CH_32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
-
When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and
sunshiny- the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of
faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so
lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans
along and quivers the leaves, it makes you feel mournful, because
you feel like it's spirits whispering-spirits that's been dead ever so
many years- and you always think they're talking about you. As a
general thing it makes a body wish he was dead, too, and done with
it all.
Phelps's was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations; and
they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile, made
out of logs sawed off and up-ended, in steps, like barrels of a
different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to
stand on when they are going to jump onto a horse; some sickly
grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like
an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log house for the white
folks- hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar,
and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log
kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the
house; log smoke-house back of the kitchen; three little log
nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the smokehouse; one little hut all
by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down
a piece the other side; ash-hopper, and big kettle to bile soap in, by
the little hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and
a gourd; hound asleep there, in the sun; more hounds asleep, round
about; about three shade-trees away off in a corner; some currant
bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the
fence a garden and a water-melon patch; then the cotton fields begins;
and after the fields, the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and
started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways, I heard the dim hum
of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and
then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead- for that is the
lonesomest sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just
trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the
time come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right
words in my mouth, if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and
went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still.
And such another pow-wow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I
was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say- spokes made out of
dogs- circle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with
their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a barking and
howling; and more a coming; you could see them sailing over fences and
around corners from everywheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in
her hand, singing out, "Begone! you Tige! you Spot! begone, sah!"
and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent him
howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second, half of them
come back, wagging their tails around me and making friends with me.
There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little
nigger boys, without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung
onto their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me,
bashful, the way they always do. And here comes the white woman
running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old,
bareheaded, and her spinningstick in her hand; and behind her comes
her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers
was doing. She was smiling all over so she could hardly stand- and
says:
"It's you, at last!- ain't it?"
I out with a "Yes'm," before I thought.
She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both
hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run
down over; and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept
saying, "You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you
would, but law sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you!
Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it's
your cousin Tom!- tell him howdy."
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their
mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:
"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast, right away- or did
you get your breakfast on the boat?"
I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the
house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we
got there, she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set
herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of
my hands, and says:
"Now I can have a good look at you: and laws-a-me, I've been
hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's
come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more.
What's kep' you?- boat get aground?"
"Don't say yes'm- say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?"
I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the
boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on
instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up- from down
towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know
the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or
forget the name of the one we got aground on- or- Now I struck an
idea, and fetched it out:
"It warn't the grounding- that didn't keep us back but a little.
We blowed out a cylinder-head."
"Good gracious! anybody hurt?"
"No'm. Killed a nigger."
"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years
ago last Christmas, your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on
the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled
a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a Babtist. Your uncle
Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well.
Yes, I remember, now he did die. Mortification set in, and they had to
amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification-
that was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a
glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your
uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone
again, not more'n an hour ago; he'll be back any minute, now. You must
a met him on the road, didn't you?- oldish man, with a-"
"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at
daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking
around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and
not get here too soon; and so I come down the back way."
"Who'd you give the baggage to?"
"Nobody."
"Why, child, it'll be stole!"
"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says.
"How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?" It was kinder
thin ice, but I says:
"The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have
something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to
the officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted."
I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the
children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side, and
pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no
show, Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the
cold chills streak all down my back, because she says:
"But here we're a running on this way, and you hain't told me a word
about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you
start up yourn; just tell me everything- tell me all about 'm all-
every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what
they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of."
Well, I see I was up a stump- and up it good. Providence had stood
by me this fur, all right, but I was hard and tight aground, now, I
see it warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead- I'd got to throw up
my hand. So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk
the truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and
hustled me in behind the bed, and says:
"Here he comes! stick your head down lower- there, that'll do; you
can't be seen, now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke
on him. Children, don't you say a word."
I see I was in a fix, now. But it warn't no use to worry; there
warn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to
stand from under when the lightning struck.
I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come
in, then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him and says:
"Has he come?"
"No," says her husband.
"Good-ness gracious!" she says, "what in the world can have become
of him?"
"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say, it makes
me dreadful uneasy."
"Uneasy!" she says, "I'm ready to go distracted! He must a come; and
you've missed him along the road. I know it's so- something tells me
so."
"Why Sally, I couldn't miss him along the road- you know that."
"But oh, dear, dear, what will Sis say! He must a come! You must a
missed him. He-"
"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't
know what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't
mind acknowledging't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that
he's come; for he couldn't come and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible-
just terrible- something's happened to the boat, sure!"
"Why, Silas! Look yonder!- up the road!- ain't that somebody
coming?"
He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that gave Mrs.
Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick, at the foot of
the bed, and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back
from the window, there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house
afire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old
gentleman stared, and says:
"Why, who's that?"
"Who do you reckon 't is?"
"I haint no idea. Who is it?"
"It's Tom Sawyer!"
By jings, I most slumped through the floor. But there warn't no time
to swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept
on shaking; and all the time, how the woman did dance around and laugh
and cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid,
and Mary, and the rest of the tribe.
But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it
was like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was.
Well, they froze to me for two hours; and at last when my chin was
so tired it couldn't hardly go, any more, I had told them more about
my family- I mean the Sawyer family- than ever happened to any six
Sawyer families. And I explained all about how we blowed out a
cylinder-head at the mouth of White River and it took us three days to
fix it. Which was all right, and worked first rate; because they
didn't know but what it would take three days to fix it. If I'd a
called it a bolt-head it would a done just as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty
uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and
comfortable; and it stayed easy and comfortable till by-and-by I
hear a steamboat coughing along down the river- then I says to myself,
spose Tom Sawyer come down on that boat?- and spose he steps in
here, any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a
wink to keep quiet? Well, I couldn't have it that way- it wouldn't
do at all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I
reckoned I would go up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The
old gentleman was for going along with me, but I said no, I could
drive the horse myself, and I druther he wouldn't take no trouble
about me.
CH_33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
-
So I started for town, in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a
wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and
waited till he come along. I says "Hold on!" and it stopped alongside,
and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and staid so; and he swallowed
two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then
says:
"I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So then, what you
want to come back and ha'nt me for?"
I says:
"I hain't come back- I hain't been gone."
When he heard my voice, it righted him up some, but he warn't
quite satisfied yet. He says:
"Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest
injun, now, you ain't a ghost?"
"Honest injun, I ain't," I says.
"Well- I- I- well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't
somehow seem to understand it, no way. Looky here, warn't you ever
murdered at all?"
"No. I warn't ever murdered at all- I played it on them. You come in
here and feel of me if you don't believe me."
So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see
me again, he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about
it right off; because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so
it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till
by-and-by; and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little
piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he
reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don't
disturb him. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says:
"It's all right, I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let
on it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to
the house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a
piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an
hour after you; and you needn't let on to know me, at first."
I says:
"All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing- a thing
that nobody don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that
I'm a trying to steal out of slavery- and his name is Jim- old Miss
Watson's Jim."
He says:
"What! Why Jim is-"
He stopped and went to studying. I says:
"I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty low-down business;
but what if it is?- I'm low down; and I'm agoing to steal him, and I
want you to keep mum and not let on. Will you?"
His eye lit up, and he says:
"I'll help you steal him!"
Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most
astonishing speech I ever heard- and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell,
considerable, in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer
a nigger stealer!
"Oh, shucks," I says, "you're joking."
"I ain't joking, either."
"Well, then," I says, "joking or no joking, if you hear anything
said about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that you don't
know nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him."
Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon and he drove off his
way, and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving
slow, on accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home
a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at
the door, and he says:
"Why, this is wonderful. Who ever would a thought it was in that
mare to do it. I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair-
not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for
that horse now; I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen
before, and thought 'twas all she was worth."
That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever
see. But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer,
he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down
back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own
expense, for a church and school-house, and never charged nothing
for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other
farmer-preachers like that, and done the same way, down South.
In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and
Aunt Sally she see it through the window because it was only about
fifty yards, and says:
"Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe
it's a stranger. Jimmy" (that's one of the children), "run and tell
Lize to put on another plate for dinner."
Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a
stranger don't come every year, and so he lays over the yaller
fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and
starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the
village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store
clothes on, and an audience- and that was always nuts for Tom
Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn't no trouble to him to throw
in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky
along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca'm and important,
like the ram. When he got afront of us, he lifts his hat ever so
gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies
asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, and says:
"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?"
"No, my boy," says the old gentleman, "I'm sorry to say't your
driver has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three
mile more. Come in, come in."
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, "Too late- he's
out of sight."
"Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner
with us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's."
"Oh, I can't make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it.
I'll walk- I don't mind the distance."
"But we won't let you walk- it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to
do it. Come right in."
"Oh, do," says Aunt Sally; "it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a
bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we
can't let you walk. And besides, I've already told 'em to put on
another plate, when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us.
Come right in, and make yourself at home."
So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself
be persuaded, and come in; and when he was in, he said he was a
stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson- and
he made another bow.
Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville
and everybody in it he could invent, and I was getting a little
nervous, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape;
and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt
Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair,
comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped
it off with the back of her hand, and says:
"You owdacious puppy!"
He looked kind of hurt, and says:
"I'm surprised at you, m'am."
"You're s'rp- Why, what do you reckon I am? I've a good notion to
take and- say, what do you mean by kissing me?"
He looked kind of humble, and says:
"I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I- I- thought
you'd like it."
"Why, you born fool!" She took up the spinning-stick, and it
looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack
with it. "What made you think I'd like it?"
"Well, I don't know. Only, they- they- told me you would."
"They told you I would. Whoever told you's another lunatic. I
never heard the beat of it. Who's they?"
"Why- everybody. They all said so, m'am."
It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her
fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
"Who's 'everybody?' Out with their names- or ther'll be an idiot
short."
He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all
told me to. They all said kiss her; and said she'll like it. They
all said it- every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it
no more- I won't honest."
"You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd reckon you won't!"
"No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again. Till you ask
me."
"Till I ask you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I
lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask
you- or the likes of you."
"Well," he says, "it does surprise me so. I can't make it out,
somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But-" He
stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a
friendly eye, somewhere's; and fetched up on the old gentleman's,
and says, "Didn't you think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?"
"Why, no, I- I- well, no, I b'lieve I didn't."
Then he looks on around, the same way, to me- and says:
"Tom, didn't you think Aunt Sally'd open out her arms and say,
'Sid Sawyer-'"
"My land!" she says, breaking in and jumping for him, "you
impudent young rascal, to fool a body so-" and was going to hug him,
but he fended her off, and says:
"No, not till you've asked me, first."
So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed
him, over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and
he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again, she
says:
"Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for
you, at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody
coming but him."
"It's because it warn't intended for any of us to come but Tom,"
he says; "but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me
come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a
first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for
me to by-and-by tag along and drop in and let on to be a stranger. But
it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a
stranger to come."
"No- not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I
hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I
don't mind the terms- I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to
have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it,
I was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack."
We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and
the kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven
families- and all hot, too; none of your flabby tough meat that's laid
in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old
cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long
blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn't cool it a bit,
neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do, lots of
times.
There was a considerable good deal of talk, all the afternoon, and
me and Tom was on the lookout all the time, but it warn't no use, they
didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was
afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the
little boys says:
"Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?"
"No," says the old man, "I reckon there ain't going to be any; and
you couldn't go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton
and me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell
the people; so I reckon they've drove the owdacious loafers out of
town before this time."
So there it was!- but I couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep in
the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid goodnight and went up
to bed, right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the
lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn't believe anybody
was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so, if I didn't
hurry up and give them one they'd get into trouble sure.
On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was
murdered, and how pap disappeared, pretty soon, and didn't come back
no more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom
all about our Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much of the
raft-voyage as I had time to; and as we struck into the town and up
through the middle of it- it was as much as half-after eight, then-
here comes a raging rush of people, with torches, and an awful
whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we
jumped to one side to let them go by; and as they went by, I see
they had the king and the duke astraddle of a rail- that is, I
knowed it was the king and the duke, though they was all over tar
and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the world that was
human- just looked like a couple of monstrous big soldier-plumes.
Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful
rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them
any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings
can be awful cruel to one another.
We see we was too late- couldn't do no good. We asked some
stragglers about it, and they said everybody went to the show
looking very innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old
king was in the middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody
give a signal, and the house rose up and went for them.
So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I
was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow-
though I hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way; it don't make
no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience
ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller
dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does, I
would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's
insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.
CH_34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
-
We stopped talking, and got to thinking. By-and-by Tom says:
"Looky here, Huck, what fools we are, to not think of it before! I
bet I know where Jim is."
"No! Where?"
"In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we was at
dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles?"
"What did you think the vittles was for?"
"For a dog."
"So'd I. Well, it wasn't for a dog."
"Because part of it was watermelon."
"So it was- I noticed it. Well, it does beat all, that I never
thought about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see
and don't see at the same time."
"Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he
locked it again when he come out. He fetched uncle a key, about the
time we got up from table- same key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock
shows prisoner; and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a
little plantation, and where the people's all so kind and good.
Jim's the prisoner. All right- I'm glad we found it out detective
fashion; I wouldn't give shucks for any other way. Now you work your
mind and study out a plan to steal Jim, and I will study out one, too;
and we'll take the one we like the best."
What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer's head, I
wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown
in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a
plan, but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where
the right plan was going to come from. Pretty soon, Tom says:
"Ready?"
"Yes," I says.
"All right- bring it out."
"My plan is this," I says. "We can easy find out if it's Jim in
there. Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over
from the island. Then the first dark night that comes, steal the key
out of the old man's britches, after he goes to bed, and shove off
down the river on the raft, with Jim, hiding daytimes and running
nights, the way me and Jim used to do before. Wouldn't that plan
work?"
"Work? Why cert'nly, it would work, like rats a fighting. But it's
too blame' simple; there ain't nothing to it. What's the good of a
plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goose-milk.
Why, Huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap
factory."
I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing
different; but I knowed mighty well that whenever he got his plan
ready it wouldn't have none of them objections to it.
And it didn't. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it
was worth fifteen of mine, for style, and would make Jim just as
free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I
was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it. I needn't tell what
it was, here, because I knowed it wouldn't stay the way it was. I
knowed he would be changing it around, every which way, as we went
along, and heaving in new bullinesses wherever he got a chance. And
that is what he done.
Well, one thing was dead sure; and that was, that Tom Sawyer was
in earnest and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of
slavery. That was the thing that was too many for me. Here was a boy
that was respectable, and well brung up and had a character to lose;
and folks at home that had characters; and he was bright and not
leather-headed; and knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but
kind; and yet here he was, without any more pride, or rightness, or
feeling, than to stoop to this business, and make himself a shame, and
his family a shame, before everybody. I couldn't understand it, no way
at all. It was outrageous, and I knowed I ought to just up and tell
him so; and so be his true friend, and let him quit the thing right
where he was, and save himself. And I did start to tell him; but he
shut me up, and says:
"Don't you reckon I know what I'm about? Don't I generly know what
I'm about?"
"Yes."
"Didn't I say I was going to help steal the nigger?"
"Yes."
"Well then."
That's all he said, and that's all I said. It warn't no use to say
any more; because when he said he'd do a thing, he always done it. But
I couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing; so I
just let it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound
to have it so, I couldn't help it.
When we got home, the house was all dark and still; so we went on
down to the hut by the ash-hopper, for to examine it. We went
through the yard, so as to see what the hounds would do. They knowed
us, and didn't make no more noise than country dogs is always doing
when anything comes by in the night. When we got to the cabin, we took
a look at the front and the two sides; and on the side I warn't
acquainted with- which was the north side- we found a square
window-hole, up tolerable high, with just one stout board nailed
across it. I says:
"Here's the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get through,
if we wrench off the board."
Tom says:
"It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as
playing hooky. I should hope we can find a way that's a little more
complicated than that, Huck Finn."
"Well then," I says, "how'll it do to saw him out, the way I done
before I was murdered, that time?"
"That's more like," he says. "It's real mysterious, and troublesome,
and good," he says; "but I bet we can find a way that's twice as long.
There ain't no hurry; le's keep on looking around."
Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a lean-to, that
joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was as long
as the hut, but narrow- only about six foot wide. The door to it was
at the south end, and was padlocked. Tom he went to the soap kettle,
and searched around and fetched back the iron thing they lift the
lid with; so he took it and prized out one of the staples. The chain
fell down, and we opened the door and went in, and shut it, and struck
a match, and see the shed was only built against the cabin and
hadn't no connection with it; and there warn't no floor to the shed,
nor nothing in it but some rusty played-out hoes, and spades, and
packs, and a crippled plow. The match went out, and so did we, and
shoved in the staple again, and the door was locked as good as ever.
Tom was joyful. He says:
"Now we're all right. We'll dig him out. It'll take about a week!"
Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door- you only
have to pull a buckskin latch-string, they don't fasten the doors- but
that warn't romantical enough for Tom Sawyer: no way would do him
but he must climb up the lightning-rod. But after he got up half-way
about three times, and missed fire and fell every time, and the last
time most busted his brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up;
but after he was rested, he allowed he would give her one more turn
for luck, and this time he made the trip.
In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger
cabins to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed
Jim- if it was Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting
through breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim's nigger was
piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things; and whilst the
others was leaving, the key come from the house.
This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his wool
was all tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep
witches off. He said the witches was pestering him awful, these
nights, and making him see all kinds of strange things, and hear all
kinds of strange words and noises, and he didn't believe he was ever
witched so long, before, in his life. He got so worked up, and got
to running on so about his troubles, he forgot all about what he'd
been going to do. So Tom says:
"What's the vittles for? Going to feed the dogs?"
The nigger kind of smiled around graduly over his face, like when
you heave a brickbat in a mud puddle, and he says:
"Yes, Mars Sid, a dog. Cur'us dog, too. Does you want to go en
look at 'im?"
"Yes."
I hunched Tom, and whispers:
"You going, right here in the day-break? That warn't the plan."
"No, it warn't- but it's the plan now."
So, drat him, we went along, but I didn't like it much. When we
got in, we couldn't hardly see anything, it was so dark; but Jim was
there, sure enough, and could see us; and he sings out:
"Why, Huck! En good lan'! ain'dat Misto Tom?"
I just knowed how it would be; I just expected it. I didn't know
nothing to do; and if I had, I couldn't a done it; because that nigger
busted in and says:
"Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen?"
We could see pretty well, now. Tom he looked at the nigger, steady
and kind of wondering, and says:
"Does who know us?"
"Why, dish-yer runaway nigger."
"I don't reckon he does; but what put that into your head?"
"What put it dar? Didn' he jis' dis minute sing out like he knowed
you?"
Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way:
"Well, that's mighty curious. Who sung out? When did he sing out?
What did he sing out?" And turns to me, perfectly c'am, and says, "Did
you hear anybody sing out?"
Of course there warn't nothing to be said but the one thing; so I
says:
"No; I ain't heard nobody say nothing."
Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him
before; and says:
"Did you sing out?"
"No, sah," says Jim; "I hain't said nothing, sah."
"Not a word?"
"No, sah; not as I knows on."
So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed,
and says, kind of severe:
"What do you reckon's the matter with you, anyway? What made you
think somebody sung out?"
"Oh, it's de dad-blame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do.
Dey's awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey sk'yers me so.
Please to don't tell nobody 'bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he'll
scole me; 'kase he say dey ain't no witches. I jis' wish to goodness
he was heah now- den what would he say! I jis' bet he couldn't fine no
way to git around it dis time. But it's awluz jis' so; people dat's
sot, stays sot; dey won't look into nothin' en fine it out f'r
deyselves, en when you fine it out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan'
b'lieve you."
Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody; and told
him to buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then looks at
Jim, and says:
"I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to
catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give
him up, I'd hang him." And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to
look at the dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to
Jim, and says:
"Don't ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging going
on nights, it's us: we're going to set you free."
Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it, then the
nigger come back, and we said we'd come again some time if the
nigger wanted us to; and he said he would, more particular if it was
dark, because the witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it
was good to have folks around then.
CH_35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
-
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 get 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 punkinheaded 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? Whoever heard of
getting a prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; the way
all the best authorities does, is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave
it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put
some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest
seneskal can't see no sign of its 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
you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"
"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get
the chain off, so they just cut their hand off, and shoved. And a
leg would be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't
necessity enough in this case; and besides, Jim's a nigger and
wouldn't understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in
Europe; so we'll let it go. But there's one thing- he can have a
rope-ladder; we can tear up our sheets and make him a rope-ladder easy
enough. And we can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way.
And I've et worse pies."
"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a
rope-ladder."
"He has got use for it. How you talk, you better say; you don't know
nothing about it. He's got to have a rope ladder; they all do."
"What in the nation can he do with it?"
"Do with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what they
all do; and he's got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to
do anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh
all the time. Spose he don't do nothing with it? ain't it there in his
bed, for a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want
clews? Of course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That
would be a pretty howdy- do, wouldn't it! I never heard of such a
thing."
"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have
it, all right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on
no regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer- if we go to tearing
up our sheets to make Jim a rope-ladder, we're going to get into
trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I
look at it, a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste
nothing, and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a
straw tick, as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he
ain't had no experience, and so he don't care what kind of a-"
"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you, I'd keep still-
that's what I'd do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a
hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."
"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my
advice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothes-line."
He said that would do. And that give him another idea, and he says:
"Borrow a shirt, too."
"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"
"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."
"Journal your granny- Jim can't write."
"Spose he can't write- he can make marks on the shirt, can't he,
if we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old
iron barrel-hoop?"
"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a
better one; and quicker, too."
"Prisoners don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull
pens out of, you muggins. They always make their pens out of the
hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or
something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes them
weeks and weeks, and months and months to file it out, too, because
they've got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. They wouldn't use a
goosequill 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 anything; we can get him some."
"Can't nobody read his plates."
"That ain't got nothing to do with it, Huck Finn. All he's got to do
is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't have to be able
to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner
writes on a plate, or anywhere else."
"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"
"Why, blame it all, it ain't the prisoner's plates."
"But it's somebody's plates, ain't it?"
"Well, spos'n it is? What does the prisoner care whose-"
He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing.
So we cleared out for the house.
Along during that morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off
of the clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and
we went down and got the fox-fire, 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 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 leanto whilst I stood off a piece
to keep watch. By-and-by he come out, and we went and set down on
the wood-pile, to talk. He says:
"Everything's all right, now, except tools; and that's easy fixed."
"Tools?" I says. "Tools for what?"
"Why, to dig with. We ain't 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 our 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
weatherboarding 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.
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