Part 5 - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Audiobook by Mark Twain (Chs 35-43)

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