ADVENTURES
OF
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
(Tom Sawyer's Comrade)
By Mark Twain
Part 8.
CONTENTS.
|
CHAPTER XXXVI. CHAPTER XXXVII. CHAPTER XXXVIII. CHAPTER XXXIX. CHAPTER XL. CHAPTER XLI. CHAPTER XLII. CHAPTER THE LAST. |
ILLUSTRATIONS.
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Scene:
The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago
CHAPTER XXXVI.
AS
soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the
lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile of
fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the way, about
four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom said we was
right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and when we got through
there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole there, because
Jim's counter-pin hung down most to the ground, and you'd have to raise it up
and look under to see the hole. So we dug and dug with the case-knives
till most midnight; and then we was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and
yet you couldn't see we'd done anything hardly. At last I says:
"This
ain't no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year job, Tom
Sawyer."
He
never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped digging,
and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking. Then he says:
"It
ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work. If we was prisoners it
would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry; and we
wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was changing
watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could keep it up right
along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the way it ought to be done.
But WE can't fool along; we got to rush; we ain't got no time to spare.
If we was to put in another night this way we'd have to knock off for a
week to let our hands get well—couldn't touch a case-knife with them
sooner."
"Well,
then, what we going to do, Tom?"
"I'll
tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like it to
get out; but there ain't only just the one way: we got to dig him out
with the picks, and LET ON it's case-knives."
"NOW
you're TALKING!" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler
all the time, Tom Sawyer," I says. "Picks is the thing, moral
or no moral; and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow.
When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school
book, I ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's done. What I want
is my nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my Sunday-
school book; and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing I'm a- going
to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with; and
I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther."
"Well,"
he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like this; if
it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by and see the
rules broke—because right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain't
got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better. It
might answer for YOU to dig Jim out with a pick, WITHOUT any letting on,
because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for me, because I do know
better. Gimme a case-knife."
He had
his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and says:
"Gimme
a CASE-KNIFE."
I
didn't know just what to do—but then I thought. I scratched around amongst
the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took it and went to
work, and never said a word.
He was
always just that particular. Full of principle.
So
then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about, and made the
fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as long as we
could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for it. When I got up
stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing his level best with the
lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his hands was so sore. At last he
says:
"It
ain't no use, it can't be done. What you reckon I better do? Can't
you think of no way?"
"Yes,"
I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs, and let
on it's a lightning-rod."
So he
done it.
Next
day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house, for to make
some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I hung around the nigger
cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin plates. Tom says it
wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever see the plates that Jim throwed
out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel and jimpson weeds under the
window-hole—then we could tote them back and he could use them over
again. So Tom was satisfied. Then he says:
"Now,
the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."
"Take
them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."
He
only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard of such
an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By and by he said he had
ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide on any of
them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first.
That
night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took one of the
candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard Jim snoring; so we
pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we whirled in with the pick
and shovel, and in about two hours and a half the job was done. We crept
in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and pawed around and found the candle
and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile, and found him looking hearty and
healthy, and then we woke him up gentle and gradual. He was so glad to
see us he most cried; and called us honey, and all the pet names he could think
of; and was for having us hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain off of his leg
with right away, and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he
showed him how unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our
plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an alarm; and
not to be the least afraid, because we would see he got away, SURE. So
Jim he said it was all right, and we set there and talked over old times
awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim told him Uncle
Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see
if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of them was kind as they
could be, Tom says:
"NOW
I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things by them."
I
said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass ideas I
ever struck;" but he never paid no attention to me; went right on.
It was his way when he'd got his plans set.
So he
told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and other large things
by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the lookout, and not be
surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and we would put small things in
uncle's coat-pockets and he must steal them out; and we would tie things to
aunt's apron-strings or put them in her apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and
told him what they would be and what they was for. And told him how to
keep a journal on the shirt with his blood, and all that. He told him
everything. Jim he couldn't see no sense in the most of it, but he
allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him; so he was satisfied, and
said he would do it all just as Tom said.
Jim
had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good sociable
time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to bed, with hands that
looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high spirits. He said it was
the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most intellectural; and said if
he only could see his way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives
and leave Jim to our children to get out; for he believed Jim would come to
like it better and better the more he got used to it. He said that in
that way it could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the
best time on record. And he said it would make us all celebrated that had
a hand in it.
In the
morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass candlestick into
handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in his pocket. Then we
went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's notice off, Tom shoved a piece
of candlestick into the middle of a corn- pone that was in Jim's pan, and we
went along with Nat to see how it would work, and it just worked noble; when
Jim bit into it it most mashed all his teeth out; and there warn't ever
anything could a worked better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but
what it was only just a piece of rock or something like that that's always
getting into bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing but what
he jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first.
And
whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a couple of the
hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on piling in till there
was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room in there to get your breath.
By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to door! The nigger Nat he
only just hollered "Witches" once, and keeled over on to the floor
amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the
door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and the dogs went for it, and in
two seconds he was out himself and back again and shut the door, and I knowed
he'd fixed the other door too. Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him
and petting him, and asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again.
He raised up, and blinked his eyes around, and says:
"Mars
Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a million dogs,
er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in dese tracks. I did,
mos' sholy. Mars Sid, I FELT um—I FELT um, sah; dey was all over
me. Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's on one er dem witches
jis' wunst—on'y jis' wunst—it's all I'd ast. But mos'ly I
wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does."
Tom
says:
"Well,
I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just at this runaway
nigger's breakfast-time? It's because they're hungry; that's the reason.
You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for YOU to do."
"But
my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie? I doan' know how
to make it. I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."
"Well,
then, I'll have to make it myself."
"Will
you do it, honey?—will you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo' foot, I
will!"
"All
right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and showed us
the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful. When we come
around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the pan, don't you
let on you see it at all. And don't you look when Jim unloads the
pan—something might happen, I don't know what. And above all, don't
you HANDLE the witch-things."
"HANNEL
'm, Mars Sid? What IS you a-talkin' 'bout? I wouldn' lay de weight
er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion dollars, I
wouldn't."
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THAT
was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pile in the
back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces of bottles, and
wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched around and found an old
tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well as we could, to bake the pie in,
and took it down cellar and stole it full of flour and started for breakfast,
and found a couple of shingle-nails that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner
to scrabble his name and sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of
them in Aunt Sally's apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and t'other we
stuck in the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because we
heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the runaway nigger's house
this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in
Uncle Silas's coat-pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come yet, so we had to wait a
little while.
And
when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly wait for the
blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one hand and cracking
the handiest child's head with her thimble with the other, and says:
"I've
hunted high and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what HAS become of your
other shirt."
My
heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard piece of
corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the road with a
cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the children in the eye
and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cry out of him the size of a
warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around the gills, and it all amounted
to a considerable state of things for about a quarter of a minute or as much as
that, and I would a sold out for half price if there was a bidder. But
after that we was all right again—it was the sudden surprise of it that
knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas he says:
"It's
most uncommon curious, I can't understand it. I know perfectly well I
took it OFF, because—"
"Because
you hain't got but one ON. Just LISTEN at the man! I know you took
it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gethering memory, too,
because it was on the clo's-line yesterday—I see it there myself. But
it's gone, that's the long and the short of it, and you'll just have to change
to a red flann'l one till I can get time to make a new one. And it 'll be the
third I've made in two years. It just keeps a body on the jump to keep
you in shirts; and whatever you do manage to DO with 'm all is more'n I can
make out. A body 'd think you WOULD learn to take some sort of care of
'em at your time of life."
"I
know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn't to be altogether
my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have nothing to do with them
except when they're on me; and I don't believe I've ever lost one of them OFF
of me."
"Well,
it ain't YOUR fault if you haven't, Silas; you'd a done it if you could, I
reckon. And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther. Ther's a spoon
gone; and THAT ain't all. There was ten, and now ther's only nine. The
calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never took the spoon, THAT'S
certain."
"Why,
what else is gone, Sally?"
"Ther's
six CANDLES gone—that's what. The rats could a got the candles, and
I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with the whole place, the way
you're always going to stop their holes and don't do it; and if they warn't
fools they'd sleep in your hair, Silas—YOU'D never find it out; but you
can't lay the SPOON on the rats, and that I know."
"Well,
Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been remiss; but I won't let
to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes."
"Oh,
I wouldn't hurry; next year 'll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta
PHELPS!"
Whack
comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the sugar-bowl without
fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps on to the passage,
and says:
"Missus,
dey's a sheet gone."
"A
SHEET gone! Well, for the land's sake!"
"I'll
stop up them holes to-day," says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.
"Oh,
DO shet up!—s'pose the rats took the SHEET? WHERE'S it gone,
Lize?"
"Clah
to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss' Sally. She wuz on de clo'sline
yistiddy, but she done gone: she ain' dah no mo' now."
"I
reckon the world IS coming to an end. I NEVER see the beat of it in all
my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can—"
"Missus,"
comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstick miss'n."
"Cler
out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!"
Well,
she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned I would
sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She kept
a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and everybody
else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking kind of foolish,
fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She stopped, with her mouth open
and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was in Jeruslem or somewheres. But
not long, because she says:
"It's
JUST as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time; and like
as not you've got the other things there, too. How'd it get there?"
"I
reely don't know, Sally," he says, kind of apologizing, "or you know
I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen before
breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put my
Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ain't in; but I'll go and
see; and if the Testament is where I had it, I'll know I didn't put it in, and
that will show that I laid the Testament down and took up the spoon,
and—"
"Oh,
for the land's sake! Give a body a rest! Go 'long now, the whole
kit and biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got back my peace
of mind."
I'D a
heard her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it out; and I'd a
got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead. As we was passing through the
setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and the shingle- nail fell out on
the floor, and he just merely picked it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and
never said nothing, and went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about
the spoon, and says:
"Well,
it ain't no use to send things by HIM no more, he ain't reliable." Then he
says: "But he done us a good turn with the spoon, anyway, without
knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without HIM knowing it—stop up
his rat-holes."
There
was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole hour, but we
done the job tight and good and shipshape. Then we heard steps on the
stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes the old man, with a
candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in t'other, looking as absent-minded
as year before last. He went a mooning around, first to one rat-hole and
then another, till he'd been to them all. Then he stood about five
minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candle and thinking. Then he
turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs, saying:
"Well,
for the life of me I can't remember when I done it. I could show her now
that I warn't to blame on account of the rats. But never mind—let
it go. I reckon it wouldn't do no good."
And so
he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a mighty nice
old man. And always is.
Tom
was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said we'd got to
have it; so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out he told me how
we was to do; then we went and waited around the spoon-basket till we see Aunt
Sally coming, and then Tom went to counting the spoons and laying them out to
one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve, and Tom says:
"Why,
Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons YET."
She
says:
"Go
'long to your play, and don't bother me. I know better, I counted 'm
myself."
"Well,
I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine."
She
looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count—anybody
would.
"I
declare to gracious ther' AIN'T but nine!" she says. "Why, what
in the world—plague TAKE the things, I'll count 'm again."
So I
slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she says:
"Hang
the troublesome rubbage, ther's TEN now!" and she looked huffy and
bothered both. But Tom says:
"Why,
Aunty, I don't think there's ten."
"You
numskull, didn't you see me COUNT 'm?"
"I
know, but—"
"Well,
I'll count 'm AGAIN."
So I
smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time. Well, she
WAS in a tearing way—just a-trembling all over, she was so mad. But
she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd start to count in the
basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times they come out right, and
three times they come out wrong. Then she grabbed up the basket and
slammed it across the house and knocked the cat galley-west; and she said cle'r
out and let her have some peace, and if we come bothering around her again
betwixt that and dinner she'd skin us. So we had the odd spoon, and
dropped it in her apron-pocket whilst she was a- giving us our sailing orders,
and Jim got it all right, along with her shingle nail, before noon. We was
very well satisfied with this business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the
trouble it took, because he said NOW she couldn't ever count them spoons twice
alike again to save her life; and wouldn't believe she'd counted them right if
she DID; and said that after she'd about counted her head off for the next
three days he judged she'd give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her
to ever count them any more.
So we
put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of her closet; and
kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a couple of days till she
didn't know how many sheets she had any more, and she didn't CARE, and warn't
a-going to bullyrag the rest of her soul out about it, and wouldn't count them
again not to save her life; she druther die first.
So we
was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon and the candles,
by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up counting; and as to the
candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it would blow over by and by.
But
that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. We fixed it
up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it done at last, and
very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and we had to use up three
wash-pans full of flour before we got through, and we got burnt pretty much all
over, in places, and eyes put out with the smoke; because, you see, we didn't
want nothing but a crust, and we couldn't prop it up right, and she would
always cave in. But of course we thought of the right way at
last—which was to cook the ladder, too, in the pie. So then we laid
in with Jim the second night, and tore up the sheet all in little strings and
twisted them together, and long before daylight we had a lovely rope that you
could a hung a person with. We let on it took nine months to make it.
And in
the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go into the pie.
Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope enough for forty
pies if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left over for soup, or sausage, or
anything you choose. We could a had a whole dinner.
But we
didn't need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie, and so we
throwed the rest away. We didn't cook none of the pies in the wash-
pan—afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a noble brass
warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged to one of his
ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over from England with William
the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early ships and was hid away up
garret with a lot of other old pots and things that was valuable, not on
account of being any account, because they warn't, but on account of them being
relicts, you know, and we snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but
she failed on the first pies, because we didn't know how, but she come up
smiling on the last one. We took and lined her with dough, and set her in
the coals, and loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut
down the lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot, with the long
handle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned out a pie that
was a satisfaction to look at. But the person that et it would want to fetch a
couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that rope ladder wouldn't cramp him
down to business I don't know nothing what I'm talking about, and lay him in
enough stomach-ache to last him till next time, too.
Nat
didn't look when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan; and we put the three tin
plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jim got everything
all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted into the pie and hid the
rope ladder inside of his straw tick, and scratched some marks on a tin plate
and throwed it out of the window-hole.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
MAKING
them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and Jim allowed the
inscription was going to be the toughest of all. That's the one which the
prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to have it; Tom said
he'd GOT to; there warn't no case of a state prisoner not scrabbling his
inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms.
"Look
at Lady Jane Grey," he says; "look at Gilford Dudley; look at old
Northumberland! Why, Huck, s'pose it IS considerble trouble?—what
you going to do?—how you going to get around it? Jim's GOT to do
his inscription and coat of arms. They all do."
Jim
says:
"Why,
Mars Tom, I hain't got no coat o' arm; I hain't got nuffn but dish yer ole shirt,
en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat."
"Oh,
you don't understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different."
"Well,"
I says, "Jim's right, anyway, when he says he ain't got no coat of arms,
because he hain't."
"I
reckon I knowed that," Tom says, "but you bet he'll have one before
he goes out of this—because he's going out RIGHT, and there ain't going
to be no flaws in his record."
So
whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim a- making
his'n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon, Tom set to work to
think out the coat of arms. By and by he said he'd struck so many good
ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but there was one which he reckoned
he'd decide on. He says:
"On
the scutcheon we'll have a bend OR in the dexter base, a saltire MURREY in the
fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under his foot a chain
embattled, for slavery, with a chevron VERT in a chief engrailed, and three
invected lines on a field AZURE, with the nombril points rampant on a dancette
indented; crest, a runaway nigger, SABLE, with his bundle over his shoulder on
a bar sinister; and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me;
motto, MAGGIORE FRETTA, MINORE OTTO. Got it out of a book—means the
more haste the less speed."
"Geewhillikins,"
I says, "but what does the rest of it mean?"
"We
ain't got no time to bother over that," he says; "we got to dig in
like all git-out."
"Well,
anyway," I says, "what's SOME of it? What's a fess?"
"A
fess—a fess is—YOU don't need to know what a fess is. I'll
show him how to make it when he gets to it."
"Shucks,
Tom," I says, "I think you might tell a person. What's a bar
sinister?"
"Oh,
I don't know. But he's got to have it. All the nobility does."
That
was just his way. If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to you, he
wouldn't do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn't make no
difference.
He'd
got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to finish up the
rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a mournful
inscription—said Jim got to have one, like they all done. He made
up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so:
1.
Here a captive heart busted. 2. Here a poor prisoner, forsook by
the world and friends, fretted his sorrowful life. 3. Here a lonely heart
broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after thirty-seven years of solitary
captivity. 4. Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of
bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV.
Tom's
voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke down. When he got
done he couldn't no way make up his mind which one for Jim to scrabble on to
the wall, they was all so good; but at last he allowed he would let him
scrabble them all on. Jim said it would take him a year to scrabble such
a lot of truck on to the logs with a nail, and he didn't know how to make
letters, besides; but Tom said he would block them out for him, and then he
wouldn't have nothing to do but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon
he says:
"Come
to think, the logs ain't a-going to do; they don't have log walls in a dungeon:
we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We'll fetch a
rock."
Jim
said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him such a pison
long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn't ever get out. But Tom said
he would let me help him do it. Then he took a look to see how me and Jim
was getting along with the pens. It was most pesky tedious hard work and
slow, and didn't give my hands no show to get well of the sores, and we didn't
seem to make no headway, hardly; so Tom says:
"I
know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and
mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock. There's a
gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it, and carve the
things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, too."
It
warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a grindstone nuther;
but we allowed we'd tackle it. It warn't quite midnight yet, so we
cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smouched the
grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation tough job.
Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn't keep her from falling over, and she
come mighty near mashing us every time. Tom said she was going to get one
of us, sure, before we got through. We got her half way; and then we was
plumb played out, and most drownded with sweat. We see it warn't no use;
we got to go and fetch Jim So he raised up his bed and slid the chain off of
the bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled out through
our hole and down there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked
her along like nothing; and Tom superintended. He could out-superintend
any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything.
Our
hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the grindstone through;
but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough. Then Tom marked out
them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them, with the nail for
a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the lean- to for a hammer, and
told him to work till the rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go
to bed, and hide the grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it.
Then we helped him fix his chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready for
bed ourselves. But Tom thought of something, and says:
"You
got any spiders in here, Jim?"
"No,
sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom."
"All
right, we'll get you some."
"But
bless you, honey, I doan' WANT none. I's afeard un um. I jis' 's
soon have rattlesnakes aroun'."
Tom
thought a minute or two, and says:
"It's
a good idea. And I reckon it's been done. It MUST a been done; it
stands to reason. Yes, it's a prime good idea. Where could you keep
it?"
"Keep
what, Mars Tom?"
"Why,
a rattlesnake."
"De
goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to come
in heah I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid my
head."
Why,
Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it after a little. You could tame
it."
"TAME
it!"
"Yes—easy
enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting, and they
wouldn't THINK of hurting a person that pets them. Any book will tell you
that. You try—that's all I ask; just try for two or three days.
Why, you can get him so in a little while that he'll love you; and sleep with
you; and won't stay away from you a minute; and will let you wrap him round
your neck and put his head in your mouth."
"PLEASE,
Mars Tom—DOAN' talk so! I can't STAN' it! He'd LET me shove
his head in my mouf—fer a favor, hain't it? I lay he'd wait a
pow'ful long time 'fo' I AST him. En mo' en dat, I doan' WANT him to
sleep wid me."
"Jim,
don't act so foolish. A prisoner's GOT to have some kind of a dumb pet,
and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's more glory to be
gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other way you could ever
think of to save your life."
"Why,
Mars Tom, I doan' WANT no sich glory. Snake take 'n bite Jim's chin off,
den WHAH is de glory? No, sah, I doan' want no sich doin's."
"Blame
it, can't you TRY? I only WANT you to try—you needn't keep it up if
it don't work."
"But
de trouble all DONE ef de snake bite me while I's a tryin' him. Mars Tom, I's
willin' to tackle mos' anything 'at ain't onreasonable, but ef you en Huck
fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I's gwyne to LEAVE, dat's
SHORE."
"Well,
then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bull-headed about it. We can get
you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on their tails, and let on
they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll have to do."
"I
k'n stan' DEM, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout um, I tell
you dat. I never knowed b'fo' 't was so much bother and trouble to be a
prisoner."
"Well,
it ALWAYS is when it's done right. You got any rats around here?"
"No,
sah, I hain't seed none."
"Well,
we'll get you some rats."
"Why,
Mars Tom, I doan' WANT no rats. Dey's de dadblamedest creturs to 'sturb a
body, en rustle roun' over 'im, en bite his feet, when he's tryin' to sleep, I
ever see. No, sah, gimme g'yarter-snakes, 'f I's got to have 'm, but
doan' gimme no rats; I hain' got no use f'r um, skasely."
"But,
Jim, you GOT to have 'em—they all do. So don't make no more fuss
about it. Prisoners ain't ever without rats. There ain't no
instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them tricks,
and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play music to
them. You got anything to play music on?"
"I
ain' got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o' paper, en a juice-harp; but I
reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juice-harp."
"Yes
they would. THEY don't care what kind of music 'tis. A jews-harp's plenty
good enough for a rat. All animals like music—in a prison they dote
on it. Specially, painful music; and you can't get no other kind out of a
jews-harp. It always interests them; they come out to see what's the
matter with you. Yes, you're all right; you're fixed very well. You
want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep, and early in the
mornings, and play your jews-harp; play 'The Last Link is Broken'—that's
the thing that 'll scoop a rat quicker 'n anything else; and when you've played
about two minutes you'll see all the rats, and the snakes, and spiders, and
things begin to feel worried about you, and come. And they'll just fairly
swarm over you, and have a noble good time."
"Yes,
DEY will, I reck'n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is JIM havin'? Blest if I
kin see de pint. But I'll do it ef I got to. I reck'n I better keep
de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de house."
Tom
waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else; and pretty soon
he says:
"Oh,
there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you
reckon?"
"I
doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it's tolable dark in heah, en I ain'
got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a pow'ful sight o' trouble."
"Well,
you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it."
"One
er dem big cat-tail-lookin' mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars Tom, I
reck'n, but she wouldn't be wuth half de trouble she'd coss."
"Don't
you believe it. We'll fetch you a little one and you plant it in the corner
over there, and raise it. And don't call it mullen, call it
Pitchiola—that's its right name when it's in a prison. And you want
to water it with your tears."
"Why,
I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom."
"You
don't WANT spring water; you want to water it with your tears. It's the
way they always do."
"Why,
Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid spring water
whiles another man's a START'N one wid tears."
"That
ain't the idea. You GOT to do it with tears."
"She'll
die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan' skasely ever cry."
So Tom
was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would have to
worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he would go to
the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's coffee-pot, in the morning.
Jim said he would "jis' 's soon have tobacker in his coffee;" and
found so much fault with it, and with the work and bother of raising the
mullen, and jews-harping the rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes and
spiders and things, on top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and
inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry
and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom
most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened down with more
gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for
himself, and yet he didn't know enough to appreciate them, and they was just
about wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn't behave so
no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
IN the
morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and fetched it
down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen of
the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put it in a safe place under
Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders little Thomas
Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there, and opened the
door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she
come in, and when we got back she was a-standing on top of the bed raising
Cain, and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times for
her. So she took and dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as much
as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and
they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the
flock. I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was.
We got
a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and caterpillars, and
one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet's nest, but we didn't.
The family was at home. We didn't give it right up, but stayed with
them as long as we could; because we allowed we'd tire them out or they'd got
to tire us out, and they done it. Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on
the places, and was pretty near all right again, but couldn't set down
convenient. And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen
garters and house-snakes, and put them in a bag, and put it in our room, and by
that time it was supper-time, and a rattling good honest day's work: and
hungry?—oh, no, I reckon not! And there warn't a blessed snake up
there when we went back—we didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out
somehow, and left. But it didn't matter much, because they was still on
the premises somewheres. So we judged we could get some of them again.
No, there warn't no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a
considerable spell. You'd see them dripping from the rafters and places
every now and then; and they generly landed in your plate, or down the back of
your neck, and most of the time where you didn't want them. Well, they
was handsome and striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of them; but
that never made no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed
what they might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it; and every
time one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference what she was
doing, she would just lay that work down and light out. I never see such
a woman. And you could hear her whoop to
We got
a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she allowed these
lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded up the place
again with them. I didn't mind the lickings, because they didn't amount
to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had to lay in another lot. But we
got them laid in, and all the other things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome
as Jim's was when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim
didn't like the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for
him, and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats
and the snakes and the grindstone there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely;
and when there was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was always
lively, he said, because THEY never all slept at one time, but took turn about,
so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in
the snakes come on watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his way, and
t'other gang having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place the
spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got
out this time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.
Well,
by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape. The shirt
was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would get up and
write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh; the pens was made, the
inscriptions and so on was all carved on the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed
in two, and we had et up the sawdust, and it give us a most amazing
stomach-ache. We reckoned we was all going to die, but didn't. It
was the most undigestible sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the same./
But as
I was saying, we'd got all the work done now, at last; and we was all pretty
much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a couple of
times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger, but
hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such plantation; so he allowed he
would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he
mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't
no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters.
"What's
them?" I says.
"Warnings
to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one way,
sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around that gives
notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going to light
out of the Tooleries a servant-girl done it. It's a very good way, and so
is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both. And it's usual for
the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in, and he
slides out in her clothes. We'll do that, too."
"But
looky here, Tom, what do we want to WARN anybody for that something's up?
Let them find it out for themselves—it's their lookout."
"Yes,
I know; but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted from the
very start—left us to do EVERYTHING. They're so confiding and
mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we don't
GIVE them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us, and so
after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll go off perfectly flat;
won't amount to nothing—won't be nothing TO it."
"Well,
as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."
"Shucks!"
he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:
"But
I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits me. What
you going to do about the servant-girl?"
"You'll
be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that yaller
girl's frock."
"Why,
Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she prob'bly
hain't got any but that one."
"I
know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the nonnamous letter
and shove it under the front door."
"All
right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my own
togs."
"You
wouldn't look like a servant-girl THEN, would you?"
"No,
but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, ANYWAY."
"That
ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just to do our
DUTY, and not worry about whether anybody SEES us do it or not. Hain't you got
no principle at all?"
"All
right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl. Who's Jim's
mother?"
"I'm
his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."
"Well,
then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves."
"Not
much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed to
represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's gown off
of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When a prisoner of style
escapes it's called an evasion. It's always called so when a king
escapes, f'rinstance. And the same with a king's son; it don't make no
difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one."
So Tom
he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's frock that
night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the way Tom told me
to. It said:
Beware.
Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout. UNKNOWN FRIEND.
Next night
we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and crossbones on the
front door; and next night another one of a coffin on the back door. I
never see a family in such a sweat. They couldn't a been worse scared if
the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them behind everything and under
the beds and shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she
jumped and said "ouch!" if anything fell, she jumped and said
"ouch!" if you happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she
done the same; she couldn't face noway and be satisfied, because she allowed
there was something behind her every time—so she was always a-whirling
around sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd got two-thirds
around she'd whirl back again, and say it again; and she was afraid to go to
bed, but she dasn't set up. So the thing was working very well, Tom said;
he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said it showed it was
done right.
So he
said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the streak of
dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we better do with it,
because we heard them say at supper they was going to have a nigger on watch at
both doors all night. Tom he went down the lightning-rod to spy around;
and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his
neck and come back. This letter said:
Don't
betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang of
cut-throats from over in the
CHAPTER XL.
WE was
feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went over the river
a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a look at the raft and
found her all right, and got home late to supper, and found them in such a
sweat and worry they didn't know which end they was standing on, and made us go
right off to bed the minute we was done supper, and wouldn't tell us what the
trouble was, and never let on a word about the new letter, but didn't need to,
because we knowed as much about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half
up stairs and her back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up
a good lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about half-
past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and was going to
start with the lunch, but says:
"Where's
the butter?"
"I
laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone."
"Well,
you LEFT it laid out, then—it ain't here."
"We
can get along without it," I says.
"We
can get along WITH it, too," he says; "just you slide down cellar and
fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along.
I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in
disguise, and be ready to BA like a sheep and shove soon as you get
there."
So out
he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a person's fist,
was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of corn- pone with it on, and
blowed out my light, and started up stairs very stealthy, and got up to the
main floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped
the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see
me; and she says:
"You
been down cellar?"
"Yes'm."
"What
you been doing down there?"
"Noth'n."
"NOTH'N!"
"No'm."
"Well,
then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?"
"I
don't know 'm."
"You
don't KNOW? Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what you been
DOING down there."
"I
hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I have."
I
reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I s'pose
there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat about every
little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says, very decided:
"You
just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You been up
to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it is before I'M
done with you."
So she
went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room. My, but there
was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of them had a gun.
I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down. They was
setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice, and all of them
fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't; but I knowed they was,
because they was always taking off their hats, and putting them on, and
scratching their heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling with their
buttons. I warn't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off, all the same.
I did
wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if she wanted
to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this thing, and what a
thundering hornet's-nest we'd got ourselves into, so we could stop fooling
around straight off, and clear out with Jim before these rips got out of
patience and come for us.
At
last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I COULDN'T answer them
straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because these men was in such a
fidget now that some was wanting to start right NOW and lay for them
desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to midnight; and others was
trying to get them to hold on and wait for the sheep- signal; and here was
Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me a- shaking all over and ready to
sink down in my tracks I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and
hotter, and the butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my
ears; and pretty soon, when one of them says, "I'M for going and getting
in the cabin FIRST and right NOW, and catching them when they come," I
most dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and
Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says:
"For
the land's sake, what IS the matter with the child? He's got the
brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"
And
everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes the bread and
what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me, and says:
"Oh,
what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain't no worse;
for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and when I see that
truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color and all it was just
like your brains would be if—Dear, dear, whyd'nt you TELL me that was
what you'd been down there for, I wouldn't a cared. Now cler out to bed,
and don't lemme see no more of you till morning!"
I was
up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one, and shinning
through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get my words out, I
was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump for it now, and
not a minute to lose—the house full of men, yonder, with guns!
His
eyes just blazed; and he says:
"No!—is
that so? AIN'T it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over again, I
bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till—"
"Hurry!
HURRY!" I says. "Where's Jim?"
"Right
at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him. He's dressed,
and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give the sheep-
signal."
But
then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them begin to
fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say:
"I
TOLD you we'd be too soon; they haven't come—the door is locked. Here,
I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the dark and kill
'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece, and listen if you can
hear 'em coming."
So in
they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us whilst we was
hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right, and out
through the hole, swift but soft—Jim first, me next, and Tom last, which
was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the lean-to, and heard
trampings close by outside. So we crept to the door, and Tom stopped us
there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make out nothing, it was so
dark; and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get further, and
when he nudged us Jim must glide out first, and him last. So he set his
ear to the crack and listened, and listened, and listened, and the steps
a-scraping around out there all the time; and at last he nudged us, and we slid
out, and stooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise, and
slipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all right, and
me and Jim over it; but Tom's britches catched fast on a splinter on the top
rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he had to pull loose, which snapped
the splinter and made a noise; and as he dropped in our tracks and started
somebody sings out:
"Who's
that? Answer, or I'll shoot!"
But we
didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there was a
rush, and a BANG, BANG, BANG! and the bullets fairly whizzed around us! We
heard them sing out:
"Here
they are! They've broke for the river! After 'em, boys, and turn
loose the dogs!"
So
here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore boots and
yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We was in the path
to the mill; and when they got pretty close on to us we dodged into the bush
and let them go by, and then dropped in behind them. They'd had all the
dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the robbers; but by this time somebody
had let them loose, and here they come, making powwow enough for a million; but
they was our dogs; so we stopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when
they see it warn't nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only
just said howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering; and
then we up-steam again, and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the
mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was tied, and
hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the river, but didn't
make no more noise than we was obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and
comfortable, for the island where my raft was; and we could hear them yelling
and barking at each other all up and down the bank, till we was so far away the
sounds got dim and died out. And when we stepped on to the raft I says:
"NOW,
old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a slave no
more."
"En
a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en it 'uz
done beautiful; en dey ain't NOBODY kin git up a plan dat's mo' mixed-up en
splendid den what dat one wuz."
We was
all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because he had a
bullet in the calf of his leg.
When
me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did before. It was
hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in the wigwam and tore
up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but he says:
"Gimme
the rags; I can do it myself. Don't stop now; don't fool around here, and
the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set her loose!
Boys, we done it elegant!—'deed we did. I wish WE'D a had the
handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint Louis, ascend to
heaven!' wrote down in HIS biography; no, sir, we'd a whooped him over the
BORDER—that's what we'd a done with HIM—and done it just as slick
as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps—man the sweeps!"
But me
and Jim was consulting—and thinking. And after we'd thought a
minute, I says:
"Say
it, Jim."
So he
says:
"Well,
den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz HIM dat 'uz bein' sot
free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on en save me,
nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like Mars Tom Sawyer?
Would he say dat? You BET he wouldn't! WELL, den, is JIM
gywne to say it? No, sah—I doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'dout
a DOCTOR, not if it's forty year!"
I
knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say—so it
was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. He raised
considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't budge; so he
was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself; but we wouldn't let
him. Then he give us a piece of his mind, but it didn't do no good.
So
when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:
"Well,
then, if you re bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when you get to the
village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and fast, and make
him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse full of gold in his hand,
and then take and lead him all around the back alleys and everywheres in the
dark, and then fetch him here in the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the
islands, and search him and take his chalk away from him, and don't give it
back to him till you get him back to the village, or else he will chalk this
raft so he can find it again. It's the way they all do."
So I
said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see the doctor
coming till he was gone again.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE
doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I got him up.
I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday
afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must
a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot him in the leg, and we
wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, nor let
anybody know, because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the
folks.
"Who
is your folks?" he says.
"The
Phelpses, down yonder."
"Oh,"
he says. And after a minute, he says:
"How'd
you say he got shot?"
"He
had a dream," I says, "and it shot him."
"Singular
dream," he says.
So he lit
up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But when he sees
the canoe he didn't like the look of her—said she was big enough for one,
but didn't look pretty safe for two. I says:
"Oh,
you needn't be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy enough."
"What
three?"
"Why,
me and Sid, and—and—and THE GUNS; that's what I mean."
"Oh,"
he says.
But he
put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head, and said he
reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one. But they was all locked and
chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait till he come back, or I
could hunt around further, or maybe I better go down home and get them ready
for the surprise if I wanted to. But I said I didn't; so I told him just
how to find the raft, and then he started.
I
struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos'n he can't fix that
leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail, as the saying is? spos'n it takes
him three or four days? What are we going to do?—lay around there
till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know what I'LL do.
I'll wait, and when he comes back if he says he's got to go any more I'll
get down there, too, if I swim; and we'll take and tie him, and keep him, and
shove out down the river; and when Tom's done with him we'll give him what it's
worth, or all we got, and then let him get ashore.
So
then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I waked up the
sun was away up over my head! I shot out and went for the doctor's house,
but they told me he'd gone away in the night some time or other, and warn't
back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad for Tom, and I'll dig
out for the island right off. So away I shoved, and turned the corner,
and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's stomach! He says:
"Why,
TOM! Where you been all this time, you rascal?"
"I
hain't been nowheres," I says, "only just hunting for the runaway
nigger—me and Sid."
"Why,
where ever did you go?" he says. "Your aunt's been mighty
uneasy."
"She
needn't," I says, "because we was all right. We followed the
men and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we thought we heard
them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over,
but couldn't find nothing of them; so we cruised along up- shore till we got
kind of tired and beat out; and tied up the canoe and went to sleep, and never
waked up till about an hour ago; then we paddled over here to hear the news,
and Sid's at the post-office to see what he can hear, and I'm a-branching out
to get something to eat for us, and then we're going home."
So
then we went to the post-office to get "Sid"; but just as I
suspicioned, he warn't there; so the old man he got a letter out of the office,
and we waited awhile longer, but Sid didn't come; so the old man said, come
along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it, when he got done fooling
around—but we would ride. I couldn't get him to let me stay and
wait for Sid; and he said there warn't no use in it, and I must come along, and
let Aunt Sally see we was all right.
When
we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and cried both, and
hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of hern that don't amount to
shucks, and said she'd serve Sid the same when he come.
And
the place was plum full of farmers and farmers' wives, to dinner; and such
another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the worst; her
tongue was a-going all the time. She says:
"Well,
Sister Phelps, I've ransacked that-air cabin over, an' I b'lieve the nigger was
crazy. I says to Sister Damrell—didn't I, Sister
Damrell?—s'I, he's crazy, s'I—them's the very words I said.
You all hearn me: he's crazy, s'I; everything shows it, s'I. Look
at that-air grindstone, s'I; want to tell ME't any cretur 't's in his right
mind 's a goin' to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone, s'I?
Here sich 'n' sich a person busted his heart; 'n' here so 'n' so pegged
along for thirty-seven year, 'n' all that—natcherl son o' Louis somebody,
'n' sich everlast'n rubbage. He's plumb crazy, s'I; it's what I says in
the fust place, it's what I says in the middle, 'n' it's what I says last 'n'
all the time—the nigger's crazy—crazy 's Nebokoodneezer, s'I."
"An'
look at that-air ladder made out'n rags, Sister Hotchkiss," says old Mrs.
Damrell; "what in the name o' goodness COULD he ever want of—"
"The
very words I was a-sayin' no longer ago th'n this minute to Sister Utterback,
'n' she'll tell you so herself. Sh-she, look at that-air rag ladder, sh-she;
'n' s'I, yes, LOOK at it, s'I—what COULD he a-wanted of it, s'I.
Sh-she, Sister Hotchkiss, sh-she—"
"But
how in the nation'd they ever GIT that grindstone IN there, ANYWAY? 'n' who dug
that-air HOLE? 'n' who—"
"My
very WORDS, Brer Penrod! I was a-sayin'—pass that-air sasser o'
m'lasses, won't ye?—I was a-sayin' to Sister Dunlap, jist this minute,
how DID they git that grindstone in there, s'I. Without HELP, mind
you—'thout HELP! THAT'S wher 'tis. Don't tell ME, s'I; there
WUZ help, s'I; 'n' ther' wuz a PLENTY help, too, s'I; ther's ben a DOZEN
a-helpin' that nigger, 'n' I lay I'd skin every last nigger on this place but
I'D find out who done it, s'I; 'n' moreover, s'I—"
"A
DOZEN says you!—FORTY couldn't a done every thing that's been done. Look at
them case-knife saws and things, how tedious they've been made; look at that
bed-leg sawed off with 'm, a week's work for six men; look at that nigger made
out'n straw on the bed; and look at—"
"You
may WELL say it, Brer Hightower! It's jist as I was a-sayin' to Brer
Phelps, his own self. S'e, what do YOU think of it, Sister Hotchkiss,
s'e? Think o' what, Brer Phelps, s'I? Think o' that bed-leg sawed off
that a way, s'e? THINK of it, s'I? I lay it never sawed ITSELF off,
s'I—somebody SAWED it, s'I; that's my opinion, take it or leave it, it
mayn't be no 'count, s'I, but sich as 't is, it's my opinion, s'I, 'n' if any
body k'n start a better one, s'I, let him DO it, s'I, that's all. I says
to Sister Dunlap, s'I—"
"Why,
dog my cats, they must a ben a house-full o' niggers in there every night for
four weeks to a done all that work, Sister Phelps. Look at that
shirt—every last inch of it kivered over with secret African writ'n done
with blood! Must a ben a raft uv 'm at it right along, all the time, amost.
Why, I'd give two dollars to have it read to me; 'n' as for the niggers
that wrote it, I 'low I'd take 'n' lash 'm t'll—"
"People
to HELP him, Brother Marples! Well, I reckon you'd THINK so if you'd a
been in this house for a while back. Why, they've stole everything they
could lay their hands on—and we a-watching all the time, mind you. They
stole that shirt right off o' the line! and as for that sheet they made the rag
ladder out of, ther' ain't no telling how many times they DIDN'T steal that; and
flour, and candles, and candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and
most a thousand things that I disremember now, and my new calico dress; and me
and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day AND night, as I was
a-telling you, and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight nor
sound of them; and here at the last minute, lo and behold you, they slides
right in under our noses and fools us, and not only fools US but the Injun
Territory robbers too, and actuly gets AWAY with that nigger safe and sound,
and that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs right on their very heels at that
very time! I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever HEARD of. Why,
SPERITS couldn't a done better and been no smarter. And I reckon they must a
BEEN sperits—because, YOU know our dogs, and ther' ain't no better; well,
them dogs never even got on the TRACK of 'm once! You explain THAT to me
if you can!—ANY of you!"
"Well,
it does beat—"
"Laws
alive, I never—"
"So
help me, I wouldn't a be—"
"HOUSE-thieves
as well as—"
"Goodnessgracioussakes,
I'd a ben afeard to live in sich a—"
"'Fraid
to LIVE!—why, I was that scared I dasn't hardly go to bed, or get up, or
lay down, or SET down, Sister Ridgeway. Why, they'd steal the
very—why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was in
by the time midnight come last night. I hope to gracious if I warn't
afraid they'd steal some o' the family! I was just to that pass I didn't
have no reasoning faculties no more. It looks foolish enough NOW, in the daytime;
but I says to myself, there's my two poor boys asleep, 'way up stairs in that
lonesome room, and I declare to goodness I was that uneasy 't I crep' up there
and locked 'em in! I DID. And anybody would. Because, you know,
when you get scared that way, and it keeps running on, and getting worse and
worse all the time, and your wits gets to addling, and you get to doing all
sorts o' wild things, and by and by you think to yourself, spos'n I was a boy,
and was away up there, and the door ain't locked, and you—" She
stopped, looking kind of wondering, and then she turned her head around slow,
and when her eye lit on me—I got up and took a walk.
Says I
to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that room this morning
if I go out to one side and study over it a little. So I done it.
But I dasn't go fur, or she'd a sent for me. And when it was late
in the day the people all went, and then I come in and told her the noise and
shooting waked up me and "Sid," and the door was locked, and we wanted
to see the fun, so we went down the lightning-rod, and both of us got hurt a
little, and we didn't never want to try THAT no more. And then I went on
and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before; and then she said she'd
forgive us, and maybe it was all right enough anyway, and about what a body
might expect of boys, for all boys was a pretty harum- scarum lot as fur as she
could see; and so, as long as no harm hadn't come of it, she judged she better
put in her time being grateful we was alive and well and she had us still,
stead of fretting over what was past and done. So then she kissed me, and
patted me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a brown study; and pretty
soon jumps up, and says:
"Why,
lawsamercy, it's most night, and Sid not come yet! What HAS become of
that boy?"
I see
my chance; so I skips up and says:
"I'll
run right up to town and get him," I says.
"No
you won't," she says. "You'll stay right wher' you are; ONE'S
enough to be lost at a time. If he ain't here to supper, your uncle 'll
go."
Well,
he warn't there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.
He
come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn't run across Tom's track. Aunt
Sally was a good DEAL uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said there warn't no occasion
to be—boys will be boys, he said, and you'll see this one turn up in the
morning all sound and right. So she had to be satisfied. But she
said she'd set up for him a while anyway, and keep a light burning so he could
see it.
And
then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her candle, and tucked
me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like I couldn't look her in the
face; and she set down on the bed and talked with me a long time, and said what
a splendid boy Sid was, and didn't seem to want to ever stop talking about him;
and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or
hurt, or maybe drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres
suffering or dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip
down silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home in
the morning, sure; and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me, and tell me
to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her good, and she was
in so much trouble. And when she was going away she looked down in my
eyes so steady and gentle, and says:
"The
door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window and the rod; but
you'll be good, WON'T you? And you won't go? For MY sake."
Laws
knows I WANTED to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all intending to go;
but after that I wouldn't a went, not for kingdoms.
But
she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless. And twice
I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around front, and see her setting
there by her candle in the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears
in them; and I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn't, only to
swear that I wouldn't never do nothing to grieve her any more. And the
third time I waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her
candle was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was
asleep.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE
old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't get no track of Tom;
and both of them set at the table thinking, and not saying nothing, and looking
mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not eating anything. And by and by
the old man says:
"Did
I give you the letter?"
"What
letter?"
"The
one I got yesterday out of the post-office."
"No,
you didn't give me no letter."
"Well,
I must a forgot it."
So he
rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had laid it down,
and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:
"Why,
it's from St. Petersburg—it's from Sis."
I
allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn't stir. But before
she could break it open she dropped it and run—for she see something. And
so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old doctor; and Jim, in HER
calico dress, with his hands tied behind him; and a lot of people. I hid
the letter behind the first thing that come handy, and rushed. She flung
herself at Tom, crying, and says:
"Oh,
he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!"
And
Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other, which showed
he warn't in his right mind; then she flung up her hands, and says:
"He's
alive, thank God! And that's enough!" and she snatched a kiss of
him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders right
and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue could go,
every jump of the way.
I
followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the old doctor
and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men was very
huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all the other
niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run away like Jim done, and
making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a whole family scared most to death
for days and nights. But the others said, don't do it, it wouldn't answer
at all; he ain't our nigger, and his owner would turn up and make us pay for
him, sure. So that cooled them down a little, because the people that's
always the most anxious for to hang a nigger that hain't done just right is
always the very ones that ain't the most anxious to pay for him when they've
got their satisfaction out of him.
They
cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side the head once
in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to know me, and
they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes on him, and chained
him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to a big staple drove into the
bottom log, and chained his hands, too, and both legs, and said he warn't to
have nothing but bread and water to eat after this till his owner come, or he
was sold at auction because he didn't come in a certain length of time, and
filled up our hole, and said a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch
around about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the
daytime; and about this time they was through with the job and was tapering off
with a kind of generl good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and takes
a look, and says:
"Don't
be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't a bad nigger.
When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut the bullet out without
some help, and he warn't in no condition for me to leave to go and get help;
and he got a little worse and a little worse, and after a long time he went out
of his head, and wouldn't let me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I
chalked his raft he'd kill me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I
see I couldn't do anything at all with him; so I says, I got to have HELP
somehow; and the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and
says he'll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I
judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I WAS! and there I had to stick
right straight along all the rest of the day and all night. It was a fix,
I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills, and of course I'd of
liked to run up to town and see them, but I dasn't, because the nigger might
get away, and then I'd be to blame; and yet never a skiff come close enough for
me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight this morning;
and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he was
risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain
enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I
tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars—and
kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as
well there as he would a done at home—better, maybe, because it was so
quiet; but there I WAS, with both of 'm on my hands, and there I had to stick
till about dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by, and as good
luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped
on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on
him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we
never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we
muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and
quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start.
He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think about him."
Somebody
says:
"Well,
it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say."
Then
the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful to that old
doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was according to my judgment
of him, too; because I thought he had a good heart in him and was a good man
the first time I see him. Then they all agreed that Jim had acted very
well, and was deserving to have some notice took of it, and reward. So
every one of them promised, right out and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him
no more.
Then
they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he could
have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten heavy, or could
have meat and greens with his bread and water; but they didn't think of it, and
I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but I judged I'd get the doctor's
yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soon as I'd got through the breakers
that was laying just ahead of me—explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to
mention about Sid being shot when I was telling how him and me put in that
dratted night paddling around hunting the runaway nigger.
But I
had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day and all
night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged him.
Next
morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt Sally was gone
to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I found him awake I
reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that would wash. But he was
sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and pale, not fire- faced the way he
was when he come. So I set down and laid for him to wake. In about
half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there I was, up a stump again!
She motioned me to be still, and set down by me, and begun to whisper,
and said we could all be joyful now, because all the symptoms was first-rate,
and he'd been sleeping like that for ever so long, and looking better and
peacefuller all the time, and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind.
So we
set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his eyes very
natural, and takes a look, and says:
"Hello!—why,
I'm at HOME! How's that? Where's the raft?"
"It's
all right," I says.
"And
JIM?"
"The
same," I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash. But he never
noticed, but says:
"Good!
Splendid! NOW we're all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?"
I was
going to say yes; but she chipped in and says: "About what,
Sid?"
"Why,
about the way the whole thing was done."
"What
whole thing?"
"Why,
THE whole thing. There ain't but one; how we set the runaway nigger
free—me and Tom."
"Good
land! Set the run—What IS the child talking about! Dear,
dear, out of his head again!"
"NO,
I ain't out of my HEAD; I know all what I'm talking about. We DID set him
free—me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we DONE it. And we
done it elegant, too." He'd got a start, and she never checked him
up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and I see it warn't
no use for ME to put in. "Why, Aunty, it cost us a power of
work—weeks of it—hours and hours, every night, whilst you was all
asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt, and your
dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the warming-pan, and
the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things, and you can't think what
work it was to make the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or
another, and you can't think HALF the fun it was. And we had to make up
the pictures of coffins and things, and nonnamous letters from the robbers, and
get up and down the lightning-rod, and dig the hole into the cabin, and made
the rope ladder and send it in cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and
things to work with in your apron pocket—"
"Mercy
sakes!"
"—and
load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company for Jim; and then
you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that you come near spiling
the whole business, because the men come before we was out of the cabin, and we
had to rush, and they heard us and let drive at us, and I got my share, and we
dodged out of the path and let them go by, and when the dogs come they warn't
interested in us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made
for the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by
ourselves, and WASN'T it bully, Aunty!"
"Well,
I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was YOU, you
little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble, and turned everybody's
wits clean inside out and scared us all most to death. I've as good a
notion as ever I had in my life to take it out o' you this very minute.
To think, here I've been, night after night, a—YOU just get well
once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the Old Harry out o' both o'
ye!"
But
Tom, he WAS so proud and joyful, he just COULDN'T hold in, and his tongue just
WENT it—she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all along, and both of them
going it at once, like a cat convention; and she says:
"WELL,
you get all the enjoyment you can out of it NOW, for mind I tell you if I catch
you meddling with him again—"
"Meddling
with WHO?" Tom says, dropping his smile and looking surprised.
"With
WHO? Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who'd you reckon?"
Tom looks
at me very grave, and says:
"Tom,
didn't you just tell me he was all right? Hasn't he got away?"
"HIM?"
says Aunt Sally; "the runaway nigger? 'Deed he hasn't. They've
got him back, safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again, on bread and water,
and loaded down with chains, till he's claimed or sold!"
Tom rose
square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening and shutting like
gills, and sings out to me:
"They
hain't no RIGHT to shut him up! SHOVE!—and don't you lose a minute.
Turn him loose! he ain't no slave; he's as free as any cretur that walks
this earth!"
"What
DOES the child mean?"
"I
mean every word I SAY, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go, I'LL go. I've
knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old Miss Watson died two
months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river,
and SAID so; and she set him free in her will."
"Then
what on earth did YOU want to set him free for, seeing he was already
free?"
"Well,
that IS a question, I must say; and just like women! Why, I wanted the
ADVENTURE of it; and I'd a waded neck-deep in blood to—goodness alive,
AUNT POLLY!"
If she
warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as sweet and
contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!
Aunt
Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and cried over her,
and I found a good enough place for me under the bed, for it was getting pretty
sultry for us, seemed to me. And I peeped out, and in a little while
Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and stood there looking across at Tom over
her spectacles—kind of grinding him into the earth, you know. And
then she says:
"Yes,
you BETTER turn y'r head away—I would if I was you, Tom."
"Oh,
deary me!" says Aunt Sally; "IS he changed so? Why, that ain't
TOM, it's Sid; Tom's—Tom's—why, where is Tom? He was here a
minute ago."
"You
mean where's Huck FINN—that's what you mean! I reckon I hain't
raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I SEE him.
That WOULD be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that bed, Huck
Finn."
So I
done it. But not feeling brash.
Aunt
Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever see—except
one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told it all to him.
It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn't know nothing at
all the rest of the day, and preached a prayer-meeting sermon that night that
gave him a rattling ruputation, because the oldest man in the world couldn't a
understood it. So Tom's Aunt Polly, she told all about who I was, and
what; and I had to up and tell how I was in such a tight place that when Mrs.
Phelps took me for Tom Sawyer—she chipped in and says, "Oh, go on
and call me Aunt Sally, I'm used to it now, and 'tain't no need to
change"—that when Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand
it—there warn't no other way, and I knowed he wouldn't mind, because it
would be nuts for him, being a mystery, and he'd make an adventure out of it,
and be perfectly satisfied. And so it turned out, and he let on to be
Sid, and made things as soft as he could for me.
And
his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting Jim free in
her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble
and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn't ever understand before, until
that minute and that talk, how he COULD help a body set a nigger free with his
bringing-up.
Well,
Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and SID had come
all right and safe, she says to herself:
"Look
at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off that way
without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all the way
down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that creetur's up to
THIS time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of you about
it."
"Why,
I never heard nothing from you," says Aunt Sally.
"Well,
I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean by Sid
being here."
"Well,
I never got 'em, Sis."
Aunt
Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:
"You,
Tom!"
"Well—WHAT?"
he says, kind of pettish.
"Don
t you what ME, you impudent thing—hand out them letters."
"What
letters?"
"THEM
letters. I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I'll—"
"They're
in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as they was
when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, I hain't
touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if you
warn't in no hurry, I'd—"
"Well,
you DO need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And I wrote
another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he—"
"No,
it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but IT'S all right, I've got that
one."
I
wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it was just
as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.
CHAPTER THE LAST
THE
first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea, time of the
evasion?—what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked all right
and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before? And he said,
what he had planned in his head from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was
for us to run him down the river on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the
mouth of the river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back
up home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and write word
ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town
with a torchlight procession and a brass-band, and then he would be a hero, and
so would we. But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was.
We had
Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle Silas and Aunt
Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom, they made a heap of
fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him all he wanted to eat, and a
good time, and nothing to do. And we had him up to the sick-room, and had
a high talk; and Tom give Jim forty dollars for being prisoner for us so
patient, and doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted
out, and says:
"DAH,
now, Huck, what I tell you?—what I tell you up dah on Jackson islan'? I
TOLE you I got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it; en I TOLE you I ben
rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich AGIN; en it's come true; en heah she is!
DAH, now! doan' talk to ME—signs is SIGNS, mine I tell you; en I
knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz gwineter be rich agin as I's a-stannin' heah dis
minute!"
And
then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le's all three slide out
of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go for howling adventures
amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for a couple of weeks or two; and I
says, all right, that suits me, but I ain't got no money for to buy the outfit,
and I reckon I couldn't get none from home, because it's likely pap's been back
before now, and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.
"No,
he hain't," Tom says; "it's all there yet—six thousand dollars
and more; and your pap hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when I come
away, anyhow."
Jim
says, kind of solemn:
"He
ain't a-comin' back no mo', Huck."
I
says:
"Why,
Jim?"
"Nemmine
why, Huck—but he ain't comin' back no mo."
But I
kept at him; so at last he says:
"Doan'
you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a man in dah,
kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let you come in?
Well, den, you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase dat wuz
him."
Tom's
most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard for a watch,
and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain't nothing more to write
about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it
was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more.
But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest,
because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand
it. I been there before.
