1884
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
by Mark Twain
NOTICE
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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.
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By Order of the Author
Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance
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EXPLANATORY
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In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri
negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western
dialect; the ordinary "Pike-County" dialect; and four modified
varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a
hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work; but 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.
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The Author
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CH_1
CHAPTER ONE
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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 wasn'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 the 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 was shining,
and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an
owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a
whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die;
and the wind was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn't make
out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then
away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost
makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and
can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave
and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so
down-hearted and scared, I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon
a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit
in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I
didn't need anybody to tell me that was an awful bad sign and would
fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off
of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed
my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with
a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that
when you've lost a horse-shoe that you've found, instead of nailing it
up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way
to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.
I set down again, a shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a
smoke; for the house was all as still as death, now, and so the
widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away
off in the town go boom- boom- boom-twelve licks- and all still again-
stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap, down in the dark
amongst the trees- something was a stirring. I set still and listened.
Directly I could just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That
was good! Says I, "me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put
out the light and scrambled out of the window onto the shed. Then I
slipped down to the ground and crawled in amongst the trees, and
sure enough there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
CH_2
CHAPTER TWO
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We went tip-toeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the
end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't
scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a
root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's
big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see
him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up
and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:
"Who dah?"
He listened some more; then he come tip-toeing down and stood
right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it
was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so
close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching; but
I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my
back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't
scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty of times since. If you
are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when
you ain't sleepy- if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to
scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.
Pretty soon Jim says:
"Say- who is you? What is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.
Well, I knows 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 the 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 over the world, and tired him most
to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous
proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other
niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he
was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers
would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if
he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark
by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to
know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you
know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a
back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece around his neck with
a string and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own
hands and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches
whenever he wanted to, just by saying something to it; but he never
told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around
there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that
five-center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had
had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined, for a servant, because he
got so stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by
witches.
Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill-top, we looked
away down into the village and could see three or four lights
twinkling, where there was sick folks, may be; and the stars over us
was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a
whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and
found Jo Harper, and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys,
hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the
river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went
ashore.
We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep
the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the
thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles and crawled in on
our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the
cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages and pretty soon
ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a
hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all
damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:
"Now we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.
Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his
name in blood."
Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the
band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done
anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill
that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he
mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their
breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong
to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if
he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to
the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then
have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and
his name blotted off the list with blood and never mentioned again
by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot, forever.
Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he
got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was
out of pirate books, and robber books, and every gang that was
high-toned had it.
Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told
the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and
wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family- what you going to do
'bout him?"
"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him, these days.
He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't
been seen in these parts for a year or more."
They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they
said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it
wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think
of anything to do- everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most
ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered
them Miss Watson- they could kill her. Everybody said:
"Oh, she'll do, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign
with, and I made my mark on the paper.
"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"
"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.
"But who are we going to rob? houses- or cattle- or-"
"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery, it's
burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort
of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road,
with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money."
"Must we always kill the people?"
"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but
mostly it's considered best to kill them. Except some that you bring
to the cave here and keep them till they're ransomed."
"Ransomed? What's that?"
"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and
so of course that's what we've got to do."
"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"
"Why blame it all, we've 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- 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 they won't be no place for the
robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."
Little Tommy Barnes was asleep, now, and when they waked him up he
was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and
didn't want to be a robber any more.
So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that
made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the
secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we
would all go home and meet next week and rob somebody and kill some
people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he
wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be
wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed
to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we
elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the
Gang, and so started home.
I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
dog-tired.
CH_3
CHAPTER THREE
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Well, I got a good going-over in the morning, from old Miss
Watson, on account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold,
but only cleaned off the grease and clay and looked so sorry that I
thought I would behave a while if I could. Then Miss Watson she took
me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to
pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't
so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any
good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times,
but somehow I couldn't make it work. By-and-by, one day, I asked
Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told
me why, and I couldn't make it out no way.
I set down, one time, back in the woods, and had a long think
about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray
for, why don't Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why
can't the widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why
can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in
it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a
body could get by praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too
many for me, but she told me what she meant- I must help other people,
and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them
all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss
Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my
mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it- except for
the other people- so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it
any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one
side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth
water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all
down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a
poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence,
but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more.
I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's, if
he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was agoing to be any
better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant
and so kind of low-down and ornery.
Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was
comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to
always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me;
though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was
around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drowned, about
twelve miles above town, so people said. They judged it was him,
anyway; said this drowned man was just his size, and was ragged, and
had uncommon long hair- which was all like pap- but they couldn't make
nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it
warn't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his
back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I
warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I
knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on
his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed
up in 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, we hadn't killed any
people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and
go charging down on hog-drovers and women in carts taking garden stuff
to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the
hogs "ingots," and he called the turnips and stuff "julery" and we
would go to the cave and pow-wow over what we had done and how many
people we had killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it.
One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick,
which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get
together), and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that
next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich Arabs 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 broom-sticks, and you might scour at them
till you rotted and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more
than what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd
of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants,
so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got
the word, we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there
warn't no Spaniards and Arabs, 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 Arabs
there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldn't we see
them, then? He said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book
called "Don Quixote," I would know without asking. He said it was
all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there,
and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he
called magicians, and they had turned the whole thing into an infant
Sunday school, just out of spite. I said, allright, then the thing for
us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a
numskull.
"Why," says he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and
they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack
Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church."
"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help us- can't we lick
the other crowd then?"
"How you going to get them?"
"I don't know. How do they get them?"
"Why they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies
come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and
the smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and
do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot tower up by the
roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with
it- or any other man."
"Who makes them tear around so?"
"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs
the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he
tells them to build a palace forty miles long, out of di'monds, and
fill it full of chewing gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an
emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do
it- and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And
more-they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever
you want it, you understand."
"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of 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 sap-head."
I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an
iron ring and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat
like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it
warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that
stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed
in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It
had all the marks of a Sunday school.
CH_4
CHAPTER FOUR
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Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the
winter, now. I had been to school most all the time, and could
spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the
multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't
reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live
forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand
it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I
got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to
school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the
widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a
house, and sleeping in a bed, pulled on me pretty tight, mostly, but
before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods,
sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best,
but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The
widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very
satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me.
One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast.
I reached for some of it as quick as I could, to throw over my left
shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of
me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away,
Huckleberry- what a mess you are always making." The widow put in a
good word for me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I
knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling
worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and
what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad
luck, but this wasn't one of them kind; so I never tried to do
anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down the front garden and clumb over the stile, where you
go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on
the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the
quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the
garden fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing
around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was
going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks
first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was
a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the
devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my
shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge
Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:
"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your
interest?"
"No sir," I says; "is there some for me?"
"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in, last night. Over a hundred and
fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You better let me invest it
along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."
"No sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all-
nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it
to you- the six thousand and all."
He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:
"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please.
You'll take it- won't you?" He says:
"Well I'm puzzled. I's 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, but I
had forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball and got down and listened
again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would
tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the
hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
"Yo'ole father doan' know, yit, what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes
he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way
is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels
hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en 'tother one
is black. De white one gits him to go right, a little while, den de
black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell, yit, which one
gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have
considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne
to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time
you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo'
life. One uv 'em's light en 'tother one is dark. One is rich en
'tother is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one
by-en-by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en
don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to
git hung."
When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night, there set
pap, his own self!
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