CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
-
Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow tow-head
out in the middle, where there was a village on each side of the
river, and the duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for working
them towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn't
take but a few hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to
him when he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You
see, when we left him all alone we had to tie him, because if
anybody happened on him all by himself and not tied, it wouldn't
look much like he was a runaway nigger, you know. So the duke said
it was kind of hard to have to lay roped all day, and he'd cipher
out some way to get around it.
He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He
dressed Jim up in King Lear's outfit- it was a long curtain-calico
gown, and a white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his
theatre-paint and painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck all
over a dead dull solid blue, like a man that's been drownded nine
days. Blamed if he warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see.
Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so-
Sick Arab- but harmless when not out of his head
And he nailed the shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four
or five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was
a sight better than laying tied a couple of years every day and
trembling all over every time there was a sound. The duke told him
to make himself free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling
around he must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch
a howl or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light
out and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judgment; but you take
the average man, and he wouldn't wait for him to howl. Why, he
didn't only look like he was dead, he looked considerable more than
that.
These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there
was so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe,
because maybe the news might a worked along down by this time. They
couldn't hit no project that suited, exactly; so at last the duke said
he reckoned he'd lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if
he couldn't put up something on the Arkansaw village; and the king
he allowed he would drop over to t'other village, without any plan,
but just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable way- meaning
the devil, I reckon. We had all bought store clothes where we
stopped last; and now the king put his'n on, and he told me to put
mine on. I done it, of course. The king's duds was all black, and he
did look real swell and starchy. I never knowed how clothes could
change a body before. Why, before, he looked like the orneriest old
rip that ever was; but now, when he'd take off his new white beaver
and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that grand and good and pious
that you'd say he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old
Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my paddle
ready. There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away up under the
point, about three mile above town- been there a couple of hours,
taking on freight. Says the king:
"Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from
St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the
steamboat, Huckleberry; we'll come down to the village on her."
I didn't have to be ordered twice, to go and take a steamboat
ride. I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then
went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we
come to a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on a log
swabbing the sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm
weather; and he had a couple of big carpet-bags by him.
"Run her nose in shore," says the king. I done it. "Wher' you
bound for, young man?"
"For the steamboat; going to Orleans."
"Git aboard," says the king. "Hold on a minute, my servant'll he'p
you with them bags. Jump out and he'p the gentleman, Adolphus"-
meaning me, I see.
I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap
was mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage in such
weather. He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him
he'd come down the river and landed at the other village this morning,
and now he was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up
there. The young fellow says:
"When I first see you, I says to myself, 'It's Mr. Wilks, sure,
and he come mighty near getting here in time.' But then I says
again, 'No, I reckon it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be paddling
up the river.' You ain't him, are you?"
"No, my name's Blodgett- Elexander Blodgett- Reverend Elexander
Blodgett, I spose I must say, as I'm one o' the Lord's poor
servants. But still I'm jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not
arriving in time, all the same, if he's missed anything by it- which I
hope he hasn't."
"Well, he don't miss any property by it, because he'll get that
all right; but he's missed seeing his brother Peter die- which he
mayn't mind, nobody can tell as to that- but his brother would a
give anything in this world to see him before he died; never talked
about nothing else all these three weeks; hadn't seen him since they
was boys together- and hadn't ever seen his brother William at all-
that's the deef and dumb one- William ain't more than thirty or
thirty-five. Peter and George was the only ones that come out here;
George was the married brother; him and his wife both died last
year. Harvey and William's the only ones that's left now; and, as I
was saying, they haven't got here in time."
"Did anybody send' em word?"
"Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because
Peter said then that he sorter felt like he warn't going to get well
this time. You see, he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too
young to be much company for him, except Mary Jane the red-headed one;
and so he was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and
didn't seem to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see
Harvey- and William too, for that matter- because he was one of them
kind that can't bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for
Harvey, and said he'd told in it where his money was hid, and how he
wanted the rest of the property divided up so George's g'yirls would
be all right- for George didn't leave nothing. And that letter was all
they could get him to put a pen to."
"Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Wher' does he live?"
"Oh, he lives in England- Sheffield- preaches there- hasn't ever
been in this country. He hasn't had any too much time- and besides
he mightn't a got the letter at all, you know."
"Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his brothers, poor
soul. You going to Orleans, you say?"
"Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in a ship, next
Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives."
"It's a pretty long journey. But it'll be lovely; I wisht I was
agoing. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?"
"Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's about fourteen-
that's the one that gives herself to good works and has a hare-lip."
"Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so."
"Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they
ain't going to let them come to no harm. There's Hobson, the Babtis'
preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford,
and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and
the widow Bartley, and- well, there's a lot of them; but these are the
ones that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about
sometimes, when he wrote home; so Harvey'll know where to look for
friends when he gets here."
Well, the old man he went on asking questions till he just fairly
emptied that young fellow. Blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody
and everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and
about Peter's business- which was a tanner; and about George's-
which was a carpenter; and about Harvey's- which was a dissentering
minister; and so on, and so on. Then he says:
"What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?"
"Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn't
stop there. When they're deep they won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati
boat will, but this is a St. Louis one."
"Was Peter Wilks well off?"
"Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it's reckoned
he left three or four thousand in cash hid up som'ers."
"When did you say he died?"
"I didn't say, but it was last night."
"Funeral to-morrow, likely?"
"Yes, 'bout the middle of the day."
"Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to go, one time or
another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we're all
right."
"Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always say that."
When we struck the boat, she was about done loading, and pretty soon
she got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost
my ride, after all. When the boat was gone, the king made me paddle up
another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore, and says:
"Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new
carpet-bags. And if he's gone over to t'other side, go over there
and git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along,
now."
I see what he was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I
got back with the duke, we hid the canoe and then they set down on a
log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow
had said it- every last word of it. And all the time he was a doing
it, he tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well
too, for a slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't agoing to try
to; but he really done it pretty good. Then he says:
"How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?"
The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef
and dumb person on the histrionic boards. So then they waited for a
steamboat.
About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come
along, but they didn't come from high enough up the river; but at last
there was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and
we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we
only wanted to go four or five mile, they was booming mad, and give us
a cussing, and said they wouldn't land us. But the king was ca'm. He
says:
"If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece, to be took
on and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't
it?"
So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got
to the village, they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked
down, when they see the yawl a coming; and when the king says-
"Kin any of you gentlemen tell me where Mr. Peter Wilks lives?" they
give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to
say, "What d' I tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and
gentle:
"I'm sorry, sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he
did live yesterday evening."
Sudden as winking, the ornery old cretur went all to smash, and fell
up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down
his back, and says:
"Alas, alas, our poor brother- gone, and we never got to see him;
oh, it's too, too hard!"
Then he turns around, blubbering, and making a lot of idiotic
signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a
carpet-bag and bust out a-crying. If they warn't the beatenest lot,
them two frauds, that ever I struck.
Well, the men gethered around, and sympathized with them, and said
all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the
hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king
all about his brother's last moments, and the king he told it all over
again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that
dead tanner like they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I
struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body
ashamed of the human race.
CH_25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
-
The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the
people tearing down on the run, from every which way, some of them
putting on their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the
middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a
soldier-march. The windows and door-yards was full; and every minute
somebody would say, over a fence:
"Is it them?"
And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say,
"You bet it is."
When we got to the house, the street in front of it was packed,
and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane was
red-headed, but that don't make no difference, she was most awful
beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she
was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary
Jane she jumped for them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke, and
there they had it! Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to
see them meet again at last and have such good times.
Then the king he hunched the duke, private- I see him do it- and
then he looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two
chairs; so then, him and the duke, with a hand across each other's
shoulder, and t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn
over there, everybody dropping back to give them room, and all the
talk and noise stopping, people saying "Sh!" and all the men taking
their hats off and dropping their heads, so you could a heard a pin
fall. And when they got there, they bent over and looked in the
coffin, and took one sight, and then they bust out a crying so you
could a heard them to Orleans, most; and then they put their arms
around each other's neck, and hung their chins over each other's
shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I never see
two men leak the way they done. And mind you, everybody was doing
the same; and the place was that damp I never see anything like it.
Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and t'other on t'other
side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the
coffin, and let on to pray all to theirselves. Well, when it come to
that, it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and
so everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud- the poor
girls, too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without
saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then
put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with
the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and
swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so
disgusting.
Well, by-and-by the king he gets up and comes forward a little,
and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears
and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor
brother to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive, after
the long journey of four thousand mile, but it's a trial that's
sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy
tears, and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's
heart, because out of their mouths they can't, words being too weak
and cold, and all that kind of rot and slush, till it was just
sickening; and then he blubbers out a pious goody-goody Amen, and
turns hirnself loose and goes to crying fit to bust.
And the minute the words was out of his mouth somebody over in the
crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all
their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as
church letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that
soul-butter and hogwash, I never see it freshen up things so, and
sound so honest and bully.
Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his
nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the
family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set
up with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying
yonder could speak, he knows who he would name, for they was names
that was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and
so he will name the same, to-wit, as follows, vizz:- Rev. Mr.
Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner
Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the
widow Bartley.
Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town,
a-hunting together; that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man
to t'other world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer
Bell was away up to Louisville on some business. But the rest was on
hand, so they all come and shook hands with the king and thanked him
and talked to him; and then they shook hands with the duke, and didn't
say nothing but just kept a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a
passel of sapheads whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands
and said "Goo-goo- goo-goo-goo," all the time, like a baby that
can't talk.
So the king he blatted along, and managed to inquire about pretty
much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts
of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or
to George's family, or to Peter; and he always let on that Peter wrote
him the things, but that was a lie, he got every blessed one of them
out of that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.
Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and
the king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the
dwelling-house and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and
it give the tanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some
other houses and land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand
dollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand
cash was hid, down cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and
fetch it up, and have everything square and above-board; and told me
to come with a candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when
they found the bag they spilt it out on the floor and it was a
lovely sight, all them yaller-boys. My, the way the king's eyes did
shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder, and says:
"Oh, this ain't bully, nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Biljy,
it beats the Nonesuch, don't it!"
The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them
through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the
king says:
"It ain't no use talkin'; bein' brothers to a rich dead man, and
representatives of furrin heirs that's got left, is the line for you
and me, Bilge. Thish-yer comes of trust'n to Providence. It's the best
way, in the long run. I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no better
way."
Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it
on trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it
comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king:
"Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and
fifteen dollars?"
They worried over that a while, and ransacked all around for it.
Then the duke says:
"Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake- I
reckon that's the way of it. The best way's to let it go, and keep
still about it. We can spare it."
"Oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it. I don't k'yer noth'n 'bout
that- it's the count I'm thinkin'about. We want to be awful square and
open and aboveboard, here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer money
up stairs and count it before everybody- then ther' ain't noth'n
suspicious. But when the dead man says ther's six thous'n dollars, you
know, we don't want to-"
"Hold on," says the duke. "Less make up the deffisit"- and he
begun to haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.
"It's a most amaz'n' good idea, duke- you have got a rattlin' clever
head on you," says the king. "Blest if the old None-such ain't a
heppin' us out agin"- and he begun to haul out yaller-jackets and
stack them up.
It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and
clear.
"Say," says the duke, "I got another idea. Le's go up stairs and
count this money, and then take and give it to the girls."
"Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It's the most dazzling idea 'at
ever a man struck. You have cert'nly got the most astonishin' head I
ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it.
Let 'em fetch along their suspicions now, if they want to- this'll lay
'em out."
When we got up stairs, everybody gethered around the table, and
the king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a
pile- twenty elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it,
and licked their chops. Then they raked it into the bag agin, and I
see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech. He says:
"Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder, has done generous by
them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous
by these-yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's
left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him, knows
that he would a done more generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o'
woundin' his dear William and me. Now, wouldn't he? Ther' ain't no
question 'bout it, in my mind. Well, then- what kind o' brothers would
it be, that'd stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles
would it be that'd rob- yes, rob- sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at
he loved so, at sech a time? If I know William- and I think I do-
he- well, I'll jest ask him." He turns around and begins to make a lot
of signs to the duke with hands; and the duke he looks at him stupid
and leather-headed a while, then all of a sudden he seems to catch his
meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for
joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the king
says, "I knowed it; I reckon that'll convince anybody the way he feels
about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the money- take it
all. It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful."
Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the
duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And
everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook
the hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:
"You dear good souls!- how lovely!- how could you!"
Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the
diseased again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all
that; and before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there
from outside, and stood a listening and looking, and not saying
anything; and nobody saying anything to him either, because the king
was talking and they was all busy listening. The king was saying- in
the middle of something he'd started in on-
"-they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased. That's why
they're invited here this evenin'; but to-morrow we want all to
come- everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and
so it's fitten that his funeral orgies sh'd be public."
And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and
every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the
duke he couldn't stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of
paper, "obsequies, you old fool," and folds it up and goes to
goo-gooing and reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he
reads it, and puts it in his pocket, and says:
"Poor William, afflicted as he is, his heart's aluz right. Asks me
to invite everybody to come to the funeral- wants me to make 'em all
welcome. But he needn't a worried- it was jest what I was at."
Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping
in his funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done
before. And when he done it the third time he says:
"I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it ain't-
obsequies bein' the common term- but because orgies is the right term.
Obsequies ain't used in England no more, now- it's gone out. We say
orgies now, in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing
you're after, more exact. It's a word that's made up outin the Greek
orgo, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew jeesum, to plant, cover
up; hence inter. So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public
funeral."
He was the worst I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he
laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, "Why
doctor!" and Abner Shackleford says:
"Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks."
The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:
"Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I-"
"Keep your hands off of me!" says the doctor. "You talk like an
Englishman- don't you? It's the worst imitation I ever heard. You
Peter Wilks's brother. You're a fraud, that's what you are!"
Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor, and
tried to quiet him down, and tried to explain to him, and tell him how
Harvey'd showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and knowed everybody
by name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and begged him not
to hurt Harvey's feelings and the poor girls' feelings, and all
that; but it warn't no use, he stormed right along, and said any man
that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no
better than what he did, was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was
hanging to the king and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and
turns on them. He says:
"I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend; and I warn you
as a friend, and an honest one, that wants to protect you and keep you
out of harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel, and
have nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic
Greek and Hebrew as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an
imposter- has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he
has picked up somewheres, and you take them for proofs, and are helped
to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here, who ought to know
better. Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for your friend, and for your
unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me; turn this pitiful rascal out-
I beg you to do it. Will you?"
Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She
says:
"Here is my answer." She hove up the bag of money and put it in
the king's hands, and says, "Take this six thousand dollars, and
invest it for me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us
no receipt for it."
Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and
the hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands
and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up
his hand and smiled proud. The doctor says:
"All right, I wash my hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a
time's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of
this day"- and away he went.
"All right, doctor," says the king, kinder mocking him, "we'll try
and get 'em to send for you"- which made them all laugh, and they said
it was a prime good hit.
CH_26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
-
Well when they was all gone, the king he asks Mary Jane how they was
off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which
would do for Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle
Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would turn into the room
with her sisters and sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby,
with a pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his
valley- meaning me.
So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which
was plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of
other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way,
but he said they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and
before them was a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the
floor. There was an old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar box
in another, and all sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks
around, like girls brisken up a room with. The king said it was all
the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings, and so don't
disturb them. The duke's room was pretty small, but plenty good
enough, and so was my cubby.
That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was
there, and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on
them, and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the
head of the table, with Susan along side of her, and said how bad
the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and
tough the fried chickens was- and all that kind of rot, the way
women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all
knowed everything was tip-top, and said so- said "How do you get
biscuits to brown so nice?" and "Where, for the land's sake did you
get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind of humbug talky-talk,
just the way people always does at a supper, you know.
And when it was all done, me and the hare-lip had supper in the
kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers
clean up the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England,
and blest if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin,
sometimes. She says:
"Did you ever see the king?"
"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have- he goes to our church."
I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says
he goes to our church, she says:
"What- regular?"
"Yes- regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn- on t'other side
the pulpit."
"I thought he lived in London?"
"Well, he does. Where would he live?"
"But I thought you lived in Sheffield?"
I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken
bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:
"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's
only in the summer-time, when he comes there to take the sea baths."
"Why, how you talk- Sheffield ain't on the sea."
"Well, who said it was?"
"Why, you did."
"I didn't, nuther."
"You did!"
"I didn't."
"You did."
"I never said nothing of the kind."
"Well, what did you say, then?"
"Said he come to take the sea baths- that's what I said."
"Well, then! how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the
sea?"
"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?"
"Yes."
"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"
"Why, no."
"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a
sea bath."
"How does he get it, then?"
"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water- in barrels.
There in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants
his water hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there
at the sea. They haven't got no conveniences for it."
"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and
saved time."
When she said that, I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was
comfortable and glad. Next, she says:
"Do you go to church, too?"
"Yes- regular."
"Where do you set?"
"Why, in our pew."
"Whose pew?"
"Why, ourn- your Uncle Harvey's."
"His'n? What does he want with a pew?"
"Wants it to set in. What did you reckon he wanted with it?"
"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."
Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again,
so I played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says:
"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?"
"Why, what do they want with more?"
"What!- to preach before a king? I never see such a girl as you.
They don't have no less than seventeen."
"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as
that, not if I never got to glory. It must take 'em a week."
"Shucks, they don't all of 'em preach the same day- only one of
'em."
"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"
"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate- and one thing or
another. But mainly they don't do nothing."
"Well, then, what are they for?"
"Why, they're for style. Don't you know nothing?"
"Well, I don't want to know no such foolishness as that. How is
servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat
our niggers?"
"No! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs."
"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New
Year's week, and Fourth of July?"
"Oh, just listen! A body could tell you hain't ever been to England,
by that. Why, Hare-l- why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from
year's end to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theatre, nor
nigger shows, nor nowheres."
"Nor church?"
"Nor church."
"But you always went to church."
Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But
next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley
was different from a common servant, and had to go to church whether
he wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of it's being
the law. But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she
warn't satisfied. She says:
"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?"
"Honest injun," says I.
"None of it at all?"
"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.
"Lay your hand on this book and say it."
I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it
and said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:
"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll
believe the rest."
"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in
with Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so
to him, and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you
like to be treated so?"
"That's always your way, Maim- always sailing in to help somebody
before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some
stretchers, I reckon; and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's
every bit and grain I did say. I reckon he can stand a little thing
like that, can't he?"
"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big, he's here
in our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If
you was in his place, it would make you feel ashamed; and so you
oughtn't to say a thing to another person that will make them feel
ashamed."
"Why, Maim, he said-"
"It don't make no difference what he said- that ain't the thing. The
thing is for you to treat him kind, and not be saying things to make
him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks."
I says to myself, this is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle
rob her of her money!
Then Susan she waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give
Hare-lip hark from the tomb!
Says I to myself, And this is another one that I'm letting him rob
her of her money!
Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely
again- which was her way- but when she got done there warn't hardly
anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.
"All right, then," says the other girls, "you just ask his pardon."
She done it, too. And she done it beautiful. She done it so
beautiful it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a
thousand lies, so she could do it again.
I says to myself, this is another one that I'm letting him rob her
of her money. And when she got through, they all jest laid theirselves
out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt
so ornery and low down and mean, that I says to myself, My mind's made
up; I'll hive that money for them or bust.
So then I lit out- for bed, I said, meaning some time or another.
When I got by myself, I went to thinking the thing over. I says to
myself, shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these
frauds? No- that won't do. He might tell who told him; then the king
and the duke would make it warm for me. Shall I go, private, and
tell Mary Jane? No- I dasn't do it. Her face would give them a hint,
sure; they've got the money, and they'd slide right out and get away
with it. If she was to fetch in help, I'd get mixed up in the
business, before it was done with, I judge. No, there ain't no good
way but one. I got to steal that money, somehow; and I got to steal it
some way that they won't suspicion that I done it. They've got a
good thing, here; and they ain't agoing to leave till they've played
this family and this town for all they're worth, so I'll find a chance
time enough. I'll steal it, and hide it; and by-and-by, when I'm
away down the river, I'll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it's
hid. But I better hive it to-night, if I can, because the doctor maybe
hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has; he might scare them out of
here, yet.
So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Up stairs the hall
was dark, but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it
with my hands; but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king
to let anybody else take care of that money but his own self; so
then I went to his room and begun to paw around there. But I see I
couldn't do nothing without a candle, and I dasn't light one, of
course. So I judged I'd got to do the other thing- lay for them and
eavesdrop. About that time, I hears their footsteps coming and was
going to skip under the bed; I reached for it, but it wasn't where I
thought it would be; but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane's
frocks, so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in amongst the
gowns, and stood there perfectly still.
They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done
was to get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found
the bed when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to
hide under the bed when you are up to anything private. They sets
down, then, and the king says:
"Well, what is it? and cut it middlin' short, because it's better
for us to be down there a whoopin'-up the mournin', than up here
givin' 'em a chance to talk us over."
"Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable. That
doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've got a
notion, and I think it's a sound one."
"What is it, duke?"
"That we better glide out of this, before three in the morning,
and clip it down the river with what we've got. Specially, seeing we
got it so easy- given back to us, flung at our heads, as you may
say, when of course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for
knocking off and lighting out."
That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago, it would a
been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed.
The king rips out and says:
"What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off like a
passel o' fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o'
property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?- and all
good salable stuff, too."
The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't
want to go no deeper- didn't want to rob a lot of orphans of
everything they had.
"Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We shan't rob 'em of nothing at
all but jest this money. The people that buys the property is the
suff'rers; because as soon's it's found out 'at we didn't own it-
which won't be long after we've slid- the sale won't be valid, and
it'll all go back to the estate. These-yer orphans'll git their
house back agin, and that's enough for them; they're young and spry,
and k'n easy earn a livin'. They ain't agoing to suffer. Why, jest
think- there's thous'n's and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off.
Bless you, they ain't got noth'n to complain of."
Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and
said all right, but said he believed it was blame foolishness to stay,
and that doctor hanging over them. But the king says:
"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for him? Hain't we got all the
fools in town on our side? and ain't that a big enough majority in any
town?"
So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says:
"I don't think we put that money in a good place."
That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a
hint of no kind to help me. The king says:
"Because Mary Jane'll be in mourning from this out; and first you
know the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box
these duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run
across money and not borrow some of it?"
"Your head's level, agin, duke," says the king; and he come a
fumbling under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck
tight to the wall, and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I
wondered what them fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I
tried to think what I'd better do if they did catch me. But the king
he got the bag before I could think more than about a half a
thought, and he never suspicioned I was around. They took and shoved
the bag through a rip in the straw tick that was under the feather
bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst the straw and said it was
all right, now, because a nigger only makes up the feather bed, and
don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a year, and so it
warn't in no danger of getting stole, now.
But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was
half-way down stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it
there till I could get a chance to do better. I judged I better hide
it outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they
would give the house a good ransacking. I knowed that very well.
Then I turned in, with my clothes all on; but I couldn't a gone to
sleep, if I'd a wanted to, I was in such a sweat to get through with
the business. By-and-by I heard the king and the duke come up; so I
rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the top of my ladder and
waited to see if anything was going to happen. But nothing did.
So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones
hadn't begun, yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.
CH_27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
-
I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring, so I tip-toed
along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound
anywheres. I peeped through a crack of the diningroom door, and see
the men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs.
The door was open into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and
there was a candle in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor
door was open; but I see there warn't nobody in there but the
remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; but the front door was locked,
and the key wasn't there. Just then I heard somebody coming down the
stairs, back behind me. I run in the parlor, and took a swift look
around, and the only place I see to hide the bag was in the coffin.
The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing the dead man's face
down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his shroud on. I tucked
the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond where his hands was
crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and then I run back
across the room and in behind the door.
The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very
soft, and kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief
and I see she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back
was to me. I slid out, and as I passed the dining room I thought I'd
make sure them watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the
crack and everything was all right. They hadn't stirred.
I slipped up to bed, feeling rather blue, on accounts of the thing
playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so
much resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right;
because when we get down the river a hundred mile or two, I could
write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it;
but that ain't the thing that's going to happen; the thing that's
going to happen is, the money'll be found when they come to screw on
the lid. Then the king'll get it again, and it'll be a long day before
he gives anybody another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I
wanted to slide down and get it out of there, but I dasn't try it.
Every minute it was getting earlier, now, and pretty soon some of them
watchers would begin to stir, and I might get catched- catched with
six thousand dollars in my hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take
care of. I don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as that, I
says to myself.
When I got down stairs in the morning, the parlor was shut up, and
the watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and
the widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if
anything had been happening, but I couldn't tell.
Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man,
and they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of
chairs, and then set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from
the neighbors till the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was
full. I see the coffin lid was the way it was before, but I dasn't
go to look in under it, with folks around.
Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls
took seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a
half an hour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and
looked down at the dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a
tear, and it was all very still and solemn, only the girls and the
beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads
bent, and sobbing a little. There warn't no other sound but the
scraping of the feet on the floor, and blowing noses- because people
always blow them more at a funeral than they do at other places except
church.
When the place was packed full, the undertaker he slid around in his
black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last
touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable,
and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved people
around, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passage-ways, and
done it all with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took his
place over against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest,
stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn't no more smile to him than
there is to a ham.
They had borrowed a melodeum- a sick one; and when everything was
ready, a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky
and colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the
only one that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the
Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and
straight off the most outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body
ever heard; it was only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket,
and he kept it up, right along; the parson he had to stand there, over
the coffin, and wait- you couldn't hear yourself think. It was right
down awkward, and nobody didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty
soon they see that long-legged undertaker make a sign to the
preacher as much as to say, "Don't you worry- just depend on me." Then
he stooped down and begun to glide along the wall, just his
shoulders showing over the people's heads. So he glided along, and the
pow-wow and racket getting more and more outrageous all the time;
and at last, when he had gone around two sides of the room, he
disappears down cellar. Then, in about two seconds we heard a whack,
and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then
everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk
where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's
back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided, and
glided, around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded
his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the
preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, "He had a rat!" Then he drooped down and glided along the
wall again to his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction
to the people, because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing
like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the little things that
makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular
man in town than what that undertaker was.
Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome;
and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual
rubbage, and at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun
to sneak up on the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat
then, and watched him pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just
slid the lid along, as soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and
fast. So there I was! I didn't know whether the money was in there, or
not. So, says I, spose somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?- now
how do I know whether to write to Mary Jane or not? Spose she dug
him up and didn't find nothing- what would she think of me? Blame
it, I says, I might get hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and
keep dark, and not write at all; the thing's awful mixed, now;
trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to
goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole business!
They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces
again- I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing
come of it; the faces didn't tell me nothing.
The king he visited around, in the evening, and sweetened
everybody up, and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the
idea that his congregation over in England would be in a sweat about
him, so he must hurry and settle up the estate right away, and leave
for home. He was very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody;
they wished he could stay longer, but they said they could see it
couldn't be done. And he said of course him and William would take the
girls home with them; and that pleased everybody too, because then the
girls would be well fixed, and amongst their own relations; and it
pleased the girls, too- tickled them so they clean forgot they ever
had a trouble in the world; and told him to sell out as quick as he
wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor things was that glad and
happy it made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so,
but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and change the
general tune.
Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and
all the property for auction straight off- sale two days after the
funeral; but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.
So the next day after the funeral, along about noontime, the
girls' joy got the first jolt; a couple of nigger traders come
along, and the king sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day
drafts as they called it, and away they went, the two sons up the
river to Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans. I
thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts
for grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made
me down sick to see it. The girls said they hadn't ever dreamed of
seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can't ever
get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and
niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying; and I reckon I
couldn't a stood it all but would a had to bust out and tell on our
gang if I hadn't known the sale warn't no account and the niggers
would be back home in a week or two.
The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out
flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the
children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he
bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I
tell you the duke was powerful uneasy.
Next day was auction day. About broad-day in the morning, the king
and the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by
their look that there was trouble. The king says:
"Was you in my room night before last?"
"No, your majesty"- which was the way I always called him when
nobody but our gang warn't around.
"Was you in there yesterday er last night?"
"No, your majesty."
"Honor bright, now- no lies."
"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't
been anear your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and
showed it to you."
The duke says:
"Have you seen anybody else go in there?"
"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."
"Stop and think."
I studied a while, and see my chance, then I says:
"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."
Both of them give a little jump; and looked like they hadn't ever
expected it, and then like they had. Then the duke says:
"What, all of them?"
"No- leastways not all at once. That is, I don't think I ever see
them all come out at once but just one time."
"Hello- when was that?"
"It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early,
because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see
them."
"Well, go on, go on- what did they do? How'd they act?"
"They didn't do anything. And they didn't act anyway, much, as fur
as I see. They tip-toed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd
shoved in there to do up your majesty's room, or something, sposing
you was up; and found you warn't up, and so they was hoping to slide
out of the way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't
already waked you up."
"Great guns, this is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked
pretty sick, and tolerable silly. They stood there a thinking and
scratching their heads, a minute, and then the duke he bust into a
kind of a little raspy chuckle, and says:
"It does beat all, how neat the niggers played their hand. They
let on to be sorry they was going out of this region! and I believed
they was sorry. And so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever
tell me any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why,
the way they played that thing, it would fool anybody. In my opinion
there's a fortune in 'em. If I had capital and a theatre, I wouldn't
want a better lay out than that- and here we've gone and sold 'em
for a song. Yes, and ain't privileged to sing the song, yet. Say,
where is that song?- that draft."
"In the bank for to be collected. Where would it be?"
"Well, that's all right then, thank goodness."
Says I, kind of timid-like:
"Is something gone wrong?"
The king whirls on me and rips out:
"None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own
affairs- if you got any. Long as you're in this town, don't you forgit
that, you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swaller it,
and say noth'n: mum's the word for us."
As they was starting down the ladder, the duke he chuckles again,
and says:
"Quick sales and small profits! It's a good business- yes."
The king snarls around on him and says,
"I was trying to do for the best, in sellin' 'm out so quick. If the
profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to
carry, is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?"
"Well, they'd be in this house yet, and we wouldn't if I could a got
my advice listened to."
The king sassed back, as much as was safe for him, and then
swapped around and lit into me again. He give me down the banks for
not coming and telling him I see the niggers come out of his room
acting that way- said any fool would a knowed something was up. And
then waltzed in and cussed himself a while; and said it all come of
him not laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd
be blamed if he'd ever do it again. So they went off a jawing; and I
felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all off onto the niggers and yet
hadn't done the niggers no harm by it.
CH_28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
-
By-and-by it was getting-up time; so I come down the ladder and
started for down stairs, but as I come to the girls' room, the door
was open, and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was
open and she'd been packing things in it- getting ready to go to
England. But she had stopped now, with a folded gown in her lap, and
had her face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of
course anybody would. I went in there, and says:
"Miss Mary Jane, you can't abear to see people in trouble, and I
can't- most always. Tell me about it."
So she done it. And it was the niggers- I just expected it. She said
the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she
didn't know how she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the
mother and the children warn't ever going to see each other no more-
and then busted out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and
says:
"Oh, dear, to think they ain't ever going to see each other any
more!"
"But they will- and inside of two weeks- and I know it!" says I.
Laws, it was out before I could think!- and before I could budge,
she throws her arms around my neck, and told me to say it again, say
it again, say it again!
I see I had spoke too sudden, and said too much, and was in a
close place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set
there, very impatient and excited, and handsome, but looking kind of
happy and eased-up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out. So
I went to studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a body that
ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place, is taking
considerable many resks, though I ain't had no experience, and can't
say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet here's a
case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the truth is
better, and actuly safer, than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and
think it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and
unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at
last, I'm agoing to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this time,
though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of powder and
touching it off just to see where you'll go to. Then I says:
"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways, where
you could go and stay three or four days?"
"Yes- Mr. Lathrop's. Why?"
"Never mind why, yet. If I tell you how I know the niggers will
see each other again- inside of two weeks- here in this house- and
prove how I know it- will you go to Mr. Lathrop's and stay four days?"
"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"
"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of you than just
your word- I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She
smiled, and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it,
I'll shut the door- and bolt it."
Then I come back and set down again, and says:
"Don't you holler. Just set still, and take it like a man. I got
to tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a
bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for
it. These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all- they're a couple
of frauds- regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of
it- you can stand the rest middling easy."
It holted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the
shoal water now, so I went right along, her eyes a blazing higher
and higher all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we
first struck that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear
through to where she flung herself onto the king's breast at the front
door and he kissed her sixteen or seventeen times- and then up she
jumps, with her face afire like sunset, and says:
"The brute! Come- don't waste a minute- not a second- we'll have
them tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!
Says I:
"Cert'nly. But do you mean, before you go to Mr. Lathrop's, or-"
"Oh," she says, "what am I thinking about!" she says, and set
right down again. "Don't mind what I said- please don't- you won't,
now, will you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way
that I said I would die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up,"
she says; "now go on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what
to do, and whatever you say, I'll do it."
"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed
so I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not-
I druther not tell you why- and if you was to blow on them this town
would get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right, but there'd
be another person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble.
Well, we got to save him, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't
blow on them."
Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I
could get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then
leave. But I didn't want to run the raft in day-time, without
anybody aboard to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan
to begin working till pretty late to-night. I says:
"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do- and you won't have
to stay at Mr. Lathrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"
"A little short of four miles- right out in the country, back here."
"Well, that'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low
till nine or half-past, to-night, and then get them to fetch you
home again- tell them you've thought of something. If you get here
before eleven, put a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up,
wait till eleven, and then if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and
out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news
around, and get these beats jailed."
"Good," she says, "I'll do it."
"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up
along with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing
beforehand, and you must stand by me all you can."
"Stand by you, indeed I will. They shan't touch a hair of your
head!" she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap
when she said it, too.
"If I get away, I shan't be here," I says, "to prove these
rapscallions ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I was here.
I could swear they was beats and bummers, that's all; though that's
worth something. Well, there's others can do that better than what I
can- and they're people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd
be. I'll tell you how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of
paper. There- 'Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't
lose it. When the court wants to find out something about these two,
let them send up to Bricksville and say they've got the men that
oldyed the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesses- why, you'll
have that entire town down here before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary.
And they'll come a-biling, too."
I judged we had got everything fixed about right, now. So I says:
"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody
don't have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the
auction, on accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out
of this till they get that money- and the way we've fixed it the
sale ain't going to count, and they ain't going to get no money.
It's just like the way it was with the niggers- it warn't no sale, and
the niggers will be back before long. Why, they can't collect the
money for the niggers, yet- they're in the worst kind of a fix, Miss
Mary."
"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll
start straight for Mr. Lathrop's."
"Deed, that ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner
of means; go before breakfast."
"Why?"
"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?"
"Well, I never thought- and come to think, I don't know. What was
it?"
"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I
don't want no better book than what your face is. A body can set
down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and
face your uncles, when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never-"
"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast- I'll be glad
to. And leave my sisters with them?"
"Yes- never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while.
They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want
you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town- if a
neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning, your face would
tell something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix
it with all of them. I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your
uncles and say you've went away for a few hours for to get a little
rest and change, or to see a friend, and you'll be back to-night or
early in the morning."
"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given
to them."
"Well, then, it shan't be." It was well enough to tell her so- no
harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's
the little things that smoothes people's roads the most, down here
below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost
nothing. Then I says: "There's one more thing- that bag of money."
"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to
think how they got it."
"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."
"Why, who's got it?"
"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I had it, because I stole it from
them: and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but
I'm afraid it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane,
I'm just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did,
honest. I come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the
first place I come to, and run- and it warn't a good place."
"Oh, stop blaming yourself- it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow
it- you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide
it?"
I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I
couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that
corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach.
So for a minute I didn't say nothing- then I says:
"I'd ruther not tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you
don't mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of
paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lathrop's, if you
want to. Do you reckon that'll do?"
"Oh, yes."
So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was
crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was
mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."
It made my eyes water a little, to remember her crying there all
by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under
her own roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and
give it to her, I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook
me by the hand, hard, and says:
"Good-bye- I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if
I don't ever see you again, I shan't ever forget you, and I'll think
of you a many and a many a time, and I'll pray for you, too!"- and she
was gone.
Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was
more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same- she was
just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the
notion- there warn't no backdown to her, I judge. You may say what you
want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I
ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like
flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty- and
goodness too- she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since,
but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million times,
and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought
it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't a
done it or bust.
Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody
see her go. When I struck Susan and the harelip, I says:
"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river
that you all goes to see sometimes?"
They says:
"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."
"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane
she told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry- one
of them's sick."
"Which one?"
"I don't know; leastways I kinder forget; but I think it's-"
"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't Hanner?"
"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."
"My goodness- and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"
"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss
Mary Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."
"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her!"
I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I
says:
"Mumps."
"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the
mumps."
"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with these mumps.
These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."
"How's it a new kind?"
"Because it's mixed up with other things."
"What other things?"
"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and
consumption, and yeller janders, and brain fever, and I don't know
what all."
"My land! And they call it the mumps?"
"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."
"Well, what in the nation do they call it the mumps for?"
"Why, because it is the mumps. That's what it starts with."
"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and
take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his
brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and
some numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his toe.' Would ther' be
any sense in that? No. And ther' ain't no sense in this, nuther. Is it
ketching?"
"Is it ketching? Why, how you talk. Is a harrow catching?- in the
dark? If you don't hitch onto one tooth, you're bound to on another,
ain't you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the
whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of
harrow, as you may say- and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther,
you come to get it hitched on good."
"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle
Harvey and-"
"Oh, yes," I says, "I would. Of course I would. I wouldn't lose no
time."
"Well, why wouldn't you?"
"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles
obleeged to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do
you reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all
that journey by yourselves? You know they'll wait for you. So fur,
so good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is
a preacher going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to
deceive a ship clerk?- so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go
aboard? Now you know he ain't. What will he do, then? Why, he'll
say, 'It's a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along
the best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful
pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my bounden duty to set down here
and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it.'
But never mind, if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey-"
"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having
good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary
Jane's got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."
"Well, anyway, maybe you better tell some of the neighbors."
"Listen at that, now. You do beat all, for natural stupidness. Can't
you see that they'd go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just not to
tell anybody at all."
"Well, maybe you're right- yes, I judge you are right."
"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a
while, anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"
"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them
to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've
run over the river to see Mr.- Mr.- what is the name of that rich
family your uncle Peter used to think so much of?- I mean the one
that-"'
"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"
"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to
remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has
run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction
and buy this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther
they had it than anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till
they say they'll come, and then, if she ain't too tired, she's
coming home; and if she is, she'll be home in the morning anyway.
She said, don't say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the
Apthorps- which'll be perfectly true, because she is going there to
speak about their buying the house; I know it, because she told me so,
herself."
"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and
give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.
Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because
they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther
Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of
Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat-
I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of
course he would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very
handy, not being brung up to it.
Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards
the end of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and
the old man he was on hand and looking his level piousest, up there
longside of the auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture, now
and then, or a little goody-goody saying, of some kind, and the duke
he was around goo-gooing for sympathy all he knowed how, and just
spreading himself generly.
But by-and-by the thing dragged through, and everything was sold.
Everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So they'd
got to work that off- I never see such a girafft as the king was for
wanting to swallow everything. Well, whilst they was at it, a
steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a whooping
and yelling and laughing and carrying on, and singing out:
"Here's your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old
Peter Wilks- and you pays your money and you takes your choice!"
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