Table

of Contents

FROM THE PAGES OF

ADVENTURES OF
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Title Page
Copyright Page
MARK TWAIN
THE WORLD OF MARK
TWAIN AND ADVENTURES
OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER THE LAST

ENDNOTES
INSPIRED BY
ADVENTURES OF
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
FOR FURTHER READING
FROM THE PAGES
OF ADVENTURES
OF HUCKLEBERRY
FINN
That is just the way with
some people. They get down
on a thing when they don’t
know nothing about it. (page
6)
Pap warn’t in a good humor
—so he was his natural self.
(page 26)

When I woke up I didn’t

know where I was, for a
minute. I set up and looked
around, a little scared. Then I
remembered. The river
looked miles and miles
across. The moon was so
bright I could a counted the
drift logs that went a slipping
along, black and still,
hundreds of yards out from
shore. Everything was dead
quiet, and it looked late, and
smelt late. You know what I
mean—I don’t know the
words to put it in.
(page 34)

When it was dark I set by my

camp fire smoking, and
feeling pretty satisfied; but
by-and-by it got sort of
lonesome, and so I went and
set on the bank and listened
to the currents washing along,
and counted the stars and
drift-logs and rafts that come
down, and then went to bed;
there ain’t no better way to
put in time when you are
lonesome; you can’t stay so,
you soon get over it. (page
38)

What’s the use you learning

to do right, when it’s
troublesome to do right and
ain’t no trouble to do wrong,
and the wages is just the
same?
(page 85)

We said there warn’t no home

like a raft, after all. Other
places do seem so cramped
up and smothery, but a raft
don’t. You feel mighty free
and easy and comfortable on
a raft. (page 107)
It’s lovely to live on a raft.
We had the sky, up there, all
speckled with stars, and we
used to lay on our backs and
look up at them, and discuss
about whether they was
made, or only just happened
—Jim he allowed they was
made, but I allowed they
happened; I judged it would
have took too long to make so
many. (pages 109-110)
“All kings is mostly
rapscallions, as fur as I can
make out.” (page 140)

“Hain’t we got all the fools in

town on our side? and ain’t
that a big enough majority in
any town?” (page 162)

I reckon a body that ups and

tells the truth when he is in a
tight place, is taking
considerable many resks.
(page 170)

“It’s the little things that

smoothes people’s roads the
most.” (page 173)

You can’t pray a lie—I found

that out. (page 194)

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. (page
210)
BARNES & NOBLE CLASSICS
NEW YORK

Published by Barnes & Noble Books

122 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011

www.barnesandnoble.com/classics
 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first
published in America in 1885.

Originally published in mass market format in

2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics
with new Introduction, Notes, Biography,
Chronology, Inspired By,
Comments & Questions, and For Further
Reading.
This trade paperback edition published in
2008.

Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

Copyright @ 2003 by Robert G. O‘Meally.

Note on Mark Twain, The World of Mark

Twain and Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, Inspired by Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, and Comments & Questions
 Copyright © 2003 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication

may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the
publisher.

Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes &

Noble Classics
colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble,
Inc.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-112-6 ISBN-10: 1-
59308-112-X
 eISBN : 978-1-411-43372-4
LC Control Number 2007941537

Produced and published in conjunction with:

Fine Creative Media, Inc.
322 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10001

Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

Printed in the United States of America

QM
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
 MARK TWAIN
Mark Twain was born
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
on November 30, 1835.
When Sam was four years
old, his family moved to
Hannibal, Missouri, a small
town later immortalized in
The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. After the
death of his father, twelve-
year-old Sam quit school and
supported his family by
working as a delivery boy, a
grocer’s clerk, and an
assistant blacksmith until he
was thirteen, when he became
an apprentice printer. He
worked for several
newspapers, traveled
throughout the country, and
established himself as a gifted
writer of humorous sketches.
Abandoning journalism at
points to work as a riverboat
pilot, Clemens adven tured up
and down the Mississippi,
learning the 1,200 miles of
the river.
During the 1860s he spent
time in the West, in
newspaper work and panning
for gold, and traveled to
Europe and the Holy Land;
The Innocents Abroad (1869)
and Roughing It (1872),
published some years later,
are accounts of those
experiences. In 1863 Samuel
Clemens adopted a pen name,
signing a sketch as “Mark
Twain,” and in 1867 Mark
Twain won fame with
publication of a collection of
humorous writings, The
Celebrated Jumping Frog of
Calaveras County and Other
Sketches. After marrying and
settling in Connecticut,
Twain wrote his best-loved
works: the novels about Tom
Sawyer and Huckleberry
Finn, and the nonfiction work
Life on the Mississippi.
Meanwhile, he continued to
travel and had a successful
career as a public lecturer.
In his later years, Twain
saw the world with increasing
pessimism following the
death of his wife and two of
their three daughters. The
tone of his later novels,
including The Tragedy of
Pudd‘nhead Wilson and A
Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court, became
cynical and dark. Having
failed as a publisher and
suffering losses from ill-
advised investments, Twain
was forced by financial
necessity to maintain a heavy
schedule of lecturing. Though
he had left school at an early
age, his genius was
recognized by Yale
University, the University of
Missouri, and Oxford
University in the form of
honorary doctorate degrees.
He died in his Connecticut
mansion, Stormfield, on April
21, 1910.
 THE WORLD OF
MARK TWAIN
AND ADVENTURES
OF HUCKLEBERRY
FINN
Samuel Langhorne
Clemens is born
prematurely in Florida,
1835 Mis souri, the fourth
child of John Marshall
 Clemens and Jane
Lamp ton Clemens.
The family moves to
Hannibal, the small
Missouri town on the
west bank of the
1839 Mississippi River that
will become the model
for the setting of Tom
Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn.
American newspapers
gain increased
1840 readership as urban
popu lations swell and
printing technology
improves.

John Clemens dies,

leaving the family in
1847 financial difficulty.
Sam quits school at the
age of twelve.
Sam becomes a full-
time apprentice to
1848
Joseph Ament of the
 Mis souri Courier.
Sam’s brother Orion,
ten years his senior,
returns to Hannibal
and establishes the
Journal; he hires Sam
1850 as a compositor. Steam
boats become the
primary means of
transport on the
Mississippi River.

Sam edits the failing

Journal while Orion is
 away. After he reads
local humor published
in newspapers in New
England and the
Southwest, Sam begins
printing his own
1852 humorous sketches in
the Journal. He
submits “The Dandy
Frightening the
Squatter” to the
Carpet-Bag of
Boston, which
publishes the sketch in
 the May issue.

Sam leaves Hannibal

and begins working as
an itinerant printer; he
visits St. Louis, New
1853 York, and
Philadelphia. His
brothers Orion and
Henry move to Iowa
with their mother.
Transcendentalism
flourishes in American
1854 literary culture; Henry
 David Thoreau
publishes Walden.

Sam works again as a

1855 printer with Orion in
Keokuk, Iowa.
Sam acquires a
commission from
Keokuk’s Daily Post
1856 to write humorous
letters; he decides to
travel to South
America.
 Sam takes a steamer
to New Orleans, where
he hopes to find a ship
bound for South
America. Instead, he
signs on as an ap
prentice to river pilot
Horace Bixby and
spends the next two
1857 years learning how to
navigate a steamship
up and down the
Missis sippi. His
experiences become
 material for Life on the
Mississippi and his
tales of Tom Sawyer
and Huck Finn.

Sam’s brother Henry

1858 dies in a steamboat
accident.
Samuel Clemens
1859 becomes a fully
licensed river pilot.
The American Civil
War erupts, putting an
 abrupt stop to river
trade between North
and South. Sam serves
with a Confederate
1861 militia for two weeks
before venturing to the
Nevada Territory with
Orion, who had been
appointed by President
Abraham Lin coln as
secretary of the new
Territory.
After an unsuccessful
 stint as a miner and
prospector for gold
1862 and silver, Clemens
begins reporting for
the Territorial
Enterprise in Virginia
City, Nevada.
Clemens signs his
name as “Mark
Twain” on a humorous
travel sketch printed in
the Territorial
1863 Enterprise. The
 pseudonym, a
riverboat term
meaning “two fathoms
deep,” connotes barely
nav igable water.
After challenging his
editor to a duel, Twain
is forced to leave
Nevada and lands a job
with a San Francisco
1864 newspaper. He meets
Artemus Ward, a
popular humorist,
 whose techniques
greatly influence
Twain’s writing.
Robert E. Lee’s army
surrenders, ending the
Civil War. While
prospecting for gold in
Calaveras County,
California, Twain
hears a tale he uses for
1865 a story that makes him
famous; originally
titled “Jim Smiley and
 His Jumping Frog,” it
is published in New
York’s Saturday
Press.
Twain travels to
Hawaii as a
correspondent for the
Sacramento Union;
upon his return to
1866 California, he delivers
his first public lecture,
beginning a successful
career as a humorous
 speaker.
Twain travels to New
York, and then to
Europe and the Holy
Land aboard the
steamer Quaker City;
during five months
1867 abroad, he contributes
to California’s largest
paper, Sacramento’s
Alta California, and
writes several letters
for the New York
 Tribune.
He publishes a
volume of stories and
sketches, The
Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras
County and Other
Sketches.

Twain meets and falls

in love with Olivia
(Livy) Langdon. His
overseas writings have
 increased his
popularity; he signs his
1868 first book contract and
begins The Innocents
Abroad, sketches
based on his trip to the
Holy Land. He
embarks on a lecture
tour of the American
Midwest.
Twain becomes
engaged to Livy, who
acts as his editor from
 that time on. The
1869 Innocents Abroad,
published as a
subscription book, is
an instant success,
selling nearly 100,000
copies in the first three
years.
Twain and Livy
marry. Their son,
1870
Langdon, is born; he
lives only two years.
The Clemens move to
1871
 Hartford, Connecticut.
Roughing It, an
account of Twain’s
adventures out West, is
pub lished to
enormous success. The
1872 first of Twain’s three
daughters, Susy, is
born. Twain strikes up
a lifelong friendship
with the writer
William Dean
Howells.
 Ever the entrepreneur,
Twain receives the
patent for Mark
Twain’s Self-Pasting
Scrapbook, an
invention that is a
commercial success.
1873
He publishes The
Gilded Age, a
collaboration with his
neighbor Charles
Dudley Warner that
satirizes the post-Civil
War era.
 His daughter Clara is
born. The family
moves into a mansion
1874
in Hartford in which
they will live for the
next seventeen years.

The Adventures of Tom

1876
Sawyer is published.
Twain collaborates
with Bret Harte—an
author known for his
use of local color and
1877 humor and for his
parodies of Cooper,
Dickens, and Hugo—
to produce the play Ah
Sin.

Twain invests in the

Paige typesetter and
loses thousands of dol
lars. He publishes A
1880 Tramp Abroad, an
account of his travels
in Europe the two
previous years. His
 daughter Jean is born.
The Prince and the
Pauper, Twain’s first
1881
historical romance, is
published.
Twain plans to write
about the Mississippi
River and makes the
1882
trip from New Orleans
to Minnesota to refresh
his memory.
The nonfiction work
1883 Life on the Mississippi
is published.
Adventures of
1884 Huckleberry Finn, a
book Twain worked on
for
nearly ten years, is
published in England;
publication in the
United States is

delayed until the
following year because
an il lustration plate is
 judged to be obscene.
When Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is
published in America
—by Twain’s ill-fated
publishing house, run
by his nephew Charles
1885 Webster—controversy
immediately surrounds
the book. Twain also
publishes the memoirs
of his friend former
President Ulysses S.
 Grant.
Twain earns his
1888 Master of Arts degree
from Yale University.
He publishes A
Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court,
the first of his major
works to be informed
by a deep pessimism.
1889 He meets Rudyard
Kipling, who had
come to America to
 meet Twain, in Livy’s
hometown of Elmira,
New York.
1890 Twain’s mother dies.
Financial difficulties
force the Clemens
family to close their
1891
Hart ford mansion;
they move to Berlin,
Germany.
The Tragedy of
Pudd’nhead Wilson, a
dark novel about the
 after math of slavery,
1894 is published and sells
well; nonetheless,
Twain’s publishing
company fails and
leaves him bankrupt.

Twain embarks on an
ambitious worldwide
1895
lecture tour to restore
his financial position.
His daughter Susy
1896 dies of spinal
 meningitis.
Twain is awarded an
1901 honorary doctorate
degree from Yale.
Livy falls gravely ill.
Mark Twain’s
Huckleberry Finn, a
stage ad aptation of the
novel, opens to
favorable reviews.
Though he is credited
1902 with coauthorship,
Twain has little to do
 with the play and
never sees it
performed. He
receives an honorary
doctorate degree from
the University of
Missouri.
Hoping to restore
Livy’s health, Twain
1903
takes her to Florence,
Italy.
Livy dies, leaving
Twain devastated. He
1904 begins dictating an un
even autobiography
that he never finishes.
Theodore Roosevelt
invites Twain to the
White House. Twain
enjoys a gala
celebrating his
1905 seventieth birthday in
New York. He
continues to lecture,
and he addresses
Congress on copyright
 is sues.
Twain’s biographer
Albert Bigelow Paine
1906
moves in with the fam
ily.
Twain travels to
Oxford University to
1907 receive an honorary
Doctor of Letters
degree.

Twain settles in
Redding, Connecticut,
1908 at Stormfield, the man
sion that is his final
home.
His daughter Clara
marries; Twain dons
1909 his Oxford robe for the
ceremony. His
daughter Jean dies.
Twain travels to
Bermuda for his
health. He develops
heart prob lems and,
1910 upon his return to
 Stormfield, dies,
leaving behind a cache
of unpublished work.
INTRODUCTION
Blues for Huckleberry
Improvisation is the
ultimate human (i.e.,
heroic) endowment ...
flexibility or the ability
to swing (or to perform
with grace under
pressure) is the key to
that unique competence
which generates the self-
 reliance and thus the
charisma of the hero.
—Albert Murray, The
Hero and the Blues
Without the presence of
blacks, [Huckleberry Finn]
could not have been written.
No Huck and Jim, no
American novel as we know
it. For not only is the black
man a co-creator of the
language that Mark Twain
raised to the level of literary
eloquence, but Jim’s
condition as American and
Huck’s commitment to
freedom are at the moral
center of the novel.
—Ralph Ellison, “What
America Would Be Like
Without Blacks,” in The
Collected Essays of Ralph
Ellison

When Huck opens that

window to take off from
home, the reader has the same
thrill of anticipation one feels
after hearing the first few bars
of a Miles Davis solo.
—Peter Watrous of the New
York Times (personal
conversation)

As an African-American who
came of age in the 1960s, I
first encountered Huckleberry
Finn in a fancy children’s
edition with beautifully
printed words and
illustrations on thick pages, a
volume bought as part of a
mail-order series by my
ambitious parents. While I do
not remember ever opening
that particular book—as a
junior high schooler I was
more drawn to readings about
science or my baseball heroes
—I do recall a sense of pride
that I owned it: that a classic
work was part of the furniture
of my bedroom and of my
life. Later I would discover
Twain’s ringing definition of
a classic as “something
everyone wants to have read
but nobody wants to read.”
Like many others of that
generation—and then I
suppose of every American
generation that has followed
—I was assigned the book as
part of a college course.
Actually I was taught the
book twice, once in a course
in modern fiction classics
(along with Cervantes, Mann,
Conrad, Wolfe, Faulkner),
then in a course tracing great
themes in American
literature, including those of
democracy and race. In both
these classes, Mark Twain
and his Huckleberry Finn
appeared as heroic and
timeless exemplars of
modernism in terms of both
literary form and progressive
political thought. Here was an
American novel told not from
the standpoint or in the
language of Europe but from
the position of the poor but
daring and brilliant river-rat
Huck, whose tale was spun in
lingo we could tell was plain
Americanese—why, anybody
could tell it, as the boy
himself might say.
His was a story of eager
flight from the rigidities of
daily living, particularly from
those institutions that as
youngsters we love to hate:
family, school, church, the
hometown itself. That white
Huckleberry’s flight from
commonplace America
included a deep, true
friendship with black Jim,
who began the novel as a
slave in Huck’s adopted
family, proved Huck’s trust
of his own lived experience
and feelings: his integrity
against a world of slavery and
prejudice based on skin color.
Huck’s discovery that he was
willing to take the risks
involved in assisting Jim in
his flight from slavery
connected the youngster with
the freedom struggle not only
of blacks in America but of
all Americans seeking to live
up to the standards of our
most sacred national
documents. Here was
democracy without the
puffery, e pluribus unum at
its most radical level of two
friends from different racial
(but very similar cultural)
backgrounds loving one
another. Here too was a
personal declaration of
independence in action, an
American revolution (and
some would say also a civil
war) fought first within
Huck’s own heart and then
along the Mississippi River,
the great brown god that
many have said stands almost
as a third major character in
this novel of hard-bought
freedom and fraternity, of
consciousness and
conscientiousness.
I understood these themes
as supporting the civil rights
movement of that era, and,
further, as significant
correctives to sixties black
nationalism, which too often
left too little space, in my
view, for black-white
friendships and, alas, for
humor, without which no
revolution I was fighting for
was worth the sacrifice. In
those days, Huckleberry Finn
was also part of my arsenal of
defenses against those who
questioned my decision to
major in literature during the
black revolution; for me, it
served to justify art itself not
just as entertainment but as
equipment for living and even
as a form of political action.
For here was a book whose
message of freedom had been
so forcefully articulated that it
was still sounding clearly all
these years later, all over the
world. What was I doing in
the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond
that was as courageous and
selfless (and yet as
individually self-defining)—
as profoundly revolutionary
—as Huck’s act of helping to
rescue Jim?
 And yet I do have to say
that even in those student
days of first discovering this
novel, I was troubled by the
figure of Jim, with whom,
from the very beginning, I
found it impossible to
identify. Though as a college
sophomore or junior I wrote
an earnest essay in defense of
Jim as a wise man whose
“superstitions” could be read
as connections to a proud
“African” system of
communal beliefs and earned
adjustments to a turbulent and
dangerous new world, it was
definitely Huck whose point
of view I adopted, while Jim
remained a shadowy
construction whose
buffoonery and will to
cooperate with white folks’
foolishness embarrassed and
infuriated me. Then too the
novel’s casual uses of the
word “nigger” always made
my stomach tighten. Years
later, when I read about black
students, parents, and
teachers who objected to the
novel’s repeated use of this
inflammatory word, I knew
just what they meant. Lord
knows, as a student I had sat
in classes where “Nigger
Jim” (that much-bandied title
never once used by Twain but
weirdly adopted by
innumerable teachers and
scholars, including some of
the best and brightest, as we
shall see) was discussed by
my well-intentioned white
classmates and professors
whose love of the novel
evidently was unimpeded by
this brutal language. (Did
some of them delight in the
license to use this otherwise
taboo term? What might that
have meant?)
Using some of these ideas
about democracy and race
(including some of my doubts
and questions), for fifteen
years I taught Huckleberry
Finn at Howard, at Wesleyan,
and then at Barnard. And then
somehow my battered
paperback, my several
lectures, and my fat folder of
articles by some of the
novel’s great critics—Eliot,
Hemingway, Ellison, Trilling,
Robert Penn Warren, Henry
Nash Smith—all were set
aside. I suppose that one
problem was simply that the
book was taught too much—
that students came to me
having worn out their own
copies already. And too often
they seemed to respond not to
the book itself but to bits and
pieces of the classic hymns of
critical (and uncritical) praise,
grist for the term-paper-writer
and standardized-test-taker’s
mill. In recent years, when I
wanted to teach Twain again,
I turned to the novel
Pudd‘nhead Wilson, with its
own tangled problems of
racial and national masks and
masquerades; to short fiction
and essays (including perhaps
his funniest piece of writing,
“Fenimore Cooper’s Literary
Offenses”; see “For Further
Reading”), and to The
Mysterious Stranger, in
which wry, darkly wise Satan
drops in on a hamlet very
much like the ones of
Twain’s best-known fictions,
including Huckleberry Finn.
One of Satan’s messages is
close to Huck’s, too: that it is
better to be dead than to
endure the ordinary villager’s
humdrum (and very violent)
life.
To introduce the present
edition, I returned to find
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn more deeply troubling
than ever but nonetheless
mightily alluring—in some
ways more alluring now that
its experiments and failures
were so evident. In this fresh
review of the novel, I have
found it helpful to invoke
certain of Edward Said’s
terms for contemporary
reading: Read receptively, he
advises, but also read
resistantly.a This critical
strategy of armed vision
presumes that there are no
perfect literary achievements,
that one takes even the
biblical gospel, “whenever
it’s poss‘ble, with a grain of
salt.” Such an attitude of
resistant receptivity is
particularly apt for
Huckleberry Finn precisely
because it has been
swallowed whole as a perfect
book on the basis of which
Mark Twain is “sole,
incomparable, the Lincoln of
our literature.”b As Jonathan
Arac has so eloquently
argued,c it has been idolized
and “hypercannonized”—
included in every U.S.
literary reading list and
anthology as an unassailable
monument by some who
assume that those who raise
questions about it either have
not read the masterpiece, or
cannot do so. One of the
attractions of rereading this
book is that with the work of
Arac and others, we as
readers are freer than ever not
just to worship Twain’s
creation but to explore it
anew—receiving and
resisting as we go.
I will start, then, with what
I found troubling in
Huckleberry Finn, and
afterward—at the risk of
adding to the frenzy of
hyperapproval—I will
explain why I have decided to
teach it again, not just as a
problematic but teachable
book but as one that still
moves me greatly as a reader
who loves words and
sentences, characters and
plotlines. And as a reader
who loves the blues—but I’m
getting ahead of my story.
Trouble comes first: aspects
of the novel to wonder about
as we wander through the
book, to resist.
The first problem is one I
have mentioned already: the
book’s constant use of the
word “nigger.” Not as student
now but as teacher, I find this
offense to be glaring: What
would I do about the use of
the word in my classroom?
What is there to tell eighth-
grade readers and their
parents and teachers—the
first wave of those
confronting the novel as a
classroom exercise? I hate
censorship, and would not
remove the book from any
library shelf or curriculum,
even at the middle-school
level; nor would I
recommend deleting or
translating the word in
expurgated editions just for
kids. To readers young and
old, I would point out that
“nigger” was used as part of
casual everyday speech by
whites and blacks in the
South and also in the West
and the East and the North.
Sometimes it was willfully
hurled as an assault weapon,
sometimes as mere
thoughtless prattle (and, of
course, ignorant assaults at
times can hurt as much as any
others); sometimes it was
tossed off by whites with
well-intentioned affection-
cum-condescension;
sometimes by whites who
lived at the borders of black
communities and who felt
their proximity granted them
the insiders’ privilege (always
a precarious presumption) to
use a term usually not
tolerated from outsiders. For
blacks, then and now, the
word has been used within
the group, just as anti-Semitic
terms are used by Jews
themselves, in part as a
strategy to disarm the enemy.
Within the black circle,
“nigger” could invoke
bravado and/or camaraderie
and/or even flirtation: to be
called a “pretty nigger” in the
black Washington, D.C., of
my youth could be the
sweetest of compliments.
(Though in the jujitsu world
of black language that term
could be reversed into one of
disdain: “pretty nigger” as
weak, absurd peacock.)
But my point is that in
Twain’s world of the 1870s
and 1880s (when he was
writing Huckleberry Finn), in
the world of the novel itself—
roughly the 1840s—and,
crucial to note, in our own
precarious world, the word
“nigger” is and was, among
these other things, a word of
deepest racial hatred, a willful
assault. In class discussions
of the novel and in writing
about it, let the students use
the term warily, in quotation
marks, in recognition that
somebody in the class could
take it as a deeply hurtful act
of indifference, ignorance, or
outright viciousness; and that
at the next turn of the screw a
nasty racial term may be
hurled back at the hurler! For
my part, as I teach the book
this year at Columbia
University, I will be ready
with materials on the word’s
history, in literary and
cultural arenas beyond
literature. Two important
sources will be Jonathan
Arac’s book, along with
Randall Kennedy’s study
Nigger: The Strange Career
of a Troublesome Wordd—in
which, among other things,
Kennedy lists dozens of court
cases in which a black
defendant in an assault or
murder case has claimed as a
defense that the white victim
of an attack had started the
fight by spitting out this one
nasty word.
In defense of Twain’s
language, I would remind
readers that we are getting
Twain’s creation of Huck’s
tale in Huck’s voice, and that,
as many have argued, we
should read Huck’s uses of
“nigger” not only as evidence
of authentic historical talk,
however unpleasant, but as
Twain’s relentless, well-
turned irony. (With “irony”
referring to an aside that is
understood by reader and
writer, and perhaps at times
by a particularly knowing
character like Huck, but not
by most of a work’s
characters.) One central irony
here is that even a boy who
strikes us as pure in heart and
thoroughly genuine in his
love for Jim uses the term in
sentence after sentence—
that’s how deeply ingrained
the language of American
racism was (and, sadly, is). In
one of the novel’s most
unforgettable scenes, Twain’s
irony is most effectively
pointed. In chapter 32, Huck,
masquerading as Tom
Sawyer, pretends to have just
arrived on a riverboat that
was delayed by an explosion
on board. Aunt Sally asks,
“Anybody hurt?” “No‘m,” is
Huck’s quick reply. “Killed a
nigger.” “Well, it’s lucky;”
said Aunt Sally, “because
sometimes people do get
hurt” (p. 201). Even motherly
Aunt Sally, who seems well-
meaning enough, is at home
not only with this term
“nigger” but also with the
news of the death of an
African American, who in her
language is neither a human
being nor worth a sigh of
remorse. Further, Huck’s use
of “nigger” in this instance
adds detail to his cleverly
turned lie, and asserts a sense
of (white) community with
Aunt Sally to hide his real
intention of freeing Jim. As
Huck suspected, Sally and
family have bought Jim and
kept him hidden as part of
their own plan to sell him
down the river. Behind what
at first seems like her
wonderful good manners
lurks the monster of race
hatred, unabashed.
Clearly, if in this scene we
change the racial designation
to “Negro” or “negro” (the
more common nineteenth-
century usage), we would
lose the violence of the word
“nigger”; but it is also true
that with the emendation we
would sacrifice the deepest,
most slashing irony that
Twain turns against the word
and the world of prejudice
underlying it.
The second problem I want
to raise also involves race—
the portrayal of Jim. Here a
whole book-length essay
could follow. But for this
space my central complaint is
that in this realistic novel, Jim
is just not real enough, not
true enough either to
historical type or to human
dimensions that transcend
historical type. I’ll start by
observing that the greatest
critic of his era on this
question of African-American
portraiture, Sterling A.
Brown, disagrees with me on
this point, and in fact has
strongly commended Twain’s
portrait of Jim. Like Huck
and Tom, writes Brown, Jim
is “drawn from life. He is no
longer the simple-minded,
mysterious guide in the ways
of dead cats, doodle-bugs and
signs of The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer. Running away
from old Miss Watson who...
‘pecks on’ him all the time,
treats him ’pooty rough’ and
wants a trader’s eight
hundred dollars for him, Jim
joins Huck on the immortal
journey down the
Mississippi.”e Brown finds
Jim’s humor rich, not the
stuff of minstrel buffoonery
alone: “His talk enlivens the
voyage. He is at his comic
best in detailing his
experience with high finance
—he once owned fourteen
dollars. But the fun is brought
up sharp by Jim’s ‘Yes—en
I’s rich now, come to look at
it. I owns mysef, en I’s wuth
eight hund’d dollars. I wisht I
had de money, I wouldn’t
want no mo’ ” (p. 46).
But as Brown observes,
“he did want more. He
wanted to get to a free state
and work and save money so
he could buy his wife, and
they would both work to buy
their children, or get an
abolitionist to go steal them.”
In Brown’s evaluation, “Jim
is the best example in
nineteenth century fiction of
the average Negro slave (not
the tragic mulatto or the noble
savage), illiterate,
superstitious, yet clinging to
his hope for freedom, to his
love for his own. And he is
completely believable,
whether arguing that
Frenchmen should talk like
people, or doing most of the
work on the raft, or forgiving
Huck whose trick caused him
to be bitten by a snake, or
sympathizing with the poor
little Dauphin, who, since
America has no kings, ‘cain’t
git no situation.’” Here is
parental tenderness and
shame as Jim ”tells of his
little daughter, whom he had
struck, not knowing she
disobeyed because she had
become deaf from scarlet
fever.” Says Jim: ”Oh, she
was plumb deef en dumb,
Huck, plum deef en dumb—
en I’d been a-treatin’ her so!“f
Likewise, in his first
writings about Huckleberry
Finn, the novelist Ralph
Ellison strongly defends
Twain’s presentation of Jim
(whom incredibly even he,
Ellison, sometimes calls
“Nigger Jim”) as “not only a
slave but a human being, a
man who in some ways was
to be envied.” Echoing
Brown, Ellison praises Jim’s
portraiture, particularly its
inclusion of faults that
humanize: “Twain, though
guilty of the sentimentality
common to humorists, does
not idealize the slave. Jim is
drawn in all his ignorance and
superstition, with his good
traits and his bad. He, like all
men, is ambiguous, limited in
circumstance but not in
possibility.” For Ellison,
what’s most significant is
Jim’s role as Twain’s shining
“symbol of humanity, and in
freeing Jim, Huck makes a
bid to free himself of the
conventionalized evil taken
for civilization by the town.”g
Yet Ellison, writing in the
1950s, more than ten years
after his first defense of Jim,
also began to find fault with
Jim’s portrayal. On second
thought, the figure was so
close, he said, to the tradition
of blackface minstrelsy—that
form of American theater best
known for its feature of white
men wearing burned cork on
their faces to imitate,
typically in grotesque
exaggerations, black
American forms of song and
dance—that black readers
keep their distance from
Huckleberry’s black friend.
Recalling his reading the
book as a boy, Ellison says,
“[I] could imagine myself as
Huck Finn (I so nicknamed
my brother), but not, though I
racially identified with him,
as Nigger Jim [sic; recall
again that this was never
Mark Twain’s phrase], who
struck me as a white man’s
inadequate portrait of a
slave.”h Elsewhere, Ellison
said that Twain evidently did
not calculate blacks among
the readers of his novel: “It
was a dialogue between... a
white American novelist of
good heart, of democratic
vision, one dedicated to
values... and white readers,
primarily,” he said. And
Twain’s failure as an artist, in
this view, is that he relied too
much on the barroom joke
and minstrel show for images
of blacks rather than seeking
true images, not only from
lived experience but from
prior forms of literature,
depicting blacks and other
figures from beneath the
social hierarchy. To this
degree, Twain was “not quite
as literary a man as he was
required to be,” wrote
Ellison, “because he could
have gone to Walter Scott, to
the Russians, to any number
of places, and found touch-
stones for filling out the
complex humanity of that
man who appeared in his
book out of his own
imagination, and who was
known as Jim.”i
In her eloquent
commentary on Huckleberry
Finn, the novelist Toni
Morrison finds the solution to
Huck’s loneliness and despair
to be not the godlike river—
with its own terrible
unpredictability—but the
companionship of Jim.
Floating on their raft, free
from the troubles of the
shore, Huck and Jim talk
quietly, and their communion
together is “so free of lies it
produces an aura of
restfulness and peace
unavailable anywhere else in
the novel.”j But given the real
distance between blacks and
whites in America, Morrison
says, so extreme today and
infinitely more so a hundred-
plus years ago, this wonderful
friendship is doomed, and as
savvy southerners, Jim and
Huck know in advance that it
is doomed. Morrison says that
this inevitable split between
the two friends, the novel’s
underlying tragedy, helps
explain why Twain presented
Jim in such exaggeratedly
outsized stereotyped terms—
lest Huck or the reader get
too close to him.
“Anticipating this loss may
have led Twain to the over-
the-top minstrelization of
Jim,” writes Morrison.
“Predictable and common as
the gross stereotyping of
blacks was in nineteenth-
century literature, here,
nevertheless, Jim’s portrait
seems unaccountably
excessive and glaring in its
contradictions—like an ill-
made clown suit that cannot
hide the man within.”
So as Said-trained readers
we receive Jim through this
absurd stereotyped suit—
receive his humanity, his
fatherly sense of
responsibility for Huck, his
courage, family care, and
industriousness, and wisdom
—just as we find it. But it is
also useful to resist the idea
that Jim is thoroughly
realistic, that black men of his
time were typically this
simplistic, docile, or full of
minstrel-show-like patter. As
we resist, we might fruitfully
consider the historical
backdrop of the minstrel
stage, and the motives for
white authors like Twain in
creating such true-false black
images at the moral center of
their work.
Another problem, unrelated
to realistic portraiture as such,
also weighed down my
rereading of Huckleberry
Finn. I refer to the book’s
final chapters, in which Tom
Sawyer reappears and invents
a score of schemes that delay
and imperil the freeing of
Jim. In the key instance of
Huckleberry Finn’s
“hypercanonization,”
Hemingway wrote these
famous sweeping words
about the novel: “All modern
American literature comes
from one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry
Finn ... It’s the best book
we’ve had. All American
writing comes from that.
There was nothing before.
There has been nothing as
good since.” Hemingway’s
other key sentences, hidden in
the ellipsis above, are usually
not quoted: “If you read it
you must stop where the
Nigger Jim [there it is again:
Hemingway’s phrase, not
Twain‘s] is stolen from the
boys. That is the real end.”k
While I strongly agree with
those who upbraid
Hemingway for
recommending that the reader
stop before Jim is free—and
thus missing the moral center
of the work—I agree with
Hemingway that the novel
gets infuriatingly dull once
not Huck but Tom is steering
the way toward freedom. And
yet here too it is useful to
consider the satirical
commentary that might be
said to go with Tom’s
outrageous interferences.
Could Tom’s delays and his
self-serving play with Jim
when he knew the man had
been freed already comprise
Twain’s stinging comment on
the process of freeing blacks
from slavery—a clumsy
process that some would say
is still haltingly in process?
And might Tom’s absurd, by-
the-book reliance on
purported precedents
comprise a telling
commentary on the U.S. legal
system not only during
slavery but in Twain’s own
time, when the gains of
Reconstruction were
undermined by compromises,
and when the rights of black
citizens were abridged, in the
Supreme Court decision
called Plessy v. Ferguson,
such that constitutional
sanction was given to
virtually all forms of racial
segregation.l The book slows
down, then, to suggest the
miserable slowness of the
process of gaining black
freedom in America—stuck
in a mire of what might be
termed Tom Sawyerism. We
can’t stop reading until the
novel’s end, but these last
chapters are an agony!
What’s left to recommend
in this novel full of problems?
Having resisted so much in
the book, what do we gain
when we read it with an
attitude of receptivity? To
offer an answer, I’m going to
risk another piece of
autobiographical reflection.
For the past ten years, in my
own scholarship and
teaching, I have been
exploring the impact of blues-
idiom music on American life
and literature. This new
intellectual work grew out of
my interest in black arts
movement writers of the
1960s and 1970s, whose
poetry and prose were often
blues- and jazz-inflected, and
in writers like Ralph Ellison,
Jack Kerouac, and Langston
Hughes, whose blues/jazz
writing of the 1940s and
1950s (and in the case of
Hughes, also of the 1920s and
1930s) had shown the way.
Was it possible to think of
Huckleberry Finn as a blues
novel in the tradition of
Ellison’s Invisible Man?
(Ellison always named Twain
as a key influence, despite the
problems he saw in the great
novel.) Was it conceivable
that a novel written more than
a hundred years before Toni
Morrison’s Jazz was
nonetheless also infused with
the spirit of the musical form
called the blues, and that this
musical connection helped to
define why, at least for me,
Twain’s book has continued
to have such resonance so
long after its creation?m
Sitting in my English
Department office at
Columbia University with
blues-master Robert Johnson
on the CD player, I continued
rereading Huckleberry Finn,
and the bluesiness of Huck’s
tale sounded through the
book’s pages. Listening to
Johnson, and then to Bessie
Smith and Louis Armstrong
and Duke Ellington (yes, to
the instrumental blues as well
as to the lyrics of blues
singers), I heard a story
ringing true to the one in
Huckleberry Finn: a journey
toward freedom against
insurmountable odds
undertaken for the sake of
yearning for an often
impossible love, with the
readiness to improvise as the
sole means of supporting the
hope of that love. After all,
Huck’s efforts to free Jim do
comprise a profound
expression of love—an
assertion of the principle that
for the American promise to
be realized, everyone must
learn not only to go it alone,
to solo, but also to make
music together with others, to
swing. This, at this
profoundest level, is what
Huckleberry Finn learns to
do. Huck knows how to solo;
and like a true bluesman, he
learns to swing.
 How shall we define the
blues as a musical form?
Crystallizing in New Orleans
and in other cities along the
Mississippi River at just
about the same time Twain’s
novel was being composed,
the blues typically is a first-
person musical narrative or
meditation on a life of trial
and trouble, delivered in a
comic mode. Its stark
descriptions of catastrophe
are leavened by the music’s
design as a good-time dance
music, rolling and tumbling
with the sounds of flirtation
and courtship, of the fine-
framed “easy rider.” Even
when the music seems
especially made for private
reflection (“I’m settin’ in the
house, with everything on my
mind”), its dreams of escape
rarely offer mere sentimental
flights but instead involve the
agonies of confrontation and
of real-world trips toward
realms where freedom—that
impossibly illusive but
nonetheless inspiring dream
(“how long, how long, has
that evening train been
gone?”)—is pursued with a
full heart and a cool head.
Rather than softening or
turning from life’s pains,
blues music probes the
“jagged grain” of a
troublesome existence.
Typically concerned with a
woman yearning for her man
or a man yearning for his
woman (“I’m in love with a
woman but she’s not in love
with me”), the blues is a
music of romantic longing
and, in a larger frame, of
desire for connectedness and
completion, for spiritual as
well as physical
communication and love in a
world of fracture and
disarray. As an improvised
form, the blues admits life’s
dire discouragements and
limits to the point of death,
but nonetheless celebrates
human continuity: mankind’s
good-humored resiliency and
capacity, in spite of
everything, to endure and
even to prevail.n
In the first chapters of
Huckleberry Finn, Jim sets
the stage for the book’s
blueness by explaining to
Huck that most of the
mysterious natural signs of
things to come point to bad
luck and trouble—that, in
other words, the two of them
live in a world infested with
the blues. Huck complains
that “it looked to me like all
the signs was about bad luck,
and so I asked him if there
warn’t any good-luck signs.
He says: ‘Mighty few—an’
dey ain’ no use to a body.
What you want to know when
good luck’s a-comin’ for?
want to keep it off?’ ” (p. 44).
One good luck sign, Jim’s
hairy body and chest, which
indicated he would be rich
“bymeby,” prompt another of
Jim’s bluesy reflections: “I’s
rich now, come to look at it. I
owns mysef, en I’s wurth
eight hund’d dollars. I wisht I
had de money, I wouldn’
want no mo’ ” (p. 46). And
yet of course (as Sterling
Brown observed) Jim does
want more: He continues on
the bad-luck-haunted road
toward freedom for himself
and for his family.
The more I read, the more I
came to feel that this book is
full of the blues. Huck Finn is
a lonesome, unhappy boy
whose reflections on his
surroundings are often
sublimely sad and lonely.
Before taking off on the water
with Jim, Huck feels trapped
in the house with his night-
thoughts of loneliness and
death:
Then I set down in a
chair by the window and
tried to think of
something cheerful, but
it warn’t no use. I felt so
lonesome I most wished
I was dead. The stars
was shining, and the
leaves rustled in the
woods ever so mournful;
and I heard an owl, away
off, who-whooing about
somebody that was dead,
and a whippowill and a
dog crying about
somebody that was
going to die; and the
wind was trying to
whisper something to me
and I couldn’t make out
what it was, and so it
made the cold shivers
run over me. Then away
out in the woods I heard
that kind of a sound that
a ghost makes when it
 wants to tell about
something that’s on its
mind and can’t make
itself understood, and so
can’t rest easy in its
grave and has to go
about that way every
night grieving. I got so
down-hearted and
scared, I did wish I had
some company (p. 7).
Early one morning, before
he meets up with Jim, Huck is
alone on Jackson’s Island,
lounging on the grass. Again
the scene is rather
melancholy. The sad boy is
killing time. “I could see the
sun out at one or two holes,
but mostly it was big trees all
about, and gloomy in there
amongst them” (p. 36). That
night “it got sort of lonesome,
and so I went and set on the
bank and listened to the
currents washing along, and
counted the stars and drift-
logs and rafts that come
down, and then went to bed;
there ain’t no better way to
put in time when you are
lonesome; you can’t stay so,
you soon get over it” (p. 38).
Only with Jim on hand as
Huck’s friend and partner-in-
escape does nature begin to
shine. Shared with Jim, even
a sudden summer storm on
the river strikes the boy as
marvelous:
It would get so dark that
it looked all blue-black
outside, and lovely; and
the rain would thrash
along by so thick that the
trees off a little ways
looked dim and spider-
webby; and here would
come a blast of wind that
would bend the trees
down and turn up the
pale underside of the
leaves; and then a
perfect ripper of a gust
would follow along and
set the branches to
tossing their arms as if
they was just wild; and
next, when it was just
about the bluest and
blackest—fst! it was as
bright as glory and
you’d have a little
glimpse of tree-tops a-
plunging about, away off
yonder in the storm,
hundreds of yards
further than you could
see before; dark as sin
again in a second, and
now you’d hear the
thunder let go with an
awful crash and then go
rumbling, grumbling,
tumbling down the sky
towards the under side
of the world, like rolling
empty barrels down
stairs, where it’s long
stairs and they bounce a
good deal, you know.
 “Jim, this is nice,” I
says. “I wouldn’t want to
be nowhere else but
here. Pass me along
another hunk of fish and
some hot corn-bread” (p.
47).
Sometimes what Jim and
Huck share on the raft is
loneliness. Huck’s poetic
descriptions of their shared
sense of the river’s soft blue
lonely quality stay in the
reader’s mind. “We would
watch the lonesomeness of
the river, and kind of lazy
along,” he says, “and by-and-
by lazy off to sleep. Wake up,
by-and-by, and look to see
what done it, and maybe see a
steamboat, coughing along up
stream.” And soon “there
wouldn’t be nothing to hear
nor nothing to see—just solid
lonesomeness” (p. 109).
At the other end of the
novel, in the bright, sunny
back country where the
Phelps family lives, Huck,
alone again, is seized by
desolation:
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
(p. 198).
Approaching the Phelps’s
home, Huck “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” (p. 199).
Considering ways to thwart
the villainy of the king and
the duke, Huck “slipped up to
bed, feeling ruther blue” (p.
164).
Through the course of the
novel, Huck has much to feel
blue about. His mother is
dead, and his father is a
drunken back-country
vagabond who beats Huck,
imprisons him, and tries to
steal his money. The women
who take him in, Widow
Douglas and her sister Miss
Watson (“a tolerable slim old
maid, with goggles on”) offer
Huckleberry a genteel home
whose rules of tidiness and
decorum are so tight-fitting
that he cannot wait to get out
the window. Up the river,
comfortably housed church-
going families are
pathologically locked into a
pattern of killing one another,
children included, for reasons
some (all?) of them cannot
remember. Ruthless
“humbugs and frauds,” in
Huck’s phrase, swarm the
land: The king and the duke
use what they know of human
greed and sentimentality to
separate the townsfolk from
their money; they force Huck
(until he tricks the tricksters)
to participate in their
elaborate ruses. Bullies and
cowardly lynch mobs produce
another plague on
communities along the river.
And, poisoning everything,
the region’s economy
depends on the enslavement
of African Americans and on
the vigilance of white people
in owning them, and then in
capturing and returning
runaways, should they break
free. Pap Finn so resents a
well-dressed free black
citizen and voter, with his
“gold watch and chain, and a
silver-headed cane,” that he
can’t cannot see why “this
nigger” is not “put up at
auction and sold” (pp. 27-28).
Not that Huckleberry is an
abstract thinker—the poetry
of his language is in its gritty
specificity and its rhythm—or
even advanced enough to
oppose slavery as an
institution. But he has learned
that Jim is a man and a friend
and a wise, guiding father-
figure, one of Albert
Murray’s brown-skin shade-
tree uncles,o and that he,
Huck, will do what it takes to
help Jim escape slavery.
Though the scene in which
Huck decides that he will go
to hell, if that’s what assisting
Jim means, is more comic
than tragic—for Huck already
has made clear his preference
for the exciting bad place
over the dull good place
trumpeted by Miss Watsonp
—Huck has decided to take
whatever risks may be
associated with helping Jim.
In this sense Huck is a
“blues-hero,” an improviser
in a world of trouble who
optimistically faces a deadly
project without a script.
Remember that the blues is
not just a confrontation with a
world gone wrong; to that
gone-wrongness, the blues
answers that the
instrumentalist-hero (and the
community of blues people
identifying with the artist’s
expression) have just enough
resiliency and power to keep
on keeping on, whatever the
changes in fortune.
Getting Jim free is not a
simple business. One might
say that Huck and Jim’s trip
toward freedom is haunted by
the blues. Along with the
various efforts to recapture
and sell Jim back down the
river (including those of the
duke and the king), consider
chapter 15, in which Jim and
Huck are separated by a swift
current, and then seek each
other through a thick wall of
fog. As night falls, Huck
paddles in a canoe after Jim
and the raft, but the boy’s
hands tremble as he hears
what seem to be Jim’s
answering whoops:
I whooped and listened.
Away down there,
somewheres, I hears a
small whoop, and up
comes my spirits. I went
tearing after it, listening
sharp to hear it again.
The next time it come, I
see I warn’t heading for
it but heading away to
the right of it. And the
next time, I was heading
away to the left of it—
and not gaining on it
much, either, for I was
flying around, this way
and that and ‘tother, but
 it was going straight
ahead all the time (p.
76).
Confused by the swirling
current and blinded by the
fog, Huck hears calls in front
of him and calls behind him,
and finds himself in the
territory of the blues. “I
couldn’t tell nothing about
voices in a fog, for nothing
don’t look natural nor sound
natural in a fog” (p. 77).
Huck keeps still and quiet,
listening and waiting. “If you
think it ain’t dismal and
lonesome out in a fog that
way, by yourself, in the night,
you try it once—you’ll see”
(p. 77). The hard truth is that
in the storm and fog they
have passed Cairo, the port
leading to the North. They
have been pulled south again
and will have many more
difficult scenarios to endure
—in the hands of the king
and the duke and then with
the Phelps family—before
they can light out for freer
spaces. These travelers, like
the great singer/guitarist
Robert Johnson, have “got to
keep moverin‘, the blues
fallin’ down like rain, blues
fallin’ down like rain.”
This impulse to move on,
even without a satisfactory
destination or solution in
sight, echoes a trainload of
rambling blues. In the first
chapter, Miss Watson needles
Huckleberry about the way he
sits and stands. She warns
him about hell, “and I said I
wished I was there.... All I
wanted was to go
somewheres; all I wanted was
a change.” As for making it to
heaven, Miss Watson’s goal:
“I couldn’t see no advantage
in going where she was
going,” Huck says, “so I
made up my mind I wouldn’t
try for it. But I never said so,
because it would only make
trouble, and wouldn’t do no
good” (pp. 6-7). Once he
decides to run away both
from the widow (and her
sister) and from Pap Finn, his
plan is sketchy, but it is
enough to go on.
And in his bid to make his
getaway, Huck is nothing if
not a brilliant improviser, in
the blues mode.q He invents a
scenario that convinces the
town that he has been killed.
With things on the raft
“getting slow and dull,” Huck
decides to go ashore and
investigate the talk among the
villagers along the river. To
hide himself, our restless
improviser dresses as a girl
and tells a woman whose
house he visits that he is
Sarah Williams from
Hookerville, “all tired out”
from walking all the way.
Would he like something to
eat? “No‘m, I ain’t hungry,”
declares Huck, cooking up a
story. “I was so hungry I had
to stop two mile below here
at a farm; so I ain’t hungry no
more. It’s what makes me so
late. My mother’s down sick,
and out of money and
everything, and I come to tell
my uncle Abner Moore” (p.
53).
As the woman’s belief in
his act as a girl falters, Huck
makes use of her suspicion
that he actually is a boy-
apprentice on the run from a
cruel workplace master,
which would explain the
desperate disguise and
secrecy. Warming up to this
new role as runaway
apprentice, Huck supplies
impromptu details:
Then I told her my father
and mother was dead,
and the law had bound
me out to a mean old
farmer in the country
thirty mile back from the
river, and he treated me
so bad I couldn’t stand it
no longer; he went away
to be gone a couple of
days, and so I took my
chance and stole some of
his daughter’s old
clothes, and cleared out
(pp. 62-63).
Though the woman is too
sharp to fall for his act as a
girl, Huck does gain enough
of her confidence to obtain
the information he has come
for—that a posse has a bead
on Jim, and that the two of
them had better move on
quicker than planned. And
note the themes of Huck’s
invented tales: hunger,
sickness, death,
abandonment, separation,
escape. These are the subjects
of the blues; and just as
Huckleberry’s larger story,
within the fully orchestrated
blues sonata that is the novel,
is at bottom about freedom,
resiliency, and heroic action,
so are these, at bottom, the
subjects of the blues: the
improviser’s capacity, in spite
of all disconnection, to
connect and to make a break
for freedom.
To get help for a gang
whose boat Huck has stolen
(and because of which theft
he feels guilty), the boy stops
a man passing on a ferry and
pretends to weep before
serving up another bluesy tale
of woe. “Pap and mam, and
sis and Miss Hooker” are all
in a peck of trouble, Huck
declares, because while
making a night visit to
Booth’s Island, Miss Hooker
and her black servant-woman
took a ferry but lost their oar,
so the ferry turned down the
river and ran into an old
wrecked boat, the Walter
Scott. With the servant and
the horses lost, Miss Hooker
climbed aboard the wreck.
“Well,” says Huck,
unwinding the yarn, “about
an hour after dark, we come
along down in our trading-
scow, and it was so dark we
didn’t notice the wreck till we
was right on it; and so we
saddle-baggsed”—that is,
they were slowed to a
complete halt. “Well, we
hollered and took on, but it’s
so wide there, we couldn’t
make nobody hear. So pap
said somebody got to get
ashore and get help
somehow” (p. 70). To seal the
deal that the man on the ferry
will go to offer help (the
stranded gangsters), Huck
plays on the ferryman’s greed
by claiming, as if
incidentally, that Miss
Hooker’s uncle is the
fabulously wealthy Jim
Hornback. Again, underneath
Huck’s comedy of
manipulation is an orphan’s
tragic tale of a family mired
and separated by forces
beyond their control, a blues
in the night on the river. And
again there is the larger
drama of the quest for
freedom and democracy (our
nation’s word for love)
through quick and artful
improvisation.
Like a blues musician,
Huck creates in the moment.
With fertile imagination, he
solos. He fills the vivid
breaks in the action with
invented phrases, gestures,
and disguises, songs of self
and community in love and
trouble, characters trying to
piece things back together,
trying to get home, and then
again, perhaps better still, to
get away, to break free.
Sometimes, as a soloist, Huck
overblows. For instance, in
the scene where Huck
pretends that Jim did not
actually experience but only
dreamed up the storm that left
them separated, Huck’s
invention is merely self-
serving, the smarty stuff of
Tom Sawyerism. When Jim
sees the trick, his heartfelt
words, containing a stinging
rebuke, achieve a kind of
blues cadence:
When I got all wore out
wid work, en wid de
callin’ for you, en went
to sleep, my heart wuz
mos’ broke bekase you
wuz los‘, en I didn’
k’yer no mo’ what
become er me en de raf‘.
En when I wake up en
fine you back agin’, all
safe en soun‘, de tears
come en I could a got
 down on my knees en
kiss’ yo’ foot I’s so
thankful. En all you wuz
thinkin ’bout wuz how
you could make a fool
uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat
truck dah is trash; en
trash is what people is
dat puts dirt on de head
er dey fren’s en makes
‘em ashamed (p. 80).
At its best, Huck’s language
is the language of the blues:
vigorous, ironical,
understated, grainy with
detail, swingingly playful.
Like the blues-singer, Huck
has little patience for
sentimental language or the
headlong, tearful action that
goes with it. This novel’s
ongoing parody of airy poems
about dead relatives, etc.,
parallels the blues’ disdain
for the easy tear,
sentimentalism’s shallow
parade of false feelings.
Huck’s impatience with Tom
Sawyer’s egocentric reliance
on bookish precedents—even
when he can’t say what some
of the highfalutin’ words he
uses actually mean—is also
true to the blues, which
favors not only the
improviser over the set text
but also language that is clear
and unabashed. “While
you’re steppin’ out someone
else is steppin’ in,” says a
blues song by Denise LaSalle
—never mind all the Tom
Sawyerist indirection and
pretense. When real trouble
haunts the book—the death of
Huck’s new friend Buck, for
example—Huck does not
gush; instead, the situation
itself is so eloquent that he
can barely speak, there is
nothing to say. In the spare
diction of the blues, worlds of
meaning erupt. These are the
strange silences that Toni
Morrison notices elsewhere in
Huck: He loves Jim too much
to make a speech about it.
Like a true bluesman, Huck’s
art is magnificently
understated and full of stark
but meaningful moments
when there is nothing for
words to say. His answer to
Jim’s rebuke about Huck’s
tricking of Jim after the storm
had separated them is not
direct; we only know that he
was ashamed and that he
crept back to apologize.
 It is Ellison who directly
connects Huck’s resolution,
the line in the novel’s famous
last sentence—“to light out
for the Territory”—with the
blues of Bessie Smith, who,
in the “Workhouse Blues”
also declares that she’s “goin’
to the Nation, goin’ to the
Territor‘.” In his collection of
essays called Going to the
Territory,r Ellison says that in
her song, Smith’s will to take
off for the “Territory” beyond
U.S. borders parallels the
journeys of slaves and ex-
slaves, and their children,
toward the broader freedom
and multiplied sense of
possibility associated not only
with the North but with the
Western frontier and, more
generally, with the uncharted
frontiers of the future. Jim, of
course, “lights out,” too.
Indeed, Mark Twain’s
master-stroke is connecting
Jim’s quest for freedom from
slavery with the nation’s
effort to grow up, morally, as
Huck is able to do as he lights
out for a territory we hope
will be more humane and
freer for all.
Making this case about this
novel as a sort of “Blues for
Huckleberry” or “Huck and
Jim’s Lonesome Raft Blues”
does not depend on our
straining to show that Huck is
black. And yet it is intriguing
to remember that, culturally
speaking, all the boys and
girls of that period (and of
our own period) from all the
towns like Huck’s home in
Grant’s Landing, Missouri,
whatever their specific racial
bloodlines, known and
unknown, were both black
and white—as well as Native
American.
Here Bernard De Voto’s
reflections on Mark Twain’s
own boyhood can help us
understand Huck’s
“blackness.” De Voto
observes that in the world of
Mark Twain’s boyhood,
black and white children
grew up together.... They
investigated all things
together, exploring life.
They hunted, swam, and
fought together. ... So
the days of Sam
Clemens were spent
among the blacks. Negro
girls watched over his
infancy. Negro boys
shared his childhood.
Negroes were a fountain
of wisdom and terror
and adventure. There
was Sandy and the other
slave boys who played
bear with him. These
and others preserved him
sometimes from
drowning. There was the
bedridden old woman
who had known Moses
and had lost her health in
the exodus from Egypt.
There was Uncle Dan‘l
who told the stories that
Harris was to put in the
mouth of Uncle Remus,
and, while the fire died,
revealed the awful world
of ghosts. There were
the Negroes with whom
he roamed the woods,
hunting coons and
pigeons. There were the
roustabouts of the
steamboats, the field
hands shouting calls
over their hoes, and all
the leisurely domestic
servants of the town....
Olivia Langdon, whom
he married, was to give
him a principle for
dealing justly with the
human race. He ought,
she said, to consider
every man black until he
 was proved white.s
De Voto also tells of Mark
Twain/Sam Clemens’s love
of Negro spirituals. As an
adult in Hartford,
Connecticut, he would
sometimes stand under the
moonlit night, singing
“Nobody Knows the Trouble
I See” and delivering the
song’s final “Glory,
Hallelujah,” “with a great
shout.” “Away back in the
beginning—to my mind,”
said Twain, the singing of
blacks “made all other vocal
music cheap... and it moves
me more than any other
music can.”t
While as far as we can tell,
Twain never heard blues
music as such, he heard the
various American musics,
including the Negro
spirituals, that blended to
become the blues. And there
is a “nobody knows the
trouble I see” as well as a
“glory Hallelujah” shout in
the blues. Both extremes of
feeling find their way into
this novel, Huckleberry Finn.
If Huckleberry Finn may
be read as a blues narrative,
with blues characters and
plotlines, the book’s mode of
composition by improvisation
also is strongly suggestive of
the blues. Manuscript
evidence and letters from and
to Twain indicate that he first
conceived of Huckleberry
Finn as an extension of The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in
which Huck had first made an
appearance as Tom’s friend,
dirt-poor but smart and
natively good at heart. Twain
decided that the new book
would not bring Tom into
adulthood, as Twain’s friend
William Dean Howells had
recommended, but instead
would tell the story of this
other boy, Huck, who had so
much appeal that he had
nearly taken over Tom’s own
Adventures.
The decision to shape this
new novel as a first-person
narrative, a chronicle told in
an everyday voice by a boy
trying to cope with the
trouble he sees, was brilliant
and bluesy. It is also
important that Twain did not
first conceive the book as a
weapon against slavery, or as
even about slavery in any
central way. In fact, Jim did
not figure as a major
character in the book’s early
drafts; nor at first was there
any indication that Twain
intended to have Jim run
away from slavery. Evidently
Twain’s plan was to write a
series of episodes satirizing
American foibles and
hypocrisies, particularly when
it came to religious practices,
as his model book The
Adventures of Gil Blas
(1749), by Alain René Le
Sage had done. According to
scholar Victor Doyno,
“Twain initially considered
having Huck escape from his
father’s cabin to set off
tramping across Illinois. Then
the novel would have been a
‘road’ book, like Gil Blas’s,
instead of a ‘river’ book. But
when he [Twain] remembered
the June rise in the river level,
with logs and rafts coming
from upriver, he soon had
Huck spot a free-floating
canoe, and that gave him the
mechanism for Huck to travel
down the river Twain knew
so well.“u Twain brings Huck
to Jackson’s Island, according
to Doyno, without knowing
what would happen next.
Further, Twain ”may have
been a bit puzzled by the
Robinson Crusoe—like
moment when Huck first
discovers the campfire on
Jackson’s Island because he
did not yet know in his
imagination who else was
there. When he finally
realized, after much
sequential revision, that the
person by the campfire was
Jim, he was so excited—and,
I think, happy—that he wrote
’I bet I was glad to see him!‘
in running script, lifting his
pen off the page between
words only four times (his
habit when writing very
rapidly) instead of the normal
seven times. Placing Jim by
the campfire was a crucial
discovery/creation on the part
of Twain’s imagination,
because it gave Huck a
companion who would give
the book surprising new
possibilities.“ Composing the
book over a ten-year period,
with one episode suggesting
another, and with Jim’s leap
for freedom challenging Huck
to be more than an
adventurous picaro or vehicle
for incidental satire—he had
to face the implications of
loving Jim and identifying
with his goal—gradually
Mark Twain shaped the novel
into Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn as we have
it today. Huck became a
moral hero hotly engaged in a
battle between what Twain
called ”a sound heart and a
deformed conscience.”
There is a sense in which
all novels, and perhaps all
works of art, are improvised.
Still, Huckleberry Finn
strikes me as a special case
because when it began one of
the two main characters
hardly existed, and the most
significant part of the plotline
was not yet imagined at all by
the writer. Starting and
stopping, improvising over
ten years, Twain found out
what the book was about. In
the process he seems to have
discovered that improvising
on the blues is the American
mode. In Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, Huck not
only makes up stories to dupe
the dupes and undo the
tricksters he meets along the
river, he develops a style of
resiliency and optimism, a
readiness in the face of
distress and even disaster that
spells his survival as well as
his moral development. He
learns what the great
improvisers in music learn:
that improvisation at its best
is not a trick but a style and
process; it is a philosophical
and aesthetic attitude with
which to face the future ready
to swing with others.
Improvisation is swinging
freely, with discipline and
with love. In the end, that
capacity for free but
disciplined loving swing with
others—at the heart of the
blues—is what Huckleberry
Finn is all about.
And in this new
millennium, how wonderful
for me, brown-skinned reader
and inheritor of the legacy of
the blues (as well as of the
traditions of the American
novel), to discover that my
love for this music and, alas,
yes, my love for this book—
wrong notes and all—are
linked, tied as tight as the
strings of old Robert
Johnson’s blues guitar.

Robert G. O‘Meally is Zora

Neale Hurston Professor of
Literature at Columbia
University, where he has
served on the faculty for
thirteen years; since 1999 he
has been the Director of
Columbia’s Center for Jazz
Studies. He is the author of
The Craft of Ralph Ellison
(1980) and Lady Day: The
Many Faces of Billie Holiday
(1991), and the principle
writer of Seeing Jazz (1997),
the catalog for the
Smithsonian Institution’s
exhibit on jazz painting and
literature. He edited the
collection of essays Living
with Music: Ralph Ellison’s
Jazz Writings (2001) and The
Jazz Cadence of American
Culture (1998), which was
awarded an 1999 ASCAP—
Deems Taylor award, and
coedited History and Memory
in African-American Culture
(1994) and The Norton
Anthology of African
American Literature (1996).
O’Meally wrote the script for
the documentary film Lady
Day and for the documentary
accompanying the
Smithsonian exhibit Duke
Ellington: Beyond Category
(1995), and he was nominated
for a Grammy for his work as
coproducer of the five-CD
boxed set The Jazz Singers
(1998). He lives in New York
with his wife, Jacqui Malone,
and their sons, Douglass and
Gabriel.
 Notice.

Persons attempting to find a

motive in this narrative will
be prosecuted; persons
attempting to find a moral in
it will be banished; persons
attempting to find a plot in it
will be shot.
By Order of the Author Per
G. G., Chief of Ordnance.v
 Explanatory.
In this book a number of
dialects are used, to wit: the
Missouri negro dialect; the
extremest form of the
backwoods South-Western
dialect; the ordinary “Pike-
County” dialect; and four
modified varieties of this last.
The shadings have not been
done in a hap-hazard fashion,
or by guess-work; but pains-
takingly, and with the
trustworthy guidance and
support of personal
familiarity with these several
forms of speech.
I make this explanation for
the reason that without it
many readers would suppose
that all these characters were
trying to talk alike and not
succeeding.
The Author.
 CHAPTER 1
You don’t know about me,
without you have read a book
by the name of “The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer,”
but that ain’t no matter. That
book was made by Mr. Mark
Twain, and he told the truth,
mainly. There was things
which he stretched, but
mainly he told the truth. That
is nothing. I never seen
anybody but lied, one time or
another, without it was Aunt
Polly, or the widow, or
maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—
Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—
and Mary, and the Widow
Douglas, is all told about in
that book—which is mostly a
true book; with some
stretchers,w as I said before.
Now the way that the book
winds up, is this: Tom and me
found the money that the
robbers hid in the cave, and it
made us rich. We got six
thousand dollars apiece—all
gold. It was an awful sight of
money when it was piled up.
Well, Judge Thatcher, he took
it and put it out at interest,
and it fetched us a dollar a
day apiece, all the year round
—more than a body could tell
what to do with. The Widow
Douglas, she took me for her
son, and allowed she would
sivilize me;1 but it was rough
living in the house all the
time, considering how dismal
regular and decent the widow
was in all her ways; and so
when I couldn’t stand it no
longer, I lit out. I got into my
old rags, and my sugar-
hogsheadx again, and was
free and satisfied. But Tom
Sawyer, he hunted me up and
said he was going to start a
band of robbers, and I might
join if I would go back to the
widow and be respectable. So
I went back.
The widow she cried over
me, and called me a poor lost
lamb, and she called me a lot
of other names, too, but she
never meant no harm by it.
She put me in them new
clothes again, and I couldn’t
do nothing but sweat and
sweat, and feel all cramped
up. Well, then, the old thing
commenced again. The
widow rung a bell for supper,
and you had to come to time.
When you got to the table
you couldn’t go right to
eating, but you had to wait for
the widow to tuck down her
head and grumble a little over
the victuals, though there
warn’t really anything the
matter with them. That is,
nothing only everything was
cooked by itself. In a barrel of
odds and ends it is different;
things get mixed up, and the
juice kind of swaps around,
and the things go better.
After supper she got out
her book and learned me
about Moses and the
Bulrushers;y and I was in a
sweat to find out all about
him; but by-and-by she let it
out that Moses had been dead
a considerable long time; so
then I didn’t care no more
about him; because I don’t
take no stock in dead people.
Pretty soon I wanted to
smoke, and asked the widow
to let me. But she wouldn’t.
She said it was a mean
practice and wasn’t clean, and
I must try to not do it any
more. That is just the way
with some people. They get
down on a thing when they
don’t know nothing about it.
Here she was a bothering
about Moses, which was no
kin to her, and no use to
anybody, being gone, you
see, yet finding a power of
fault with me for doing a
thing that had some good in
it. And she took snuff too; of
course that was all right,
because she done it herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a
tolerable slim old maid, with
goggles on, had just come to
live with her, and took a set at
me now, with a spelling-
book. She worked me
middling hard for about an
hour, and then the widow
made her ease up. I couldn’t
stood it much longer. Then
for an hour it was deadly dull,
and I was fidgety. Miss
Watson would say, “Don’t
put your feet up there,
Huckleberry;” and “don’t
scrunch up like that,
Huckleberry—set up
straight;” and pretty soon she
would say, “Don’t gap and
stretch like that, Huckleberry
—why don’t you try to
behave?” Then she told me
all about the bad place, and I
said I wished I was there. She
got mad, then, but I didn’t
mean no harm. All I wanted
was to go somewheres; all I
wanted was a change, I
warn’t particular. She said it
was wicked to say what I
said; said she wouldn’t say it
for the whole world; she was
going to live so as to go to the
good place. Well, I couldn’t
see no advantage in going
where she was going, so I
made up my mind I wouldn’t
try for it. But I never said so,
because it would only make
trouble, and wouldn’t do no
good.
Now she had got a start,
and she went on and told me
all about the good place. She
said all a body would have to
do there was to go around all
day long with a harp and sing,
forever and ever. So I didn’t
think much of it. But I never
said so. I asked her if she
reckoned Tom Sawyer would
go there, and, she said, not by
a considerable sight. I was
glad about that, because I
wanted him and me to be
together.
Miss Watson she kept
pecking at me, and it got
tiresome and lonesome. By-
and-by they fetched the
niggers in and had prayers,
and then everybody was off
to bed.2 I went up to my room
with a piece of candle and put
it on the table. Then I set
down in a chair by the
window and tried to think of
something cheerful, but it
warn’t no use. I felt so
lonesome I most wished I was
dead. The stars was shining,
and the leaves rustled in the
woods ever so mournful; and
I heard an owl, away off,
who-whooing about
somebody that was dead, and
a whippowill and a dog
crying about somebody that
was going to die; and the
wind was trying to whisper
something to me and I
couldn’t make out what it
was, and so it made the cold
shivers run over me. Then
away out in the woods I heard
that kind of a sound that a
ghost makes when it wants to
tell about something that’s on
its mind and can’t make itself
understood, and so can’t rest
easy in its grave and has to go
about that way every night
grieving. I got so down-
hearted and scared, I did wish
I had some company. Pretty
soon a spider went crawling
up my shoulder, and I flipped
it off and it lit in the candle;
and before I could budge it
was all shriveled up. I didn’t
need anybody to tell me that
that was an awful bad sign
and would fetch me some bad
luck, so I was scared and
most shook the clothes off of
me. I got up and turned
around in my tracks three
times and crossed my breast
every time; and then I tied up
a little lock of my hair with a
thread to keep witches away.
But I hadn’t no confidence.
You do that when you’ve lost
a horse-shoe that you’ve
found, instead of nailing it up
over the door, but I hadn’t
ever heard anybody say it was
any way to keep off bad luck
when you’d killed a spider.
I set down again, a shaking
all over, and got out my pipe
for a smoke; for the house
was all as still as death, now,
and so the widow wouldn’t
know. Well, after a long time
I heard the clock away off in
the town go boom—boom—
boom—twelve licks—and all
still again—stiller than ever.
Pretty soon I heard a twig
snap, down in the dark
amongst the trees—
something was a stirring. I set
still and listened. Directly I
could just barely hear a “me-
yow! me-yow!” down there.
That was good! Says I, “me-
yow! me-yow!” as soft as I
could, and then I put out the
light and scrambled out of the
window onto the shed. Then I
slipped down to the ground
and crawled in amongst the
trees, and sure enough there
was Tom Sawyer waiting for
me.
 CHAPTER 2
We went tip-toeing along a
path amongst the trees back
towards the end of the
widow’s garden, stooping
down so as the branches
wouldn’t scrape our heads.
When we was passing by the
kitchen I fell over a root and
made a noise. We scrouched
down and laid still. Miss
Watson’s big nigger, named
Jim, was setting in the
kitchen door; we could see
him pretty clear, because
there was a light behind him.
He got up and stretched his
neck out about a minute,
listening. Then he says,
“Who dah?”
He listened some more;
then he come tip-toeing down
and stood right between us;
we could a touched him,
nearly. Well, likely it was
minutes and minutes that
there warn’t a sound, and we
all there so close together.
There was a place on my
ankle that got to itching; but I
dasn’t scratch it; and then my
ear begun to itch; and next
my back, right between my
shoulders. Seemed like I’d
die if I couldn’t scratch. Well,
I’ve noticed that thing plenty
of times since. If you are with
the quality, or at a funeral, or
trying to go to sleep when
you ain’t sleepy—if you are
anywheres where it won’t do
for you to scratch, why you
will itch all over in upwards
of a thousand places. Pretty
soon Jim says:
“Say—who is you? Whar
is you? Dog my cats ef I
didn’t hear sumf’n. Well, I
knows what I’s gwynez to do.
I’s gwyne to set down here
and listen tell I hears it agin.”
So he set down on the
ground betwixt me and Tom.
He leaned his back up against
a tree, and stretched his legs
out till one of them most
touched one of mine. My
nose begun to itch. It itched
till the tears come into my
eyes. But I dasn’t scratch.
Then it begun to itch on the
inside. Next I got to itching
underneath. I didn’t know
how I was going to set still.
This miserableness went on
as much as six or seven
minutes; but it seemed a sight
longer than that. I was itching
in eleven different places
now. I reckoned I couldn’t
stand it more’n a minute
longer, but I set my teeth hard
and got ready to try. Just then
Jim begun to breathe heavy;
next he begun to snore—and
then I was pretty soon
comfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me
—kind of a little noise with
his mouth—and we went
creeping away on our hands
and knees. When we was ten
foot off, Tom whispered to
me and wanted to tie Jim to
the tree for fun; but I said no;
he might wake and make a
disturbance, and then they’d
find out I warn’t in. Then
Tom said he hadn’t got
candles enough, and he would
slip in the kitchen and get
some more. I didn’t want him
to try. I said Jim might wake
up and come. But Tom
wanted to resk it; so we slid
in there and got three candles,
and Tom laid five cents on
the table for pay. Then we got
out, and I was in a sweat to
get away; but nothing would
do Tom but he must crawl to
where Jim was, on his hands
and knees, and play
something on him. I waited,
and it seemed a good while,
everything was so still and
lonesome.
 As soon as Tom was back,
we cut along the path, around
the garden fence, and by-and-
by fetched up on the steep top
of the hill the other side of the
house. Tom said he slipped
Jim’s hat off of his head and
hung it on a limb right over
him, and Jim stirred a little,
but he didn’t wake.
Afterwards Jim said the
witches bewitched him and
put him in a trance, and rode
him all over the State, and
then set him under the trees
again and hung his hat on a
limb to show who done it.
And next time Jim told it he
said they rode him down to
New Orleans: and after that,
every time he told it he
spread it more and more, till
by-and-by he said they rode
him all over the world, and
tired him most to death, and
his back was all over saddle-
boils. Jim was monstrous
proud about it, and he got so
he wouldn’t hardly notice the
other niggers. Niggers would
come miles to hear Jim tell
about it, and he was more
looked up to than any nigger
in that country. Strange
niggers would stand with
their mouths open and look
him all over, same as if he
was a wonder. Niggers is
always talking about witches
in the dark by the kitchen
fire; but whenever one was
talking and letting on to know
all about such things, Jim
would happen in and say,
“Hm! What you know ‘bout
witches?” and that nigger was
corked up and had to take a
back seat. Jim always kept
that five-center piece around
his neck with a string and
said it was a charm the devil
give to him with his own
hands and told him he could
cure anybody with it and
fetch witches whenever he
wanted to, just by saying
something to it; but he never
told what it was he said to it.
Niggers would come from all
around there and give Jim
anything they had, just for a
sight of that five-center piece;
but they wouldn’t touch it,
because the devil had had his
hands on it. Jim was most
ruined, for a servant, because
he got so stuck up on account
of having seen the devil and
been rode by witches.
 Well, when Tom and me
got to the edge of the hill-top,
we looked away down into
the village and could see
three or four lights twinkling,
where there was sick folks,
may be; and the stars over us
was sparkling ever so fine;
and down by the village was
the river, a whole mile broad,
and awful still and grand. We
went down the hill and found
Jo Harper, and Ben Rogers,
and two or three more of the
boys, hid in the old tanyard.
So we unhitched a skiff and
pulled down the river two
mile and a half, to the big
scar on the hillside, and went
ashore.
We went to a clump of
bushes, and Tom made
everybody swear to keep the
secret, and then showed them
a hole in the hill, right in the
thickest part of the bushes.
Then we lit the candles and
crawled in on our hands and
knees. We went about two
hundred yards, and then the
cave opened up. Tom poked
about amongst the passages
and pretty soon ducked under
a wall where you wouldn’t a
noticed that there was a hole.
We went along a narrow
place and got into a kind of
room, all damp and sweaty
and cold, and there we
stopped. Tom says:
 “Now we’ll start this band
of robbers and call it Tom
Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody
that wants to join has got to
take an oath, and write his
name in blood.”
Everybody was willing. So
Tom got out a sheet of paper
that he had wrote the oath on,
and read it. It swore every
boy to stick to the band, and
never tell any of the secrets;
and if anybody done anything
to any boy in the band,
whichever boy was ordered to
kill that person and his family
must do it, and he mustn’t eat
and he mustn’t sleep till he
had killed them and hacked a
cross in their breasts, which
was the sign of the band. And
nobody that didn’t belong to
the band could use that mark,
and if he did he must be sued;
and if he done it again he
must be killed. And if
anybody that belonged to the
band told the secrets, he must
have his throat cut, and then
have his carcass burnt up and
the ashes scattered all around,
and his name blotted off of
the list with blood and never
mentioned again by the gang,
but have a curse put on it and
be forgot, forever.
Everybody said it was a
real beautiful oath, and asked
Tom if he got it out of his
own head. He said, some of
it, but the rest was out of
pirate books, and robber
books, and every gang that
was high-toned had it.
Some thought it would be
good to kill the families of
boys that told the secrets.
Tom said it was a good idea,
so he took a pencil and wrote
it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
“Here’s Huck Finn, he
hain’t got no family—what
you going to do ‘bout him?”
 “Well, hain’t he got a
father?” says Tom Sawyer.
“Yes, he’s got a father, but
you can’t never find him,
these days. He used to lay
drunk with the hogs in the
tanyard, but he hain’t been
seen in these parts for a year
or more.”
They talked it over, and
they was going to rule me
out, because they said every
boy must have a family or
somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn’t be fair and square
for the others. Well, nobody
could think of anything to do
—everybody was stumped,
and set still. I was most ready
to cry; but all at once I
thought of a way, and so I
offered them Miss Watson—
they could kill her.
Everybody said:
“Oh, she’ll do, she’ll do.
That’s all right. Huck can
come in.”
Then they all stuck a pin in
their fingers to get blood to
sign with, and I made my
mark on the paper.
“Now,” says Ben Rogers,
“what’s the line of business
of this Gang?”
“Nothing only robbery and
murder,” Tom said.
“But who are we going to
rob? houses—or cattle—or
—”
 “Stuff! stealing cattle and
such things ain’t robbery, it’s
burglary,” says Tom Sawyer.
“We ain’t burglars. That ain’t
no sort of style. We are
highwaymen. We stop stages
and carriages on the road,
with masks on, and kill the
people and take their watches
and money.”
“Must we always kill the
people?”
“Oh, certainly. It’s best.
Some authorities think
different, but mostly it’s
considered best to kill them.
Except some that you bring to
the cave here and keep them
till they’re ransomed.”
“Ransomed? What’s that?”
“I don’t know. But that’s
what they do. I’ve seen it in
books; and so of course that’s
what we’ve got to do.”
“But how can we do it if
we don’t know what it is?”
 “Why blame it all, we’ve
got to do it. Don’t I tell you
it’s in the books? Do you
want to go to doing different
from what’s in the books, and
get things all muddled up?”
“Oh, that’s all very fine to
say, Tom Sawyer, but how in
the nation are these fellows
going to be ransomed if we
don’t know how to do it to
them? that’s the thing I want
to get at. Now what do you
reckon it is?”
“Well I don’t know. But
per‘aps if we keep them till
they’re ransomed, it means
that we keep them till they’re
dead.”
“Now, that’s something
like. That’ll answer. Why
couldn’t you said that before?
We’ll keep them till they’re
ransomed to death—and a
bothersome lot they’ll be, too,
eating up everything and
always trying to get loose.”
“How you talk, Ben
Rogers. How can they get
loose when there’s a guard
over them, ready to shoot
them down if they move a
peg?”
“A guard. Well, that is
good. So somebody’s got to
set up all night and never get
any sleep, just so as to watch
them. I think that’s
foolishness. Why can’t a
body take a club and ransom
them as soon as they get
here?”
“Because it ain’t in the
books so—that’s why. Now
Ben Rogers, do you want to
do things regular, or don’t
you?—that’s the idea. Don’t
you reckon that the people
that made the books knows
what’s the correct thing to
do? Do you reckon you can
learn ‘em anything? Not by a
good deal. No, sir, we’ll just
go on and ransom them in the
regular way.”
“All right. I don’t mind;
but I say it’s a fool way,
anyhow. Say—do we kill the
women, too?”
“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was
as ignorant as you I wouldn’t
let on. Kill the women? No—
nobody ever saw anything in
the books like that. You fetch
them to the cave, and you’re
always as polite as pie to
them; and by-and-by they fall
in love with you and never
want to go home any more.”
“Well, if that’s the way,
I’m agreed, but I don’t take
no stock in it. Mighty soon
we’ll have the cave so
cluttered up with women, and
fellows waiting to be
ransomed, that there won’t be
no place for the robbers. But
go ahead, I ain’t got nothing
to say.”
Little Tommy Barnes was
asleep, now, and when they
waked him up he was scared,
and cried, and said he wanted
to go home to his ma, and
didn’t want to be a robber any
more.
So they all made fun of
him, and called him cry-baby,
and that made him mad, and
he said he would go straight
and tell all the secrets. But
Tom give him five cents to
keep quiet, and said we
would all go home and meet
next week and rob somebody
and kill some people.
Ben Rogers said he
couldn’t get out much, only
Sundays, and so he wanted to
begin next Sunday; but all the
boys said it would be wicked
to do it on Sunday, and that
settled the thing. They agreed
to get together and fix a day
as soon as they could, and
then we elected Tom Sawyer
first captain and Jo Harper
second captain of the Gang,
and so started home.
I clumb up the shed and
crept into my window just
before day was breaking. My
new clothes was all greased
up and clayey, and I was dog-
tired.
 CHAPTER 3
Well, I got a good going-over
in the morning, from old Miss
Watson, on account of my
clothes; but the widow she
didn’t scold, but only cleaned
off the grease and clay and
looked so sorry that I thought
I would behave a while if I
could. Then Miss Watson she
took me in the closet and
prayed, but nothing come of
it. She told me to pray every
day, and whatever I asked for
I would get it. But it warn’t
so. I tried it. Once I got a
fish-line, but no hooks. It
warn’t any good to me
without hooks. I tried for the
hooks three or four times, but
somehow I couldn’t make it
work. By-and-by, one day, I
asked Miss Watson to try for
me, but she said I was a fool.
She never told me why, and I
couldn’t make it out no way.
 I set down, one time, back
in the woods, and had a long
think about it. I says to
myself, if a body can get
anything they pray for, why
don’t Deacon Winn get back
the money he lost on pork?
Why can’t the widow get
back her silver snuff-box that
was stole? Why can’t Miss
Watson fat up?aa No, says I to
myself, there ain’t nothing in
it. I went and told the widow
about it, and she said the
thing a body could get by
praying for it was “spiritual
gifts.” This was too many for
me, but she told me what she
meant—I must help other
people, and do everything I
could for other people, and
look out for them all the time,
and never think about myself.
This was including Miss
Watson, as I took it. I went
out in the woods and turned it
over in my mind a long time,
but I couldn’t see no
advantage about it—except
for the other people—so at
last I reckoned I wouldn’t
worry about it any more, but
just let it go. Sometimes the
widow would take me one
side and talk about
Providence in a way to make
a body’s mouth water; but
maybe next day Miss Watson
would take hold and knock it
all down again.3 I judged I
could see that there was two
Providences, and a poor chap
would stand considerable
show with the widow’s
Providence, but if Miss
Watson’s got him there
warn’t no help for him any
more. I thought it all out, and
reckoned I would belong to
the widow‘s, if he wanted me,
though I couldn’t make out
how he was agoing to be any
better off then than what he
was before, seeing I was so
ignorant and so kind of low-
down and ornery.
Pap he hadn’t been seen for
more than a year, and that
was comfortable for me; I
didn’t want to see him no
more. He used to always
whale me when he was sober
and could get his hands on
me; though I used to take to
the woods most of the time
when he was around. Well,
about this time he was found
in the river drowned, about
twelve mile above town, so
people said. They judged it
was him, anyway; said this
drowned man was just his
size, and was ragged, and had
uncommon long hair—which
was all like pap—but they
couldn’t make nothing out of
the face, because it had been
in the water so long it warn’t
much like a face at all. They
said he was floating on his
back in the water. They took
him and buried him on the
bank. But I warn’t
comfortable long, because I
happened to think of
something. I knowed mighty
well that a drownded man
don’t float on his back, but on
his face. So I knowed, then,
that this warn’t pap, but a
woman dressed up in man’s
clothes. So I was
uncomfortable again. I judged
the old man would turn up
again by-and-by, though I
wished he wouldn’t.
We played robber now and
then about a month, and then
I resigned. All the boys did.
We hadn’t robbed nobody,
we hadn’t killed any people,
but only just pretended. We
used to hop out of the woods
and go charging down on
hog-drovers and women in
carts taking garden stuff to
market, but we never hived
any of them. Tom Sawyer
called the hogs “ingots,”ab
and he called the turnips and
stuff “julery”ac and we would
go to the cave and pow-wow
over what we had done and
how many people we had
killed and marked. But I
couldn’t see no profit in it.
One time Tom sent a boy to
run about town with a blazing
stick, which he called a
slogan (which was the sign
for the Gang to get together),
and then he said he had got
secret news by his spies that
next day a whole parcel of
Spanish merchants and rich
A-rabs was going to camp in
Cave Hollow with two
hundred elephants, and six
hundred camels, and over a
thousand “sumter” mules,ad
all loaded down with
di‘monds, and they didn’t
have only a guard of four
hundred soldiers, and so we
would lay in ambuscade, as
he called it, and kill the lot
and scoop the things. He said
we must slick up our swords
and guns, and get ready. He
never could go after even a
turnip-cart but he must have
the swords and guns all
scoured up for it; though they
was only lath and broom-
sticks, and you might scour at
them till you rotted and then
they warn’t worth a mouthful
of ashes more than what they
was before. I didn’t believe
we could lick such a crowd of
Spaniards and A-rabs, but I
wanted to see the camels and
elephants, so I was on hand
next day, Saturday, in the
ambuscade; and when we got
the word, we rushed out of
the woods and down the hill.
But there warn’t no Spaniards
and A-rabs, and there warn’t
no camels nor no elephants. It
warn’t anything but a
Sunday-school picnic, and
only a primer-class at that.
We busted it up, and chased
the children up the hollow;
but we never got anything but
some doughnuts and jam,
though Ben Rogers got a rag
doll, and Jo Harper got a
hymn-book and a tract; and
then the teacher charged in
and made us drop everything
and cut. I didn’t see no
di’monds, and I told Tom
Sawyer so. He said there was
loads of them there, anyway,
and he said there was A-rabs
there, too, and elephants and
things. I said, why couldn’t
we see them, then? He said if
I warn’t so ignorant, but had
read a book called “Don
Quixote,” I would know
without asking.4 He said it
was all done by enchantment.
He said there was hundreds of
soldiers there, and elephants
and treasure, and so on, but
we had enemies which he
called magicians, and they
had turned the whole thing
into an infant Sunday school,
just out of spite. I said, all
right, then the thing for us to
do was to go for the
magicians. Tom Sawyer said
I was a numskull.
“Why,” says he, “a
magician could call up a lot
of genies, and they would
hash you up like nothing
before you could say Jack
Robinson. They are as tall as
a tree and as big around as a
church.”
“Well,” I says, “s‘pose we
got some genies to help us—
can’t we lick the other crowd
then?”
“How you going to get
them?”
“I don’t know. How do
they get them?”
“Why they rub an old tin
lamp or an iron ring, and then
the genies come tearing in,
with the thunder and
lightning a-ripping around
and the smoke a-rolling, and
everything they’re told to do
they up and do it. They don’t
think nothing of pulling a
shot tower up by the roots,
and belting a Sunday-school
superintendent over the head
with it—or any other man.”
“Who makes them tear
around so?”
 “Why, whoever rubs the
lamp or the ring. They belong
to whoever rubs the lamp or
the ring, and they’ve got to do
whatever he says. If he tells
them to build a palace forty
miles long, out of di‘monds,
and fill it full of chewing
gum, or whatever you want,
and fetch an emperor’s
daughter from China for you
to marry, they’ve got to do it
—and they’ve got to do it
before sun-up next morning,
too. And more—they’ve got
to waltz that palace around
over the country wherever
you want it, you understand.”
“Well,” says I, “I think
they are a pack of flatheadsae
for not keeping the palace
themselves ‘stead of fooling
them away like that. And
what’s more—if I was one of
them I would see a man in
Jericho before I would drop
my business and come to him
for the rubbing of an old tin
lamp.”
“How you talk, Huck Finn.
Why, you’d have to come
when he rubbed it, whether
you wanted to or not.”
“What, and I as high as a
tree and as big as a church?
All right, then; I would come;
but I lay I’d make that man
climb the highest tree there
was in the country.”
“Shucks, it ain’t no use to
talk to you, Huck Finn. You
don’t seem to know anything,
somehow—perfect sap-
head.”
I thought all this over for
two or three days, and then I
reckoned I would see if there
was anything in it. I got an
old tin lamp and an iron ring
and went out in the woods
and rubbed and rubbed till I
sweat like an Injun,
calculating to build a palace
and sell it; but it warn’t no
use, none of the genies come.
So then I judged that all that
stuff was only just one of
Tom Sawyer’s lies. I
reckoned he believed in the
Arabs and the elephants, but
as for me I think different. It
had all the marks of a Sunday
school.
 CHAPTER 4
Well, three or four months
run along, and it was well
into the winter, now. I had
been to school most all the
time, and could spell, and
read, and write just a little,
and could say the
multiplication table up to six
times seven is thirty-five, and
I don’t reckon I could ever
get any further than that if I
was to live forever. I don’t
take no stock in mathematics,
anyway.
At first I hated the school,
but by-and-by I got so I could
stand it. Whenever I got
uncommon tired I played
hookey, and the hiding I got
next day done me good and
cheered me up. So the longer
I went to school the easier it
got to be. I was getting sort of
used to the widow’s ways,
too, and they warn’t so raspy
on me. Living in a house, and
sleeping in a bed, pulled on
me pretty tight, mostly, but
before the cold weather I used
to slide out and sleep in the
woods, sometimes, and so
that was a rest to me. I liked
the old ways best, but I was
getting so I liked the new
ones, too, a little bit. The
widow said I was coming
along slow but sure, and
doing very satisfactory. She
said she warn’t ashamed of
me.
One morning I happened to
turn over the salt-cellar at
breakfast. I reached for some
of it as quick as I could, to
throw over my left shoulder
and keep off the bad luck, but
Miss Watson was in ahead of
me, and crossed me off. She
says, “Take your hands away,
Huckleberry—what a mess
you are always making.” The
widow put in a good word for
me, but that warn’t going to
keep off the bad luck, I
knowed that well enough. I
started out, after breakfast,
feeling worried and shaky,
and wondering where it was
going to fall on me, and what
it was going to be. There is
ways to keep off some kinds
of bad luck, but this wasn’t
one of them kind; so I never
tried to do anything, but just
poked along low-spirited and
on the watch-out.
I went down the front
garden and clumb over the
stile,af where you go through
the high board fence. There
was an inch of new snow on
the ground, and I seen
somebody’s tracks. They had
come up from the quarry and
stood around the stile a while,
and then went on around the
garden fence. It was funny
they hadn’t come in, after
standing around so. I couldn’t
make it out. It was very
curious, somehow. I was
going to follow around, but I
stooped down to look at the
tracks first. I didn’t notice
anything at first, but next I
did. There was a cross in the
left boot-heel made with big
nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and
shinning down the hill. I
looked over my shoulder
every now and then, but I
didn’t see nobody. I was at
Judge Thatcher’s as quick as I
could get there. He said:
‘Why, my boy, you are all
out of breath. Did you come
for your interest?”
“No sir,” I says; “is there
some for me?”
“Oh, yes, a half-yearly is
in, last night. Over a hundred
and fifty dollars. Quite a
fortune for you. You better let
me invest it along with your
six thousand, because if you
take it you’ll spend it.”
“No sir,” I says, “I don’t
want to spend it. I don’t want
it at all—nor the six
thousand, nuther. I want you
to take it; I want to give it to
you—the six thousand and
all.”
He looked surprised. He
couldn’t seem to make it out.
He says:
 “Why, what can you mean,
my boy?”
I says, “Don’t you ask me
no questions about it, please.
You’ll take it—won’t you?”
He says:
“Well I’m puzzled. Is
something the matter?”
“Please take it,” says I,
“and don’t ask me nothing—
then I won’t have to tell no
lies.”
He studied a while, and
then he says:
“Oho-o. I think I see. You
want to sell all your property
to me—not give it. That’s the
correct idea.”
Then he wrote something
on a paper and read it over,
and says:
“There—you see it says
‘for a consideration.’ That
means I have bought it of you
and paid you for it. Here’s a
dollar for you. Now, you sign
it.”
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim,
had a hair-ball as big as your
fist, which had been took out
of the fourth stomach of an
ox, and he used to do magic
with it. He said there was a
spirit inside of it, and it
knowed everything. So I went
to him that night and told him
pap was here again, for I
found his tracks in the snow.
What I wanted to know, was,
what he was going to do, and
was he going to stay? Jim got
out his hair-ball, and said
something over it, and then
he held it up and dropped it
on the floor. It fell pretty
solid, and only rolled about
an inch. Jim tried it again,
and then another time, and it
acted just the same. Jim got
down on his knees and put his
ear against it and listened.
But it warn’t no use; he said it
wouldn’t talk. He said
sometimes it wouldn’t talk
without money. I told him I
had an old slick counterfeit
quarter that warn’t no good
because the brass showed
through the silver a little, and
it wouldn’t pass nohow, even
if the brass didn’t show,
because it was so slick it felt
greasy, and so that would tell
on it every time. (I reckoned I
wouldn’t say nothing about
the dollar I got from the
judge.) I said it was pretty
bad money, but maybe the
hair-ball would take it,
because maybe it wouldn’t
know the difference. Jim
smelt it, and bit it, and rubbed
it, and said he would manage
so the hair-ball would think it
was good. He said he would
split open a raw Irish potato
and stick the quarter in
between and keep it there all
night, and next morning you
couldn’t see no brass, and it
wouldn’t feel greasy no more,
and so anybody in town
would take it in a minute, let
alone a hair-ball. Well, I
knowed a potato would do
that, before, but I had forgot
it.
Jim put the quarter under
the hair-ball and got down
and listened again. This time
he said the hair-ball was all
right. He said it would tell my
whole fortune if I wanted it
to. I says, go on. So the hair-
ball talked to Jim, and Jim
told it to me. He says:
“Yo’ ole father doan’
know, yit, what he’s a-gwyne
to do. Sometimes he spec
he’ll go ‘way, en den agin he
spec he’ll stay. De bes’ way
is to res’ easy en let de ole
man take his own way. Dey’s
two angels hoverin’ roun’
’bout him. One uv ‘em is
white en shiny, en ’tother one
is black. De white one gits
him to go right, a little while,
den de black one sail in en
bust it all up. A body can’t
tell, yit, which one gwyne to
fetch him at de las.‘ But you
is all right. You gwyne to
have considable trouble in
yo’ life, en considable joy.
Sometimes you gwyne to git
hurt, en sometimes you
gwyne to git sick; but every
time you’s gwyne to git well
agin. Dey’s two gals flyin’
’bout you in yo’ life. One uv
‘em’s light en ’tother one is
dark. One is rich en ‘tother is
po’. You’s gwyne to marry de
po’ one fust en de rich one
by-en-by. You wants to keep
‘way fum de water as much
as you kin, en don’t run no
resk, ’kase it’s down in de
billsag dat you’s gwyne to git
hung.”
When I lit my candle and
went up to my room that
night, there set pap, his own
self!
 CHAPTER 5
I had shut the door to. Then I
turned around, and there he
was. I used to be scared of
him all the time, he tannedah
me so much. I reckoned I was
scared now, too; but in a
minute I see I was mistaken.
That is, after the first jolt, as
you may say, when my breath
sort of hitched—he being so
unexpected; but right away
after, I see I warn’t scared of
him worth bothering about.
He was most fifty, and he
looked it. His hair was long
and tangled and greasy, and
hung down, and you could
see his eyes shining through
like he was behind vines. It
was all black, no gray; so was
his long, mixed-up whiskers.
There warn’t no color in his
face, where his face showed;
it was white; not like another
man’s white, but a white to
make a body sick, a white to
make a body’s flesh crawl—a
tree-toad white, a fish-belly
white. As for his clothes—
just rags, that was all. He had
one ankle resting on ‘tother
knee; the boot on that foot
was busted, and two of his
toes stuck through, and he
worked them now and then.
His hat was laying on the
floor; an old black slouch
with the top caved in, like a
lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he
set there a-looking at me,
with his chair tilted back a
little. I set the candle down. I
noticed the window was up;
so he had clumb in by the
shed. He kept a-looking me
all over. By-and-by he says:
“Starchy clothes—very.
You think you’re a good deal
of a big-bug, don’t you?”
 “Maybe I am, maybe I
ain‘t,” I says.
“Don’t you give me none
o’ your lip,” says he. “You’ve
put on considerable many
frills since I been away. I’ll
take you down a peg before I
get done with you. You’re
educated, too, they say; can
read and write. You think
you’re better’n your father,
now, don’t you, because he
can’t? I’ll take it out of you.
Who told you you might
meddle with such hi falut’n
foolishness, hey?—who told
you you could?”
“The widow. She told me.”
“The widow, hey?—and
who told the widow she could
put in her shovel about a
thing that ain’t none of her
business?”
“Nobody never told her.”
“Well, I’ll learn her how to
meddle. And looky here—
you drop that school, you
hear? I’ll learn people to
bring up a boy to put on airs
over his own father and let on
to be better’n what he is. You
lemme catch you fooling
around that school again, you
hear? Your mother couldn’t
read, and she couldn’t write,
nuther, before she died. None
of the family couldn‘t, before
they died. I can’t; and here
you’re a-swelling yourself up
like this. I ain’t the man to
stand it—you hear? Say—
lemme hear you read.”
I took up a book and begun
something about General
Washington and the wars.
When I’d read about a half a
minute, he fetched the book a
whack with his hand and
knocked it across the house.
He says:
“It’s so. You can do it. I
had my doubts when you told
me. Now looky here; you
stop that putting on frills. I
won’t have it. I’ll lay for you,
my smarty; and if I catch you
about that school I’ll tan you
good. First you know you’ll
get religion, too. I never see
such a son.”
He took up a little blue and
yaller picture of some cows
and a boy, and says:
“What’s this?”
“It’s something they give
me for learning my lessons
good.”
He tore it up, and says—
“I’ll give you something
better—I’ll give you a
cowhide.”
He set there a-mumbling
and a-growling a minute, and
then he says—
“Ain’t you a sweet-scented
dandy, though? A bed; and
bedclothes; and a look‘n-
glass; and a piece of carpet on
the floor—and your own
father got to sleep with the
hogs in the tanyard. I never
see such a son. I bet I’ll take
some o’ these frills out o’ you
before I’m done with you.
Why there ain’t no end to
your airs—they say you’re
rich. Hey?—how’s that?”
“They lie—that’s how.”
“Looky here—mind how
you talk to me; I’m a-
standing about all I can stand,
now—so don’t gimme no
sass. I’ve been in town two
days, and I hain’t heard
nothing but about you bein’
rich. I heard about it away
down the river, too. That’s
why I come. You git me that
money tomorrow—I want it.”
“I hain’t got no money.”
“It’s a lie. Judge Thatcher’s
got it. You git it. I want it.”
“I hain’t got no money, I
tell you. You ask Judge
Thatcher; he’ll tell you the
same.”
“All right. I’ll ask him; and
I’ll make him pungle,ai too, or
I’ll know the reason why. Say
—how much you got in your
pocket? I want it.”
“I hain’t got only a dollar,
and I want that to—”
“It don’t make no
difference what you want it
for—you just shell it out.”
He took it and bit it to see
if it was good, and then he
said he was going down town
to get some whisky; said he
hadn’t had a drink all day.
When he had got out on the
shed, he put his head in again,
and cussed me for putting on
frills and trying to be better
than him; and when I
reckoned he was gone, he
come back and put his head
in again, and told me to mind
about that school, because he
was going to lay for me and
lick me if I didn’t drop that.
 Next day he was drunk,
and he went to Judge
Thatcher’s and bul lyraggedaj
him and tried to make him
give up the money, but he
couldn‘t, and then he swore
he’d make the law force him.
The judge and the widow
went to law to get the court to
take me away from him and
let one of them be my
guardian; but it was a new
judge that had just come, and
he didn’t know the old man:
so he said courts mustn’t
interfere and separate families
if they could help it; said he’d
druther not take a child away
from its father.5 So Judge
Thatcher and the widow had
to quit on the business.
That pleased the old man
till he couldn’t rest. He said
he’d cowhide me till I was
black and blue if I didn’t raise
some money for him. I
borrowed three dollars from
Judge Thatcher, and pap took
it and got drunk and went a-
blowing around and cussing
and whooping and carrying
on; and he kept it up all over
town, with a tin pan, till most
midnight; then they jailed
him, and next day they had
him before court, and jailed
him again for a week. But he
said he was satisfied; said he
was boss of his son, and he’d
make it warm for him.
 When he got out the new
judge said he was agoing to
make a man of him. So he
took him to his own house,
and dressed him up clean and
nice, and had him to breakfast
and dinner and supper with
the family, and was just old
pie to him, so to speak. And
after supper he talked to him
about temperance and such
things till the old man cried,
and said he’d been a fool, and
fooled away his life; but now
he was agoing to turn over a
new leaf and be a man
nobody wouldn’t be ashamed
of, and he hoped the judge
would help him and not look
down on him. The judge said
he could hug him for them
words; so he cried, and his
wife she cried again; pap said
he’d been a man that had
always been misunderstood
before, and the judge said he
believed it. The old man said
that what a man wanted that
was down, was sympathy;
and the judge said it was so;
so they cried again. And
when it was bedtime, the old
man rose up and held out his
hand, and says:
“Look at it gentlemen, and
ladies all; take ahold of it;
shake it. There’s a hand that
was the hand of a hog; but it
ain’t so no more; it’s the hand
of a man that’s started in on a
new life, and ’ll die before
he’ll go back. You mark them
words—don’t forget I said
them. It’s a clean hand now;
shake it—don’t be afeard.”
So they shook it, one after
the other, all around, and
cried. The judge’s wife she
kissed it. Then the old man he
signed a pledge—made his
mark. The judge said it was
the holiest time on record, or
something like that. Then
they tucked the old man into
a beautiful room, which was
the spare room, and in the
night sometime he got
powerful thirsty and clumb
out onto the porch-roof and
slid down a stanchion and
traded his new coat for a jug
of forty-rod,ak and clumb
back again and had a good
old time; and towards
daylight he crawled out again,
drunk as a fiddler, and rolled
off the porch and broke his
left arm in two places and
was most froze to death when
somebody found him after
sun-up. And when they come
to look at that spare room,
they had to take soundings
before they could navigate it.
The judge he felt kind of
sore. He said he reckoned a
body could reform the ole
man with a shot-gun, maybe,
but he didn’t know no other
way.
 CHAPTER 6
Well, pretty soon the old man
was up and around again, and
then he went for Judge
Thatcher in the courts to
make him give up that
money, and he went for me,
too, for not stopping school.
He catched me a couple of
times and thrashed me, but I
went to school just the same,
and dodged him or out-run
him most of the time. I didn’t
want to go to school much,
before, but I reckoned I’d go
now to spite pap. That law
trial was a slow business;
appeared like they warn’t
ever going to get started on it;
so every now and then I’d
borrow two or three dollars
off of the judge for him, to
keep from getting a
cowhiding. Every time he got
money he got drunk; and
every time he got drunk he
raised Cain around town; and
every time he raised Cain he
got jailed. He was just suited
—this kind of thing was right
in his line.
He got to hanging around
the widow’s too much, and so
she told him at last, that if he
didn’t quit using around there
she would make trouble for
him. Well, wasn’t he mad?
He said he would show who
was Huck Finn’s boss. So he
watched out for me one day
in the spring, and catched me,
and took me up the river
about three mile, in a skiff,
and crossed over to the
Illinois shore where it was
woody and there warn’t no
houses but an old log hut in a
place where the timber was so
thick you couldn’t find it if
you didn’t know where it
was.
He kept me with him all
the time, and I never got a
chance to run off. We lived in
that old cabin, and he always
locked the door and put the
key under his head, nights.
He had a gun which he had
stole, I reckon, and we fished
and hunted, and that was
what we lived on. Every little
while he locked me in and
went down to the store, three
miles, to the ferry, and traded
fish and game for whisky and
fetched it home and got drunk
and had a good time, and
licked me. The widow she
found out where I was, by-
and-by, and she sent a man
over to try to get hold of me,
but pap drove him off with
the gun, and it warn’t long
after that till I was used to
being where I was, and liked
it, all but the cowhide part.
It was kind of lazy and
jolly, laying off comfortable
all day, smoking and fishing,
and no books nor study. Two
months or more run along,
and my clothes got to be all
rags and dirt, and I didn’t see
how I’d ever got to like it so
well at the widow‘s, where
you had to wash, and eat on a
plate, and comb up, and go to
bed and get up regular, and be
forever bothering over a book
and have old Miss Watson
pecking at you all the time. I
didn’t want to go back no
more. I had stopped cussing,
because the widow didn’t like
it; but now I took to it again
because pap hadn’t no
objections. It was pretty good
times up in the woods there,
take it all around.
But by-and-by pap got too
handy with his hick‘ry, and I
couldn’t stand it. I was all
over welts. He got to going
away so much, too, and
locking me in. Once he
locked me in and was gone
three days. It was dreadful
lonesome. I judged he had got
drowned and I wasn’t ever
going to get out any more. I
was scared. I made up my
mind I would fix up some
way to leave there. I had tried
to get out of that cabin many
a time, but I couldn’t find no
way. There warn’t a window
to it big enought for a dog to
get through. I couldn’t get up
the chimbly, it was too
narrow. The door was thick
solid oak slabs. Pap was
pretty careful not to leave a
knife or anything in the cabin
when he was away; I reckon I
had hunted the place over as
much as a hundred times;
well, I was ’most all the time
at it because it was about the
only way to put in the time.
But this time I found
something at last; I found an
old rusty wood-saw without
any handle; it was laid in
between a rafter and the
clapboards of the roof. I
greased it up and went to
work. There was an old
horse-blanket nailed against
the logs at the far end of the
cabin behind the table, to
keep the wind from blowing
through the chinks and
putting the candle out. I got
under the table and raised the
blanket and went to work to
saw a section of the big
bottom log out, big enough to
let me through. Well, it was a
good long job, but I was
getting towards the end of it
when I heard pap’s gun in the
woods. I got rid of the signs
of my work, and dropped the
blanket and hid my saw, and
pretty soon pap come in.
Pap warn’t in a good
humor—so he was his natural
self. He said he was down to
town, and everything was
going wrong. His lawyer said
he reckoned he would win his
lawsuit and get the money, if
they ever got started on the
trial; but then there was ways
to put it off a long time, and
Judge Thatcher knowed how
to do it. And he said people
allowed there’d be another
trial to get me away from him
and give me to the widow for
my guardian, and they
guessed it would win, this
time. This shook me up
considerable, because I didn’t
want to go back to the
widow’s any more and be so
cramped up and sivilized, as
they called it. Then the old
man got to cussing, and
cussed everything and
everybody he could think of,
and then cussed them all over
again to make sure he hadn’t
skipped any, and after that he
polished off with a kind of
general cuss all round,
including a considerable
parcel of people which he
didn’t know the names of,
and so called them what‘s-
his-name, when he got to
them, and went right along
with his cussing.
He said he would like to
see the widow get me. He
said he would watch out, and
if they tried to come any such
game on him he knowed of a
place six or seven mile off, to
stow me in, where they might
hunt till they dropped and
they couldn’t find me. That
made me pretty uneasy again,
but only for a minute; I
reckoned I wouldn’t stay on
hand till he got that chance.
The old man made me go
to the skiff and fetch the
things he had got. There was
a fifty-pound sack of corn
meal, and a side of bacon,
ammunition, and a four-
gallon jug of whisky, and an
old book and two newspapers
for wadding, besides some
tow. I toted up a load, and
went back and set down on
the bow of the skiff to rest. I
thought it all over, and I
reckoned I would walk off
with the gun and some lines,
and take to the woods when I
run away. I guessed I
wouldn’t stay in one place,
but just tramp right across the
country, mostly night times,
and hunt and fish to keep
alive, and so get so far away
that the old man nor the
widow couldn’t ever find me
any more. I judged I would
saw out and leave that night if
pap got drunk enough, and I
reckoned he would. I got so
full of it I didn’t notice how
long I was staying, till the old
man hollered and asked me
whether I was asleep or
drownded.
I got the things all up to the
cabin, and then it was about
dark. While I was cooking
supper the old man took a
swig or two and got sort of
warmed up, and went to
ripping again. He had been
drunk over in town, and laid
in the gutter all night, and he
was a sight to look at. A body
would a thought he was
Adam, he was just all mud.6
Whenever his liquor begun to
work, he most always went
for the govment. This time he
says:
 “Call this a govment!7
why, just look at it and see
what it’s like. Here’s the law
a-standing ready to take a
man’s son away from him—a
man’s own son, which he has
had all the trouble and all the
anxiety and all the expense of
raising. Yes, just as that man
has got that son raised at last,
and ready to go to work and
begin to do suthin’ for him
and give him a rest, the law
up and goes for him. And
they call that govment! That
ain’t all, nuther. The law
backs that old Judge Thatcher
up and helps him to keep me
out o’ my property. Here’s
what the law does. The law
takes a man worth six
thousand dollars and upards,
and jams him into an old trap
of a cabin like this, and lets
him go round in clothes that
ain’t fitten for a hog. They
call that govment! A man
can’t get his rights in a
govment like this. Sometimes
I’ve a mighty notion to just
leave the country for good
and all. Yes, and I told ‘em
so; I told old Thatcher so to
his face. Lots of ’em heard
me, and can tell what I said.
Says I, for two cents I’d leave
the blamed country and never
come anear it agin. Them’s
the very words. I says, look at
my hat—if you call it a hat—
but the lid raises up and the
rest of it goes down till it’s
below my chin, and then it
ain’t rightly a hat at all, but
more like my head was
shoved up through a jint o’
stovepipe. Look at it, says I—
such a hat for me to wear—
one of the wealthiest men in
this town, if I could git my
rights.
“Oh, yes, this is a
wonderful govment,
wonderful. Why, looky here.
There was a free nigger there,
from Ohio; a mulatter, most
as white as a white man. He
had the whitest shirt on you
ever see, too, and the shiniest
hat; and there ain’t a man in
that town that’s got as fine
clothes as what he had; and
he had a gold watch and
chain, and a silver-headed
cane—the awfulest old gray-
headed nabob in the State.
And what do you think? they
said he was a p‘fessor in a
college, and could talk all
kinds of languages, and
knowed everything. And that
ain’t the wust. They said he
could vote, when he was at
home. Well, that let me out.
Thinks I, what is the country
a-coming to? It was ’lection
day, and I was just about to
go and vote, myself, if I
warn’t too drunk to get there;
but when they told me there
was a State in this country
where they’d let that, nigger
vote, I drawed out. I says I’ll
never vote agin. Them’s the
very words I said; they all
heard me; and the country
may rot for all me—I’ll never
vote agin as long as I live.
And to see the cool way of
that nigger—why, he
wouldn’t a give me the road
if I hadn’t shoved him out o’
the way. I says to the people,
why ain’t this nigger put up at
auction and sold?—that’s
what I want to know. And
what do you reckon they
said? Why, they said he
couldn’t be sold till he’d been
in the State six months, and
he hadn’t been there that long
yet. There, now—that’s a
specimen. They call that a
govment that can’t sell a free
nigger till he’s been in the
State six months. Here’s a
govment that calls itself a
govment, and lets on to be a
govment, and thinks it is a
govment, and yet’s got to set
stock-still for six whole
months before it can take
ahold of a prowling, thieving,
infernal, white-shirted free
nigger, and—”
Pap was agoing on so, he
never noticed where his old
limber legs was taking him
to, so he went head over heels
over the tub of salt pork, and
barked both shins, and the
rest of his speech was all the
hottest kind of language—
mostly hove at the nigger and
the govment, though he give
the tub some, too, all along,
here and there. He hopped
around the cabin
considerable, first on one leg
and then on the other, holding
first one shin and then the
other one, and at last he let
out with his left foot all of a
sudden and fetched the tub a
rattling kick. But it warn’t
good judgment, because that
was the boot that had a
couple of his toes leaking out
of the front end of it; so now
he raised a howl that fairly
made a body’s hair raise, and
down he went in the dirt, and
rolled there, and held his toes;
and the cussing he done then
laid over anything he had
ever done previous. He said
so his own self, afterwards.
He had heard old Sowberry
Hagan in his best days, and
he said it laid over him, too;
but I reckon that was sort of
piling it on, maybe.
After supper pap took the
jug, and said he had enough
whisky there for two drunks
and one delirium tremens.al
That was always his word. I
judged he would be blind
drunk in about an hour, and
then I would steal the key, or
saw myself out, one or
‘tother. He drank, and drank,
and tumbled down on his
blankets, by-and-by; but luck
didn’t run my way. He didn’t
go sound asleep, but was
uneasy. He groaned, and
moaned, and thrashed around
this way and that, for a long
time. At last I got so sleepy I
couldn’t keep my eyes open,
all I could do, and so before I
knowed what I was about I
was sound asleep, and the
candle burning.
I don’t know how long I
was asleep, but all of a
sudden there was an awful
scream and I was up. There
was pap, looking wild and
skipping around every which
way and yelling about snakes.
He said they was crawling up
his legs; and then he would
give a jump and scream, and
say one had bit him on the
cheek—but I couldn’t see no
snakes. He started and run
round and round the cabin,
hollering “take him off! take
him off! he’s biting me on the
neck!” I never see a man look
so wild in the eyes. Pretty
soon he was all fagged out,
and fell down panting; then
he rolled over and over,
wonderful fast, kicking things
every which way, and striking
and grabbing at the air with
his hands, and screaming, and
saying there was devils ahold
of him. He wore out, by-and-
by, and laid still a while,
moaning. Then he laid stiller,
and didn’t make a sound. I
could hear the owls and the
wolves, away off in the
woods, and it seemed terrible
still. He was laying over by
the corner. By-and-by he
raised up, part way, and
listened, with his head to one
side. He says very low:
“Tramp—tramp—tramp;
that’s the dead; tramp—tramp
—tramp; they’re coming after
me; but I won’t go—Oh,
they’re here! don’t touch me
—don‘t! hands off—they’re
cold; let go—Oh, let a poor
devil alone!”
Then he went down on all
fours and crawled off begging
them to let him alone, and he
rolled himself up in his
blanket and wallowed in
under the old pine table, still
a-begging; and then he went
to crying. I could hear him
through the blanket.
By-and-by he rolled out
and jumped up on his feet
looking wild and he see me
and went for me. He chased
me round and round the
place, with a clasp-knife,
calling me the Angel of Death
and saying he would kill me
and then I couldn’t come for
him no more. I begged, and
told him I was only Huck, but
he laughed such a screechy
laugh, and roared and cussed,
and kept on chasing me up.
Once when I turned short and
dodged under his arm he
made a grab and got me by
the jacket between my
shoulders, and I thought I was
gone; but I slid out of the
jacket quick as lightning, and
saved myself. Pretty soon he
was all tired out, and dropped
down with his back against
the door, and said he would
rest a minute and then kill
me. He put his knife under
him, and said he would sleep
and get strong, and then he
would see who was who.
So he dozed off, pretty
soon. By-and-by I got the old
split-bottom chairam and
dumb up, as easy as I could,
not to make any noise, and
got down the gun. I slipped
the ramrod down it to make
sure it was loaded, and then I
laid it across the turnip barrel,
pointing towards pap, and set
down behind it to wait for
him to stir. And how slow
and still the time did drag
along.
 CHAPTER 7
“Git up! what you ‘bout!”
I opened my eyes and
looked around, trying to make
out where I was. It was after
sun-up, and I had been sound
asleep. Pap was standing over
me, looking sour—and sick,
too. He says—
“What you doin’ with this
gun?”
 I judged he didn’t know
nothing about what he had
been doing, so I says:
“Somebody tried to get in,
so I was laying for him.”
“Why didn’t you roust me
out?”
“Well I tried to, but I
couldn’t; I couldn’t budge
you.”
“Well, all right. Don’t
stand there palaveringan all
day, but out with you and see
if there’s a fish on the lines
for breakfast. I’ll be along in
a minute.”
He unlocked the door and I
cleared out, up the river bank.
I noticed some pieces of
limbs and such things floating
down, and a sprinkling of
bark; so I knowed the river
had begun to rise. I reckoned
I would have great times,
now, if I was over at the
town. The June rise used to
be always luck for me;
because as soon as that rise
begins, here comes cord-
woodao floating down, and
pieces of log rafts—
sometimes a dozen logs
together; so all you have to
do is to catch them and sell
them to the wood yards and
the sawmill.
I went along up the bank
with one eye out for pap and
‘tother one out for what the
rise might fetch along. Well,
all at once, here comes a
canoe; just a beauty, too,
about thirteen or fourteen foot
long, riding high like a duck.
I shot head first off of the
bank, like a frog, clothes and
all on, and struck out for the
canoe. I just expected there’d
be somebody laying down in
it, because people often done
that to fool folks, and when a
chap had pulled a skiff out
most to it they’d raise up and
laugh at him. But it warn’t so
this time. It was a drift-canoe,
sure enough, and I clumb in
and paddled her ashore.
Thinks I, the old man will be
glad when he sees this—she’s
worth ten dollars. But when I
got to shore pap wasn’t in
sight yet, and as I was
running her into a little creek
like a gully, all hung over
with vines and willows, I
struck another idea; I judged
I’d hide her good, and then,
stead of taking to the woods
when I run off, I’d go down
the river about fifty mile and
camp in one place for good,
and not have such a rough
time tramping on foot.
It was pretty close to the
shanty, and I thought I heard
the old man coming, all the
time; but I got her hid; and
then I out and looked around
a bunch of willows, and there
was the old man down the
path apiece just drawing a
bead on a bird with his gun.
So he hadn’t seen anything.
When he got along, I was
hard at it taking up a “trot”
line.ap He abused me a little
for being so slow, but I told
him I fell in the river and that
was what made me so long. I
knowed he would see I was
wet, and then he would be
asking questions. We got five
cat-fish off of the lines and
went home.
While we laid off, after
breakfast, to sleep up, both of
us being about wore out, I got
to thinking that if I could fix
up some way to keep pap and
the widow from trying to
follow me, it would be a
certainer thing than trusting
to luck to get far enough off
before they missed me; you
see, all kinds of things might
happen. Well, I didn’t see no
way for a while, but by-and-
by pap raised up a minute, to
drink another barrel of water,
and he says:
“Another time a man
comes a-prowling round here,
you roust me out, you hear?
That man warn’t here for no
good. I’d a shot him. Next
time, you roust me out, you
hear?”
Then he dropped down and
went to sleep again—but
what he had been saying give
me the very idea I wanted. I
says to myself, I can fix it
now so nobody won’t think of
following me.
About twelve o‘clock we
turned out and went along up
the bank. The river was
coming up pretty fast, and
lots of drift-wood going by on
the rise. By-and-by, along
comes part of a log raft—nine
logs fast together. We went
out with the skiff and towed it
ashore. Then we had dinner.
Anybody but pap would a
waited and seen the day
through, so as to catch more
stuff; but that warn’t pap’s
style. Nine logs was enough
for one time; he must shove
right over to town and sell. So
he locked me in and took the
skiff and started off towing
the raft about half-past three.
I judged he wouldn’t come
back that night. I waited till I
reckoned he had got a good
start, then I out with my saw
and went to work on that log
again. Before he was ’tother
side of the river I was out of
the hole; him and his raft was
just a speck on the water
away off yonder.
I took the sack of corn
meal and took it to where the
canoe was hid, and shoved
the vines and branches apart
and put it in; then I done the
same with the side of bacon;
then the whisky jug; I took all
the coffee and sugar there
was, and all the ammunition;
I took the wadding; I took the
bucket and gourd, I took a
dipper and a tin cup, and my
old saw and two blankets, and
the skillet and the coffee-pot.
I took fish-lines and matches
and other things—everything
that was worth a cent. I
cleaned out the place. I
wanted an axe, but there
wasn’t any, only the one out
at the wood pile, and I
knowed why I was going to
leave that. I fetched out the
gun, and now I was done.
I had wore the ground a
good deal, crawling out of the
hole and dragging out so
many things. So I fixed that
as good as I could from the
outside by scattering dust on
the place, which covered up
the smoothness and the
sawdust. Then I fixed the
piece of log back into its
place, and put two rocks
under it and one against it to
hold it there,—for it was bent
up at that place, and didn’t
quite touch ground. If you
stood four or five foot away
and didn’t know it was
sawed, you wouldn’t ever
notice it; and besides, this
was the back of the cabin and
it warn’t likely anybody
would go fooling around
there.
It was all grass clear to the
canoe; so I hadn’t left a track.
I followed around to see. I
stood on the bank and looked
out over the river. All safe.
So I took the gun and went up
a piece into the woods and
was hunting around for some
birds, when I see a wild pig;
hogs soon went wild in them
bottoms after they had got
away from the prairie farms. I
shot this fellow and took him
into camp.
I took the axe and smashed
in the door—I beat it and
hacked it considerable, a-
doing it. I fetched the pig in
and took him back nearly to
the table and hacked into his
throat with the ax, and laid
him down on the ground to
bleed—I say ground, because
it was ground—hard packed,
and no boards. Well, next I
took an old sack and put a lot
of big rocks in it,—all I could
drag-and I started it from the
pig and dragged it to the door
and through the woods down
to the river and dumped it in,
and down it sunk, out of
sight. You could easy see that
something had been dragged
over the ground. I did wish
Tom Sawyer was there, I
knowed he would take an
interest in this kind of
business, and throw in the
fancy touches. Nobody could
spread himself like Tom
Sawyer in such a thing as
that.
Well, last I pulled out some
of my hair, and bloodied the
ax good, and stuck it on the
back side, and slung the ax in
the corner. Then I took up the
pig and held him to my breast
with my jacket (so he
couldn’t drip) till I got a good
piece below the house and
then dumped him into the
river. Now I thought of
something else. So I went and
got the bag of meal and my
old saw out of the canoe and
fetched them to the house. I
took the bag to where it used
to stand, and ripped a hole in
the bottom of it with the saw,
for there warn’t no knives and
forks on the place—pap done
everything with his clasp-
knife, about the cooking.
Then I carried the sack about
a hundred yards across the
grass and through the willows
east of the house, to a shallow
lake that was five mile wide
and full of rushes—and ducks
too, you might say, in the
season. There was a sloughaq
or a creek leading out of it on
the other side, that went miles
away, I don’t know where,
but it didn’t go to the river.
The meal sifted out and made
a little track all the way to the
lake. I dropped pap’s
whetstone there too, so as to
look like it had been done by
accident. Then I tied up the
rip in the meal sack with a
string, so it wouldn’t leak no
more, and took it and my saw
to the canoe again.
It was about dark, now; so
I dropped the canoe down the
river under some willows that
hung over the bank, and
waited for the moon to rise. I
made fast to a willow; then I
took a bite to eat, and by-and-
by laid down in the canoe to
smoke a pipe and lay out a
plan. I says to myself, they’ll
follow the track of that
sackful of rocks to the shore
and then drag the river for
me. And they’ll follow that
meal track to the lake and go
browsing down the creek that
leads out of it to find the
robbers that killed me and
took the things. They won’t
ever hunt the river for
anything but my dead carcass.
They’ll soon get tired of that,
and won’t bother no more
about me. All right; I can stop
anywhere I want to. Jackson’s
Island is good enough for me;
I know that island pretty well,
and nobody ever comes there.
And then I can paddle over to
town, nights, and slink
around and pick up things I
want. Jackson’s Island’s the
place.
 I was pretty tired, and the
first thing I knowed, I was
asleep. When I woke up I
didn’t know where I was, for
a minute. I set up and looked
around, a little scared. Then I
remembered. The river
looked miles and miles
across. The moon was so
bright I could a counted the
drift logs that went a slipping
along, black and still,
hundreds of yards out from
shore. Everything was dead
quiet, and it looked late, and
smelt late. You know what I
mean—I don’t know the
words to put it in.
I took a good gap and a
stretch, and was just going to
unhitch and start, when I
heard a sound away over the
water. I listened. Pretty soon I
made it out. It was that dull
kind of a regular sound that
comes from oars working in
rowlocks when it’s a still
night. I peeped out through
the willow branches, and
there it was—a skiff, away
across the water. I couldn’t
tell how many was in it. It
kept a-coming, and when it
was abreast of me I see there
warn’t but one man in it.
Thinks I, maybe it’s pap,
though I warn’t expecting
him. He dropped below me,
with the current, and by-and-
by he come a-swinging up
shore in the easy water,ar and
he went by so close I could a
reached out the gun and
touched him. Well, it was
pap, sure enough—and sober,
too, by the way he laid to his
oars.
I didn’t lose no time. The
next minute I was a-spinning
down stream soft but quick in
the shade of the bank. I made
two mile and a half, and then
struck out a quarter of a mile
or more towards the middle
of the river, because pretty
soon I would be passing the
ferry landing and people
might see me and hail me. I
got out amongst the drift-
wood and then laid down in
the bottom of the canoe and
let her float. I laid there and
had a good rest and a smoke
out of my pipe, looking away
into the sky, not a cloud in it.
The sky looks ever so deep
when you lay down on your
back in the moonshine; I
never knowed it before. And
how far a body can hear on
the water such nights! I heard
people talking at the ferry
landing. I heard what they
said, too, every word of it.
One man said it was getting
towards the long days and the
short nights, now. ‘Tother
one said this warn’t one of
the short ones, he reckoned—
and then they laughed, and he
said it over again and they
laughed again; then they
waked up another fellow and
told him, and laughed, but he
didn’t laugh; he ripped out
something brisk and said let
him alone. The first fellow
said he ’lowed to tell it to his
old woman—she would think
it was pretty good; but he said
that warn’t nothing to some
things he had said in his time.
I heard one man say it was
nearly three o‘clock, and he
hoped daylight wouldn’t wait
more than about a week
longer. After that, the talk got
further and further away, and
I couldn’t make out the words
any more, but I could hear the
mumble; and now and then a
laugh, too, but it seemed a
long ways off.
I was away below the ferry
now. I rose up and there was
Jackson’s Island, about two
mile and a half down stream,
heavy-timbered and standing
up out of the middle of the
river, big and dark and solid,
like a steamboat without any
lights. There warn’t any signs
of the bar at the head—it was
all under water, now.
It didn’t take me long to
get there. I shot past the head
at a ripping rate, the current
was so swift, and then I got
into the dead water and
landed on the side towards
the Illinois shore. I run the
canoe into a deep dent in the
bank that I knowed about; I
had to part the willow
branches to get in; and when I
made fast nobody could a
seen the canoe from the
outside.
I went up and set down on
a log at the head of the island
and looked out on the big
river and the black driftwood,
and away over to the town,
three mile away, where there
was three or four lights
twinkling. A monstrous big
lumber raft was about a mile
up stream, coming along
down, with a lantern in the
middle of it. I watched it
come creeping down, and
when it was most abreast of
where I stood I heard a man
say, “Stern oars, there! heave
her head to stabboard!”as I
heard that just as plain as if
the man was by my side.
 There was a little gray in
the sky, now; so I stepped
into the woods and laid down
for a nap before breakfast.
 CHAPTER 8
The sun was up so high when
I waked, that I judged it was
after eight o‘clock. I laid
there in the grass and the cool
shade, thinking about things
and feeling rested and ruther
comfortable and satisfied. I
could see the sun out at one
or two holes, but mostly it
was big trees all about, and
gloomy in there amongst
them. There was freckled
places on the ground where
the light sifted down through
the leaves, and the freckled
places swapped about a little,
showing there was a little
breeze up there. A couple of
squirrels set on a limb and
jabbered at me very friendly.
I was powerful lazy and
comfortable—didn’t want to
get up and cook breakfast.
Well, I was dozing off again,
when I thinks I hears a deep
sound of “boom!” away up
the river. I rouses up and rests
on my elbow and listens;
pretty soon I hears it again. I
hopped up and went and
looked out at a hole in the
leaves, and I see a bunch of
smoke laying on the water a
long ways up—about abreast
the ferry. And there was the
ferryboat full of people,
floating along down. I
knowed what was the matter,
now. “Boom!” I see the white
smoke squirt out of the ferry
boat’s side. You see, they was
firing cannon over the water,
trying to make my carcass
come to the top.at
I was pretty hungry, but it
warn’t going to do for me to
start a fire, because they
might see the smoke. So I set
there and watched the
cannon-smoke and listened to
the boom. The river was a
mile wide, there, and it
always looks pretty on a
summer morning—so I was
having a good enough time
seeing them hunt for my
remainders, if I only had a
bite to eat. Well, then I
happened to think how they
always put quicksilver in
loaves of bread and float
them off because they always
go right to the drownded
carcass and stop there.au So
says I, I’ll keep a lookout,
and if any of them’s floating
around after me, I’ll give
them a show. I changed to the
Illinois edge of the island to
see what luck I could have,
and I warn’t disappointed. A
big double loaf come along,
and I most got it, with a long
stick, but my foot slipped and
she floated out further. Of
course I was where the
current set in the closest to
the shore—I knowed enough
for that. But by-and-by along
comes another one, and this
time I won. I took out the
plug and shook out the little
dab of quicksilver, and set my
teeth in. It was “baker’s
bread”—what the quality eat
—none of your lowdown
corn-pone.av
I got a good place amongst
the leaves, and set there on a
log, munching the bread and
watching the ferry-boat, and
very well satisfied. And then
something struck me. I says,
now I reckon the widow or
the parson or somebody
prayed that this bread would
find me, and here it has gone
and done it. So there ain’t no
doubt but there is something
in that thing. That is, there’s
something in it when a body
like the widow or the parson
prays, but it don’t work for
me, and I reckon it don’t
work for only just the right
kind.
I lit a pipe and had a good
long smoke and went on
watching. The ferry-boat was
floating with the current, and
I allowed I’d have a chance to
see who was aboard when she
come along, because she
would come in close, where
the bread did. When she’d got
pretty well along down
towards me, I put out my pipe
and went to where I fished
out the bread, and laid down
behind a log on the bank in a
little open place. Where the
log forked I could peep
through.
By-and-by she come along,
and she drifted in so close
that they could a run out a
plank and walked ashore.
Most everybody was on the
boat. Pap, and Judge
Thatcher, and Bessie
Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and
Tom Sawyer, and his old
Aunt Polly, and Sid and
Mary, and plenty more.
Everybody was talking about
the murder, but the captain
broke in and says:
“Look sharp, now; the
current sets in the closest
here, and maybe he’s washed
ashore and got tangled
amongst the brush at the
water’s edge. I hope so,
anyway.”
 I didn’t hope so. They all
crowded up and leaned over
the rails, nearly in my face,
and kept still, watching with
all their might. I could see
them first-rate, but they
couldn’t see me. Then the
captain sung out:
“Stand away!” and the
cannon let off such a blast
right before me that it made
me deef with the noise and
pretty near blind with the
smoke, and I judged I was
gone. If they’d a had some
bullets in, I reckon they’d a
got the corpse they was after.
Well, I see I warn’t hurt,
thanks to goodness. The boat
floated on and went out of
sight around the shoulder of
the island. I could hear the
booming, now and then,
further and further off, and
by-and-by after an hour, I
didn’t hear it no more. The
island was three mile long. I
judged they had got to the
foot, and was giving it up.
But they didn’t yet a while.
They turned around the foot
of the island and started up
the channel on the Missouri
side, under steam, and
booming once in a while as
they went. I crossed over to
that side and watched them.
When they got abreast the
head of the island they quit
shooting and dropped over to
the Missouri shore and went
home to the town.
I knowed I was all right
now. Nobody else would
come a-hunting after me. I
got my traps out of the canoe
and made me a nice camp in
the thick woods. I made a
kind of a tent out of my
blankets to put my things
under so the rain couldn’t get
at them. I catched a cat-fish
and haggled him open with
my saw, and towards
sundown I started my camp
fire and had supper. Then I
set out a line to catch some
fish for breakfast.
When it was dark I set by
my camp fire smoking, and
feeling pretty satisfied; but
by-and-by it got sort of
lonesome, and so I went and
set on the bank and listened
to the currents washing along,
and counted the stars and
drift-logs and rafts that come
down, and then went to bed;
there ain’t no better way to
put in time when you are
lonesome; you can’t stay so,
you soon get over it.
And so for three days and
nights. No difference—just
the same thing. But the next
day I went exploring around
down through the island. I
was boss of it; it all belonged
to me, so to say, and I wanted
to know all about it; but
mainly I wanted to put in the
time. I found plenty
strawberries, ripe and prime;
and green summer-grapes,
and green raz berries; and the
green blackberries was just
beginning to show. They
would all come handy by-
and-by, I judged.
Well, I went fooling along
in the deep woods till I
judged I warn’t far from the
foot of the island. I had my
gun along, but I hadn’t shot
nothing; it was for protection;
thought I would kill some
game nighaw home. About
this time I mighty near
stepped on a good sized
snake, and it went sliding off
through the grass and flowers,
and I after it, trying to get a
shot at it. I clipped along, and
all of a sudden I bounded
right on to the ashes of a
camp fire that was still
smoking.
My heart jumped up
amongst my lungs. I never
waited for to look further, but
uncocked my gun and went
sneaking back on my tip-toes
as fast as ever I could. Every
now and then I stopped a
second, amongst the thick
leaves, and listened; but my
breath come so hard I
couldn’t hear nothing else. I
slunk along another piece
further, then listened again;
and so on, and so on; if I see
a stump, I took it for a man; if
I trod on a stick and broke it,
it made me feel like a person
had cut one of my breaths in
two and I only got half, and
the short half, too.
When I got to camp I
warn’t feeling very brash,
there warn’t much sand in my
craw;ax but I says, this ain’t
no time to be fooling around.
So I got all my traps into my
canoe again so as to have
them out of sight, and I put
out the fire and scattered the
ashes around to look like an
old last year’s camp, and then
clumb a tree.
I reckon I was up in the
tree two hours; but I didn’t
see nothing, I didn’t hear
nothing—I only thought I
heard and seen as much as a
thousand things. Well, I
couldn’t stay up there
forever; so at last I got down,
but I kept in the thick woods
and on the lookout all the
time. All I could get to eat
was berries and what was left
over from breakfast.
By the time it was night I
was pretty hungry. So when it
was good and dark, I slid out
from shore before moonrise
and paddled over to the
Illinois bank—about a quarter
of a mile. I went out in the
woods and cooked a supper,
and I had about made up my
mind I would stay there all
night, when I hear a plunkety-
plunk, plunkety-plunk, and
says to myself, horses
coming; and next I hear
people’s voices. I got
everything into the canoe as
quick as I could, and then
went creeping through the
woods to see what I could
find out. I hadn’t got far when
I hear a man say:
“We better camp here, if
we can find a good place; the
horses is about beat out. Let’s
look around.”
I didn’t wait, but shoved
out and paddled away easy. I
tied up in the old place, and
reckoned I would sleep in the
canoe.
I didn’t sleep much. I
couldn‘t, somehow, for
thinking. And every time I
waked up I thought
somebody had me by the
neck. So the sleep didn’t do
me no good. By-and-by I says
to myself, I can’t live this
way; I’m agoing to find out
who it is that’s here on the
island with me; I’ll find it out
or bust. Well, I felt better,
right off.
So I took my paddle and
slid out from shore just a step
or two, and then let the canoe
drop along down amongst the
shadows. The moon was
shining, and outside of the
shadows it made it most as
light as day. I poked along
well onto an hour, everything
still as rocks and sound
asleep. Well by this time I
was most down to the foot of
the island. A little ripply, cool
breeze begun to blow, and
that was as good as saying the
night was about done. I give
her a turn with the paddle and
brung her nose to shore; then
I got my gun and slipped out
and into the edge of the
woods. I set down there on a
log and looked out through
the leaves. I see the moon go
off watch and the darkness
begin to blanket the river. But
in a little while I see a pale
streak over the tree-tops, and
knowed the day was coming.
So I took my gun and slipped
off towards where I had run
across that camp fire,
stopping every minute or two
to listen. But I hadn’t no luck,
somehow; I couldn’t seem to
find the place. But by-and-by,
sure enough, I catched a
glimpse of fire, away through
the trees. I went for it,
cautious and slow. By-and-by
I was close enough to have a
look, and there laid a man on
the ground. It most give me
the fan-tods.ay He had a
blanket around his head, and
his head was nearly in the
fire. I set there behind a
clump of bushes, in about six
foot of him, and kept my eyes
on him steady. It was getting
gray daylight, now. Pretty
soon he gapped, and stretched
himself, and hove off the
blanket, and it was Miss
Watson’s Jim! I bet I was
glad to see him. I says:
“Hello, Jim!” and skipped
out.
 He bounced up and stared
at me wild. Then he drops
down on his knees, and puts
his hands together and says:
“Doan’ hurt me—don‘t! I
hain’t ever done no harm to a
ghos’. I awluz liked dead
people, en done all I could for
‘em. You go en git in de river
agin, whah you b’longs, en
doan’ do nuffn to Ole Jim, ‘at
’uz awluz yo’ fren‘.”
Well, I warn’t long making
him understand. I warn’t
dead. I was ever so glad to
see Jim. I warn’t lonesome,
now. I told him I warn’t
afraid of him telling the
people where I was. I talked
along, but he only set there
and looked at me; never said
nothing. Then I says:
“It’s good daylight. Le’s
get breakfast. Make up your
camp fire good.”
“What’s de use er makin’
up de camp fire to cook
strawbries en sich truck? But
you got a gun, hain’t you?
Den we kin git sumfn better
den strawbries.”
“Strawberries and such
truck,” I says. “Is that what
you live on?”
“I couldn’ git nuffn else,”
he says.
“Why, how long you been
on the island, Jim?”
“I come heah de night arter
you’s killed.”
“What, all that time?”
“Yes-indeedy.”
“And ain’t you had nothing
but that kind of rubbage to
eat?”
“No, sah—nuffn else.”
“Well, you must be most
starved, ain’t you?”
“I reck’n I could eat a hoss.
I think I could. How long you
ben on de islan‘?”
 “Since the night I got
killed.”
“No! Wy, what has you
lived on? But you got a gun.
Oh, yes, you got a gun. Dat’s
good. Now you kill sumfn en
I’ll make up de fire.”
So we went over to where
the canoe was, and while he
built a fire in a grassy open
place amongst the trees, I
fetched meal and bacon and
coffee, and coffee-pot and
frying-pan, and sugar and tin
cups, and the nigger was set
back considerable, because he
reckoned it was all done with
witchcraft. I catched a good
big cat-fish, too, and Jim
cleaned him with his knife,
and fried him.
When breakfast was ready,
we lolled on the grass and eat
it smoking hot. Jim laid it in
with all his might, for he was
most about starved. Then
when we had got pretty well
stuffed, we laid off and
lazied.
By-and-by Jim says:
“But looky here, Huck,
who wuz it dat ‘uz killed in
dat shanty, ef it warn’t you?”
Then I told him the whole
thing, and he said it was
smart. He said Tom Sawyer
couldn’t get up no better plan
than what I had. Then I says:
“How do you come to be
here, Jim, and how’d you get
here?”
He looked pretty uneasy,
and didn’t say nothing for a
minute. Then he says:
“Maybe I better not tell.”
“Why, Jim?”
“Well, dey’s reasons. But
you wouldn’ tell on me ef I
‘uz to tell you, would you,
Huck?”
“Blamed if I would, Jim.”
“Well, I b‘lieve you, Huck.
I—I run off.”
“Jim!”
“But mind, you said you
wouldn’t tell—you know you
said you wouldn’t tell,
Huck.”
“Well, I did. I said I
wouldn‘t, and I’ll stick to it.
Honest injun I will. People
would call me a low down
Ablitionistaz and despise me
for keeping mum—but that
don’t make no difference. I
ain’t agoing to tell, and I ain’t
agoing back there anyways.
So now, le’s know all about
it.”
“Well, you see, it ‘uz dis
way. Ole Missus—dat’s Miss
Watson—she pecks on me all
de time, en treats me pooty
rough, but she awluz said she
wouldn’ sell me down to
Orleans.8 But I noticed dey
wuz a nigger trader roun’ de
place considable, lately, en I
begin to git oneasy. Well, one
night I creeps to de do’, pooty
late, en de do’ warn’t quite
shet, en I hear ole missus tell
de widder she gwyne to sell
me down to Orleans, but she
didn’ want to, but she could
git eight hund’d dollars for
me, en it ‘uz sich a big stack
o’ money she couldn’ resis’.
De widder she try to git her to
say she wouldn’ do it, but I
never waited to hear de res‘. I
lit out mighty quick, I tell
you.
“I tuck out en shin down de
hill en ‘spec to steal a skift
’long de sho’ som‘ers ’bove
de town, but dey wuz people
a-stirrin’ yit, so I hid in de ole
tumble-down cooper shop on
de bank to wait for everybody
to go ‘way. Well, I wuz dah
all night. Dey wuz somebody
roun’ all de time. ‘Long ’bout
six in de mawnin‘, skifts
begin to go by, en ’bout eight
er nine every skift dat went
‘long wuz talkin’ ’bout how
yo’ pap come over to de town
en say you’s killed. Dese las’
skifts wuz full o’ ladies en
genlmen agoin’ over for to
see de place. Sometimes
dey’d pull up at de sho’ en
take a res’ b‘fo’ dey started
acrost, so by de talk I got to
know all ’bout de killin‘. I ’uz
powerful sorry you’s killed,
Huck, but I ain’t no mo‘,
now.
 “I laid dah under de
shavins all day. I ‘uz hungry,
but I warn’t afeard; bekase I
knowed ole missus en de
widder wuz goin’ to start to
de camp meetn’ right arter
breakfas’ en be gone all day,
en dey knows I goes off wid
de cattle ’bout daylight, so
dey wouldn’ ‘spec to see me
roun’ de place, en so dey
wouldn’ miss me tell arter
dark in de evenin’. De yuther
servants wouldn’ miss me,
kase dey’d shin out en take
holiday, soon as de ole folks
‘uz out’n de way.
“Well, when it come dark I
tuck out up de river road, en
went ‘bout two mile er more
to whah dey warn’t no
houses. I’d made up my mine
’bout what I’s agwyne to do.
You see ef I kep’ on tryin’ to
git away afoot de dogs ‘ud
track me; ef I stole a skift to
cross over, dey’d miss dat
skift you see, en dey’d know
’bout whah I’d lan’ on de
yuther side en whah to pick
up my track. So I says, a raff
is what I’s arter; it doan’
make no track.
“I see a light a-comin’
roun’ de p‘int, bymeby, so I
wade’ in en shove’ a log
ahead o’ me, en swum
more’n half-way acrost de
river, en got in ’mongst de
drift-wood, en kep’ my head
down low, en kinder swum
agin de current tell de raff
come along. Den I swum to
de stern uv it, en tuck aholt. It
clouded up en ‘uz pooty dark
for a little while. So I clumb
up en laid down on de planks.
De men ’uz all ‘way yonder
in de middle, whah de lantern
wuz. De river wuz arisin’ en
dey wuz a good current; so I
reck’n‘d’at by fo’ in de
mawnin’ I’d be twenty-five
mile down de river, en den
I’d slip in, jis’ b‘fo’ daylight,
en swim asho’ en take to de
woods on de Illinoi side.
“But I didn’ have no luck.
When we ‘uz mos’ down to
de head er de islan’, a man
begin to come aft wid de
lantern. I see it warn’t no use
fer to wait, so I slid
overboard, en struck out fer
de islan‘. Well, I had a notion
I could lan’ mos’ anywhers,
but I couldn’t—bank too
bluff. I ‘uz mos’ to de foot er
de islan’ b’fo’ I foun’ a good
place. I went into de woods
en jedged I wouldn’ fool wid
raffs no mo‘, long as dey
move de lantern roun’ so. I
had my pipe en a plug er dog-
leg,ba en some matches in my
cap, en dey warn’t wet, so I
’uz all right.”
“And so you ain’t had no
meat nor bread to eat all this
time? Why didn’t you get
mud-turkles?”bb
“How you gwyne to git’m?
You can’t slip up on um en
grab um; en how’s a body
gwyne to hit um wid a rock?
How could a body do it in de
night? en I warn’t gwyne to
show mysef on de bank in de
daytime.”
“Well, that’s so. You’ve
had to keep in the woods all
the time, of course. Did you
hear ‘em shooting the
cannon?”
“Oh, yes. I knowed dey
was arter you. I see um go by
heah; watched um thoo de
bushes.”
Some young birds come
along, flying a yard or two at
a time and lighting. Jim said
it was a sign it was going to
rain. He said it was a sign
when young chickens flew
that way, and so he reckoned
it was the same way when
young birds done it. I was
going to catch some of them,
but Jim wouldn’t let me. He
said it was death. He said his
father laid mighty sick once,
and some of them catched a
bird, and his old granny said
his father would die, and he
did.
And Jim said you musn’t
count the things you are
going to cook for dinner,
because that would bring bad
luck. The same if you shook
the table-cloth after sundown.
And he said if a man owned a
bee-hive, and that man died,
the bees must be told about it
before sun-up next morning,
or else the bees would all
weaken down and quit work
and die. Jim said bees
wouldn’t sting idiots; but I
didn’t believe that, because I
had tried them lots of times
myself, and they wouldn’t
sting me.
 I had heard about some of
these things before, but not
all of them. Jim knowed all
kinds of signs. He said he
knowed most everything. I
said it looked to me like all
the signs was about bad luck,
and so I asked him if there
warn’t any good-luck signs.
He says:
“Mighty few—an’ dey ain’
no use to a body. What you
want to know when good
luck’s a-comin’ for? want to
keep it off?” And he said: “Ef
you’s got hairy arms en a
hairy breas‘, it’s a sign dat
you’s agwyne to be rich.
Well, dey’s some use in a
sign like dat, ’kase it’s so fur
ahead. You see, maybe you’s
got to be po’ a long time fust,
en so you might git
discourage’ en kill yo‘sef ’f
you didn’ know by de sign
dat you gwyne to be rich
bymeby.”
 “Have you got hairy arms
and a hairy breast, Jim?”
“What’s de use to ax dat
question? don’ you see I
has?”
“Well, are you rich?”
“No, but I ben rich wunst,
and gwyne to be rich agin.
Wunst I had foteen dollars,
but I tuck to specalat‘n’, en
got busted out.”
“What did you speculate
in, Jim?”
 “Well, fust I tackled
stock.”
“What kind of stock?”
“Why, live stock. Cattle,
you know. I put ten dollars in
a cow. But I ain’ gwyne to
resk no mo’ money in stock.
De cow up ‘n’ died on my
han’s.”
“So you lost the ten
dollars.”
“No, I didn’ lose it all. I
on‘y los’ ’bout nine of it. I
sole de hide en tallerbc for a
dollar en ten cents.”
“You had five dollars and
ten cents left. Did you
speculate any more?”
“Yes. You know dat one-
laigged nigger dat b‘longs to
old Misto Bradish? well, he
sot up a bank, en say anybody
dat put in a dollar would git
fo’ dollars mo’ at de en’ er de
year. Well, all de niggers
went in, but dey didn’ have
much. I wuz de on’y one dat
had much. So I stuck out for
mo’ dan fo’ dollars, en I said
‘f I didn’t git it I’d start a
bank mysef. Well o’ course
dat nigger want’ to keep me
out er de business, bekase he
say dey warn’t business
’nough for two banks, so he
say I could put in my five
dollars en he pay me thirty-
five at de en’ er de year.
“So I done it. Den I
reck‘n’d I’d inves’ de thirty-
five dollars right off en keep
things a-movin’. Dey wuz a
nigger name’ Bob, dat had
ketched a wood-flat, en his
marster didn’ know it; en I
bought it off’ n him en told
him to take de thirty-five
dollars when de en’ er de year
come; but somebody stole de
wood-flat dat night, en nex’
day de one-laigged nigger say
de bank’s busted. So dey
didn’ none uv us git no
money.”
“What did you do with the
ten cents, Jim?”
“Well, I ‘uz gwyne to
spen’ it, but I had a dream, en
de dream tole me to give it to
a nigger name’ Balum—
Balum’s Ass dey call him for
short, he’s one er dem
chuckle-heads, you know.
But he’s lucky, dey say, en I
see I warn’t lucky. De dream
say let Balum inves’ de ten
cents en he’d make a raise for
me. Well, Balum he tuck de
money, en when he wuz in
church he hear de preacher
say dat whoever give to de
po’ len’ to de Lord, en boun’
to git his money back a
hund’d times. So Balum he
tuck en give de ten cents to de
po,‘ en laid low to see what
wuz gwyne to come of it.“
“Well, what did come of it,
Jim?”
 “Nuffn’ never come of it. I
couldn’ manage to k‘leck dat
money no way; en Balum he
couldn’. I ain’ gwyne to len’
no mo’ money ‘dout I see de
security. Boun’ to git yo’
money back a hund’d times,
de preacher says! Ef I could
git de ten cents back, I’d call
it squah, en be glad er de
chanst.”
“Well, it’s all right,
anyway, Jim, long as you’re
going to be rich again some
time or other.”
“Yes—en I’s rich now,
come to look at it. I owns
mysef, en I’s wuth eight
hund’d dollars. I wisht I had
de money, I wouldn’ want no
mo‘.”
 CHAPTER 9
I wanted to go and look at a
place right about the middle
of the island, that I’d found
when I was exploring; so we
started, and soon got to it,
because the island was only
three miles long and a quarter
of a mile wide.
This place was a tolerable
long steep hill or ridge, about
forty foot high. We had a
rough time getting to the top,
the sides was so steep and the
bushes so thick. We tramped
and clumb around all over it,
and by-and-by found a good
big cavern in the rock, most
up to the top on the side
towards Illinois. The cavern
was as big as two or three
rooms bunched together, and
Jim could stand up straight in
it. It was cool in there. Jim
was for putting our traps in
there, right away, but I said
we didn’t want to be climbing
up and down there all the
time.
Jim said if we had the
canoe hid in a good place,
and had all the traps in the
cavern, we could rush there if
anybody was to come to the
island, and they would never
find us without dogs. And
besides, he said them little
birds had said it was going to
rain, and did I want the things
to get wet?
So we went back and got
the canoe and paddled up
abreast the cavern, and
lugged all the traps up there.
Then we hunted up a place
close by to hide the canoe in,
amongst the thick willows.
We took some fish off of the
lines and set them again, and
begun to get ready for dinner.
The door of the cavern was
big enough to roll a hogshead
in, and on one side of the
door the floor stuck out a
little bit and was flat and a
good place to build a fire on.
So we built it there and
cooked dinner.
We spread the blankets
inside for a carpet, and eat
our dinner in there. We put all
the other things handy at the
back of the cavern. Pretty
soon it darkened up and
begun to thunder and lighten;
so the birds was right about it.
Directly it begun to rain, and
it rained like all fury, too, and
I never see the wind blow so.
It was one of these regular
summer storms. It would get
so dark that it looked all blue-
black outside, and lovely; and
the rain would thrash along
by so thick that the trees off a
little ways looked dim and
spider-webby; and here
would come a blast of wind
that would bend the trees
down and turn up the pale
underside of the leaves; and
then a perfect ripper of a gust
would follow along and set
the branches to tossing their
arms as if they was just wild;
and next, when it was just
about the bluest and blackest
—fst! it was as bright as glory
and you’d have a little
glimpse of tree-tops a-
plunging about, away off
yonder in the storm, hundreds
of yards further than you
could see before; dark as sin
again in a second, and now
you’d hear the thunder let go
with an awful crash and then
go rumbling, grumbling,
tumbling down the sky
towards the under side of the
world, like rolling empty
barrels down stairs, where it’s
long stairs and they bounce a
good deal, you know.
“Jim, this is nice,” I says.
“I wouldn’t want to be
nowhere else but here. Pass
me along another hunk of fish
and some hot corn-bread.”
“Well, you wouldn’t a ben
here, ‘f it hadn’t a ben for
Jim. You’d a ben down dah in
de woods widout any dinner,
en gittin’ mos’ drownded,
too, dat you would, honey.
Chickens knows when its
gwyne to rain, en so do de
birds, chile.”
 The river went on raising
and raising for ten or twelve
days, till at last it was over
the banks. The water was
three or four foot deep on the
island in the low places and
on the Illinois bottom. On
that side it was a good many
miles wide; but on the
Missouri side it was the same
old distance across—a half a
mile—because the Missouri
shore was just a wall of high
bluffs.
 Daytimes we paddled all
over the island in the canoe. It
was mighty cool and shady in
the deep woods even if the
sun was blazing outside. We
went winding in and out
amongst the trees; and
sometimes the vines hung so
thick we had to back away
and go some other way. Well,
on every old broken-down
tree, you could see rabbits,
and snakes, and such things;
and when the island had been
overflowed a day or two, they
got so tame, on account of
being hungry, that you could
paddle right up and put your
hand on them if you wanted
to; but not the snakes and
turtles—they would slide off
in the water. The ridge our
cavern was in, was full of
them. We could a had pets
enough if we’d wanted them.
One night we catched a
little section of a lumber raft
—nice pine planks. It was
twelve foot wide and about
fifteen or sixteen foot long,
and the top stood above water
six or seven inches, a solid
level floor. We could see
saw-logs go by in the
daylight, sometimes, but we
let them go; we didn’t show
ourselves in daylight.
Another night, when we
was up at the head of the
island, just before daylight,
here comes a frame house
down, on the west side. She
was a two-story, and tilted
over, considerable. We
paddled out and got aboard—
clumb in at an up-stairs
window. But it was too dark
to see yet, so we made the
canoe fast and set in her to
wait for daylight.
The light begun to come
before we got to the foot of
the island. Then we looked in
at the window. We could
make out a bed, and a table,
and two old chairs, and lots of
things around about on the
floor; and there was clothes
hanging against the wall.
There was something laying
on the floor in the far corner
that looked like a man. So
Jim says:
“Hello, you!”
But it didn’t budge. So I
hollered again, and then Jim
says:
“De man ain’t asleep—he’s
dead. You hold still—I’ll go
en see.”
He went and bent down
and looked, and says:
“It’s a dead man. Yes,
indeedy; naked, too. He’s ben
shot in de back. I reck’n he’s
ben dead two er three days.
Come in, Huck, but doan’
look at his face—it’s too
gashly.”
 I didn’t look at him at all.
Jim throwed some old rags
over him, but he needn’t done
it; I didn’t want to see him.
There was heaps of old
greasy cards scattered around
over the floor, and old whisky
bottles, and a couple of masks
made out of black cloth; and
all over the walls was the
ignorantest kind of words and
pictures, made with charcoal.
There was two old dirty
calico dresses, and a sun-
bonnet, and some women’s
underclothes, hanging against
the wall, and some men’s
clothing, too. We put the lot
into the canoe; it might come
good. There was a boy’s old
speckled straw hat on the
floor; I took that too. And
there was a bottle that had
had milk in it; and it had a rag
stopper for a baby to suck.
We would a took the bottle,
but it was broke. There was a
seedy old chest, and an old
hair trunk with the hinges
broke. They stood open, but
there warn’t nothing left in
them that was any account.
The way things was scattered
about, we reckoned the
people left in a hurry and
warn’t fixed so as to carry off
most of their stuff.
We got an old tin lantern,
and a butcher knife without
any handle, and a bran-new
Barlow knifebd worth two bits
in any store, and a lot of
tallow candles, and a tin
candlestick, and a gourd, and
a tin cup, and a ratty old bed-
quilt off the bed, and a
reticulebe with needles and
pins and beeswax and buttons
and thread and all such truck
in it, and a hatchet and some
nails, and a fish-line as thick
as my little finger, with some
monstrous hooks on it, and a
roll of buckskin, and a leather
dog-collar, and a horse-shoe,
and some vials of medicine
that didn’t have no label on
them; and just as we was
leaving I found a tolerable
good curry-comb, bf and Jim
he found a ratty old fiddle-
bow, and a wooden leg. The
straps was broke off of it, but
barring that, it was a good
enough leg, though it was too
long for me and not long
enough for Jim, and we
couldn’t find the other one,
though we hunted all around.
And so, take it all around,
we made a good haul. When
we was ready to shove off,
we was a quarter of a mile
below the island, and it was
pretty broad day; so I made
Jim lay down in the canoe
and cover up with the quilt,
because if he set up, people
could tell he was a nigger a
good ways off. I paddled over
to the Illinois shore, and
drifted down most a half a
mile doing it. I crept up the
dead water under the bank,
and hadn’t no accidents and
didn’t see nobody. We got
home all safe.
 CHAPTER 10
After breakfast I wanted to
talk about the dead man and
guess out how he come to be
killed, but Jim didn’t want to.
He said it would fetch bad
luck; and besides, he said, he
might come and ha‘nt us; he
said a man that warn’t buried
was more likely to go aha’
nting around than one that
was planted and comfortable.
That sounded pretty
reasonable, so I didn’t say no
more; but I couldn’t keep
from studying over it and
wishing I knowed who shot
the man, and what they done
it for.
We rummaged the clothes
we’d got, and found eight
dollars in silver sewed up in
the lining of an old blanket
overcoat. Jim said he
reckoned the people in that
house stole the coat, because
if they’d a knowed the money
was there they wouldn’t a left
it. I said I reckoned they
killed him, too; but Jim didn’t
want to talk about that. I says:
“Now you think it’s bad
luck; but what did you say
when I fetched in the snake-
skin that I found on the top of
the ridge day before
yesterday ? You said it was
the worst bad luck in the
world to touch a snake-skin
with my hands. Well, here’s
your bad luck! We’ve raked
in all this truck and eight
dollars besides. I wish we
could have some bad luck
like this every day, Jim.”
“Never you mind, honey,
never you mind. Don’t you
git too peart.bg It’s a-comin‘.
Mind I tell you, it’s a-
comin’.”
It did come, too. It was a
Tuesday that we had that talk.
Well, after dinner Friday, we
was laying around in the
grass at the upper end of the
ridge, and got out of tobacco.
I went to the cavern to get
some, and found a rattlesnake
in there. I killed him, and
curled him up on the foot of
Jim’s blanket, ever so natural,
thinking there’d be some fun
when Jim found him there.
Well, by night I forgot all
about the snake, and when
Jim flung himself down on
the blanket while I struck a
light, the snake’s mate was
there, and bit him.
He jumped up yelling, and
the first thing the light
showed was the varmint
curled up and ready for
another spring. I laid him out
in a second with a stick, and
Jim grabbed pap’s whisky jug
and begun to pour it down.
He was barefooted, and the
snake bit him right on the
heel. That all comes of my
being such a fool as to not
remember that wherever you
leave a dead snake its mate
always comes there and curls
around it. Jim told me to chop
off the snake’s head and
throw it away, and then skin
the body and roast a piece of
it. I done it, and he eat it and
said it would help cure him.
He made me take off the
rattles and tie them around his
wrist, too. He said that that
would help. Then I slid out
quiet and throwed the snakes
clear away amongst the
bushes; for I warn’t going to
let Jim find out it was all my
fault, not if I could help it.
Jim sucked and sucked at
the jug, and now and then he
got out of his head and
pitched around and yelled;
but every time he come to
himself he went to sucking at
the jug again. His foot
swelled up pretty big, and so
did his leg; but by-and-by the
drunk begun to come, and so
I judged he was all right; but
I’d druther been bit with a
snake than pap’s whisky.
Jim was laid up for four
days and nights. Then the
swelling was all gone and he
was around again. I made up
my mind I wouldn’t ever take
aholt of a snake-skin again
with my hands, now that I see
what had come of it. Jim said
he reckoned I would believe
him next time. And he said
that handling a snake-skin
was such awful bad luck that
maybe we hadn’t got to the
end of it yet. He said he
druther see the new moon
over his left shoulder as much
as a thousand times than take
up a snake-skin in his hand.
Well, I was getting to feel
that way myself, though I’ve
always reckoned that looking
at the new moon over your
left shoulder is one of the
carelessest and foolishest
things a body can do. Old
Hank Bunker done it once,
and bragged about it; and in
less than two years he got
drunk and fell off of the shot
tower and spread himself out
so that he was just a kind of a
layer, as you may say; and
they slid him edgeways
between two barn doors for a
coffin, and buried him so, so
they say, but I didn’t see it.
Pap told me. But anyway, it
all come of looking at the
moon that way, like a fool.
Well, the days went along,
and the river went down
between its banks again; and
about the first thing we done
was to bait one of the big
hooks with a skinned rabbit
and set it and catch a cat-fish
that was as big as a man,
being six foot two inches
long, and weighed over two
hundred pounds. We couldn’t
handle him, of course; he
would a flung us into Illinois.
We just set there and watched
him rip and tear around till he
drownded. We found a brass
button in his stomach, and a
round ball, and lots of
rubbage. We split the ball
open with the hatchet, and
there was a spool in it. Jim
said he’d had it there a long
time, to coat it over so and
make a ball of it. It was as big
a fish as was ever catched in
the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim
said he hadn’t ever seen a
bigger one. He would a been
worth a good deal over at the
village. They peddle out such
a fish as that by the pound in
the market house there;
everybody buys some of him;
his meat’s as white as snow
and makes a good fry.
 Next morning I said it was
getting slow and dull, and I
wanted to get a stirring up,
some way. I said I reckoned I
would slip over the river and
find out what was going on.
Jim liked that notion; but he
said I must go in the dark and
look sharp. Then he studied it
over and said, couldn’t I put
on some of them old things
and dress up like a girl? That
was a good notion, too. So we
shortened up one of the calico
gowns and I turned up my
trowser-legs to my knees and
got into it. Jim hitched it
behind with the hooks, and it
was a fair fit. I put on the sun-
bonnet and tied it under my
chin, and then for a body to
look in and see my face was
like looking down a joint of
stove-pipe. Jim said nobody
would know me, even in the
daytime, hardly. I practiced
around all day to get the hang
of things, and by-and-by I
could do pretty well in them,
only Jim said I didn’t walk
like a girl; and he said I must
quit pulling up my gown to
get at my britches pocket. I
took notice, and done better.
I started up the Illinois
shore in the canoe just after
dark.
I started across to the town
from a little below the ferry
landing, and the drift of the
current fetched me in at the
bottom of the town. I tied up
and started along the bank.
There was a light burning in a
little shanty that hadn’t been
lived in for a long time, and I
wondered who had took up
quarters there. I slipped up
and peeped in at the window.
There was a woman about
forty year old in there,
knitting by a candle that was
on a pine table. I didn’t know
her face; she was a stranger,
for you couldn’t start a face
in that town that I didn’t
know. Now this was lucky,
because I was weakening; I
was getting afraid I had
come; people might know my
voice and find me out. But if
this woman had been in such
a little town two days she
could tell me all I wanted to
know; so I knocked at the
door, and made up my mind I
wouldn’t forget I was a girl.
 CHAPTER 11
“ Come in,” says the woman,
and I did. She says:
“Take a cheer.”
I done it. She looked me all
over with her little shiny
eyes, and says:
“What might your name
be?”
“Sarah Williams.”
“Where ‘bouts do you live?
In this neighborhood?”
“No’m. In Hookerville,
seven mile below. I’ve
walked all the way and I’m
all tired out.”
“Hungry, too, I reckon. I’ll
find you something.”
“No‘m, I ain’t hungry. I
was so hungry I had to stop
two mile below here at a
farm; so I ain’t hungry no
more. It’s what makes me so
late. My mother’s down sick,
and out of money and
everything, and I come to tell
my uncle Abner Moore. He
lives at the upper end of the
town, she says. I hain’t ever
been here before. Do you
know him?”
“No; but I don’t know
everybody yet. I haven’t lived
here quite two weeks. It’s a
considerable ways to the
upper end of the town. You
better stay here all night.
Take off your bonnet.”
“No,” I says, “I’ll rest a
while, I reckon, and go on. I
ain’t afeard of the dark.”
She said she wouldn’t let
me go by myself, but her
husband would be in by-and-
by, maybe in a hour and a
half, and she’d send him
along with me. Then she got
to talking about her husband,
and about her relations up the
river, and her relations down
the river, and about how
much better off they used to
was, and how they didn’t
know but they’d made a
mistake coming to our town,
instead of letting well alone
—and so on and so on, till I
was afeard I had made a
mistake coming to her to find
out what was going on in the
town; but by-and-by she
dropped onto pap and the
murder, and then I was pretty
willing to let her clatter right
along. She told about me and
Tom Sawyer finding the six
thousand dollars (only she got
it ten) and all about pap and
what a hard lot he was, and
what a hard lot I was, and at
last she got down to where I
was murdered. I says:
“Who done it? We’ve
heard considerable about
these goings on, down in
Hookerville, but we don’t
know who ‘twas that killed
Huck Finn.”
“Well, I reckon there’s a
right smart chance of people
here that’d like to know who
killed him. Some thinks old
Finn done it himself.”
“No—is that so?”
“Most everybody thought it
at first. He’ll never know how
nigh he come to getting
lynched. But before night
they changed around and
judged it was done by a
runaway nigger named Jim.”
“Why he—”
I stopped. I reckoned I
better keep still. She run on,
and never noticed I had put in
at all.
“The nigger run off the
very night Huck Finn was
killed. So there’s a reward out
for him—three hundred
dollars. And there’s a reward
out for old Finn too—two
hundred dollars.bh You see,
he come to town the morning
after the murder, and told
about it, and was out with
‘em on the ferry-boat hunt,
and right away after he up
and left. Before night they
wanted to lynch him, but he
was gone, you see. Well, next
day they found out the nigger
was gone; they found out he
hadn’t been seen sence ten
o’clock the night the murder
was done. So then they put it
on him, you see, and while
they was full of it, next day
back comes old Finn and
went boo-hooing to Judge
Thatcher to get money to hunt
for the nigger all over Illinois
with. The judge give him
some, and that evening he got
drunk and was around till
after midnight with a couple
of mighty hard looking
strangers, and then went off
with them. Well, he hain’t
come back sence, and they
ain’t looking for him back till
this thing blows over a little,
for people thinks now that he
killed his boy and fixed
things so folks would think
robbers done it, and then he’d
get Huck’s money without
having to bother a long time
with a lawsuit. People do say
he warn’t any too good to do
it. Oh, he’s sly, I reckon. If he
don’t come back for a year,
he’ll be all right. You can’t
prove anything on him, you
know; everything will be
quieted down then, and he’ll
walk into Huck’s money as
easy as nothing.”
“Yes, I reckon so, ’m. I
don’t see nothing in the way
of it. Has everybody quit
thinking the nigger done it?”
“Oh, no, not everybody. A
good many thinks he done it.
But they’ll get the nigger
pretty soon, now, and maybe
they can scare it out of him.”
“Why, are they after him
yet?”
“Well, you’re innocent,
ain’t you! Does three hundred
dollars lay round every day
for people to pick up? Some
folks thinks the nigger ain’t
far from here. I’m one of
them—but I hain’t talked it
around. A few days ago I was
talking with an old couple
that lives next door in the log
shanty, and they happened to
say hardly anybody ever goes
to that island over yonder that
they call Jackson’s Island.
Don’t anybody live there?
says I. No, nobody, says they.
I didn’t say any more, but I
done some thinking. I was
pretty near certain I’d seen
smoke over there, about the
head of the island, a day or
two before that, so I says to
myself, like as not that
nigger’s hiding over there;
anyway, says I, it’s worth the
trouble to give the place a
hunt. I hain’t seen any smoke
sence, so I reckon maybe he’s
gone, if it was him; but
husband’s going over to see
—him and another man. He
was gone up the river; but he
got back to day and I told him
as soon as he got here two
hours ago.”
I had got so uneasy I
couldn’t set still. I had to do
something with my hands; so
I took up a needle off of the
table and went to threading it.
My hands shook, and I was
making a bad job of it. When
the woman stopped talking, I
looked up, and she was
looking at me pretty curious,
and smiling a little. I put
down the needle and thread
and let on to be interested—
and I was, too—and says:
“Three hundred dollars is a
power of money. I wish my
mother could get it. Is your
husband going over there to-
night?”
“Oh, yes. He went up town
with the man I was telling
you of, to get a boat and see if
they could borrow another
gun. They’ll go over after
midnight.”
“Couldn’t they see better if
they was to wait till
daytime?”
“Yes. And couldn’t the
nigger see better, too? After
midnight he’ll likely be
asleep, and they can slip
around through the woods
and hunt up his camp fire all
the better for the dark, if he’s
got one.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
The woman kept looking at
me pretty curious, and I
didn’t feel a bit comfortable.
Pretty soon she says:
“What did you say your
name was, honey?”
 “M—Mary Williams.”
Somehow it didn’t seem to
me that I said it was Mary
before, so I didn’t look up;
seemed to me I said it was
Sarah; so I felt sort of
cornered, and was a feared
maybe I was looking it, too. I
wished the woman would say
something more; the longer
she set still, the uneasier I
was. But now she says:
“Honey, I thought you said
it was Sarah when you first
come in?”
“Oh, yes‘m, I did. Sarah
Mary Williams. Sarah’s my
first name. Some calls me
Sarah, some calls me Mary.”
“Oh, that’s the way of it?”
“Yes’m.”
I was feeling better, then,
but I wished I was out of
there, anyway. I couldn’t look
up yet.
Well, the woman fell to
talking about how hard times
was, and how poor they had
to live, and how the rats was
as free as if they owned the
place, and so forth, and so on,
and then I got easy again. She
was right about the rats.
You’d see one stick his nose
out of a hole in the corner
every little while. She said
she had to have things handy
to throw at them when she
was alone, or they wouldn’t
give her no peace. She
showed me a bar of lead,
twisted up into a knot, and
said she was a good shot with
it generly, but she’d
wrenched her arm a day or
two ago, and didn’t know
whether she could throw true,
now. But she watched for a
chance, and directly she
banged away at a rat, but she
missed him wide, and said
“Ouch!” it hurt her arm so.
Then she told me to try for
the next one. I wanted to be
getting away before the old
man got back, but of course I
didn’t let on. I got the thing,
and the first rat that showed
his nose I let drive, and if
he’d a stayed where he was
he’d a been a tolerable sick
rat. She said that that was
first-rate, and she reckoned I
would hive the next one. She
went and got the lump of lead
and fetched it back and
brought along a hank of yarn,
which she wanted me to help
her with. I held up my two
hands and she put the hank
over them and went on
talking about her and her
husband’s matters. But she
broke off to say:
“Keep your eye on the rats:
You better have the lead in
your lap, handy.”
So she dropped the lump
into my lap, just at that
moment, and I clapped my
legs together on it and she
went on talking. But only
about a minute. Then she
took off the hank and looked
me straight in the face, but
very pleasant, and says:
“Come, now—what’s your
real name?”
“Wh-what, mum?”
“What’s your real name? Is
it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?—or
what is it?”
I reckon I shook like a leaf,
and I didn’t know hardly
what to do. But I says:
“Please to don’t poke fun
at a poor girl like me, mum. If
I’m in the way, here, I‘ll—”
“No, you won’t. Set down
and stay where you are. I
ain’t going to hurt you, and I
ain’t going to tell on you,
nuther. You just tell me your
secret, and trust me. I’ll keep
it; and what’s more, I’ll help
you. So’ll my old man, if you
want him to. You see, you’re
a runaway ‘prentice—that’s
all. It ain’t anything. There
ain’t any harm in it. You’ve
been treated bad, and you
made up your mind to cut.
Bless you, child, I wouldn’t
tell on you. Tell me all about
it, now—that’s a good boy.”
So I said it wouldn’t be no
use to try to play it any
longer, and I would just make
a clean breast and tell her
everything, but she mustn’t
go back on her promise. Then
I told her my father and
mother was dead, and the law
had bound me out to a mean
old farmer in the country
thirty mile back from the
river, and he treated me so
bad I couldn’t stand it no
longer; he went away to be
gone a couple of days, and so
I took my chance and stole
some of his daughter’s old
clothes, and cleared out, and I
had been three nights coming
the thirty miles; I traveled
nights, and hid day-times and
slept, and the bag of bread
and meat I carried from home
lasted me all the way and I
had a plenty. I said I believed
my uncle Abner Moore
would take care of me, and so
that was why I struck out for
this town of Goshen.
“Goshen, child? This ain’t
Goshen. This is St.
Petersburg. Goshen’s ten mile
further up the river. Who told
you this was Goshen?”
“Why, a man I met at day-
break this morning, just as I
was going to turn into the
woods for my regular sleep.
He told me when the roads
forked I must take the right
hand, and five mile would
fetch me to Goshen.”
“He was drunk I reckon.
He told you just exactly
wrong.”
 “Well, he did act like he
was drunk, but it ain’t no
matter now. I got to be
moving along. I’ll fetch
Goshen before daylight.”
“Hold on a minute. I’ll put
you up a snack to eat. You
might want it.”
So she put me up a snack,
and says:
“Say—when a cow’s
laying down, which end of
her gets up first? Answer up
prompt, now—don’t stop to
study over it. Which end gets
up first?”
“The hind end, mum.”
“Well, then, a horse?”
“The for‘rard end, mum.”
“Which side of a tree does
the most moss grow on?”
“North side.”
“If fifteen cows is
browsing on a hillside, how
many of them eats with their
heads pointed the same
direction?”
“The whole fifteen, mum.”
“Well, I reckon you have
lived in the country. I thought
maybe you was trying to
hocus me again. What’s your
real name, now?”
“George Peters, mum.”
“Well, try to remember it,
George. Don’t forget and tell
me it’s Elexander before you
go, and then get out by saying
it’s George Elexander when I
catch you. And don’t go
about women in that old
calico. You do a girl tolerable
poor, but you might fool men,
maybe. Bless you, child,
when you set out to thread a
needle, don’t hold the thread
still and fetch the needle up to
it; hold the needle still and
poke the thread at it—that’s
the way a woman most
always does; but a man
always does ‘tother way. And
when you throw at a rat or
anything, hitch yourself up a
tip-toe, and fetch your hand
up over your head as awkard
as you can, and miss your rat
about six or seven foot.
Throw stiff-armed from the
shoulder, like there was a
pivot there for it to turn on—
like a girl; not from the wrist
and elbow, with your arm out
to one side, like a boy. And
mind you, when a girl tries to
catch anything in her lap, she
throws her knees apart: she
don’t clap them together, the
way you did when you
catched the lump of lead.
Why, I spotted you for a boy
when you was threading the
needle; and I contrived the
other things just to make
certain. Now trot along to
your uncle, Sarah Mary
Williams George Elexander
Peters, and if you get into
trouble you send word to
Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is
me, and I’ll do what I can to
get you out of it. Keep the
river road, all the way, and
next time you tramp, take
shoes and socks with you.
The river road’s a rocky one,
and your feet’ll be in a
condition when you get to
Goshen, I reckon.”
I went up the bank about
fifty yards, and then I
doubled on my tracks and
slipped back to where my
canoe was, a good piece
below the house. I jumped in
and was off in a hurry. I went
up stream far enough to make
the head of the island, and
then started across. I took off
the sun-bonnet, for I didn’t
want no blinders on, then.
When I was about the middle,
I hear the clock begin to
strike; so I stops and listens;
the sound come faint over the
water, but clear—eleven.
When I struck the head of the
island I never waited to blow,
though I was most winded,
but I shoved right into the
timber where my old camp
used to be, and started a good
fire there on a high-and-dry
spot.
Then I jumped in the canoe
and dug out for out place a
mile and a half below, as hard
as I could go. I landed, and
slopped through the timber
and up the ridge and into the
cavern. There Jim laid, sound
asleep on the ground. I roused
him out and says:
“Git up and hump yourself,
Jim! There ain’t a minute to
lose. They’re after us!”
Jim never asked no
questions, he never said a
word; but the way he worked
for the next half an hour
showed about how he was
scared. By that time
everything we had in the
world was on our raft and she
was ready to be shoved out
from the willow cove where
she was hid. We put out the
camp fire at the cavern the
first thing, and didn’t show a
candle outside after that.
I took the canoe out from
shore a little piece and took a
look, but if there was a boat
around I couldn’t see it, for
stars and shadows ain’t good
to see by. Then we got out the
raft and slipped along down
in the shade, past the foot of
the island dead still, never
saying a word.
 CHAPTER 12
It must a been close onto one
o‘clock when we got below
the island at last, and the raft
did seem to go mighty slow.
If a boat was to come along,
we was going to take to the
canoe and break for the
Illinois shore; and it was well
a boat didn’t come, for we
hadn’t ever thought to put the
gun into the canoe, or a
fishing-line or anything to
eat. We was in ruther too
much of a sweat to think of so
many things. It warn’t good
judgment to put everything on
the raft.
If the men went to the
island, I just expect they
found the camp fire I built,
and watched it all night for
Jim to come. Anyways, they
stayed away from us, and if
my building the fire never
fooled them it warn’t no fault
of mine. I played it as low-
down on them as I could.
When the first streak of
day begun to show, we tied
up to a tow head in a big bend
on the Illinois side, and
hacked off cotton-wood
branches with the hatchet and
covered up the raft with them
so she looked like there had
been a cave-in in the bank
there. A tow-head is a sand-
bar that has cotton-woods on
it as thick as harrow-teeth.bi
We had mountains on the
Missouri shore and heavy
timber on the Illinois side,
and the channel was down the
Missouri shore at that place,
so we warn’t afraid of
anybody running across us.
We laid there all day and
watched the rafts and
steamboats spin down the
Missouri shore, and up-bound
steamboats fight the big river
in the middle. I told Jim all
about the time I had jabbering
with that woman; and Jim
said she was a smart one, and
if she was to start after us
herself she wouldn’t set down
and watch a camp fire—no,
sir, she’d fetch a dog. Well,
then, I said, why couldn’t she
tell her husband to fetch a
dog? Jim said he bet she did
think of it by the time the
men was ready to start, and
he believed they must a gone
up town to get a dog and so
they lost all that time, or else
we wouldn’t be here on a
tow-head sixteen or seventeen
mile below the village—no,
indeedy, we would be in that
same old town again. So I
said I didn’t care what was
the reason they didn’t get us,
as long as they didn’t.
When it was beginning to
come on dark, we poked our
heads out of the cottonwood
thicket and looked up, and
down, and across; nothing in
sight; so Jim took up some of
the top planks of the raft and
built a snug wigwam to get
under in blazing weather and
rainy, and to keep the things
dry. Jim made a floor for the
wigwam, and raised it a foot
or more above the level of the
raft, so now the blankets and
all the traps was out of the
reach of steamboat waves.
Right in the middle of the
wigwam we made a layer of
dirt about five or six inches
deep with a frame around it
for to hold it to its place; this
was to build a fire on in
sloppy weather or chilly; the
wigwam would keep it from
being seen. We made an extra
steering oar, too, because one
of the others might get broke,
on a snag or something. We
fixed up a short forked stick
to hang the old lantern on;
because we must always light
the lantern whenever we see a
steamboat coming down
stream, to keep from getting
run over; but we wouldn’t
have to light it for upstream
boats unless we see we was in
what they call a “crossing;”
for the river was pretty high
yet, very low banks being still
a little under water; so up-
bound boats didn’t always
run the channel, but hunted
easy water.
 This second night we run
between seven and eight
hours, with a current that was
making over four mile an
hour. We catched fish, and
talked, and we took a swim
now and then to keep off
sleepiness. It was kind of
solemn, drifting down the big
still river, laying on our backs
looking up at the stars, and
we didn’t ever feel like
talking loud, and it warn’t
often that we laughed, only a
little kind of a low chuckle.
We had mighty good weather,
as a general thing, and
nothing ever happened to us
at all, that night, nor the next,
nor the next.
Every night we passed
towns, some of them away up
on black hill-sides, nothing
but just a shiny bed of lights,
not a house could you see.
The fifth night we passed St.
Louis, and it was like the
whole world lit up. In St.
Petersburg they used to say
there was twenty or thirty
thousand people in St. Louis,
but I never believed it till I
see that wonderful spread of
lights at two o‘clock that still
night. There warn’t a sound
there; everybody was asleep.
Every night, now, I used to
slip ashore, towards ten
o‘clock, at some little village,
and buy ten or fifteen cents’
worth of meal or bacon or
other stuff to eat; and
sometimes I lifted a chicken
that warn’t roosting
comfortable, and took him
along. Pap always said, take a
chicken when you get a
chance, because if you don’t
want him yourself you can
easy find somebody that does,
and a good deed ain’t ever
forgot. I never see pap when
he didn’t want the chicken
himself, but that is what he
used to say, anyway.
Mornings, before daylight,
I slipped into corn fields and
borrowed a watermelon, or a
mushmelon,bj or a punkin, or
some new corn, or things of
that kind. Pap always said it
warn’t no harm to borrow
things, if you was meaning to
pay them back, sometime; but
the widow said it warn’t
anything but a soft name for
stealing, and no decent body
would do it. Jim said he
reckoned the widow was
partly right and pap was
partly right; so the best way
would be for us to pick out
two or three things from the
list and say we wouldn’t
borrow them any more—then
he reckoned it wouldn’t be no
harm to borrow the others. So
we talked it over all one
night, drifting along down the
river, trying to make up our
minds whether to drop the
watermelons, or the
cantelopes, or the
mushmelons, or what. But
towards daylight we got it all
settled satisfactory, and
concluded to drop crabapples
and p‘simmons. We warn’t
feeling just right, before that,
but it was all comfortable
now. I was glad the way it
come out, too, because
crabapples ain’t ever good,
and the p’simmons wouldn’t
be ripe for two or three
months yet.
We shot a water-fowl, now
and then, that got up too early
in the morning or didn’t go to
bed early enough in the
evening. Take it all around,
we lived pretty high.
The fifth night below St.
Louis we had a big storm
after midnight, with a power
of thunder and lightning, and
the rain poured down in a
solid sheet. We stayed in the
wigwam and let the raft take
care of itself. When the
lightning glared out we could
see a big straight river ahead,
and high rocky bluffs on both
sides. By-and-by says I, “Hel-
lo, Jim, looky yonder!” It was
a steamboat that had killed
herself on a rock. We was
drifting straight down for her.
The lightning showed her
very distinct. She was leaning
over, with part of her upper
deck above water, and you
could see every little
chimbly-guybk clean and
clear, and a chair by the big
bell, with an old slouch hat
hanging on the back of it
when the flashes come.
Well, it being away in the
night, and stormy, and all so
mysterious like, I felt just the
way any other boy would a
felt when I see that wreck
laying there so mournful and
lonesome in the middle of the
river. I wanted to get aboard
of her and slink around a
little, and see what there was
there. So I says:
“Le’s land on her, Jim.”
But Jim was dead against
it, at first. He says:
“I doan’ want to go fool’n
‘long er no wrack. We’s doin’
blame’ well, en we better let
blame’ well alone, as de good
book says.bl Like as not dey’s
a watchman on dat wrack.”
 “Watchman your
grandmother,” I says; “there
ain’t nothing to watch but the
texasbm and the pilot-house;bn
and do you reckon anybody’s
going to resk his life for a
texas and a pilot-house such a
night as this, when it’s likely
to break up and wash off
down the river any minute?”
Jim couldn’t say nothing to
that, so he didn’t try. “And
besides,” I says, “we might
borrow something worth
having, out of the captain’s
stateroom. Seegars, I bet you
—and cost five cents apiece,
solid cash. Steamboat
captains is always rich, and
get sixty dollars a month, and
they don’t care a cent what a
thing costs, you know, long
as they want it. Stick a candle
in your pocket; I can’t rest,
Jim, till we give her a
rummaging. Do you reckon
Tom Sawyer would ever go
by this thing? Not for pie, he
wouldn’t. He’d call it an
adventure—that’s what he’d
call it; and he’d land on that
wreck if it was his last act.
And wouldn’t he throw style
into it?—wouldn’t he spread
himself, nor nothing? Why,
you’d think it was
Christopher C‘lumbus
discovering Kingdom-Come.
I wish Tom Sawyer was
here.”
 Jim he grumbled a little,
but give in. He said we
mustn’t talk any more than
we could help, and then talk
mighty low. The lightning
showed us the wreck again,
just in time, and we fetched
the starboard derrick,bo and
made fast there.
The deck was high out,
here. We went sneaking down
the slope of it to labboard, in
the dark, towards the texas,
feeling our way slow with our
feet, and spreading our hands
out to fend off the guys, for it
was so dark we couldn’t see
no sign of them. Pretty soon
we struck the forward end of
the skylight, and clumb onto
it; and the next step fetched
us in front of the captain’s
door, which was open, and by
Jimminy, away down through
the texas-hall we see a light!
and all in the same second we
seem to hear low voices in
yonder!
Jim whispered and said he
was feeling powerful sick,
and told me to come along. I
says, all right; and was going
to start for the raft; but just
then I heard a voice wail out
and say:
“Oh, please don‘t, boys; I
swear I won’t ever tell!”
Another voice said, pretty
loud:
“It’s a lie, Jim Turner.
You’ve acted this way before.
You always want more’n
your share of the truck, and
you’ve always got it, too,
because you’ve swore ’t if
you didn’t you’d tell. But this
time you’ve said it jest one
time too many. You’re the
meanest, treacherousest
hound in this country.”
By this time Jim was gone
for the raft. I was just a-biling
with curiosity; and I says to
myself, Tom Sawyer
wouldn’t back out now, and
so I won’t either; I’m agoing
to see what’s going on here.
So I dropped on my hands
and knees, in the little
passage, and crept aftbp in the
dark, till there warn’t but
about one stateroom betwixt
me and the cross-hall of the
texas. Then, in there I see a
man stretched on the floor
and tied hand and foot, and
two men standing over him,
and one of them had a dim
lantern in his hand, and the
other one had a pistol. This
one kept pointing the pistol at
the man’s head on the floor
and saying—
“I’d like to! And I orter,
too, a mean skunk!”
The man on the floor
would shrivel up, and say:
“Oh, please don‘t, Bill—I
hain’t ever goin’ to tell.”
 And every time he said
that, the man with the lantern
would laugh, and say:
“ ‘Deed you ain’t! You
never said no truer thing ’n
that, you bet you.” And once
he said: “Hear him beg! and
yit if we hadn’t got the best of
him and tied him, he’d a
killed us both. And what for?
Jist for noth’n. Jist because
we stood on our rights—
that’s what for. But I lay you
ain’t agoin’ to threaten
nobody any more, Jim
Turner. Put up that pistol,
Bill.”
Bill says:
“I don’t want to, Jake
Packard. I’m for killin’ him—
and didn’t he kill old Hatfield
jist the same way—and don’t
he deserve it?”
“But I don’t want him
killed, and I’ve got my
reasons for it.”
 “Bless yo’ heart for them
words, Jake Packard! I’ll
never forgit you, long’s I
live!” says the man on the
floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didn’t take no
notice of that, but hung up his
lantern on a nail, and started
towards where I was, there in
the dark, and motioned Bill to
come. I crawfishedbq as fast
as I could, about two yards,
but the boat slanted so that I
couldn’t make very good
time; so to keep from getting
run over and catched I
crawled into a stateroom on
the upper side. The man come
a-pawing along in the dark,
and when Packard got to my
stateroom, he says:
“Here—come in here.”
And in he come, and Bill
after him. But before they got
in, I was up in the upper
berth, cornered, and sorry I
come. Then they stood there,
with their hands on the ledge
of the berth, and talked. I
couldn’t see them, but I could
tell where they was, by the
whisky they’d been having. I
was glad I didn’t drink
whisky; but it wouldn’t made
much difference, anyway,
because most of the time they
couldn’t a treed me because I
didn’t breathe. I was too
scared. And besides, a body
couldn’t breathe, and hear
such talk. They talked low
and earnest. Bill wanted to
kill Turner. He says:
“He’s said he’ll tell, and he
will. If we was to give both
our shares to him now, it
wouldn’t make no difference
after the row, and the way
we’ve served him. Shore’s
you’re born, he’ll turn State’s
evidence; now you hear me.
I’m for putting him out of his
troubles.”
 “So’m I,” says Packard,
very quiet.
“Blame it, I’d sorter begun
to think you wasn’t. Well,
then, that’s all right. Les’ go
and do it.”
“Hold on a minute; I hain’t
had my say yit. You listen to
me. Shooting’s good, but
there’s quieter ways if the
thing’s got to be done. But
what I say, is this; it ain’t
good sense to go court’n
around after a halter,br if you
can git at what you’re up to in
some way that’s jist as good
and at the same time don’t
bring you into no resks. Ain’t
that so?”
“You bet it is. But how you
goin’ to manage it this time?”
“Well, my idea is this:
we’ll rustle around and gether
up whatever pickins we’ve
overlooked in the staterooms,
and shove for shore and hide
the truck. Then we’ll wait.
Now I say it ain’t agoin’ to be
more ’n two hours befo’ this
wrack breaks up and washes
off down the river. See? He’ll
be drownded, and won’t have
nobody to blame for it but his
own self. I reckon that’s a
considerble sight better’n
killin’ of him. I’m
unfavorable to killin’ a man
as long as you can git around
it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t
good morals. Ain’t I right?”
 ‘“Yes—I reck’n you are.
But s’pose she don’t break up
and wash off?”
“Well, we can wait the two
hours anyway, and see, can’t
we?”
“All right, then; come
along.”
So they started, and I lit
out, all in a cold sweat, and
scrambled forward. It was
dark as pitch there; but I said
in a kind of a coarse whisper,
“Jim!” and he answered up,
right at my elbow, with a sort
of a moan, and I says:
“Quick, Jim, it ain’t no
time for fooling around and
moaning; there’s a gang of
murderers in yonder, and if
we don’t hunt up their boat
and set her drifting down the
river so these fellows can’t
get away from the wreck,
there’s one of ‘em going to be
in a bad fix. But if we find
their boat we can put all of
’em in a bad fix—for the
Sheriff ’ll get ‘em. Quick—
hurry! I’ll hunt the labboardbs
side, you hunt the stabboard.
You start at the raft, and—”
“Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf?
Dey ain’ no raf’ no mo‘, she
done broke loose en gone!
—’en here we is!”
 CHAPTER 13
Well, I catched my breath
and most fainted. Shut up on
a wreck with such a gang as
that! But it warn’t no time to
be senti mentering.bt We’d
got to find that boat, now—
had to have it for ourselves.
So we went a-quaking and
shaking down the stabboard
side, and slow work it was,
too—seemed a week before
we got to the stern. No sign
of a boat. Jim said he didn’t
believe he could go any
further—so scared he hadn’t
hardly any strength left, he
said. But I said come on, if
we get left on this wreck, we
are in a fix, sure. So on we
prowled, again. We struck for
the stern of the texas, and
found it, and then scrabbled
along forwards on the
skylight, hanging on from
shutter to shutter, for the edge
of the skylight was in the
water. When we got pretty
close to the cross-hall door,
there was the skiff, sure
enough! I could just barely
see her. I felt ever so
thankful. In another second I
would a been aboard of her;
but just then the door opened.
One of the men stuck his
head out, only about a couple
of foot from me, and I
thought I was gone; but he
jerked it in again, and says:
“Heave that blame lantern
out o’ sight, Bill!”
He flung a bag of
something into the boat, and
then got in himself, and set
down. It was Packard. Then
Bill he come out and got in.
Packard says, in a low voice:
“All ready—shove off!”
I couldn’t hardly hang onto
the shutters, I was so weak.
But Bill says:
“Hold on—’d you go
through him?”
“No. Didn’t you?”
“No. So he’s got his share
o’ the cash, yet.”
“Well, then, come along—
no use to take truck and leave
money.”
“Say—won’t he suspicion
what we’re up to?”
“Maybe he won’t. But we
got to have it anyway. Come
along.” So they got out and
went in.
The door slammed to,
because it was on the
careened side; and in a half
second I was in the boat, and
Jim come a tumbling after
me. I out with my knife and
cut the rope, and away we
went!
We didn’t touch an oar,
and we didn’t speak nor
whisper, nor hardly even
breathe. We went gliding
swift along, dead silent, past
the tip of the paddle-box, and
past the stern; then in a
second or two more we was a
hundred yards below the
wreck, and the darkness
soaked her up, every last sign
of her, and we was safe, and
knowed it.
When we was three or four
hundred yards down stream,
we see the lantern show like a
little spark at the texas door,
for a second, and we knowed
by that that the rascals had
missed their boat, and was
beginning to understand that
they was in just as much
trouble, now, as Jim Turner
was.
Then Jim manned the oars,
and we took out after our raft.
Now was the first time that I
begun to worry about the men
—I reckon I hadn’t had time
to before. I begun to think
how dreadful it was, even for
murderers, to be in such a fix.
I says to myself, there ain’t
no telling but I might come to
be a murderer myself, yet,
and then how would I like it?
So says I to Jim:
“The first light we see,
we’ll land a hundred yards
below it or above it, in a
place where it’s a good
hiding-place for you and the
skiff, and then I’ll go and fix
up some kind of a yarn, and
get somebody to go for that
gang and get them out of their
scrape, so they can be hung
when their time comes.”
But that idea was a failure;
for pretty soon it begun to
storm again, and this time
worse than ever. The rain
poured down, and never a
light showed; everybody in
bed, I reckon. We boomed
along down the river,
watching for lights and
watching for our raft. After a
long time the rain let up, but
the clouds staid, and the
lightning kept whimpering,
and by-and-by a flash showed
us a black thing ahead,
floating, and we made for it.
It was the raft, and mighty
glad was we to get aboard of
it again. We seen a light,
now, away down to the right,
on shore. So I said I would go
for it. The skiff was half full
of plunder which that gang
had stole, there on the wreck.
We hustled it onto the raft in
a pile, and I told Jim to float
along down, and show a light
when he judged he had gone
about two mile, and keep it
burning till I come; then I
manned my oars and shoved
for the light. As I got down
towards it, three or four more
showed—up on a hillside. It
was a village. I closed in
above the shore-light, and
laid on my oars and floated.
As I went by, I see it was a
lantern hanging on the
jackstaffbu of a double-hull
ferry-boat. I skimmed around
for the watchman, a-
wondering whereabouts he
slept; and by-and-by I found
him roosting on the bitts,
forward, with his head down
between his knees. I give his
shoulder two or three little
shoves, and begun to cry.
He stirred up, in a kind of a
startlish way; when he see it
was only me, he took a good
gap and stretch, and then he
says:
“Hello, what’s up? Don’t
cry, bub. What’s the
trouble?”
I says:
“Pap, and mam, and sis,
and—”
 Then I broke down. He
says:
“Oh, dang it, now, don’t
take on so, we all has to have
our troubles and this’n ’ll
come out all right. What’s the
matter with ‘em?”
“They‘re—they’re—are
you the watchman of the
boat?”
“Yes,” he says, kind of
pretty-well-satisfied like.
“I’m the captain and the
owner, and the mate, and the
pilot, and watchman, and
head deck-hand; and
sometimes I’m the freight and
passengers. I ain’t as rich as
old Jim Hornback, and I can’t
be so blame’ generous and
good to Tom, Dick and Harry
as what he is, and slam
around money the way he
does; but I’ve told him a
many a time’t I wouldn’t
trade places with him; for,
says I, a sailor’s life’s the life
for me, and I’m derned if I’d
live two mile out o’ town,
where there ain’t nothing ever
goin’ on, not for all his
spondulicksbv and as much
more on top of it. Says I—”
I broke in and says:
“They’re in an awful
peckbw of trouble, and—”
“Who is?”
“Why, pap, and mam, and
sis, and Miss Hooker; and if
you’d take your ferry-boat
and go up there—”
“Up where? Where are
they?”
“On the wreck.”
“What wreck?”
“Why, there ain’t but one.”
“What, you don’t mean the
Walter Scott?”
“Yes.”
“Good land! what are they
doin’ there, for gracious
sakes?”
 “Well, they didn’t go there
a-purpose.”
“I bet they didn‘t! Why,
great goodness, there ain’t no
chance for ’em if they don’t
git off mighty quick! Why,
how in the nation did they
ever git into such a scrape?”
“Easy enough. Miss
Hooker was a-visiting, up
there to the town—”
“Yes, Booth’s Landing—
go on.”
 “She was a-visiting, there
at Booth’s Landing, and just
in the edge of the evening she
started over with her nigger
woman in the horse-ferry, to
stay all night at her friend’s
house, Miss What-you-may-
call-her, I disremember her
name, and they lost their
steering-oar, and swung
around and went a-floating
down, sternfirst, about two
mile, and saddle-baggsed bx
on the wreck, and the ferry
man and the nigger woman
and the horses was all lost,
but Miss Hooker she made a
grab and got aboard the
wreck. Well, about an hour
after dark, we come along
down in our trading-scow,
and it was so dark we didn’t
notice the wreck till we was
right on it; and so we saddle-
baggsed; but all of us was
saved but Bill Whipple—and
oh, he was the best cretur!—I
most wish’t it had been me, I
do.”
“My George! It’s the
beatenest thing I ever struck.
And then what did you all
do?”
“Well, we hollered and
took on, but it’s so wide
there, we couldn’t make
nobody hear. So pap said
somebody got to get ashore
and get help somehow. I was
the only one that could swim,
so I made a dash for it, and
Miss Hooker she said if I
didn’t strike help sooner,
come here and hunt up her
uncle, and he’d fix the thing.
I made the land about a mile
below, and been fooling
along ever since, trying to get
people to do something, but
they said, ‘What, in such a
night and such a current?
there ain’t no sense in it; go
for the steam-ferry.’ Now if
you’ll go, and—”
 “By Jackson, I’d like to,
and blame it I don’t know but
I will; but who in the
dingnation‘sby agoin’ to pay
for it? Do you reckon your
pap—”
“Why that’s all right. Miss
Hooker she told me,
particular, that her uncle
Hornback—”
“Great guns!! is he her
uncle? Looky here, you break
for that light over yonder-
way, and turn out west when
you git there, and about a
quarter of a mile out you’ll
come to the tavern; tell ‘em to
dart you out to Jim
Hornback’s and he’ll foot the
bill. And don’t you fool
around any, because he’ll
want to know the news. Tell
him I’ll have his niece all safe
before he can get to town.
Hump yourself, now; I’m
agoing up around the corner
here, to roust out my
engineer.”
I struck for the light, but as
soon as he turned the corner I
went back and got into my
skiff and bailed her out and
then pulled up shore in the
easy water about six hundred
yards, and tucked myself in
among some woodboats; for I
couldn’t rest easy till I could
see the ferry-boat start. But
take it all around, I was
feeling ruther comfortable on
accounts of taking all this
trouble for that gang, for not
many would a done it. I
wished the widow knowed
about it. I judged she would
be proud of me for helping
these rapscallions, because
rapscallions and dead beats is
the kind the widow and good
people takes the most interest
in.
Well, before long, here
comes the wreck, dim and
dusky, sliding along down! A
kind of cold shiver went
through me, and then I struck
out for her. She was very
deep, and I see in a minute
there warn’t much chance for
anybody being alive in her. I
pulled all around her and
hollered a little, but there
wasn’t any answer; all dead
still. I felt a little bit heavy-
hearted about the gang, but
not much, for I reckoned if
they could stand it, I could.
 Then here comes the ferry-
boat; so I shoved for the
middle of the river on a long
down-stream slant; and when
I judged I was out of eye-
reach, I laid on my oars, and
looked back and see her go
and smell around the wreck
for Miss Hooker’s
remainders, because the
captain would know her uncle
Hornback would want them;
and then pretty soon the
ferry-boat give it up and went
for shore, and I laid into my
work and went a-booming
down the river.
It did seem a powerful long
time before Jim’s light
showed up; and when it did
show, it looked like it was a
thousand mile off. By the
time I got there the sky was
beginning to get a little gray
in the east; so we struck for
an island, and hid the raft,
and sunk the skiff, and turned
in and slept like dead people.
 CHAPTER 14
By-and-by, when we got up,
we turned over the truck the
gang had stole off of the
wreck, and found boots, and
blankets, and clothes, and all
sorts of other things, and a lot
of books, and a spyglass, and
three boxes of seegars. We
hadn’t ever been this rich
before, in neither of our lives.
The seegars was prime. We
laid off all the afternoon in
the woods talking, and me
reading the books, and having
a general good time.9 I told
Jim all about what happened
inside the wreck, and at the
ferry-boat; and I said these
kinds of things was
adventures; but he said he
didn’t want no more
adventures. He said that when
I went in the texas and he
crawled back to get on the
raft and found her gone, he
nearly died; because he
judged it was all up with him,
anyway it could be fixed; for
if he didn’t get saved he
would get drownded; and if
he did get saved, whoever
saved him would send him
back home so as to get the
reward, and then Miss
Watson would sell him South,
sure. Well, he was right; he
was most always right; he had
an uncommon level head, for
a nigger.
I read considerable to Jim
about kings, and dukes, and
earls, and such, and how
gaudy they dressed, and how
much style they put on, and
called each other your
majesty, and your grace, and
your lordship, and so on,
‘stead of mister; and Jim’s
eyes bugged out, and he was
interested. He says:
“I didn’ know dey was so
many un um. I hain’t heard
‘bout none un um, skasely,
but ole King Sollermun,bz
onless you counts dem kings
dat’s in a pack er k’yards.
How much do a king git?”
“Get?” I says; “why, they
get a thousand dollars a
month if they want it; they
can have just as much as they
want; everything belongs to
them.”
“Ain’ dat gay? En what
dey got to do, Huck?”
“They don’t do nothing!
Why how you talk. They just
set around.”
“No—is dat so?”
“Of course it is. They just
set around. Except maybe
when there’s a war; then they
go to the war. But other times
they just lazy around; or go
hawking—just hawking and
sp—Sh!—d’ you hear a
noise?”
 We skipped out and
looked; but it warn’t nothing
but the flutter of a
steamboat’s wheel, away
down coming around the
point; so we come back.
“Yes,” says I, “and other
times, when things is dull,
they fuss with the parlyment;
and if everybody don’t go just
so he whacks their heads off.
But mostly they hang round
the harem.”
 “Roun’ de which?”
“Harem.”
“What’s de harem?”
“The place where he keep
his wives. Don’t you know
about the harem? Solomon
had one; he had about a
million wives.”
“Why, yes, dat’s so; I—I’d
done forgot it. A harem’s a
bo‘d’n-house, I reck’n. Mos’
likely dey has rackety times
in de nussery. En I reck’n de
wives quarrels considable; en
dat ‘crease de racket. Yit dey
say Sollermun de wises’ man
dat ever live’. I doan’ take no
stock in dat. Bekase why:
would a wise man want to
live in de mids’ er sich a
blimblammin’ all de time?
No—‘deed he wouldn’t. A
wise man ’ud take en buil’ a
biler-factry; en den he could
shet down de biler-factry
when he want to res‘”
 “Well, but he was the
wisest man, anyway; because
the widow she told me so, her
own self.”
“I doan k‘yer what de
widder say, he warn’t no wise
man, nuther. He had some er
de dad-fetchedes’ ways I ever
see. Does you know ’bout dat
chile dat he ‘uz gwyne to
chop in two?”ca
“Yes, the widow told me
all about it.”
 “Well, den! Warn’ at de
beatenes’ notion in de worl‘?
You jes’ take en look at it a
minute. Dah’s de stump, dah
—dat’s one er de women;
heah’s you—dat’s de yuther
one; I’s Sollermun; en dish-
yer dollar bill’s de chile. Bofe
un you claims it. What does I
do? Does I shin aroun’
mongs’ de neighbors en fine
out which un you de bill do
b’long to, en han’ it over to
de right one, all safe en soun‘,
de way dat anybody dat had
any gumption would? No—I
take en whack de bill in two,
en give half un it to you, en
de yuther half to de yuther
woman. Dat’s de way
Sollermun was gwyne to do
wid de chile. Now I want to
ast you: what’s de use er dat
half a bill?—can’t buy noth’n
wid it. En what use is a half a
chile? I would’n give a dern
for a million un um.”
 “But hang it, Jim, you’ve
clean missed the point—
blame it, you’ve missed it a
thousand mile.”
“Who? Me? Go ‘long.
Doan’ talk to me ’bout yo’
pints. I reck’n I knows sense
when I sees it; en dey ain’ no
sense in sich doin’s as dat. De
‘spute warn’t ’bout a half a
chile, de ‘spute was ’bout a
whole chile; en de man dat
think he kin settle a ‘spute
’bout a whole child wid a half
a chile, doan’ know enough
to come in out’n de rain.
Doan’ talk to me ‘bout
Sollermun, Huck, I knows
him by de back.”
“But I tell you you don’t
get the point.”
“Blame de pint! I reck’n I
knows what I knows. En
mine you, de real pint is
down furder—it’s down
deeper. It lays in de way
Sollermun was raised. You
take a man dat’s got on‘y one
er two chillen; is dat man
gwyne to be waseful o’
chillen? No, he ain’t; he can’t
’ford it. He know how to
value ‘em. But you take a
man dat’s got ’bout five
million chillen runnin’ roun’
de house, en it’s diffunt. He
as soon chop a chile in two as
a cat. Dey’s plenty mo‘. A
chile er two, mo’ er less,
warn’t no consekenscb to
Sollermun, dad fetch him!“
I never see such a nigger. If
he got a notion in his head
once, there warn’t no getting
it out again. He was the most
down on Solomon of any
nigger I ever see. So I went to
talking about other kings, and
let Solomon slide. I told
about Louis Sixteenth that got
his head cut off in France
long time ago; and about his
little boy the dolphin,cc that
would a been a king, but they
took and shut him up in jail,
and some say he died there.
“Po’ little chap.”
“But some says he got out
and got away, and come to
America.”
“Dat’s good! But he’ll be
pooty lonesome—dey ain’ no
kings here, is dey, Huck?”
“No.”
“Den he cain’t git no
situation. What he gwyne to
do?”10
“Well, I don’t know. Some
of them gets on the police,
and some of them learns
people how to talk French.”
“Why, Huck, doan’ de
French people talk de same
way we does?”
“No, Jim; you couldn’t
understand a word they said
—not a single word.”
“Well, now, I be ding-
busted! How do dat come?”
“I don’t know; but it’s so. I
got some of their jabber out
of a book. Spose a man was
to come to you and say Polly-
voo-franzycd—what would
you think?”
“I wouldn’t think nuff’n;
I’d take en bust him over de
head. Dat is, if he warn’t
white. I wouldn’t ‘low no
nigger to call me dat.”
“Shucks, it ain’t calling
you anything. It’s only saying
do you know how to talk
French.”
“Well, den, why couldn’t
he say it?”
“Why, he is a-saying it.
That’s a Frenchman’s way of
saying it.”
“Well, it’s a blame’
ridicklous way, en I doan’
want to hear no mo’ ‘bout it.
Dey ain’ no sense in it.”
“Looky here, Jim; does a
cat talk like we do?”
“No, a cat don’t.”
“Well, does a cow?”
“No, a cow don‘t, nuther.”
“Does a cat talk like a cow,
or a cow talk like a cat?”
“No, dey don’t.”
“It’s natural and right
for‘em to talk different from
each other, ain’t it?”
“ ‘Course.”
“And ain’t it natural and
right for a cat and a cow to
talk different from us?”
“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”
“Well, then, why ain’t it
natural and right for a
Frenchman to talk different
from us? You answer me
that.”
“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
“No.”
“Well, den, dey ain’t no
sense in a cat talkin’ like a
man. Is a cow a man?—er is a
cow a cat?”
“No, she ain’t either of
them.”
“Well, den, she ain’ got no
business to talk like either
one er the yuther of ‘em. Is a
Frenchman a man?”
“Yes.”
“Well, den! Dad blame it,
why doan’ he talk like a man?
You answer me dat!”
I see it warn’t no use
wasting words—you can’t
learn a nigger to argue. So I
quit.
 CHAPTER 15
We judged that three nights
more would fetch us to
Cairo,ce at the bottom of
Illinois, where the Ohio River
comes in, and that was what
we was after. We would sell
the raft and get on a
steamboat and go way up the
Ohio amongst the free States,
and then be out of trouble.
 Well, the second night a
fog begun to come on, and we
made for a tow-headcf to tie
to, for it wouldn’t do to try to
run in fog; but when I
paddled ahead in the canoe,
with the line, to make fast,
there warn’t anything but
little saplings to tie to. I
passed the line around one of
them right on the edge of the
cut bank, but there was a stiff
current, and the raft come
booming down so lively she
tore it out by the roots and
away she went. I see the fog
closing down, and it made me
so sick and scared I couldn’t
budge for most a half a
minute it seemed to me—and
then there warn’t no raft in
sight; you couldn’t see twenty
yards. I jumped into the
canoe and run back to the
stern and grabbed the paddle
and set her back a stroke. But
she didn’t come. I was in
such a hurry I hadn’t untied
her. I got up and tried to untie
her, but I was so excited my
hands shook so I couldn’t
hardly do anything with them.
As soon as I got started I
took out after the raft, hot and
heavy, right down the tow-
head. That was all right as far
as it went, but the tow-head
warn’t sixty yards long, and
the minute I flew by the foot
of it I shot out into the solid
white fog, and hadn’t no
more idea which way I was
going than a dead man.
Thinks I, it won’t do to
paddle; first I know I’ll run
into the bank or a tow-head or
something; I got to set still
and float, and yet it’s mighty
fidgety business to have to
hold your hands still at such a
time. I whooped and listened.
Away down there,
somewheres, I hears a small
whoop, and up comes my
spirits. I went tearing after it,
listening sharp to hear it
again. The next time it come,
I see I warn’t heading for it
but heading away to the right
of it. And the next time, I was
heading away to the left of it
—and not gaining on it much,
either, for I was flying
around, this way and that and
‘tother, but it was going
straight ahead all the time.
 I did wish the fool would
think to beat a tin pan, and
beat it all the time, but he
never did, and it was the still
places between the whoops
that was making the trouble
for me. Well, I fought along,
and directly I hears the
whoop behind me. I was
tangled good, now. That was
somebody else’s whoop, or
else I was turned around.
I throwed the paddle down.
I heard the whoop again; it
was behind me yet, but in a
different place; it kept
coming, and kept changing its
place, and I kept answering,
till by-and-by it was in front
of me again and I knowed the
current had swung the
canoe’s head down stream
and I was all right, if that was
Jim and not some other
raftsman hollering. I couldn’t
tell nothing about voices in a
fog, for nothing don’t look
natural nor sound natural in a
fog.
The whooping went on,
and in about a minute I come
a booming down on a cut
bank with smoky ghosts of
big trees on it, and the current
throwed me off to the left and
shot by, amongst a lot of
snags that fairly roared, the
current was tearing by them
so swift.
In another second or two it
was solid white and still
again. I set perfectly still,
then, listening to my heart
thump, and I reckon I didn’t
draw a breath while it
thumped a hundred.
I just give up, then. I
knowed what the matter was.
That cut bank was an island,
and Jim had gone down
‘tother side of it. It warn’t no
tow-head, that you could float
by in ten minutes. It had the
big timber of a regular island;
it might be five or six mile
long and more than a half a
mile wide.
I kept quiet, with my ears
cocked, about fifteen minutes,
I reckon. I was floating along,
of course, four or five mile an
hour; but you don’t ever think
of that. No, you feel like you
are laying dead still on the
water; and if a little glimpse
of a snag slips by, you don’t
think to yourself how fast
you’re going, but you catch
your breath and think, my!
how that snag’s tearing along.
If you think it ain’t dismal
and lonesome out in a fog
that way, by yourself, in the
night, you try it once—you’ll
see.
Next, for about a half an
hour, I whoops now and then;
at last I hears the answer a
long ways off, and tries to
follow it, but I couldn’t do it,
and directly I judged I’d got
into a nest of tow-heads, for I
had little dim glimpses of
them on both sides of me,
sometimes just a narrow
channel between; and some
that I couldn’t see, I knowed
was there, because I’d hear
the wash of the current
against the old dead brush
and trash that hung over the
banks. Well, I warn’t long
losing the whoops, down
amongst the tow-heads; and I
only tried to chase them a
little while, anyway, because
it was worse than chasing a
Jack-o-lantern. You never
knowed a sound dodge
around so, and swap places so
quick and so much.
I had to claw away from
the bank pretty lively, four or
five times, to keep from
knocking the islands out of
the river; and so I judged the
raft must be butting into the
bank every now and then, or
else it would get further
ahead and clear out of hearing
—it was floating a little faster
than what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the
open river again, by-and-by,
but I couldn’t hear no sign of
a whoop nowheres. I
reckoned Jim had fetched up
on a snag, maybe, and it was
all up with him. I was good
and tired, so I laid down in
the canoe and said I wouldn’t
bother no more. I didn’t want
to go to sleep, of course; but I
was so sleepy I couldn’t help
it; so I thought I would take
just one little cat-nap.
But I reckon it was more
than a cat-nap, for when I
waked up the stars was
shining bright, the fog was all
gone, and I was spinning
down a big bend stern first.
First I didn’t know where I
was; I thought I was
dreaming; and when things
begun to come back to me,
they seemed to come up dim
out of last week.
It was a monstrous big
river here, with the tallest and
the thickest kind of timber on
both banks; just a solid wall,
as well as I could see, by the
stars. I looked away down
stream, and seen a black
speck on the water. I took out
after it; but when I got to it it
warn’t nothing but a couple
of saw-logs made fast
together. Then I see another
speck, and chased that; then
another, and this time I was
right. It was the raft.
When I got to it Jim was
setting there with his head
down between his knees,
asleep, with his right arm
hanging over the steering oar.
The other oar was smashed
off, and the raft was littered
up with leaves and branches
and dirt. So she’d had a rough
time.
I made fast and laid down
under Jim’s nose on the raft,
and begun to gap, and stretch
my fists out against Jim, and
says:
“Hello, Jim, have I been
asleep? Why didn’t you stir
me up?”
 “Goodness gracious, is dat
you, Huck? En you ain’ dead
—you ain’ drownded—you’s
back agin? It’s too good for
true, honey, it’s too good for
true. Lemme look at you,
chile, lemme feel o’ you. No,
you ain’ dead! you’s back
agin, ‘live en soun’, jis de
same ole Huck—de same ole
Huck, thanks to goodness!”
“What’s the matter with
you, Jim? You been a
drinking?”
“Drinkin‘? Has I ben a
drinkin’? Has I had a chance
to be a drinkin‘?”
“Well, then, what makes
you talk so wild?”
“How does I talk wild?”
“How? why, hain’t you
been talking about my
coming back, and all that
stuff, as if I’d been gone
away?”
“Huck—Huck Finn, you
look me in de eye; look me in
de eye. Hain’t you ben gone
away?”
“Gone away? Why, what in
the nation do you mean? I
hain’t been gone anywheres.
Where would I go to?”
“Well, looky here, boss,
dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is.
Is I me, or who is I? Is I heah,
or whah is I? Now dat’s what
I wants to know?”11
“Well, I think you’re here,
plain enough, but I think
you’re a tangle-headed old
fool, Jim.”
“I is, is I? Well you answer
me dis. Didn’t you tote out de
line in de canoe, fer to make
fas’ to de tow-head?”
“No, I didn’t. What tow-
head? I hain’t seen no tow-
head.”
“You hain’t seen no tow-
head? Looky here—didn’t de
line pull loose en de raf’ go a
hummin’ down de river, en
leave you en de canoe behine
in de fog?”
“What fog?”
“Why de fog. De fog dat’s
ben aroun’ all night. En
didn’t you whoop, en didn’t I
whoop, tell we got mix’ up in
de islands en one un us got
los’ en ‘tother one was jis’ as
good as los’, ‘kase he didn’t
know whah he wuz? En
didn’t I bust up agin a lot er
dem islands en have a turrible
time en mos’ git drownded?
Now ain’ dat so, boss—ain’t
it so? You answer me dat.”
“Well, this is too many for
me, Jim. I hain’t seen no fog,
nor no islands, nor no
troubles, nor nothing. I been
setting here talking with you
all night till you went to sleep
about ten minutes ago, and I
reckon I done the same. You
couldn’t a got drunk in that
time, so of course you’ve
been dreaming.”
“Dad fetch it, how is I
gwyne to dream all dat in ten
minutes?”
“Well, hang it all, you did
dream it, because there didn’t
any of it happen.”
“But Huck, it’s all jis’ as
plain to me as—”
“It don’t make no
difference how plain it is,
there ain’t nothing in it. I
know, because I’ve been here
all the time.”
Jim didn’t say nothing for
about five minutes, but set
there studying over it. Then
he says:
“Well, den, I reck’n I did
dream it, Huck; but dog my
cats ef it ain’t de powerfullest
dream I ever see. En I hain’t
ever had no dream b‘fo’ dat’s
tired me like dis one.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right,
because a dream does tire a
body like everything,
sometimes. But this one was
a staving dream—tell me all
about it, Jim.”
So Jim went to work and
told me the whole thing right
through, just as it happened,
only he painted it up
considerable. Then he said he
must start in and “ ‘terpret” it,
because it was sent for a
warning.12 He said the first
tow-head stood for a man that
would try to do us some
good, but the current was
another man that would get us
away from him. The whoops
was warnings that would
come to us every now and
then, and if we didn’t try hard
to make out to understand
them they’d just take us into
bad luck, ’stead of keeping us
out of it. The lot of tow-heads
was troubles we was going to
get into with quarrelsome
people and all kinds of mean
folks, but if we minded our
business and didn’t talk back
and aggravate them, we
would pull through and get
out of the fog and into the big
clear river, which was the free
States, and wouldn’t have no
more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty
dark just after I got onto the
raft, but it was clearing up
again, now.
 “Oh, well, that’s all
interpreted well enough, as
far as it goes, Jim,” I says;
“but what does these things
stand for?”
It was the leaves and
rubbish on the raft, and the
smashed oar. You could see
them first rate, now.
Jim looked at the trash, and
then looked at me, and back
at the trash again. He had got
the dream fixed so strong in
his head that he couldn’t
seem to shake it loose and get
the facts back into its place
again, right away. But when
he did get the thing
straightened around, he
looked at me steady, without
ever smiling, and says:
“What do dey stan’ for? I’s
gwyne to tell you. When I got
all wore out wid work, en wid
de callin’ for you, en went to
sleep, my heart wuz mos’
broke bekase you wuz los‘,
en I didn’ k’yer no mo’ what
become er me en de raf‘. En
when I wake up en fine you
back agin’, all safe en soun‘,
de tears come en I could a got
down on my knees en kiss’
yo’ foot I’s so thankful. En all
you wuz thinkin ’bout wuz
how you could make a fool
uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat
truck dah is trash; en trash is
what people is dat puts dirt on
de head er dey fren’s en
makes ‘em ashamed.”
Then he got up slow, and
walked to the wigwam, and
went in there, without saying
anything but that. But that
was enough. It made me feel
so mean I could almost kissed
his foot to get him to take it
back.
It was fifteen minutes
before I could work myself
up to go and humble myself
to a nigger—but I done it, and
I warn’t ever sorry for it
afterwards, neither. I didn’t
do him no more mean tricks,
and I wouldn’t done that one
if I’d a knowed it would
make him feel that way.
 CHAPTER 16
We slept most all day, and
started out at night, a little
ways behind a monstrous
long raft that was as long
going by as a procession. She
had four long sweeps at each
end, so we judged she carried
as many as thirty men, likely.
She had five big wigwams
aboard, wide apart, and an
open camp fire in the middle,
and a tall flag-pole at each
end. There was a power of
style about her. It amounted
to something being a
raftsman on such a craft as
that.
We went drifting down
into a big bend, and the night
clouded up and got hot. The
river was very wide, and was
walled with solid timber on
both sides; you couldn’t see a
break in it hardly ever, or a
light. We talked about Cairo,
and wondered whether we
would know it when we got
to it. I said likely we
wouldn‘t, because I had heard
say there warn’t but about a
dozen houses there, and if
they didn’t happen to have
them lit up, how was we
going to know we was
passing a town? Jim said if
the two big rivers joined
together there, that would
show. But I said maybe we
might think we was passing
the foot of an island and
coming into the same old
river again. That disturbed
Jim—and me too. So the
question was, what to do? I
said, paddle ashore the first
time a light showed, and tell
them pap was behind, coming
along with a trading-scow,
and was a green hand at the
business, and wanted to know
how far it was to Cairo. Jim
thought it was a good idea, so
we took a smoke on it and
waited.13
There warn’t nothing to do,
now, but to look out sharp for
the town, and not pass it
without seeing it. He said
he’d be mighty sure to see it,
because he’d be a free man
the minute he seen it, but if
he missed it he’d be in the
slave country again and no
more show for freedom.
Every little while he jumps up
and says:
“Dah she is!”
But it warn’t. It was Jack-
o-lanterns, or lightning-bugs;
so he set down again, and
went to watching, same as
before. Jim said it made him
all over trembly and feverish
to be so close to freedom.
Well, I can tell you it made
me all over trembly and
feverish, too, to hear him,
because I begun to get it
through my head that he was
most free—and who was to
blame for it? Why, me I
couldn’t get that out of my
conscience, no how nor no
way. It got to troubling me so
I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay
still in one place. It hadn’t
ever come home to me
before, what this thing was
that I was doing. But now it
did; and it staid with me, and
scorched me more and more.
I tried to make out to myself
that I warn’t to blame,
because I didn’t run Jim off
from his rightful owner; but it
warn’t no use, conscience up
and says, every time, “But
you knowed he was running
for his freedom, and you
could a paddled ashore and
told somebody.” That was so
—I couldn’t get around that,
noway. That was where it
pinched. Conscience says to
me, “What had poor Miss
Watson done to you, that you
could see her nigger go off
right under your eyes and
never say one single word?
What did that poor old
woman do to you, that you
could treat her so mean?
Why, she tried to learn you
your book, she tried to learn
you your manners, she tried
to be good to you every way
she knowed how. That’s what
she done.”
I got to feeling so mean
and so miserable I most
wished I was dead. I fidgeted
up and down the raft, abusing
myself to myself, and Jim
was fidgeting up and down
past me. We neither of us
could keep still. Every time
he danced around and says,
“Dah’s Cairo!” it went
through me like a shot, and I
thought if it was Cairo I
reckoned I would die of
miserableness.
 Jim talked out loud all the
time while I was talking to
myself. He was saying how
the first thing he would do
when he got to a free State he
would go to saving up money
and never spend a single cent,
and when he got enough he
would buy his wife, which
was owned on a farm close to
where Miss Watson lived;
and then they would both
work to buy the two children,
and if their master wouldn’t
sell them, they’d get an
Ab‘litionist to go and steal
them.
It most froze me to hear
such talk. He wouldn’t ever
dared to talk such talk in his
life before. Just see what a
difference it made in him the
minute he judged he was
about free. It was according
to the old saying, “give a
nigger an inch and he’ll take
an ell.”14 Thinks I, this is
what comes of my not
thinking. Here was this nigger
which I had as good as helped
to run away, coming right out
flat-footed and saying he
would steal his children—
children that belonged to a
man I didn’t even know; a
man that hadn’t ever done me
no harm.
I was sorry to hear Jim say
that, it was such a lowering of
him. My conscience got to
stirring me up hotter than
ever, until at last I says to it,
“Let up on me—it ain’t too
late, yet—I’ll paddle ashore
at the first light, and tell.” I
felt easy, and happy, and light
as a feather, right off. All my
troubles was gone. I went to
looking out sharp for a light,
and sort of singing to myself.
By-and-by one showed. Jim
sings out:
“We’s safe, Huck, we’s
safe! Jump up and crack yo’
heels, dat’s de good ole Cairo
at las‘, I jis knows it!”
I says:
“I’ll take the canoe and go
see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you
know.”
He jumped and got the
canoe ready, and put his old
coat in the bottom for me to
set on, and give me the
paddle; and as I shoved off,
he says:
 “Pooty soon I’ll be a-
shout’n for joy, en I’ll say,
it’s all on accounts o’ Huck;
I’s a free man, en I couldn’t
ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben
for Huck; Huck done it. Jim
won’t ever forgit you, Huck;
you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever
had; en you’s de only fren’
ole Jim’s got now.”
I was paddling off, all in a
sweat to tell on him; but
when he says this, it seemed
to kind of take the tuck all out
of me. I went along slow
then, and I warn’t right down
certain whether I was glad I
started or whether I warn’t.
When I was fifty yards off,
Jim says:
“Dah you goes, de ole true
Huck; de on‘y white genlman
dat ever kep’ his promise to
ole Jim.”
Well, I just felt sick. But I
says, I got to do it—I can’t
get out of it. Right then, along
comes a skiff with two men
in it, with guns, and they
stopped and I stopped. One of
them says:
“What’s that, yonder?”
“A piece of a raft,” I says.
“Do you belong on it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any men on it?”
“Only one, sir.”
“Well, there’s five niggers
run off to-night, up yonder
above the head of the bend. Is
your man white or black?”
I didn’t answer up prompt.
I tried to, but the words
wouldn’t come. I tried, for a
second or two, to brace up
and out with it, but I warn’t
man enough—hadn’t the
spunk of a rabbit. I see I was
weakening; so I just give up
trying, and up and says—
“He’s white.”
 “I reckon we’ll go and see
for ourselves.”
“I wish you would,” says I,
“because it’s pap that’s there,
and maybe you’d help me
tow the raft ashore where the
light is. He’s sick—and so is
mam and Mary Ann.”
“Oh, the devil! we’re in a
hurry, boy. But I s‘pose
we’ve got to. Come—buckle
to your paddle, and let’s get
along.”
 I buckled to my paddle and
they laid to their oars. When
we had made a stroke or two,
I says:
“Pap’ll be mighty much
obleeged to you, I can tell
you. Everybody goes away
when I want them to help me
tow the raft ashore, and I
can’t do it by myself.”
“Well, that’s infernal
mean. Odd, too. Say, boy,
what’s the matter with your
father?”
“It’s the—a—the—well, it
ain’t anything, much.”
They stopped pulling. It
warn’t but a mighty little
ways to the raft, now. One
says:
“Boy, that’s a lie. What is
the matter with your pap?
Answer up square, now, and
it’ll be the better for you.”
“I will, sir, I will, honest—
but don’t leave us, please. It’s
the—the—gentlemen, if
you’ll only pull ahead, and let
me heave you the head-line,
you won’t have to come a-
near the raft—please do.”
“Set her back, John, set her
back!” says one. They backed
water. “Keep away, boy—
keep to looard.cg Confound it,
I just expect the wind has
blowed it to us. Your pap’s
got the small-pox, and you
know it precious well. Why
didn’t you come out and say
so? Do you want to spread it
all over?”
“Well,” says I, a-
blubbering, “I’ve told
everybody before, and then
they just went away and left
us.”
“Poor devil, there’s
something in that. We are
right down sorry for you, but
we—well, hang it, we don’t
want the smallpox, you see.
Look here, I’ll tell you what
to do. Don’t you try to land
by yourself, or you’ll smash
everything to pieces. You
float along down about
twenty miles and you’ll come
to a town on the left-hand
side of the river. It will be
long after sun-up, then, and
when you ask for help, you
tell them your folks are all
down with chills and fever.
Don’t be a fool again, and let
people guess what is the
matter. Now we’re trying to
do you a kindness; so you just
put twenty miles between us,
that’s a good boy. It wouldn’t
do any good to land yonder
where the light is—it’s only a
wood-yard. Say—I reckon
your father’s poor, and I’m
bound to say he’s in pretty
hard luck. Here—I’ll put a
twenty dollar gold piece on
this board, and you get it
when it floats by. I feel
mighty mean to leave you,
but my kingdom! it won’t do
to fool with small-pox, don’t
you see?“
“Hold on, Parker,” says the
other man, “here’s a twenty
to put on the board for me.
Good-bye, boy, you do as Mr.
Parker told you, and you’ll be
all right.”
“That’s so, my boy—good-
bye, good-bye. If you see any
runaway niggers, you get help
and nab them, and you can
make some money by it.”
“Good-bye, sir,” says I, “I
won’t let no runaway niggers
get by me if I can help it.”
They went off, and I got
aboard the raft, feeling bad
and low, because I knowed
very well I had done wrong,
and I see it warn’t no use for
me to try to learn to do right;
a body that don’t get started
right when he’s little, ain’t
got no show—when the pinch
comes there ain’t nothing to
back him up and keep him to
his work, and so he gets beat.
Then I thought a minute, and
says to myself, hold on,—
s‘pose you’d a done right and
give Jim up; would you felt
better than what you do now?
No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d
feel just the same way I do
now. Well, then, says I,
what’s the use you learning to
do right, when it’s
troublesome to do right and
ain’t no trouble to do wrong,
and the wages is just the
same? I was stuck. I couldn’t
answer that. So I reckoned I
wouldn’t bother no more
about it, but after this always
do whichever come handiest
at the time.
I went into the wigwam;
Jim warn’t there. I looked all
around; he warn’t anywhere. I
says:
“Jim!”
 “Here I is, Huck. Is dey out
o’ sight yit? Don’t talk loud.”
He was in the river, under
the stern oar, with just his
nose out. I told him they was
out of sight, so he come
aboard. He says:
“I was a-listenin’ to all de
talk, en I slips into de river en
was gwyne to shove for sho’
if dey come aboard. Den I
was gwyne to swim to de raf’
agin when dey was gone. But
lawsy, how you did fool ‘em,
Huck! Dat wuz de smartes’
dodge! I tell you, chile, I
’speck it save’ ole Jim—ole
Jim ain’t gwyne to forgit you
for dat, honey.”
Then we talked about the
money. It was a pretty good
raise, twenty dollars apiece.
Jim said we could take deck
passage on a steamboat now,
and the money would last us
as far as we wanted to go in
the free States. He said
twenty mile more warn’t far
for the raft to go, but he
wished we was already there.
Towards daybreak we tied
up, and Jim was mighty
particular about hiding the
raft good. Then he worked all
day fixing things in bundles,
and getting all ready to quit
rafting.
That night about ten we
hove in sight of the lights of a
town away down in a left-
hand bend.
I went off in the canoe, to
ask about it. Pretty soon I
found a man out in the river
with a skiff, setting a trot-
line. I ranged up and says:
“Mister, is that town
Cairo?”
“Cairo? no. You must be a
blame’ fool.”
“What town is it, mister?”
“If you want to know, go
and find out. If you stay here
botherin’ around me for about
a half a minute longer, you’ll
get something you won’t
want.”
I paddled to the raft. Jim
was awful disappointed, but I
said never mind, Cairo would
be the next place, I reckoned.
We passed another town
before daylight, and I was
going out again; but it was
high ground, so I didn’t go.
No high ground about Cairo,
Jim said. I had forgot it. We
laid up for the day, on a tow-
head tolerable close to the
left-hand bank. I begun to
suspicion something. So did
Jim. I says:
“Maybe we went by Cairo
in the fog that night.”
He says:
“Doan’ less’ talk about it,
Huck. Po’ niggers can’t have
no luck. I awluz ‘spected dat
rattle-snake skin warn’t done
wid its work.”
“I wish I’d never seen that
snake-skin, Jim—I do wish
I’d never laid eyes on it.”
“It ain’t yo’ fault, Huck;
you didn’ know. Don’t you
blame yo‘self ’bout it.”
When it was daylight, here
was the clear Ohio water in
shore, sure enough, and
outside was the old regular
Muddy! So it was all up with
Cairo.15
We talked it all over. It
wouldn’t do to take to the
shore; we couldn’t take the
raft up the stream, of course.
There warn’t no way but to
wait for dark, and start back
in the canoe and take the
chances. So we slept all day
amongst the cotton-wood
thicket, so as to be fresh for
the work, and when we went
back to the raft about dark the
canoe was gone!
We didn’t say a word for a
good while. There warn’t
anything to say. We both
knowed well enough it was
some more work of the rattle
snake skin; so what was the
use to talk about it? It would
only look like we was finding
fault, and that would be
bound to fetch more bad luck
—and keep on fetching it,
too, till we knowed enough to
keep still.
By-and-by we talked about
what we better do, and found
there warn’t no way but just
to go along down with the
raft till we got a chance to
buy a canoe to go back in.
We warn’t going to borrow it
when there warn’t anybody
around, the way pap would
do, for that might set people
after us.
So we shoved out, after
dark, on the raft.
Anybody that don’t believe
yet, that it’s foolishness to
handle a snake-skin, after all
that that snake-skin done for
us, will believe it now, if they
read on and see what more it
done for us.
The place to buy canoes is
off of rafts laying up at shore.
But we didn’t see no rafts
laying up; so we went along
during three hours and more.
Well, the night got gray, and
ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You
can’t tell the shape of the
river, and you can’t see no
distance. It got to be very late
and still, and then along
comes a steamboat up the
river. We lit the lantern, and
judged she would see it.
Upstream boats didn’t
generly come close to us;
they go out and follow the
bars and hunt for easy water
under the reefs; but nights
like this they bull right up the
channel against the whole
river.
We could hear her
pounding along, but we didn’t
see her good till she was
close. She aimed right for us.
Often they do that and try to
see how close they can come
without touching; sometimes
the wheel bites off a sweep,
and then the pilot sticks his
head out and laughs, and
thinks he’s mighty smart.
Well, here she comes, and we
said she was going to try to
shave us; but she didn’t seem
to be sheering off a bit. She
was a big one, and she was
coming in a hurry, too,
looking like a black cloud
with rows of glow-worms
around it; but all of a sudden
she bulged out, big and scary,
with a long row of wide-open
furnace doors shining like
red-hot teeth, and her
monstrous bows and guards
hanging right over us. There
was a yell at us, and a
jingling of bells to stop the
engines, a pow-wow of
cussing, and whistling of
steam—and as Jim went
overboard on one side and I
on the other, she come
smashing straight through the
raft.
I dived—and I aimed to
find the bottom, too, for a
thirty-foot wheel had got to
go over me, and I wanted it to
have plenty of room. I could
always stay under water a
minute; this time I reckon I
staid under water a minute
and a half. Then I bounced
for the top in a hurry, for I
was nearly busting. I popped
out to my arm-pits and
blowed the water out of my
nose, and puffed a bit. Of
course there was a booming
current; and of course that
boat started her engines again
ten seconds after she stopped
them, for they never cared
much for raftsmen; so now
she was churning along up
the river, out of sight in the
thick weather, though I could
hear her.
I sung out for Jim about a
dozen times, but I didn’t get
any answer; so I grabbed a
plank that touched me while I
was “treading water,” and
struck out for shore, shoving
it ahead of me. But I made
out to see that the drift of the
current was towards the left-
hand shore, which meant that
I was in a crossing; so I
changed off and went that
way.
It was one of these long,
slanting, two-mile crossings;
so I was a good long time in
getting over. I made a safe
landing, and clum up the
bank. I couldn’t see but a
little ways, but I went poking
along over rough ground for a
quarter of a mile or more, and
then I run across a big old-
fashioned double log house
before I noticed it. I was
going to rush by and get
away, but a lot of dogs
jumped out and went to
howling and barking at me,
and I knowed better than to
move another peg.ch
 CHAPTER 17
In a about half a minute
somebody spoke out of a
window, without putting his
head out, and says:
“Be done, boys! Who’s
there?”
I says:
“It’s me.”
“Who’s me?”
“George Jackson, sir.”
 “What do you want?”
“I don’t want nothing, sir. I
only want to go along by, but
the dogs won’t let me.”
“What are you prowling
around here this time of
night, for—hey?”
“I warn’t prowling around,
sir; I fell overboard off of the
steamboat.”
“Oh, you did, did you?
Strike a light there,
somebody. What did you say
your name was?”
“George Jackson, sir. I’m
only a boy.”
“Look here; if you’re
telling the truth, you needn’t
be afraid—nobody’ ll hurt
you. But don’t try to budge;
stand right where you are.
Rouse out Bob and Tom,
some of you, and fetch the
guns. George Jackson, is
there anybody with you?”
“No, sir, nobody.”
 I heard the people stirring
around in the house, now, and
see a light. The man sung out:
“Snatch that light away,
Betsy, you old fool—ain’t
you got any sense? Put it on
the floor behind the front
door. Bob, if you and Tom
are ready, take your places.”
“All ready.”
“Now, George Jackson, do
you know the
Shepherdsons?”
 “No, sir—I never heard of
them.”
“Well, that may be so, and
it mayn’t. Now, all ready.
Step forward, George
Jackson. And mind, don’t you
hurry—come mighty slow. If
there’s anybody with you, let
him keep back—if he shows
himself he’ll be shot. Come
along, now. Come slow; push
the door open, yourself—just
enough to squeeze in, d‘you
hear?”
I didn’t hurry, I couldn’t if
I’d a wanted to. I took one
slow step at a time, and there
warn’t a sound, only I
thought I could hear my
heart. The dogs were as still
as the humans, but they
followed a little behind me.
When I got to the three log
door-steps, I heard them
unlocking and unbarring and
unbolting. I put my hand on
the door and pushed it a little
and a little more, till
somebody said, “There, that’s
enough—put your head in.” I
done it, but I judged they
would take it off.
The candle was on the
floor, and there they all was,
looking at me, and me at
them, for about a quarter of a
minute. Three big men with
guns pointed at me, which
made me wince, I tell you;
the oldest, gray and about
sixty, the other two thirty or
more—all of them fine and
handsome—and the sweetest
old gray-headed lady, and
back of her two young
women which I couldn’t see
right well. The old gentleman
says:
“There—I reckon it’s all
right. Come in.”
As soon as I was in, the old
gentleman he locked the door
and barred it and bolted it,
and told the young men to
come in with their guns, and
they all went in a big parlor
that had a new rag carpet on
the floor, and got together in
a corner that was out of range
of the front windows—there
warn’t none on the side. They
held the candle, and took a
good look at me, and all said,
“Why be ain’t a Shepherdson
—no, there ain’t any
Shepherdson about him.”
Then the old man said he
hoped I wouldn’t mind being
searched for arms, because he
didn’t mean no harm by it—it
was only to make sure. So he
didn’t pry into my pockets,
but only felt outside with his
hands, and said it was all
right. He told me to make
myself easy and at home, and
tell all about myself; but the
old lady says:
“Why bless you, Saul, the
poor thing’s as wet as he can
be; and don’t you reckon it
may be he’s hungry?”
“True for you, Rachel—I
forgot.”
So the old lady says:
“Betsy” (this was a nigger
woman), “you fly around and
get him something to eat, as
quick as you can, poor thing;
and one of you girls go and
wake up Buck and tell him—
Oh, here he is himself. Buck,
take this little stranger and get
the wet clothes off from him
and dress him up in some of
yours that’s dry.”
Buck looked about as old
as me—thirteen or fourteen
or along there, though he was
a little bigger than me. He
hadn’t on anything but a shirt,
and he was very frowsy-
headed. He come in gaping
and digging one fist into his
eyes, and he was dragging a
gun along with the other one.
He says:
“Ain’t they no
Shepherdsons around?”
They said, no, ‘twas a false
alarm.
“Well,” he says, “if they’d
a ben some, I reckon I’d a got
one.”
They all laughed, and Bob
says:
“Why, Buck, they might
have scalped us all, you’ve
been so slow in coming.”
“Well, nobody come after
me, and it ain’t right. I’m
always kep’ down; I don’t get
no show.”
“Never mind, Buck, my
boy,” says the old man,
“you’ll have show enough, all
in good time, don’t you fret
about that. Go ‘long with you
now, and do as your mother
told you.”
When we got up stairs to
his room, he got me a coarse
shirt and a roundaboutci and
pants of his, and I put them
on. While I was at it he asked
me what my name was, but
before I could tell him, he
started to telling me about a
blue jay and a young rabbit
he had catched in the woods
day before yesterday, and he
asked me where Moses was
when the candle went out. I
said I didn’t know; I hadn’t
heard about it before, no way.
“Well, guess,” he says.
“How’m I going to guess,”
says I, “when I never heard
tell about it before?”
“But you can guess, can’t
you? It’s just as easy.”
“Which candle?” I says.
“Why, any candle,” he
says.
“I don’t know where he
was,” says I; “where was
he?”
 “Why he was in the dark!
That’s where he was!”
“Well, if you knowed
where he was, what did you
ask me for?”
“Why, blame it, it’s a
riddle, don’t you see? Say,
how long are you going to
stay here? You got to stay
always. We can just have
booming times—they don’t
have no school now. Do you
own a dog? I’ve got a dog—
and he’ll go in the river and
bring out chips that you throw
in. Do you like to comb up,
Sundays, and all that kind of
foolishness? You bet I don‘t,
but ma she makes me.
Confound these ole britches, I
reckon I’d better put ’em on,
but I’d ruther not, it’s so
warm. Are you all ready? All
right—come along, old hoss.”
Cold corn-pone, cold corn-
beef, butter and butter-milk—
that is what they had for me
down there, and there ain’t
nothing better that ever I’ve
come across yet. Buck and
his ma and all of them
smoked cob pipes, except the
nigger woman, which was
gone, and the two young
women. They all smoked and
talked, and I eat and talked.
The young women had quilts
around them, and their hair
down their backs. They all
asked me questions, and I
told them how pap and me
and all the family was living
on a little farm down at the
bottom of Arkansaw, and my
sister Mary Ann run off and
got married and never was
heard of no more, and Bill
went to hunt them and he
warn’t heard of no more, and
Tom and Mort died, and then
there warn’t nobody but just
me and pap left, and he was
just trimmed down to
nothing, on account of his
troubles; so when he died I
took what there was left,
because the farm didn’t
belong to us, and started up
the river, deck passage, and
fell overboard; and that was
how I come to be here. So
they said I could have a home
there as long as I wanted it.
Then it was most daylight,
and everybody went to bed,
and I went to bed with Buck,
and when I waked up in the
morning, drat it all, I had
forgot what my name was. So
I laid there about an hour
trying to think, and when
Buck waked up, I says:
“Can you spell, Buck?”
“Yes,” he says.
“I bet you can’t spell my
name,” says I.
“I bet you what you dare I
can,” says he.
“All right,” says I, “go
ahead.”
“G-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n—
there now,” he says.
“Well,” says I, “you done
it, but I didn’t think you
could. It ain’t no slouch of a
name to spell—right off
without studying.”
I set it down, private,
because somebody might
want me to spell it, next, and
so I wanted to be handy with
it and rattle it off like I was
used to it.
It was a mighty nice
family, and a mighty nice
house, too. I hadn’t seen no
house out in the country
before that was so nice and
had so much style. It didn’t
have an iron latch on the front
door, nor a wooden one with
a buckskin string, but a brass
knob to turn, the same as
houses in a town. There
warn’t no bed in the parlor,
not a sign of a bed; but heaps
of parlors in towns has beds
in them. There was a big
fireplace that was bricked on
the bottom, and the bricks
was kept clean and red by
pouring water on them and
scrubbing them with another
brick; sometimes they washed
them over with red water-
paint that they call Spanish-
brown, same as they do in
town. They had big brass
dog-irons that could hold up a
saw-log. There was a clock
on the middle of the mantel-
piece, with a picture of a
town painted on the bottom
half of the glass front, and a
round place in the middle of
it for the sun, and you could
see the pendulum swing
behind it. It was beautiful to
hear that clock tick; and
sometimes when one of these
peddlers had been along and
scoured her up and got her in
good shape, she would start
in and strike a hundred and
fifty before she got tuckered
out. They wouldn’t took any
money for her.
Well, there was a big
outlandish parrot on each side
of the clock, made out of
something like chalk, and
painted up gaudy. By one of
the parrots was a cat made of
crockery, and a crockery dog
by the other; and when you
pressed down on them they
squeaked, but didn’t open
their mouths nor look
different nor interested. They
squeaked through underneath.
There was a couple of big
wild-turkey-wing fans spread
out behind those things. On a
table in the middle of the
room was a kind of a lovely
crockery basket that had
apples and oranges and
peaches and grapes piled up
in it which was much redder
and yellower and prettier than
real ones is, but they warn’t
real because you could see
where pieces had got chipped
off and showed the white
chalk or whatever it was,
underneath.
This table had a cover
made out of beautiful oil-
cloth, with a red and blue
spread-eagle painted on it,
and a painted border all
around. It come all the way
from Philadelphia, they said.
There was some books too,
piled up perfectly exact, on
each corner of the table. One
was a big family Bible, full of
pictures. One was “Pilgrim’s
Progress,”16 about a man that
left his family it didn’t say
why. I read considerable in it
now and then. The statements
was interesting, but tough.
Another was “Friendship’s
Offering,”cj full of beautiful
stuff and poetry; but I didn’t
read the poetry. Another was
Henry Clay’s Speeches,17 and
another was Dr. Gunn’s
Family Medicine,ck which
told you all about what to do
if a body was sick or dead.
There was a Hymn Book, and
a lot of other books. And
there was nice split-bottom
chairs, and perfectly sound,
too—not bagged down in the
middle and busted, like an old
basket.
They had pictures hung on
the walls—mainly
Washingtons and Lafayettes,
and battles, and Highland
Marys, and one called
“Signing the Declaration.”
There was some that they
called crayons, which one of
the daughters which was dead
made her own self when she
was only fifteen years old.
They was different from any
pictures I ever see before;
blacker, mostly, than is
common. One was a woman
in a slim black dress, belted
small under the arm-pits, with
bulges like a cabbage in the
middle of the sleeves, and a
large black scoop-shovel
bonnet with a black veil, and
white slim ankles crossed
about with black tape, and
very wee black slippers, like
a chisel, and she was leaning
pensive on a tombstone on
her right elbow, under a
weeping willow, and her
other hand hanging down her
side holding a white
handkerchief and a reticule,
and underneath the picture it
said “Shall I Never See Thee
More Alas.”18 Another one
was a young lady with her
hair all combed up straight to
the top of her head, and
knotted there in front of a
comb like a chair-back, and
she was crying into a
handkerchief and had a dead
bird laying on its back in her
other hand with its heels up,
and underneath the picture it
said “I Shall Never Hear Thy
Sweet Chirrup More Alas.”
There was one where a young
lady was at a window looking
up at the moon, and tears
running down her cheeks; and
she had an open letter in one
hand with black sealing-wax
showing on one edge of it,
and she was mashing a locket
with a chain to it against her
mouth, and underneath the
picture it said “And Art Thou
Gone Yes Thou Art Gone
Alas.” These was all nice
pictures, I reckon, but I didn’t
somehow seem to take to
them, because if ever I was
down a little, they always
give me the fan-tods.
Everybody was sorry she
died, because she had laid out
a lot more of these pictures to
do, and a body could see by
what she had done what they
had lost. But I reckoned, that
with her disposition, she was
having a better time in the
graveyard. She was at work
on what they said was her
greatest picture when she
took sick, and every day and
every night it was her prayer
to be allowed to live till she
got it done, but she never got
the chance. It was a picture of
a young woman in a long
white gown, standing on the
rail of a bridge all ready to
jump off, with her hair all
down her back, and looking
up to the moon, with the tears
running down her face, and
she had two arms folded
across her breast, and two
arms stretched out in front
and two more reaching up
towards the moon—and the
idea was, to see which pair
would look best and then
scratch out all the other arms;
but, as I was saying, she died
before she got her mind made
up, and now they kept this
picture over the head of the
bed in her room, and every
time her birthday come they
hung flowers on it. Other
times it was hid with a little
curtain. The young woman in
the picture had a kind of a
nice sweet face but there was
so many arms it made her
look too spidery, seemed to
me.
This young girl kept a
scrap-book when she was
alive, and used to paste
obituaries and accidents and
cases of patient suffering in it
out of the Presbyterian
Observer, and write poetry
after them out of her own
head. It was very good
poetry. This is what she wrote
about a boy by the name of
Stephen Dowling Bots that
fell down a well and was
drownded:
ODE TO STEPHEN
DOWLING BOTS,
DEC’D.
And did young Stephen
sicken,
And did young Stephen
die?
And did the sad hearts
thicken,
And did the mourners
cry?

No; such was not the

fate of
Young Stephen Dowling
Bots;
Though sad hearts round
him thickened,
‘Twas not from
sickness’ shots.

No whooping-cough did
rack his frame,
Nor measles drear, with
spots;
Not these impaired the
sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling
Bots.
Despised love struck not
with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles
laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling
Bots.

O no. Then list with

tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this
 cold world fly,
By falling down a well.

They got him out and

emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for
to sport aloft
In the realms of the good
and great.
If Emmeline Grangerford
could make poetry like that
before she was fourteen, there
ain’t no telling what she
could a done by-and-by. Buck
said she could rattle off
poetry like nothing. She
didn’t ever have to stop to
think. He said she would slap
down a line, and if she
couldn’t find anything to
rhyme with it she would just
scratch it out and slap down
another one, and go ahead.
She warn’t particular, she
could write about anything
you choose to give her to
write about, just so it was
sadful. Every time a man
died, or a woman died, or a
child died, she would be on
hand with her “tribute” before
he was cold. She called them
tributes. The neighbors said it
was the doctor first, then
Emmeline, then the
undertaker—the undertaker
never got in ahead of
Emmeline but once, and then
she hung fire on a rhyme for
the dead person’s name,
which was Whistler. She
warn’t ever the same, after
that; she never complained,
but she kind of pined away
and did not live long. Poor
thing, many’s the time I made
myself go up to the little
room that used to be hers and
get out her poor old scrap-
book and read in it when her
pictures had been aggravating
me and I had soured on her a
little. I liked all that family,
dead ones and all, and warn’t
going to let anything come
between us. Poor Emmeline
made poetry about all the
dead people when she was
alive, and it didn’t seem right
that there warn’t nobody to
make some about her, now
she was gone; so I tried to
sweat out a verse or two
myself, but I couldn’t seem to
make it go, somehow. They
kept Emmeline’s room trim
and nice and all the things
fixed in it just the way she
liked to have them when she
was alive, and nobody ever
slept there. The old lady took
care of the room herself,
though there was plenty of
niggers, and she sewed there
a good deal and read her
Bible there, mostly.
Well, as I was saying about
the parlor, there was beautiful
curtains on the windows:
white, with pictures painted
on them, of castles with vines
all down the walls, and cattle
coming down to drink. There
was a little old piano, too,
that had tin pans in it, I
reckon, and nothing was ever
so lovely as to hear the young
ladies sing, “The Last Link is
Broken” and play “The Battle
of Prague” on it. The walls of
all the rooms was plastered,
and most had carpets on the
floors, and the whole house
was whitewashed on the
outside.
 It was a double house, and
the big open place betwixt
them was roofed and floored,
and sometimes the table was
set there in the middle of the
day, and it was a cool,
comfortable place. Nothing
couldn’t be better. And
warn’t the cooking good, and
just bushels of it too!
 CHAPTER 18
Col. Grangerford was a
gentleman, you see. He was a
gentleman all over; and so
was his family. He was well
born, as the saying is, and
that’s worth as much in a man
as it is in a horse,19 so the
Widow Douglas said, and
nobody ever denied that she
was of the first aristocracy in
our town; and pap he always
said it, too, though he warn’t
no more quality than a
mudcat, himself. Col.
Grangerford was very tall and
very slim, and had a darkish-
paly complexion, not a sign
of red in it anywheres; he was
clean-shaved every morning,
all over his thin face, and he
had the thinnest kind of lips,
and the thinnest kind of
nostrils, and a high nose, and
heavy eyebrows, and the
blackest kind of eyes, sunk so
deep back that they seemed
like they was looking out of
caverns at you, as you may
say. His forehead was high,
and his hair was black and
straight, and hung to his
shoulders. His hands was
long and thin, and every day
of his life he put on a clean
shirt and a full suit from head
to foot made out of linen so
white it hurt your eyes to look
at it; and on Sundays he wore
a blue tail-coat with brass
buttons on it. He carried a
mahogany cane with a silver
head to it. There warn’t no
frivolishness about him, not a
bit, and he warn’t ever loud.
He was as kind as he could be
—you could feel that, you
know, and so you had
confidence. Sometimes he
smiled, and it was good to
see; but when he straightened
himself up like a liberty-pole,
and the lightning begun to
flicker out from under his
eyebrows you wanted to
climb a tree first, and find out
what the matter was
afterwards. He didn’t ever
have to tell anybody to mind
their manners—everybody
was always good mannered
where he was. Everybody
loved to have him around,
too; he was sunshine most
always—I mean he made it
seem like good weather.
When he turned into a cloud-
bank it was awful dark for a
half a minute and that was
enough; there wouldn’t
nothing go wrong again for a
week.
When him and the old lady
come down in the morning,
all the family got up out of
their chairs and give them
good-day, and didn’t set
down again till they had set
down. Then Tom and Bob
went to the sideboard where
the decanters was, and mixed
a glass of bitters and handed
it to him, and he held it in his
hand and waited till Tom’s
and Bob’s was mixed, and
then they bowed and said
“Our duty to you, sir, and
madam;” and they bowed the
least bit in the world and said
thank you, and so they drank,
all three, and Bob and Tom
poured a spoonful of water on
the sugar and the mitecl of
whisky or apple brandy in the
bottom of their tumblers, and
give it to me and Buck, and
we drank to the old people
too.
Bob was the oldest, and
Tom next. Tall, beautiful men
with very broad shoulders
and brown faces, and long
black hair and black eyes.
They dressed in white linen
from head to foot, like the old
gentleman, and wore broad
Panama hats.
Then there was Miss
Charlotte, she was twenty-
five, and tall and proud and
grand, but as good as she
could be, when she warn’t
stirred up; but when she was,
she had a look that would
make you wilt in your tracks,
like her father. She was
beautiful.
So was her sister, Miss
Sophia, but it was a different
kind. She was gentle and
sweet, like a dove, and she
was only twenty.
Each person had their own
nigger to wait on them—
Buck, too. My nigger had a
monstrous easy time, because
I warn’t used to having
anybody do anything for me,
but Buck’s was on the jump
most of the time.
This was all there was of
the family, now; but there
used to be more—three sons;
they got killed; and
Emmeline that died.
The old gentleman owned
a lot of farms, and over a
hundred niggers. Sometimes
a stack of people would come
there, horseback, from ten or
fifteen mile around, and stay
five or six days, and have
such junketings round about
and on the river, and dances
and picnics in the woods,
daytimes, and balls at the
house, nights. These people
was mostly kin-folks of the
family. The men brought their
guns with them. It was a
handsome lot of quality, I tell
you.
There was another clan of
aristocracy around there—
five or six families—mostly
of the name of Shepherdson.
They was as high-toned, and
well born, and rich and grand,
as the tribe of Grangerfords.
The Shepherdsons and the
Grangerfords used the same
steamboat landing, which was
about two mile above our
house; so sometimes when I
went up there with a lot of
our folks I used to see a lot of
the Shepherdsons there, on
their fine horses.
One day Buck and me was
away out in the woods,
hunting, and heard a horse
coming. We was crossing the
road. Buck says:
“Quick! Jump for the
woods!”
We done it, and then
peeped down the woods
through the leaves. Pretty
soon a splendid young man
come galloping down the
road, setting his horse easy
and looking like a soldier. He
had his gun across his
pommel. I had seen him
before. It was young Harney
Shepherdson. I heard Buck’s
gun go off at my ear, and
Harney’s hat tumbled off
from his head. He grabbed his
gun and rode straight to the
place where we was hid. But
we didn’t wait. We started
through the woods on a run.
The woods warn’t thick, so I
looked over my shoulder, to
dodge the bullet, and twice I
seen Harney cover Buck with
his gun; and then he rode
away the way he come—to
get his hat, I reckon, but I
couldn’t see. We never
stopped running till we got
home. The old gentleman’s
eyes blazed a minute—‘twas
pleasure, mainly, I judged—
then his face sort of smoothed
down, and he says, kind of
gentle:
“I don’t like that shooting
from behind a bush. Why
didn’t you step into the road,
my boy?”
“The Shepherdsons don‘t,
father. They always take
advantage.”
Miss Charlotte she held her
head up like a queen while
Buck was telling his tale, and
her nostrils spread and her
eyes snapped. The two young
men looked dark, but never
said nothing. Miss Sophia she
turned pale, but the color
come back when she found
the man warn’t hurt.
Soon as I could get Buck
down by the corn-cribs under
the trees by ourselves, I says:
“Did you want to kill him,
Buck?”
“Well, I bet I did.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Him? He never done
nothing to me.”
“Well, then, what did you
want to kill him for?”
 “Why nothing—only it’s
on account of the feud.”
“What’s a feud?”20
“Why, where was you
raised? Don’t you know what
a feud is?”
“Never heard of it before—
tell me about it.”
“Well,” says Buck, “a feud
is this way. A man has a
quarrel with another man, and
kills him; then that other
man’s brother kills him; then
the other brothers, on both
sides, goes for one another;
then the cousins chip in—and
by-and-by everybody’s killed
off, and there ain’t no more
feud. But it’s kind of slow,
and takes a long time.”
“Has this one been going
on long, Buck?”
“Well I should reckon! it
started thirty year ago, or
som‘ers along there. There
was trouble ’bout something
and then a lawsuit to settle it;
and the suit went agin one of
the men, and so he up and
shot the man that won the suit
—which he would naturally
do, of course. Anybody
would.”
“What was the trouble
about, Buck?—land?”
“I reckon maybe—I don’t
know.”
“Well, who done the
shooting?—was it a
Grangerford or a
Shepherdson?”
“Laws, how do I know? it
was so long ago.”
“Don’t anybody know?”
“Oh, yes, pa knows, I
reckon, and some of the other
old folks; but they don’t
know, now, what the row was
about in the first place.”
“Has there been many
killed, Buck?”
“Yes—right smart chance
of funerals. But they don’t
always kill. Pa’s got a few
buck-shot in him; but he
don’t mind it‘cuz he don’t
weigh much anyway. Bob’s
been carved up some with a
bowie,cm and Tom’s been
hurt once or twice.”
“Has anybody been killed
this year, Buck?”
“Yes, we got one and they
got one. ‘Bout three months
ago, my cousin Bud, fourteen
year old, was riding through
the woods, on t’other side of
the river, and didn’t have no
weapon with him, which was
blame’ foolishness, and in a
lonesome place he hears a
horse a-coming behind him,
and sees old Baldy
Shepherdson a-linkin’ after
him with his gun in his hand
and his white hair a-flying in
the wind; and ‘stead of
jumping off and taking to the
brush, Bud ’lowed he could
outrun him; so they had it, nip
and tuck, for five mile or
more, the old man a-gaining
all the time; so at last Bud
seen it warn’t any use, so he
stopped and faced around so
as to have the bullet holes in
front, you know, and the old
man he rode up and shot him
down. But he didn’t git much
chance to enjoy his luck, for
inside of a week our folks
laid him out.”
 “I reckon that old man was
a coward, Buck.”
“I reckon he warn’t a
coward. Not by a blame’
sight. There ain’t a coward
amongst them Shepherdsons
—not a one. And there ain’t
no cowards amongst the
Grangerfords, either. Why,
that old man kep’ up his end
in a fight one day, for a half
an hour, against three
Grangerfords, and come out
winner. They was all a-
horseback; he lit off his horse
and got behind a little wood-
pile, and kep’ his horse
before him to stop the bullets;
but the Grangerfords staid on
their horses and capered
around the old man, and
peppered away at him, and he
peppered away at them. Him
and his horse both went home
pretty leaky and crippled, but
the Grangerfords had to be
fetched home—and one of
‘em was dead, and another
died the next day. No, sir, if a
body’s out hunting for
cowards, he don’t want to
fool away any time amongst
them Shepherdsons, becuz
they don’t breed any of that
kind.”
Next Sunday we all went to
church, about three mile,
everybody a-horseback. The
men took their guns along, so
did Buck, and kept them
between their knees or stood
them handy against the wall.
The Shepherdsons done the
same. It was pretty ornery
preaching—all about
brotherly love, and such-like
tiresomeness; but everybody
said it was a good sermon,
and they all talked it over
going home, and had such a
powerful lot to say about
faith, and good works, and
free grace, and
preforeordestination,21 and I
don’t know what all, that it
did seem to me to be one of
the roughest Sundays I had
run across yet.
About an hour after dinner
everybody was dozing
around, some in their chairs
and some in their rooms, and
it got to be pretty dull. Buck
and a dog was stretched out
on the grass in the sun, sound
asleep. I went up to our room,
and judged I would take a nap
myself. I found that sweet
Miss Sophia standing in her
door, which was next to ours,
and she took me in her room
and shut the door very soft,
and asked me if I liked her,
and I said I did; and she asked
me if I would do something
for her and not tell anybody,
and I said I would. Then she
said she’d forgot her
Testament, and left it in the
seat at church, between two
other books and would I slip
out quiet and go there and
fetch it to her, and not say
nothing to nobody. I said I
would. So I slid out and
slipped off up the road, and
there warn’t anybody at the
church, except maybe a hog
or two, for there warn’t any
lock on the door, and hogs
likes a puncheon floor in
summer-time because it’s
cool. If you notice, most folks
don’t go to church only when
they’ve got to; but a hog is
different.
Says I to myself
something’s up—it ain’t
natural for a girl to be in such
a sweat about a Testament; so
I give it a shake, and out
drops a little piece of paper
with “Half-past two” wrote
on it with a pencil. I
ransacked it, but couldn’t find
anything else. I couldn’t
make anything out of that, so
I put the paper in the book
again, and when I got home
and up stairs, there was Miss
Sophia in her door waiting for
me. She pulled me in and shut
the door; then she looked in
the Testament till she found
the paper, and as soon as she
read it she looked glad; and
before a body could think,
she grabbed me and give me
a squeeze, and said I was the
best boy in the world, and not
to tell anybody. She was
mighty red in the face, for a
minute, and her eyes lighted
up and it made her powerful
pretty. I was a good deal
astonished, but when I got my
breath I asked her what the
paper was about, and she
asked me if I had read it, and
I said no, and she asked me if
I could read writing, and I
told her “no, only coarse-
hand,”cn and then she said the
paper warn’t anything but a
book-mark to keep her place,
and I might go and play now.
I went off down to the
river, studying over this
thing, and pretty soon I
noticed that my nigger was
following along behind.
When we was out of sight of
the house, he looked back and
around a second, and then
comes a-running, and says:
“Mars Jawge, if you’ll
come down into de swamp,
I’ll show you a whole stack
o’ water-moccasins.”
Thinks I, that’s mighty
curious; he said that
yesterday. He oughter know a
body don’t love water-
moccasins enough to go
around hunting for them.
What is he up to anyway? So
I says—
“All right, trot ahead.”
I followed a half a mile,
then he struck out over the
swamp and waded ankle deep
as much as another half mile.
We come to a little flat piece
of land which was dry and
very thick with trees and
bushes and vines, and he says
—
“You shove right in dah,
jist a few steps, Mars Jawge,
dah’s whah dey is. I’s seed
’m befo‘, I don’t k’yer to see
‘em no mo’.”
Then he slopped right
along and went away, and
pretty soon the trees hid him.
I poked into the place a-ways,
and come to a little open
patch as big as a bedroom, all
hung around with vines, and
found a man laying there
asleep—and by jings it was
my old Jim!
I waked him up, and I
reckoned it was going to be a
grand surprise to him to see
me again, but it warn’t. He
nearly cried, he was so glad,
but he warn’t surprised. He
said he swum along behind
me, that night, and heard me
yell every time, but dasn’t
answer, because he didn’t
want nobody to pick him up,
and take him into slavery
again. Says he—
“I got hurt a little, en
couldn’t swim fas‘, so I wuz a
considable ways behine you,
towards de las’; when you
landed I reck‘ned I could
ketch up wid you on de lan’
’dout havin’ to shout at you,
but when I see dat house I
begin to go slow. I ‘uz off too
fur to hear what dey say to
you—I wuz ’fraid o’ de dogs
—but when it ‘uz all quiet
agin, I knowed you’s in de
house, so I struck out for de
woods to wait for day. Early
in de mawnin’ some er de
niggers come along, gwyne to
de fields, en dey tuck me en
showed me dis place, whah
de dogs can’t track me on
accounts o’ de water, en dey
brings me truck to eat every
night, en tells me how you’s a
gitt’n along.”
‘Why didn’t you tell my
Jack to fetch me here sooner,
Jim?“
“Well, ‘twarn’t no use to
’sturb you, Huck, tell we
could do sumfn—but we’s all
right, now. I ben a-buyin’
pots en pans en vittles, as I
got a chanst, en a patchin’ up
de raf‘, nights, when—”
“What raft, Jim?”
“Our ole raf‘.”
“You mean to say our old
raft warn’t smashed all to
flinders?”
“No, she warn’t. She was
tore up a good deal—one en’
of her was—but dey warn’t
no great harm done, on‘y our
traps was mos’ all los’. Ef we
hadn’ dive’ so deep en swum
so fur under water, en de
night hadn’ ben so dark, en
we warn’t so sk‘yerd, en ben
sich punkin-heads, as de
sayin’ is, we’d a seed de raf’.
But it’s jis’ as well we didn‘t,
’kase now she’s all fixed up
agin mos’ as good as new, en
we’s got a new lot o’ stuff,
too, in de place o’ what ‘uz
los’.”
“Why, how did you get
hold of the raft again, Jim—
did you catch her?”
“How I gwyne to ketch
her, en I out in de woods? No,
some er de niggers foun’ her
ketched on a snag, along heah
in de ben‘, en dey hid her in a
crick, ’mongst de willows, en
dey wuz so much jawin’
‘bout which un ’um she
b‘long to de mos’, dat I come
to heah ‘bout it pooty soon,
so I ups en settles de trouble
by tellin’ ’um she don’t
b‘long to none uv um, but to
you en me; en I ast ’m if dey
gwyne to grab a young white
genlman’s propaty, en git a
hid’n for it? Den I gin ’m ten
cents apiece, en dey’uz
mighty well satisfied, en
wisht some mo’ rafs ‘ud
come along en make ’m rich
agin. Dey’s mighty good to
me, dese niggers is, en
whatever I wants ’m to do fur
me, I doan’ have to ast’m
twice, honey. Dat Jack’s a
good nigger, en pooty smart.”
“Yes, he is. He ain’t ever
told me you was here; told
me to come, and he’d show
me a lot of water-moccasins.
If anything happens, he ain’t
mixed up in it. He can say he
never seen us together, and
it’ll be the truth.”
I don’t want to talk much
about the next day. I reckon
I’ll cut it pretty short.22 I
waked up about dawn, and
was agoing to turn over and
go to sleep again, when I
noticed how still it was—
didn’t seem to be anybody
stirring. That warn’t usual.
Next I noticed that Buck was
up and gone. Well, I gets up,
a-wondering, and goes down
stairs—nobody around;
everything as still as a mouse.
Just the same outside; thinks
I, what does it mean? Down
by the wood-pile I comes
across my Jack, and says:23
“What’s it all about?”
Says he:
“Don’t you know, Mars
Jawge?”
“No,” says I, “I don’t.”
“Well, den, Miss Sophia’s
run off! ‘deed she has. She
run off in de night, sometime
—nobody don’t know jis’
when—run off to git married
to dat young Harney
Shepherdson, you know—
leastways, so dey’spec. De
fambly foun’ it out, ‘bout half
an hour ago—maybe a little
mo’—en’ I tell you dey
warn’t no time los‘. Sich
another hurryin’ up guns en
hosses you never see! De
women folks has gone for to
stir up de relations, en ole
Mars Saul en de boys tuck
dey guns en rode up de river
road for to try to ketch dat
young man en kill him ’fo’ he
kin git acrost de river wid
Miss Sophia. I reck’n dey’s
gwyne to be mighty rough
times.”
“Buck went off ‘thout
waking me up.”
“Well I reck’n he did! Dey
warn’t gwyne to mix you up
in it. Mars Buck he loaded up
his gun en ‘lowed he’s gwyne
to fetch home a Shepherdson
or bust. Well, dey’ll be plenty
un ’m dah, I reck’n, en you
bet you he’ll fetch one ef he
gits a chanst.”
I took up the river road as
hard as I could put. By-and-
by I begin to hear guns a
good ways off. When I come
in sight of the log store and
the wood-pile where the
steamboats lands, I worked
along under the trees and
brush till I got to a good
place, and then I clumb up
into the forks of a cotton-
wood that was out of reach,
and watched. There was a
wood-rankco four foot high, a
little ways in front of the tree,
and first I was going to hide
behind that; but maybe it was
luckier I didn’t.
There was four or five men
cavorting around on their
horses in the open place
before the log store, cussing
and yelling, and trying to get
at a couple of young chaps
that was behind the wood-
rank alongside of the
steamboat landing—but they
couldn’t come it. Every time
one of them showed himself
on the river side of the wood-
pile he got shot at. The two
boys was squatting back to
back behind the pile, so they
could watch both ways.
By-and-by the men stopped
cavorting around and yelling.
They started riding towards
the store; then up gets one of
the boys, draws a steady bead
over the wood-rank, and
drops one of them out of his
saddle. All the men jumped
off of their horses and
grabbed the hurt one and
started to carry him to the
store; and that minute the two
boys started on the run. They
got half-way to the tree I was
in before the men noticed.
Then the men see them, and
jumped on their horses and
took out after them. They
gained on the boys, but it
didn’t do no good, the boys
had too good a start; they got
to the wood-pile that was in
front of my tree, and slipped
in behind it, and so they had
the bulge on the men again.
One of the boys was Buck,
and the other was a slim
young chap about nineteen
years old.
The men ripped around
awhile, and then rode away.
As soon as they was out of
sight, I sung out to Buck and
told him. He didn’t know
what to make of my voice
coming out of the tree, at
first. He was awful surprised.
He told me to watch out sharp
and let him know when the
men come in sight again; said
they was up to some
devilment or other—wouldn’t
be gone long. I wished I was
out of that tree, but I dasn’t
come down. Buck begun to
cry and rip, and ‘lowed that
him and his cousin Joe (that
was the other young chap)
would make up for this day,
yet. He said his father and his
two brothers was killed, and
two or three of the enemy.
Said the Shepherdsons laid
for them, in ambush. Buck
said his father and brothers
ought to waited for their
relations—the Shepherdsons
was too strong for them. I
asked him what was become
of young Harney and Miss
Sophia. He said they’d got
across the river and was safe.
I was glad of that; but the
way Buck did take on
because he didn’t manage to
kill Harney that day he shot at
him—I hain’t ever heard
anything like it.
All of a sudden, bang!
bang! bang! goes three or
four guns—the men had
slipped around through the
woods and come in from
behind without their horses!
The boys jumped for the river
—both of them hurt—and as
they swum down the current
the men run along the bank
shooting at them and singing
out, “Kill them, kill them!” It
made me so sick I most fell
out of the tree. I ain’t agoing
to tell all that happened—it
would make me sick again if
I was to do that. I wished I
hadn’t ever come ashore that
night, to see such things. I
ain’t ever going to get shut of
them—lots of times I dream
about them.
I staid in the tree till it
begun to get dark, afraid to
come down. Sometimes I
heard guns away off in the
woods; and twice I seen little
gangs of men gallop past the
log store with guns; so I
reckoned the trouble was still
agoing on. I was mighty
down-hearted; so I made up
my mind I wouldn’t ever go
anear that house again,
because I reckoned I was to
blame, somehow. I judged
that that piece of paper meant
that Miss Sophia was to meet
Harney somewheres at half-
past two and run off; and I
judged I ought to told her
father about that paper and
the curious way she acted,
and then maybe he would a
locked her up and this awful
mess wouldn’t ever
happened.
When I got down out of the
tree, I crept along down the
river bank a piece, and found
the two bodies laying in the
edge of the water, and tugged
at them till I got them ashore;
then I covered up their faces,
and got away as quick as I
could. I cried a little when I
was covering up Buck’s face,
for he was mighty good to
me.
It was just dark, now. I
never went near the house,
but struck through the woods
and made for the swamp. Jim
warn’t on his island, so I
tramped off in a hurry for the
crick, and crowded through
the willows, red-hot to jump
aboard and get out of that
awful country—the raft was
gone! My souls, but I was
scared! I couldn’t get my
breath for most a minute.
Then I raised a yell. A voice
not twenty-five foot from me,
says—
“Good lan‘! is dat you,
honey? Doan’ make no
noise.”
It was Jim’s voice—
nothing ever sounded so good
before. I run along the bank a
piece and got aboard, and Jim
he grabbed me and hugged
me, he was so glad to see me.
He says—
“Laws bless you, chile, I
‘uz right down sho’ you’s
dead agin. Jack’s been heah,
he say he reck’n you’s ben
shot, kase you didn’ come
home no mo’; so I’s jes’ dis
minute a startin’ de raf’ down
towards de mouf er de crick,
so’s to be all ready for to
shove out en leave soon as
Jack comes agin en tells me
for certain you is dead.
Lawsy, I’s mighty glad to git
you back agin, honey.”
I says—
“All right—that’s mighty
good; they won’t find me,
and they’ll think I’ve been
killed, and floated down the
river—there’s something up
there that’ll help them to
think so—so don’t you lose
no time, Jim, but just shove
off for the big water as fast as
ever you can.”
 I never felt easy till the raft
was two mile below there and
out in the middle of the
Mississippi. Then we hung up
our signal lantern, and judged
that we was free and safe
once more. I hadn’t had a bite
to eat since yesterday; so Jim
he got out some corn-
dodgerscp and buttermilk, and
pork and cabbage, and greens
—there ain’t nothing in the
world so good, when it’s
cooked right—and whilst I
eat my supper we talked, and
had a good time. I was
powerful glad to get away
from the feuds, and so was
Jim to get away from the
swamp. We said there warn’t
no home like a raft, after all.
Other places do seem so
cramped up and smothery,
but a raft don’t. You feel
mighty free and easy and
comfortable on a raft.23
 CHAPTER 19
Two or three days and nights
went by; I reckon I might say
they swum by, they slid along
so quiet and smooth and
lovely. Here is the way we
put in the time. It was a
monstrous big river down
there—sometimes a mile and
a half wide; we run nights,
and laid up and hid day-
times; soon as night was most
gone, we stopped navigating
and tied up—nearly always in
the dead water under a tow-
head; and then cut young
cotton-woods and willows
and hid the raft with them.
Then we set out the lines.
Next we slid into the river
and had a swim, so as to
freshen up and cool off; then
we set down on the sandy
bottom where the water was
about knee deep, and watched
the daylight come. Not a
sound, anywheres—perfectly
still—just like the whole
world was asleep, only
sometimes the bull-frogs a-
cluttering, maybe. The first
thing to see, looking away
over the water, was a kind of
dull line—that was the woods
on t‘other side—you couldn’t
make nothing else out; then a
pale place in the sky; then
more paleness, spreading
around; then the river
softened up, away off, and
warn’t black any more, but
gray; you could see little dark
spots drifting along, ever so
far away—trading scows, and
such things; and long black
streaks—rafts; sometimes
you could hear a sweep
screaking; or jumbled up
voices, it was so still, and
sounds come so far; and by-
and-by you could see a streak
on the water which you know
by the look of the streak that
there’s a snag there in a swift
current which breaks on it
and makes that streak look
that way; and you see the
mist curl up off of the water,
and the east reddens up, and
the river, and you make out a
log cabin in the edge of the
woods, away on the bank on
t’other side of the river, being
a wood-yard, likely, and piled
by them cheats so you can
throw a dog through it
anywheres; then the nice
breeze springs up, and comes
fanning you from over there,
so cool and fresh, and sweet
to smell, on account of the
woods and the flowers; but
sometimes not that way,
because they’ve left dead fish
laying around, gars, and such,
and they do get pretty rank;
and next you’ve got the full
day, and everything smiling
in the sun, and the song-birds
just going it!
A little smoke couldn’t be
noticed, now, so we would
take some fish off of the
lines, and cook up a hot
breakfast. And afterwards we
would watch the
lonesomeness of the river,
and kind of lazy along, and
by-and-by lazy off to sleep.
Wake up, by-and-by, and
look to see what done it, and
maybe see a steamboat,
coughing along up stream, so
far off towards the other side
you couldn’t tell nothing
about her only whether she
was stern-wheel or side-
wheel; then for about an hour
there wouldn’t be nothing to
hear nor nothing to see—just
solid lonesomeness. Next
you’d see a raft sliding by,
away off yonder, and maybe
a galootcq on it chopping,
because they’re most always
doing it on a raft; you’d see
the ax flash, and come down
—you don’t hear nothing;
you see that ax go up again,
and by the time it’s above the
man’s head, then you hear the
k‘chunk! it had took all that
time to come over the water.
So we would put in the day,
lazying around, listening to
the stillness. Once there was a
thick fog, and the rafts and
things that went by was
beating tin pans so the
steamboats wouldn’t run over
them. A scowcr or a raft went
by so close we could hear
them talking and cussing and
laughing—heard them plain;
but we couldn’t see no sign of
them; it made you feel
crawly, it was like spirits
carrying on that way in the
air. Jim said he believed it
was spirits; but I says:
“No, spirits wouldn’t say,
‘dern the dern fog.’ ”
Soon as it was night, out
we shoved; when we got her
out to about the middle, we
let her alone, and let her float
wherever the current wanted
her to; then we lit the pipes,
and dangled our legs in the
water and talked about all
kinds of things—we was
always naked, day and night,
whenever the mosquitoes
would let us—the new
clothes Buck’s folks made for
me was too good to be
comfortable, and besides I
didn’t go much on clothes,
nohow.
Sometimes we’d have that
whole river all to ourselves
for the longest time. Yonder
was the banks and the islands,
across the water; and maybe a
spark—which was a candle in
a cabin window—and
sometimes on the water you
could see a spark or two—on
a raft or a scow, you know;
and maybe you could hear a
fiddle or a song coming over
from one of them crafts. It’s
lovely to live on a raft. We
had the sky, up there, all
speckled with stars, and we
used to lay on our backs and
look up at them, and discuss
about whether they was
made, or only just happened
—Jim he allowed they was
made, but I allowed they
happened; I judged it would
have took too long to make so
many. Jim said the moon
could a laid them; well, that
looked kind of reasonable, so
I didn’t say nothing against it,
because I’ve seen a frog lay
most as many, so of course it
could be done. We used to
watch the stars that fell, too,
and see them streak down.
Jim allowed they’d got
spoiled and was hove out of
the nest.
Once or twice of a night
we would see a steamboat
slipping along in the dark,
and now and then she would
belch a whole world of sparks
up out of her chimbleys, and
they would rain down in the
river and look awful pretty;
then she would turn a corner
and her lights would wink out
and her pow-wow shut off
and leave the river still again;
and by-and-by her waves
would get to us, a long time
after she was gone, and
joggle the raft a bit, and after
that you wouldn’t hear
nothing for you couldn’t tell
how long, except maybe frogs
or something.
After midnight the people
on shore went to bed, and
then for two or three hours
the shores was black—no
more sparks in the cabin
windows. These sparks was
our clock—the first one that
showed again meant morning
was coming, so we hunted a
place to hide and tie up, right
away.
One morning about day-
break, I found a canoe and
crossed over a chute to the
main shore—it was only two
hundred yards—and paddled
about a mile up a crick
amongst the cypress woods,
to see if I couldn’t get some
berries. Just as I was passing
a place where a kind of a
cow-path crossed the crick,
here comes a couple of men
tearing up the path as tight as
they could foot it. I thought I
was a goner, for whenever
anybody was after anybody I
judged it was me-or maybe
Jim. I was about to dig out
from there in a hurry, but they
was pretty close to me then,
and sung out and begged me
to save their lives—said they
hadn’t been doing nothing,
and was being chased for it—
said there was men and dogs
a-coming. They wanted to
jump right in, but I says—
“Don’t you do it. I don’t
hear the dogs and horses yet;
you’ve got time to crowd
through the brush and get up
the crick a little ways; then
you take to the water and
wade down to me and get in
—that’ll throw the dogs off
the scent.”
They done it, and soon as
they was aboard I lit out for
our tow head, and in about
five or ten minutes we heard
the dogs and the men away
off, shouting. We heard them
come along towards the crick,
but couldn’t see them; they
seemed to stop and fool
around a while; then, as we
got further and further away
all the time, we couldn’t
hardly hear them at all; by the
time we had left a mile of
woods behind us and struck
the river, everything was
quiet, and we paddled over to
the tow-head and hid in the
cotton-woods and was safe.
One of these fellows was
about seventy, or upwards,
and had a bald head and very
gray whiskers. He had an old
battered-up slouch hat on, and
a greasy blue woolen shirt,
and ragged old blue jeans
britches stuffed into his boot
tops, and home-knit gallusescs
—no, he only had one. He
had an old long-tailed blue
jeans coat with slick brass
buttons, flung over his arm,
and both of them had big fat
ratty-looking carpet-bags.24
The other fellow was about
thirty and dressed about as
ornery. After breakfast we all
laid off and talked, and the
first thing that come out was
that these chaps didn’t know
one another.
“What got you into
trouble?” says the baldhead to
t‘other chap.
“Well, I’d been selling an
article to take the tartar off
the teeth—and it does take it
off, too, and generly the
enamel along with it—but I
staid about one night longer
than I ought to, and was just
in the act of sliding out when
I ran across you on the trail
this side of town, and you
told me they were coming,
and begged me to help you to
get off. So I told you I was
expecting trouble myself and
would scatter out with you.
That’s the whole yarn—
what’s yourn?”
“Well, I’d ben a-runnin’ a
little temperance revival thar,
‘bout a week, and was the pet
of the women-folks, big and
little, for I was makin’ it
mighty warm for the
rummies, I tell you, and
takin’ as much as five or six
dollars a night—ten cents a
head, children and niggers
free—and business a growin’
all the time; when somehow
or another a little report got
around, last night, that I had a
way of puttin’ in my time
with a private jug, on the sly.
A nigger rousted me out this
mornin’, and told me the
people was getherin’ on the
quiet, with their dogs and
horses, and they’d be along
pretty soon and give me ‘bout
half an hour’s start, and then
run me down, if they could;
and if they got me they’d tar
and feather me and ride me
on a rail, sure. I didn’t wait
for no breakfast—I warn’t
hungry.”
“Old man,” says the young
one, “I reckon we might
double-team it together; what
do you think?”
“I ain’t undisposed. What’s
your line—mainly?”
 “Jour printer,ct by trade; do
a little in patent medicines;
theatre-actor—tragedy, you
know; take a turn at
mesmerism and phrenology25
when there’s a chance; teach
singing-geography school for
a change; sling a lecture,
sometimes—oh, I do lots of
things—most anything that
comes handy, so it ain’t work.
What’s your lay?”
“I’ve done considerable in
the doctoring way in my time.
Layin’ on o’ hands is my best
holt—for cancer, and
paralysis, and sich things; and
I k’n tell a fortune pretty
good, when I’ve got
somebody along to find out
the facts for me. Preachin’s
my line, too; and workin’
camp-meetin’s; and
missionaryin’ around.”
Nobody never said
anything for a while; then the
young man hove a sigh and
says—
“Alas!”
“What’re you alassin’
about?” says the baldhead.
“To think I should have
lived to be leading such a life,
and be degraded down into
such company.” And he
begun to wipe the corner of
his eye with a rag.
“Dern your skin, ain’t the
company good enough for
you?” says the baldhead,
pretty pert and uppish.
“Yes, it is good enough for
me; it’s as good as I deserve;
for who fetched me so low,
when I was so high? I did
myself. I don’t blame you,
gentlemen—far from it; I
don’t blame anybody. I
deserve it all. Let the cold
world do its worst; one thing
I know—there’s a grave
somewhere for me. The world
may go on just as its always
done, and take everything
from me—loved ones,
property, everything—but it
can’t take that. Some day I’ll
lie down in it and forget it all,
and my poor broken heart
will be at rest.” He went on a-
wiping.
“Drot your pore broken
heart,” says the baldhead;
“what are you heaving your
pore broken heart at us f r?
We hain’t done nothing.”
“No, I know you haven’t. I
ain’t blaming you, gentlemen.
I brought myself down—yes,
I did it myself. It’s right I
should suffer—perfectly right
—I don’t make any moan.”
“Brought you down from
whar? Whar was you brought
down from?”
“Ah, you would not believe
me; the world never believes
—let it pass—‘tis no matter.
The secret of my birth—”
“The secret of your birth?
Do you mean to say—”
“Gentlemen,” says the
young man, very solemn, “I
will reveal it to you, for I feel
I may have confidence in
you. By rights I am a duke!”
Jim’s eyes bugged out
when he heard that; and I
reckon mine did, too. Then
the baldhead says: “No! you
can’t mean it?”
 “Yes. My great-
grandfather, eldest son of the
Duke of Bridgewater, fled to
this country about the end of
the last century, to breathe the
pure air of freedom; married
here, and died, leaving a son,
his own father dying about
the same time. The second
son of the late duke seized the
title and estates—the infant
real duke was ignored. I am
the lineal descendant of that
infant—I am the rightful
Duke of Bridgewater; and
here am I, forlorn, torn from
my high estate, hunted of
men, despised by the cold
world, ragged, worn, heart-
broken, and degraded to the
companionship of felons on a
raft!”
Jim pitied him ever so
much, and so did I. We tried
to comfort him, but he said it
warn’t much use, he couldn’t
be much comforted; said if
we was a mind to
acknowledge him, that would
do him more good than most
anything else; so we said we
would, if he would tell us
how. He said we ought to
bow, when we spoke to him,
and say “Your Grace,” or
“My Lord,” or “Your
Lordship”—and he wouldn’t
mind it if we called him plain
“Bridgewater,” which he said
was a title, anyway, and not a
name; and one of us ought to
wait on him at dinner, and do
any little thing for him he
wanted done.
Well, that was all easy, so
we done it. All through
dinner Jim stood around and
waited on him, and says,
“Will yo’ Grace have some o’
dis, or some o’ dat?” and so
on, and a body could see it
was mighty pleasing to him.
But the old man got pretty
silent, by-and-by—didn’t
have much to say, and didn’t
look pretty comfortable over
all that petting that was going
on around that duke. He
seemed to have something on
his mind. So, along in the
afternoon, he says:
“Looky here, Bilgewater,”
he says, “I’m nation sorry for
you, but you ain’t the only
person that’s had troubles like
that.”
“No?”
 “No, you ain’t. You ain’t
the only person that’s ben
snaked down wrongfully
out’n a high place.”
“Alas!”
“No, you ain’t the only
person that’s had a secret of
his birth.” And by jing, he
begins to cry.
“Hold! What do you
mean?”
“Bilgewater, kin I trust
you?” says the old man, still
sort of sobbing.
“To the bitter death!” He
took the old man by the hand
and squeezed it and says,
“The secret of your being:
speak!”
“Bilgewater, I am the late
Dauphin!”
You bet you Jim and me
stared, this time. Then the
duke says:
“You are what?”
“Yes, my friend, it is too
true—your eyes is lookin’ at
this very moment on the pore
disappeared Dauphin, Looy
the Seventeen, son of Looy
the Sixteen and Marry
Antonette.”
“You! At your age! No!
You mean you’re the late
Charlemagne; you must be
six or seven hundred years
old, at the very least.”
“Trouble has done it,
Bilgewater, trouble has done
it; trouble has brung these
gray hairs and this premature
balditude. Yes, gentlemen,
you see before you, in blue
jeans and misery, the
wanderin‘, exiled, trampled-
on and sufferin’ rightful King
of France.”
Well, he cried and took on
so, that me and Jim didn’t
know hardly what to do, we
was so sorry—and so glad
and proud we’d got him with
us, too. So we set in, like we
done before with the duke,
and tried to comfort him. But
he said it warn’t no use,
nothing but to be dead and
done with it all could do him
any good; though he said it
often made him feel easier
and better for a while if
people treated him according
to his rights, and got down on
one knee to speak to him, and
always called him “Your
Majesty,” and waited on him
first at meals, and didn’t set
down in his presence till he
asked them. So Jim and me
set to majestying him, and
doing this and that and t‘other
for him, and standing up till
he told us we might set down.
This done him heaps of good,
and so he got cheerful and
comfortable. But the duke
kind of soured on him, and
didn’t look a bit satisfied with
the way things was going;
still, the king acted real
friendly towards him, and
said the duke’s great-
grandfather and all the other
Dukes of Bilgewater was a
good deal thought of by his
father and was allowed to
come to the palace
considerable; but the duke
staid huffy a good while, till
by-and-by the king says:
“Like as not we got to be
together a blamed long time,
on this h-yer raft, Bilgewater,
and so what’s the use o’ your
bein’ sour? It’ll only make
things oncomfortable. It ain’t
my fault I warn’t born a duke,
it ain’t your fault you warn’t
born a king—so what’s the
use to worry? Make the best
o’ things the way you find
‘em, says I—that’s my motto.
This ain’t no bad thing that
we’ve struck here—plenty
grub and an easy life—come,
give us your hand, Duke, and
less all be friends.”
 The duke done it, and Jim
and me was pretty glad to see
it. It took away all the
uncomfortableness, and we
felt mighty good over it,
because it would a been a
miserable business to have
any unfriendliness on the raft;
for what you want, above all
things, on a raft, is for
everybody to be satisfied, and
feel right and kind towards
the others.
 It didn’t take me long to
make up my mind that these
liars warn’t no kings nor
dukes, at all, but just low-
down humbugscu and frauds.
But I never said nothing,
never let on; kept it to myself;
it’s the best way; then you
don’t have no quarrels, and
don’t get into no trouble. If
they wanted us to call them
kings and dukes, I hadn’t no
objections, ‘long as it would
keep peace in the family; and
it warn’t no use to tell Jim, so
I didn’t tell him. If I never
learnt nothing else out of pap,
I learnt that the best way to
get along with his kind of
people is to let them have
their own way.
 CHAPTER 20
They asked us considerable
many questions; wanted to
know what we covered up the
raft that way for, and laid by
in the day-time instead of
running—was Jim a runaway
nigger? Says I—
“Goodness sakes, would a
runaway nigger run south?”
No, they allowed he
wouldn’t. I had to account for
things some way, so I says:
“My folks was living in
Pike County, in Missouri,
where I was born, and they all
died off but me and pa and
my brother Ike. Pa, he ‘lowed
he’d break up and go down
and live with Uncle Ben,
who’s got a little one-horse
place on the river, forty-four
mile below Orleans. Pa was
pretty poor, and had some
debts; so when he’d squared
up there warn’t nothing left
but sixteen dollars and our
nigger, Jim. That warn’t
enough to take us fourteen
hundred mile, deck passage
nor no other way. Well, when
the river rose, pa had a streak
of luck one day; he ketched
this piece of a raft; so we
reckoned we’d go down to
Orleans on it. Pa’s luck didn’t
hold out; a steamboat run
over the forrard corner of the
raft, one night, and we all
went overboard and dove
under the wheel; Jim and me
come up, all right, but pa was
drunk, and Ike was only four
years old, so they never come
up no more. Well, for the
next day or two we had
considerable trouble, because
people was always coming
out in skiffs and trying to take
Jim away from me, saying
they believed he was a
runaway nigger. We don’t run
day-times no more, now;
nights they don’t bother us.“
The duke says—
“Leave me alone to cipher
out a way so we can run in
the day-time if we want to.
I’ll think the thing over—I’ll
invent a plan that’ll fix it.
We’ll let it alone for to-day,
because of course we don’t
want to go by that town
yonder in daylight—it
mightn’t be healthy.”
 Towards night it begun to
darken up and look like rain;
the heat lightning was
squirting around, low down in
the sky, and the leaves was
beginning to shiver—it was
going to be pretty ugly, it was
easy to see that. So the duke
and the king went to
overhauling our wigwam, to
see what the beds was like.
My bed was a straw tick—
better than Jim‘s, which was
a corn-shuck tick; there’s
always cobs around about in a
shuck tick, and they poke into
you and hurt; and when you
roll over, the dry shucks
sound like you was rolling
over in a pile of dead leaves;
it makes such a rustling that
you wake up. Well, the duke
allowed he would take my
bed; but the king allowed he
wouldn’t. He says—
“I should a reckoned the
difference in rank would a
sejested to you that a corn-
shuck bed warn’t just fitten
for me to sleep on. Your
Grace’ll take the shuck bed
yourself.”
Jim and me was in a sweat
again, for a minute, being
afraid there was going to be
some more trouble amongst
them; so we was pretty glad
when the duke says—
“ ‘Tis my fate to be always
ground into the mire under
the iron heel of oppression.
Misfortune has broken my
once haughty spirit; I yield, I
submit; ’tis my fate. I am
alone in the world—let me
suffer; I can bear it. ”
We got away as soon as it
was good and dark. The king
told us to stand well out
towards the middle of the
river, and not show a light till
we got a long ways below the
town. We come in sight of the
little bunch of lights by-and-
by—that was the town, you
know—and slid by, about a
half a mile out, all right.
When we was three-quarters
of a mile below, we hoisted
up our signal lantern; and
about ten o‘clock it come on
to rain and blow and thunder
and lighten like everything;
so the king told us to both
stay on watch till the weather
got better; then him and the
duke crawled into the
wigwam and turned in for the
night. It was my watch below,
till twelve, but I wouldn’t a
turned in, anyway, if I’d had
a bed; because a body don’t
see such a storm as that every
day in the week, not by a long
sight. My souls, how the wind
did scream along! And every
second or two there’d come a
glare that lit up the white-
caps for a half a mile around,
and you’d see the islands
looking dusty through the
rain, and the trees thrashing
around in the wind; then
comes a h-wack! —bum!
bum! bumble-umble-um-
bum-bum-bum-bum—and the
thunder would go rumbling
and grumbling away, and quit
—and then rip comes another
flash and another
sockdolager.cv The waves
most washed me off the raft,
sometimes, but I hadn’t any
clothes on, and didn’t mind.
We didn’t have no trouble
about snags; the lightning
was glaring and flittering
around so constant that we
could see them plenty soon
enough to throw her head this
way or that and miss them.
I had the middle watch,
you know, but I was pretty
sleepy by that time, so Jim he
said he would stand the first
half of it for me; he was
always mighty good, that
way, Jim was. I crawled into
the wigwam, but the king and
the duke had their legs
sprawled around so there
warn’t no show for me; so I
laid outside—I didn’t mind
the rain, because it was warm,
and the waves warn’t running
so high, now. About two they
come up again, though, and
Jim was going to call me, but
he changed his mind because
he reckoned they warn’t high
enough yet to do any harm;
but he was mistaken about
that, for pretty soon all of a
sudden along comes a regular
ripper, and washed me
overboard. It most killed Jim
a-laughing. He was the
easiest nigger to laugh that
ever was, anyway.
I took the watch, and Jim
he laid down and snored
away; and by-and-by the
storm let up for good and all;
and the first cabin-light that
showed, I rousted him out
and we slid the raft into
hiding-quarters for the day.
The king got out an old
ratty deck of cards, after
breakfast, and him and the
duke played seven-up a
while, five cents a game.
Then they got tired of it, and
allowed they would “lay out a
campaign,” as they called it.
The duke went down into his
carpet-bag and fetched up a
lot of little printed bills, and
read them out loud. One bill
said “The celebrated Dr.
Armand de Montalban of
Paris,” would “lecture on the
Science of Phrenology” at
such and such a place, on the
blank day of blank, at ten
cents admission, and “furnish
charts of character at twenty-
five cents apiece.” The duke
said that was him. In another
bill he was the “world
renowned Shaksperean
tragedian, Garrick the
Younger,cw of Drury Lane,
London.” In other bills he had
a lot of other names and done
other wonderful things, like
finding water and gold with a
“divining rod,” “dissipating
witch-spells,” and so on. By-
and-by he says—
“But the histrionic musecx
is the darling. Have you ever
trod the boards,cy Royalty?”
“No,” says the king.
 “You shall, then, before
you’re three days older,
Fallen Grandeur,” says the
duke. “The first good town
we come to, we’ll hire a hall
and do the sword-fight in
Richard III. and the balcony
scene in Romeo and Juliet.
How does that strike you?”
“I’m in, up to the hub, for
anything that will pay,
Bilgewater, but you see I
don’t know nothing about
play-actn‘, and hain’t ever
seen much of it. I was too
small when pap used to have
’em at the palace. Do you
reckon you can learn me?”
“Easy!”
“All right. I’m jist a-
freezn’ for something fresh,
anyway. Less commence,
right away.”
So the duke he told him all
about who Romeo was, and
who Juliet was, and said he
was used to being Romeo, so
the king could be Juliet.
“But if Juliet’s such a
young gal, Duke, my peeled
head and my white whiskers
is goin’ to look oncommon
odd on her, maybe.”
“No, don’t you worry—
these country jakes won’t
ever think of that. Besides,
you know, you’ll be in
costume, and that makes all
the difference in the world;
Juliet’s in a balcony, enjoying
the moonlight before she goes
to bed, and she’s got on her
nightgown and her ruffled
nightcap. Here are the
costumes for the parts.”
He got out two or three
curtain-calico suits, which he
said was meedyevil armor for
Richard III. and t‘other chap,
and a long white cotton night-
shirt and a ruffled night-cap
to match. The king was
satisfied; so the duke got out
his book and read the parts
over in the most splendid
spread-eagle way, prancing
around and acting at the same
time, to show how it had got
to be done; then he give the
book to the king and told him
to get his part by heart.
There was a little one-
horse town about three mile
down the bend, and after
dinner the duke said he had
ciphered out his idea about
how to run in daylight
without it being dangersome
for Jim; so he allowed he
would go down to the town
and fix that thing. The king
allowed he would go too, and
see if he couldn’t strike
something. We was out of
coffee, so Jim said I better go
along with them in the canoe
and get some.
When we go there, there
warn’t nobody stirring; streets
empty, and perfectly dead and
still, like Sunday. We found a
sick nigger sunning himself
in a back yard, and he said
everybody that warn’t too
young or too sick or too old,
was gone to camp-meeting,
about two mile back in the
woods. The king got the
directions, and allowed he’d
go and work that camp-
meeting for all it was worth,
and I might go, too.
 The duke said what he was
after was a printing office.
We found it; a little bit of a
concern, up over a carpenter
shop—carpenters and printers
all gone to the meeting, and
no doors locked. It was a
dirty, littered-up place, and
had ink marks, and handbills
with pictures of horses and
runaway niggers on them, all
over the walls. The duke shed
his coat and said he was all
right, now. So me and the
king lit out for the camp-
meeting.
We got there in about a
half an hour, fairly dripping,
for it was a most awful hot
day. There was as much as a
thousand people there, from
twenty mile around. The
woods was full of teams and
wagons, hitched everywheres,
feeding out of the wagon
troughs and stomping to keep
off the flies. There was sheds
made out of poles and roofed
over with branches, where
they had lemonade and
gingerbread to sell, and piles
of watermelons and green
corn and such-like truck.
The preaching was going
on under the same kinds of
sheds, only they was bigger
and held crowds of people.
The benches was made out of
outside slabs of logs, with
holes bored in the round side
to drive sticks into for legs.
They didn’t have no backs.
The preachers had high
platforms to stand on, at one
end of the sheds. The women
had on sun-bonnets; and
some had linsey-woolsey
frocks, some gingham ones,
and a few of the young ones
had on calico. Some of the
young men was barefooted,
and some of the children
didn’t have on any clothes but
just a tow-linen shirt. Some
of the old women was
knitting, and some of the
young folks was courting on
the sly.
The first shed we come to,
the preacher was lining out a
hymn. He lined out two lines,
everybody sung it, and it was
kind of grand to hear it, there
was so many of them and
they done it in such a rousing
way; then he lined out two
more for them to sing—and
so on. The people woke up
more and more, and sung
louder and louder; and
towards the end, some begun
to groan, and some begun to
shout. Then the preacher
begun to preach; and begun in
earnest, too; and went
weaving first to one side of
the platform and then the
other, and then a leaning
down over the front of it, with
his arms and his body going
all the time, and shouting his
words out with all his might;
and every now and then he
would hold up his Bible and
spread it open, and kind of
pass it around this way and
that, shouting, “It’s the
brazen serpent in the
wilderness! Look upon it and
live!” And people would
shout out, “Glory!—A-a-
men!” And so he went on,
and the people groaning and
crying and saying amen:
 “Oh, come to the
mourners’ bench! come,
black with sin! (amen!) come,
sick and sore! (amen!) come,
lame and halt, and blind!
(amen!) come, pore and
needy, sunk in shame! (a-a-
men!) come all that’s worn,
and soiled, and suffering!—
come with a broken spirit!
come with a contrite heart!
come in your rags and sin and
dirt! the waters that cleanse is
free, the door of heaven
stands open—oh, enter in and
be at rest!” (a-a-men! glory,
glory hallelujah!)
And so on. You couldn’t
make out what the preacher
said, any more, on account of
the shouting and crying.
Folks got up, everywheres in
the crowd, and worked their
way, just by main strength, to
the mourners’ bench, with the
tears running down their
faces; and when all the
mourners had got up there to
the front benches in a crowd,
they sung, and shouted, and
flung themselves down on the
straw, just crazy and wild.
Well, the first I knowed,
the king got agoing; and you
could hear him over
everybody; and next he went
a-charging up on to the
platform and the preacher he
begged him to speak to the
people, and he done it. He
told them he was a pirate—
been a pirate for thirty years,
out in the Indian Ocean, and
his crew was thinned out
considerable, last spring, in a
fight, and he was home now,
to take out some fresh men,
and thanks to goodness he’d
been robbed last night, and
put ashore off of a steamboat
without a cent, and he was
glad of it, it was the
blessedest thing that ever
happened to him, because he
was a changed man now, and
happy for the first time in his
life; and poor as he was, he
was going to start right off
and work his way back to the
Indian Ocean and put in the
rest of his life trying to turn
the pirates into the true path;
for he could do it better than
anybody else, being
acquainted with all the pirate
crews in that ocean; and
though it would take him a
long time to get there,
without money, he would get
there anyway, and every time
he convinced a pirate he
would say to him, “Don’t you
thank me, don’t you give me
no credit, it all belongs to
them dear people in Pokeville
camp-meeting, natural
brothers and benefactors of
the race—and that dear
preacher there, the truest
friend a pirate ever had!”
And then he busted into
tears, and so did everybody.
Then somebody sings out,
“Take up a collection for him,
take up a collection!” Well, a
half a dozen made a jump to
do it, but somebody sings out,
“Let him pass the hat
around!” Then everybody
said it, the preacher too.
So the king went all
through the crowd with his
hat, swabbing his eyes, and
blessing the people and
praising them and thanking
them for being so good to the
poor pirates away off there;
and every little while the
prettiest kind of girls, with
the tears running down their
cheeks, would up and ask him
would he let them kiss him,
for to remember him by; and
he always done it; and some
of them he hugged and kissed
as many as five or six times
—and he was invited to stay a
week; and everybody wanted
him to live in their houses,
and said they’d think it was
an honor; but he said as this
was the last day of the camp-
meeting he couldn’t do no
good, and besides he was in a
sweat to get to the Indian
Ocean right off and go to
work on the pirates.
When we got back to the
raft and he come to count up,
he found he had collected
eighty-seven dollars and
seventy-five cents. And then
he had fetched away a three-
gallon jug of whisky, too, that
he found under a wagon when
we was starting home through
the woods. The king said,
take it all around, it laid over
any day he’d ever put in in
the missionarying line. He
said it warn’t no use talking,
heathens don’t amount to
shucks, alongside of pirates,
to work a camp-meeting with.
 The duke was thinking
he’d been doing pretty well,
till the king come to show up,
but after that he didn’t think
so so much. He had set up
and printed off two little jobs
for farmers, in that printing
omce—horse bills—and took
the money, four dollars. And
he had got in ten dollars
worth of advertisements for
the paper, which he said he
would put in for four dollars
if they would pay in advance
—so they done it. The price
of the paper was two dollars a
year, but he took in three
subscriptions for half a dollar
apiece on condition of them
paying him in advance; they
were going to pay in cord-
wood and onions, as usual,
but he said he had just bought
the concern and knocked
down the price as low as he
could afford it, and was going
to run it for cash. He set up a
little piece of poetry, which
he made, himself, out of his
own head—three verses—
kind of sweet and saddish—
the name of it was, “Yes,
crush, cold world, this
breaking heart”—and he left
that all set up and ready to
print in the paper and didn’t
charge nothing for it. Well, he
took in nine dollars and a
half, and said he’d done a
pretty square day’s work for
it.
 Then he showed us another
little job he’d printed and
hadn’t charged for, because it
was for us. It had a picture of
a runaway nigger, with a
bundle on a stick, over his
shoulder, and “$200 reward”
under it.26 The reading was
all about Jim, and just
described him to a dot. It said
he run away from St.
Jacques’ plantation, forty
mile below New Orleans, last
winter, and likely went north,
and whoever would catch him
and send him back, he could
have the reward and
expenses.
“Now,” says the duke,
“after to-night we can run in
the daytime if we want to.
Whenever we see anybody
coming, we can tie Jim hand
and foot with a rope, and lay
him in the wigwam and show
this handbill and say we
captured him up the river, and
were too poor to travel on a
steamboat, so we got this
little raft on credit from our
friends and are going down to
get the reward. Handcuffs and
chains would look still better
on Jim, but it wouldn’t go
well with the story of us
being so poor. Too much like
jewelry. Ropes are the correct
thing—we must preserve the
unities,cz as we say on the
boards.”
We all said the duke was
pretty smart, and there
couldn’t be no trouble about
running daytimes. We judged
we could make miles enough
that night to get out of the
reach of the pow-wow we
reckoned the duke’s work in
the printing office was going
to make in that little town—
then we could boom right
along, if we wanted to.
 We laid low and kept still,
and never shoved out till
nearly ten o‘clock; then we
slid by, pretty wide away
from the town, and didn’t
hoist our lantern till we was
clear out of sight of it.
When Jim called me to
take the watch at four in the
morning, he says—
“Huck, does you reck’n we
gwyne to run acrost any mo’
kings on dis trip?”
 “No,” I says, “I reckon
not.”
“Well,” says he, “dat’s all
right, den. I doan’ mine one
er two kings, but dat’s
enough. Dis one’s powerful
drunk, en de duke ain’ much
better.”
I found Jim had been trying
to get him to talk French, so
he could hear what it was
like; but he said he had been
in this country so long, and
had so much trouble, he’d
forgot it.
 CHAPTER 21
It was after sun-up, now, but
we went right on, and didn’t
tie up. The king and the duke
turned out, by-and-by,
looking pretty rusty; but after
they’d jumped overboard and
took a swim, it chippered
them up a good deal. After
breakfast the king he took a
seat on a corner of the raft,
and pulled off his boots and
rolled up his britches, and let
his legs dangle in the water,
so as to be comfortable, and
lit his pipe, and went to
getting his Romeo and Juliet
by heart.27 When he had got
it pretty good, him and the
duke begun to practice it
together. The duke had to
learn him over and over
again, how to say every
speech; and he made him
sigh, and put his hand on his
heart, and after while he said
he done it pretty well; “only,”
he says, “you mustn’t bellow
out Romeo! that way, like a
bull—you must say it soft,
and sick, and languishy, so—
R-o-o-meo! that is the idea;
for Juliet’s a dear sweet mere
child of a girl, you know, and
she don’t bray like a jackass.”
Well, next they got out a
couple of long swords that the
duke made out of oak laths,
and begun to practice the
sword-fight—the duke called
himself Richard III.; and the
way they laid on, and pranced
around the raft was grand to
see. But by-and-by the king
tripped and fell overboard,
and after that they took a rest,
and had a talk about all kinds
of adventures they’d had in
other times along the river.
After dinner, the duke says:
“Well, Capet, we’ll want to
make this a first-class show,
you know, so I guess we’ll
add a little more to it. We
want a little something to
answer encores with,
anyway.”
“What’s onkores,
Bilgewater?”
The duke told him, and
then says:
“I’ll answer by doing the
Highland fling or the sailor’s
hornpipe;28 and you—well,
let me see—oh, I’ve got it—
you can do Hamlet’s solil
oquy”.
“Hamlet’s which?”
“Hamlet’s soliloquy, you
know; the most celebrated
thing in Shakespeare. Ah, it’s
sublime, sublime! Always
fetches the house. I haven’t
got it in the book—I’ve only
got one volume—but I reckon
I can piece it out from
memory. I’ll just walk up and
down a minute, and see if I
can call it back from
recollection’s vaults.”
So he went to marching up
and down, thinking, and
frowning horrible every now
and then; then he would hoist
up his eyebrows; next he
would squeeze his hand on
his forehead and stagger back
and kind of moan; next he
would sigh, and next he’d let
on to drop a tear. It was
beautiful to see him. By-and-
by he got it. He told us to
give attention. Then he strikes
a most noble attitude, with
one leg shoved forwards, and
his arms stretched away up,
and his head tilted back,
looking up at the sky; and
then he begins to rip and rave
and grit his teeth; and after
that, all through his speech he
howled, and spread around,
and swelled up his chest, and
just knocked the spots out of
any acting ever I see before.
This is the speech—I learned
it, easy enough, while he was
learning it to the king:
To be, or not to be; that
is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of
so long life;
For who would fardels
bear, till Birnam Wood
do come to Dunsinane,
But that the fear of
something after death
Murders the innocent
sleep,
Great nature’s second
course,
And makes us rather
sling the arrows of
outrageous fortune
Than fly to others that
we know not of.
There’s the respect must
give us pause:
Wake Duncan with thy
knocking! I would
thou couldst;
For who would bear the
whips and scorns of
time,
The oppressor’s wrong,
the proud man’s
contumely,
The law’s delay, and the
quietus which his
pangs might take,
In the dead waste and
middle of the night,
when churchyards yawn
In customary suits of
solemn black,
But that the
undiscovered country
from whose
bourne no traveler
returns,
Breathes forth contagion
on the world,
And thus the native hue
of resolution, like the
poor cat i’ the adage,
Is sicklied o‘er with
care,
And all the clouds that
lowered o’er our
housetops,
With this regard their
currents turn awry,
And lose the name of
action.
‘Tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished.
But soft you, the fair
Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous
and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery
—go!da
 Well, the old man he liked
that speech, and he mighty
soon got it so he could do it
first rate. It seemed like he
was just born for it; and when
he had his hand in and was
excited, it was perfectly
lovely the way he would rip
and tear and rair up behind
when he was getting it off.
The first chance we got,
the duke he had some show
bills printed; and after that,
for two or three days as we
floated along, the raft was a
most uncommon lively place,
for there warn’t nothing but
sword-fighting and rehearsing
—as the duke called it—
going on all the time. One
morning, when we was pretty
well down the State of
Arkansaw, we come in sight
of a little one-horse town in a
big bend; so we tied up about
three-quarters of a mile above
it, in the mouth of a crick
which was shut in like a
tunnel by the cypress trees,
and all of us but Jim took the
canoe and went down there to
see if there was any chance in
that place for our show.
We struck it mighty lucky;
there was going to be a circus
there that afternoon, and the
country people was already
beginning to come in, in all
kinds of old shackly wagons,
and on horses. The circus
would leave before night, so
our show would have a pretty
good chance. The duke he
hired the court house, and we
went around and stuck up our
bills. They read like this:
Shaksperean Revival!!!
Wonderful Attraction!
For One Night Only!
The world renowned
tragedians,
David Garrick the
younger, of Drury Lane
 Theatre, London,
and
Edmund Kean the elder,
of the Royal Haymarket
Theatre, Whitechapel,
Pudding Lane,
Piccadilly, London, and
the
Royal Continental
Theatres, in their
sublime
Shaksperean Spectacle
entitled
The Balcony Scene
 in
Romeo and Juliet!!!

Ro
..............................................
Ju
.................................................
Assisted by the whole
strength of the company!
New costumes, new
scenery, new
appointments!
Also:
 The thrilling, masterly,
and blood-curdling
Broad-sword conflict
In Richard III.!!!

Richard III ............................

Richmond................................

also:
(by special request,)
Hamlet’s Immortal
Soliloquy!!
 By the Illustrious Kean!
Done by him 300
consecutive nights in
Paris!
For One Night Only,
On account of
imperative European
engagements!
Admission 25 cents;
children and servants, 10
cents.
Then we went loafing
around the town. The stores
and houses was most all old
shackly dried-up frame
concerns that hadn’t ever
been painted; they was set up
three or four foot above
ground on stilts, so as to be
out of reach of the water
when the river was
overflowed. The houses had
little gardens around them,
but they didn’t seem to raise
hardly anything in them but
jimpson weeds, and
sunflowers, and ash-piles, and
old curled-up boots and
shoes, and pieces of bottles,
and rags, and played-out tin-
ware. The fences was made
of different kinds of boards,
nailed on at different times;
and they leaned every which-
way, and had gates that didn’t
generly have but one hinge—
a leather one. Some of the
fences had been
whitewashed, some time or
another, but the duke said it
was in Clumbus’s time, like
enough. There was generly
hogs in the garden, and
people driving them out.
All the stores was along
one street. They had white-
domestic awnings in front,
and the country people
hitched their horses to the
awning-posts. There was
empty dry-goods boxes under
the awnings, and loafers
roosting on them all day long,
whittling them with their
Barlow knives; and chawing
tobacco, and gaping and
yawning and stretching—a
mighty ornery lot. They
generly had on yellow straw
hats most as wide as an
umbrella, but didn’t wear no
coats nor waistcoats; they
called one another Bill, and
Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and
Andy, and talked lazy and
drawly, and used
considerable many cuss-
words. There was as many as
one loafer leaning up against
every awning-post, and he
most always had his hands in
his britches pockets, except
when he fetched them out to
lend a chaw of tobacco or
scratch. What a body was
hearing amongst them, all the
time was—
“Gimme a chaw ‘v
tobacker, Hank.”
“Cain‘t—I hain’t got but
one chaw left. Ask Bill.”
 Maybe Bill he gives him a
chaw; maybe he lies and says
he ain’t got none. Some of
them kinds of loafers never
has a cent in the world, nor a
chaw of tobacco of their own.
They get all their chawing by
borrowing—they say to a
fellow, “I wisht you’d len’
me a chaw, Jack, I jist this
minute give Ben Thompson
the last chaw I had”—which
is a lie, pretty much every
time; it don’t fool nobody but
a stranger; but Jack ain’t no
stranger, so he says—
“You give him a chaw, did
you? so did your sister’s cat’s
grandmother. You pay me
back the chaws you’ve
awready borry’d off’ n me,
Lafe Buck ner, then I’ll loan
you one or two ton of it, and
won’t charge you no back
intrust, nuther.”
“Well, I did pay you back
some of it wunst.”
 “Yes, you did—‘bout six
chaws. You borry’d store
tobacker and paid back
nigger-head.”db
Store tobacco is flat black
plug, but these fellows mostly
chaws the natural leaf
twisted. When they borrow a
chaw, they don’t generly cut
it off with a knife, but they
set the plug in between their
teeth, and gnaw with their
teeth and tug at the plug with
their hands till they get it in
two—then sometimes the one
that owns the tobacco looks
mournful at it when it’s
handed back, and says,
sarcastic—
“Here, gimme the chaw,
and you take the plug.”
All the streets and lanes
was just mud, they warn’t
nothing else but mud—mud
as black as tar, and nigh about
a foot deep in some places;
and two or three inches deep
in all the places. The hogs
loafed and grunted around,
everywheres. You’d see a
muddy sow and a litter of
pigs come lazying along the
street and whollop herself
right down in the way, where
folks had to walk around her,
and she’d stretch out, and
shut her eyes, and wave her
ears, whilst the pigs was
milking her, and look as
happy as if she was on salary.
And pretty soon you’d hear a
loafer sing out, “Hi! so boy!
sick him, Tige!” and away the
sow would go, squealing
most horrible, with a dog or
two swinging to each ear, and
three or four dozen more a-
coming; and then you would
see all the loafers get up and
watch the thing out of sight,
and laugh at the fun and look
grateful for the noise. Then
they’d settle back again till
there was a dog-fight. There
couldn’t anything wake them
up all over, and make them
happy all over, like a dog-
fight—unless it might be
putting turpentine on a stray
dog and setting fire to him, or
tying a tin pan to his tail and
see him run himself to death.
On the river front some of
the houses was sticking out
over the bank, and they was
bowed and bent, and about
ready to tumble in. The
people had moved out of
them. The bank was caved
away under one corner of
some others, and that corner
was hanging over. People
lived in them yet, but it was
dangersome, because
sometimes a strip of land as
wide as a house caves in at a
time. Sometimes a belt of
land a quarter of a mile deep
will start in and cave along
and cave along till it all caves
into the river in one summer.
Such a town as that has to be
always moving back, and
back, and back, because the
river’s always gnawing at it.
The nearer it got to noon
that day, the thicker and
thicker was the wagons and
horses in the streets, and
more coming all the time.
Families fetched their dinners
with them, from the country,
and eat them in the wagons.
There was considerable
whiskey drinking going on,
and I seen three fights. By-
and-by somebody sings out—
“Here comes old Boggs!—
in from the country for his
little old monthly drunk—
here he comes, boys!”
All the loafers looked glad
—I reckoned they was used
to having fun out of Boggs.
One of them says—
“Wonder who he’s a
gwyne to chaw up this time.
If he’d a chawed up all the
men he’s ben a gwyne to
chaw up in the last twenty
year, he’d have a considerble
ruputation, now.”
Another one says, “I wisht
old Boggs ’d threaten me,
‘cuz then I’d know I warn’t
gwyne to die for a thousan’
year.”
Boggs comes a-tearing
along on his horse, whooping
and yelling like an Injun, and
singing out—
“Cler the track, thar. I’m
on the waw-path, and the
price uv coffins is a gwyne to
raise.”
He was drunk, and
weaving about in his saddle;
he was over fifty year old,
and had a very red face.
Everybody yelled at him, and
laughed at him, and sassed
him, and he sassed back, and
said he’d attend to them and
lay them out in their regular
turns, but he couldn’t wait
now, because he’d come to
town to kill old Colonel
Sherburn, and his motto was
“meat first, and spoon vittles
to top off on.”
He see me, and rode up and
says—
“Whar’d you come f‘m,
boy? You prepared to die?”
Then he rode on. I was
scared; but a man says—
 “He don’t mean nothing;
he’s always a carryin’ on like
that, when he’s drunk. He’s
the best-naturedest old fool in
Arkansaw—never hurt
nobody, drunk nor sober.”
Boggs rode up before the
biggest store in town and bent
his head down so he could
see under the curtain of the
awning, and yells—
“Come out here, Sherburn!
Come out and meet the man
you’ve swindled. You’re the
houn’ I’m after, and I’m a
gwyne to have you, too!”
And so he went on, calling
Sherburn everything he could
lay his tongue to, and the
whole street packed with
people listening and laughing
and going on. By-and-by a
proud-looking man about
fifty-five—and he was a heap
the best dressed man in that
town, too—steps out of the
store, and the crowd drops
back on each side to let him
come. He says to Boggs,
mighty ca’m and slow—he
says:
“I’m tired of this; but I’ll
endure it till one o‘clock. Till
one o’clock, mind—no
longer. If you open your
mouth against me only once,
after that time, you can’t
travel so far but I will find
you.”
 Then he turns and goes in.
The crowd looked mighty
sober; nobody stirred, and
there warn’t no more
laughing. Boggs rode off
blackguarding Sherburn as
loud as he could yell, all
down the street; and pretty
soon back he comes and stops
before the store, still keeping
it up. Some men crowded
around him and tried to get
him to shut up, but he
wouldn’t; they told him it
would be one o‘clock in
about fifteen minutes, and so
he must go home—he must
go right away. But it didn’t
do no good. He cussed away,
with all his might, and
throwed his hat down in the
mud and rode over it, and
pretty soon away he went a-
raging down the street again,
with his gray hair a-flying.
Everybody that could get a
chance at him tried their best
to coax him off of his horse
so they could lock him up and
get him sober; but it warn’t
no use—up the street he
would tear again, and give
Sherburn another cussing.
By-and-by somebody says—
“Go for his daughter!—
quick, go for his daughter;
sometimes he’ll listen to her.
If anybody can persuade him,
she can.”
So somebody started on a
run. I walked down street a
ways, and stopped. In about
five or ten minutes, here
comes Boggs again—but not
on his horse. He was a-
reeling across the street
towards me, bareheaded, with
a friend on both sides of him
aholt of his arms and hurrying
him along. He was quiet, and
looked uneasy; and he warn’t
hanging back any, but was
doing some of the hurrying
himself. Somebody sings out
—
 “Boggs!”
I looked over there to see
who said it, and it was that
Colonel Sherburn. He was
standing perfectly still, in the
street, and had a pistol raised
in his right hand—not aiming
it, but holding it out with the
barrel tilted up towards the
sky. The same second I see a
young girl coming on the run,
and two men with her. Boggs
and the men turned round, to
see who called him, and when
they see the pistol the men
jumped to one side, and the
pistol barrel come down slow
and steady to a level—both
barrels cocked. Boggs throws
up both of his hands, and
says, “O Lord, don’t shoot!”
Bang! goes the first shot, and
he staggers back clawing at
the air—bang! goes the
second one, and he tumbles
backwards onto the ground,
heavy and solid, with his
arms spread out. That young
girl screamed out, and comes
rushing, and down she throws
herself on her father, crying,
and saying, “Oh, he’s killed
him, he’s killed him!” The
crowd closed up around them,
and shouldered and jammed
one another, with their necks
stretched, trying to see, and
people on the inside trying to
shove them back, and
shouting, “Back, back! give
him air, give him air!”
 Colonel Sherburn he tossed
his pistol onto the ground,
and turned around on his
heels and walked off.
They took Boggs to a little
drug store, the crowd pressing
around, just the same, and the
whole town following, and I
rushed and got a good place
at the window, where I was
close to him and could see in.
They laid him on the floor,
and put one large Bible under
his head, and opened another
one and spread it on his
breast—but they tore open his
shirt first, and I seen where
one of the bullets went in. He
made about a dozen long
gasps, his breast lifting the
Bible up when he drawed in
his breath, and letting it down
again when he breathed it out
—and after that he laid still;
he was dead. Then they
pulled his daughter away
from him, screaming and
crying, and took her off. She
was about sixteen, and very
sweet and gentle-looking, but
awful pale and scared.
Well, pretty soon the whole
town was there, squirming
and scroug ing and pushing
and shoving to get at the
window and have a look, but
people that had the places
wouldn’t give them up, and
folks behind them was saying
all the time, “Say, now,
you’ve looked enough, you
fellows; ‘taint right and ’taint
fair, for you to stay thar all
the time, and never give
nobody a chance; other folks
has their rights as well as
you.”
There was considerable
jawing back, so I slid out,
thinking maybe there was
going to be trouble. The
streets was full, and
everybody was excited.
Everybody that seen the
shooting was telling how it
happened, and there was a big
crowd packed around each
one of these fellows,
stretching their necks and
listening. One long lanky
man, with long hair and a big
white fur stove-pipe hat on
the back of his head, and a
crooked-handled cane,
marked out the places on the
ground where Boggs stood,
and where Sherburn stood,
and the people following him
around from one place to
t‘other and watching
everything he done, and
bobbing their heads to show
they understood, and stooping
a little and resting their hands
on their thighs to watch him
mark the places on the ground
with his cane; and then he
stood up straight and stiff
where Sherburn had stood,
frowning and having his hat-
brim down over his eyes, and
sung out, “Boggs!” and then
fetched his cane down slow to
a level, and says “Bang!”
staggered backwards, says
“Bang!” again, and fell down
flat on his back. The people
that had seen the thing said he
done it perfect; said it was
just exactly the way it all
happened. Then as much as a
dozen people got out their
bottles and treated him.
Well, by-and-by somebody
said Sherburn ought to be
lynched. In about a minute
everybody was saying it; so
away they went, mad and
yelling, and snatching down
every clothes-line they come
to, to do the hanging with.
 CHAPTER 22
They swarmed up the street
towards Sherburn’s house, a-
whooping and yelling and
raging like Injuns, and
everything had to clear the
way or get run over and
tromped to mush, and it was
awful to see. Children was
heeling it ahead of the mob,
screaming and trying to get
out of the way; and every
window along the road was
full of women’s heads, and
there was nigger boys in
every tree, and bucks and
wenches looking over every
fence;29 and as soon as the
mob would get nearly to them
they would break and skaddle
back out of reach. Lots of the
women and girls was crying
and taking on, scared most to
death.
They swarmed up in front
of Sherburn’s palings as thick
as they could jam together,
and you couldn’t hear
yourself think for the noise. It
was a little twenty-foot yard.
Some sung out “Tear down
the fence! tear down the
fence!” Then there was a
racket of ripping and tearing
and smashing, and down she
goes, and the front wall of the
crowd begins to roll in like a
wave.
 Just then Sherburn steps
out on to the roof of his little
front porch, with a double-
barrel gun in his hand, and
takes his stand, perfectly
ca’m and deliberate, not
saying a word. The racket
stopped, and the wave sucked
back.
Sherburn never said a word
—just stood there, looking
down. The stillness was awful
creepy and uncomfortable.
Sherburn run his eye slow
along the crowd; and
wherever it struck, the people
tried a little to outgaze him,
but they couldn’t; they
dropped their eyes and looked
sneaky. Then pretty soon
Sherburn sort of laughed; not
the pleasant kind, but the kind
that makes you feel like when
you are eating bread that’s
got sand in it.
Then he says, slow and
scornful:
“The idea of you lynching
anybody! It’s amusing. The
idea of you thinking you had
pluck enough to lynch a man!
Because you’re brave enough
to tar and feather poor
friendless cast-out women
that come along here, did that
make you think you had grit
enough to lay your hands on a
man? Why, a man’s safe in
the hands of ten thousand of
your kind—as long as it’s
day-time and you’re not
behind him.
“Do I know you? I know
you clear through. I was born
and raised in the South, and
I’ve lived in the North; so I
know the average all around.
The average man’s a coward.
In the North he lets anybody
walk over him that wants to,
and goes home and prays for
a humble spirit to bear it. In
the South one man, all by
himself, has stopped a stage
full of men, in the day-time,
and robbed the lot. Your
newspapers call you a brave
people so much that you think
you are braver than any other
people—whereas you’re just
as brave, and no braver. Why
don’t your juries hang
murderers? Because they’re
afraid the man’s friends will
shoot them in the back, in the
dark—and it’s just what they
would do.
“So they always acquit;
and then a man goes in the
night, with a hundred masked
cowards at his back, and
lynches the rascal. Your
mistake is, that you didn’t
bring a man with you; that’s
one mistake, and the other is
that you didn’t come in the
dark, and fetch your masks.
You brought part of a man—
Buck Harkness, there—and if
you hadn’t had him to start
you, you’d a taken it out in
blowing.
“You didn’t want to come.
The average man don’t like
trouble and danger. You don’t
like trouble and danger. But if
only half a man—like Buck
Harkness, there—shouts
‘Lynch him, lynch him!’
you’re afraid to back down—
afraid you’ll be found out to
be what you are—cowards—
and so you raise a yell, and
hang yourselves onto that
half-a-man’s coat tail, and
come raging up here,
swearing what big things
you’re going to do. The
pitifulest thing out is a mob;
that’s what an army is—a
mob; they don’t fight with
courage that’s born in them,
but with courage that’s
borrowed from their mass,
and from their officers. But a
mob without any man at the
head of it, is beneath
pitifulness. Now the thing for
you to do, is to droop your
tails and go home and crawl
in a hole. If any real
lynching’s going to be done,
it will be done in the dark,
Southern fashion; 30 and
when they come they’ll bring
their masks, and fetch a man
along. Now leave—and take
your half-a-man with you”—
tossing his gun up across his
left arm and cocking it, when
he says this.
The crowd washed back
sudden, and then broke all
apart and went tearing off
every which way, and Buck
Harkness he heeled it after
them, looking tolerable
cheap. I could a staid, if I’d a
wanted to, but I didn’t want
to.
I went to the circus, and
loafed around the back side
till the watchman went by,
and then dived in under the
tent. I had my twenty-dollar
gold piece and some other
money, but I reckoned I
better save it, because there
ain’t no telling how soon you
are going to need it, away
from home and amongst
strangers, that way. You can’t
be too careful. I ain’t opposed
to spending money on
circuses, when there ain’t no
other way, but there ain’t no
use in wasting it on them.
It was a real bully circus. It
was the splendidest sight that
ever was, when they all come
riding in, two and two, a
gentleman and lady, side by
side, the men just in their
drawers and undershirts, and
no shoes nor stirrups, and
resting their hands on their
thighs, easy and comfortable
—there must a’ been twenty
of them—and every lady with
a lovely complexion, and
perfectly beautiful, and
looking just like a gang of
real sure-enough queens, and
dressed in clothes that cost
millions of dollars, and just
littered with diamonds. It was
a powerful fine sight; I never
see anything so lovely. And
then one by one they got up
and stood, and went a-
weaving around the ring so
gentle and wavy and graceful,
the men looking ever so tall
and airy and straight, with
their heads bobbing and
skimming along, away up
there under the tent-roof, and
every lady’s rose-leafy dress
flapping soft and silky around
her hips, and she looking like
the most loveliest parasol.
And then faster and faster
they went, all of them
dancing, first one foot stuck
out in the air and then the
other, the horses leaning more
and more, and the ring-master
going round and round the
centre-pole, cracking his
whip and shouting “hi!—hi!”
and the clown cracking jokes
behind him; and by-and-by
all hands dropped the reins,
and every lady put her
knuckles on her hips and
every gentleman folded his
arms, and then how the
horses did lean over and
hump themselves! And so,
one after the other they all
skipped off into the ring, and
made the sweetest bow I ever
see, and then scampered out,
and everybody clapped their
hands and went just about
wild.
Well, all through the circus
they done the most
astonishing things; and all the
time that clown carried on so
it most killed the people. The
ring-master couldn’t ever say
a word to him but he was
back at him quick as a wink
with the funniest things a
body ever said; and how he
ever could think of so many
of them, and so sudden and so
pat, was what I couldn’t
noway understand. Why, I
couldn’t a thought of them in
a year. And by-and-by a
drunk man tried to get into
the ring—said he wanted to
ride; said he could ride as
well as anybody that ever
was. They argued and tried to
keep him out, but he wouldn’t
listen, and the whole show
come to a standstill. Then the
people begun to holler at him
and make fun of him, and that
made him mad, and he begun
to rip and tear; so that stirred
up the people, and a lot of
men begun to pile down off
of the benches and swarm
towards the ring, saying,
“Knock him down! throw
him out!” and one or two
women begun to scream. So,
then, the ring-master he made
a little speech, and said he
hoped there wouldn’t be no
disturbance, and if the man
would promise he wouldn’t
make no more trouble, he
would let him ride, if he
thought he could stay on the
horse. So everybody laughed
and said all right, and the man
got on. The minute he was
on, the horse begun to rip and
tear and jump and cavort
around, with two circus men
hanging onto his bridle trying
to hold him, and the drunk
man hanging onto his neck,
and his heels flying in the air
every jump, and the whole
crowd of people standing up
shouting and laughing till the
tears rolled down. And at last,
sure enough, all the circus
men could do, the horse
broke loose, and away he
went like the very nation,
round and round the ring,
with that sotdc laying down
on him and hanging to his
neck, with first one leg
hanging most to the ground
on one side, and then t‘other
one on t’other side, and the
people just crazy. It warn’t
funny to me, though; I was all
of a tremble to see his danger.
But pretty soon he struggled
up astraddle and grabbed the
bridle, a-reeling this way and
that; and the next minute he
sprung up and dropped the
bridle and stood! and the
horse agoing like a house
afire too. He just stood up
there, a-sailing around as easy
and comfortable as if he
warn’t ever drunk in his life
—and then he begun to pull
off his clothes and sling them.
He shed them so thick they
kind of clogged up the air,
and altogether he shed
seventeen suits. And then,
there he was, slim and
handsome, and dressed the
gaudiest and prettiest you
ever saw, and he lit into that
horse with his whip and made
him fairly hum—and finally
skipped off, and made his
bow and danced off to the
dressing-room, and
everybody just a-howling
with pleasure and
astonishment.
Then the ring-master he
see how he had been fooled,
and he was the sickest ring-
master you ever see, I reckon.
Why, it was one of his own
men! He had got up that joke
all out of his own head, and
never let on to nobody. Well,
I felt sheepish enough, to be
took in so, but I wouldn’t a
been in that ring-master’s
place, not for a thousand
dollars. I don’t know; there
may be bullier circuses than
what that one was, but I never
struck them yet. Anyways it
was plenty good enough for
me; and wherever I run across
it, it can have all of my
custom,dd every time.
Well, that night we had our
show; but there warn’t only
about twelve people there;
just enough to pay expenses.
And they laughed all the
time, and that made the duke
mad; and everybody left,
anyway, before the show was
over, but one boy which was
asleep. So the duke said these
Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t
come up to Shakspeare; what
they wanted was low comedy
—and may be something
ruther worse than low
comedy, he reckoned. He said
he could size their style. So
next morning he got some big
sheets of wrapping-paper and
some black paint, and drawed
off some handbills and stuck
them up all over the village.
The bills said:
 AT THE COURT
HOUSE!
FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
The World-Renowned
Tragedians
DAVID GARRICK
THE YOUNGER!
AND
EDMUND KEAN THE
ELDER!
Of the London and
Continental
Theatres,
In their Thrilling
 Tragedy of
THE KING’S
CAMELOPARD
OR
THE ROYAL
NONESUCH!!!
Admission 50 cents.

Then at the bottom was

the biggest line of all—
which said:
 LADIES AND
CHILDREN NOT
ADMITTED.
“There,” says he, “if that
line don’t fetch them, I don’t
know Arkansaw!”
 CHAPTER 23
Well, all day him and the
king was hard at it, rigging up
a stage, and a curtain, and a
row of candles for footlights;
and that night the house was
jam full of men in no time.
When the place couldn’t hold
no more, the duke he quit
tending door and went around
the back way and come onto
the stage and stood up before
the curtain, and made a little
speech, and praised up this
tragedy, and said it was the
most thrillingest one that ever
was; and so he went on a-
bragging about the tragedy
and about Edmund Kean the
Elder, which was to play the
main principal part in it; and
at last when he’d got
everybody’s expectations up
high enough, he rolled up the
curtain, and the next minute
the king come a-prancing out
on all fours, naked; and he
was painted all over, ring-
streaked-and-striped, all sorts
of colors, as splendid as a
rainbow. And—but never
mind the rest of his outfit, it
was just wild, but it was
awful funny. The people most
killed themselves laughing;
and when the king got done
capering, and capered off
behind the scenes, they roared
and clapped and stormed and
haw-hawed till he come back
and done it over again; and
after that, they made him do it
another time. Well, it would a
made a cow laugh to see the
shinesde that old idiot cut.
Then the duke he lets the
curtain down, and bows to the
people, and says the great
tragedy will be performed
only two nights more, on
accounts of pressing London
engagements, where the seats
is all sold already for it in
Drury Lane; and then he
makes them another bow, and
says if he has succeeded in
pleasing them and instructing
them, he will be deeply
obleeged if they will mention
it to their friends and get
them to come and see it.
Twenty people sings out:
“What, is it over? Is that
all?”
The duke says yes. Then
there was a fine time.
Everybody sings out “sold,”df
and rose up mad, and was
agoing for that stage and
them tragedians. But a big
fine-looking man jumps up
on a bench, and shouts:
“Hold on! Just a word,
gentlemen.” They stopped to
listen. “We are sold—mighty
badly sold. But we don’t want
to be the laughing-stock of
this whole town, I reckon,
and never hear the last of this
thing as long as we live. No.
What we want, is to go out of
here quiet, and talk this show
up, and sell the rest of the
town! Then we’ll all be in the
same boat. Ain’t that
sensible?” (“You bet it is!—
the jedge is right!” everybody
sings out.) “All right, then—
not a word about any sell. Go
along home, and advise
everybody to come and see
the tragedy.”
 Next day you couldn’t hear
nothing around that town but
how splendid that show was.
House was jammed again,
that night, and we sold this
crowd the same way. When
me and the king and the duke
got home to the raft, we all
had a supper; and by-and-by,
about midnight, they made
Jim and me back her out and
float her down the middle of
the river and fetch her in and
hide her about two mile
below town.
The third night the house
was crammed again—and
they warn’t newcomers, this
time, but people that was at
the show the other two nights.
I stood by the duke at the
door, and I see that every man
that went in had his pockets
bulging, or something
muffled up under his coat—
and I see it warn’t no
perfumery neither, not by a
long sight. I smelt sickly eggs
by the barrel, and rotten
cabbages, and such things;
and if I know the signs of a
dead cat being around, and I
bet I do, there was sixty-four
of them went in. I shoved in
there for a minute, but it was
too various for me, I couldn’t
stand it. Well, when the place
couldn’t hold no more people,
the duke he give a fellow a
quarter and told him to tend
door for him a minute, and
then he started around for the
stage door, I after him; but
the minute we turned the
corner and was in the dark, he
says:
“Walk fast, now, till you
get away from the houses,
and then shin for the raft like
the dickens was after you!”
I done it, and he done the
same. We struck the raft at
the same time, and in less
than two seconds we was
gliding down stream, all dark
and still, and edging towards
the middle of the river,
nobody saying a word. I
reckoned the poor king was in
for a gaudy time of it with the
audience; but nothing of the
sort; pretty soon he crawls out
from under the wig-warn, and
says:
“Well, how’d the old thing
pan out this time, Duke?”
He hadn’t been up town at
all.
We never showed a light
till we was about ten mile
below that village. Then we
lit up and had a supper, and
the king and the duke fairly
laughed their bones loose
over the way they’d served
them people. The duke says:
“Greenhorns, flatheads! I
knew the first house would
keep mum and let the rest of
the town get roped in; and I
knew they’d lay for us the
third night, and consider it
was their turn now. Well, it is
their turn, and I’d give
something to know how
much they’d take for it. I
would just like to know how
they’re putting in their
opportunity. They can turn it
into a picnic, if they want to
—they brought plenty
provisions.”
Them rapscallions took in
four hundred and sixty-five
dollars in that three nights. I
never see money hauled in by
the wagonload like that,
before.
By-and-by, when they was
asleep and snoring, Jim says:
“Don’t it ‘sprise you, de
way dem kings carries on,
Huck?”
“No,” I says, “it don’t.”
“Why don’t it, Huck?”
“Well, it don‘t, because it’s
in the breed. I reckon they’re
all alike.”
“But, Huck, dese kings o’
ourn is reglar rapscallions;
dat’s jist what dey is; dey’s
reglar rapscallions.”
“Well, that’s what I’m a-
saying; all kings is mostly
rapscallions, as fur as I can
make out.”
“Is dat so?”
“You read about them once
—you’ll see. Look at Henry
the Eight; this’n ’s a Sunday-
School Superintendent to
him. And look at Charles
Second, and Louis Fourteen,
and Louis Fifteen, and James
Second, and Edward Second,
and Richard Third, and forty
more; besides all them Saxon
heptarchies that used to rip
around so in old times and
raise Cain. My, you ought to
seen old Henry the Eight
when he was in bloom. He
was a blossom. He used to
marry a new wife every day,
and chop off her head next
morning.dg And he would do
it just as indifferent as if he
was ordering up eggs. ‘Fetch
up Nell Gwynn,’ he says.
They fetch her up. Next
morning, ‘Chop off her
head!’ And they chop it off.
‘Fetch up Jane Shore,’ he
says; and up she comes. Next
morning ‘Chop off her
head’—and they chop it off.
‘Ring up Fair Rosamun.’ Fair
Rosamun answers the bell.
Next morning, ‘Chop off her
head.’ And he made every
one of them tell him a tale
every night; and he kept that
up till he had hogged a
thousand and one tales that
way, and then he put them all
in a book, and called it
Domesday Book—which was
a good name and stated the
case. You don’t know kings,
Jim, but I know them; and
this old rip of ourn is one of
the cleanest I’ve struck in
history. Well, Henry he takes
a notion he wants to get up
some trouble with this
country. How does he go at it
—give notice?—give the
country a show? No. All of a
sudden he heaves all the tea
in Boston Harbor overboard,
and whacks out a declaration
of independence, and dares
them to come on. That was
his style—he never give
anybody a chance. He had
suspicions of his father, the
Duke of Wellington. Well,
what did he do?—ask him to
show up? No—drownded him
in a butt of mamsey,dh like a
cat. Spose people left money
laying around where he was
—what did he do? He
collared it. Spose he
contracted to do a thing; and
you paid him, and didn’t set
down there and see that he
done it—what did he do? He
always done the other thing.
Spose he opened his mouth—
what then? If he didn’t shut it
up powerful quick, he’d lose
a lie, every time. That’s the
kind of a bug Henry was; and
if we’d a had him along
‘stead of our kings, he’d a
fooled that town a heap worse
than ourn done. I don’t say
that ourn is lambs, because
they ain’t, when you come
right down to the cold facts;
but they ain’t nothing to that
old ram, anyway. All I say is,
kings is kings, and you got to
make allowances. Take them
all around, they’re a mighty
ornery lot. It’s the way
they’re raised.“
“But dis one do smell so
like de nation, Huck.”
“Well, they all do, Jim. We
can’t help the way a king
smells; history don’t tell no
way.”
 “Now de duke, he’s a
tolerble likely man, in some
ways.”
“Yes, a duke’s different.
But not very different. This
one’s a middling hard lot, for
a duke. When he’s drunk,
there ain’t no near-sighted
man could tell him from a
king.”
“Well, anyways, I doan’
hanker for no mo’ un um,
Huck. Dese is all I kin scan‘”
 “It’s the way I feel, too,
Jim. But we’ve got them on
our hands, and we got to
remember what they are, and
make allowances. Sometimes
I wish we could hear of a
country that’s out of kings.”
What was the use to tell
Jim these warn’t real kings
and dukes? It wouldn’t a done
no good; and besides, it was
just as I said; you couldn’t
tell them from the real kind.
 I went to sleep, and Jim
didn’t call me when it was
my turn. He often done that.
When I waked up, just at day-
break, he was setting there
with his head down betwixt
his knees, moaning and
mourning to himself. I didn’t
take notice, nor let on. I
knowed what it was about.
He was thinking about his
wife and his children, away
up yonder, and he was low
and homesick; because he
hadn’t ever been away from
home before in his life; and I
do believe he cared just as
much for his people as white
folks does for their’n.31 It
don’t seem natural, but I
reckon it’s so. He was often
moaning and mourning that
way, nights, when he judged I
was asleep, and saying, “Po’
little ‘Lizabeth! po’ little
Johnny! Its mighty hard; I
spec’ I ain’t ever gwyne to
see you no mo’, no mo‘!” He
was a mighty good nigger,
Jim was.32
But this time I somehow
got to talking to him about his
wife and young ones; and by-
and-by he says:
“What makes me feel so
bad dis time, ‘uz bekase I
hear sumpn over yonder on
de bank like a whack, er a
slam, while ago, en it mine
me er de time I treat my little
’Lizabeth so ornery. She
warn’t on‘y ’bout fo’ year
ole, en she tuck de sk‘yarlet-
fever, en had a powful rough
spell; but she got well, en one
day she was a-stannin’
aroun’, en I says to her, I
says:
“Shet de do‘.”
“She never done it; jis’
stood dah, kiner smilin’ up at
me. It make me mad; en I
says agin, mighty loud, I
says:
“ ‘Doan’ you hear me?—
shet de do’!‘
“She jis’ stood de same
way, kiner smilin’ up. I was
a-bilin‘! I says:
“ ‘I lay I make you mine!’
“En wid dat I fetch’ her a
slap side de head dat sont her
a-sprawlin‘. Den I went into
de yuther room, en’uz gone
‘bout ten minutes; en when I
come back, dah was dat do’
a-stannin’ open yit, en dat
chile stannin’ mos’ right in it,
a-lookin’ down and mournin’,
en de tears runnin’ down. My,
but I wuz mad, I was agwyne
for de chile, but jis’ den—it
was a do’ dat open innerds—
jis’ den, ‘long come de wind
en slam it to, behine de chile,
ker-blam!—en my lan’, de
chile never move‘! My breff
mos’ hop outer me; en I feel
so—so—I doan’ know how I
feel. I crope out, all a-
tremblin’, en crope aroun’ en
open de do’ easy en slow, en
poke my head in behine de
chile, sof’ en still, en all uv a
sudden, I says pow! jis’ as
loud as I could yell: She
never budge! Oh, Huck, I
bust out a-cryin’ en grab her
up in my arms, en say, ‘Oh,
de po’ little thing! de Lord
God Amighty fogive po’ ole
Jim, kaze he never gwyne to
fogive hisself as long’s he
live!’ Oh, she was plumb deef
en dumb, Huck, plumb deef
en dumb—en I’d ben a-
treat’n her so!”
 CHAPTER 24
Next day, towards night, we
laid up under a little willow
tow head out in the middle,
where there was a village on
each side of the river, and the
duke and the king begun to
lay out a plan for working
them towns. Jim he spoke to
the duke, and said he hoped it
wouldn’t take but a few
hours, because it got mighty
heavy and tiresome to him
when he had to lay all day in
the wigwam tied with the
rope. You see, when we left
him all alone we had to tie
him, because if anybody
happened on him all by
himself and not tied, it
wouldn’t look much like he
was a runaway nigger, you
know. So the duke said it was
kind of hard to have to lay
roped all day, and he’d cipher
outdi some way to get around
it.
He was uncommon bright,
the duke was, and he soon
struck it. He dressed Jim up
in King Lear’s outfit—it was
a long curtain-calico gown,
and a white horse-hair wig
and whiskers; and then he
took his theatre-paint and
painted Jim’s face and hands
and ears and neck all over a
dead dull solid blue, like a
man that’s been drownded
nine days. Blamed if he
warn’t the horriblest looking
outrage I ever see. Then the
duke took and wrote out a
sign on a shingle so—
Sick flrab-but harmless
when not out of his head.
And he nailed that shingle
to a lath,dj and stood the lath
up four or five foot in front of
the wigwam. Jim was
satisfied. He said it was a
sight better than laying tied a
couple of years every day and
trembling all over every time
there was a sound. The duke
told him to make himself free
and easy, and if anybody ever
come meddling around, he
must hop out of the wigwam,
and carry on a little, and fetch
a howl or two like a wild
beast, and he reckoned they
would light out and leave him
alone. Which was sound
enough judgment; but you
take the average man, and he
wouldn’t wait for him to
howl. Why, he didn’t only
look like he was dead, he
looked considerable more
than that.
These rapscallions wanted
to try the Nonesuch again,
because there was so much
money in it, but they judged it
wouldn’t be safe, because
maybe the news might a
worked along down by this
time. They couldn’t hit no
project that suited, exactly; so
at last the duke said he
reckoned he’d lay off and
work his brains an hour or
two and see if he couldn’t put
up something on the
Arkansaw village; and the
king he allowed he would
drop over to t‘other village,
without any plan, but just
trust in Providence to lead
him the profitable way—
meaning the devil, I reckon.
We had all bought store
clothes where we stopped
last; and now the king put
his’n on, and he told me to
put mine on. I done it, of
course. The king’s duds was
all black, and he did look real
swell and starchy. I never
knowed how clothes could
change a body before. Why,
before, he looked like the
orneriest old rip that ever
was; but now, when he’d take
off his new white beaver and
make a bow and do a smile,
he looked that grand and
good and pious that you’d say
he had walked right out of the
ark, and maybe was old
Leviticusdk himself. Jim
cleaned up the canoe, and I
got my paddle ready. There
was a big steamboat laying at
the shore away up under the
point, about three mile above
town—been there a couple of
hours, taking on freight. Says
the king:
“Seein’ how I’m dressed, I
reckon maybe I better arrive
down from St. Louis or
Cincinnati, or some other big
place. Go for the steamboat,
Huckleberry; we’ll come
down to the village on her.”
I didn’t have to be ordered
twice, to go and take a
steamboat ride. I fetched the
shore a half a mile above the
village, and then went
scooting along the bluff bank
in the easy water. Pretty soon
we come to a nice innocent-
looking young country jakedl
setting on a log swabbing the
sweat off of his face, for it
was powerful warm weather;
and he had a couple of big
carpet-bags by him.
“Run her nose in shore,”
says the king. I done it.
“Wher’ you bound for, young
man?”
 “For the steamboat; going
to Orleans.”
“Git aboard,” says the
king. “Hold on a minute, my
servant ’ll he‘p you with them
bags. Jump out and he’p the
gentleman, Adolphus”—
meaning me, I see.
I done so, and then we all
three started on again. The
young chap was mighty
thankful; said it was tough
work toting his baggage such
weather. He asked the king
where he was going, and the
king told him he’d come
down the river and landed at
the other village this morning,
and now he was going up a
few mile to see an old friend
on a farm up there. The
young fellow says:
“When I first see you, I
says to myself, ‘It’s Mr.
Wilks, sure, and he come
mighty near getting here in
time.’ But then I says again,
‘No, I reckon it ain’t him, or
else he wouldn’t be paddling
up the river.’ You ain’t him,
are you?”
“No, my name’s Blodgett
—Elexander Blodgett
—Reverend Elexander
Blodgett, I spose I must say,
as I’m one o’ the Lord’s poor
servants. But still I’m jist as
able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks
for not arriving in time, all
the same, if he’s missed
anything by it—which I hope
he hasn’t.”
“Well, he don’t miss any
property by it, because he’ll
get that all right; but he’s
missed seeing his brother
Peter die—which he mayn’t
mind, nobody can tell as to
that—but his brother would a
give anything in this world to
see him before he died; never
talked about nothing else all
these three weeks; hadn’t
seen him since they was boys
together—and hadn’t ever
seen his brother William at all
—that’s the deef and dumb
one—William ain’t more than
thirty or thirty-five. Peter and
George was the only ones that
come out here; George was
the married brother; him and
his wife both died last year.
Harvey and William’s the
only ones that’s left now;
and, as I was saying, they
haven’t got here in time.“
“Did anybody send ‘em
word?”
“Oh, yes; a month or two
ago, when Peter was first
took; because Peter said then
that he sorter felt like he
warn’t going to get well this
time. You see, he was pretty
old, and George’s g‘yirls was
too young to be much
company for him, except
Mary Jane the red-headed
one; and so he was kinder
lonesome after George and
his wife died, and didn’t seem
to care much to live. He most
desperately wanted to see
Harvey—and William too,
for that matter—because he
was one of them kind that
can’t bear to make a will. He
left a letter behind for
Harvey, and said he’d told in
it where his money was hid,
and how he wanted the rest of
the property divided up so
George’s g’yirls would be all
right—for George didn’t
leave nothing. And that letter
was all they could get him to
put a pen to.”
“Why do you reckon
Harvey don’t come? Wher’
does he live?”
“Oh, he lives in England—
Sheffield—preaches there—
hasn’t ever been in this
country. He hasn’t had any
too much time—and besides
he mightn’t a got the letter at
all, you know.”
“Too bad, too bad he
couldn’t a lived to see his
brothers, poor soul. You
going to Orleans, you say?”
“Yes, but that ain’t only a
part of it. I’m going in a ship,
next Wednesday, for Ryo
Janeero,dm where my uncle
lives.”
“It’s a pretty long journey.
But it’ll be lovely; I wisht I
was agoing. Is Mary Jane the
oldest? How old is the
others?”
“Mary Jane’s nineteen,
Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s
about fourteen—that’s the
one that gives herself to good
works and has a hare-lip.”
“Poor things! to be left
alone in the cold world so.”
“Well, they could be worse
off. Old Peter had friends,
and they ain’t going to let
them come to no harm.
There’s Hobson, the Babtis’
preacher; and Deacon Lot
Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and
Abner Shackleford, and Levi
Bell, the lawyer; and Dr.
Robinson, and their wives,
and the widow Bartley, and—
well, there’s a lot of them; but
these are the ones that Peter
was thickest with, and used to
write about sometimes, when
he wrote home; so Harvey’ll
know where to look for
friends when he gets here.”
Well, the old man he went
on asking questions till he
just fairly emptied that young
fellow. Blamed if he didn’t
inquire about everybody and
everything in that blessed
town, and all about all the
Wilkses; and about Peter’s
business—which was a
tanner;dn and about George‘s
—which was a carpenter; and
about Harvey’s—which was a
dissentering minister; and so
on, and so on. Then he says:
“What did you want to
walk all the way up to the
steamboat for?”
“Because she’s a big
Orleans boat, and I was
afeard she mightn’t stop
there. When they’re deep they
won’t stop for a hail. A
Cincinnati boat will, but this
is a St. Louis one.”
“Was Peter Wilks well
off?”
“Oh, yes, pretty well off.
He had houses and land, and
it’s reckoned he left three or
four thousand in cash hid up
som‘ers.”
“When did you say he
died?”
“I didn’t say, but it was last
night.”
“Funeral to-morrow,
likely?”
“Yes, ‘bout the middle of
the day.”
“Well, it’s all terrible sad;
but we’ve all got to go, one
time or another. So what we
want to do is to be prepared;
then we’re all right.”
“Yes, sir, it’s the best way.
Ma used to always say that.”
When we struck the boat,
she was about done loading,
and pretty soon she got off.
The king never said nothing
about going aboard, so I lost
my ride, after all. When the
boat was gone, the king made
me paddle up another mile to
a lonesome place, and then he
got ashore, and says:
“Now hustle back, right
off, and fetch the duke up
here, and the new carpet-
bags. And if he’s gone over to
t‘other side, go over there and
git him. And tell him to git
himself up regardless. Shove
along, now.”
 I see what be was up to;
but I never said nothing, of
course. When I got back with
the duke, we hid the canoe
and then they set down on a
log, and the king told him
everything, just like the
young fellow had said it—
every last word of it. And all
the time he was a doing it, he
tried to talk like an
Englishman; and he done it
pretty well too, for a slouch. I
can’t imitate him, and so I
ain’t agoing to try to; but he
really done it pretty good.
Then he says:
“How are you on the deef
and dumb, Bilgewater?”
The duke said, leave him
alone for that; said he had
played a deef and dumb
person on the histrionic
boards. So then they waited
for a steamboat.
About the middle of the
afternoon a couple of little
boats come along, but they
didn’t come from high
enough up the river; but at
last there was a big one, and
they hailed her. She sent out
her yawl,do and we went
aboard, and she was from
Cincinnati; and when they
found we only wanted to go
four or five mile, they was
booming mad, and give us a
cussing, and said they
wouldn’t land us. But the
king was ca’m. He says:
“If gentlemen kin afford to
pay a dollar a mile apiece, to
be took on and put off in a
yawl, a steamboat kin afford
to carry ‘em, can’t it?”
So they softened down and
said it was all right; and when
we got to the village, they
yawled us ashore. About two
dozen men flocked down,
when they see the yawl a
coming; and when the king
says—
“Kin any of you gentlemen
tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks
lives?” they give a glance at
one another, and nodded their
heads, as much as to say,
“What d’ I tell you?” Then
one of them says, kind of soft
and gentle:
“I’m sorry, sir, but the best
we can do is to tell you where
he did live yesterday
evening.”
 Sudden as winking, the
ornery old cretur went all to
smash, and fell up against the
man, and put his chin on his
shoulder, and cried down his
back, and says:
“Alas, alas, our poor
brother-gone, and we never
got to see him; oh, it’s too,
too hard!”
Then he turns around,
blubbering, and makes a lot
of idiotic signs to the duke on
his hands, and blamed if he
didn’t drop a carpet-bag and
bust out a-crying. If they
warn’t the beatenest lot, them
two frauds, that ever I struck.
Well, the men gethered
around, and sympathized with
them, and said all sorts of
kind things to them, and
carried their carpet-bags up
the hill for them, and let them
lean on them and cry, and
told the king all about his
brother’s last moments, and
the king he told it all over
again on his hands to the
duke, and both of them took
on about that dead tanner like
they’d lost the twelve
disciples. Well, if ever I
struck anything like it, I’m a
nigger. It was enough to
make a body ashamed of the
human race.
 CHAPTER 25
The news was all over town
in two minutes, and you
could see the people tearing
down on the run, from every
which way, some of them
putting on their coats as they
come. Pretty soon we was in
the middle of a crowd, and
the noise of the tramping was
like a soldier-march. The
windows and dooryards was
full; and every minute
somebody would say, over a
fence:
“Is it them?”
And somebody trotting
along with the gang would
answer back and say,
“You bet it is.”
When we got to the house,
the street in front of it was
packed, and the three girls
was standing in the door.
Mary Jane was red-headed,
but that don’t make no
difference, she was most
awful beautiful, and her face
and her eyes was all lit up
like glory, she was so glad
her uncles was come. The
king he spread his arms, and
Mary Jane she jumped for
them, and the hare-lipdp
jumped for the duke, and
there they had it! Everybody
most, leastways women, cried
for joy to see them meet
again at last and have such
good times.
Then the king he hunched
the duke, private—I see him
do it—and then he looked
around and see the coffin,
over in the corner on two
chairs; so then, him and the
duke, with a hand across each
other’s shoulder, and t‘other
hand to their eyes, walked
slow and solemn over there,
everybody dropping back to
give them room, and all the
talk and noise stopping,
people saying “Sh!” and all
the men taking their hats off
and drooping their heads, so
you could a heard a pin fall.
And when they got there,
they bent over and looked in
the coffin, and took one sight,
and then they bust out a
crying so you could a heard
them to Orleans, most; and
then they put their arms
around each other’s necks,
and hung their chins over
each other’s shoulders; and
then for three minutes, or
maybe four, I never see two
men leak the way they done.
And mind you, everybody
was doing the same; and the
place was that damp I never
see anything like it. Then one
of them got on one side of the
coffin, and t‘other on t’other
side, and they kneeled down
and rested their foreheads on
the coffin, and let on to pray
all to theirselves. Well, when
it come to that, it worked the
crowd like you never see
anything like it, and so
everybody broke down and
went to sobbing right out loud
—the poor girls, too; and
every woman, nearly, went
up to the girls, without saying
a word, and kissed them,
solemn, on the forehead, and
then put their hand on their
head, and looked up towards
the sky, with the tears
running down, and then
busted out and went off
sobbing and swabbing, and
give the next woman a show.
I never see anything so
disgusting.
Well, by-and-by the king
he gets up and comes forward
a little, and works himself up
and slobbers out a speech, all
full of tears and flap-doodle
dq about its being a sore trial

for him and his poor brother

to lose the diseased, and to
miss seeing diseased alive,
after the long journey of four
thousand mile, but it’s a trial
that’s sweetened and
sanctified to us by this dear
sympathy and these holy
tears, and so he thanks them
out of his heart and out of his
brother’s heart, because out
of their mouths they can‘t,
words being too weak and
cold, and all that kind of rot
and slush, till it was just
sickening; and then he
blubbers out a pious goody-
goody Amen, and turns
himself loose and goes to
crying fit to bust.
And the minute the words
was out of his mouth
somebody over in the crowd
struck up the doxolojer,dr and
everybody joined in with all
their might, and it just
warmed you up and made you
feel as good as church letting
out. Music is a good thing;
and after all that soul-butter
and hogwash, I never see it
freshen up things so, and
sound so honest and bully.
Then the king begins to
work his jaw again, and says
how him and his nieces
would be glad if a few of the
main principal friends of the
family would take supper
here with them this evening,
and help set up with the ashes
of the diseased; and says if
his poor brother laying
yonder could speak, he knows
who he would name, for they
was names that was very dear
to him, and mentioned often
in his letters; and so he will
name the same, to-wit, as
follows, vizz:—Rev. Mr.
Hobson, and Deacon Lot
Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker,
and Abner Shackleford, and
Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson,
and their wives, and the
widow Bartley.
Rev. Hobson and Dr.
Robinson was down to the
end of the town, a-hunting
together; that is, I mean the
doctor was shipping a sick
man to t‘other world, and the
preacher was pinting him
right. Lawyer Bell was away
up to Louisville on some
business. But the rest was on
hand, and so they all come
and shook hands with the
king and thanked him and
talked to him; and then they
shook hands with the duke,
and didn’t say nothing but
just kept a-smiling and
bobbing their heads like a
passel of sapheads whilst he
made all sorts of signs with
his hands and said “Goo-goo
—goo-goo-goo,” all the time,
like a baby that can’t talk.
So the king he blattedds
along, and managed to
inquire about pretty much
everybody and dog in town,
by his name, and mentioned
all sorts of little things that
happened one time or another
in the town, or to George’s
family, or to Peter; and he
always let on that Peter wrote
him the things, but that was a
lie, he got every blessed one
of them out of that young
flathead that we canoed up to
the steamboat.
 Then Mary Jane she
fetched the letter her father
left behind, and the king he
read it out loud and cried over
it. It give the dwelling-house
and three thousand dollars,
gold, to the girls; and it give
the tanyard (which was doing
a good business), along with
some other houses and land
(worth about seven
thousand), and three thousand
dollars in gold to Harvey and
William, and told where the
six thousand cash was hid,
down cellar. So these two
frauds said they’d go and
fetch it up, and have
everything square and above-
board; and told me to come
with a candle. We shut the
cellar door behind us, and
when they found the bag they
spilt it out on the floor, and it
was a lovely sight, all them
yaller-boys.dt My, the way the
king’s eyes did shine! He
slaps the duke on the
shoulder, and says:
“Oh, this ain’t bully, nor
noth‘n! Oh, no, I reckon not!
Why, Biljy, it beats the
Nonesuch, don’t it!”
The duke allowed it did.
They pawed the yaller-boys,
and sifted them through their
fingers and let them jingle
down on the floor; and the
king says:
“It ain’t no use talkin‘;
bein’ brothers to a rich dead
man, and representatives of
furrin heirs that’s got left, is
the line for you and me,
Bilge. Thish-yer comes of
trust’n to Providence. It’s the
best way, in the long run. I’ve
tried ’em all, and ther’ ain’t
no better way.”
Most everybody would a
been satisfied with the pile,
and took it on trust; but no,
they must count it. So they
counts it, and it comes out
four hundred and fifteen
dollars short. Says the king:
“Dern him, I wonder what
he done with that four
hundred and fifteen dollars?”
They worried over that a
while, and ransacked all
around for it. Then the duke
says:
“Well, he was a pretty sick
man, and likely he made a
mistake—I reckon that’s the
way of it. The best way’s to
let it go, and keep still about
it. We can spare it.”
“Oh, shucks, yes, we can
spare it. I don’t k‘yer noth’n
’bout that—it’s the count I’m
thinkin’ about. We want to be
awful square and open and
above-board, here, you know.
We want to lug this h-yer
money up stairs and count it
before everybody—then ther’
ain’t noth’n suspicious. But
when the dead man says
ther’s six thous’n dollars, you
know, we don’t want to—”
“Hold on,” says the duke.
“Less make up the defnsit”—
and he begun to haul out
yaller-boys out of his pocket.
“It’s a most amaz‘n’ good
idea, duke—you have got a
rattlin’ clever head on you,”
says the king. “Blest if the old
Nonesuch ain’t a heppin’ us
out agin”—and he begun to
haul out yaller-jackets and
stack them up.
It most busted them, but
they made up the six
thousand clean and clear.
“Say,” says the duke, “I got
another idea. Le’s go up stairs
and count this money, and
then take and give it to the
girls.”
“Good land, duke, lemme
hug you! It’s the most
dazzling idea ‘at ever a man
struck. You have cert’nly got
the most astonishin’ head I
ever see. Oh, this is the boss
dodge, ther’ ain’t no mistake
‘bout it. Let ’em fetch along
their suspicions now, if they
want to—this’ll lay ‘em out.”
When we got up stairs,
everybody gethered around
the table, and the king he
counted it and stacked it up,
three hundred dollars in a pile
—twenty elegant little piles.
Everybody looked hungry at
it, and licked their chops.
Then they raked it into the
bag again, and I see the king
begin to swell himself up for
another speech. He says:
“Friends all, my poor
brother that lays yonder, has
done generous by them that’s
left behind in the vale of
sorrers. He has done generous
by these-‘yer poor little lambs
that he loved and sheltered,
and that’s left fatherless and
motherless. Yes, and we that
knowed him, knows that he
would a done more generous
by’em if he hadn’t ben afeard
o’ woundin’ his dear William
and me. Now, wouldn’t he?
Ther’ ain’t no question ‘bout
it, in my mind. Well, then—
what kind o’ brothers would
it be, that ’d stand in his way
at sech a time? And what
kind o’ uncles would it be
that ’d rob—yes, rob-sech
poor sweet lambs as these ’at
he loved so, at sech a time? If
I know William—and I think
I do—he—well, I’ll jest ask
him.” He turns around and
begins to make a lot of signs
to the duke with his hands;
and the duke he looks at him
stupid and leather-headed a
while, then all of a sudden he
seems to catch his meaning,
and jumps for the king, goo-
gooing with all his might for
joy, and hugs him about
fifteen times before he lets
up. Then the king says, “I
knowed it; I reckon that’ll
convince anybody the way he
feels about it. Here, Mary
Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the
money—take it all. It’s the
gift of him that lays yonder,
cold but joyful.”
Mary Jane she went for
him, Susan and the hare-lip
went for the duke, and then
such another hugging and
kissing I never see yet. And
everybody crowded up with
the tears in their eyes, and
most shook the hands off of
them frauds, saying all the
time:
“You dear good souls!—
how lovely!—how could
you!”
Well, then, pretty soon all
hands got to talking about the
diseased again, and how good
he was, and what a loss he
was, and all that; and before
long a big iron-jawed man
worked himself in there from
outside, and stood a listening
and looking, and not saying
anything; and nobody saying
anything to him either,
because the king was talking
and they was all busy
listening. The king was
saying—in the middle of
something he’d started in on
—
 “—they bein’ partickler
friends o’ the diseased. That’s
why they’re invited here this
evenin‘; but to-morrow we
want all to come—
everybody; for he respected
everybody, he liked
everybody, and so it’s fitten
that his funeral orgiesdu sh’d
be public.”
And so he went a-mooning
on and on, liking to hear
himself talk, and every little
while he fetched in his
funeral orgies again, till the
duke he couldn’t stand it no
more; so he writes on a little
scrap of paper, “obsequies,dv
you old fool,” and folds it up
and goes to goo-gooing and
reaching it over people’s
heads to him. The king he
reads it, and puts it in his
pocket, and says:
“Poor William, afflicted as
he is, his heart’s aluz right.
Asks me to invite everybody
to come to the funeral—
wants me to make ‘em all
welcome. But he needn’t a
worried—it was jest what I
was at.”
Then he weaves along
again, perfectly ca‘m, and
goes to dropping in his
funeral orgies again every
now and then, just like he
done before. And when he
done it the third time, he says:
 “I say orgies, not because
it’s the common term,
because it ain‘t—obsequies
bein’ the common term—but
because orgies is the right
term. Obsequies ain’t used in
England no more, now—it’s
gone out. We say orgies now,
in England. Orgies is better,
because it means the thing
you’re after, more exact. It’s
a word that’s made up out’n
the Greek orgo, outside,
open, abroad; and the Hebrew
jeesum, to plant, cover up;
hence inter. So, you see,
funeral orgies is an open er
public funeral.”
He was the worst I ever
struck. Well, the iron-jawed
man he laughed right in his
face. Everybody was
shocked. Everybody says,
“Why doctor!” and Abner
Shackleford says:
“Why, Robinson, hain’t
you heard the news? This is
HarveyWilks.”
The king he smiled eager,
and shoved out his flapper,
and says:
“Is it my poor brother’s
dear good friend and
physician? I—”
“Keep your hands off of
me!” says the doctor. “You
talk like an Englishman—
don’t you? It’s the worse
imitation I ever heard. You
Peter Wilks’s brother. You’re
a fraud, that’s what you are!”
Well, how they all took on!
They crowded around the
doctor, and tried to quiet him
down, and tried to explain to
him, and tell him how
Harvey’d showed in forty
ways that he was Harvey, and
knowed everybody by name,
and the names of the very
dogs, and begged and begged
him not to hurt Harvey’s
feelings and the poor girls’
feelings, and all that; but it
warn’t no use, he stormed
right along, and said any man
that pretended to be an
Englishman and couldn’t
imitate the lingo no better
than what he did, was a fraud
and a liar. The poor girls was
hanging to the king and
crying; and all of a sudden
the doctor ups and turns on
them. He says:
“I was your father’s friend,
and I’m your friend; and I
warn you as a friend, and an
honest one, that wants to
protect you and keep you out
of harm and trouble, to turn
your backs on that scoundrel,
and have nothing to do with
him, the ignorant tramp, with
his idiotic Greek and Hebrew
as he calls it. He is the
thinnest kind of an impostor
—has come here with a lot of
empty names and facts which
he has picked up
somewheres, and you take
them for proofs, and are
helped to fool yourselves by
these foolish friends here,
who ought to know better.
Mary Jane Wilks, you know
me for your friend, and for
your unselfish friend, too.
Now listen to me; turn this
pitiful rascal out—I beg you
to do it. Will you?”
Mary Jane straightened
herself up, and my, but she
was handsome! She says:
“Here is my answer.” She
hove up the bag of money
and put it in the king’s hands,
and says, “Take this six
thousand dollars, and invest it
for me and my sisters any
way you want to, and don’t
give us no receipt for it.”
Then she put her arm
around the king on one side,
and Susan and the hare-lip
done the same on the other.
Everybody clapped their
hands and stomped on the
floor like a perfect storm,
whilst the king held up his
head and smiled proud. The
doctor says:
“All right, I wash my hands
of the matter. But I warn you
all that a time’s coming when
you’re going to feel sick
whenever you think of this
day”—and away he went.
“All right, doctor,” says the
king, kinder mocking him,
“we’ll try and get‘em to send
for you”—which made them
all laugh, and they said it was
a prime good hit.
 CHAPTER 26
Well, when they was all
gone, the king he asks Mary
Jane how they was off for
spare rooms, and she said she
had one spare room, which
would do for Uncle William,
and she’d give her own room
to Uncle Harvey, which was a
little bigger, and she would
turn into the room with her
sisters and sleep on a cot; and
up garret was a little cubby,
with a pallet in it. The king
said the cubby would do for
his valleydw—meaning me.
So Mary Jane took us up,
and she showed them their
rooms, which was plain but
nice. She said she’d have her
frocks and a lot of other traps
took out of her room if they
was in Uncle Harvey’s way,
but he said they warn’t. The
frocks was hung along the
wall, and before them was a
curtain made out of calico
that hung down to the floor.
There was an old hair trunk in
one corner, and a guitar box
in another, and all sorts of
little knick-knacks and
jimcracks around, like girls
brisken up a room with. The
king said it was all the more
homely and more pleasanter
for these fixings, and so don’t
disturb them. The duke’s
room was pretty small, but
plenty good enough, and so
was my cubby.
That night they had a big
supper, and all them men and
women was there, and I stood
behind the king and the
duke’s chairs and waited on
them, and the niggers waited
on the rest. Mary Jane she set
at the head of the table, with
Susan along side of her, and
said how bad the biscuits
was, and how mean the
preserves was, and how
ornery and tough the fried
chickens was—and all that
kind of rot, the way women
always do for to force out
compliments; and the people
all knowed everything was
tip-top, and said so—said
“How do you get biscuits to
brown so nice?” and “Where,
for the land’s sake did you
get these amaz’n pickles?”
and all that kind of humbug
talky-talk, just the way people
always does at a supper, you
know.
And when it was all done,
me and the hare-lip had
supper in the kitchen off of
the leavings, whilst the others
was helping the niggers clean
up the things. The hare-lip
she got to pumping me about
England, and blest if I didn’t
think the ice was getting
mighty thin, sometimes. She
says:
 “Did you ever see the
king?”
“Who? William Fourth?
Well, I bet I have—he goes to
our church.” I knowed he was
dead years ago, but I never let
on. So when I says he goes to
our church, she says:
“What—regular?”
“Yes—regular. His pew’s
right over opposite ourn—on
‘tother side the pulpit.”
“I thought he lived in
London?”
“Well, he does. Where
would he live?”
“But I thought you lived in
Sheffield?”
I see I was up a stump. I
had to let on to get choked
with a chicken bone, so as to
get time to think how to get
down again. Then I says:
“I mean he goes to our
church regular when he’s in
Sheffield. That’s only in the
summer-time, when he comes
there to take the sea baths.”
“Why, how you talk—
Sheffield ain’t on the sea.”
“Well, who said it was?”
“Why, you did.”
“I didn‘t, nuther.”
“You did!”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I never said nothing of the
kind.”
 “Well, what did you say,
then?”
“Said he come to take the
sea baths—that’s what I
said.”
“Well, then! how’s he
going to take the sea baths if
it ain’t on the sea?”
“Looky here,” I says; “did
you ever see any Congress-
water?”dx
“Yes.”
“Well, did you have to go
to Congress to get it?”
“Why, no.”
“Well, neither does
William Fourth have to go to
the sea to get a sea bath.”
“How does he get it, then?”
“Gets it the way people
down here gets Congress-
water—in barrels. There in
the palace at Sheffield
they’ve got furnaces, and he
wants his water hot. They
can’t bile that amount of
water away off there at the
sea. They haven’t got no
conveniences for it.”
“Oh, I see, now. You might
a said that in the first place
and saved time.”
When she said that, I see I
was out of the woods again,
and so I was comfortable and
glad. Next, she says:
“Do you go to church,
too?”
“Yes—regular.”
 “Where do you set?”
“Why, in our pew.”
“Whose pew?”
“Why, ourn—your Uncle
Harvey’s.”
“His’n? What does he want
with a pew?”
“Wants it to set in. What
did you reckon he wanted
with it?”
“Why, I thought he’d be in
the pulpit.”
 Rot him, I forgot he was a
preacher. I see I was up a
stump again, so I played
another chicken bone and got
another think. Then I says:
“Blame it, do you suppose
there ain’t but one preacher to
a church?”
“Why, what do they want
with more?”
“What!—to preach before
a king? I never see such a girl
as you. They don’t have no
less than seventeen.”
“Seventeen! My land!
Why, I wouldn’t set out such
a string as that, not if I never
got to glory. It must take ‘em
a week.”
“Shucks, they don’t all of
‘em preach the same day—
only one of em.”
“Well, then, what does the
rest of ‘em do?”
“Oh, nothing much. Loll
around, pass the plate—and
one thing or another. But
mainly they don’t do
nothing.”
“Well, then, what are they
for?”
“Why, they’re for style.
Don’t you know nothing?”
“Well, I don’t want to
know no such foolishness as
that. How is servants treated
in England? Do they treat ‘em
better ’n we treat our
niggers?”33
 “No! A servant ain’t
nobody there. They treat them
worse than dogs.”
“Don’t they give ‘em
holidays, the way we do,
Christmas and New Year’s
week, and Fourth of July?”
“Oh, just listen! A body
could tell you hain’t ever
been to England, by that.
Why, Hare-I—why, Joanna,
they never see a holiday from
year’s end to year’s end;
never go to the circus, nor
theatre, nor nigger shows, nor
nowheres.”
“Nor church?”
“Nor church.”
“But you always went to
church.”
Well, I was gone up again.
I forgot I was the old man’s
servant. But next minute I
whirled in on a kind of an
explanation how a valley was
different from a common
servant, and had to go to
church whether he wanted to
or not, and set with the
family, on account of it’s
being the law. But I didn’t do
it pretty good, and when I got
done I see she warn’t
satisfied. She says:
“Honest injun, now, hain’t
you been telling me a lot of
lies?”
“Honest injun,” says I.
“None of it at all?”
 “None of it at all. Not a lie
in it,” says I.
“Lay your hand on this
book and say it.”
I see it warn’t nothing but a
dictionary, so I laid my hand
on it and said it. So then she
looked a little better satisfied,
and says:
“Well, then, I’ll believe
some of it; but I hope to
gracious if I’ll believe the
rest.”
 “What is it you won’t
believe, Joe?” says Mary
Jane, stepping in with Susan
behind her. “It ain’t right nor
kind for you to talk so to him,
and him a stranger and so far
from his people. How would
you like to be treated so?”
“That’s always your way,
Maim—always sailing in to
help somebody before they’re
hurt. I hain’t done nothing to
him. He’s told some
stretchers, I reckon; and I said
I wouldn’t swallow it all; and
that’s every bit and grain I
did say. I reckon he can stand
a little thing like that, can’t
he?”
“I don’t care whether ‘twas
little or whether ’twas big,
he’s here in our house and a
stranger, and it wasn’t good
of you to say it. If you was in
his place, it would make you
feel ashamed; and so you
oughtn’t to say a thing to
another person that will make
them feel ashamed.”
“Why, Maim, he said—”
“It don’t make no
difference what he said—that
ain’t the thing. The thing is
for you to treat him kind, and
not be saying things to make
him remember he ain’t in his
own country and amongst his
own folks.”
I says to myself, this is a
girl that I’m letting that old
reptle rob her of her money!
Then Susan she waltzed in;
and if you’ll believe me, she
did give Hare-lip hark from
the tomb!dy
Says I to myself, And this
is another one that I’m letting
him rob her of her money!
Then Mary Jane she took
another inning, and went in
sweet and lovely again—
which was her way—but
when she got done there
warn’t hardly anything left o’
poor Hare-lip. So she
hollered.
“All right, then,” says the
other girls, “you just ask his
pardon.”
She done it, too. And she
done it beautiful. She done it
so beautiful it was good to
hear; and I wished I could tell
her a thousand lies, so she
could do it again.
 I says to myself, this is
another one that I’m letting
him rob her of her money.
And when she got through,
they all jest laid theirselves
out to make me feel at home
and know I was amongst
friends. I felt so ornery and
low down and mean, that I
says to myself, My mind’s
made up; I’ll hivedz that
money for them or bust.
So then I lit out—for bed, I
said, meaning some time or
another. When I got by
myself, I went to thinking the
thing over. I says to myself,
shall I go to that doctor,
private, and blow on these
frauds? No—that won’t do.
He might tell who told him;
then the king and the duke
would make it warm for me.
Shall I go, private, and tell
Mary Jane? No—I dasn’t do
it. Her face would give them
a hint, sure; they’ve got the
money, and they’d slide right
out and get away with it. If
she was to fetch in help, I’d
get mixed up in the business,
before it was done with, I
judge. No, there ain’t no good
way but one. I got to steal
that money, somehow; and I
got to steal it some way that
they won’t suspicion that I
done it. They’ve got a good
thing, here; and they ain’t
agoing to leave till they’ve
played this family and this
town for all they’re worth, so
I’ll find a chance time
enough. I’ll steal it, and hide
it; and by-and-by, when I’m
away down the river, I’ll
write a letter and tell Mary
Jane where it’s hid. But I
better hive it to-night, if I can,
because the doctor maybe
hasn’t let up as much as he
lets on he has; he might scare
them out of here, yet.
So, thinks I, I’ll go and
search them rooms. Up stairs
the hall was dark, but I found
the duke’s room, and started
to paw around it with my
hands; but I recollected it
wouldn’t be much like the
king to let anybody else take
care of that money but his
own self; so then I went to his
room and begun to paw
around there. But I see I
couldn’t do nothing without a
candle, and I dasn’t light one,
of course. So I judged I’d got
to do the other thing—lay for
them, and eavesdrop. About
that time, I hears their
footsteps coming, and was
going to skip under the bed; I
reached for it, but it wasn’t
where I thought it would be;
but I touched the curtain that
hid Mary Jane’s frocks, so I
jumped in behind that and
snuggled in amongst the
gowns, and stood there
perfectly still.
 They come in and shut the
door; and the first thing the
duke done was to get down
and look under the bed. Then
I was glad I hadn’t found the
bed when I wanted it. And
yet, you know, it’s kind of
natural to hide under the bed
when you are up to anything
private. They sets down, then,
and the king says:
“Well, what is it? and cut it
middlin’ short, because it’s
better for us to be down there
a whoopin‘-up the mournin’,
than up here givin’ ‘em a
chance to talk us over.”
“Well, this is it, Capet. I
ain’t easy; I ain’t
comfortable. That doctor lays
on my mind. I wanted to
know your plans. I’ve got a
notion, and I think it’s a
sound one.”
“What is it, duke?”
“That we better glide out of
this, before three in the
morning, and clip it down the
river with what we’ve got.
Specially, seeing we got it so
easy—given back to us, flung
at our heads, as you may say,
when of course we allowed to
have to steal it back. I’m for
knocking off and lighting
out.”
That made me feel pretty
bad. About an hour or two
ago, it would a been a little
different, but now it made me
feel bad and disappointed.
The king rips out and says:
“What! And not sell out the
rest o’ the property? March
off like a passel o’ fools and
leave eight or nine thous‘n’
dollars’ worth o’ property
layin’ around jest sufferin’ to
be scooped in?—and all good
salable stuff, too.”
The duke he grumbled;
said the bag of gold was
enough, and he didn’t want to
go no deeper—didn’t want to
rob a lot of orphans of
everything they had.
“Why, how you talk!” says
the king. “We shan’t rob ‘em
of nothing at all but jest this
money. The people that buys
the property is the suff’rers;
because as soon’s it’s found
out ‘at we didn’t own it—
which won’t be long after
we’ve slid—the sale won’t be
valid, and it’ll all go back to
the estate. These-yer orphans
’ll git their house back agin,
and that’s enough for them;
they’re young and spry, and
k’n easy earn a livin’. They
ain’t agoing to suffer. Why,
jest think—there’s thous‘n’s
and thous’n’s that ain’t nigh
so well off Bless you, they
ain’t got noth’n to complain
of.”
Well, the king he talked
him blind; so at last he give
in, and said all right, but said
he believed it was blame
foolishness to stay, and that
doctor hanging over them.
But the king says:
“Cuss the doctor! What do
we k‘yer for him? Hain’t we
got all the fools in town on
our side? and ain’t that a big
enough majority in any
town?”
So they got ready to go
down stairs again. The duke
says:
“I don’t think we put that
money in a good place.”
That cheered me up. I’d
begun to think I warn’t going
to get a hint of no kind to
help me. The king says:
“Why?”
“Because Mary Jane ’ll be
in mourning from this out;
and first you know the nigger
that does up the rooms will
get an order to box these duds
up and put ‘em away; and do
you reckon a nigger can run
across money and not borrow
some of it?”
“Your head’s level, agin,
duke,” says the king; and he
come a fumbling under the
curtain two or three foot from
where I was. I stuck tight to
the wall, and kept mighty
still, though quivery; and I
wondered what them fellows
would say to me if they
catched me; and I tried to
think what I’d better do if
they did catch me. But the
king he got the bag before I
could think more than about a
half a thought, and he never
suspicioned I was around.
They took and shoved the bag
through a rip in the straw tick
that was under the feather
bed, and crammed it in a foot
or two amongst the straw and
said it was all right, now,
because a nigger only makes
up the feather bed, and don’t
turn over the straw tick only
about twice a year, and so it
warn’t in no danger of getting
stole, now.
But I knowed better. I had
it out of there before they was
half-way down stairs. I
groped along up to my cubby,
and hid it there till I could get
a chance to do better. I judged
I better hide it outside of the
house somewheres, because if
they missed it they would
give the house a good
ransacking. I knowed that
very well. Then I turned in,
with my clothes all on; but I
couldn’t a gone to sleep, if I’d
a wanted to, I was in such a
sweat to get through with the
business. By-and-by I heard
the king and the duke come
up; so I rolled off of my pallet
and laid with my chin at the
top of my ladder and waited
to see if anything was going
to happen. But nothing did.
So I held on till all the late
sounds had quit and the early
ones hadn’t begun, yet; and
then I slipped down the
ladder.
 CHAPTER 27
I crept to their doors and
listened; they was snoring, so
I tiptoed along, and got down
stairs all right. There warn’t
sound anywheres. I peeped
through a crack of the dining-
room door, and see the men
that was watching the corpse
all sound asleep on their
chairs. The door was open
into the parlor, where the
corpse was laying, and there
was a candle in both rooms. I
passed along, and the parlor
door was open; but I see there
warn’t nobody in there but
the remainders of Peter; so I
shoved on by; but the front
door was locked, and the key
wasn’t there. Just then I heard
somebody coming down the
stairs, back behind me. I run
in the parlor, and took a swift
look around, and the only
place I see to hide the bag
was in the coffin. The lid was
shoved along about a foot,
showing the dead man’s face
down in there, with a wet
cloth over it, and his shroud
on. I tucked the money-bag in
under the lid, just down
beyond where his hands was
crossed, which made me
creep, they was so cold, and
then I run back across the
room and in behind the door.
The person coming was
Mary Jane. She went to the
coffin, very soft, and kneeled
down and looked in; then she
put up her handkerchief and I
see she begun to cry, though I
couldn’t hear her, and her
back was to me. I slid out,
and as I passed the dining-
room I thought I’d make sure
them watchers hadn’t seen
me; so I looked through the
crack and everything was all
right. They hadn’t stirred.
 I slipped up to bed, feeling
ruther blue, on accounts of
the thing playing out that way
after I had took so much
trouble and run so much resk
about it. Says I, if it could
stay where it is, all right;
because when we get down
the river a hundred mile or
two, I could write back to
Mary Jane, and she could dig
him up again and get it; but
that ain’t the thing that’s
going to happen; the thing
that’s going to happen is, the
money’ll be found when they
come to screw on the lid.
Then the king’ll get it again,
and it’ll be a long day before
he gives anybody another
chance to smouch it from
him. Of course I wanted to
slide down and get it out of
there, but I dasn’t try it.
Every minute it was getting
earlier, now, and pretty soon
some of them watchers would
begin to stir, and I might get
catched—catched with six
thousand dollars in my hands
that nobody hadn’t hired me
to take care of. I don’t wish to
be mixed up in no such
business as that, I says to
myself.
When I got down stairs in
the morning, the parlor was
shut up, and the watchers was
gone. There warn’t nobody
around but the family and the
widow Bartley and our tribe.
I watched their faces to see if
anything had been happening,
but I couldn’t tell.
Towards the middle of the
day the undertaker come,
with his man, and they set the
coffin in the middle of the
room on a couple of chairs,
and then set all our chairs in
rows, and borrowed more
from the neighbors till the
hall and the parlor and the
dining-room was full. I see
the coffin lid was the way it
was before, but I dasn’t go to
look in under it, with folks
around.
Then the people begun to
flock in, and the beats and the
girls took seats in the front
row at the head of the coffin,
and for a half an hour the
people filed around slow, in
single rank, and looked down
at the dead man’s face a
minute, and some dropped in
a tear, and it was all very still
and solemn, only the girls and
the beats holding
handkerchiefs to their eyes
and keeping their heads bent,
and sobbing a little. There
warn’t no other sound but the
scraping of the feet on the
floor, and blowing noses—
because people always blows
them more at a funeral than
they do at other places except
church.
 When the place was
packed full, the undertaker he
slid around in his black
gloves with his softy
sootheringea ways, putting on
the last touches, and getting
people and things all
shipshape and comfortable,
and making no more sound
than a cat. He never spoke; he
moved people around, he
squeezed in late ones, he
opened up passage-ways, and
done it all with nods, and
signs with his hands. Then he
took his place over against
the wall. He was the softest,
glidingest, stealthiest man I
ever see; and there warn’t no
more smile to him than there
is to a ham.
They had borrowed a
melodeumeb—a sick one; and
when everything was ready, a
young woman set down and
worked it, and it was pretty
skreeky and colicky,ec and
everybody joined in and sung,
and Peter was the only one
that had a good thing,
according to my notion. Then
the Reverend Hobson opened
up, slow and solemn, and
begun to talk; and straight off
the most outrageous row
busted out in the cellar a body
ever heard; it was only one
dog, but he made a most
powerful racket, and he kept
it up, right along; the parson
he had to stand there, over the
coffin, and wait—you
couldn’t hear yourself think.
It was right down awkward,
and nobody didn’t seem to
know what to do. But pretty
soon they see that long-
legged undertaker make a
sign to the preacher as much
as to say, “Don’t you worry
—just depend on me.” Then
he stooped down and begun
to glide along the wall, just
his shoulders showing over
the people’s heads. So he
glided along, and the pow-
wow and racket getting more
and more outrageous all the
time; and at last, when he had
gone around two sides of the
room, he disappears down
cellar. Then, in about two
seconds we heard a whack,
and the dog he finished up
with a most amazing howl or
two, and then everything was
dead still, and the parson
begun his solemn talk where
he left off. In a minute or two
here comes this undertaker’s
back and shoulders gliding
along the wall again; and so
he glided, and glided, around
three sides of the room, and
then rose up, and shaded his
mouth with his hands, and
stretched his neck out
towards the preacher, over the
people’s heads, and says, in a
kind of a coarse whisper, “He
had a rat!”Then he drooped
down and glided along the
wall again to his place. You
could see it was a great
satisfaction to the people,
because naturally they wanted
to know. A little thing like
that don’t cost nothing, and
it’s just the little things that
makes a man to be looked up
to and liked. There warn’t no
more popular man in town
than what that undertaker
was.
 Well, the funeral sermon
was very good, but pison long
and tiresome; and then the
king he shoved in and got off
some of his usual rubbage,
and at last the job was
through, and the undertaker
begun to sneak up on the
coffin with his screw-driver. I
was in a sweat then, and
watched him pretty keen. But
he never meddled at all; just
slid the lid along, as soft as
mush, and screwed it down
tight and fast. So there I was!
I didn’t know whether the
money was in there, or not.
So, says I, spose somebody
has hogged that bag on the
sly?—now how do I know
whether to write to Mary Jane
or not? ‘Spose she dug him
up and didn’t find nothing—
what would she think of me?
Blame it, I says, I might get
hunted up and jailed; I’d
better lay low and keep dark,
and not write at all; the
thing’s awful mixed, now;
trying to better it, I’ve
worsened it a hundred times,
and I wish to goodness I’d
just let it alone, dad fetch the
whole business!
They buried him, and we
come back home, and I went
to watching faces again—I
couldn’t help it, and I
couldn’t rest easy. But
nothing come of it; the faces
didn’t tell me nothing.
 The king he visited around,
in the evening, and sweetened
every body up, and made
himself ever so friendly; and
he give out the idea that his
congregation over in England
would be in a sweat about
him, so he must hurry and
settle up the estate right
away, and leave for home. He
was very sorry he was so
pushed, and so was
everybody; they wished he
could stay longer, but they
said they could see it couldn’t
be done. And he said of
course him and William
would take the girls home
with them; and that pleased
everybody too, because then
the girls would be well fixed,
and amongst their own
relations; and it pleased the
girls, too—tickled them so
they clean forgot they ever
had a trouble in the world;
and told him to sell out as
quick as he wanted to, they
would be ready. Them poor
things was that glad and
happy it made my heart ache
to see them getting fooled and
lied to so, but I didn’t see no
safe way for me to chip in
and change the general tune.
Well, blamed if the king
didn’t bill the house and the
niggers and all the property
for auction straight off—sale
two days after the funeral; but
anybody could buy private
beforehand if they wanted to.
So the next day after the
funeral, along about
noontime, the girls’ joy got
the first jolt; a couple of
nigger traders come along,
and the king sold them the
niggers reasonable, for three-
day draftsed as they called it,
and away they went, the two
sons up the river to Memphis,
and their mother down the
river to Orleans. I thought
them poor girls and them
niggers would break their
hearts for grief; they cried
around each other, and took
on so it most made me down
sick to see it. The girls said
they hadn’t ever dreamed of
seeing the family separated or
sold away from the town. I
can’t ever get it out of my
memory, the sight of them
poor miserable girls and
niggers hanging around each
other’s necks and crying; and
I reckon I couldn’t a stood it
all but would a had to bust
out and tell on our gang if I
hadn’t knowed the sale
warn’t no account and the
niggers would be back home
in a week or two.
The thing made a big stir in
the town, too, and a good
many come out flatfooted and
said it was scandalous to
separate the mother and the
children that way. It injured
the frauds some; but the old
fool he bulled right along,
spite of all the duke could say
or do, and I tell you the duke
was powerful uneasy.
Next day was auction day.
About broad-day in the
morning, the king and the
duke come up in the garret
and woke me up, and I see by
their look that there was
trouble. The king says:
“Was you in my room
night before last?”
“No, your majesty”—
which was the way I always
called him when nobody but
our gang warn’t around.
“Was you in there
yisterday er last night?”
“No, your majesty.”
“Honor bright, now—no
lies.”
“Honor bright, your
majesty, I’m telling you the
truth. I hain’t been anear your
room since Miss Mary Jane
took you and the duke and
showed it to you.”
The duke says:
“Have you seen anybody
else go in there?”
“No, your grace, not as I
remember, I believe.”
“Stop and think.”
I studied a while, and see
my chance, then I says:
“Well, I see the niggers go
in there several times.”
 Both of them give a little
jump; and looked like they
hadn’t ever expected it, and
then like they had. Then the
duke says:
“What, all of them?”
“No—leastways not all at
once. That is, I don’t think I
ever see them all come out at
once but just one time.”
“Hello—when was that?”
“It was the day we had the
funeral. In the morning. It
warn’t early, because I
overslept. I was just starting
down the ladder, and I see
them.”
“Well, go on, go on—what
did they do? How’d they
act?”
“They didn’t do nothing.
And they didn’t act anyway,
much, as fur as I see. They
tip-toed away; so I seen, easy
enough, that they’d shoved in
there to do up your majesty’s
room, or something, sposing
you was up; and found you
warn’t up, and so they was
hoping to slide out of the way
of trouble without waking
you up, if they hadn’t already
waked you up.”
“Great guns, this is a go!”
says the king; and both of
them looked pretty sick, and
tolerable silly. They stood
there a thinking and
scratching their heads, a
minute, and then the duke he
bust into a kind of a little
raspy chuckle, and says:
“It does beat all, how neat
the niggers played their hand.
They let on to be sorry they
was going out of this region!
and I believed they was sorry.
And so did you, and so did
everybody. Don’t ever tell me
any more that a nigger ain’t
got any histrionicee talent.
Why, the way they played
that thing, it would fool
anybody. In my opinion
there’s a fortune in‘em. If I
had capital and a theatre, I
wouldn’t want a better lay out
than that—and here we’ve
gone and sold ’em for a song.
Yes, and ain’t privileged to
sing the song, yet. Say, where
is that song?—that draft.”
“In the bank for to be
collected. Where would it
be?”
 “Well, that’s all right then,
thank goodness.”
Says I, kind of timid-like:
“Is something gone
wrong?”
The king whirls on me and
rips out:
“None o’ your business!
You keep your head shet, and
mind y‘r own afiairs—if you
got any. Long as you’re in
this town, don’t you forgit
that, you hear?” Then he says
to the duke, “We got to jest
swaller it, and say noth’n:
mum’s the word for us.”
As they was starting down
the ladder, the duke he
chuckles again, and says:
“Quick sales and small
profits! It’s a good business
—yes.”
The king snarls around on
him and says,
“I was trying to do for the
best, in sellin’ ’m out so
quick. If the profits has
turned out to be none, lackin’
considable, and none to carry,
is it my fault any more’n it’s
yourn?”
“Well, they’d be in this
house yet, and we wouldn’t if
I could a got my advice
listened to.”
The king sassed back, as
much as was safe for him,
and then swapped around and
lit into me again. He give me
down the banks for not
coming and telling him I see
the niggers come out of his
room acting that way—said
any fool would a knowed
something was up. And then
waltzed in and cussed himself
a while; and said it all come
of him not laying late and
taking his natural rest that
morning, and he’d be blamed
if he’d ever do it again. So
they went off a jawing; and I
felt dreadful glad I’d worked
it all off onto the niggers and
yet hadn’t done the niggers
no harm by it.
 CHAPTER 28
By-and-by it was getting-up
time; so I come down the
ladder and started for down
stairs, but as I come to the
girls’ room, the door was
open, and I see Mary Jane
setting by her old hair trunk,
which was open and she’d
been packing things in it—
getting ready to go to
England. But she had stopped
now, with a folded gown in
her lap, and had her face in
her hands, crying. I felt awful
bad to see it; of course
anybody would. I went in
there, and says:
“Miss Mary Jane, you can’t
abear to see people in trouble,
and I can‘t—most always.
Tell me about it.”
So she done it. And it was
the niggers—I just expected
it. She said the beautiful trip
to England was most about
spoiled for her; she didn’t
know how she was ever going
to be happy there, knowing
the mother and the children
warn’t ever going to see each
other no more—and then
busted out bitterer than ever,
and flung up her hands, and
says:
“Oh, dear, dear, to think
they ain’t ever going to see
each other any more!”
 “But they will—and inside
of two weeks—and I know
it!” says I.
Laws it was out before I
could think!—and before I
could budge, she throws her
arms around my neck, and
told me to say it again, say it
again, say it again!
I see I had spoke too
sudden, and said too much,
and was in a close place. I
asked her to let me think a
minute; and she set there,
very impatient and excited,
and handsome, but looking
kind of happy and eased-up,
like a person that’s had a
tooth pulled out. So I went to
studying it out. I says to
myself, I reckon a body that
ups and tells the truth when
he is in a tight place, is taking
considerable many resks,
though I ain’t had no
experience, and can’t say for
certain; but it looks so to me,
anyway; and yet here’s a case
where I’m blest if it don’t
look to me like the truth is
better, and actuly safer, than a
lie. I must lay it by in my
mind, and think it over some
time or other, it’s so kind of
strange and unregular. I never
see nothing like it. Well, I
says to myself at last, I’m
agoing to chance it; I’ll up
and tell the truth this time,
though it does seem most like
setting down on a kag of
powder and touching it off
just to see where you’ll go to.
Then I says:
“Miss Mary Jane, is there
any place out of town a little
ways, where you could go
and stay three or four days?”
“Yes—Mr. Lothrop’s.
Why?”
“Never mind why, yet. If
I’ll tell you how I know the
niggers will see each other
again—inside of two weeks
—here in this house—and
prove how I know it—will
you go to Mr. Lothrop’s and
stay four days?”
“Four days!” she says; “I’ll
stay a year!”
“All right,” I says, “I don’t
want nothing more out of you
than just your word—I
druther have it than another
man’s kiss-the-Bible.” She
smiled, and reddened up very
sweet, and I says, “If you
don’t mind it, I’ll shut the
door—and bolt it.”
Then I come back and set
down again, and says:
“Don’t you holler. Just set
still, and take it like a man. I
got to tell the truth, and you
want to brace up, Miss Mary,
because it’s a bad kind, and
going to be hard to take, but
there ain’t no help for it.
These uncles of yourn ain’t
no uncles at all—they’re a
couple of frauds—regular
dead-beats. There, now we’re
over the worst of it—you can
stand the rest middling easy.”
It Jolted her up like
everything, of course; but I
was over the shoal wateref
now, so I went right along,
her eyes a blazing higher and
higher all the time, and told
her every blame thing, from
where we first struck that
young fool going up to the
steamboat, clear through to
where she flung herself onto
the king’s breast at the front
door and he kissed her sixteen
or seventeen times—and then
up she jumps, with her face
afire like sunset, and says:
“The brute! Come—don’t
waste a minute—not a second
—we’ll have them tarred and
feathered, and flung in the
river!”
Says I:
 “Cert‘nly. But do you
mean, before you go to Mr.
Lothrop’s, or—”
“Oh,” she says, “what am I
thinking about!” she says, and
set right down again. “Don’t
mind what I said—please
don‘t—you won’t, now, will
you?” Laying her silky hand
on mine in that kind of a way
that I said I would die first. “I
never thought, I was so
stirred up,” she says; “now go
on, and I won’t do so any
more. You tell me what to do,
and whatever you say, I’ll do
it.”
“Well,” I says, “it’s a
rough gang, them two frauds,
and I’m fixed so I got to
travel with them a while
longer, whether I want to or
not—I druther not tell you
why—and if you was to blow
on them this town would get
me out of their claws, and I’d
be all right, but there’d be
another person that you don’t
know about who’d be in big
trouble. Well, we got to save
him, hain’t we? Of course.
Well, then, we won’t blow on
them.”
Saying them words put a
good idea in my head. I see
how maybe I could get me
and Jim rid of the frauds; get
them jailed here, and then
leave. But I didn’t want to run
the raft in daytime, without
anybody aboard to answer
questions but me; so I didn’t
want the plan to begin
working till pretty late to-
night. I says:
“Miss Mary Jane, I’ll tell
you what we’ll do—and you
won’t have to stay at Mr.
Lothrop’s so long, nuther.
How fur is it?”
“A little short of four miles
—right out in the country,
back here.”
“Well, that’ll answer. Now
you go along out there, and
lay low till nine or half-past,
to-night, and then get them to
fetch you home again—tell
them you’ve thought of
something. If you get here
before eleven, put a candle in
this window, and if I don’t
turn up, wait till eleven, and
then if I don’t turn up it
means I’m gone, and out of
the way, and safe. Then you
come out and spread the news
around, and get these beats
jailed.“
“Good,” she says, “I’ll do
it.”
“And if it just happens so
that I don’t get away, but get
took up along with them, you
must up and say I told you the
whole thing beforehand, and
you must stand by me all you
can.”
 “Stand by you, indeed I
will. They sha‘n’t touch a
hair of your head!” she says,
and I see her nostrils spread
and her eyes snap when she
said it, too.
“If I get away, I sha‘n’t be
here,” I says, “to prove these
rapscallions ain’t your uncles,
and I couldn’t do it if I was
here. I could swear they was
beats and bummers, that’s all;
though that’s worth
something. Well, there’s
others can do that better than
what I can—and they’re
people that ain’t going to be
doubted as quick as I’d be.
I’ll tell you how to find them.
Gimme a pencil and a piece
of paper. There—’Royal
Nonesuch, Bricksville.‘ Put it
away, and don’t lose it. When
the court wants to find out
something about these two,
let them send up to
Bricksville and say they’ve
got the men that played the
Royal Nonesuch, and ask for
some witnesses—why, you’ll
have that entire town down
here before you can hardly
wink, Miss Mary. And they’ll
come a-biling, too.”
I judged we had got
everything fixed about right,
now. So I says:
“Just let the auction go
right along, and don’t worry.
Nobody don’t have to pay for
the things they buy till a
whole day after the auction,
on accounts of the short
notice, and they ain’t going
out of this till they get that
money—and the way we’ve
fixed it the sale ain’t going to
count, and they ain’t going to
get no money. It’s just like
the way it was with the
niggers—it warn’t no sale,
and the niggers will be back
before long. Why, they can’t
collect the money for the
niggers, yet—they’re in the
worst kind of a fix, Miss
Mary.”
“Well,” she says, “I’ll run
down to breakfast now, and
then I’ll start straight for Mr.
Lothrop’s.”
“‘Deed, that ain’t the
ticket, Miss Mary Jane,” I
says, “by no manner of
means; go before breakfast.”
“Why?”
“What did you reckon I
wanted you to go at all for,
Miss Mary?”
‘Well, I never thought—
and come to think, I don’t
know. What was it?“
“Why, it’s because you
ain’t one of these leather-face
people. I don’t want no better
book than what your face is.
A body can set down and
read it off like coarse print.
Do you reckon you can go
and face your uncles, when
they come to kiss you good-
morning, and never——”
“There, there, don‘t! Yes,
I’ll go before breakfast—I’ll
be glad to. And leave my
sisters with them?”
“Yes—never mind about
them. They’ve got to stand it
yet a while. They might
suspicion something if all of
you was to go. I don’t want
you to see them, nor your
sisters, nor nobody in this
town—if a neighbor was to
ask how is your uncles this
morning, your face would tell
something. No, you go right
along, Miss Mary Jane, and
I’ll fix it with all of them. I’ll
tell Miss Susan to give your
love to your uncles and say
you’ve went away for a few
hours for to get a little rest
and change, or to see a friend,
and you’ll be back to-night or
early in the morning.”
 “Gone to see a friend is all
right, but I won’t have my
love given to them.”
“Well, then, it sha‘n’t be.”
It was well enough to tell her
so—no harm in it. It was only
a little thing to do, and no
trouble; and it’s the little
things that smoothes people’s
roads the most, down here
below; it would make Mary
Jane comfortable, and it
wouldn’t cost nothing. Then I
says: “There’s one more thing
—that bag of money.”
“Well, they’ve got that;
and it makes me feel pretty
silly to think how they got it.”
“No, you’re out, there.
They hain’t got it.”
“Why, who’s got it?”
“I wish I knowed, but I
don’t. I had it, because I stole
it from them: and I stole it to
give to you; and I know
where I hid it, but I’m afraid
it ain’t there no more. I’m
awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane,
I’m just as sorry as I can be;
but I done the best I could; I
did, honest. I come nigh
getting caught, and I had to
shove it into the first place I
come to, and run—and it
warn’t a good place.”
“Oh, stop blaming yourself
—it’s too bad to do it, and I
won’t allow it—you couldn’t
help it; it wasn’t your fault.
Where did you hide it?”
I didn’t want to set her to
thinking about her troubles
again; and I couldn’t seem to
get my mouth to tell her what
would make her see that
corpse laying in the coffin
with that bag of money on his
stomach. So for a minute I
didn’t say nothing—then I
says:
“I’d ruther not tell you
where I put it, Miss Mary
Jane, if you don’t mind
letting me off; but I’ll write it
for you on a piece of paper,
and you can read it along the
road to Mr. Lothrop‘s, if you
want to. Do you reckon that’ll
do?”
“Oh, yes.”
So I wrote: “I put it in the
coffin. It was in there when
you was crying there, away in
the night. I was behind the
door, and I was mighty sorry
for you, Miss Mary Jane.”
It made my eyes water a
little, to remember her crying
there all by herself in the
night, and them devils laying
there right under her own
roof, shaming her and
robbing her; and when I
folded it up and give it to her,
I see the water come into her
eyes, too; and she shook me
by the hand, hard, and says:
“Good-bye.—I’m going to
do everything just as you’ve
told me; and if I don’t ever
see you again, I sha‘n’t ever
forget you, and I’ll think of
you a many and a many a
time, and I’ll pray for you,
too!”—and she was gone.
Pray for me! I reckoned if
she knowed me she’d take a
job that was more nearer her
size. But I bet she done it, just
the same—she was just that
kind. She had the grit to pray
for Juduseg if she took the
notion—there warn’t no
back-down to her, I judge.
You may say what you want
to, but in my opinion she had
more sand in her than any girl
I ever see; in my opinion she
was just full of sand. It
sounds like flattery, but it
ain’t no flattery. And when it
comes to beauty—and
goodness too—she lays over
them all. I hain’t ever seen
her since that time that I see
her go out of that door; no, I
hain’t ever seen her since, but
I reckon I’ve thought of her a
many and a many a million
times, and of her saying she
would pray for me; and if
ever I’d a thought it would do
any good for me to pray for
her, blamed if I wouldn’t a
done it or bust.
Well, Mary Jane she lit out
the back way, I reckon;
because nobody see her go.
When I struck Susan and the
hare-lip, I says:
“What’s the name of them
people over on t‘other side of
the river that you all goes to
see sometimes?”
They says:
“There’s several; but it’s
the Proctors, mainly.”
“That’s the name,” I says;
“I most forgot it. Well, Miss
Mary Jane she told me to tell
you she’s gone over there in a
dreadful hurry—one of
them’s sick.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know; leastways I
kinder forget; but I think it‘s
——”
“Sakes alive, I hope it ain’t
Hanner?”
“I’m sorry to say it,” I
says, “but Hanner’s the very
one.”
“My goodness—and she so
well only last week! Is she
took bad?”
“It ain’t no name for it.
They set up with her all night,
Miss Mary Jane said, and
they don’t think she’ll last
many hours.”
“Only think of that, now!
What’s the matter with her!”
I couldn’t think of anything
reasonable, right off that way,
so I says:
“Mumps.”
 “Mumps your granny!
They don’t set up with people
that’s got the mumps.”
“They don‘t, don’t they?
You better bet they do with
these mumps. These mumps
is different. It’s a new kind,
Miss Mary Jane said.”
“How’s it a new kind?”
“Because it’s mixed up
with other things.”
“What other things?”
“Well, measles, and
whooping-cough, and
erysiplas, and consumption,
and yaller janders,eh and brain
fever, and I don’t know what
all.”
“My land! And they call it
the mumps?”
“That’s what Miss Mary
Jane said.”
“Well, what in the nation
do they call it the mumps
for?”
“Why, because it is the
mumps. That’s what it starts
with.”
“Well, ther’ ain’t no sense
in it. A body might stump his
toe, and take pison, and fall
down the well, and break his
neck, and bust his brains out,
and somebody come along
and ask what killed him, and
some numskull up and say,
Why, he stumped his toe.‘
Would ther’ be any sense in
that? No. And ther’ ain’t no
sense in this, nuther. Is it
ketching?”
“Is it ketching? Why, how
you talk. Is a harrowei
catching?—in the dark? If
you don’t hitch onto one
tooth, you’re bound to on
another, ain’t you? And you
can’t get away with that tooth
without fetching the whole
harrow along, can you? Well,
these kind of mumps is a kind
of a harrow, as you may say
—and it ain’t no slouch of a
harrow, nuther, you come to
get it hitched on good.”
“Well, it’s awful, I think,”
says the hare-lip. “I’ll go to
Uncle Harvey and——”
“Oh, yes,” I says, “I would.
Of course I would. I wouldn’t
lose no time.”
“Well, why wouldn’t
you?”
“Just look at it a minute,
and maybe you can see.
Hain’t your uncles obleeged
to get along home to England
as fast as they can? And do
you reckon they’d be mean
enough to go off and leave
you to go all that journey by
yourselves? You know they’ll
wait for you. So fur, so good.
Your uncle Harvey’s a
preacher, ain’t he? Very well,
then; is a preacher going to
deceive a steamboat clerk? is
he going to deceive a ship
clerk?—so as to get them to
let Miss Mary Jane go
aboard? Now you know he
ain’t. What will he do, then?
Why, he’ll say, ‘It’s a great
pity, but my church matters
has got to get along the best
way they can; for my niece
has been exposed to the
dreadful pluribus-unum
mumps, and so it’s my
bounden duty to set down
here and wait the three
months it takes to show on
her if she’s got it.’ But never
mind, if you think it’s best to
tell your uncle Harvey——”
“Shucks, and stay fooling
around here when we could
all be having good times in
England whilst we was
waiting to find out whether
Mary Jane’s got it or not?
Why, you talk like a
muggins.”ej
“Well, anyway, maybe you
better tell some of the
neighbors.”
 “Listen at that, now. You
do beat all, for natural
stupidness. Can’t you see that
they’d go and tell? Ther’ ain’t
no way but just to not tell
anybody at all.”
“Well, maybe you’re right
—yes, I judge you are right.”
“But I reckon we ought to
tell Uncle Harvey she’s gone
out a while, anyway, so he
won’t be uneasy about her?”
“Yes, Miss Mary Jane she
wanted you to do that. She
says, ‘Tell them to give Uncle
Harvey and William my love
and a kiss, and say I’ve run
over the river to see Mr.—
Mr.—what is the name of that
rich family your uncle Peter
used to think so much of?—I
mean the one that——“
“Why, you must mean the
Apthorps, ain’t it?”
“Of course; bother them
kind of names, a body can’t
ever seem to remember them,
half the time, somehow. Yes,
she said, say she has run over
for to ask the Apthorps to be
sure and come to the auction
and buy this house, because
she allowed her uncle Peter
would ruther they had it than
anybody else; and she’s going
to stick to them till they say
they’ll come, and then, if she
ain’t too tired, she’s coming
home; and if she is, she’ll be
home in the morning anyway.
She said, don’t say nothing
about the Proctors, but only
about the Apthorps—which’ll
be perfectly true, because she
is going there to speak about
their buying the house; I
know it, because she told me
so, herself.”
“All right,” they said, and
cleared out to lay for their
uncles, and give them the
love and the kisses, and tell
them the message.
 Everything was all right
now. The girls wouldn’t say
nothing because they wanted
to go to England; and the
king and the duke would
ruther Mary Jane was off
working for the auction than
around in reach of Doctor
Robinson. I felt very good; I
judged I had done it pretty
neat—I reckoned Tom
Sawyer couldn’t a done it no
neater himself. Of course he
would a throwed more style
into it, but I can’t do that very
handy, not being brung up to
it.
Well, they held the auction
in the public square, along
towards the end of the
afternoon, and it strung along,
and strung along, and the old
man he was on hand and
looking his level pisonest, up
there longside of the
auctioneer, and chipping in a
little Scripture, now and then,
or a little goody-goody
saying, of some kind, and the
duke he was around goo-
gooing for sympathy all he
knowed how, and just
spreading himself generly.
But by-and-by the thing
dragged through, and
everything was sold.
Everything but a little old
trifling lot in the graveyard.
So they’d got to work that off
—I never see such a girafft as
the king was for wanting to
swallow everything. Well,
whilst they was at it, a
steamboat landed, and in
about two minutes up comes
a crowd a whooping and
yelling and laughing and
carrying on, and singing out:
“Here’s your opposition
line! here’s your two sets o’
heirs to old Peter Wilks—and
you pays your money and you
takes your choice!”
 CHAPTER 29
They was fetching a very nice
looking old gentleman along,
and a nice looking younger
one, with his right arm in a
sling. And my souls, how the
people yelled, and laughed,
and kept it up. But I didn’t
see no joke about it, and I
judged it would strain the
duke and the king some to see
any. I reckoned they’d turn
pale. But no, nary a pale did
they turn.ek The duke he
never let on he suspicioned
what was up, but just went a
goo-gooing around, happy
and satisfied, like a jug that’s
googling out butter-milk; and
as for the king, he just gazed
and gazed down sorrowful on
them newcomers like it give
him the stomach ache in his
very heart to think there could
be such frauds and rascals in
the world. Oh, he done it
admirable. Lots of the
principal people gethered
around the king, to let him
see they was on his side. That
old gentleman that had just
come looked all puzzled to
death. Pretty soon he begun
to speak, and I see, straight
off, he pronounced like an
Englishman, not the king’s
way, though the king’s was
pretty good, for an imitation.
I can’t give the old gent’s
words, nor I can’t imitate
him; but he turned around to
the crowd, and says, about
like this:
“This is a surprise to me
which I wasn’t looking for;
and I’ll acknowledge, candid
and frank, I ain’t very well
fixed to meet it and answer it;
for my brother and me has
had misfortunes, he’s broke
his arm, and our baggage got
put off at a town above here,
last night in the night by a
mistake. I am Peter Wilks’s
brother Harvey, and this is his
brother William, which can’t
hear nor speak—and can’t
even make signs to amount to
much, now’t he’s only got
one hand to work them with.
We are who we say we are;
and in a day or two, when I
get the baggage, I can prove
it. But, up till then, I won’t
say nothing more, but go to
the hotel and wait.”
 So him and the new
dummy started off; and the
king he laughs, and blethers
out:
“Broke his arm—very
likely ain’t it?—and very
convenient, too, for a fraud
that’s got to make signs, and
hain’t learnt how. Lost their
baggage! That’s mighty good!
—and mighty ingenious—
under the circumstances! ”
So he laughed again; and
so did everybody else, except
three or four, or maybe half a
dozen. One of these was that
doctor; another one was a
sharp looking gentleman,
with a carpet-bag of the old-
fashioned kind made out of
carpet-stuff, that had just
come off of the steamboat
and was talking to him in a
low voice, and glancing
towards the king now and
then and nodding their heads
—it was Levi Bell, the lawyer
that was gone up to
Louisville; and another one
was a big rough husky that
come along and listened to all
the old gentleman said, and
was listening to the king now.
And when the king got done,
this husky up and says:
“Say, looky here; if you are
Harvey Wilks, when’d you
come to this town?”
“The day before the
funeral, friend,” says the
king.
“But what time o’ day?”
“In the evenin‘—’bout an
hour er two before sundown.”
“How’d you come?”
“I come down on the Susan
Powell, from Cincinnati.”
“Well, then, how’d you
come to be up at the Pint in
the mornin—in a canoe?”
“I warn’t up at the Pint in
the mornin‘.”
 “It’s a lie.”
Several of them jumped for
him and begged him not to
talk that way to an old man
and a preacher.
“Preacher be hanged, he’s
a fraud and a liar. He was up
at the Pint that mornin‘. I live
up there, don’t I? Well, I was
up there, and he was up there.
I see him there. He come in a
canoe, along with Tim
Collins and a boy.”
 The doctor he up and says:
“Would you know the boy
again if you was to see him,
Hines?”
“I reckon I would, but I
don’t know. Why, yonder he
is, now. I know him perfectly
easy.”
It was me he pointed at.
The doctor says:
“Neighbors, I don’t know
whether the new couple is
frauds or not; but if these two
ain’t frauds, I am an idiot,
that’s all. I think it’s our duty
to see that they don’t get
away from here till we’ve
looked into this thing. Come
along, Hines; come along, the
rest of you. We’ll take these
fellows to the tavern and
affront them with t‘other
couple, and I reckon we’ll
find out something before we
get through.”
It was nuts for the crowd,
though maybe not for the
king’s friends; so we all
started. It was about
sundown. The doctor he led
me along by the hand, and
was plenty kind enough, but
he never let go my hand.
We all got in a big room in
the hotel, and lit up some
candles, and fetched in the
new couple. First, the doctor
says:
“I don’t wish to be too hard
on these two men, but I think
they’re frauds, and they may
have complices that we don’t
know nothing about. If they
have, won’t the complices get
away with that bag of gold
Peter Wilks left? It ain’t
unlikely. If these men ain’t
frauds, they won’t object to
sending for that money and
letting us keep it till they
prove they’re all right—ain’t
that so?”
 Everybody agreed to that.
So I judged they had our gang
in a pretty tight place, right at
the outstart. But the king he
only looked sorrowful, and
says:
“Gentlemen, I wish the
money was there, for I ain’t
got no disposition to throw
anything in the way of a fair,
open, out-and-out
investigation o’ this misable
business; but alas, the money
ain’t there; you k’n send and
see, if you want to.”
“Where is it, then?”
“Well, when my niece give
it to me to keep for her, I took
and hid it inside o’ the straw
tick o’ my bed, not wishin’ to
bank it for the few days we’d
be here, and considerin’ the
bed a safe place, we not bein’
used to niggers, and
suppos‘n’ ’em honest, like
servants in England. The
niggers stole it the very next
mornin’ after I had went
down stairs; and when I sold
‘em, I hadn’t missed the
money yit, so they got clean
away with it. My servant here
k’n tell you ’bout it,
gentlemen.”
The doctor and several said
“Shucks!” and I see nobody
didn’t altogether believe him.
One man asked me if I see the
niggers steal it. I said no, but
I see them sneaking out of the
room and hustling away, and
I never thought nothing, only
I reckoned they was afraid
they had waked up my master
and was trying to get away
before he made trouble with
them. That was all they asked
me. Then the doctor whirls on
me and says:
“Are you English too?”
I says yes; and him and
some others laughed, and
said, “Stuff!”
Well, then they sailed in on
the general investigation, and
there we had it, up and down,
hour in, hour out, and nobody
never said a word about
supper, nor ever seemed to
think about it—and so they
kept it up, and kept it up; and
it was the worst mixed-up
thing you ever see. They
made the king tell his yarn,
and they made the old
gentleman tell his’n; and
anybody but a lot of
prejudiced chuckleheadsel
would a seen that the old
gentleman was spinning truth
and t‘other one lies. And by-
and-by they had me up to tell
what I knowed. The king he
give me a left-handed look
out of the corner of his eye,
and so I knowed enough to
talk on the right side. I begun
to tell about Sheffield, and
how we lived there, and all
about the English Wilkses,
and so on; but I didn’t get
pretty fur till the doctor begun
to laugh; and Levi Bell, the
lawyer, says:
“Set down, my boy, I
wouldn’t strain myself, if I
was you. I reckon you ain’t
used to lying, it don’t seem to
come handy; what you want
is practice. You do it pretty
awkward.”
 I didn’t care nothing for the
compliment, but I was glad to
be let off, anyway.
The doctor he started to say
something, and turns and
says:
“If you’d been in town at
first, Levi Bell——”
The king broke in and
reached out his hand, and
says:
“Why, is this my poor dead
brother’s old friend that he’s
wrote so often about?”
The lawyer and him shook
hands, and the lawyer smiled
and looked pleased, and they
talked right along a while,
and then got to one side and
talked low; and at last the
lawyer speaks up and says:
“That’ll fix it. I’ll take the
order and send it, along with
your brother‘s, and then
they’ll know it’s all right.”
So they got some paper and
a pen, and the king he set
down and twisted his head to
one side, and chawed his
tongue, and scrawled off
something; and then they give
the pen to the duke—and then
for the first time, the duke
looked sick. But he took the
pen and wrote. So then the
lawyer turns to the new old
gentleman and says:
“You and your brother
please write a line or two and
sign your names.”34
The old gentleman wrote,
but nobody couldn’t read it.
The lawyer looked powerful
astonished, and says:
“Well, it beats me”—and
snaked a lot of old letters out
of his pocket, and examined
them, and then examined the
old man’s writing, and then
them again; and then says:
“These old letters is from
Harvey Wilks; and here’s
these two’s handwritings, and
anybody can see they didn’t
write them” (the king and the
duke looked sold and foolish,
I tell you, to see how the
lawyer had took them in),
“and here’s this old
gentleman’s handwriting, and
anybody can tell, easy
enough, he didn’t write them
—fact is, the scratches he
makes ain’t properly writing,
at all. Now here’s some
letters from——”
 The new old gentleman
says:
“If you please, let me
explain. Nobody can read my
hand but my brother there—
so he copies for me. It’s his
hand you’ve got there, not
mine.”
“Well!” says the lawyer,
“this is a state of things. I’ve
got some of William’s letters
too; so if you’ll get him to
write a line or so we can com
——”
“He can’t write with his
left hand,” says the old
gentleman. “If he could use
his right hand, you would see
that he wrote his own letters
and mine too. Look at both,
please—they’re by the same
hand.”
The lawyer done it, and
says:
“I believe it’s so—and if it
ain’t so, there’s a heap
stronger resemblance than I’d
noticed before, anyway. Well,
well, well! I thought we was
right on the track of a slution,
but it’s gone to grass, partly.
But anyway, one thing is
proved—these two ain’t
either of ‘em Wilkses”—and
he wagged his head towards
the king and the duke.
Well, what do you think?
—that muleheaded old fool
wouldn’t give in then! Indeed
he wouldn’t. Said it warn’t no
fair test. Said his brother
William was the cussedest
joker in the world, and hadn’t
tried to write—he see
William was going to play
one of his jokes the minute he
put the pen to paper. And so
he warmed up and went
warbling and warbling right
along, till he was actuly
beginning to believe what he
was saying, himself—but
pretty soon the new old
gentleman broke in, and says:
“I’ve thought of
something. Is there anybody
here that helped to lay out my
br—helped to lay out the late
Peter Wilks for burying?”
“Yes,” says somebody,
“me and Ab Turner done it.
We’re both here.”
Then the old man turns
towards the king, and says:
“Peraps this gentleman can
tell me what was tatooed on
his breast?”
Blamed if the king didn’t
have to brace up mighty
quick, or he’d a squshed
down like a bluff bank that
the river has cut under, it took
him so sudden—and mind
you, it was a thing that was
calculated to make most
anybody sqush to get fetched
such a solid one as that
without any notice—because
how was he going to know
what was tatooed on the man?
He whitened a little; he
couldn’t help it; and it was
mighty still in there, and
everybody bending a little
forwards and gazing at him.
Says I to myself, Now he’ll
throw up the sponge—there
ain’t no more use. Well, did
he? A body can’t hardly
believe it, but he didn’t. I
reckon he thought he’d keep
the thing up till he tired them
people out, so they’d thin out,
and him and the duke could
break loose and get away.
Anyway, he set there, and
pretty soon he begun to smile,
and says:
“Mf! It’s a very tough
question, ain’t it! Yes, sir, I
k’n tell you what’s tatooed on
his breast. It’s jest a small,
thin, blue arrow—that’s what
it is; and if you don’t look
clost, you can’t see it. Now
what do you say—hey?”
 Well, I never see anything
like that old blister for clean
out-and-out cheek.
The new old gentleman
turns brisk towards Ab
Turner and his pard, and his
eye lights up like he judged
he’d got the king this time,
and says:
“There—you’ve heard
what he said! Was there any
such mark on Peter Wilks’s
breast?”
 Both of them spoke up and
says:
“We didn’t see no such
mark.”
“Good!” says the old
gentleman. “Now, what you
did see on his breast was a
small dim P, and a B(which is
an initial he dropped when he
was young), and a W, with
dashes between them, so: P—
B—W”—and he marked
them that way on a piece of
paper. “Come—ain’t that
what you saw?”
Both of them spoke up
again, and says:
“No, we didn’t. We never
seen any marks at all.”
Well, everybody was in a
state of mind, now; and they
sings out:
“The whole bilin’ of’m ’s
frauds! Le’s duck ‘em! le’s
drown ’em! le’s ride ‘em on a
rail!” and everybody was
whooping at once, and there
was a rattling pow-wow. But
the lawyer he jumps on the
table and yells, and says:
“Gentlemen—gentlemen!
Hear me just a word—just a
single word—if you
PLEASE! There’s one way
yet—let’s go and dig up the
corpse and look.”
That took them.
“Hooray!” they all shouted,
and was starting right off; but
the lawyer and the doctor
sung out:
“Hold on, hold on! Collar
all these four men and the
boy, and fetch them along,
too!”
‘We’ll do it!“ they all
shouted: ”and if we don’t find
them marks we’ll lynch the
whole gang!“
I was scared, now, I tell
you. But there warn’t no
getting away, you know.
They gripped us all, and
marched us right along,
straight for the graveyard,
which was a mile and half
down the river, and the whole
town at our heels, for we
made noise enough, and it
was only nine in the evening.
As we went by our house I
wished I hadn’t sent Mary
Jane out of town; because
now if I could tip her the
wink, she’d light out and save
me, and blow on our dead-
beats.
Well, we swarmed along
down the river road, just
carrying on like wild- cats;
and to make it more scary, the
sky was darking up, and the
lightning beginning to wink
and flitter, and the wind to
shiver amongst the leaves.
This was the most awful
trouble and most dangersome
I ever was in; and I was
kinder stunned; everything
was going so different from
what I had allowed for; stead
of being fixed so I could take
my own time, if I wanted to,
and see all the fun, and have
Mary Jane at my back to save
me and set me free when the
close-fit come, here was
nothing in the world betwixt
me and sudden death but just
them tatoo-marks. If they
didn’t find them—
 I couldn’t bear to think
about it; and yet, somehow, I
couldn’t think about nothing
else. It got darker and darker,
and it was a beautiful time to
give the crowd the slip; but
that big husky had me by the
wrist—Hines—and a body
might as well try to give
Goliar the slip. He dragged
me right along, he was so
excited; and I had to run to
keep up.
 When they got there they
swarmed into the graveyard
and washed over it like an
overflow. And when they got
to the grave, they found they
had about a hundred times as
many shovels as they wanted,
but nobody hadn’t thought to
fetch a lantern. But they
sailed into digging, anyway,
by the flicker of the lightning,
and sent a man to the nearest
house a half a mile off, to
borrow one.
 So they dug and dug, like
everything; and it got awful
dark, and the rain started, and
the wind swished and
swushed along, and the
lightning come brisker and
brisker, and the thunder
boomed; but them people
never took no notice of it,
they was so full of this
business; and one minute you
could see everything and
every face in that big crowd,
and the shovelfuls of dirt
sailing up out of the grave,
and the next second the dark
wiped it all out, and you
couldn’t see nothing at all.
At last they got out the
coffin, and begun to unscrew
the lid, and then such another
crowding, and shouldering,
and shoving as there was, to
scrouge in and get a sight,
you never see; and in the
dark, that way, it was awful.
Hines he hurt my wrist
dreadful, pulling and tugging
so, and I reckon he clean
forgot I was in the world, he
was so excited and panting.
All of a sudden the
lightning let go a perfect
sluice of white glare, and
somebody sings out:
“By the living jingo, here’s
the bag of gold on his
breast!”
Hines let out a whoop, like
everybody else, and dropped
my wrist and give a big surge
to bust his way in and get a
look, and the way I lit out and
shinned for the road in the
dark, there ain’t nobody can
tell.
I had the road all to myself,
and I fairly flew—leastways I
had it all to myself except the
solid dark, and the now-and-
then glares,em and the
buzzing of the rain, and the
thrashing of the wind, and the
splitting of the thunder; and
sure as you are born I did clip
it along!
When I struck the town, I
see there warn’t nobody out
in the storm, so I never
hunted for no back streets,
but humped it straight
through the main one; and
when I begun to get towards
our house I aimed my eye and
set it. No light there; the
house all dark—which made
me feel sorry and
disappointed, I didn’t know
why. But at last, just as I was
sailing by, flash comes the
light in Mary Jane’s window!
and my heart swelled up
sudden, like to bust; and the
same second the house and all
was behind me in the dark,
and wasn’t ever going to be
before me no more in this
world. She was the best girl I
ever see, and had the most
sand.
 The minute I was far
enough above the town to see
I could make the towhead, I
begun to look sharp for a boat
to borrow; and the first time
the lightning showed me one
that wasn’t chained, I
snatched it and shoved. It was
a canoe, and warn’t fastened
with nothing but a rope. The
towhead was a rattling big
distance off, away out there
in the middle of the river, but
I didn’t lose no time; and
when I struck the raft at last, I
was so faggeden I would a just
laid down to blow and gasp if
I could afforded it. But I
didn’t. As I sprung aboard I
sung out:
“Out with you Jim, and set
her loose! Glory be to
goodness, we’re shut of
them!”
Jim lit out, and was a
coming for me with both
arms spread, he was so full of
joy; but when I glimpsed him
in the lightning, my heart shot
up in my mouth, and I went
overboard backwards; for I
forgot he was old King Lear
and a drownded A-rab all in
one, and it most scared the
livers and lights out of me.
But Jim fished me out, and
was going to hug me and
bless me, and so on, he was
so glad I was back and we
was shut of the king and the
duke, but I says:
 “Not now—have it for
breakfast, have it for
breakfast! Cut loose and let
her slide!”
So, in two seconds, away
we went, a sliding down the
river, and it did seem so good
to be free again and all by
ourselves on the big river and
nobody to bother us. I had to
skip around a bit, and jump
up and crack my heels a few
times, I couldn’t help it; but
about the third crack, I
noticed a sound that I knowed
mighty well—and held my
breath and listened and
waited—and sure enough,
when the next flash busted
out over the water, here they
come!—and just a laying to
their oars and making their
skiff hum! It was the king and
the duke.
So I wilted right down onto
the planks, then, and give up;
and it was all I could do to
keep from crying.
 CHAPTER 30
When they got aboard, the
king went for me, and shook
me by the collar, and says:
“Tryin’ to give us the slip,
was ye, you pup! Tired of our
company—hey?”
I says:
“No, your majesty, we
warn‘t—please don’t, your
majesty!”
 “Quick, then, and tell us
what was your idea, or I’ll
shake the insides out o’ you!”
“Honest, I’ll tell you
everything, just as it
happened, your majesty. The
man that had aholt of me was
very good to me, and kept
saying he had a boy about as
big as me that died last year,
and he was sorry to see a boy
in such a dangerous fix; and
when they was all took by
surprise by finding the gold,
and made a rush for the
coffin, he lets go of me and
whispers, ‘Heel it, now, or
they’ll hang ye, sure!’ and I
lit out. It didn’t seem no good
for me to stay—I couldn’t do
nothing, and I didn’t want to
be hung if I could get away.
So I never stopped running
till I found the canoe; and
when I got here I told Jim to
hurry, or they’d catch me and
hang me yet, and said I was
afeard you and the duke
wasn’t alive, now, and I was
awful sorry, and so was Jim,
and was awful glad when we
see you coming, you may ask
Jim if I didn’t.”
Jim said it was so; and the
king told him to shut up, and
said, “Oh, yes, it’s mighty
likely!” and shook me up
again, and said he reckoned
he’d drownd me. But the
duke says:
 “Leggo the boy, you old
idiot! Would you a done any
different? Did you inquire
around for him, when you got
loose? I don’t remember it.”
So the king let go of me,
and begun to cuss that town
and everybody in it. But the
duke says:
“You better a blame sight
give yourself a good cussing,
for you’re the one that’s
entitled to it most. You hain’t
done a thing, from the start,
that had any sense in it,
except coming out so cool
and cheeky with that
imaginary blue-arrow mark.
That was bright—it was right
down bully; and it was the
thing that saved us. For if it
hadn’t been for that, they’d a
jailed us till them
Englishmen’s baggage come
—and then—the penitentiary,
you bet! But that trick
took‘em to the graveyard, and
the gold done us a still bigger
kindness; for if the excited
fools hadn’t let go all holts
and made that rush to get a
look, we’d a slept in our
cravats to-night—cravats
warranted to wear, too—
longer than we’d need ’em.”
They was still a minute—
thinking—then the king says,
kind of absent-minded like:
“Mf! And we reckoned the
niggers stole it!”
 That made me squirm!
“Yes,” says the duke,
kinder slow, and deliberate,
and sarcastic. “We did.”
After about a half a minute,
the king drawls out:
“Leastways—I did.”
The duke says, the same
way:
“On the contrary—I˝ did.”
The king kind of ruffles up,
and says:
 “Looky here, Bilgewater,
what‘r you referrin’ to?”
The duke says, pretty brisk:
“When it comes to that,
maybe you’ll let me ask, what
was you referring to?”
“Shucks!” says the king,
very sarcastic; “but I don’t
know—maybe you was
asleep, and didn’t know what
you was about.”
The duke bristles right up,
now, and says:
 “Oh, let up on this cussed
nonsense—do you take me
for a blame’ fool? Don’t you
reckon I know who hid that
money in that coffin?”
“Yes, sir! I know you do
know—because you done it
yourself!”
“It’s a lie!”—and the duke
went for him. The king sings
out:
“Take y‘r hands off!—
leggo my throat!—I take it all
back!”
The duke says:
“Well, you just own up,
first, that you did hide that
money there, intending to
give me the slip one of these
days, and come back and dig
it up, and have it all to
yourself.”
“Wait jest a minute, duke
—answer me this one
question, honest and fair; if
you didn’t put the money
there, say it, and I’ll b‘lieve
you, and take back everything
I said.”
“You old scoundrel, I
didn‘t, and you know I didn’t.
There, now!”
“Well, then, I b‘lieve you.
But answer me only jest this
one more— now don’t git
mad; didn’t you have it in
your mind to hookeo the
money and hide it?”
The duke never said
nothing for a little bit; then he
says:
“Well—I don’t care if I
did, I didn’t do it, anyway.
But you not only had it in
mind to do it, but you done
it.”
“I wisht I may never die if
I done it, duke, and that’s
honest. I won’t say I warn’t
goin’ to do it, because I was;
but you—I mean somebody
—got in ahead o’ me.”
 “It’s a lie! You done it, and
you got to say you done it, or
—”
The king begun to gurgle,
and then he gasps out:
“ ‘Nough!—I own up!’
I was very glad to hear him
say that, it made me feel
much more easier than what I
was feeling before. So the
duke took his hands off, and
says:
“If you ever deny it again,
I’ll drown you. It’s well for
you to set there and blubber
like a baby—it’s fitten for
you, after the way you’ve
acted. I never see such an old
ostrich for wanting to gobble
everything—and I a trusting
you all the time, like you was
my own father. You ought to
been ashamed of yourself to
stand by and hear it saddled
onto a lot of poor niggers and
you never say a word for ‘em.
It makes me feel ridiculous to
think I was soft enough to
believe that rubbage. Cuss
you, I can see, now, why you
was so anxious to make up
the deffesitep—you wanted to
get what money I’d got out of
the Nonesuch and one thing
or another, and scoop it all!”
The king says, timid, and
still a snuffling:
“Why, duke, it was you
that said make up the
deffersit, it warn’t me.”
 “Dry up! I don’t want to
hear no more out of you!”
says the duke. “And now you
see what you got by it.
They’ve got all their own
money back, and all of ourn
but a shekel or two, besides.
G‘long to bed—and don’t
you deffersit me no more
deffersits, long ’s you live!”
So the king sneaked into
the wigwam, and took to his
bottle for comfort; and before
long the duke tackled his
bottle; and so in about a half
an hour they was as thick as
thieves again, and the tighter
they got, the lovinger they
got; and went off a snoring in
each other’s arms. They both
got powerful mellow, but I
noticed the king didn’t get
mellow enough to forget to
remember to not deny about
hiding the moneybag again.
That made me feel easy and
satisfied. Of course when
they got to snoring, we had a
long gabble,eq and I told Jim
everything.
 CHAPTER 31
Wedasn’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;er 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 a go at
yellocution;es 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
mesmerizering, 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’s
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 staid where we was.
The duke he fretted and
sweated around, and was in a
mighty sour way. He scolded
us for everything, and we
couldn’t seem to do nothing
right; he found fault with
every little thing. Something
was a-brewing, sure. I was
good and glad when midday
come and no king; we could
have a change, anyway—and
maybe a chance for the
change, on top of it. So me
and the duke went up to the
village, and hunted around
there for the king, and by-
and-by we found him in the
back room of a little low
doggery,et very tight, and a
lot of loafers bul lyragging
him for sport, and he a
cussing and threatening with
all his might, and so tight he
couldn’t walk, and couldn’t
do nothing to them. The duke
he began 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.”
“Wherebouts?” says I.
“Down to Silas Phelps’s
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 outeu—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 hundred 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 was it
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 to ever see anybody
from that town again, I’d be
ready to get down and lick his
boots for shame. That’s just
the way: a person does a low-
down thing, and then he don’t
want to take no consequences
of it. Thinks as long as he can
hide it, it ain’t no disgrace.
That was my fix exactly. The
more I studied about this, the
more my conscience went to
grinding me, and the more
wicked and low-down and
ornery I got to feeling. And at
last, when it hit me all of a
sudden that here was the plain
hand of Providence slapping
me in the face and letting me
know my wickedness was
being watched all the time
from up there in heaven,
whilst I was stealing a poor
old woman’s nigger that
hadn’t ever done me no harm,
and now was showing me
there’s One that’s always on
the lookout, and ain’t agoing
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 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 farmhouses, 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 a 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 aholt 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 powderhorn. 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 won‘t, 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’s. 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 32
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’s 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 onto 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 out-
buildings down a piece the
other side; ash-hopper,ev 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 pow-wow 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 him 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 onto
their mother’s gown, and
peeped out from behind her at
me, bashful, the way they
always do. And here comes
the white woman running
from the house, about forty-
five or fifty year old,
bareheaded, and her spinning-
stick in her hand; and behind
her comes her little white
children, acting the same way
the little niggers was doing.
She was smiling all over so
she could hardly stand—and
says:
“It’s you, at last!—ain’t
it?”
 I out with a “Yes‘m,”
before I thought.
She grabbed me and
hugged me tight; and then
gripped me by both hands and
shook and shook; and the
tears come in her eyes, and
run down over; and she
couldn’t seem to hug and
shake enough, and kept
saying, “You don’t look as
much like your mother as I
reckoned you would, but law
sakes, I don’t care for that,
I’m so glad to see you! Dear,
dear, it does seem like I could
eat you up! Childern, 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’s 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.”ew
“Good gracious! Anybody
hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a nigger.”35
“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
Babtist. 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.
Childern, 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 world 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 bolt-
headex 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, spose Tom
Sawyer come down on that
boat?—and spose 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 33
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 staid so; and he
swallowed two or three times
like a person that’s got a dry
throat, and then says:
“I hain’t ever done you no
harm. You know that. So
then, what you want to come
back and ha‘nt me for?”
I says:
“I hain’t come back—I
hain’t been gone.”
When he heard my voice, it
righted him up some, but he
warn’t quite satisfied yet. He
says:
 “Don’t you play nothing on
me, because I wouldn’t on
you. Honest injun, now, you
ain’t a ghost?”
“Honest injun, I ain‘t,” I
says.
“Well—I—I—well, that
ought to settle it, of course;
but I can’t somehow seem to
understand it, no way. Looky
here, warn’t you ever
murdered at all?”
“No. I warn’t ever
murdered at all—I played it
on them. You come in here
and feel of me if you don’t
believe me.”
So he done it; and it
satisfied him; and he was that
glad to see me again, he
didn’t know what to do. And
he wanted to know all about
it right off; because it was a
grand adventure, and
mysterious, and so it hit him
where he lived. But I said,
leave it alone till by-and-by;
and told his driver to wait,
and we drove off a little
piece, and I told him the kind
of a fix I was in, and what did
he reckon we better do? He
said, let him alone a minute,
and don’t disturb him. So he
thought and thought, and
pretty soon he says:
“It’s all right, I’ve got it.
Take my trunk in your
wagon, and let on it’s your’n;
and you turn back and fool
along slow, so as to get to the
house about the time you
ought to; and I’ll go towards
town a piece, and take a fresh
start, and get there a quarter
or a half an hour after you;
and you needn’t let on to
know me, at first.”
I says:
“All right; but wait a
minute. There’s one more
thing—a thing that nobody
don’t know but me. And that
is, there’s a nigger here that
I’m a trying to steal out of
slavery—and his name is Jim
—old Miss Watson’s Jim.”
He says:
“What! Why Jim is—”
He stopped and went to
studying. I says:
“I know what you’ll say.
You’ll say it’s dirty low-
down business; but what if it
is?—I’m low down; and I’m
agoing to steal him, and I
want you to 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.
Who ever 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
hunderd 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
school-house, 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 afront 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 owdaciousey 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’ll
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, somewhere’s;
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 middle of
it—it was as much as half-
after eight, then—here comes
a raging rush of people, with
torches, and an awful
whooping and yelling, and
banging tin pans and blowing
horns; and we jumped to one
side to let them go by; and as
they went by, I see they had
the king and the duke
astraddle of a rail—that is, I
knowed it was the king and
the duke, though they was all
over tar and feathers, and
didn’t look like nothing in the
world that was human—just
looked like a couple of
monstrous big soldier-
plumes. Well, it made me
sick to see it; and I was sorry
for them poor pitiful rascals,
it seemed like I couldn’t ever
feel any hardness against
them any more in the world.
It was a dreadful thing to see.
Human beings can be awful
cruel to one another.
We see we was too late—
couldn’t do no good. We
asked some stragglers about
it, and they said everybody
went to the show looking
very innocent; and laid low
and kept dark till the poor old
king was in the middle of his
cavortings on the stage; then
somebody give a signal, and
the house rose up and went
for them.
 So we poked along back
home, and I warn’t feeling so
brash as I was before, but
kind of ornery, and humble,
and to blame, somehow—
though I hadn’t done nothing.
But that’s always the way; it
don’t make no difference
whether you do right or
wrong, a person’s conscience
ain’t got no sense, and just
goes for him anyway. If I had
a yaller dog that didn’t know
no more than a person’s
conscience does, I would
pison him. It takes up more
room than all the rest of a
person’s insides, and yet ain’t
no good, nohow. Tom
Sawyer he says the same.
 CHAPTER 34
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 come 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 bul
linesses 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 the 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
agoing to do. So Tom says:
“What’s the vittles for?
Going to feed the dogs?”
The nigger kind of smiled
around graduly 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 day-break? 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, dish-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 nothn’ 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 35
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 awkard as
it can be. And so it makes it
so rotten difficult to get up a
difficult plan. There ain’t no
watchman to be drugged—
now there ought to be a
watchman. There ain’t even a
dog to give a sleeping-
mixture to. And there’s Jim
chained by one leg, with a
ten-foot chain, to the leg of
his bed: why, all you got to
do is to lift up the bedstead
and slip off the chain. And
Uncle Silas he trusts
everybody; sends the key to
the punkin-headed nigger,
and don’t send nobody to
watch the nigger. Jim could a
got out of that window hole
before this, only there
wouldn’t be no use trying to
travel with a ten-foot chain on
his leg. Why, drat it, Huck,
it’s the stupidest arrangement
I ever see. You got to invent
all the difficulties. Well, we
can’t help it, we got to do the
best we can with the materials
we’ve got. Anyhow, there’s
one thing—there’s more
honor in getting him out
through a lot of difficulties
and dangers, where there
warn’t one of them furnished
to you by the people who it
was their duty to furnish
them, and you had to contrive
them all out of your own
head. Now look at just that
one thing of the lantern.
When you come down to the
cold facts, we simply got to
let on that a lantern’s resky.
Why, we could work with a
torchlight procession if we
wanted to, I believe. Now,
whilst I think of it, we got to
hunt up something to make a
saw out of, the first chance
we get.”
“What do we want of a
saw?”
“What do we want of it?
Hain’t we got to saw the leg
of Jim’s bed off, so as to get
the chain loose?”
“Why, you just said a body
could lift up the bedstead and
slip the chain off.”
“Well, if that ain’t just like
you, Huck Finn. You can get
up the infant-schooliest ways
of going at a thing. Why,
hain’t you ever read any
books at all?—Baron Trenck,
nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto
Chel leeny, nor Henri IV., nor
none of them heroes?36
Whoever 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 seneskalez 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,fa or
Navarre,fb 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. Spose 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
clothes-line.”
He said that would do. And
that give 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.”
“Spose 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 Maskfc
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 anything; we
can get him some.”
“Can’t nobody read his
plates.”
“That ain’t got nothing 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 that 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,fd 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 agoing 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,fe 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
smouchff a couple of case-
knives.“fg
 “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
weatherboard ing behind the
smoke-house.”
He looked kind of weary
and discouraged-like, and
says:
 “It ain’t no use to try to
learn you nothing, Huck. Run
along and smouch the knives
—three of them.” So I done
it.
 CHAPTER 36
As soon as we reckoned
everybody was asleep, that
night, we went down the
lightning-rod, and shut
ourselves up in the lean-to,
and got out our pile of fox-
fire, and went to work. We
cleared everything out of the
way, about four or five foot
along the middle of the
bottom log. Tom said he was
right behind Jim’s bed now,
and we’d dig in under it, and
when we got through there
couldn’t nobody in the cabin
ever know there was any hole
there, because Jim’s
counterpinfh 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
he was thinking. Then he
says:
 “It ain’t no use, Huck, it
ain’t agoing 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 agoing 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 pick-ax
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 up
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 said 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
a while, 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 a
while, 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 wood-pile 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 onto 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 37
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 outfi 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 war-
whoop, 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‘es-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 onto 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!—spose
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‘s-line 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 ship-shape. 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 said she
didn’t care, and warn’t
agoing 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 washpans 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 in 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 washpan, 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 ships37 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 38
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 we had to have it; Tom
said we’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!fj Why,
Huck, spose 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’ arms; 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 hain’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;38 motto, Maggiore
fretta, minore atto.fk 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 out 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 onto 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
onto 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 agoing 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
outsuperintend 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 afeared
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 rattle snake 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 bullheaded
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’t
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 dad-
blamedest 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
ain’ 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 likes 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 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-stalksfl 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 yews-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 39
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 staid 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
allycum pain 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 considerble
spell. You’d see them
dripping from the rafters and
places, every now and then;
and they generly landed in
your plate, or down the back
of your neck, and most of the
time where you didn’t want
them. Well, they was
handsome, and striped, and
there warn’t no harm in a
million of them; but that
never made no difference to
Aunt Sally, she despised
snakes, be the breed what
they might, and she couldn’t
stand them no way you could
fix it; and every time one of
them flopped down on her, it
didn’t make no difference
what she was doing, she
would just lay that work
down and light out. I never
see such a woman. And you
could hear her whoop to
Jericho. You couldn’t get her
to take aholt of one of them
with the tongs. And if she
turned over and found one in
bed, she would scramble out
and lift a howl that you would
think the house was afire. She
disturbed the old man so, that
he said he could most wish
there hadn’t ever been no
snakes created. Why, after
every last snake had been
gone clear out of the house
for as much as a week, Aunt
Sally warn’t over it yet; she
warn’t near over it; when she
was setting thinking about
something, you could touch
her on the back of her neck
with a feather and she would
jump right out of her
stockings. It was very
curious. But Tom said all
women was just so. He said
they was made that way; for
some reason or other.
We got a licking every
time one of our snakes come
in her way; and she allowed
these lickings warn’t nothing
to what she would do if we
ever loaded up the place
again with them. I didn’t
mind the lickings, because
they didn’t amount to
nothing; but I minded the
trouble we had, to lay in
another lot. But we got them
laid in, and all the other
things; and you never see a
cabin as blithesome as Jim’s
was when they’d all swarm
out for music and go for him.
Jim didn’t like the spiders,
and the spiders didn’t like
Jim; and so they’d lay for him
and make it mighty warm for
him. And he said that
between the rats, and the
snakes, and the grindstone,
there warn’t no room in bed
for him, skasely; and when
there was, a body couldn’t
sleep, it was so lively, and it
was always lively, he said,
because they never all slept at
one time, but took turn about,
so when the snakes was
asleep the rats was on deck,
and when the rats turned in
the snakes come on watch, so
he always had one gang under
him, in his way, and t‘other
gang having a circus over
him, and if he got up to hunt a
new place, the spiders would
take a chance at him as he
crossed over. He said if he
ever got out, this time, he
wouldn’t ever be a prisoner
again, not for a salary.
Well, by the end of three
weeks, everything was in
pretty good shape. The shirt
was sent in early, in a pie, and
every time a rat bit Jim he
would get up and write a little
in his journal whilst the ink
was fresh; the pens was
made, the inscriptions and so
on was all carved on the
grindstone; the bed-leg was
sawed in two, and we had et
up the sawdust, and it give us
a most amazing stomach-
ache. We reckoned we was
all going to die, but didn’t. It
was the most undigestible
sawdust I ever see; and Tom
said the same. But as I was
saying, we’d got all the work
done, now, at last; and we
was all pretty much fagged
out, too, but mainly Jim. The
old man had wrote a couple
of times to the plantation
below Orleans to come and
get their runaway nigger, but
hadn’t got no answer, because
there warn’t no such
plantation; so he allowed he
would advertise Jim in the St.
Louis and New Orleans
papers; and when he
mentioned the St. Louis ones,
it give me the cold shivers,
and I see we hadn’t no time to
lose. So Tom said, now for
the nonnamous letters.
 “What’s them?” I says.
“Warnings to the people
that something is up.
Sometimes it’s done one way,
sometimes another. But
there’s always somebody
spying around, that gives
notice to the governor of the
castle. When Louis XVI. was
going to light out of the
Tooleries, a servant girl done
it. It’s a very good way, and
so is the nonnamous letters.
We’ll use them both. And it’s
usual for the prisoner’s
mother to change clothes with
him, and she stays in, and he
slides out in her clothes.
We’ll do that too.”
“But looky here, Tom,
what do we want to warn
anybody for, that something’s
up? Let them find it out for
themselves—it’s their
lookout.”
“Yes, I know; but you
can’t depend on them. It’s the
way they’ve acted from the
very start—left us to do
everything. They’re so
confiding and mullet-
headedfm 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 get
two-thirds around, she’d
whirl back again, and say it
again; and she was afraid to
go to bed, but she dasn’t set
up. So the thing was working
very well, Tom said; he said
he never see a thing work
more satisfactory. He said it
showed it was done right.
So he said, now for the
grand bulge! So the very next
morning at the streak of dawn
we got another letter ready,
and was wondering what we
better do with it, because we
heard them say at supper they
was going to have a nigger on
watch at both doors all night.
Tom he went down the
lightning-rod to spy around;
and the nigger at the back
door was asleep, and he stuck
it in the back of his neck and
come back. This letter said:
Don’t betray me, I wish
to be your friend. There
is a desprate gang of
cutthroats from over in
the Ingean Territory
going to steal your
runaway nigger to-night,
and they have been
trying to scare you so as
you will stay in the
house and not bother
them. I am one of the
gang, but have got
religgion and wish to
quit it and lead a honest
life again, and will
betray the helish design.
They will sneak down
from northards, along
the fence, at midnight
exact, with a false key,
and go in the nigger’s
cabin to get him. I am to
be off a piece and blow a
tin horn if I see any
danger; but stead of that,
I will BA like a sheep
soon as they get in and
not blow at all; then
whilst they are getting
his chains loose, you slip
there and lock them in,
and can kill them at your
leasure. Don’t do
anything but just the
way I am telling you, if
you do they will
suspicion something and
raise
whoopjamboreehoo. I do
not wish any reward but
to know I have done the
right thing.
Unknown Friend.
 CHAPTER 40
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 cubboard 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 spose 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 padlock; 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 onto 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
pow-wow 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 onto 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 as 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 considerble, 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!‘fn 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
gwyne 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 agoing for a
doctor. He raised considerble
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 see 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 41
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 see 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 shore.
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 out-run 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 a while
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 plumb
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
agoing 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 so 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 ’ts in his right
mind ’s agoin’ 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—natcheri 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! Thar’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 everything
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‘l? 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 anybody
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;fo 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 42
The old man was up town
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 bull-dog
tied to the door in the day
time; 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 enigh 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 till daylight this
morning; and I never see a
nigger that was a better nuss
or faith-fuller, and yet he was
resking 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 a 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 make 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 Harryfp 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 give 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 to 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 aholt 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 spose 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
reckened 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 k’n 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 agoing to no more.
But I reckon I got to light out
for the Territory ahead of the
rest, because Aunt Sally she’s
going to adopt me and sivilize
me and I can’t stand it. I been
there before.

THE END. YOURS TRULY,

HUCK FINN.
 ENDNOTES
Chapter 1
1 (p. 5) sivilized: Civilized.
Here and throughout the
novel Twain, by means of
willful misspelling, marks a
character’s speech as a
distinctive spoken dialect.
2 (p. 7) niggers: Because of
the casual use of this racial
epithet throughout the novel,
many readers have been put
off by Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. Many
have even believed the book
should be banned, despite the
fact—some would say
because of the fact—that
“nigger” is used by the
novel’s favorite characters,
including Jim, often with
affection. The challenge for
today’s reader is to confront
the word in all its violence
and contradictions, and to
consider its meaning for
various audiences—for
nineteenth-, twentieth-, and
twenty-first-century readers;
for blacks, whites, and those
of other races; for children
and adults. Readers also
should consider the fact that
much of the novel is satirical
—intended to spoof and
upend the prevailing values,
racial and otherwise, of the
characters and communities it
describes.
 Chapter 3
3 (p. 14) Providence: God or
godly care for all of creation.
Huck takes note of two views
of God: as forgiving protector
(the widow’s view) or as
terrible, swift judge (Miss
Watson’s). A continuing
theological meditation begins
here. A variety of meanings,
including “sheer luck,” are
attached to this word
throughout the book.
4 (p. 16) a book called ‘Don
Quixote“: Satirical chivalric
romance by Miguel de
Cervantes Saavedra (1547-
1616). The reference is to the
colorful imagination of the
novel’s hero and his idealistic
impulse to right incorrigible
wrongs.
Chapter 5
5 (p. 23) mustn’t ... take a
child away from its father.
Twain points to the hypocrisy
of this position—which
ironically enforces upon
Huck a cruel family situation
—in light of the routine
separation of black families
in slavery, which the reader
witnesses in chapter 27.
Chapter 6
6 (p. 27) would a thought he
was Adam: Huck compares
his father to the biblical first
man perhaps in the sense of
”as old as Adam“—that is,
Pap looks as though he has
been around for all of human
history. Or he may be
referring to the Bible, Genesis
2:6-7, which describes God’s
creation of Adam: ”A mist
went up from the earth and
watered the whole face of the
ground. And the Lord God
formed man of the dust of the
ground.“
7 (p. 27) ”Call this a
govment!“: Pap’s drunken
ravings reflect positions taken
by many American citizens of
the nineteenth century.
Certain of these issues—such
as, in the next paragraph, the
right of free blacks to vote—
persisted deep into the
twentieth century.
Chapter 8
8 (p. 42) ”she wouldn’ sell me
down to Orleans“: In the
geography of slavery, New
Orleans was an especially
dreaded location. To be sold
down the river to that city
was to be sent with slave-
dealers to the bottom of the
South, at the farthest possible
remove from family, then to
be sold again, presumably to
work in the fields.
Chapter 14
9 (p. 71) me reading the
books: Huck is a reader not
only of school lessons but of
books for pleasure. He is a
great reader, too, of
situations, of faces, and of
people’s motives and values.
10 (p. 74) ”Den he cain’t git
no situation. What he gwyne
to do?“: Here Twain directly
mirrors the tradition of
minstrel humor—the onstage
verbal play among white
actors in blackface (makeup
that makes a white person
appear black) enacting
exaggerated versions of black
language and body English.
And yet the humor is
irresistible. The black literary
critic Sterling A. Brown cites
this line as an example of
Twain’s realistic presentation
of the authentic nineteenth-
century Southern slave.
Where does the black humor
end and the white imitation
begin?
Chapter 15
11 (p. 79) ”Is I me, or who is
I? Is I heah, or whah is I?
Now dat’s what I wants to
know?“: Jim’s question
echoes a central concern—
some would say the central
concern—of the novel: that of
identity, particularly in
relation to place and time.
12 (p. 80) he must start in
and ” ‘terpret“ it: Here
Twain parodies the reader’s
impulse to read too much into
simple events. The twist is
that Jim’s reading of events to
come is not far wrong.
Chapter 16
13 (p. 81) so we took a smoke
on it and waited: In some
editions of Huckleberry Finn,
which was first published in
1884, a section called the
”raft passage“ or the
”raftmen’s passage“ appears
following this paragraph.
That section was originally
part of the manuscript of
Huckleberry Finn, but Twain
inserted it into chapter 3 of
Life on the Mississippi,
published in 1883. Because of
concern about matching the
length of Huckleberry Finn
with that of the highly
successful Adventures of Tom
Sawyer (1876), the section
was cut from the first edition
of Huckleberry Finn. The
present edition uses that first
edition as its primary model
and so maintains the cut.
14 (p. 82) ”give a nigger an
inch and he’ll take an ell“:
An ell is an obsolete measure
of length—45 inches—used
in nineteenth-century
England. The old expression
(”give a man an inch and
he’ll take an ell“) about a
person taking advantage of a
slight concession is racialized
here to echo an American
slave-owner’s watchword.
These words also evoke their
most famous literary use,
including the slave’s own
response to them, in the
Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass (1845).
As a slave, Douglass hears
his master upbraid his wife
for teaching young Douglass
to read: ”If you give a nigger
an inch, he will take an ell. A
nigger should know nothing
but to obey his master—to do
as he is told to do. Learning
would spoil the best nigger in
the world. If you teach that
nigger (speaking of myself)
how to read, there would be
no keeping him. It would
forever unfit him to be a
slave.“ For Douglass, these
words had the force of
revelation: ”From that
moment on,“ he wrote, ”I
understood the pathway from
slavery to freedom.“
15 (p. 87) here was the clear
Ohio water.... So it was all up
with Cairo: Having passed
Cairo, Huck and Jim are
heading south toward a more
punishing slavery. The Ohio
River was a route to freedom,
with many Underground
Railroad stops.
Chapter 17
16 (p. 93) ”Pilgrim’s
Progress“: A religious
allegory by John Bunyan, The
Pilgrim’s Progress from This
World to That Which Is to
Come (1678) was immensely
popular in nineteenth-century
America.
17 (p. 93) Henry Clay’s
Speeches: Henry Clay (1777-
1852) was one of the most
powerful American statesmen
and orators of the nineteenth-
century. He served as senator
and then congressman from
Kentucky, and as Speaker of
the House and secretary of
state, and he was a candidate
for the presidency. A
powerful slave-holder and
apologist for slavery, he
devised the ”Compromise of
1850,“ a political deal that
”saved the union“ with a
more rigorous Fugitive Slave
Act.
18 (p. 94) ”Shall I Never See
Thee More Alas“: Here and
in the following pages, Twain
satirizes the period’s
preoccupation with death,
including the death of pets.
Though expressing feelings in
a manner that is often
ridiculously false and
grotesque, the feud between
the two families—and indeed
the succession of scenes of
violence and death—ofiers a
context for the prevalence of
these sad verses and songs.
Chapter 18
19 (p. 97) He was well born
... worth as much in a man as
it is in a horse: One of
Twain’s most frequent
objects of satire was the idea
of southern gentlemen and
ladies whose noble goodness
derives from the purity of
their ancestry. The earned
character that Huck and Jim
possess is what counts with
Twain—not money or the
accidents of birth.
20 (p. 100) ”What’s a
feud?“: Huck’s innocent
question, and the ones that
follow, shed light on the
absurdity of this particular
feud and feuding in general.
A word with medieval
European roots, ”feud“ means
active hatred and hostility; it
names a state of perpetual
hostility between two families
or individuals, marked by
murderous assaults in revenge
for prior insult or injury. This
feud can suggest various lines
of hostility in the world of the
novel—not only between
black and white but between
rich and poor, North and
South.
21 (p. 101)
preforeordestination: Huck
collapses two mainstays of
Presbyterianism :
predestination and
foreordination; both refer to
the idea that God has decided
in advance on all matters,
including whether one will go
to heaven.
22 (p. 104) cut it pretty short:
This is one of several places
where Huck declines to tell
his readers something that is
painful for him to recall.
These silences are very
effective and add an air of
authenticity to his first-person
account, in which
understatement is a kind of
eloquence.
23 (p. 107) You feel mighty
free and easy and
comfortable on a raft: These
words lead to the chapter in
which life on the raft is
celebrated in beautiful
language reflecting the desire
on the part of Huck and Jim
to escape the trouble and
violence that characterize life
on the shore.
Chapter 19
24 (p. 111) big fat ratty-
looking carpet-bags: Made of
scraps of old carpet,
carpetbags grew in popularity
in the 1830s and 1840s with
the rapid expansion of
modern modes of travel. They
also came to signify Northern
speculators and confidence
men, scorned as
”carpetbaggers,“ who saw the
South as a place where they
could easily make money.
25 (p. 112) mesmerism and
phrenology: Mesmerism,
developed in the late
eighteenth century, was an
early system of hypnotism
that became discredited as a
medical practice and was
relegated to comic sideshows
and fantastic exhibitions.
Developed around 1800,
phrenology is the study of the
regions and shapes of the
human skull to determine an
individual’s characteristics
and mental faculties; it also
was reduced to a fortune-
teller’s trick and sideshow
act.
Chapter 20
26 (p. 122) picture of a
runaway nigger ... ”$200
reward“ under it. The
traveling conmen get set to
use a ruse aimed at African
Americans, slave and free.
The conmen would print a
small poster advertising
someone black as a runaway,
and then capture and sell that
person. The handbill serves as
”evidence“ of the person’s
status.
Chapter 21
27 (p. 123) lit his pipe, and
went to getting his Romeo
and Juliet by heart: Mention
of this play offers an
understated allusion to the
story of family feud and
secret love in chapter 18. The
paragraphs that follow reflect
the longstanding tradition in
the United States—in the
cities and on the frontier,
often in serious productions
—of presenting
Shakespeare’s works as
grotesquely gnarled and
reduced travesties.
28 (p. 124) ”the Highland
fling or the sailor’s
hornpipe“: The Highland
fling, a Scottish social dance
in which the arms and legs
are moved with great vigor,
was transported to American
social dances and theatrical
stages, including minstrel
shows. The sailor’s hornpipe
is a spirited dance usually
performed by a single person,
originally to the
accompaniment of a
hornpipe, a wind instrument
consisting of a wooden or
bone pipe with finger holes, a
bell, and a horn mouthpiece.
Beginning in the eighteenth
century, sailor’s hornpipes
were occasionally performed
on American stages, where,
lest they seem too low or
rude, the dances were offered
as part of a ”lecture.“
Chapter 22
29 (p. 133) bucks and
wenches: In the colloquial
language of slavery in the
United States, whites used
these terms to refer to
African-American males and
females.
30 (p. 134) ”If any real
lynching’s going to be done,
... Southern fashion“:
Expressing his views about
the rarity of human courage,
even in the face of outrageous
injustice, Twain registers his
disdain for the odious
American practice of
lynching—executing
someone accused of a crime
without legal due process.
While women and men, black
and white, were victims of
lynch mobs, in the period
following slavery black men
were most often the ones
killed in this way.
Chapter 23
31 (p. 142) He was thinking
about his wife ... does for
their’n: In this sentence, and
the ones concluding this
chapter, the reader gains a
sense of Jim as someone’s
husband and father, and
perhaps recalls Jim’s fervent
intention to free his wife and
children.
32 (p. 142) good nigger. This
phrase, part of the colloquial
language of slavery, generally
referred to a slave’s
dependability as a loyal
servant or as a work-horse.
But here Huck means that Jim
is a man for whom his
admiration and sympathies
are genuine and profound.
Chapter 26
33 (p. 158) ”better ’n we
treat our niggers?“: This was
an important question for
those debating the American
slavery system. One irony of
the nineteenth century was
the presence of former slaves
—including, for a time,
Frederick Douglass—in
England and on the European
continent, extolling the
freedom of the Old World
and blasting the slave system
in ”the land of the free.“
 Chapter 29
34 (p. 181) ’You and your
brother ... sign your names”:
The effort to prove identity
with physical evidence
fascinated Twain and is aptly
used in Huckleberry Finn, a
novel of disguises,
masquerades, and trickery.
The author would use a
similar plot device again in
his novel The Tragedy of
Pudd‘nhead Wilson (1894),
in which fingerprints are
brought forward in court to
prove an identity.
Chapter 32
35 (p. 201) ‘No’m. Killed a
nigger“: This is the most
famous statement of racial
prejudice in the novel. As
Huck manipulates the scene
he is setting with another
”stretcher,“ Twain’s satirical
knife is swift and sharp.
Chapter 35
36 (p. 216) ”Baron Trenck ...
none of them heroes?“:
Franz, Freiherr von der
Trenck (1711-1749) was an
Austrian officer and
adventurer. Giovanni
Casanova (1725-1798) was a
Venetian adventurer and
author. Benvenuto Cellini
(1500-1571) was an Italian
sculptor, metalsmith, and
author. Henry IV (1553-
1610) was king of France
from 1589 to 1610. These
well-known historical figures
all escaped from prison in
dramatic fashion.
Chapter 37
37 (p. 232) come over from
England... one of them early
ships: Twain mocks the
American impulse to claim an
exalted lineage based on
descent either from those who
sailed to the New World on
the Mayflower, which arrived
at Plym- outh Colony from
England in 1620, or from
someone else grandly
historical. William the
Conqueror was king of
England from 1066 to 1087.
Chapter 38
38 (p. 233) ”On the
scutcheon ... you and me“:
Huck and Tom start to create
for Jim a coat of arms,
employing some of the terms
of heraldry, a medieval
institution in which noble
individuals and families
displayed their insignia.
When collections of these
symbols were embroidered on
the coats worn over the chain
mail of knights, they became
known as coats of arms. The
symbols, called charges, are
displayed on a shield known
as an escutcheon; a bend is a
diagonal band across the
shield, a fess is a band across
the middle, and a chief is a
band at the top.
 INSPIRED BY
ADVENTURES OF
HUCKLEBERRY
FINN
I have written 400 pages on it—
therefore it is very nearly half
done. It is Huck Finn’s
Autobiography. I like it only tolerably
well, as far as I have got & may
possibly pigeonhole or burn the
MS when it is done.
—Mark Twain, from a letter
to William Dean Howells,
 August 9, 1876

Dramatic Adaptations
Twain’s lyrical use of dialect
and evocative descriptions of
landscapes in Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn have
provided material for several
adaptations to the musical
comedy form. On November
11, 1902, Klaw and
Erlanger’s production Mark
Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
opened in Hartford,
Connecticut. The play
included scenes from both
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry
Finn, as well as original
material—including a show
tune called “I Want to Be a
Drummer in the Band”—
created by Lee Arthur, who
adapted the novel for the
stage. Despite its title, this
production had little to do
with Mark Twain or his work.
It was the only musical
adaptation to appear during
Twain’s lifetime.
When he died in 1950,
German-American composer
Kurt Weill, perhaps best
known for his Three-Penny
Opera, was creating a
musical work based on the
novel, with book and lyrics
by Maxwell Anderson. The
five completed songs
—“River Chanty,” “Catfish
Song,” “Come In, Mornin‘,”
“This Time Next Year,” and
“Apple Jack”—are
sometimes sung in concert
performances and can be
heard on several CD
collections of Weill’s work.
Big River, a musical
adaptation of Huckleberry
Finn by Roger Miller and
William Hauptman, opened
on Broadway on April 25,
1985, featuring John
Goodman as Huck’s father. It
won seven Tony Awards,
including Best Musical, Best
Book, Best Score, and Best
Scenic Design, and ran for
more than 1,000
performances. Miller’s
musical numbers drew from
gospel, soul, and honky-tonk.

Sculpture
On May 27, 1926, in Mark
Twain’s childhood hometown
of Hannibal, Missouri, a
bronze sculpture of Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn was
unveiled. The figures embody
the spirit of adventure: Huck
sports his famous straw hat,
pushes a walking stick into
the ground, and looks up to
his hero Tom Sawyer, who
gazes forward confidently in
mid-step. The monument,
created by Frederick Hibbard,
stands at the base of Cardiff
Hill in the town that was the
model for the setting of
Twain’s two famous novels
of boyhood. The unveiling
was attended by ninety-year-
old Laura Frazer, who
inspired the character Becky
Thatcher in The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer.

The Banning of
Huckleberry Finn
Shortly after the novel was
published, a committee of the
public library of Concord,
Massachusetts, called
Huckleberry Finn “trash” and
banned the book from its
shelves in the belief that it
corrupted youth and the
English language itself. In
response, Twain wrote this
letter, published in the
Hartford Courant, to the
library directors:
A committee of the
public library of your
town have condemned
and excommunicated my
last book and doubled its
sale. This generous
action of theirs must
necessarily benefit me in
one or two additional
ways. For instance, it
will deter other libraries
from buying the book;
and you are doubtless
aware that one book in a
public library prevents
the sale of a sure ten and
a possible hundred of its
mates. And, secondly, it
will cause the purchasers
of the book to read it,
out of curiosity, instead
of merely intending to
do so, after the usual
way of the world and
library committees; and
then they will discover,
to my great advantage
and their own indignant
disappointment, that
there is nothing
objectionable in the
book after all.
Nonetheless, in 1957 the
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People claimed that
Huckleberry Finn was racist.
Within the context of the
burgeoning civil rights
movement, this charge was
enough for the New York
City school system to remove
the book from its curriculum.
The book continues to be
widely banned from schools
today, and the American
Library Association ranked
Huckleberry Finn number 5
on their list of the 100 most-
challenged books between
1990 and 1999.
 COMMENTS &
QUESTIONS
In this section, we aim to
provide the reader with an
array of perspectives on the
text, as well as questions that
challenge those perspectives.
The commentary has been
culled from sources as
diverse as reviews
contemporaneous with the
work, letters written by the
author, literary criticism of
later generations, and
appreciations written
throughout the history of the
book. Following the
commentary, a series of
questions seeks to filter Mark
Twain’s Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn through a
variety of points of view and
bring about a richer
understanding of this
enduring work.
 Comments
MARK TWAIN

I shall like it, whether

anybody else does or not.
—from a letter to William
Dean Howells, July 20, 1883

THE HARTFORD
COURANT

In his latest story,

Huckleberry Finn (Tom
Sawyer’s Comrade), by Mark
Twain, Mr. Clemens has
made a very distinct literary
advance over Tom Sawyer, as
an interpreter of human
nature and a contributor to
our stock of original pictures
of American life. Still
adhering to his plan of
narrating the adventures of
boys, with a primeval and
Robin Hood freshness, he has
broadened his canvas and
given us a picture of a people,
of a geographical region, of a
life that is new in the world.
The scene of his romance is
the Mississippi River. Mr.
Clemens has written of this
river before specifically, but
he has not before presented it
to the imagination so
distinctly nor so powerfully.
Huck Finn’s voyage down the
Mississippi with the runaway
nigger Jim, and with
occasionally other
companions, is an adventure
fascinating in itself as any of
the classic outlaw stories, but
in order that the reader may
know what the author has
done for him, let him notice
the impression left on his
mind of this lawless,
mysterious, wonderful
Mississippi, when he has
closed the book. But it is not
alone the river that is
indelibly impressed upon the
mind, the life that went up
and down it and went on
along its banks are projected
with extraordinary power.
Incidentally, and with a true
artistic instinct, the villages,
the cabins, the people of this
river become star tlingly real.
The beauty of this is that it is
apparently done without
effort. Huck floating down
the river happens to see these
things and to encounter the
people and the characters that
made the river famous forty
years ago—that is all. They
do not have the air of being
invented, but of being found.
And the dialects of the
people, white and black—
what a study are they; and yet
nobody talks for the sake of
exhibiting a dialect. It is not
necessary to believe the
surprising adventures that
Huck engages in, but no one
will have a moment’s doubt
of the reality of the country
and the people he meets.
 Another thing to be marked
in the story is its dramatic
power. Take the story of the
Southern Vendetta—a
marvelous piece of work in a
purely literary point of view
—and the episode of the duke
and the king, with its pictures
of Mississippi communities,
both of which our readers
probably saw in the Century
magazine. They are equaled
in dramatic force by nothing
recently in literature.
 We are not in this notice
telling the story or quoting
from a book that nearly
everybody is sure to read, but
it is proper to say that Mr.
Clemens strikes in a very
amusing way certain
psychological problems.
What, for instance, in the case
of Huck, the son of the town
drunkard, perverted from the
time of his birth, is
conscience, and how does it
work? Most amusing is the
struggle Huck has with his
conscience in regard to
slavery. His conscience tells
him, the way it has been
instructed, that to help the
runaway nigger Jim to escape
—to aid in stealing the
property of Miss Watson,
who has never injured him, is
an enormous offense that will
no doubt carry him to the bad
place; but his affection for
Jim finally induces him to
violate his conscience and
risk eternal punishment in
helping Jim to escape. The
whole study of Huck’s moral
nature is as serious as it is
amusing, his confusion of
wrong as right and his
abnormal mendacity,
traceable to his training from
infancy, is a singular
contribution to the
investigation of human
nature.
These contradictions,
however, do not interfere
with the fun of the story,
which has all the comicality,
all the odd way of looking at
life, all the whimsical turns of
thought and expression that
have given the author his
wide fame and made him sui
generis. The story is so
interesting, so full of life and
dramatic force, that the reader
will be carried along
irresistibly, and the time he
loses in laughing he will
make up in diligence to hurry
along and find out how things
come out.
—February 20, 1885

BOSTON EVENING
TRAVELLER

It is little wonder that Mr.

Samuel Clemens, otherwise
Mark Twain, resorted to real
or mock lawsuits, as may be,
to restrain some real or
imaginary selling of “The
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn” as a means of
advertising that
extraordinarily senseless
publication. Before the work
is disposed of, Mr. Mark
Twain will probably have to
resort to law to compel some
to sell it by any sort of
bribery or corruption. It is
doubtful if the edition could
be disposed of to people of
average intellect at anything
short of the point of the
bayonet. This publication
rejoices in two frontispieces,
of which the one is supposed
to be a faithful portrait of
Huckleberry Finn, and the
other an engraving of the
classic features of Mr. Mark
Twain as seen in the bust
made by Karl Gerhardt. The
taste of this gratuitous
presentation is as bad as is the
book itself, which is an
extreme statement. Mr.
Clemens has contributed
some humorous literature that
is excellent and will hold its
place, but his Huckleberry
Finn appears to be singularly
flat, stale and unprofitable.
The book is sold by
subscription.—March 5, 1885
—March 5, 1885

THE ATLANTA
CONSTITUTION

A very deplorable fact is that

the great body of literary
criticism is mainly
perfunctory. This is not due
to a lack of ability or to a lack
of knowledge. It is due to the
fact that most of it is from the
pens of newspaper writers
who have no time to elaborate
their ideas. They are in a
hurry, and what they write is
hurried. Under these
circumstances it is not
unnatural that they should
take their cues from
inadequate sources and give
to the public opinions that are
either conventional or that
have no reasonable basis.
All this is the outcome of
the conditions and
circumstances of American
life. There is no demand for
sound criticism any more
than there is a demand for
great poetry. We have a
leisure class, but its tastes run
towards horses, yachting and
athletic sports, in imitation of
the English young men who
occasionally honor these
shores with their presence.
The imitation, after all, is a
limping one. The young
Englishman of leisure is not
only fond of outdoor sports,
but of books. He has culture
and taste, and patronizes
literature with as much
enthusiasm as he does
physical amusements. If our
leisure class is to imitate the
English, it would be better if
the imitation extended
somewhat in the direction of
culture.
The American leisure class
—the class that might be
expected to patronize good
literature and to create a
demand for sound,
conservative criticism—is not
only fond of horses, but is
decidedly horsey. It is coarse
and uncultivated. It has no
taste in either literature or art.
It reads few books and buys
its pictures in Europe by the
yard.
We are led to these
remarks by the wholly
inadequate verdict that has
recently been given in some
of the most prominent
newspapers as to the merits of
Mark Twain’s new book,
“The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn.” The
critics seem to have gotten
their cue in this instance from
the action of the Concord
library, the directors of which
refused the book a place on
their shelves. This action, as
was afterwards explained,
was based on the fact that the
book was a work of fiction,
and not because of the
humorous characteristics that
are popularly supposed to
attach to the writings of Mr.
Clemens. But the critics had
got their cue before the
explanation was made, and
they straightway proceeded to
inform the reading public that
the book was gratuitously
coarse, its humor
unnecessarily broad, and its
purpose crude and inartistic.
Now, nothing could be
more misleading than such a
criticism as this. It is difficult
to believe that the critics who
have condemned the book as
coarse, vulgar and inartistic
can have read it. Taken in
connection with “The Prince
and the Pauper,” it marks a
clear and distinct advance in
Mr. Clemens’s literary
methods. It presents an
almost artistically perfect
picture of the life and
character in the southwest,
and it will be equally valuable
to the historian and to the
student of sociology. Its
humor, which is genuine and
never-failing, is relieved by
little pathetic touches here
and there that vouch for its
literary value.
It is the story of a half
illiterate, high-spirited boy
whose adventures are related
by himself. The art with
which this conception is dealt
with is perfect in all its
details. The boy’s point of
view is never for a moment
lost sight of, and the moral of
the whole is that this half
illiterate boy can be made to
present, with perfect
consistency, not only the
characters of the people
whom he meets, but an
accurate picture of their social
life. From the artistic point of
view, there is not a coarse nor
vulgar suggestion from the
beginning to the end of the
book. Whatever is coarse and
crude is in the life that is
pictured, and the picture is
perfect. It may be said that
the humor is sometimes
excessive, but it is genuine
humor—and the moral of the
book, though it is not
scrawled across every page,
teaches the necessity of
manliness and self-sacrifice.
—May 26, 1885

H. L. MENCKEN

What is the origin of the

prejudice against humor?
Why is it so dangerous, if you
would keep the public
confidence, to make the
public laugh?
Is it because humor and
sound sense are essentially
antagonistic? Has humanity
found by experience that the
man who sees the fun of life
is unfitted to deal sanely with
its problems? I think not. No
man had more of the comic
spirit in him than William
Shakespeare, and yet his
serious reflections, by the
sheer force of their sublime
obviousness, have pushed
their way into the race’s
arsenal of immortal
platitudes. So, too, with
Aesop, and with Lincoln and
Johnson, to come down the
scale. All of these men were
humorists, and yet all of them
performed prodigies of
indubitable wisdom. And
contrariwise, many an
undeniable pundit has had his
guffaw. Huxley, if he had not
been the greatest intellectual
duellist of his age, might have
been its greatest wit. And
Beethoven, after soaring to
the heights of tragedy in the
first movement of the Fifth
Symphony, turned to the
divine fooling, the irresistible
bull-fiddling of the scherzo.
No, there is not the
slightest disharmony between
sense and humor and
respectability, despite the
almost universal tendency to
assume that there is. But,
why, then, that widespread
error? What actual fact of life
lies behind it, giving it a
specious appearance of
reasonableness? None other, I
am convinced, than the fact
that the average man is far
too stupid to make a joke.
He may see a joke and love
a joke, particularly when it
floors and flabbergasts some
person he dislikes, but the
only way he can himself take
part in the priming and
pointing of a new one is by
acting as its target. In brief,
his personal contact with
humor tends to fill him with
an accumulated sense of
disadvantage, of pricked
complacency, of sudden and
crushing defeat; and so, by an
easy psychological process,
he is led into the idea that the
thing itself is incompatible
with true dignity of character
and intellect. Hence his deep
suspicion of jokers, however
their thrusts. “What a
damphool!”—this same half-
pitying tribute he pays to wit
and butt alike. He cannot
separate the virtuoso of
comedy from his general
concept of comedy itself, and
that concept is inextricably
mixed with memories of foul
ambuscades and mortifying
hurts. And so it is not often
that he is willing to admit any
wisdom in a humorist, or to
condone frivolity in a sage.
 In all this, I believe, there
is a plausible explanation of
the popular, and even of the
critical attitude toward the
late Samuel Langhorne
Clemens (Mark Twain).
Unless I am so wholly
mistaken that my only
expiation lies in suicide,
Mark was the noblest literary
artist who ever set pen to
paper on American soil, and
not only the noblest artist, but
also one of the most profound
and sagacious philosophers.
From the beginning of his
maturity down to his old age
he dealt constantly and
earnestly with the deepest
problems of life and living,
and to his consideration of
them he brought a truly
amazing instinct for the truth,
an almost uncanny talent for
ridding the essential thing of
its deceptive husks of
tradition, prejudice, flubdub
and balderdash. No man, not
even Nietzsche, ever did
greater execution against
those puerilities of fancy
which so many men mistake
for religion, and over which
they are so eager to dispute
and break heads. No man had
a keener eye for that element
of pretense which is bound to
intrude itself into all human
thinking, however serious,
however painstaking,
however honest in intent. And
yet, because the man had
humor as well as acumen,
because he laughed at human
weakness instead of weeping
over it, because he turned
now and then from the riddle
of life to the joy of lire—
because of this habit of mind
it is the custom to regard him
lightly and somewhat
apologetically, as one
debarred from greatness by
unfortunate infirmities.
William Dean Howells
probably knew him better
than any other human being,
but in all that Howells has
written about him one is
conscious of a conditioned
admiration, of a subtle fear of
allowing him too much merit,
of an ineradicable
disinclination to take him
quite seriously. The Mark that
Howells draws is not so much
a great artist as a glorious
enfant terrible. And even
William Lyon Phelps, a
hospitable and penetrating
critic, wholly loose of
orthodox shackles—even
Phelps hems and haws a bit
before putting Mark above
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and
is still convinced that “The
Scarlet Letter” is an
incomparably finer work of
art than “Huckleberry Finn.”
Well, such notions will die
hard, but soon or late, I am
sure, they will inevitably die.
So certain am I, indeed, of
their dying that I now
formally announce their death
in advance, and prepare to
wait in patience for the
delayed applause. In one of
his essays Dr. Phelps shows
how critical opinion of Mark
has gradually evolved from
scorn into indifference, and
from indifference into
toleration, and from toleration
into apologetic praise, and
from apologetic praise into
hearty praise. The stage of
unqualified enthusiasm is
coming—it has already cast
its lights before England—
and I am very glad to join the
lodge as a charter member.
Let me now set down my
faith, for the literary
archeologists of day after
tomorrow:
I believe that “Huckleberry
Finn” is one of the great
masterpieces of the world,
that it is the full equal of
“Don Quixote” and
“Robinson Crusoe,” that it is
vastly better than “Gil Blas,”
“Tristram Shandy,” “Nicholas
Nickleby” or “Tom Jones.” I
believe that it will be read by
human beings of all ages, not
as a solemn duty but for the
honest love of it, and over
and over again, long after
every book written in
America between the years
1800 and 1860, with perhaps
three exceptions, has
disappeared entirely save as a
classroom fossil. I believe
that Mark Twain had a clearer
vision of life, that he came
nearer to its elementals and
was less deceived by its false
appearances, than any other
American who has ever
presumed to manufacture
generalizations, not excepting
Emerson. I believe that,
admitting all his defects, he
wrote better English, in the
sense of cleaner, straighter,
vivider, saner English, than
either Irving or Hawthorne. I
believe that four of his books
—“Huck,” “Life on the
Mississippi,” “Captain
Stormfield’s Visit to
Heaven,” and “A Connecticut
Yankee”—are alone worth
more, as works of art and as
criticisms of life, than the
whole output of Cooper,
Irving, Holmes, Mitchell,
Stedman, Whittier and
Bryant. I believe that he ranks
well above Whitman and
certainly not below Poe. I
believe that he was the true
father of our national
literature, the first genuinely
American artist of the blood
royal. ... And what a man that
Mark Twain was! How he
stood above and apart from
the world, like Rabelais come
to life again, observing the
human comedy, chuckling
over the eternal fraudulence
of man! What a sharp eye he
had for the bogus, in religion,
politics, art, literature,
patriotism, virtue! What
contempt he emptied upon
shams of all sorts—and what
pity! Mr. Paine [Twain’s
biographer] reveals for us
very clearly, by quotation and
exposition, his habitual
attitude of mind. He regarded
all men as humbugs, but as
humbugs to be dealt with
gently, as humbugs too often
taken in and swindled by their
own humbuggery. He saw
how false reasoning, false
assumptions, false gods had
entered into the very warp
and woof of their thinking;
how impossible it was for
them to attack honestly the
problems of being; how
helpless they were in the face
of life’s emergencies. And
seeing all this, he laughed at
them, but not often with
malice. What genuine
indignation he was capable of
was leveled at life itself and
not at its victims. Through all
his later years the riddle of
existence was ever before
him. He thought about it
constantly; he discussed it
with everyone he knew; he
made copious notes of his
speculations. But he never
came to any soothing custom-
made conclusion. The more
he examined life, the more it
appeared to him to be without
meaning, and even without
direction; the more he
pondered upon the idea of
God, the more a definite idea
of God eluded him. In the
end, as Mr. Paine tells us, he
verged toward a hopeless
pessimism. Death seemed to
him a glad release, an
inestimable boon. When his
daughter Jean died, suddenly,
tragically, he wrote to her
sister: “I am so glad she is out
of it and safe—safe!”
It is this reflective,
philosophizing Clemens who
stands out most clearly in Mr.
Paine’s book. In his own
works, our glimpses of him
are all too brief. His wife and
his friends opposed his
speculations, perhaps wisely,
for the artist might have been
swallowed up in the sage. But
he wrote much to please
himself and left a vast mass
of unpublished manuscript
behind him. Certainly it is to
be hoped that these writings
will see the light, and before
long. One book described by
Mr. Paine, “Three Thousand
Years Among the Microbes,”
would appear to be a satire so
mordant and so large in scale
that his admirers have a plain
right to demand its
publication. And there should
be a new edition, too, of his
confession of doubt, “What is
Man?” of which a few copies
were printed for private
distribution in 1905. Yet
again we have a right to ask
for most if not all of his
unpublished stories and
sketches, many of which were
suppressed at the behest of
Mrs. Clemens, for reasons no
longer worth considering.
There is good ground for
believing that his reputation
will gain rather than suffer by
the publication of these
things, and in any case it can
withstand the experiment, for
“Huck Finn” and “Life on the
Mississippi” and the
“Connecticut Yankee” will
remain, and so long as they
remain there can be no
question of the man’s literary
stature. He was one of the
great artists of all time. He
was the full equal of
Cervantes and Moliere, Swift
and Defoe. He was and is one
authentic giant of our national
literature.
—from Smart Set (February
1913)
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

All modern American

literature comes from one
book by Mark Twain called
Huckleberry Finn.
—from Green Hills of Africa
(1935)

Questions
1. The Atlanta
Constitution refers to the
banning of Huckleberry
Finn by the Concord
library. Is it surprising
that the novel continues
to be widely banned? Is
this syndrome a product
of hasty criticism, as the
Constitution asserts?
2. What is to be made of
Mencken’s correlation
between humor and
philosophy? Both
Mencken and
Hemingway equate
Twain with the father of
modern American
literature. What is
distinctly modern and
distinctly American
about Twain’s writing?
Is he read today for the
same reasons Mencken
and Hemingway read
him?
3. Robert O‘Meally
describes Huck Finn as
engaged in a battle
between what Twain
called “a sound heart
and a deformed
conscience.” Is he right?
How do you understand
the distinction between
“heart” and
“conscience”?
4. Take a close look at a
passage of the novel’s
prose that strikes you as
particularly evocative.
How in particular is the
effect achieved? Try to
rewrite the passage in
standard English.
5. Is nature in
Huckleberry Finn
friendly or hostile? Is
American nature akin or
antithetical to the
American communities
Jim and Huck
encounter?
6. Is the last section of
the book, in which Huck
and Tom Sawyer play
their childish trick on
Jim, a mistake on
Twain’s part? Does it
undercut the rest of the
novel?
 FOR FURTHER
READING
Classic Essays
Eliot, T. S. Introduction.
Huckleberry Finn. 1950. In
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, edited by Sculley
Bradley et al. Norton Critical
Edition; second edition. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1977.
Ellison, Ralph. The Collected
Essays of Ralph Ellison.
Edited by John F. Callahan.
New York: Modern Library,
1995.
Ellison, Ralph. Conversations
with Ralph Ellison. Edited by
Maryemma Graham and
Amritjit Singh. Jackson:
University Press of
Mississippi, 1995.
Ellison, Ralph. “Richard
Wright’s Blues.” 1945.
Reprinted in Living with
Music: Ralph Ellison’s Jazz
Writings, edited by Robert G.
O‘Meally. New York:
Modern Library, 2001.
Fiedler, Leslie A. “Come
Back to the Raft Ag‘in, Huck
Honey!” 1948. In Mark
Twain, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn: A Case
Study in Critical Controversy,
edited by Gerald Graff and
James Phelan. Boston:
Bedford Books/St. Martin’s
Press, 1995.
Hemingway, Ernest. Green
Hills of Africa. 1935. Reprint:
New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1953.
Howells, William Dean. My
Mark Twain. 1910. In The
Shock of Recognition: The
Development of Literature in
the United States Recorded
by the Men Who Made It,
edited by Edmund Wilson.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1943.
Smith, Henry Nash.
Introduction. Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1958.
Trilling, Lionel. The Liberal
Imagination: Essays on
Literature and Society. 1950.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1953.
Warren, Robert Penn.
“Samuel Clemens (1835-
1910).” In American
Literature: The Makers and
the Making, edited by Cleanth
Brooks, R. W. B. Lewis, and
Robert Penn Warren. Vol. 2.
New York: St. Martins’
Press, 1973.

Bibliographical
Studies
De Voto, Bernard. Mark
Twain’s America. 1932.
Reprinted in Mark Twain’s
America, and Mark Twain at
Work. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1967.
Kaplan, Justin. Mr. Clemens
and Mark Twain. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1966.
Kaplan, Justin. Born to
Trouble: One Hundred Years
of Huckleberry Finn. Center
for the Book Viewpoint
Series, no. 13. Washington,
D.C.: Library of Congress,
1985.
Smith, Henry Nash. Mark
Twain: The Development of a
Writer. 1962. New York:
Atheneum, 1972.

New Critical
Directions
Bradley, David. [Untitled].
New Yorker (June 26, 1995),
p. 133.
Bradley, Sculley, et al., eds.
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn. Norton Critical Edition;
second edition. New York:
W. W. Norton, 1977.
Budd, Louis J., ed.
Introduction. In New Essays
on Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985.
Doyno, Victor A. Afterword.
In Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, by Mark Twain. The
Oxford Mark Twain. New
York: Oxford University
Press, 1996.
Fischer, Victor. “Huckleberry
Finn Reviewed: The
Reception of Huckleberry
Finn in the United States,
1885-1897.” American
Literary Realism 16 (1983).
Fishkin, Shelley Fisher.
Lighting Out for the
Territory: Reflections on
Mark Twain and American
Culture. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996.
Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. Was
Huck Black? Mark Twain and
African-American Voices.
New York: Oxford University
Press, 1993.
Gibson, Donald B. “Mark
Twain’s Jim in the
Classroom.” English Journal
57 (February 1968).
Graff, Gerald, and James
Phelan, eds. Mark Twain,
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn: A Case Study in Critical
Controversy. Boston: Bedford
Books/St. Martin’s Press,
1995.
Harris, Susan K. Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn:
Complete Text with
Introduction, Historical
Contexts, Critical Essays.
Riverside Edition. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Mailer, Norman.
“Huckleberry Finn, Alive at
100.” New York Times Book
Review (December 9, 1984).
Mason, Bobbie Ann.
[Untitled]. New Yorker (June
26, 1995), p. 130.
Morrison, Toni. Introduction.
In Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, by Mark Twain. The
Oxford Mark Twain. New
York: Oxford University
Press, 1996.
Rabinovitz, Jonathan. “Huck
Finn 101, or How to Teach
Twain Without Fear.” New
York Times (July 25, 1995),
pp. B1, B4.
Smiley, Jane. “Say It Ain’t
So, Huck: Second Thoughts
on Mark Twain’s
‘Masterpiece.‘ ” Harper’s
292 (January 1996).
Smith, David L. “Black
Critics and Mark Twain.” In
The Cambridge Companion
to Mark Twain, edited by
Forrest G. Robinson.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995.

Historical/Cultural
Contexts
Arac, Jonathan. Huckleberry
Finn as Idol and Target: The
Functions of Criticism in Our
Time. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1997.
Baker, Houston A. Blues,
Ideology, and Afro-American
Literature. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press,
1984.
Champion, Laurie, ed. The
Critical Response to Mark
Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
Westport, CT: Greenwood,
1991.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man.
New York: Vintage Books,
1972.
Foner, Eric. “Blacks and the
U.S. Constitution, 1789-
1989.” New Left Review 183
(September-October 1990).
Frederickson, George M. The
Black Image in the White
Mind: The Debate on Afro-
American Character and
Destiny, 1817-1914. 1971.
New York: Harper and Row,
1972.
Harding, Vincent, Robin D.
G. Kelley, and Earl Lewis.
We Changed the World:
African Americans, 1945-
1970. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Harris, Susan K. Mark
Twain’s Escape from Time: A
Study of Patterns and Images.
Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 1982.
Kelley, Robin D. G., and Earl
Lewis, eds. To Make Our
World Anew: A History of
African Americans. New
York: Oxford University
Press, 2000.
Kennedy, Randall. Nigger:
The Strange Career of a
Troublesome Word. New
York: Pantheon Books, 2002.
Murray, Albert. The Hero
and the Blues. Columbia:
University of Missouri Press,
1973.
Murray, Albert. South to a
Very Old Place. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1971.
O‘Meally, Robert, ed. The
Jazz Cadence of American
Culture. New York:
Columbia University Press,
1998.
Rourke, Constance. American
Humor: A Study of the
National Character. New
York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 1931.
Said, Edward W. Culture and
Imperialism. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
Smith, Henry Nash, and
William M. Gibson, eds.
Mark Twain-Howells Letters:
The Correspondence of
Samuel L. Clemens and
William D. Howells, 1872-
1910. 2 vols. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University
Press, 1960.
Sundquist, Eric, ed.
Introduction. Mark Twain: A
Callection of Critical Essays.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1994, pp. 1-14.
Toll, Robert C. Blacking Up:
The Minstrel Show in
Nineteenth-Century America.
New York: Oxford University
Press, 1974.
Twain, Mark. “Fenimore
Cooper’s Literary Offenses.”
In Mark Twain: Collected
Tales, Sketches, Speeches,
and Essays. Vol. 2, 1891-
1910. New York: The Library
of America, 1992.
 a
Edward Said used these terms
in a lecture at Columbia
University in April 2000.
b
William Dean Howells, My
Mark Twain, New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1910, p.
101.
c
Jonathan Arac, Huckleberry
Finn as Idol and Target: The
Functions of Criticism in Our
Time, Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1997.
d
Randall Kennedy, Nigger:
The Strange Career of a
Troublesome Word, New
York: Pantheon Books, 2002.
e
Sterling Brown, The Negro in
American Fiction, 1937,
reprint: New York:
Atheneum, 1969, pp. 67-68.
f
Brown, p. 68.
g
Reprinted in The Collected
Essays of Ralph Ellison,
edited by John F. Callahan,
New York: Modern Library,
1995, p. 88.
h
Ralph Ellison, “Change the
Joke and Slip the Yoke,”
reprinted in The Collected
Essays of Ralph Ellison, p.
112.
 i
Conversations with Ralph
Ellison, edited by Maryemma
Graham and Amritjit Singh,
Jackson: University Press of
Mississippi, 1995, p. 172.
Some of Ellison’s mixture of
feeling about Twain’s
creation is suggested in
Ellison’s novel Invisible Man,
New York: Vintage Books,
1972, in which a white
character named Emerson,
son of a company tycoon,
reveals to Invisible Man a
letter that has kept him
running in circles. “With us
it’s still Jim and Huck Finn,”
Emerson says to the young
black man. “A number of my
friends are jazz musicians,
and I’ve been around,” he
goes on. “I’m Huckleberry,
you see.” Thus white
Emerson’s gesture of
camaraderie, the moral
action, must be discerned
through a screen of well-
meaning condescension in
which Invisible Man is
ironically saddled with the
starkly limited role of Jim—a
now-realistic, now-minstrel
figure whom black readers
barely recognize as one of
their own. To compound the
irony—and perhaps to
underscore Ellison’s sense of
Twain‘s—Invisible Man sees
a black couple in Harlem
evicted onto the pavement
along with their belongings,
including “a pair of crudely
carved and polished bones,
’knocking bones,‘ used to
accompany music at country
dances, used in black-faced
minstrels; the flat ribs of a
cow, a steer or sheep, flat
bones that gave off a sound,
when struck, like heavy
castanets (had he been a
minstrel?) or the wooden
block of a set of drums” (p.
265). These evidences of a
minstrel past, of connection
to this tradition, may be
distasteful, but they figure as
part of black identity, too, as
we recall that not only white
men but black men blacked-
up for minstrel shows.
Distasteful as it may be, these
evidences of minstrelsy are
part of black American (and
white American) identity.
j
Morrison, Toni, “Re-Marking
Twain,” reprinted in
Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, edited by Susan K.
Harris, Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2000, p. 377.
k
Green Hills of Africa, 1935,
reprint: New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1953, p. 22.
l
Plessy v. Ferguson was
decided in 1896, but the
debates were alive as Twain
was completing Huckleberry
Finn.
m
It is true that at the time of
this novel’s creation, the form
of music called the blues was
just in the process of being
created. Twain could not have
modeled his narrative after
the form, but he used some of
its ingredients and habits of
mind in the making of his
work. Houston A. Baker, in
Blues, Ideology, and Afro-
American Literature
(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984), might
say that Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is part of a
blues-matrix— that is, it falls
within the broad network of
the blues form and feeling
whether it literally antedates
the musical form of the blues
itself or not.
n
This definition owes a lot to
Ralph Ellison’s essay
“Richard Wright’s Blues,”
1945, reprinted in Living with
Music, edited by Robert G.
O‘Meally, New York:
Modern Library, 2001, pp.
101-119; and to Albert
Murray’s Stomping the Blues,
New York: McGraw-Hill,
1976.
o
Murray speaks of this type of
American citizen in South to
a Very Old Place, New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1971.
p
For this insight, I am indebted
to Arac’s Huckleberry Finn
as Idol and Target, p. 34.
q
As Constance Rourke notes
in American Humor: A Study
of the National Character
(New York: Harcourt, Brace
and Company, 1931),
American storytellers,
“streaming nonsense,” were
nothing if not superb
improvisers. Huck, and, as
Rourke observes, Twain
himself, certainly were also
part of this brashly inventive
American vernacular
tradition.
r
Ralph Ellison, Going to the
Territory, New York:
Random House, 1986.
 s
Bernard De Voto, Mark
Twain’s America, 1932;
reprinted in Mark Twain’s
America, and Mark Twain at
Work, Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1967, pp. 65-66.
t
De Voto, p. 39.
u
Victor A. Doyno, “The
Composition of Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn,” reprinted
in Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, edited by Susan K.
Harris, Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2000, p. 12.
v
A word that refers to military
equipment. Twain’s use of it
here, to describe an imaginary
officer who patrols that which
is officially ordained or
properly sanctioned, sets the
stage for unself-conscious
comedy.
 w
Exaggerated accounts of the
facts. Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, with its
own truths tightly woven into
its form, is by definition a
“stretcher.”
x
A large barrel made to hold a
ship’s supply of sugar.
y
The story of Moses and the
bulrushes. See the Bible,
Exodus 2:3-10.
z
Going.
aa
Fatten up.
ab
Cast metal, usually gold or
silver and often brick-shaped.
ac
Jewelry.
ad
Mules domesticated for
packing or hauling.
ae
Fools.
af
An arrangement of bars or
steps meant to prevent the
escape of cattle or to force
people to pass one by one
through a wall or fence.
ag
Written down, foreordained.
ah
Beat; derives from tanning,
the process of converting an
animal skin into leather.
ai
Slang for “pay” or “hand
over”; from Spanish pongale,
for “put it down.”
aj
Bullied.
ak
Cheap whiskey, named for
the distance from which it
could make a person drunk. A
rod is 16.5 feet.
al
A violent state of mental and
physical disturbance,
characterized by
hallucinations and trembling;
induced by prolonged
excessive use of alcohol.
am
Cheap, homemade wooden
chair.
an
Idle talk, perhaps with a
motive to deceive.
ao
wood sized just right to build
a fire.
ap
A long, sturdy fishing line
that reaches across a stream,
bearing hooks hung by short
lines.
aq
Pronounced “sloo”; a place of
deep mud; a marsh or swamp.
 ar
Calm water, without much
current.
as
Starboard; the right side of a
vessel.
at
A superstition claimed that a
cannon’s explosion would
erupt the dead body’s gall
bladder and thus force the
body to rise to the water’s
surface.
 au
According to another
superstition, bread treated
with mercury (“quicksilver”)
and/or blessed by a preacher
would float toward a drowned
human body.
av
Baker’s bread came from a
bakery; corn-pone was a
meager home recipe of
cornmeal, salt, and water,
baked in an oven or cooked in
a frying pan.
aw
Near.
ax
Sand, in this context, means
“resolution” or “courage,”
and craw means “stomach.”
Huck is saying he didn’t feel
very self-confident.
ay
Slang for nervous fidgetiness,
fuss, and stomachache.
 az
Abolitionist; a participant in a
political movement to bring
about the end of slavery.
ba
A portion of cheap tobacco.
bb
Mud turtles.
bc
Hide is the cow’s skin; tallow
is the animal’s fat, used in
soap, candles, and margarine.
 bd
A single-bladed jackknife
designed in the eighteenth
century by Russell Barlow.
be
A small drawstring bag
carried by a woman as a
pocketbook or workbag.
bf
A metal comb typically for
grooming horses.
bg
Lively; clever; fresh.
bh
Twain has the Negro Jim
valued above Huck’s pap.
bi
Blades on a farm machine
used to sift and smooth the
soil.
bj
A mushmelon is a relative of
the cantaloupe.
bk
A steel cable that holds a
boat’s smokestack in place.
bl
This old saying is not from
the Bible. Twain spoofs the
impulse, in his time, to
attribute all wisdom to “de
good book.”
bm
The officers’ room, the
largest quarters, named for
what was then the largest
state in the union.
 bn
An enclosed space on the
front of the upper deck of a
boat, a shelter for the
helmsman and the steering
gear.
bo
A pole in front of the
hurricane deck.
bp
Near the stem (rear) of a
vessel.
bq
Crawled backward, like a
crawfish.
br
A rope used in a hanging.
bs
Larboard; the left side of a
vessel; also called the port
side.
bt
Acting sentimental;
pretending strong emotional
feelings.
 bu
A short staff at the front of a
boat from which a flag is
hung.
bv
Money.
bw
Eight dry quarts; a large
quantity.
bx
Got caught, entangled.
by
A slang euphemism for “darn
country” or “damnation.”
bz
Solomon, whose reign is
recounted in the Bible’s First
Book of Kings.
ca
In the Bible, wise King
Solomon settled a dispute
between two women over
who was the mother of a
child by proposing to cut the
infant in half. See the Bible, I
Kings 3:16-28.
cb
Consequence.
cc
Dauphin; in France, the eldest
prince.
cd
Huck means “Parlez-vous
français.”
ce
Pronounced “KAY-ro”; an
Illinois town on the
Mississippi River, at the
southern tip of free soil.
cf
A sandbar or other
obstruction making ripples in
a body of water; in his
notebooks Twain defined
“tow-head” as “an infant
island, a growing island.”
cg
Leeward; the side turned in
the opposite direction to the
wind, as opposed to
windward.
ch
Step in a process or on a
journey.
ci
Jacket.
cj
An annual published in
England. Twain disliked its
ornate artistic stylings and its
sentimental pictures and
poems.
 ck
Domestic Medicine, or Poor
Man’s Friend, in the Hours of
Affliction, Pain and Sickness
(1830), a handbook of home
medicine that was widely
used by rural families and
their doctors.
cl
Small amount.
cm
A long, heavy, sharp knife.
cn
Hand-printing in block
letters, as opposed to cursive
handwriting.
co
A stack of firewood.
cp
Cornbread biscuits.
cq
Good-humored American
slang for a clumsy or uncouth
fellow.
cr
A large, flat-bottomed boat.
cs
Suspenders.
ct
Colloquial abbreviation for
journeyman printer, one in
training for the trade.
cu
Ones who deceive or mislead.
cv
A mighty punch.
cw
The most famous British
actor of the late eighteenth
century.
cx
The calling to be a
professional actor.
cy
Played a role on stage as an
actor.
cz
The critical theory, stated by
Aristotle, that the art of
drama should be consistently
organized according to the
“unities” of place, time, and
action.
da
This long jumble of a speech
borrows from three of
Shakespeare’s dramas:
Hamlet, Macbeth,
and Richard III.
db
In the racially blunt language
of Twain’s era, this term
indicated a strong black wad
of tobacco, typically of an
inferior quality.
dc
A fool, usually a drunk.
dd
All of my business, as a
customer.
de
Foolish, funny pranks or
tricks.
df
Tricked, deceived.
 dg
Huck confuses Henry VIII
with the king in The Arabian
Nights.
dh
A large cask of malmsey, a
sweet wine.
di
Figure out.
dj
A round post or rod.
dk
Huck refers to the biblical
story of Noah, in the book of
Genesis, but mistakenly takes
the name from the third book
of the Old Testament.
dl
Boy.
dm
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
dn
One whose trade is to convert
animal skins into leather by
tanning them—that is,
treating them with tannic
acid.
do
A small boat for fishing,
often kept by a larger boat for
small trips.
dp
A person with a harelip, a
cleft caused by arrested
growth of the upper lip; the
name comes from its
resemblance to the lip of a
hare or rabbit.
 dq
Nonsense or trifling talk,
perhaps designed to mislead.
dr
A doxology, a brief church
song expressing praise and
thanksgiving. One of the best
known is “Praise God from
whom all blessings flow.”
ds
Colloquial past tense of the
verb “bleat”: to make the
sound of a sheep or goat.
Figuratively, as used here:
talked noisily, impulsively,
and hollowly.
dt
Gold coins of U.S. currency.
du
An orgy was an ancient
Greek or Roman rite that
involved extravagant dancing,
singing, and drinking;
originally it was a festival in
honor of the gods of bawdy
revelry and strong drink.
 dv
The correct term for funeral
rites.
dw
Valet; personal attendant.
dx
Water from Congress
Springs, New York,
renowned for its healing
power.
dy
A sharp scolding. The
reference is to the popular
hymn “A Funeral Thought,”
by Isaac Watt.
dz
To gather and store, as honey
is hived.
ea
Gently coaxing.
eb
Melodeon, a musical
instrument that—with
keyboard, foot-pedals, and
bellows—combines aspects
of the organ, accordion, and
reeds.
ec
Sickly.
ed
Contracts permitting buyers
to pay in installments on three
specified days.
ee
Theatrical.
ef
Shallow water; figuratively,
the dangerous, difficult part.
eg
She had the kindness and
independence of mind to pray
for Judas Iscariot, the
notorious betrayer of Jesus
Christ.
eh
Erysipelas is a serious skin
disease. Consumption is
another term for tuberculosis,
a deadly disease that was
more widespread in the
nineteenth century than it is
today. Jaundice is a disease
that gives the skin a yellow
cast.
ei
A plow with many blades that
sift and smooth the soil.
ej
Slang for a fool or simpleton.
ek
Colloquial phrase meaning
they did not turn the slightest
degree pale.
 el
Silly, stupid people.
em
Fireflies; lightning bugs.
en
Exhausted.
eo
Steal.
ep
Deficit; amount of money
owed or short of what is
necessary.
 eq
A rapid, noisy talk.
er
Moderation in or abstinence
from drinking alcohol.
es
Huck combines yelling and
elocution, the art of public
speaking.
et
A sleazy bar.
eu
Huck cleverly uses the
stereotyped view of the black
slave—as horrifically violent,
even against a child—to lend
an air of authenticity to his
tale.
ev
Barrel of lye and ashes for
making soap.
ew
The steamboat’s cylindrical
chamber in which the steam
acts upon the piston.
 ex
The head of a common bolt
or metal pin, like a screw’s
head.
ey
Audacious; bold.
ez
Seneschal; an official of a
medieval noble to whom
great authority over
household matters was
entrusted.
fa
Languedoc, a region and
former province in southern
France.
fb
The kingdom to which Henry
IV escaped from England.
fc
The hero of The Man in the
Iron Mask (serialized 1848-
1850), by Alexandre Dumas
the Elder (1802-1870).
fd
The luminescence that certain
fungi cause in decaying
wood.
fe
Chateau d‘If, in The Count of
Monte Cristo (1845,
translated 1846), by
Alexandre Dumas the Elder.
ff
Steal.
fg
Large kitchen knives.
 fh
Counterpane; bedspread.
fi
Pouring out in a rush of
liquid.
fj
Characters from William
Harrison Ainsworth’s
romance The Tower of
London (1840).
fk
A popular expression of the
time that actually means “the
more haste, the less action.”
fl
Stalks of a coarse, woolly,
tall, yellow flower.
fm
Stupid; a mullet is a
freshwater fish with a large,
flat head.
fn
Reputedly the last words of
King Louis XVI of France.
 fo
A state of despondent
abstraction or musing.
fp
The Devil.