Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
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Date: 18.09.2002
NOTICE
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be
prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
By order of the author,
Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance.
EXPLANATORY
IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro
dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the
ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last.
The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork;
but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of
personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers
would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not
succeeding.
The author.
Chapter I.
YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by
Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he
stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen
anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the
widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly-Tom's Aunt Polly, she is-and Mary, and
the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true
book, with some stretchers, as I said before.
Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money
that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand
dollars apiece-all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled
up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it
fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round-more than a body could
tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and
allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all
the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all
her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into
my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But
Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of
robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be
respectable. So I went back.
The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.
She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat
and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced
again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When
you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait
for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the
victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them,-that
is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and
ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps
around, and the things go better.
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by
she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then
I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead
people.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try
to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get
down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was
a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody,
being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a
thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that
was all right, because she done it herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on,
had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a
spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the
widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour
it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't put
your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like that,
Huckleberry-set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap
and stretch like that, Huckleberry-why don't you try to behave?" Then she
told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got
mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres;
all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to
say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was
going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no
advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't
try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and
wouldn't do no good.
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good
place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day
long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it.
But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go
there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that,
because I wanted him and me to be together.
Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome.
By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody
was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on
the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of
something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished
I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods
ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody
that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was
going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I
couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over
me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost
makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't
make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go
about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I
did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my
shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I
could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that
that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was
scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in
my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up
a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn't
no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've found,
instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody
say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.
I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;
for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't
know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go
boom-boom-boom-twelve licks; and all still again-stiller than ever. Pretty
soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees-something was
a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a
"me-yow! meyow!" down there. That was good! Says I, "meyow! me-yow!" as
soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out of the
window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in
among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
Chapter II.
WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end
of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape
our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made
a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named
Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear,
because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out
about a minute, listening. Then he says:
"Who dah?"
He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right
between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes
and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together.
There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch
it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my
shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed
that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a
funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy-if you are
anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over
in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:
"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.
Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen
tell I hears it agin."
So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up
against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched
one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my
eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I
got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still.
This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed
a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I
reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth
hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he
begun to snore-and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me-kind of a little noise with his mouth-and we
went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom
whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no;
he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't
in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the
kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake
up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three
candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out,
and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must
crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him.
I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and
lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence,
and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of
the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a
limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake.
Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and
rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and
hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he
said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he
told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him
all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over
saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't
hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell
about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country.
Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over,
same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the
dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to
know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you
know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back
seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string,
and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told
him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to
just by saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to
it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they
had, just for a sight of that fivecenter piece; but they wouldn't touch
it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a
servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and
been rode by witches.
Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away
down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where
there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so
fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful
still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers,
and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched
a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on
the hillside, and went ashore.
We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the
secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest
part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands
and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up.
Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall
where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow
place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there
we stopped. Tom says:
"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name
in blood."
Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band,
and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy
in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family
must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed
them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band.
And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he
did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if
anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his
throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all
around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never
mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot
forever.
Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it
out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of
pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.
Some thought it would be good to kill the FAMILIES of boys that told
the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it
in. Then Ben Rogers says:
"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout
him?"
"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He
used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in
these parts for a year or more."
They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't
be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to
do-everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all
at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson-they could
kill her. Everybody said:
"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,
and I made my mark on the paper.
"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"
"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.
"But who are we going to rob?-houses, or cattle, or-"
"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary,"
says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are
highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and
kill the people and take their watches and money."
"Must we always kill the people?"
"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly
it's considered best to kill them-except some that you bring to the cave
here, and keep them till they're ransomed."
"Ransomed? What's that?"
"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so
of course that's what we've got to do."
"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"
"Why, blame it all, we've GOT to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the
books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and
get things all muddled up?"
"Oh, that's all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are
these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to
them?-that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?"
"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed,
it means that we keep them till they're dead. "
"Now, that's something LIKE. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said that
before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome
lot they'll be, too-eating up everything, and always trying to get loose."
"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard
over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"
"A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody's got to set up all night and
never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness.
Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?"
"Because it ain't in the books so-that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you
want to do things regular, or don't you?-that's the idea. Don't you reckon
that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do?
Do you reckon YOU can learn 'em anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir,
we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."
"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we
kill the women, too?"
"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill
the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch
them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by and
by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more."
"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.
Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows
waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers. But
go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."
Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was
scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't
want to be a robber any more.
So they all made fun of him, and called him crybaby, and that made him
mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom
give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet
next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he
wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to
do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together
and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first
captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.
I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
dog-tired.
Chapter III.
WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on
account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned
off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave
awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed,
but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I
asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a
fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried
for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By
and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a
fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way.
I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I
says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't Deacon
Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get back her
silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I
to my self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it,
and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was "spiritual
gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant-I must
help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look
out for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was
including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it
over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about
it-except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry
about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me
one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth water;
but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down
again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor
chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but if
Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more. I thought it
all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted me,
though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better off then
than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down
and ornery.
Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable
for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when
he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the
woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was
found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people said.
They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just his size,
and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap; but
they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the
water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he was floating
on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I
warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I
knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on his
face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a
man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would
turn up again by and by, though I wished he wouldn't.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All
the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only
just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on
hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we never
hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," and he called the
turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the cave and powwow over
what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked. But I
couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town
with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the
Gang to get together), and then he said he had got secret news by his
spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs
was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six
hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter" mules, all loaded down with
di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and
so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop
the things. He said we must slick up our swords and guns, and get ready.
He never could go after even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and
guns all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and
you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a
mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn't believe we
could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the
camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the
ambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down
the hill. But there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no
camels nor no elephants. It warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic,
and only a primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children
up the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam,
though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a
tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and
cut. I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was
loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and
elephants and things. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I
warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know
without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was
hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we
had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole thing
into an infant Sundayschool, just out of spite. I said, all right; then
the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was
a numskull.
"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they
would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They
are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church."
"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help US-can't we lick the
other crowd then?"
"How you going to get them?"
"I don't know. How do THEY get them?"
"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies
come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the
smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it. They
don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a
Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it-or any other man."
"Who makes them tear around so?"
"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs
the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells
them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full
of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughter from
China for you to marry, they've got to do it-and they've got to do it
before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they've got to waltz that
palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand."
"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flatheads for not keeping
the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's
more-if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop
my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp."
"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd HAVE to come when he rubbed it,
whether you wanted to or not."
"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then;
I WOULD come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was
in the country."
"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to
know anything, somehow-perfect saphead."
I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron
ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an
Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't no use,
none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only
just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and
the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks of a
Sunday-school.
Chapter IV.
WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter
now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and
write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six
times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any
further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in
mathematics, anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.
Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next
day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the
easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, too,
and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed
pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to
slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me.
I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too,
a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing
very satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me.
One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I
reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder
and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed
me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are
always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn't going
to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after
breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to
fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some
kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind; so I never tried to
do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go
through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground,
and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood
around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was
funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I couldn't make it
out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I
stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at
first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with
big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my
shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge
Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:
"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?"
"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"
"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night-over a hundred and fifty
dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along
with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."
"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at
all-nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it
to you-the six thousand and all."
He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:
"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take
it-won't you?"
He says:
"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"
"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing-then I won't have
to tell no lies."
He studied a while, and then he says:
"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to SELL all your property to me-not
give it. That's the correct idea."
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have bought
it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign it."
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which
had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic
with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed
everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again,
for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was
going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said
something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It
fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and
then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees,
and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use; he said it
wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told
him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the
brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even
if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so
that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about
the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but
maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the
difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would
manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split
open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there
all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't
feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let
alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had
forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened
again. This time he said the hairball was all right. He said it would tell
my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hairball talked
to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he
spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to res'
easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin' roun'
'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black. De white
one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust
it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'.
But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en
considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to
git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals
flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark.
One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de
rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin,
en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git
hung."
When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat
pap-his own self!
Chapter V.
I HAD shut the door to. Then I turned around. and there he was. I used
to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was
scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken-that is, after the
first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so
unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth
bothring about.
He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and
greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he
was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up
whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it was
white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a
white to make a body's flesh crawl-a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white.
As for his clothes-just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on
t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck
through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the
floor-an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair
tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up;
so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By and by
he says:
"Starchy clothes-very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, DON'T
you?"
"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on
considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg
before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say-can read and
write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he
can't? I'LL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such
hifalut'n foolishness, hey?-who told you you could?"
"The widow. She told me."
"The widow, hey?-and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
about a thing that ain't none of her business?"
"Nobody never told her."
"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here-you drop that
school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over
his own father and let on to be better'n what HE is. You lemme catch you
fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and
she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't
before THEY died. I can't; and here you're a-swelling yourself up like
this. I ain't the man to stand it-you hear? Say, lemme hear you read."
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the
wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack
with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you,
my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First
you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son.
He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and
says:
"What's this?"
"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."
He tore it up, and says:
"I'll give you something better-I'll give you a cowhide.
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
"AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a
look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor-and your own father got
to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet I'll
take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. Why, there
ain't no end to your airs-they say you're rich. Hey?-how's that?"
"They lie-that's how."
"Looky here-mind how yo