CHAPTER FIFTEEN
-
We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the
bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what
we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way
up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a
tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in fog; but
when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line, to make fast,
there warn't anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line
around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was
a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore
it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and
it made me so sick and scared I couldn't budge for most a half a
minute it seemed to me- and then there warn't no raft in sight; you
couldn't see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the
stern and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn't
come. I was in such a hurry I hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to
untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do
anything with them.
As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy,
right down to the tow-head. That was all right as far as it went,
but the tow-head warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the
foot of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more
idea which way I was going than a dead man.
Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank
or a tow-head or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's
mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a
time. I whooped and listened. Away down there, somewheres, I hears a
small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it,
listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come, I see I
warn't heading for it but heading away to the right of it. And the
next time, I was heading away to the left of it- and not gaining on it
much, either, for I was flying around, this way and that and
'tother, but it was going straight ahead all the time.
I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all
the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the
whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and
directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good, now. That
was somebody else's whoop, or else I was turned around.
I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me
yet, but in a different place; it kept coming and kept changing its
place, and I kept answering, till by-and-by it was in front of me
again and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down
stream and I was all right, if that was Jim and not some other
raftsman hollering. I couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for
nothing don't look natural nor sound natural in a fog.
The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a booming down on
a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current
throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that
fairly roared, the current was tearing by them so swift.
In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
perfectly still, then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I
didn't draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.
I just give up, then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank
was an island, and Jim had gone down 'tother side of it. It warn't
no tow-head, that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big
timber of a regular island; it might be five or six mile long and more
than a half a mile wide.
I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I
reckon. I was floating along, of course, four or five mile an hour;
but you don't ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying
dead still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by,
you don't think to yourself how fast you're going, but you catch
your breath and think, my! how that snag's tearing along. If you think
it ain't dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way, by yourself, in
the night, you try it once- you'll see.
Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I
hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I
couldn't do it, and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of
tow-heads, for I had little dim glimpses of them on both sides of
me, sometimes just a narrow channel between; and some that I
couldn't see, I knowed was there, because I'd hear the wash of the
current against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the banks.
Well, I warn't long losing the whoops, down amongst the tow-heads; and
I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because it was
worse than chasing a Jack-o-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge
around so, and swap places so quick and so much.
I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively, four or five
times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I
judged the raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or
else it would get further ahead and clear out of hearing- it was
floating a little faster than what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the open river again, by-and-by, but I
couldn't hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had
fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good
and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no
more. I didn't want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I
couldn't help it; so I thought I would take just one little cat-nap.
But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the
stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning
down a big bend stern first. First I didn't know where I was; I
thought I was dreaming; and when things begun to come back to me, they
seemed to come up dim out of last week.
It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest
kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could
see, by the stars. I looked away down stream, and seen a black speck
on the water. I took out after it; but when I got to it warn't nothing
but a couple of saw-logs made fast together. Then I see another speck,
and chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the
raft.
When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between
his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering oar.
The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with
leaves and branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.
I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and begun to
gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:
"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"
"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead- you
ain'drownded- you's back again? It's too good for true, honey, it's
too good for true. Lemme look at you, chile, lemme feel o' you. No,
you ain' dead! you's back again, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck-
de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"
"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a drinking?"
"Drinkin'? Has I ben a drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a
drinkin'?"
"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"
"How does I talk wild?"
"How? why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all
that stuff, as if I'd been gone away?"
"Huck- Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. Hain't
you ben gone away?"
"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been
gone anywheres. Where would I go to?"
"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who
is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat's what I wants to know?"
"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a
tangle-headed old fool, Jim."
"I is, is I? Well you answer me dis. Didn't you tote out de line
in de canoe, fer to make fas' to de tow-head?"
"No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't seen no tow-head."
"You hain't seen no tow-head? Looky here- didn't de line pull
loose en de raf' go a hummin' down de river, en leave you en de
canoe behine in de fog?"
"What fog?"
"Why de fog. De fog dat's ben aroun' all night. En didn't you whoop,
en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us
got los' en 'tother one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn'
know whah he wuz? En didn't I bust up again a lot er dem islands en
have a turrible time en mos' git drownded? Now ain'dat so, boss- ain't
it so? You answer me dat."
"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no
islands nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with
you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I
reckon I done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of
course you've been dreaming."
"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?"
"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it
happen."
"But Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as-"
"It don't make no difference how plain it is, there ain't nothing in
it. I know, because I've been here all the time."
Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there
studying over it. Then he says:
"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it
ain't de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no
dream b'fo' dat's tired me like dis one."
"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like
everything, sometimes. But this one was a staving dream- tell me all
about it, Jim."
So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through,
just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he
said he must start in and "'terpret" it, because it was sent for a
warning. He said the first tow-head stood for a man that would try
to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get
us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us
every now and then, and if we didn't try hard to make out to
understand them they'd just take us into bad luck, 'stead of keeping
us out of it. The lot of tow-heads was troubles we was going to get
into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we
minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we
would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear
river, which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got onto the raft, but it
was clearing up again, now.
"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough, as far as it goes,
Jim," I says; "but what does these things stand for?"
It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft, and the smashed oar.
You could see them first rate, now.
Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the
trash again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that
he couldn't seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its
place again, right away. But when he did get the thing straightened
around, he looked at me steady, without ever smiling, and says:
"What do dey stan' for? I's gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore
out wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart
wuz mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no mo' what
become er me en de raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin', all
safe en soun', de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en
kiss' yo' foot I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin 'bout wuz how
you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en
trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en
makes 'em ashamed."
Then he got up slow, and walked to the wigwam, and went in there,
without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel
so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and
humble myself to a nigger- but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry
for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I
wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that
way.
CH_16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
-
We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways
behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a
procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she
carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams
aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall
flag-pole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It
amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.
We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up
and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber
on both sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.
We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we
got to it. I said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there
warn't but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to
have them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town?
Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show.
But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island
and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim- and me
too. So the question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the
first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming
along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business, and
wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good
idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.
There warn't nothing to do, now, but to look out sharp for the town,
and not pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to
see it, because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he
missed it he'd be in the slave country again and no more show for
freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:
"Dah she is!"
But it warn't. It was Jack-o-lanterns, or lightning-bugs; so he
set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made
him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I
can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear
him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most
free- and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn't get that out of
my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't
rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home
to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did;
and it staid with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make
out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off
from his rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says,
every time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you
could a paddled ashore and told somebody." That was so- I couldn't get
around that, no way. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me,
"What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her
nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word?
What did that poor old woman do to you, that you could treat her so
mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you
your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how.
That's what she done."
I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was
dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and
Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep
still. Every time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went
through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I reckoned I
would die of miserableness.
Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He
was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State
he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when
he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close
to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the
two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an
Ab'litionist to go and steal them.
It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk
such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in
him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the
old saying, "give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell." Thinks I,
this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger which I
had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and
saying he would steal his children- children that belonged to a man
I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm.
I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.
My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last
I says to it, "Let up on me- it ain't too late, yet- I'll paddle
ashore at the first light and tell." I felt easy, and happy, and light
as a feather, right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking
out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By-and-by one
showed. Jim sings out:
"We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack yo' heels, dat's de
good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it!"
I says:
"I'll take the canoe and go see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know."
He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the
bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved
off, he says:
"Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n for joy, en I'll say, it's all on
accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it
hadn't ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck;
you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de only fren' ole Jim's
got now."
I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he
says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went
along slow then, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad
I started or whether I warn't. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:
"Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep'
his promise to ole Jim."
Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it- I can't get
out of it. Right then, along comes a skiff with two men in it, with
guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:
"What's that, yonder?"
"A piece of a raft," I says.
"So you belong on it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Any men on it?"
"Only one, sir."
"Well, there's five niggers run off to-night, up yonder above the
head of the bend. Is your man white or black?"
I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't
come. I tried, for a second or two, to brace up and out with it, but I
warn't man enough- hadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was
weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says-
"He's white."
"I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves."
"I wish you would," says I, "because it's pap that's there, and
maybe you'd help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He's sick-
and so is mam and Mary Ann."
"Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy. But I s'pose we've got to.
Come- buckle to your paddle, and let's get along."
I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made
a stroke or two, I says:
"Pap'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody
goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't
do it by myself."
"Well, that's infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what's the matter
with your father?"
"It's the- a- the- well, it ain't anything, much."
They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little waysto the raft,
now. One says:
"Boy, that's a lie. What is the matter with your pap? Answer up
square, now, and it'll be the better for you."
"I will, sir, I will, honest- but don't leave us, please. It's
the- the- gentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you
the head-line, you won't have to come a-near the raft- please do."
"Set her back, John, set her back!" says one. They backed water.
"Keep away, boy- keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind
has blowed it to us. Your pap's got the smallpox, and you know it
precious well. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to
spread it all over?"
"Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told everybody before, and
then they just went away and left us."
"Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry
for you, but we- well, hang it, we don't want the smallpox, you see.
Look here, I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by
yourself, and you'll smash everything to pieces. You float along
down about twenty miles and you'll come to a town on the left-hand
side of the river. It will be long after sun-up, then, and when you
ask for help, you tell them your folks are all down with chills and
fever. Don't be a fool again, and let people guess what is the matter.
Now we're trying to do you a kindness; so you just put twenty miles
between us, that's a good boy. It wouldn't do any good to land
yonder where the light is- it's only a wood-yard. Say- I reckon your
father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's in pretty hard luck. Here-
I'll put a twenty dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when
it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you, but my kingdom! it
won't do to fool with smallpox, don't you see?"
"Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "here's a twenty to put on
the board for me. Good-bye, boy, you do as Mr. Parker told you, and
you'll be all right."
"That's so, my boy- good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway
niggers, you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by
it."
"Good-bye, sir," says I, "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me
if I can help it."
They went off, and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low,
because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no
use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get
started right when he's little, ain't got no show- when the pinch
comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and
so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on-
s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better
than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad- I'd feel just the same
way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do
right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do
wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't
answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but
after this always do whichever comes handiest at the time.
I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there. I looked all around; he
warn't anywhere. I says:
"Jim!"
"Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't talk loud."
He was in the river, under the stern oar, with just his nose out.
I told him they was out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:
"I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was
gwyne to shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to
de raf' agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck!
Dat wuz de smartes' dodge! tell you, chile, I 'speck it save' ole Jim-
ole Jim ain' gwyne to forgit you for dat, honey."
Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise, twenty
dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat
now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free
States. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he
wished we was already there.
Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about
hiding the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles,
and getting all ready to quit rafting.
That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away
down in a left-hand bend.
I went off in the canoe, to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a
man out in the aver with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and
says:
"Mister, is that town Cairo?"
"Cairo? no. You must be a blame' fool."
"What town is it, mister?"
"If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin'
around me for about a half minute longer, you'll get something you
won't want."
I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said
never mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.
We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again;
but it was high ground, so I didn't go. No high ground about Cairo,
Jim said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day, on a tow-head
tolerable close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something.
So did Jim. I says:
"Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night."
He says:
"Doan' less' talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck.
I awluz 'spected dat rattle-snake skin warn't done wid its work."
"I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim- I do wish I'd never
laid eyes on it."
"It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn' know. Don't you blame yo'self
'bout it."
When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water in shore, sure
enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with
Cairo.
We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the shore; we
couldn't take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn't no way
but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the
chances. So we slept all day amongst the cotton-wood thicket, so as to
be fresh for the work, and when we went back to the raft about dark
the canoe was gone!
We didn't say a word for a good while. There warn't anything to say.
We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the rattle-snake
skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we
was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more bad luck- and
keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep still.
By-and-by we talked about what we better do, and found there
warn't no way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a
chance to buy a canoe to go back in. We warn't going to borrow it when
there warn't anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might
set people after us.
So we shoved out, after dark, on the raft.
Anybody that don't believe yet, that it's foolishness to handle a
snake-skin, after all that snake-skin done for us, will believe it
now, if they read on and see what more it done for us.
The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying at shore. But we
didn't see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and
more. Well, the night got gray, and ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river, and you
can't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then
along comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged
she would see it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to us;
they go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the
reefs; but nights like this they bull right up the channel against the
whole river.
We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till
she was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to
see how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel
bites off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and
laughs, and thinks he's mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we
said she was going to try to shave us; but she didn't seem to be
sheering off a bit. She was a big one, and she was coming in a
hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with rows of glow-worms
around it; but all of a sudden she laughed out, big and scary, with
a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining like red-hot teeth,
and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right over us. There was a
yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the engines, a pow-wow
of cussing, and whistling of steam- and as Jim went overboard on one
side and I on the other, she come smashing straight through the raft.
I dived- and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot
wheel had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I
could always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I staid
under water a minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a
hurry, for I was nearly busting. I popped out to my arm-pits and
blowed the water out of my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was
a booming current; and of course that boat started her engines again
ten seconds after she stopped them, for they never cared much for
raftsmen; so now she was churning along up the river, out of sight
in the thick weather, though I could hear her.
I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer;
so I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was "treading water," and
struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see
that the drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which
meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.
It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a
good long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clum up the
bank. I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along over
rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across
a big old-fashioned double log house before I noticed it. I was
going to rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went
to howling and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another
peg.
CH_17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
-
In about half a minute somebody spoke out of a window, without
putting his head out, and says:
"Be done, boys! Who's there?"
I says:
"It's me."
"Who's me?"
"George Jackson, sir."
"What do you want?"
"I don't want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs
won't let me."
"What are you prowling around here this time of night, for- hey?"
"I warn't prowling around, sir; I fell overboard off of the
steamboat."
"Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody.
What did you say your name was?"
"George Jackson, sir. I'm only a boy."
"Look here; if you're telling the truth, you needn't be afraid-
nobody'll hurt you. But don't try to budge; stand right where you are.
Rouse out Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George
Jackson, is there anybody with you?"
"No, sir, nobody."
I heard the people stirring around in the house, now, and see a
light. The man sung out:
"Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool- ain't you got any
sense? Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and
Tom are ready, take your places."
"All ready."
"Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?"
"No, sir- I never heard of them."
"Well, that may be so, and it mayn't. Now, all ready. Step
forward, George Jackson. And mind, don't you hurry- come mighty
slow. If there's anybody with you, let him keep back- if he shows
himself he'll be shot. Come along, now. Come slow; push the door open,
yourself- just enough to squeeze in, d' you hear?"
I didn't hurry, I couldn't if I'd a wanted to. I took one slow
step at a time, and there warn't a sound, only I thought I could
hear my heart. The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed
a little behind me. When I got to the three log door-steps, I heard
them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the
door and pushed it a little and a little more, till somebody said,
"There, that's enough- put your head in." I done it, but I judged they
would take it off.
The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at
me, and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute. Three big men
with guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the
oldest, gray and about sixty, the other two thirty or more- all of
them fine and handsome- and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and
back of her two young women which I couldn't see right well. The old
gentleman says:
"There- I reckon it's all right. Come in."
As soon as I was in, the old gentleman he locked the door and barred
it and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns,
and they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the
floor, and got together in a corner that was out of range of the front
windows- there warn't none on the side. They held the candle, and took
a good look at me, and all said, "Why he ain't a Shepherdson- no,
there ain't any Shepherdson about him." Then the old man said he hoped
I wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no
harm by it- it was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my
pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all
right. He told me to make myself easy and at home, and tell all
about myself; but the old lady says:
"Why bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as he can be; and
don't you reckon it may be he's hungry?"
"True for you, Rachel- I forgot."
So the old lady says:
"Betsy" (this was a nigger woman), "you fly around and get him
something to eat, as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you
girls go and wake up Buck and tell him- Oh, here he is himself.
Buck, take this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him
and dress him up in some of yours that's dry."
Buck looked about as old as me- thirteen or fourteen or along there,
though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but a
shirt, and he was very frowsy-headed. He come in gaping and digging
one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other
one. He says:
"Ain't they no Shepherdsons around?"
They said, no, 'twas a false alarm.
"Well," he says, "if they'd a ben some, I reckon I'd a got one."
They all laughed, and Bob says:
"Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've been so slow in
coming."
"Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right. I'm always kep'
down; I don't get no show."
"Never mind, Buck, my boy," says the old man, "you'll have show
enough, all in good time, don't you fret about that. Go 'long with you
now, and do as your mother told you."
When we got up stairs to his room, he got me a coarse shirt and a
roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he
asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him, he started
to telling me about a blue jay and a young rabbit he had catched in
the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when
the candle went out. I said I didn't know; I hadn't heard about it
before, no way.
"Well, guess," he says.
"How'm I going to guess," says I, "when I never heard tell about
it before?"
"But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy."
"Which candle?" I says.
"Why, any candle," he says.
"I don't know where he was," says I; "where was he?"
"Why, he was in the dark! That's where he was!"
"Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?"
"Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are
you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have
booming times- they don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've
got a dog- and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you
throw in. Do you like to comb up, Sundays, and all that kind of
foolishness? You bet I don't, but ma she makes me. Confound these
ole britches, I reckon I'd better put'em on, but I'd ruther not,
it's so warm. Are you all ready? All right- come along, old hoss."
Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk- that is
what they had for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that
ever I've come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked
cob pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two
young women. They all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The
young women had quilts around them, and their hair down their backs.
They all asked me questions, and I told them how pap and me and all
the family was living on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw,
and my sister Mary Ann run off and got married and never was heard
of no more, and Bill went to hunt them and he warn't heard of no more,
and Tom and Mort died, and then there warn't nobody but just me and
pap left, and he was just trimmed down to nothing, on account of his
troubles; so when he died I took what there was left, because the farm
didn't belong to us, and started up the river, deck passage, and
fell overboard; and that was how I come to be here. So they said I
could have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it was most
daylight, and everybody went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck,
and when I waked up in the morning, drat it all, I had forgot what
my name was. So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and when
Buck waked up, I says:
"Can you spell, Buck?"
"Yes," he says.
"I bet you can't spell my name," says I.
"I bet you what you dare I can," says he.
"All right," says I, "go ahead."
"G-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n- there now," he says.
"Well," says I, "you done it, but I didn't think you could. It ain't
no slouch of a name to spell- right off without studying."
I set it down, private, because somebody might want me to spell
it, next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I
was used to it.
It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I
hadn't seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and
had so much style. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor
a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, and the
same as houses in a town. There warn't no bed in the parlor, not a
sign of a bed; but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them. There
was a big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was
kept clean and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with
another brick; sometimes they washed them over with red water-paint
that they called Spanish-brown, same as they do in town. They had
big brass dog-irons that could hold up a saw-log. There was a clock on
the middle of the mantel-piece, with a picture of a town painted on
the bottom half of the glass front, and a round place in the middle of
it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swing behind it. It was
beautiful to hear that clock tick; and sometimes when one of these
peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her in good
shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she
got tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for her.
Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock,
made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of
the parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the
other; and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't
open their mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked
through underneath. There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans
spread out behind those things. On a table in the middle of the room
was a kind of lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and
peaches and grapes piled up in it which was much redder and yellower
and prettier than real ones is, but they warn't real because you could
see where pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk or
whatever it was, underneath.
This table had a cover made out of beautiful oil-cloth, with a red
and blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all
around. It come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was
some books too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table.
One was a big family Bible, full of pictures. One was "Pilgrim's
Progress," about a man that left his family it didn't say why. I
read considerable in it now and then. The statements was
interesting, but tough. Another was "Friendship's Offering," full of
beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn't read the poetry. Another
was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another was Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine,
which told you all about what to do if a body was sick or dead.
There was a Hymn Book, and a lot of other books. And there was nice
split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too- not bagged down in
the middle and busted, like an old basket.
They had pictures hung on the walls- mainly Washingtons and
Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called "Signing
the Declaration." There was some that they called crayons, which one
of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only
fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see
before; blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim
black dress, belted small under the arm-pits, with bulges like a
cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel
bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with
black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was
leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping
willow, and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white
handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said "Shall
I Never See Thee More Alas." Another one was a young lady with her
hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and knotted
there in front of a comb like a chair-back, and she was crying into
a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other
hand with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said "I Shall
Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas." There was one where a young
lady was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears running down
her cheeks; and she had an open letter in one hand with black
sealing-wax showing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a locket
with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath the picture it
said "And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas." These was all nice
pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because
if ever I was down a little, they always give me the fan-tods.
Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of
these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done what
they had lost. But I reckoned, that with her disposition, she was
having a better time in the graveyard. She was at work on what they
said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and
every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it
done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture of a young
woman in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready
to jump off, with her hair all down her back, and looking up to the
moon, with the tears running down her face, and she had two arms
folded across her breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two
more reaching up towards the moon- and the idea was, to see which pair
would look best and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was
saying, she died before she got her mind made up, and now they kept
this picture over the head of the bed in her room, and every time
her birthday come they hung flowers on it. Other times it was hid with
a little curtain. The young woman in the picture had a kind of a
nice sweet face, but there was so many arms it made her look too
spidery, seemed to me.
This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to
paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it
out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of
her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about
a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and
was drownded:
-
Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd.
-
And did young Stephen sicken,
And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
And did the mourners cry?
-
No; such was not the fate of
Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
'Twas not from sickness'shots.
-
No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear, with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.
-
Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots.
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.
-
O No. Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly,
By falling down a well.
-
They got him out and emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
In the realms of the good and great.
-
If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was
fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by-and-by. Buck
said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to
stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't
find anything to rhyme with it she would just scratch it out and
slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular, she
could write about anything you choose to give her to write about, just
so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child
died, she would be on hand with her "tribute" before he was cold.
She called them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor
first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker- the undertaker never got in
ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme the dead
person's name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same, after
that; she never complained, but she kind of pined away and did not
live long. Poor thing, many's the time I made myself go up to the
little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrapbook
and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had
soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all,
and warn't going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made
poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't
seem right that there warn't nobody to make some about her, now she
was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I
couldn't seem to make it go, somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim
and nice and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have
them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady
took care of the room herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and
she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there, mostly.
Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains
on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them, of castles
with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink.
There was a little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I
reckon, and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies
sing, "The Last Link is Broken" and play "The Battle of Prague" on it.
The walls of all the rooms was plastered, and most had carpets on
the floors, and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside.
It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was
roofed and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the
middle of the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing
couldn't be better. And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of
it too!
CH_18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
-
Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all
over; and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and
that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow
Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first
aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it, too, though he
warn't no more quality than a mudcat, himself. Col. Grangerford was
very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign
of red in it anywheres; he was clean-shaved every morning, all over
his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the
thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and
the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like
they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say. His forehead
was high, and his hair was black and straight, and hung to his
shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and every day of his life he
put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot made out of
linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he wore
a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He carried a mahogany
cane with a silver head to it. There warn't no frivolishness about
him, not a bit, and he warn't ever loud. He was as kind as he could
be- you could feel that, you know, and so you had confidence.
Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he
straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun
to flicker out from under his eyebrows you wanted to climb a tree
first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever
have to tell anybody to mind their manners- everybody was always
good mannered where he was. Everybody loved to have him around, too;
he was sunshine most always- I mean he made it seem like good weather.
When he turned into a cloud-bank it was awful dark for a half a minute
and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week.
When him and the old lady come down in the morning, all the family
got up out of their chairs and give them good-day, and didn't set down
again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard
where the decanters was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to
him, and he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was
mixed, and then they bowed and said "Our duty to you, sir, and madam;"
and they bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so
they drank, all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on
the sugar and the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of
their tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old
people too.
Bob was the oldest, and Tom next. Tall, beautiful men with very
broad shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes.
They dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman,
and wore broad Panama hats.
Then there was Miss Charlotte, she was twenty-five, and tall and
proud and grand, but as good as she could be, when she warn't
stirred up; but when she was, she had a look that would make you
wilt in your tracks, like her father. She was beautiful.
So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was
gentle and sweet, like a dove, and she was only twenty.
Each person had their own nigger to wait on them- Buck, too. My
nigger had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having
anybody do anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the
time.
This was all there was of the family, now; but there used to be
more- three sons, they got killed; and Emmeline that died.
The old gentleman owned a lot of farms, and over a hundred
niggers. Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from
ten or fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such
junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the
woods, day-times, and balls at the house, nights. These people was
mostly kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them.
It was a handsome lot of quality, I tell you.
There was another clan of aristocracy around there- five or six
families- mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned,
and well born, and rich and grand, as the tribe of Grangerfords. The
Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing,
which was about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went
up there with a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the
Shepherdsons there, on their fine horses.
One day Buck and me was away out in the woods, hunting, and heard
a horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:
"Quick! Jump for the woods!"
We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves.
Pretty soon a splendid young man came galloping down the road, setting
his horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his
pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I
heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from
his head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we
was hid. But we didn't wait. We started through the woods on a run.
The woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder, to dodge the
bullet, and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he
rode away the way he come- to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't
see. We never stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman's
eyes blazed a minute- 'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged- then his
face sort of smoothed down and he says, kind of gentle:
"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you
step into the road, my boy?"
"The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage."
Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was
telling his tale and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two
young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she
turned pale, but the color came back when she found the man warn't
hurt.
Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by
ourselves, I says:
"Did you want to kill him, Buck?"
"Well, I bet I did."
"What did he do to you?"
"Him? He never done nothing to me."
"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"
"Why, nothing- only it's on account of the feud."
"What's a feud?"
"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?"
"Never heard of it before- tell me about it."
"Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way. A man has a quarrel with
another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills him;
then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the
cousins chip in- and by-and-by everybody's killed off, and there ain't
no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time."
"Has this one been going on long, Buck?"
"Well I should reckon! it started thirty year ago, or som'ers
along there. There was trouble 'bout something and then a lawsuit to
settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and
shot the man that won the suit- which he would naturally do, of
course. Anybody would."
"What was the trouble about, Buck?- land?"
"I reckon maybe- I don't know."
"Well, who done the shooting?- was it a Grangerford or a
Shepherdson?"
"Laws, how do I know? it was so long ago."
"Don't anybody know?"
"Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old folks; but
they don't know, now, what the row was about in the first place."
"Has there been many killed, Buck?"
"Yes- right smart chance of funerals. But they don't always kill.
Pa's got a few buck-shot in him; but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't
weigh much anyway. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's
been hurt once or twice."
"Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?"
"Yes, we got one and they got one. 'Bout three months ago, my cousin
Bud, fourteen years old, was riding through the woods, on t'other side
of the river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame'
foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming
behind him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin' after him with
his gun in his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and
'stead of jumping off and taking to the brush, Bud 'lowed he could
outrun him; so they had it, nip and tuck, for five mile and more,
the old man againing all the time; so at last Bud seen it warn't any
use, so he stopped and faced around so as to have the bullet holes
in front, you know, and the old man he rode up and shot him down.
But he didn't git much chance to enjoy his luck, for inside of a
week our folks laid him out."
"I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck."
"I reckon he warn't a coward. Not by a blame' sight. There ain't a
coward amongst them Shepherdsons- not a one. And there ain't no
cowards amongst the Grangerfords, either. Why, that old man kep' up
his end in a fight one day, for a half an hour, against three
Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit
off of his horse and got behind a little wood-pile, and kep' his horse
before him to stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords staid on their
horses and capered around the old man, and peppered away at him, and
he peppered away at them. Him and his horse both went home pretty
leaky and crippled, but the Grangerfords had to be fetched home- and
one of 'em was dead, and another died the next day. No, sir, if a
body's out hunting for cowards, he don't want to fool away any time
against Shepherdsons, becuz they don't breed any of that kind."
Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody
a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them
between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The
Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching- all
about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said
it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and
had such a powerful lot to say about faith, and good works, and free
grace, and preforeordestination, and I don't know what all, that it
did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.
About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in
their chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull.
Buck and a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun, sound
asleep. I went up to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I
found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to
ours, and she took me in her room and shut the door very soft, and
asked me if I liked her, and I said I did; and she asked me if I would
do something for her and not tell anybody, and I said I would. Then
she said she'd forgot her Testament, and left it in the seat at
church, between two other books and would I slip out quiet and go
there and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to nobody. I said I
would. So I slid out and slipped off up the road, and there warn't
anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any
lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time
because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only
when they've got to; but a hog is different.
Says I to myself something's up- it ain't natural for a girl to be
in such a sweat about a Testament; so I give it a shake, and out drops
a little piece of paper with "Half-past two" wrote on it with a
pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't
make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and
when I got home and up stairs, there was Miss Sophia in her door
waiting for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in
the Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she
looked glad; and before a body could think, she grabbed me and give me
a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell
anybody. She was mighty red in the face, for a minute, and her eyes
lighted up and it made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal
astonished, but when I got my breath I asked what the paper was about,
and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked me
if I could read writing and I told her "no, only coarse-hand," and
then she said the paper warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her
place, and I might go and play now.
I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty
soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we
was out of sight of the house, he looked back and around a second, and
then comes a-running, and says:
"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp, I'll show you a
whole stack o' water-moccasins."
Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He
oughter know a body don't love water moccasins enough to go around
hunting for them. What is he up to anyway? So I says-
"All right, trot ahead."
I followed a half a mile, then he struck out over the swamp and
waded ankle deep as much as another half mile. We come to a little
flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and
bushes and vines, and he says-
"You shove right in dah, jist a few steps, Mars Jawge, dah's whah
dey is. I's seed 'm befo', I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'."
Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees
hid him. I poked into the place a-ways, and come to a little open
patch as big as a bedroom, all hung around with vines, and found a man
laying there asleep- and by jings it was my old Jim!
I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise
to him to see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried, he was so
glad, but he warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me, that
night, and heard me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he
didn't want nobody to pick him up, and take him into slavery again.
Says he-
"I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considable
ways behine you, towards de las'; when you landed I reckoned I could
ketch up wid you on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I
see dat house I begin to go slow. I off too fur to hear what dey say
to you- I wuz 'fraid o' de dogs- but when it 'uz all quiet agin, I
knowed you's in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for
day. Early in de mawnin' some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de
fields, en dey tuck me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can't
track me on accounts o' de water, en dey brings me truck to eat
every night, en tells me how you's a gitt'n along."
"Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?"
"Well,'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn-
but we's all right, now. I ben a-buyin' pots en pans en vittles, as
I get a chanst, en a patchin' up de raf', nights, when-"
"What raft, Jim?"
"Our ole raf'."
"You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?"
"No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal- one en' of her was-
but dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'.
Ef we hadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night
hadn' ben so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich
punkin-heads, as de sayin' is, we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis' as
well we didn't, 'kase now she's all fixed up agin mos' as good as new,
en we's got a new lot o' stuff, too, in de place o' what 'uz los'."
"Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim- did you catch
her?"
"How I gwyne to ketch her, en I out in de woods? No, some er de
niggers foun' her ketched on a snag, along heah in de ben', en dey hid
her in a crick, 'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout
which un 'um she b'long to de mos', dat I come to heah 'bout it
pooty soon, so I ups en settles de trouble by tellin' 'um she don't
b'long to none uv um, but to you en me; en I ast'm if dey gwyne to
grab a young white genlman's propaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I gin
'm ten cents apiece, en dey 'uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some
mo' raf's 'ud come along en make 'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good to
me, dese niggers is, en whatever I wants 'm to do fur me, I doan' have
to ast 'm twice, honey. Dat Jack's a good nigger, en pooty smart."
"Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here; told me to come,
and he'd show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens, he
ain't mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and
it'll be the truth."
I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I'll cut it
pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was agoing to turn over and
go to sleep again, when I noticed how still it was- didn't seem to
be anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was
up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs-
nobody around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the same
outside; thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the wood-pile I comes
across my Jack, and says:
"What's it all about?"
Says he:
"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?"
"No," says I, "I don't."
"Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has. She run off in
de night, sometime- nobody don't know jis' when- run off to git
married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know- leastways, so dey
'spec. De fambly foun' it out, 'bout half an hour ago- maybe a
little mo'- en' I tell you dey warn't no time los'. Sich another
hurryin' up guns en hosses you never see! De women folks has gone
for to stir up the relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey
guns en rode up de river road for to try to ketch dat young man en
kill him 'fo' he kin git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n
dey's gwyne to be mighty rough times."
"Buck went off 'thout waking me up."
"Well I reck'n he did! Dey warn't gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars
Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a
Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en
you bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst."
I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By-and-by I begin
to hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log store
and the wood-pile where the steamboats lands, I worked along under the
trees and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into
the forks of a cotton-wood that was out of reach, and watched. There
was a wood-rank four foot high, a little ways in front of the tree,
and first I was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier
I didn't.
There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the
open place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to
get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside
of the steamboat landing- but they couldn't come it. Every time one of
them showed himself on the river side of the wood-pile he got shot at.
The two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could
watch both ways.
By-and-by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started
riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady
bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle.
All the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and
started to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys
started on the run. They got half-way to the tree I was in before
the men noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and
took out after them. They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no
good, the boys had too good a start; they got to the wood-pile that
was in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they had the
bulge on the men again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was
a slim young chap about nineteen years old.
The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they
was out of sight, I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what
to make of my voice coming out of the tree, at first. He was awful
surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men
come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or other-
wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn't
come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and his
cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day,
yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or
three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them, in ambush.
Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations-
the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was
become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across
the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did
take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at
him- I hain't ever heard anything like it.
All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns- the
men had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind
without their horses! The boys jumped for the river- both of them
hurt- and as they swum down the current the men run along the bank
shooting at them and singing out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me
so sick I most fell out of the tree. I ain't agoing to tell all that
happened- it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I ain't
ever going to get shut of them- lots of times I dream about them.
I staid in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come
down. Sometimes I heard guns. away off in the woods; and twice I
seen little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I
reckoned the trouble was still agoing on. I was mighty down-hearted;
so I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again,
because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow. I judged that piece of
paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at halfpast
two and run off; and I judged I ought to told her father about that
paper and the curious way she acted, and then maybe he would a
locked her up and this awful mess wouldn't ever happened.
When I got down out of the tree, I crept along down the river bank a
piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and
tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their
faces, and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was
covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.
It was just dark, now. I never went near the house, but struck
through the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so
I tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the
willows, red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country- the
raft was gone! My souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath
for most a minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five
foot from me, says-
"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise."
It was Jim's voice- nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along
the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged
me, he was so glad to see me. He says-
"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin.
Jack's been heah, he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come
home no mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de
mouf er de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave
soon as Jack comes agin en tells me for certain you is dead. Lawsy,
I's mighty glad to git you back agin, honey."
I says-
"All right- that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll
think I've been killed, and floated down the river- there's
something up there that'll help them to think so- so don't you lose no
time, Jim, but just shove off for the big water as fast as ever you
can."
I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out
in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal
lantern, and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't
had a bite to eat since yesterday; so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers
and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage, and greens- there ain't
nothing in the world so good, when it's cooked right- and whilst I eat
my supper we talked, and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get
away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We
said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem
so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and
easy and comfortable on a raft.
CH_19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
-
Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum
by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we
put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there- sometimes
a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid
day-times; soon as night was most gone, we stopped navigating and tied
up- nearly always in the dead water under a tow-head; and then cut
young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them. Then we
set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as
to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where
the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a
sound, anywheres- perfactly still- just like the whole world was
asleep, only sometimes the bull-frogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first
thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line-
that was the woods on t'other side- you couldn't make nothing else
out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness, spreading
around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn't black any
more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along, ever
so far away-trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks-
rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up
voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by-and-by you
could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the
streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it
and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up
off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make
out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on
t'other side of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, and piled by
them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice
breeze blows up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and
fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the woods and the flowers;
but sometimes not that way, because they've left dead fish laying
around, gars, and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you've
got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the
song-birds just going it!
A little smoke couldn't be noticed, now, so we would take some
fish off of the lines, and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards
we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy
along, and by-and-by lazy off to sleep. Wake up, by-and-by, and look
to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat, coughing along up
stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing
about her only whether she was stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for
about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see-
just solid lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off
yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're most always
doing it on a raft; you'd see the ax flash, and come down- you don't
hear nothing; you see that ax go up again, and by the time it's
above the man's head, then you hear the k'chunk!- it had took all that
time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying
around, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and
the rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the
steamboats wouldn't run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close
we could hear them talking and cussing and laughing- heard them plain;
but we couldn't see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly, it was
like spirits carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed
it was spirits; but I says:
"No, spirits wouldn't say, 'dern the dern fog.'"
Soon as it was night, out we shoved; when we got her out to about
the middle, we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current
wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the
water and talked about all kinds of things- we was always naked, day
and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us- the new clothes
Buck's folks made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I
didn't go much on clothes, nohow.
Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the
longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the
water; and maybe a spark- which was a candle in a cabin window- and
sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two- on a raft or a
scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming
over from one of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had
the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on
our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was
made, or only just happened- Jim he allowed they was made, but I
allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so
many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of
reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a
frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch
the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd
got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.
Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along
in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of
sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the
river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her
lights would wink out and her pow-wow shut off and leave the river
still again; and by-and-by her waves would get to us, a long time
after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you
wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how long, except maybe
frogs or something.
After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two
or three hours the shores was black- no more sparks in the cabin
windows. These sparks was our clock- the first one that showed again
meant morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up,
right away.
One morning about day-break, I found a canoe and crossed over a
chute to the main shore- it was only two hundred yards- and paddled
about a mile up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I
couldn't get some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a
kind of a cow-path crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men
tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it. I thought I was
a goner, for whenever anybody was after anybody I judged it was me- or
maybe Jim. I was about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they
was pretty close to me then, and sung out and begged me to save
their lives- said they hadn't been doing nothing, and was being chased
for it- said there was men and dogs a-coming. They wanted to jump
right in, but I says-
"Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got
time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways;
then you take to the water and wade down to me and get in- that'll
throw the dogs off the scent."
-
They done it, and as soon as they was aboard I lit out for our
tow-head, and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the
men away off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick,
but couldn't see them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while;
then, as we got further and further away all the time, we couldn't
hardly hear them at all; by the time we had left a mile of woods
behind us and struck the river, everything was quiet, and we paddled
over to the tow-head and hid in the cottonwoods and was safe.
One of these fellows was about seventy, or upwards, and had a bald
head and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat
on, and a greasy blue woolen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches
stuffed into his boot tops, and home-knit galluses- no, he only had
one. He had an old longtailed blue jeans coat with slick brass
buttons, flung over his arm, and both of them had big fat
ratty-looking carpet-bags.
The other fellow was about thirty and dressed about as ornery. After
breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come
out was that these chaps didn't know one another.
"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.
"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth-
and it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel with it- but I
staid about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the
act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of
town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to
get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself and would
scatter with you. That's the whole yarn- what's yourn?"
"Well, I'd been a-runnin'a little temperance revival thar, 'bout a
week, and was the pet of the women-folks, big and little, for I was
makin' it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin' as
much as five or six dollars a night- ten cents a head, children and
niggers free- and business a growin' all the time; when somehow or
another a little report got around, last night, that I had a way of
puttin'in my time with a private jug, on the sly. A nigger rousted
me out this mornin', and told me the people was getherin' on the
quiet, with their dogs and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon and
give me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me down, if they
could; and if they got me they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a
rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast- I warn't hungry."
"Old man," says the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it
together; what do you think?"
"I ain't undisposed. What's your line- mainly?"
"Jour printer, by trade; do a little in patent medicines;
theatre-actor- tragedy, you know; take a turn at mesmerism and
phrenology when there's a chance; teach singing-geography school for a
change; sling a lecture, sometimes- oh, I do lots of things- most
anything that comes handy, so it ain't work. What's your lay?"
"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o'
hands is my best holt- for cancer, and paralysis, and sich things; and
I k'n tell a fortune pretty good, when I've got somebody along to find
out the facts for me. Preachin's my line, too; and workin'
camp-meetin's; and missionaryin' around."
Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a
sigh and says-
"Alas!"
"What're you alassin' about?" says the baldhead.
"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be
degraded down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of
his eye with a rag.
"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the
baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.
"Yes, it is good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who
fetched me so low, when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame
you, gentlemen- far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it
all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know- there's a
grave somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it's always
done, and take everything from me- loved ones, property, everything-
but it can't take that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it
all, and my poor broken heart will be at rest." He went on a-wiping.
"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you
heaving your pore broken heart at us f'r? We hain't done nothing."
"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought
myself down- yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer-
perfectly right- I don't make any moan."
"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"
"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes- let it
pass- 'tis no matter. The secret of my birth-"
"The secret of your birth? Do you mean to say-"
"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to
you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"
Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did,
too. Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?"
"Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater,
fled to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the
pure air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own
father dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke
seized the title and estates- the infant real duke was ignored. I am
the lineal descendant of that infant- I am the rightful Duke of
Bridgewater; and here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate,
hunted of men, despised by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken,
and degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft!"
Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort
him, but he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted;
said if we was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more
good than most anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us
how. He said we ought to bow, when we spoke to him, and say "Your
Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your Lordship"- and he wouldn't mind it if
we called him plain "Bridgewater," which he said was a title,
anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to wait on him at
dinner, and do any little thing for him he wanted done.
Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood
around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o'dis,
or some o'dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing
to him.
But the old man got pretty silent, by-and-by- didn't have much to
say, and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was
going on around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind.
So, along in the afternoon, he says:
"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but
you ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."
"No?"
"No, you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down
wrongfully out'n a high place."
"Alas!"
"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth."
And by jings, he begins to cry.
"Hold! What do you mean?"
"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of
sobbing.
"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and
squeezed it, and says, "The secret of your being: speak!"
"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"
You bet you Jim and me stared, this time. Then the duke says:
"You are what?"
"Yes, my friend, it is too true- your eyes is lookin' at this very
moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of
Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette."
"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you
must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."
"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has
brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen,
you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin' exiled,
trampled-on and sufferin' rightful King of France."
Well, he cried and took on so, that me and Jim didn't know hardly
what to do, we was so sorry- and so glad and proud we'd got him with
us, too. So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to
comfort him. But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead
and done with it all could do him any good; though he said it often
made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him
according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and
always called him "Your Majesty," and waited on him first at meals,
and didn't set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and
me set to majestying him, and doing this and that and t'other for him,
and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps
of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind
of soured on him, and didn't look a bit satisfied with the way
things was going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and
said the duke's great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of
Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by his father and was allowed to
come to the palace considerable; but the duke staid hurry a good
while, till by-and-by the king says:
"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time, on this h-yer
raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It'll only
make things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke,
it ain't your fault you warn't born a king- so what's the use to
worry? Make the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I- that's my
motto. This ain't no bad thing that we've struck here- plenty grub and
an easy life- come, give us your hand, Duke, and less all be friends."
The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It
took away all the uncomfortableness, and we felt mighty good over
it, because it would a been a miserable business to have any
unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want, above all things, on
a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and kind
towards the others.
It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no
kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I
never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best
way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble.
If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no
objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it
warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt
nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along
with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.
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