan' b'lieve you."
Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody; and told him to
buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then looks at Jim, and
says:
"I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to catch
a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give him up,
I'd hang him." And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to look at the
dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to Jim and says:
"Don't ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging going on
nights, it's us; we're going to set you free."
Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it; then the nigger
come back, and we said we'd come again some time if the nigger wanted us
to; and he said he would, more particular if it was dark, because the
witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it was good to have folks
around then.
CHAPTER XXXV.
IT would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down
into the woods; because Tom said we got to have SOME light to see how to
dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble; what
we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called fox-fire, and
just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a dark place. We
fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom
says, kind of dissatisfied:
"Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be.
And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan. There
ain't no watchman to be drugged--now there OUGHT to be a watchman. There
ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. And there's Jim chained
by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of his bed: why, all you
got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain. And Uncle
Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the punkin-headed nigger, and
don't send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim could a got out of that
window-hole before this, only there wouldn't be no use trying to travel
with a ten-foot chain on his leg. Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest
arrangement I ever see. You got to invent ALL the difficulties. Well, we
can't help it; we got to do the best we can with the materials we've got.
Anyhow, there's one thing--there's more honor in getting him out
through a lot of difficulties and dangers, where there warn't one of them
furnished to you by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and
you had to contrive them all out of your own head. Now look at just that
one thing of the lantern. When you come down to the cold facts, we
simply got to LET ON that a lantern's resky. Why, we could work with a
torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe. Now, whilst I think of
it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the first chance we
get."
"What do we want of a saw?"
"What do we WANT of a saw? Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed
off, so as to get the chain loose?"
"Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain
off."
"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You CAN get up the
infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever read
any books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny,
nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of getting a
prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; the way all the
best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just so,
and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put some dirt and
grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see no
sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound.
Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip
off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope
ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moat
--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know--and there's
your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you
across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or
wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat to this cabin.
If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one."
I says:
"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under
the cabin?"
But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had his
chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head;
then sighs again, and says:
"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it."
"For what?" I says.
"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.
"Good land!" I says; "why, there ain't NO necessity for it. And what
would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"
"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the
chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would
be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity
enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't
understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so
we'll let it go. But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we
can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we
can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way. And I've et
worse pies."
"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a rope
ladder."
"He HAS got use for it. How YOU talk, you better say; you don't know
nothing about it. He's GOT to have a rope ladder; they all do."
"What in the nation can he DO with it?"
"DO with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he?" That's what they all
do; and HE'S got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do
anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the
time. S'pose he DON'T do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, for
a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews? Of
course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That would be a
PRETTY howdy-do, WOULDN'T it! I never heard of such a thing."
"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it, all
right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no
regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing up
our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble
with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at it,
a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing, and is
just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag
ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no experience, and so
he don't care what kind of a--"
"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep still
--that's what I'D do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a
hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."
"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my advice,
you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline."
He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:
"Borrow a shirt, too."
"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"
"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."
"Journal your granny--JIM can't write."
"S'pose he CAN'T write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if we
make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron
barrel-hoop?"
"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better
one; and quicker, too."
"PRISONERS don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens
out of, you muggins. They ALWAYS make their pens out of the hardest,
toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like
that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks and
months and months to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by
rubbing it on the wall. THEY wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had it.
It ain't regular."
"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?"
"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort and
women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; and
when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to
let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom
of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask
always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too."
"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."
"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."
"Can't nobody READ his plates."
"That ain't got anything to DO with it, Huck Finn. All HE'S got to do is
to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't HAVE to be able to
read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on
a tin plate, or anywhere else."
"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"
"Why, blame it all, it ain't the PRISONER'S plates."
"But it's SOMEBODY'S plates, ain't it?"
"Well, spos'n it is? What does the PRISONER care whose--"
He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we
cleared out for the house.
Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the
clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went
down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing,
because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn't
borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners; and
prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody
don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in a prisoner to
steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's his right; and
so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to
steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves
out of prison with. He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very
different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he
warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was
that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that,
when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made
me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for.
Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we NEEDED. Well,
I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn't need it to get out
of prison with; there's where the difference was. He said if I'd a
wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal
with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I
couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set
down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I
see a chance to hog a watermelon.
Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled
down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he
carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep
watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile
to talk. He says:
"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed."
"Tools?" I says.
"Yes."
"Tools for what?"
"Why, to dig with. We ain't a-going to GNAW him out, are we?"
"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a
nigger out with?" I says.
He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:
"Huck Finn, did you EVER hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and
all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now
I want to ask you--if you got any reasonableness in you at all--what kind
of a show would THAT give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend
him the key and done with it. Picks and shovels--why, they wouldn't
furnish 'em to a king."
"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do we
want?"
"A couple of case-knives."
"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?"
"Yes."
"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."
"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the RIGHT way--and
it's the regular way. And there ain't no OTHER way, that ever I heard
of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these
things. They always dig out with a case-knife--and not through dirt, mind
you; generly it's through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks
and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in
the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that
dug himself out that way; how long was HE at it, you reckon?"
"I don't know."
"Well, guess."
"I don't know. A month and a half."
"THIRTY-SEVEN YEAR--and he come out in China. THAT'S the kind. I wish
the bottom of THIS fortress was solid rock."
"JIM don't know nobody in China."
"What's THAT got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But
you're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to
the main point?"
"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he COMES out; and Jim
don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too old to
be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last."
"Yes he will LAST, too. You don't reckon it's going to take thirty-seven
years to dig out through a DIRT foundation, do you?"
"How long will it take, Tom?"
"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't take
very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. He'll
hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to advertise Jim,
or something like that. So we can't resk being as long digging him out
as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years; but
we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this: that we
really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can LET ON,
to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch
him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon
that 'll be the best way."
"Now, there's SENSE in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost nothing;
letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind letting
on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain me none,
after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of
case-knives."
"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."
"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says,
"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the
weather-boarding behind the smoke-house."
He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:
"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and smouch
the knives--three of them." So I done it.
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