CHAPTER TEN
-
After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out
how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would
fetch bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us;
he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting
around than one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded
pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from
studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what
they done it for.
We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in
silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said
he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd
a knowed the money was there they wouldn't a left it. I said I
reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that.
I says:
"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in
the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before
yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch
a snake-skin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in
all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some
bad luck like this every day, Jim."
"Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart.
It's a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."
It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well,
after dinner Friday, we was laying around in the grass at the upper
end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to
get some, and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled
him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd
be some fun when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all
about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket
while I struck a light, the snake's mate was there, and bit him.
He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the
varmit curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a
second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky jug and begun to
pour it down.
He was barefooted, and the snake bit him on the heel. That all comes
of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a
dead snake its mate always comes and curls around it. Jim told me to
chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body
and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it would
help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his
wrist, too. He said that would help. Then I slid out quiet and throwed
the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going to let
Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.
Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his
head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to
himself he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up
pretty big, and so did his leg; but by-and-by the drunk begun to come,
and so I judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a
snake than pap's whisky.
Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was
all gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever
take aholt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what
had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time.
And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that
maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the
new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than
take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way
myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon
over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest
things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged
about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of
the shot tower and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of
a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn
doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see
it. Pap told me. But anyway, it all come of looking at the moon that
way, like a fool.
Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks
again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big
hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a cat-fish that was
as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over
two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a
flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear
around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach, and a
round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the
hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a
long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a
fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he
hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal
over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the
pound in the market house there; everybody buys some of him; his
meat's as white as snow and makes a good fry.
Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to
get a stirring up, some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the
river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he
said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and
said, couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a
girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the
calico gowns and I turned up my trowser-legs to my knees and got
into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair
fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a
body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of
stove-pipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime,
hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things,
and by-and-by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't
walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at
my britches pocket. I took notice, and done better.
I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.
I started across to the town from a little below the ferry
landing, and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of
the town. I tied up and started along the bank. There was a light
burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long
time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there. I slipped up
and peeped in at the window. There was a woman about forty year old in
there, knitting by a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know
her face; she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that
town that I didn't know. Now this was lucky, because I was
weakening; I was getting afraid I had come; people might know my voice
and find me out. But if this woman had been in such a little town
two days she could tell me all I wanted to know; so I knocked at the
door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.
CH_11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
-
"Come in," says the woman, and I did. She says:
"Take a cheer."
I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and
says:
"What might your name be?"
"Sarah Williams."
"Where 'bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?"
"No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I've walked all the way and
I'm all tired out."
"Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something."
"No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two mile
below here at a farm; so I ain't hungry no more. It's what makes me so
late. My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I
come to tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the
town, she says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you know him?"
"No; but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite
two weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town.
You better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet."
"No," I says, "I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't
afeard of the dark."
She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would
be in by-and-by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him
along with me. Then she got to talking about her husband, and about
her relations up the river, and her relations down the river, and
about how much better off they used to was, and how they didn't know
but they'd made a mistake coming to our town, instead of letting
well alone- and so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a
mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in this town;
but by-and-by she dropped onto pap and the murder, and then I was
pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told about me and
Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it ten)
and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I
was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says:
"Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on, down
in Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn."
"Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people here that'd
like to know who killed him. Some thinks old Finn done it himself."
"No- is that so?"
"Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he
come to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and
judged it was done by a runaway nigger named Jim."
"Why he-"
I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never
noticed I had put in at all.
"The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So
there's a reward out for him- three hundred dollars. And there's a
reward out for old Finn too- two hundred dollars. You see, he come
to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out
with 'em on the ferry-boat hunt, and right away after he up and
left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see.
Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone; they found out he
hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So
then they put it on him, you see, and while they was full of it,
next day back comes old Finn and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher
to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with. The
judge give him some, and that evening he got drunk and was around till
after midnight with a couple of mighty hard looking strangers, and
then went off with them. Well, he hain't come back sence, and they
ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for
people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks
would think robbers done it, and then he'd get Huck's money without
having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn't
any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he don't come back
for a year, he'll be all right. You can't prove anything on him, you
know; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk into Huck's
money as easy as nothing."
"Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has
everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?"
"Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll
get the nigger pretty soon, now, and maybe they can scare it out of
him."
"Why, are they after him yet?"
"Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay
round every day for people to pick up? Some folks thinks the nigger
ain't far from here. I'm one of them- but I hain't talked it around. A
few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door
in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes
to that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't
anybody live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any
more, but I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen
smoke over there, about the head of the island, a day or two before
that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over
there; anyway, says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a
hunt. I hain't seen any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if
it was him; but my husband's going over to see- him and another man.
He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day and I told him as
soon as he got here two hours ago."
I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with
my hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading
it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman
stopped talking, I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty
curious, and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread and
let on to be interested- and I was, too- and says:
"Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could
get it. Is your husband going over there to-night?"
"Oh, yes. He went up town with the man I was telling you of, to
get a boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over
after midnight."
"Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?"
"Yes. And couldn't the nigger see better, too? After midnight
he'll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and
hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one."
"I didn't think of that."
The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit
comfortable. Pretty soon she says:
"What did you say your name was, honey?"
"M- Mary Williams."
Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I
didn't look up; seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of
cornered, and was afeard maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the
woman would say something more; the longer she set still, the uneasier
I was. But now she says:
"Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"
"Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name.
Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."
"Oh, that's the way of it?"
"Yes'm."
I was feeling better, then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway.
I couldn't look up yet.
Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how
poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned
the place, and so forth, and so on, and then I got easy again. She was
right about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in
the corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy
to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no
peace. She showed me a bar of lead, twisted up into a knot, and said
she was a good shot with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a
day or two ago, and didn't know whether she could throw true, now. But
she watched for a chance, and directly she banged away at a rat, but
she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!" it hurt her arm so. Then she
told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away before
the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on. I got the
thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd
a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said
that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She
went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back and brought along
a hank of yarn, which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two
hands and she put the hank over them and went on talking about her and
her husband's matters. But she broke off to say:
"Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,
handy."
So she dropped the lump into my lap, just at that moment, and I
clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about
a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the
face, but very pleasant, and says:
"Come, now- what's your real name?"
"Wh- what, mum?"
"What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?- or what is it?"
I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do.
But I says:
"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the
way, here, I'll-"
"No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to
hurt you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me
your secret, and trust me. I'll keep it; and what's more, I'll help
you. So'll my old man, if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway
'prentice- that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't any harm in
it. You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless
you, child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it, now-
that's a good boy."
So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and
I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she
mustn't go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother
was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the
country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I
couldn't stand it no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days,
and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old
clothes, and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the
thirty miles; I traveled nights, and hid day-times and slept, and
the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way
and I had a plenty. I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would
take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of
Goshen.
"Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg.
Goshen's ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?"
"Why, a man I met at day-break this morning, just as I was going
to turn into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads
forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to
Goshen."
"He was drunk I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong."
"Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I
got to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before day-light."
"Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want
it."
So she put me up a snack, and says:
"Say- when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first?
Answer up prompt, now- don't stop to study over it. Which end gets
up first?"
"The hind end, mum."
"Well, then, a horse?"
"The for'rard end, mum."
"Which side of a tree does the most moss grow on?"
"North side."
"If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats
with their heads pointed the same direction?"
"The whole fifteen, mum."
"Well, I reckon you have lived in the country. I thought maybe you
was trying to hocus me again. What's your real name now?"
"George Peters, mum."
"Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's
Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's
George-Elexander when I catch you. And don't go about women in that
old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men,
maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle, don't
hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle
still and poke the thread at it- that's the way a woman most always
does; but a man always does 'tother way. And when you throw at a rat
or anything, hitch yourself up a tip-toe, and fetch your hand up
over your head as awkard as you can, and miss your rat about six or
seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a
pivot there for it to turn on- like a girl; not from the wrist and
elbow, with your arm out to one side like a boy. And mind you, when
a girl tries to catch anything in her lap, she throws her knees apart;
she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the
lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading
the needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now
trot along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters,
and if you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Lotus,
which is me, and I'll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the
river road, all the way, and next time you tramp, take shoes and socks
with you. The river road's a rocky one, and your feet 'll be in a
condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon."
I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my
tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below
the house. I jumped in and was off in a hurry. I went up stream far
enough to make the head of the island, and then started across. I took
off the sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on, then. When I was
about the middle, I hear the clock begin to strike; so I stops and
listens; the sound come faint over the water, but clear- eleven.
When I struck the head of the island I never waited to blow, though
I was most winded, but I shoved right into the timber where my old
camp used to be, and started a good fire there on a high-and-dry spot.
Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place a mile and a
half below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the
timber and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound
asleep on the ground. I roused him out and says:
"Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose.
They're after us!"
Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he
worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By
that time everything we had in the world was on our raft and she was
ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We
put out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a
candle outside after that.
I took the canoe out from shore a little piece and took a look,
but if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and
shadows ain't good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped
along down in the shade, past the foot of the island dead still, never
saying a word.
CH_12
CHAPTER TWELVE
-
It must a been close onto one o'clock when we got below the island
at last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to
come along, we was going to take to the canoe and break for the
Illinois shore; and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever
thought to put the gun into the canoe, or a fishing-line or anything
to eat. We was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many
things. It warn't good judgment to put everything on the raft.
If the men went to the island, I just expect they found the camp
fire I built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways,
they stayed away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled
them it warn't no fault of mine. I played it as low-down on them as
I could.
When the first streak of day begun to show, we tied up to a tow-head
in a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cotton-wood
branches with the hatchet and covered up the raft with them so she
looked like there had been a cave-in in the bank there. A tow-head
is a sand-bar that has cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.
We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the
Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that
place, so we warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there
all day and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri
shore, and upbound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I
told Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim
said she was a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she
wouldn't set down and watch a camp fire- no, sir, she'd fetch a dog.
Well, then, I said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a
dog? Jim said he bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready
to start, and he believed they must a gone up town to get a dog and so
they lost all that time, or else we wouldn't be here on a tow-head
sixteen or seventeen mile below the village- no, indeedy, we would
be in that same old town again. So I said I didn't care what was the
reason they didn't get us, as long as they didn't.
When it was beginning to come on dark, we poked our heads out of the
cottonwood thicket and looked up, and down, and across; nothing in
sight; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a
snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the
things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or
more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the
traps was out of the reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle
of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep
with a frame around it for to hold it to its place; this was to
build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep
it from being seen. We made an extra steering oar, too, because one of
the others might get broke, on a snag or something. We fixed up a
short forked stick to hang the old lantern on; because we must
always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming down
stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't have to light
it for upstream boats unless we see we was in what they call a
"crossing"; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being
still a little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always run the
channel, but hunted easy water.
This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a
current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish, and
talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was
kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs
looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud,
and it warn't often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low
chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing
ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.
Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black
hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights, not a house could
you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the
whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was
twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it
till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still
night. There warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep.
Every night, now, I used to slip ashore, towards ten o'clock, at
some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or
bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that
warn't roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take
a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him
yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't
ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken
himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.
Mornings, before daylight, I slipped into corn fields and borrowed a
watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things
of that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things, if
you was meaning to pay them back, sometime; but the widow said it
warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would
do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was
partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three
things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more- then he
reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked
it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make
up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or
the mushmelons, or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled
satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons. We
warn't feeling just right, before that, but it was all comfortable
now. I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain't
ever good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe for two or three
months yet.
We shot a water-fowl, now and then, that got up too early in the
morning or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all
around, we lived pretty high.
The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight,
with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a
solid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of
itself. When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight
river ahead, and high rocky bluffs on both sides. By-and-by says I,
"Hel-lo Jim, looky yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killed herself
on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her. The lightning showed
her very distinct. She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck
above water, and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and
clear, and a chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging
on the back of it when the flashes come.
Well, it being away in the night, and stormy, and all so
mysterious-like, I felt just the way any other boy would a felt when I
see that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle
of the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little,
and see what there was there. So I says:
"Le's land on her, Jim."
But Jim was dead against it, at first. He says:
"I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no wrack. We's doin' blame'
well, en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says. Like
as not dey's a watchman on dat wrack."
"Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't nothing to watch
but the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going
to resk his life for a texas and a pilothouse such a night as this,
when it's likely to break up and wash off down the river any
minute?" Jim couldn't say nothing to that, so he didn't try. "And
besides," I says, "we might borrow something worth having, out of
the captain's stateroom. Seegars, I bet you- and cost five cents
apiece, solid cash. Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty
dollars a month, and they don't care a cent what a thing costs, you
know, long as they want it. Stick a candle in your pocket; I can't
rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer
would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an
adventure- that's what he'd call it; and he'd land on that wreck if it
was his last act. And wouldn't he throw style into it?- wouldn't he
spread himself, nor nothing? Why, you'd think it was Christopher
C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come. I wish Tom Sawyer was here."
Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any
more than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning
showed us the wreck again, just in time, and we fetched the
starboard derrick, and made fast there.
The deck was high out, here. We went sneaking down the slope of it
to labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with
our feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was
so dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the
forward end of the skylight, and clumb onto it; and the next step
fetched us in front of the captain's door, which was open, and by
Jimminy, away down through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in
the same second we seem to hear low voices in yonder!
Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me
to come along. I says, all right; and was going to start for the raft;
but just then I heard a voice wail out and say:
"Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!"
Another voice said, pretty loud:
"It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always
want more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too,
because you've swor't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've
said it jest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest
hound in this country."
By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with
curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and
so I won't either; I'm agoing to see what's going on here. So I
dropped on my hands and knees, in the little passage, and crept aft in
the dark, till there warn't but about one stateroom betwixt me and the
cross-hall of the texas. Then, in there I see a man stretched on the
floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one
of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol.
This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor and
saying-
"I'd like to! And I orter, too, a mean skunk!"
The man on the floor would shrivel up, and say: "Oh, please don't,
Bill- I hain't ever goin' to tell."
And every time he said that, the man with the lantern would laugh,
and say:
"'Deed you ain't! You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet
you." And once he said: "Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the
best of him and tied him, he'd a killed us both. And what for? Jist
for noth'n. Jist because we stood on our rights- that's what for.
But I lay you ain't agoin'to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put
up that pistol, Bill."
Bill says:
"I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him- and din't he
kill old Hatfield jist the same way- and don't he deserve it?"
"But I don't want him killed, and I've got my reasons for it."
"Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit
you, long's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.
Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on
a nail, and started towards where I was, there in the dark, and
motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could, about two
yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn't make very good tune; so
to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom
on the upper side. The man come a-pawing along in the dark, and when
Packard got to my stateroom, he says:
"Here- come in here."
And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in, I was up
in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there,
with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see
them, but I could tell where they was, by the whisky they'd been
having. I was glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much
difference, anyway, because most of the time they couldn't a treed
me because I didn't breathe. I was too scared. And besides, a body
couldn't breathe, and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest.
Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:
"He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our
shares to him now, it wouldn't make no difference after the row, and
the way we've served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's
evidence; now you hear me. I'm for putting him out of his troubles."
"So'm I," says Packard, very quiet.
"Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then,
that's all right. Le's go and do it."
"Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me.
Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's gotto be
done. But what I say, is this; it ain't good sense to go court'n
around after a halter, if you can git at what you're up to in some way
that's jist as good and at the same time don't bring you into no
resks. Ain't that so?"
"You bet it is. But how you goin'to manage it this time?"
"Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gether up whatever
pickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and
hide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't agoin' to be
more 'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the
river. See? He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it
but his own self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better'n killin'
of him. I'm unfavorable to killin'a man as long as you can git
around it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?"
"Yes- I reck'n you are. But s'pose she don't break up and wash off?"
"Well, we can wait the two hours, anyway, and see, can't we?"
"All right, then; come along."
So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled
forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said in a kind of a
coarse whisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a
sort of a moan, and I says:
"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning;
there's a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their
boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get
away from the wreck, there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix.
But if we find their boat we can put all of 'em in a bad fix- for
the Sheriff'll get 'em. Quick- hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you
hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and-"
"Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf Dey ain' no raf' no mo', she done broke
loose en gone!- 'en here we is!"
CH_13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
-
Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck
with such a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be
sentimentering. We'd got to find that boat, now- had to have it for
ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side,
and slow work it was, too- seemed a week before we got to the stern.
No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he could go any further-
so scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said. But I said come
on, if we get left on this wreck, we are in a fix, sure. So on we
prowled, again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it,
and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from
shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water.
When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door, there was the
skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so
thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her; but just
then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out, only about
a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it
in again, and says:
"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!"
He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in
himself, and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and got
in. Packard says, in a low voice:
"All ready- shove off!"
I couldn't hardly hang onto the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill
says:
"Hold on- 'd you go through him?"
"No. Didn't you?"
"No. So he's got his share o' the cash, yet."
"Well, then, come along- no use to take truck and leave money."
"Say- won't he suspicion what we're up to?"
"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."
So they got out and went in.
The door slammed to, because it was on the careened side; and in a
half second I was in the boat, and Jim come a tumbling after me. I out
with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went!
We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor
hardly even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past
the tip of the paddlebox, and past the stern; then in a second or
two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness
soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.
When we was three or four hundred yards down stream, we see the
lantern show like a little spark at the texas door, for a second,
and we knowed by that the rascals had missed their boat, and was
beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble, now, as
Jim Turner was.
Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was
the first time I begun to worry about the men- I reckon I hadn't had
time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for
murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no
telling but I might come to be a murderer myself, yet, and then how
would I like it? So says I to Jim:
"The first light we see, we'll land a hundred yards below it or
above it, in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the
skiff, and then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get
somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they
can be hung when their time comes."
But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm
again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and
never a light showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down
the river, watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long
time the rain let up, but the clouds staid, and the lightning kept
whimpering, and by-and-by a flash showed us a black thing ahead,
floating, and we made for it.
It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again.
We seen a light, now, away down to the right, on shore. So I said I
would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang
had stole, there on the wreck. We hustled it onto the raft in a
pile, and I told Jim to float along down, and show a light when he
judged he had gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come;
then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got down
towards it, three or four more showed- up on a hillside. It was a
village. I closed in above the shore-light, and laid on my oars and
floated. As I went by, I see it was a lantern hanging on the jackstaff
of a double-hull ferry-boat. I skimmed around for the watchman,
a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by-and-by I found him roosting
on the bitts, forward, with his head down between his knees. I give
his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.
He stirred up, in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it
was only me, he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:
"Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?"
I says:
"Pap, and mam, and sis, and-"
Then I broke down. He says:
"Oh, dang it, now, don't take on so, we all has to have our troubles
and this'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"
"They're- they're- are you the watchman of the boat?"
"Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captain
and the owner, and the mate, and the pilot, and watchman, and head
deck-hand; and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as
rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good
to Tom, Dick and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he
does; but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places
with him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm
derned if I'd live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing
ever goin'on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of
it. Says I-"
I broke in and says:
"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and-"
"Who is?"
"Why, pap, and mam, and sis, and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your
ferry-boat and go up there-"
"Up where? Where are they?"
"On the wreck."
"What wreck?"
"Why, there ain't but one."
"What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?"
"Yes."
"Good land! What are they doin' there, for gracious sakes?"
"Well, they didn't go there a-purpose."
"I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for
'em if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did
they ever git into such a scrape?"
"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting, up there to the town-"
"Yes, Booth's Landing- go on."
"She was a-visiting, there at Booth's Landing, and just in the
edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the
horse-ferry, to stay all night at her friend's house, Miss
What-you-may-call-her, I disremember her name, and they lost their
steering-oar, and swung around and went afloating down, stern-first,
about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferry man and
the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made
a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark, we
come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn't
notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so we saddle-baggsed;
but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple- and oh, he was the best
cretur!- I most wish't it had been me, I do."
"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what
did you all do?"
"Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there, we
couldn't make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore
and get help somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made
a dash for it, and Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help
sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I
made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along ever since,
trying to get people to do something, but they said, 'What, in such
a night and such a current? there ain't no sense in it; go for the
steam-ferry.' Now if you'll go, and-"
"By Jackson, I'd like to, and blame it I don't know but I will;
but who in the dingnation's agoin' to pay for it? Do you reckon your
pap-"
"Why that's all right. Miss Hooker she told me, particular, that her
uncle Hornback-"
"Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light
over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a
quarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart
you out to Jim Hornback's and he'll foot the bill. And don't you
fool around any, because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll
have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now;
I'm agoing up around the corner here, to roust out my engineer."
I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went
back and got into my skiff and bailed her out and then pulled up shore
in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in
among some woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the
ferry-boat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther
comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang,
for not many would a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I
judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions,
because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good
people takes the most interest in.
Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding
along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck
out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't
much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her
and hollered a little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still.
I felt a little bit heavyhearted about the gang, but not much, for I
reckoned if they could stand it, I could.
Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of the
river on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of
eye-reach, I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell
around the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain
would know her uncle Horseback would want them; and then pretty soon
the ferryboat give it up and went for shore, and I laid into my work
and went a-booming down the river.
It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and
when it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the
time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the
east; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the
skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.
CH_14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
-
By-and-by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had
stole off the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and
all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and
three boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before, in
neither of our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the
afternoon in the woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a
general good time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the
wreck, and at the ferry-boat; and I said these kinds of things was
adventures; but he said he didn't want no more adventures. He said
that when I went in the texas and he crawled back to get on the raft
and found her gone, he nearly died; because he judged it was all up
with him, anyway it could be fixed; for if he didn't get saved he
would get drownded; and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would
send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would
sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was most always right; he
had an uncommon level head, for a nigger.
I read considerable to Jim about kings, and dukes, and earls, and
such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on,
and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship,
and so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was
interested. He says:
"I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un
um, skasely, but old King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's
in a pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?"
"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they
want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs
to them."
"Ain't dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?"
"They don't do nothing! Why how you talk. They just set around."
"No- is dat so?"
"Of course it is. They just set around. Except maybe when there's
a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around;
or go hawking- just hawking and sp- Sh!- d'you hear a noise?"
We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter
of a steamboat's wheel, away down coming around the point; so we
come back.
"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with
the parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads
off. But mostly they hang round the harem."
"Roun' de which?"
"What's de harem?"
"The place where he keep his wives. Don't you know about the
harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."
"Why, yes, dat's so; I- I'd done forgot it. A harem's a
bo'd'n-house, I reck'on. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de
nussery. En I reck'n de wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de
racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan'
take no stock in dat. Bekase why would a wise man want to live in de
mids'er sich a blimblammin' all de time? No- 'deed he wouldn't. A wise
man 'ud take en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet down de
biler-factry when he want to res'."
"Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told
me so, her own self."
"I doan k'yer what de widder say, he warn't no wise man, nuther.
He had some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know
'bout dat chile dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"
"Yes, the widow told me all about it."
"Well, den! Warn't dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes'
take en look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah- dat's one er de
women; heah's you- dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish-yer
dollar bill's de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does
I shin aroun' mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill
do b'long to, en han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de
way dat anybody dat had any gumption would? No- I take en whack de
bill in two, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther
woman. Dat's de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want
to ast you: what's de use er dat half a bill?- can't buy noth'n wid
it. En what use is a half a chile? I would'n give a dern for a million
un um."
"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point- blame it, you've
missed it a thousand mile."
"Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I
knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as
dat. De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a
whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a
whole chile wid a half a chile, doan' know enough to come in out'n
de rain. Doan'talk to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de
back."
"But I tell you don't get the point."
"Blame de pint! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de
real pint is down furder- it's down deeper. It lays in de way
Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one er two
chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he
can't'ford it. He know how to value 'em. But you take a man dat's
got 'bout five million chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's
diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'.
A chile er two, mo'er less, warn't no consekens to Sollermun, dad
fetch him!"
I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once,
there warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on
Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other
kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got
his head cut off in France long time ago; and about his little boy the
dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in
jail, and some say he died there.
"Po' little chap."
"But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."
"Dat's good! But he'll be ooty lonesome- dey ain' no kings here,
is dey, Huck?"
"No."
"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?"
"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of
them learns people how to talk French."
"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"
"No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said- not a single
word."
"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"
"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a
book. Spose a man was to come to you and say 'Polly-voo-franzy'-
what would you think?"
"I wouldn't think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head. Dat is,
if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."
"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying do you know
how to talk French."
"Well, den, why couldn't he say it?"
"Why, he is a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it."
"Well, it's a blame' ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no
mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."
"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"
"No, a cat don't."
"Well, does a cow?"
"No, a cow don't, nuther."
"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"
"No, dey don't."
"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other,
ain't it?"
"Course."
"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk
different from us?"
"Why, mos' sholy it is."
"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to
talk different from us? You answer me that."
"Is a cat a man, Huck?"
"No."
"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow
a man?- er is a cow a cat?"
"No, she ain't either of them."
"Well, den, she ain' got no business to talk like either one or
the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"
"Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer
me dat!"
I see it warn't no use wasting words- you can't learn a nigger to
argue. So I quit.
No comments:
Post a Comment