CH_36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
-
As soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep, that night, we went
down the lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and
got out our pile of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared
everything out of the way, about four or five foot along the middle of
the bottom log. Tom said he was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd
dig it under it, and when we got through there couldn't nobody in
the cabin ever know there was any hole there, because Jim's counterpin
hung down most to the ground, and you'd have to raise it up and look
under to see the hole. So we dug and dug, with the caseknives, till
most midnight; and then we was dog tired, and our hands was blistered,
and yet you couldn't see we'd done anything, hardly. At last I says:
"This ain't no thirty-seven year job, this is a thirty-eight year
job, Tom Sawyer."
He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped
digging, and then for a good little while I knowed he was thinking.
Then he says:
"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't agoing to work. If we was prisoners
it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no
hurry; and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day,
while they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get
blistered, and we could keep it up right along, year in and year
out, and do it right, and the way it ought to be done. But we can't
fool along, we got to rush; we ain't got no time to spare. If we was
to put in another night this way, we'd have to knock off for a week to
let our hands get well- couldn't touch a case-knife with them sooner."
"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"
"I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't
like it to get out- but there ain't only just the one way; we got to
dig him out with the picks, and let on it's case-knives."
"Now you're talking!" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler
all the time, Tom Sawyer," I says. "Picks is the thing, moral or no
moral; and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it,
nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a
Sunday-school book, I ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's
done. What I want is my nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or
what I want is my Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest
thing, that's the thing I'm agoing to dig that nigger or that
watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with; and I don't give a
dead rat what the authorities think about it nuther."
"Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a
case like this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I
wouldn't stand by and see the rules broke- because right is right, and
wrong is wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he
ain't ignorant and knows better. It might answer for you to dig Jim
out with a pick, without any letting-on, because you don't know no
better; but it wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme a
case-knife."
He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down,
and says:
"Gimme a case-knife."
I didn't know just what to do- but then I thought. I scratched
around amongst the old tools, and got a pick-ax and give it to him,
and he took it and went to work, and never said a word.
He was always just that particular. Full of principle.
So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about,
and made the fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was
as long as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show
for it. When I got up stairs, I looked out at the window and see Tom
doing his level best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come
it, his hands was so sore. At last he says:
"It ain't no use, it can't be done. What you reckon I better do?
Can't you think up no way?"
"Yes," I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs,
and let on it's a lightning-rod."
So he done it.
Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the
house, for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles;
and I hung around the nigger cabins, and laid for a chance, and
stole three tin plates. Tom said it wasn't enough; but I said nobody
wouldn't ever see the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall
in the dog-fennel and jimpson weeds under the window-hole- then we
could tote them back and he could use them over again. So Tom was
satisfied. Then he says:
"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."
"Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."
He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever
heard of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By-and-by
he said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no
need to decide on any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first.
That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and
took one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and
heard Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then
we whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a
half the job was done. We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin,
and pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim a
while, and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke
him up gentle and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried; and
called us honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was
for having us hunt up a cold chisel to cut the chain off of his leg
with, right away, and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he
showed him how unregular it would be, and set down and told him all
about our plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time
there was an alarm; and not be the least afraid, because we would
see he got away, sure. So Jim he said it was all right, and we set
there and talked over old times a while, and then Tom asked a lot of
questions, and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or
two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was
comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of them was kind as they
could be, Tom says:
"Now I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things by them."
I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most
jackass ideas I ever struck;" but he never paid no attention to me;
went right on. It was his way when he'd got his plans set.
So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie,
and other large things, by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must
be on the lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him
open them; and we would put small things in uncle's coat pockets and
he must steal them out; and we would tie things to aunt's apron
strings or put them in her apron pocket, if we got a chance; and
told him what they would be and what they was for. And told him how to
keep a journal on the shirt with his blood, and all that. He told
him everything. Jim he couldn't see no sense in the most of it, but he
allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him; so he was
satisfied, and said he would do it all just as Tom said.
Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down
good sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so
home to bed, with hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was
in high spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his
life, and the most intellectural; and said if he only could see his
way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave
Jim to our children to get out; for he believed Jim would come to like
it better and better the more he got used to it. He said that in
that way it could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would
be the best time on record. And he said it would make us all
celebrated that had a hand in it.
In the morning we went out to the wood-pile and chopped up the brass
candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in
his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's
notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a
corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how
it would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it most
mashed all his teeth out; and there warn't ever anything could a
worked better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it
was only just a piece of rock or something like that that's always
getting into bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing
but what he jabbed his fork into it in three or four places, first.
And whilst we was a standing there in the dimmish light, here
comes a couple of the hounds bulging in, from under Jim's bed; and
they kept on piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't
hardly room in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten
that lean-to door. The nigger Nat he only just hollered "witches!"
once, and keeled over onto the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to
groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab
of Jim's meat, and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out
himself and back again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed
the other door too. Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him
and petting him, and asking him if he'd been imagining he saw
something again. He raised up, and blinked his eyes around, and says:
"Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most
a million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah
in dese tracks. I did, mos' sholy. Mars Sid, I felt um- I felt um,
sah; dey was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my
han's on one er dem witches jis' wunst- on'y jis' wunst- it's all
I'd ast. But mos'ly I wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does."
Tom says:
"Well, I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just at
this runaway nigger's breakfast-time? It's because they're hungry;
that's the reason. You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for you
to do."
"But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make make 'm a witch pie? I
doan' know how to make it. I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."
"Well, then, I'll have to make it myself"
"Will you do it, honey?- will you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo'
foot, I will!"
"All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to
us and showed us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful.
When we come around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put
in the pan, don't you let on you see it at all. And don't you look,
when Jim unloads the pan- something might happen, I don't know what.
And above all, don't you handle the witch-things."
"Hannel 'm Mars Sid? What is you a talkin' 'bout? I wouldn' lay de
weight er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n' billion
dollars, I wouldn't."
CH_37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
-
That was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the
rubbage-pile in the back yard where they keep the old boots, and rags,
and pieces of bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck,
and scratched around and found an old tin washpan and stopped up the
holes as well as we could, to bake the pie in and took it down
cellar and stole it full of flour, and started for breakfast and found
a couple of shingle-nails that Tom said would be handy for a
prisoner to scrabble his name and sorrows on the dungeon walls with,
and dropped one of them in Aunt Sally's apron pocket which was hanging
on a chair, and t'other we stuck in the band of Uncle Silas's hat,
which was on the bureau, because we heard the children say their pa
and ma was going to the runaway nigger's house this morning, and
then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle
Silas's coat pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come yet, so we had to wait
a little while.
And when she come she was hot, and red, and cross, and couldn't
hardly wait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee
with one hand and cracking the handiest child's head with her
thimble with the other, and says:
"I've hunted high, and I've hunted low, and it does beat all, what
has become of your other shirt."
My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a
hard piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met
on the road with a cough and was shot across the table and took one of
the children in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let
a cry out of him the size of a war-whoop, and Tom he turned kinder
blue around the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state
of things for about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I
would a sold out for half price if there was a bidder. But after
that we was all right again- it was the sudden surprise of it that
knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas he says:
"It's most uncommon curious, I can't understand it. I know perfectly
well I took it off, because-"
"Because you hain't got but one on. Just listen at the man! I know
you took it off, and know it by a better way than your
wool-gethering memory, too, because it was on the clo'esline
yesterday- I see it there myself. But it's gone- that's the long and
the short of it, and you'll just have to change to a red flann'l one
till I can get time to make a new one. And it'll be the third I've
made in two years; it just keeps a body on the jump to keep you in
shirts; and whatever you do manage to do with 'm all, is more'n I
can make out. A body'd think you would learn to take some sort of care
of 'em, at your time of life."
"I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn't to be
altogether my fault, because you know I don't see them nor have
nothing to do with them except when they're on me; and I don't believe
I've ever lost one of them off of me."
"Well, it ain't your fault if you haven't, Silas- you'd a done it if
you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther.
Ther's a spoon gone; and that ain't all. There was ten, and now
there's only nine. The calf got the shirt I reckon, but the calf never
took the spoon, that's certain."
"Why, what else is gone, Sally?"
"Ther's six candles gone- that's what. The rats could a got the
candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with
the whole place, the way you're always going to stop their holes and
don't do it; and if they warn't fools they'd sleep in your hair,
Silas- you'd never find it out; but you can't lay the spoon on the
rats, and that I know."
"Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been
remiss; but I won't let to-morrow go by without stopping up them
holes."
"Oh, I wouldn't hurry, next year'll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta
Phelps!"
Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the
sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then, the nigger woman
steps onto the passage, and says:
"Missus, dey's a sheet gone."
"A sheet gone! Well, for the land's sake!"
"I'll stop up them holes to-day," says Uncle Silas, looking
sorrowful.
"Oh, do shet up!- spose the rats took the sheet? Where's it gone,
Lize?"
"Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss Sally. She wuz on de
clo's-line yistiddy, but she done gone; she ain' dah no mo', now."
"I reckon the world is coming to an end. I never see the beat of it,
in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can-"
"Missus," comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstick
missin."
"Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!"
Well, she was just a biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned
I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She
kept a raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself,
and everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas,
looking kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She
stopped, with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished
I was in Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long; because she says:
"It's just as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time;
and like as not you've got the other things there, too. How'd it get
there?"
"I reely don't know, Sally," he says, kind of apologizing, "or you
know I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen,
before breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing,
meaning to put my Testament in, and it must be so, because my
Testament ain't in, but I'll go and see, and if that Testament is
where I had it, I'll know I didn't put it in, and that will show
that I laid the Testament down and took up the spoon, and-"
"Oh, for the land's sake! Give a body a rest! Go 'long now, the
whole kit and biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got
back my peace of mind."
I'd a heard her, if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking
it out; and I'd a got up and obeyed her, if I'd a been dead. As we was
passing through the setting-room, the old man he took up his hat,
and the shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely
picked it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said
nothing, and went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the
spoon, and says:
"Well, it ain't no use to send things by him no more, he ain't
reliable." Then he says: "But he done us a good turn with the spoon,
anyway, without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without him
knowing it- stop up his rat-holes."
There was a noble good lot of them, down cellar, and it took us a
whole hour, but we done the job tight and good, and ship-shape. Then
we heard steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light, and hid; and
here comes the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of
stuff in t'other, looking as absent-minded as year before last. He
went a mooning around, first to one rat-hole and then another, till
he'd been to them all. Then he stood about five minutes, picking
tallow-drip off of his candle and thinking. Then he turns off slow and
dreamy towards the stairs, saying:
"Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it. I could
show her now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats. But
never mind- let it go. I reckon it wouldn't do no good."
And so he went on a mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a
mighty nice old man. And always is.
Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he
said we'd got to have it; so he took a think. When he ciphered it out,
he told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the
spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to
counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of
them up my sleeve, and Tom says:
"Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons, yet."
She says:
"Go 'long to your play, and don't bother me. I know better, I
counted 'm myself."
"Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine."
She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count-
anybody would.
"I declare to gracious ther' ain't but nine!" she says. "Why, what
in the world- plague take the things, I'll count 'm again."
So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she
says:
"Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther's ten, now!" and she looked
hurry and bothered both. But Tom says:
"Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten."
"You numskull, didn't you see me count 'm?"
"I know, but-"
"Well, I'll count 'm again."
So I smouched one, and they come out nine same as the other time.
Well, she was in a tearing way- just trembling all over, she was so
mad. But she counted and counted, till she got that addled she'd start
to count-in the basket for a spoon, sometimes; and so, three times
they come out right and three times they come out wrong. Then she
grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked
the cat galley-west; and she said cle'r out and let her have some
peace, and if we come bothering around her again betwixt that and
dinner, she'd skin us. So we had the odd spoon; and dropped it in
her apron pocket whilst she was a giving us our sailing-orders, and
Jim got it all right, along with her shingle-nail, before noon. We was
very well satisfied with this business, and Tom allowed it was worth
twice the trouble it took, because he said now she couldn't ever count
them spoons twice alike again to save her life; and wouldn't believe
she'd counted them right, if she did; and said that after she'd
about counted her head off, for the next three days, he judged she'd
give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count
them any more.
So we put the sheet back on the line, that night, and stole one
out of her closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it
again, for a couple of days till she didn't know how many sheets she
had, any more, and said she didn't care, and warn't agoing to bullyrag
the rest of her soul out about it, and wouldn't count them again not
to save her life, she druther die first.
So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon
and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up
counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it
would blow over by-and-by.
But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. We
fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it
done at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day;
and we had to use up three washpans full of flour, before we got
through, and we got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes
put out with the smoke; because, you see, we didn't want nothing but a
crust, and we couldn't prop it up right, and she would always cave in.
But of course we thought of the right way at last; which was to cook
the ladder, too, in the pie. So then we laid in with Jim, the second
night, and tore up the sheet all in little strings, and twisted them
together, and long before daylight we had a lovely rope, that you
could a hung a person with. We let on it took nine months to make it.
And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go
in the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope
enough for forty pies, if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left over for
soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We could a had a whole
dinner.
But we didn't need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie,
and so we throwed the rest away. We didn't cook none of the pies in
the washpan, afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a
noble brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it
belonged to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come
over from England with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one
of them early ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old
pots and things that was valuable, not on account of being any account
because they warn't, but on account of them being relicts, you know,
and we snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but she
failed on the first pies, because we didn't know how, but she come
up smiling on the last one. We took and lined her with dough, and
set her in the coals, and loaded her up with rag-rope, and put on a
dough roof, and shut down the lid, and put hot embers on top, and
stood off five foot, with the long handle, cool and comfortable, and
in fifteen minutes she turned out a pie that was a satisfaction to
look at. But the person that et it would want to fetch a couple of
kags of toothpicks along, for if the rope-ladder wouldn't cramp him
down to business, I don't know nothing what I'm talking about, and lay
him enough stomach-ache to last him till next time, too.
Nat didn't look, when we put the witch-pie in Jim's pan; and we
put the three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles;
and so Jim got everything all right, and so soon as he was by
himself he busted into the pie and hid the rope-ladder inside of his
straw tick, and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out
of the window-hole.
CH_38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
-
Making them pens was a distressid-tough job, and so was the saw; and
Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all.
That's the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But
we had to have it; Tom said we'd got to; there warn't no case of a
state priosner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his
coat of arms.
"Look at Lady Jane Grey," he says; "look at Gilford Dudley; look
at old Northumberland! Why, Huck, spose it is considerable trouble?-
what you going to do?- how you going to get around it? Jim's got to do
his inscription and coat of arms. They all do."
Jim says:
"Why, Mars Tom, I hain't got no coat o' arms; I hain't got nuffn but
dish-yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat."
"Oh, you don't understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different."
"Well," I says, "Jim's right, anyway, when he says he hain't got
no coat of arms, because he hain't."
"I reckon I knowed that," Tom says, "but you bet he'll have one
before he goes out of this- because he's going out right, and there
ain't going to be no flaws in his record."
So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece,
Jim a making his'n out of the brass and I making mine out of the
spoon, Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms. By-and-by he
said he'd struck so many good ones he didn't hardly know which to
take, but there was one which he reckoned he'd decide on. He says:
"On the scutcheon we'll have a bend or in the dexter base, a saltire
murrey in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under
his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron vert in a
chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field azure, with the
nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway
nigger, sable, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister:
and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me; motto,
Maggiore fretta, minore atto. Got it out of a book-means, the more
haste, the less speed."
"Geewhillikins," I says, "but what does the rest of it mean?"
"We ain't got no time to bother over that," he says, "we got to
dig in like all git-out."
"Well, anyway," I says, "what's some of it? What's a fess?"
"A fess- a fess is- you don't need to know what a fess is. I'll show
him how to make it when he gets to it."
"Shucks, Tom," I says, "I think you might tell a person. What's a
bar sinister?"
"Oh, I don't know. But he's got to have it. All the nobility does."
That was just his way. If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to
you, he wouldn't do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn't make
no difference.
He'd got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started
in to finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan
out a mournful inscription- said Jim got to have one, like they all
done. He made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them
off, so:
1. Here a captive heart busted.
2. Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends, fretted
out his sorrowful life.
3. Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest,
after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity.
4. Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter
captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV.
Tom's voice trembled, whilst he was reading them, and he most
broke down. When he got done, he couldn't no way make up his mind
which one for Jim to scrabble onto the wall, they was all so good; but
at last he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said
it would take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck onto the logs
with a nail, and he didn't know how to make letters, besides; but
Tom said he would block them out for him, and then he wouldn't have
nothing to do but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says:
"Come to think, the logs ain't agoing to do; they don't have log
walls in a dungeon: we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock.
We'll fetch a rock."
Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him
such a pison long time to dig them into a rock, he wouldn't ever get
out. But Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he took a
look to see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was
most pesky tedious hard work and slow, and didn't give my hands no
show to get well of the sores, and we didn't seem to make no
headway, hardly. So Tom says:
"I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms
and mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same
rock. There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll
smouch it, and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the
saw on it, too."
It warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a
grindstone nuther; but we allowed we'd tackle it. It warn't quite
midnight, yet, so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We
smouched the grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a
most nation tough job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn't keep
her from falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us, every
time. Tom said she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got
through. We got her half way; and then we was plumb played out, and
most drownded with sweat. We see it warn't no use, we got to go and
fetch Jim. So he raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the
bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled out
through our hole and down there, and Jim and me laid into the
grindstone and walked her along like nothing; and Tom superintended.
He could out-superintend any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do
everything.
Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the
grindstone through; but Jim he took the pick and soon make it big
enough. Then Tom marked out them things on it with the nail, and set
Jim to work on them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt
from the rubbage in the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work
till the rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go to
bed, and hide the grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it.
Then we helped him fix his chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready
for bed ourselves. But Tom thought of something, and says:
"You got any spiders in here, Jim?"
"No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom."
"All right, we'll get you some."
"But bless you, honey, I doan' want none. I's afeard un um. I jis'
's soon have rattlesnakes aroun'."
Tom thought a minute or two, and says:
"It's a good idea. And I reckon it's been done. It must a been done;
it stands to reason. Yes, it's a prime good idea. Where could you keep
it?"
"Keep what, Mars Tom?"
"Why, a rattlesnake."
"De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake
to come in heah, I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I
would, wid my head."
"Why, Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it, after a little. You could
tame it."
"Tame it!"
"Yes- easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and
petting, and they wouldn't think of hurting a person that pets them.
Any book will tell you that. You try- that's all I ask; just try for
two or three days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that
he'll love you; and sleep with you; and won't stay away from you a
minute; and will let you wrap him round your neck and put his head
in your mouth."
"Please, Mars Tom- doan' talk so! I can't stan' it! He'd let me
shove his head in my mouf- fer a favor, hain't it? I lay he'd wait a
pow'ful long time 'fo' I ast him. En mo' en dat, I doan' want him to
sleep wid me."
"Jim, don't act so foolish. A prisoner's got to have some kind of
a dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why,
there's more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it
than any other way you could ever think of to save your life."
"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' want no sich glory. Snake take 'n bite Jim's
chin off, den whah is de glory? No, sah, I doan' want no sich doin's."
"Blame it, can't you try? I only want you to try- you needn't keep
it up if it don't work."
"But de trouble all done, ef de snake bite me while I's a tryin'
him. Mars Tom, I's willin' to tackle mos'anything' at ain't
onreasonable, but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for
me to tame, I's gwyne to leave, dat's shore."
"Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bullheaded about it.
We can get you some garter-snakes and you can tie some buttons on
their tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that'll
have to do."
"I k'n stan' dem, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout
um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b'fo', 't was so much bother and
trouble to be a prisoner."
"Well, it always is, when it's done right. You got any rats around
here?"
"No, sah, I hain't seed none."
"Well, we'll get you some rats."
"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' want no rats. Dey's de dadblamedest
creturs to sturb a body, en rustle roun' over 'im, en bite his feet,
when he's trying to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g'yarter-snakes,
'f I's got to have 'm, but doan' gimme no rats, I ain' got no use
f'r um, skasely."
"But Jim, you got to have 'em- they all do. So don't make no more
fuss about it. Prisoners ain't ever without rats. There ain't no
instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them
tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play
music to them. You got anything to play music on?"
"I ain' got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o' paper, en a
juice-harp; but I reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juice-harp."
"Yes they would. They don't care what kind of music 'tis. A
jews-harp's plenty good enough for a rat. All animals likes music-
in a prison they dote on it. Specially, painful music; and you can't
get no other kind out of a jews-harp. It always interests them; they
come out to see what's the matter with you. Yes, you're all right;
you're fixed very well. You want to set on your bed, nights, before
you go to sleep, and early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp;
play The Last Link is Broken- that's the thing that'll scoop a rat,
quicker'n anything else: and when you've played about two minutes,
you'll see all the rats, and the snakes, and spiders, and things begin
to feel worried about you, and come. And they'll just fairly swarm
over you, and have a noble good time."
"Yes, dey will, I reck'n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is Jim
havin'? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I'll do it ef I got to. I
reck'n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in
de house."
Tom waited to think over, and see if there wasn't nothing else;
and pretty soon he says:
"Oh- there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do
you reckon?"
"I doan' know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it's tolerable dark
in heah, en I ain' got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a
pow'ful sight o' trouble."
"Well, you try it anyway. Some other prisoners has done it."
"One er dem big cat-tail-lookin' mullen-stalks would grow in heah,
Mars Tom, I reck'n, but she wouldn' be wuth half de trouble she'd
coss."
"Don't you believe it. We'll fetch you a little one, and you plant
it in the corner, over there, and raise it. And don't call it
mullen, call it Pitchiola- that's its right name, when it's in a
prison. And you want to water it with your tears."
"Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom."
"You don't want spring water; you want to water it with your
tears. It's the way they always do."
"Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste
wid spring water whiles another man's a start'n one wid tears."
"That ain't the idea. You got to do it with tears."
"She'll die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan'
skasely ever cry."
So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim
would have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised
he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's
coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would "jis' 's soon have
tobacker in his coffee;" and found so much fault with it, and with the
work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping the rats,
and petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on
top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions,
and journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and
responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook,
that Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was just
loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in
the world to make a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to
appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him. So Jim he
was sorry, and said he wouldn't behave so no more, and then me and Tom
shoved for bed.
CH_39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
-
In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat
trap and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat hole, and in
about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we
took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while
we was gone for spiders, little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson
Elexander Phelps found it there, and opened the door of it to see if
the rats would come out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and
when we got back she was a standing on top of the bed raising Cain,
and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times
for her. So she took and dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as
much as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that
meddlesome cub, and they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the
first haul was the pick of the flock. I never see a likelier lot of
rats than what that first haul was.
We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs,
and caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we liketo got a
hornet's nest, but we didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give
it right up, but staid with them as long as we could; because we
allowed we'd tire them out or they'd got to tire us out, and they done
it. Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty
near all right again, but couldn't set down convenient. And so we went
for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and housesnakes,
and put them in a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was
supper time, and a rattling good honest day's work; and hungry?- oh,
no, I reckon not! And there warn't a blessed snake up there, when we
went back- we didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out,
somehow, and left. But it didn't matter much, because they was still
on the premises somewheres. So we judged we could get some of them
again. No, there warn't no real scarcity of snakes about the house for
a considerable spell. You'd see them dripping from the rafters and
places, every now and then; and they generly landed in your plate,
or down the back of your neck, and most of the time where you didn't
want them. Well, they was handsome, and striped, and there warn't no
harm in a million of them; but that never made no difference to Aunt
Sally, she despised snakes, be the breed what they might, and she
couldn't stand them no way you could fix it; and every time one of
them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference what she was
doing, she would just lay that work down and light out. I never see
such a woman. And you could hear her whoop to Jericho. You couldn't
get her to take aholt of one of them with the tongs. And if she turned
over and found one in bed, she would scramble out and lift a howl that
you would think the house was afire. She disturbed the old man so,
that he said he could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes
created. Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the
house for as much as a week, Aunt Sally warn't over it yet; she warn't
near over it; when she was setting thinking about something, you could
touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump
right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all
women was just so. He said they was made that way; for some reason
or other.
We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way; and
she allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we
ever loaded up the place again with them. I didn't mind the
lickings, because they didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the
trouble we had, to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in, and
all the other things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's
was when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't
like the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay
for him and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between
the rats, and the snakes, and the grindstone, there warn't no room
in bed for him, skasely; and when there was, a body couldn't sleep, it
was so lively, and it was always lively, he said, because they never
all slept at one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes was
asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes
come on watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his way, and
t'other gang having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a
new place, the spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed
over. He said if he ever got out, this time, he wouldn't ever be a
prisoner again, not for a salary.
Well, by the end of three weeks, everything was in pretty good
shape. The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit
Jim he would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink
was fresh; the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all
carved on the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had
et up the sawdust, and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache. We
reckoned we was all going to die, but didn't. It was the most
undigestible sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the same. But as I was
saying, we'd got all the work done, now, at last; and we was all
pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a
couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get
their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because there warn't
no such plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St.
Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis
ones, it give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to
lose. So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters.
"What's them?" I says.
"Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done
one way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around,
that gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI was
going to light out of the Tooleries, a servant girl done it. It's a
very good way, and so is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both.
And it's usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him,
and she stays in, and he slides out in her clothes. We'll do that
too."
"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to warn anybody for, that
something's up? Let them find it out for themselves- it's their
lookout."
"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've
acted from the very start- left us to do everything. They're so
confiding and mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at
all. So if we don't give them notice, there won't be nobody nor
nothing to interfere with us, and so after all our hard work and
trouble this escape'll go off perfectly flat: won't amount to nothing-
won't be nothing to it."
"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."
"Shucks," he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:
"But I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you
suits me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?"
"You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook
that yaller girl's frock."
"Why, Tom, that'll make trouble next morning; because of course
she prob'bly hain't got any but that one."
"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the
nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door."
"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy
in my own togs."
"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl then, would you?"
"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, anyway."
"That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do, is
just to do our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us do it
or not. Hain't you got no principle at all?"
"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl.
Who's Jim's mother?"
"I'm his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."
"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim
leaves."
"Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on
his bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim'll take Aunt
Sally's gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When
a prisoner of style escapes, it's called an evasion. It's always
called so when a king escapes, frinstance. And the same with a
king's son; it don't make no difference whether he's a natural one
or an unnatural one."
So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller
wench's frock, that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the
front door, the way Tom told me to. It said:
-
Beware, Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout.
UNKNOWN FRIEND
-
Next night, we stuck a picture which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull
and crossbones, on the front door; and next night another one of a
coffin, on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They
couldn't a been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts
laying for them behind everything and under the beds and shivering
through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped, and said
"ouch!" if anything fell, she jumped and said "ouch!" if you
happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she done the same;
she couldn't face noway and be satisfied, because she allowed there
was something behind her every time-so she was always a whirling
around, sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd get two-thirds
around, she'd whirl back again, and say it again; and she was afraid
to go to bed, but she dasn't set up. So the thing was working very
well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory.
He said it showed it was done right.
So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the
streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what
we better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was
going to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went
down the lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back
door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come
back. This letter said:
-
Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate
gang of cutthroats from over in the Ingean Territory going to steal
your runaway nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you
so as you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of
the gang, but have got religgion and wish to quit it and lead a honest
life again, and will betray the helish design. They will sneak down
from northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false
key, and go in the nigger's cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece
and blow a tin horn if I see any danger; but stead of that, I will
BA like a sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all; then whilst
they are getting his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in,
and can kill them at your leasure. Don't do anything but just the
way I am telling you, if you do they will suspicion something and
raise whoopjamboreehoo. I do not wish any reward but to know I have
done the right thing.
UNKNOWN FRIEND
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