HUCKLEBERRY FINN - Introduction

HUCKLEBERRY FINN

By Mark Twain



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.




EXPLANATORY

IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro
dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the
ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last.
The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork;
but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of
personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would
suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not
succeeding.

THE AUTHOR.





HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER I.

YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made
by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which
he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never
seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or
the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she is--and
Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is
mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money
that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six
thousand dollars apiece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money when
it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at
interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round
--more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took
me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough
living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and
decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no
longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again,
and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he
was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back
to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.
She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat
and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced
again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time.
When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to
wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the
victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them,--that
is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds
and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of
swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by
she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then
I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead
people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must
try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They
get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was
a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to 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. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it
on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to
think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I
most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled
in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing
about 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 horseshoe that you've found, instead of nailing it up over the
door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad
luck when you'd killed a spider.

I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;
for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't
know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go
boom--boom--boom--twelve licks; and all still again--stiller than ever.
Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees
--something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could
just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That was good! Says I,
"me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and
scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the
ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom
Sawyer waiting for me.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II.

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of
the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our
heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a
noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger,
named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty
clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his
neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

"Who dah?"

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right
between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes
and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close
together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I
dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right
between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well,
I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality,
or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy--if you
are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all
over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.
Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen
tell I hears it agin."

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up
against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched
one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into
my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside.
Next I got to itching 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 be witched him and put him in a trance,
and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again,
and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told
it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time
he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode
him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all
over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he
wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to
hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in
that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and
look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking
about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was
talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in
and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked
up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece
round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to
him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and
fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying 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 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 hilltop we looked away down
into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where
there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so
fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and
awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben
Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we
unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the
big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the
secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest
part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands
and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up.
Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall
where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a
narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold,
and there we stopped. Tom says:

"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name
in blood."

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote
the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and
never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in
the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family
must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed
them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band.
And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he
did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if
anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his
throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered
all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never
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. 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 III.

CHAPTER III.

WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on
account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned
off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would
behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and
prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and
whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it.
Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without
hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't
make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but
she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out
no way.

I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I
says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't
Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get
back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up?
No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the
widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it
was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what
she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for other
people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself.
This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods
and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no
advantage about it--except for the other 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. I judged I could see that there was two
Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the
widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for
him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the
widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to
be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant,
and so kind of low-down and ornery.

Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable
for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me
when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to
the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he
was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people
said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just
his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like
pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been
in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he was
floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the
bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of
something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his
back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a
woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I
judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he
wouldn't.

We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All
the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but
only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging
down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but
we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," and he
called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the cave and
powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and
marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to
run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which was
the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he had got
secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish
merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two
hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter"
mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard
of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called
it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our
swords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a
turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it,
though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them
till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than
what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of
Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I
was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the
word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn't no
Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. It
warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class at
that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we
never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a
rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher
charged in, and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no
di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them
there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and
things. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so
ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without
asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was
hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we
had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole
thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all
right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom
Sawyer said I was a numskull.

"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would
hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as
tall as a tree and as big around as a church."

"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help US--can't we lick the
other crowd then?"

"How you going to get them?"

"I don't know. How do THEY get them?"

"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come
tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke
a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it. They
don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and belting
a Sunday-school 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 flat-heads for not keeping
the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's
more--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would
drop my business and come to him for the 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 saphead."

I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron
ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like
an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't no
use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was
only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs
and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks
of a Sunday-school.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER IV.

WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter
now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and
write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six
times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any
further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in
mathematics, anyway.

At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.
Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next
day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the
easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways,
too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a
bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used
to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to
me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new
ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure,
and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me.

One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I
reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder
and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and
crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess
you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but that
warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I
started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering
where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is
ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them
kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited
and on the watch-out.

I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go
through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the
ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry
and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden
fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I
couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to
follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't
notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left
boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.

I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my
shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge
Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:

"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your
interest?"

"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"

"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--over a hundred and fifty
dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along
with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."

"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all
--nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it
to you--the six thousand and all."

He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:

"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"

I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take it
--won't you?"

He says:

"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"

"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me 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 t'other one is black.
De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail
in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him
at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble
in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en
sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well
agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light
en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to
marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way
fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in
de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."

When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap--his
own self!

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER V.

I HAD shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used
to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was
scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken--that is, after the
first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so
unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth
bothring about.

He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and
greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he
was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up
whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it
was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick,
a white to make a body's flesh crawl--a tree-toad white, a fish-belly
white. As for his clothes--just rags, that was all. He had one ankle
resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his
toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying
on the floor--an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair
tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was
up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By
and by he says:

"Starchy clothes--very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, DON'T
you?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.

"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on
considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg
before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say--can read and
write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he
can't? I'LL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such
hifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you you could?"

"The widow. She told me."

"The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
about a thing that ain't none of her business?"

"Nobody never told her."

"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here--you drop that
school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs
over his own father and let on to be better'n what HE is. You lemme
catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother
couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of
the family couldn't before THEY died. I can't; and here you're
a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--you hear?
Say, lemme hear you read."

I took up a book and begun something about 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
to-morrow--I want it."

"I hain't got no money."

"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."

"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell
you the same."

"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know
the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."

"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to--"

"It don't make no difference what you want it for--you just shell it
out."

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day.
When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me
for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I
reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me
to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me
if I didn't drop that.

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged
him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then
he swore he'd make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from
him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had
just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn't
interfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druther
not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow
had to quit on the business.

That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me
till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I
borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying
on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight;
then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed
him again for a week. But he said HE was satisfied; said he was boss of
his son, and he'd make it warm for HIM.

When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him.
So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and
had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just
old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about
temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a
fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over a new
leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge
would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug him
for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said he'd
been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said
he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down
was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again. And
when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:

"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.
There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more; it's
the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die before
he'll go back. You mark them words--don't forget I said them. It's a
clean hand now; shake it--don't be afeard."

So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The
judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge--made
his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something
like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was
the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and
clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his
new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old
time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and
rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most
froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they come
to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could
navigate it.

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform
the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VI.

WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went
for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he
went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of
times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him
or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much
before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That law trial was a
slow business--appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on
it; so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the
judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money
he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and
every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited--this kind
of thing was right in his line.

He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so she told him at last
that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him.
Well, WASN'T he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss. So
he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me
up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the
Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't no houses but an old
log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if
you didn't know where it was.

He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.
We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key
under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we
fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he
locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and
traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and
had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where I was by
and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap drove
him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was used to
being where I was, and liked it--all but the cowhide part.

It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking
and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and
my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got
to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on a
plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever
bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the
time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing, because
the widow didn't like it; but now I took to it again because pap hadn't
no 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 enough for a dog
to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly; it was too narrow. The
door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to leave a
knife or anything in the cabin when he was away; I reckon I had hunted
the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I was most all the time
at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time. But this
time I found something at last; I found an old rusty wood-saw without any
handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof.
I greased it up and went to work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed
against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep
the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out. I
got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a
section of the big bottom log out--big enough to let me through. Well,
it was a good long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I
heard pap's gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and
dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in.

Pap warn't in a good humor--so he was his natural self. He said he was
down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned
he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on
the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge
Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be
another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my
guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up
considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more
and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man
got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of,
and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any,
and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round,
including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names
of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went
right along with his cussing.

He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch
out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place
six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they
dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, but
only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that
chance.

The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got.
There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,
ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two
newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went
back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all
over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and
take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one
place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and
hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor
the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and
leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got
so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man
hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.

I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While
I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of
warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town,
and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body
would a thought he was Adam--he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor
begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says:

"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like.
Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him--a
man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and
all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son
raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for HIM
and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call THAT
govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher
up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law
does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and
jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in
clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't
get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to
just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I TOLD 'em so; I told
old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I
said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come
a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat--if you
call it a hat--but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till
it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like
my head was shoved up through a jint o' stove-pipe. Look at it, says I
--such a hat for me to wear--one of the wealthiest men in this town if I
could git my rights.

"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here.
There was a free nigger there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white as a
white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the
shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine
clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a
silver-headed cane--the 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 a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free
nigger, and--"

Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was
taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and
barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of
language--mostly hove at the nigger and the 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. That was always his word. I judged
he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key,
or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank, and tumbled down
on his blankets by and by; but luck didn't run my way. He didn't go
sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed around
this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldn't
keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about
I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.

I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an
awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping
around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was
crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say
one had bit him on the cheek--but I couldn't see no snakes. He started
and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take him off! take him off!
he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so wild in the eyes.
Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he rolled
over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and
striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying
there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by and by, and laid still a
while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could
hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed
terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he raised up
part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, very low:

"Tramp--tramp--tramp; that's the dead; tramp--tramp--tramp; they're
coming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me
--don't! hands off--they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!"

Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him
alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the
old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could
hear him through the blanket.

By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he
see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a
clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me,
and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged, and told him I was
only Huck; but he laughed SUCH a screechy laugh, and roared and cussed,
and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and dodged under his
arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders, and I
thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket quick as lightning, and
saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and dropped down with his
back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me.
He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and
then he would see who was who.

So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the old split-bottom chair
and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the
gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, then I
laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down
behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did
drag along.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VII.

"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 palavering all day, but out with you
and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be along in a
minute."

He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed
some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of
bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have
great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be
always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes
cordwood 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 t'other one out for
what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe;
just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high
like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog, clothes and
all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected there'd be
somebody 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 a piece just
drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen anything.

When he got along I was hard at it taking up a "trot" line. He abused me
a little for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, and that
was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he
would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the lines and went
home.

While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about
wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap
and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing
than 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 driftwood going by on the rise.
By and by along comes part of a log raft--nine logs fast together. We
went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner.
Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch
more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs was enough for one
time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and
took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three. I
judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had
got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that log
again. Before he was t'other side of the river I was out of the hole;
him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.

I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and
shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same
with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and
sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the
bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two
blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and
matches and other things--everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned
out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out
at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched
out the gun, and now I was done.

I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging
out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside
by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the
sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two
rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at
that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot
away and didn't know it was sawed, you wouldn't never notice it; and
besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely anybody
would go fooling around there.

It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I
followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the
river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods,
and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon
went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms.
I shot this 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 axe, and laid him down
on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground--hard packed,
and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks
in it--all I could drag--and I started it from the pig, and dragged it
to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and
down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been
dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he
would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy
touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as
that.

Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and
stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took
up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't drip)
till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the
river. Now I thought of 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
slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles
away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted
out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap's
whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident.
Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn't
leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.

It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some
willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made
fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in
the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll
follow the track of that 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. Think's I, maybe
it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me with the
current, and by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water, and
he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him. Well,
it WAS pap, sure enough--and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars.

I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down stream soft
but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then
struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river,
because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing, and people
might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and then laid
down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. I laid there, and had
a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky; not a
cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back
in the moonshine; I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear
on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry landing.
I heard what they said, too--every word of it. One man said it was
getting towards the long days and the short nights now. T'other one said
THIS warn't one of the short ones, he reckoned--and then they laughed,
and he said it over again, and they laughed again; then they waked up
another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped
out something brisk, and said let him alone. The first fellow said he
'lowed to tell it to his old woman--she would think it was pretty good;
but he said that warn't nothing to some things he had said in his time.
I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight
wouldn't wait more than about a week longer. After that the talk got
further and further away, and I couldn't make out the words 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!" 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 VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight
o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about
things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I could
see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all
about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places on
the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the
freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze
up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very
friendly.

I was powerful lazy and comfortable--didn't want to get up and cook
breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep
sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow
and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and
looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on
the water a long ways up--about abreast the ferry. And there was the
ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the
matter now. "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's
side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my
carcass come to the top.

I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire,
because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the
cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there,
and it always looks pretty on a summer morning--so I was having a good
enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to
eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in
loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the
drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and if
any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show. I changed
to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I
warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I most got it
with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of
course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore--I knowed
enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I
won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver,
and set my teeth in. It was "baker's bread"--what the quality eat; none
of your low-down corn-pone.

I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching
the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied. And then
something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or
somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and
done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing
--that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson
prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just
the right kind.

I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The
ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance
to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in
close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down
towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread,
and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where the
log forked I could peep through.

By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a
run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap,
and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer,
and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was
talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says:

"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's
washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I
hope so, anyway."

"I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly
in my face, and kept still, 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 catfish and haggled him
open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had
supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.

When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well
satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set
on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the
stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed;
there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't
stay so, you soon get over it.

And so for three days and nights. No difference--just the same thing.
But the next day I went 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
razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They
would all come handy by and by, I judged.

Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far
from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot
nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh home.
About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went
sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get
a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to
the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.

My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further,
but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever
I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves
and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else. I
slunk along another piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so
on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and
broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two
and I only got half, and the short half, too.

When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in
my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got
all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I
put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last
year's camp, and then clumb a tree.

I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I
didn't hear nothing--I only THOUGHT I heard and seen as much as a
thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I
got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time.
All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast.

By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and
dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the
Illinois bank--about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and
cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all
night when I hear a PLUNKETY-PLUNK, PLUNKETY-PLUNK, and says to myself,
horses coming; and next I hear people's voices. I got everything into
the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods
to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when I hear a man say:

"We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about
beat out. Let's look around."

I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the
old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.

I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every time
I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't do
me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm
a-going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me; I'll
find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off.

So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and then
let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining,
and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I poked
along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound asleep.
Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A little
ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying the
night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and brung her
nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge of the
woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the leaves. I
see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket the river.
But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, and knowed
the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had
run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I
hadn't no luck somehow; I couldn't seem to find the place. But by and
by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I
went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was close enough to have a
look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fantods.
He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I
set there behind a clump of bushes in about six foot of him, and kept my
eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he
gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss
Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says:

"Hello, Jim!" and skipped out.

He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees,
and puts his hands together and says:

"Doan' hurt me--don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz
liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in de
river agin, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz awluz
yo' fren'."

Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so
glad to see Jim. I warn't 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! W'y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a
gun. Dat's good. Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire."

So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a
grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and coffee,
and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the nigger was
set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done with
witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him with
his knife, and fried him.

When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot.
Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then
when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By and by
Jim says:

"But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty ef it
warn't you?"

Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom
Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says:

"How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?"

He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he
says:

"Maybe I better not tell."

"Why, Jim?"

"Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I uz to tell you,
would you, Huck?"

"Blamed if I would, Jim."

"Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I--I RUN OFF."

"Jim!"

"But mind, you said you wouldn' tell--you know you said you wouldn' tell,
Huck."

"Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest INJUN, I
will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for
keeping mum--but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-going to tell,
and I ain't a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all about
it."

"Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole missus--dat's Miss Watson--she pecks
on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she
wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader
roun' de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one
night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I
hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but
she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it
'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'. De widder she try to
git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'. I
lit out mighty quick, I tell you.

"I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a skift 'long de sho'
som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid in de
ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go 'way.
Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time. 'Long
'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er nine
every skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over to de
town en say you's killed. Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en genlmen
a-goin' over for to see de place. Sometimes dey'd pull up at de sho' en
take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to know all
'bout de killin'. I 'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but I ain't
no mo' now.

"I laid dah under de shavin's all day. I 'uz hungry, but I warn't
afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to de
camp-meet'n' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows I
goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to see me
roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de evenin'.
De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en take holiday
soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way.

"Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout two
mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my mine 'bout
what I's agwyne to do. You see, ef I kep' on tryin' to git away afoot,
de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey'd miss dat
skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de yuther side, en
whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I's arter; it doan'
MAKE no track.

"I see a light a-comin' roun' de p'int bymeby, so I wade' in en shove' a
log ahead o' me en swum more'n half way acrost de river, en got in
'mongst de drift-wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin de
current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck
a-holt. It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while. So I clumb
up en laid down on de planks. De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de middle,
whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz a-risin', en dey wuz a good current;
so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de mawnin' I'd be twenty-five mile down de
river, en den I'd slip in jis b'fo' daylight en swim asho', en take to
de woods on de Illinois side.

"But I didn' have no luck. When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de islan'
a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn't no use fer to
wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan'. Well, I had a
notion I could lan' mos' anywhers, but I couldn't--bank too bluff. I 'uz
mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I found' a good place. I went into de
woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as dey move de
lantern roun' so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some matches in
my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right."

"And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why didn't
you get mud-turkles?"

"How you gwyne to git 'm? You can't slip up on um en grab um; en how's a
body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in de night? En
I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime."

"Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of
course. Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon?"

"Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah--watched um
thoo de bushes."

Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting.
Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a sign when
young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when
young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldn't
let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once,
and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would
die, and he did.

And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for
dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the
table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and that
man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or
else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim said bees
wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that, 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't no use to a body. What you want to know when
good luck's a-comin' for? Want to keep it off?" And he said: "Ef you's
got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's agwyne to be
rich. Well, dey's some use in a sign like dat, 'kase it's so fur ahead.
You see, maybe you's got to be po' a long time fust, en so you might git
discourage' en kill yo'sef 'f you didn' know by de sign dat you gwyne to
be rich bymeby."

"Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?"

"What's de use to ax dat question? Don't you see I has?"

"Well, are you rich?"

"No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin. Wunst I had foteen
dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n', en got busted out."

"What did you speculate in, Jim?"

"Well, fust I tackled stock."

"What kind of stock?"

"Why, live stock--cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I
ain' gwyne to resk no mo' money in stock. De cow up 'n' died on my
han's."

"So you lost the ten dollars."

"No, I didn't lose it all. I on'y los' 'bout nine of it. I sole de hide
en taller for a dollar en ten cents."

"You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more?"

"Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto Bradish?
Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar would git fo'
dollars mo' at de en' er de year. Well, all de niggers went in, but dey
didn't have much. I wuz de on'y one dat had much. So I stuck out for
mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd start a bank mysef.
Well, o' course dat nigger want' to keep me out er de business, bekase he
says dey warn't business 'nough for two banks, so he say I could put in
my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de en' er de year.

"So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirty-five dollars right
off en keep things a-movin'. Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had ketched
a wood-flat, en his marster didn' know it; en I bought it off'n him en
told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en' er de year come; but
somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex day de one-laigged nigger
say de bank's busted. So dey didn' none uv us git no money."

"What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?"

"Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me to
give it to a nigger name' Balum--Balum's Ass dey call him for short; he's
one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But he's lucky, dey say, en I see I
warn't lucky. De dream say let Balum inves' de ten cents en he'd make a
raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in church he
hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po' len' to de Lord, en boun'
to git his money back a hund'd times. So Balum he tuck en give de ten
cents to de po', en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to come of it."

"Well, what did come of it, Jim?"

"Nuffn never come of it. I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no way; en
Balum he couldn'. I ain' gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see de
security. Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher says!
Ef I could git de ten CENTS back, I'd call it squah, en be glad er de
chanst."

"Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again
some time or other."

"Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth
eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'."