«Yes,» says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, «WE did.»
After about a half a minute the king drawls out:
«Leastways, I did.»
The duke says, the same way:
«On the contrary, I did.»
The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
«Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?»
The duke says, pretty brisk:
«When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was YOU referring to?»
«Shucks!» says the king, very sarcastic; «but I don't know-maybe you was asleep, and didn't know what you was about.»
The duke bristles up now, and says:
«Oh, let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame' fool? Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?»
«YES, sir! I know you DO know, because you done it yourself!»
«It's a lie!»-and the duke went for him. The king sings out:
«Take y'r hands off!-leggo my throat!-I take it all back!»
The duke says:
«Well, you just own up, first, that you DID hide that money there, intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig it up, and have it all to yourself.»
«Wait jest a minute, duke-answer me this one question, honest and fair; if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take back everything I said.»
«You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now!»
«Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more-now DON'T git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide it?»
The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:
«Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway. But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you DONE it.»
«I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I won't say I warn't goin' to do it, because I WAS; but you-I mean somebody-got in ahead o' me.»
«It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you done it, or-«
The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
«'Nough!-I OWN UP!»
I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and says:
«If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's WELL for you to set there and blubber like a baby-it's fitten for you, after the way you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everything
—and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deffisit-you wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another, and scoop it ALL!»
The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:
«Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me.»
«Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!» says the duke. «And NOW you see what you GOT by it. They've got all their own money back, and all of OURN but a shekel or two BESIDES. G'long to bed, and don't you deffersit ME no more deffersits, long 's YOU live!»
So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms. They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag again. That made me feel easy and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything.
After about a half a minute the king drawls out:
«Leastways, I did.»
The duke says, the same way:
«On the contrary, I did.»
The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
«Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?»
The duke says, pretty brisk:
«When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was YOU referring to?»
«Shucks!» says the king, very sarcastic; «but I don't know-maybe you was asleep, and didn't know what you was about.»
The duke bristles up now, and says:
«Oh, let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame' fool? Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?»
«YES, sir! I know you DO know, because you done it yourself!»
«It's a lie!»-and the duke went for him. The king sings out:
«Take y'r hands off!-leggo my throat!-I take it all back!»
The duke says:
«Well, you just own up, first, that you DID hide that money there, intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig it up, and have it all to yourself.»
«Wait jest a minute, duke-answer me this one question, honest and fair; if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take back everything I said.»
«You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now!»
«Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more-now DON'T git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide it?»
The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:
«Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway. But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you DONE it.»
«I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I won't say I warn't goin' to do it, because I WAS; but you-I mean somebody-got in ahead o' me.»
«It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you done it, or-«
The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
«'Nough!-I OWN UP!»
I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and says:
«If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's WELL for you to set there and blubber like a baby-it's fitten for you, after the way you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everything
—and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deffisit-you wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another, and scoop it ALL!»
The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:
«Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me.»
«Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!» says the duke. «And NOW you see what you GOT by it. They've got all their own money back, and all of OURN but a shekel or two BESIDES. G'long to bed, and don't you deffersit ME no more deffersits, long 's YOU live!»
So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms. They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag again. That made me feel easy and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything.
CHAPTER XXXI.
WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along down the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they begun to work the villages again.
First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. They tackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged they was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-money business, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. («House to rob, you MEAN,» says I to myself; «and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft-and you'll have to take it out in wondering.») And he said if he warn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along.
So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and no king; we could have a change, anyway-and maybe a chance for THE chance on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:
«Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!»
But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was gone! I set up a shout-and then another-and then another one; and run this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't no use-old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:
«Yes.»
«Whereabouts?» says I.
«Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here. He's a runaway nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?»
«You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out-and told me to lay down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard to come out.»
«Well,» he says, «you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him. He run off f'm down South, som'ers.»
«It's a good job they got him.»
«Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. It's like picking up money out'n the road.»
«Yes, it is-and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him FIRST. Who nailed him?»
«It was an old fellow-a stranger-and he sold out his chance in him for forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think o' that, now! You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year.»
«That's me, every time,» says I. «But maybe his chance ain't worth no more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't straight about it.»
«But it IS, though-straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It tells all about him, to a dot-paints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's frum, below NewrLEANS. No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye?»
I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, «There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.»
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie-I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter-and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.
HUCK FINN.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking-thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
«All right, then, I'll GO to hell»-and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.
Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it, «Phelps's Sawmill,» and when I come to the farm-houses, two or three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody just yet-I only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch-three-night performance-like that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says:
«Hel-LO! Where'd YOU come from?» Then he says, kind of glad and eager, «Where's the raft?-got her in a good place?»
I says:
«Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace.»
Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:
«What was your idea for asking ME?» he says.
«Well,» I says, «when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says to myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark; then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what DID become of the raft, then?-and Jim-poor Jim!»
«Blamed if I know-that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but what he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.'»
«I wouldn't shake my NIGGER, would I?-the only nigger I had in the world, and the only property.»
«We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him OUR nigger; yes, we did consider him so-goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where's that ten cents? Give it here.»
I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:
«Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done that!»
«How can he blow? Hain't he run off?»
«No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's gone.»
«SOLD him?» I says, and begun to cry; «why, he was MY nigger, and that was my money. Where is he?-I want my nigger.»
«Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all-so dry up your blubbering. Looky here-do you think YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I'd trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us-«
He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
«I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger.»
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:
«I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him.»
So I promised, and he says:
«A farmer by the name of Silas Ph-« and then he stopped. You see, he started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:
«The man that bought him is named Abram Foster-Abram G. Foster-and he lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette.»
«All right,» I says, «I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this very afternoon.»
«No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you lose any time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with US, d'ye hear?»
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans.
«So clear out,» he says; «and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim IS your nigger-some idiots don't require documents-leastways I've heard there's such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting 'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you don't work your jaw any BETWEEN here and there.»
So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.
First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. They tackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged they was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-money business, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. («House to rob, you MEAN,» says I to myself; «and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft-and you'll have to take it out in wondering.») And he said if he warn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along.
So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and no king; we could have a change, anyway-and maybe a chance for THE chance on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:
«Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!»
But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was gone! I set up a shout-and then another-and then another one; and run this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't no use-old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:
«Yes.»
«Whereabouts?» says I.
«Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here. He's a runaway nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?»
«You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out-and told me to lay down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard to come out.»
«Well,» he says, «you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him. He run off f'm down South, som'ers.»
«It's a good job they got him.»
«Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. It's like picking up money out'n the road.»
«Yes, it is-and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him FIRST. Who nailed him?»
«It was an old fellow-a stranger-and he sold out his chance in him for forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think o' that, now! You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year.»
«That's me, every time,» says I. «But maybe his chance ain't worth no more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't straight about it.»
«But it IS, though-straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It tells all about him, to a dot-paints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's frum, below NewrLEANS. No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye?»
I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, «There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.»
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie-I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter-and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.
HUCK FINN.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking-thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
«All right, then, I'll GO to hell»-and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.
Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it, «Phelps's Sawmill,» and when I come to the farm-houses, two or three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody just yet-I only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch-three-night performance-like that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says:
«Hel-LO! Where'd YOU come from?» Then he says, kind of glad and eager, «Where's the raft?-got her in a good place?»
I says:
«Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace.»
Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:
«What was your idea for asking ME?» he says.
«Well,» I says, «when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says to myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark; then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what DID become of the raft, then?-and Jim-poor Jim!»
«Blamed if I know-that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but what he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.'»
«I wouldn't shake my NIGGER, would I?-the only nigger I had in the world, and the only property.»
«We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him OUR nigger; yes, we did consider him so-goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where's that ten cents? Give it here.»
I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:
«Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done that!»
«How can he blow? Hain't he run off?»
«No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's gone.»
«SOLD him?» I says, and begun to cry; «why, he was MY nigger, and that was my money. Where is he?-I want my nigger.»
«Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all-so dry up your blubbering. Looky here-do you think YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I'd trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us-«
He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
«I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger.»
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:
«I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him.»
So I promised, and he says:
«A farmer by the name of Silas Ph-« and then he stopped. You see, he started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:
«The man that bought him is named Abram Foster-Abram G. Foster-and he lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette.»
«All right,» I says, «I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this very afternoon.»
«No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you lose any time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with US, d'ye hear?»
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans.
«So clear out,» he says; «and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim IS your nigger-some idiots don't require documents-leastways I've heard there's such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting 'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you don't work your jaw any BETWEEN here and there.»
So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.
CHAPTER XXXII.
WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits whispering-spirits that's been dead ever so many years-and you always think they're talking about YOU. As a general thing it makes a body wish HE was dead, too, and done with it all.
Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks-hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead-for that IS the lonesomest sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say-spokes made out of dogs-circle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her hand, singing out, «Begone YOU Tige! you Spot! begone sah!» and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers was going. She was smiling all over so she could hardly stand-and says:
«It's YOU, at last!-AIN'T it?»
I out with a «Yes'm» before I thought.
She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, «You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!-tell him howdy.»
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:
«Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away-or did you get your breakfast on the boat?»
I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
«Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep' you?-boat get aground?»
«Yes'm-she-«
«Don't say yes'm-say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?»
I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up-from down towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on-or-Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
«It warn't the grounding-that didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.»
«Good gracious! anybody hurt?»
«No'm. Killed a nigger.»
«Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he DID die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification-that was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn't you?-oldish man, with a-«
«No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too soon; and so I come down the back way.»
«Who'd you give the baggage to?»
«Nobody.»
«Why, child, it 'll be stole!»
«Not where I hid it I reckon it won't,» I says.
«How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?»
It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
«The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted.»
I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak all down my back, because she says:
«But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you start up yourn; just tell me EVERYTHING-tell me all about 'm all every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of.»
Well, I see I was up a stump-and up it good. Providence had stood by me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead-I'd got to throw up my hand. So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed, and says:
«Here he comes! Stick your head down lower-there, that'll do; you can't be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on him. Children, don't you say a word.»
I see I was in a fix now. But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from under when the lightning struck.
I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in; then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
«Has he come?»
«No,» says her husband.
«Good-NESS gracious!» she says, «what in the warld can have become of him?»
«I can't imagine,» says the old gentleman; «and I must say it makes me dreadful uneasy.»
«Uneasy!» she says; «I'm ready to go distracted! He MUST a come; and you've missed him along the road. I KNOW it's so-something tells me so.»
«Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the road-YOU know that.»
«But oh, dear, dear, what WILL Sis say! He must a come! You must a missed him. He-«
«Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's come; for he COULDN'T come and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible-just terrible-something's happened to the boat, sure!»
«Why, Silas! Look yonder!-up the road!-ain't that somebody coming?»
He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and says:
«Why, who's that?»
«Who do you reckon 't is?»
«I hain't no idea. Who IS it?»
«It's TOM SAWYER!»
By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time to swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary, and the rest of the tribe.
But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they froze to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family-I mean the Sawyer family-than ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right, and worked first-rate; because THEY didn't know but what it would take three days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done just as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, s'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep quiet?
Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it wouldn't do at all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.
Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks-hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead-for that IS the lonesomest sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say-spokes made out of dogs-circle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her hand, singing out, «Begone YOU Tige! you Spot! begone sah!» and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers was going. She was smiling all over so she could hardly stand-and says:
«It's YOU, at last!-AIN'T it?»
I out with a «Yes'm» before I thought.
She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, «You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!-tell him howdy.»
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:
«Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away-or did you get your breakfast on the boat?»
I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
«Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep' you?-boat get aground?»
«Yes'm-she-«
«Don't say yes'm-say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?»
I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up-from down towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on-or-Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
«It warn't the grounding-that didn't keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.»
«Good gracious! anybody hurt?»
«No'm. Killed a nigger.»
«Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he DID die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification-that was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn't you?-oldish man, with a-«
«No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too soon; and so I come down the back way.»
«Who'd you give the baggage to?»
«Nobody.»
«Why, child, it 'll be stole!»
«Not where I hid it I reckon it won't,» I says.
«How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?»
It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
«The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted.»
I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak all down my back, because she says:
«But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you start up yourn; just tell me EVERYTHING-tell me all about 'm all every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of.»
Well, I see I was up a stump-and up it good. Providence had stood by me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead-I'd got to throw up my hand. So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed, and says:
«Here he comes! Stick your head down lower-there, that'll do; you can't be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on him. Children, don't you say a word.»
I see I was in a fix now. But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from under when the lightning struck.
I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in; then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
«Has he come?»
«No,» says her husband.
«Good-NESS gracious!» she says, «what in the warld can have become of him?»
«I can't imagine,» says the old gentleman; «and I must say it makes me dreadful uneasy.»
«Uneasy!» she says; «I'm ready to go distracted! He MUST a come; and you've missed him along the road. I KNOW it's so-something tells me so.»
«Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the road-YOU know that.»
«But oh, dear, dear, what WILL Sis say! He must a come! You must a missed him. He-«
«Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's come; for he COULDN'T come and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible-just terrible-something's happened to the boat, sure!»
«Why, Silas! Look yonder!-up the road!-ain't that somebody coming?»
He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and says:
«Why, who's that?»
«Who do you reckon 't is?»
«I hain't no idea. Who IS it?»
«It's TOM SAWYER!»
By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time to swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary, and the rest of the tribe.
But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they froze to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family-I mean the Sawyer family-than ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right, and worked first-rate; because THEY didn't know but what it would take three days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done just as well.
Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, s'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep quiet?
Well, I couldn't HAVE it that way; it wouldn't do at all. I must go up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SO I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and waited till he come along. I says «Hold on!» and it stopped alongside, and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says:
«I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you want to come back and ha'nt ME for?»
I says:
«I hain't come back-I hain't been GONE.»
When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite satisfied yet. He says:
«Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injun, you ain't a ghost?»
«Honest injun, I ain't,» I says.
«Well-I-I-well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn't you ever murdered AT ALL?»
«No. I warn't ever murdered at all-I played it on them. You come in here and feel of me if you don't believe me.»
So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me again he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says:
«It's all right; I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you; and you needn't let on to know me at first.»
I says:
«All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing-a thing that NOBODY don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that I'm a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is JIM-old Miss Watson's Jim.»
He says:
«What! Why, Jim is-«
He stopped and went to studying. I says:
«I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low-down business; but what if it is? I'm low down; and I'm a-going to steal him, and I want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?»
His eye lit up, and he says:
«I'll HELP you steal him!»
Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard-and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a NIGGER-STEALER!
«Oh, shucks!» I says; «you're joking.»
«I ain't joking, either.»
«Well, then,» I says, «joking or no joking, if you hear anything said about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that YOU don't know nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him.»
Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and he says:
«Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in that mare to do it? I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair-not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse now-I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas all she was worth.»
That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and done the same way, down South.
In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty yards, and says:
«Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe it's a stranger. Jimmy» (that's one of the children) «run and tell Lize to put on another plate for dinner.»
Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger don't come EVERY year, and so he lays over the yaller-fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an audience-and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, and says:
«Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?»
«No, my boy,» says the old gentleman, «I'm sorry to say 't your driver has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more. Come in, come in.»
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, «Too late-he's out of sight.»
«Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's.»
«Oh, I CAN'T make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it. I'll walk
—I don't mind the distance.»
«But we won't LET you walk-it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do it. Come right in.»
«Oh, DO,» says Aunt Sally; «it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we can't let you walk. And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us. Come right in and make yourself at home.»
So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson-and he made another bow.
Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand, and says:
«You owdacious puppy!»
He looked kind of hurt, and says:
«I'm surprised at you, m'am.»
«You're s'rp-Why, what do you reckon I am? I've a good notion to take and-Say, what do you mean by kissing me?»
He looked kind of humble, and says:
«I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I-I-thought you'd like it.»
«Why, you born fool!» She took up the spinning stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. «What made you think I'd like it?»
«Well, I don't know. Only, they-they-told me you would.»
«THEY told you I would. Whoever told you's ANOTHER lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who's THEY?»
«Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am.»
It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
«Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot short.»
He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
«I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said it-every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no more
—I won't, honest.»
«You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd RECKON you won't!»
«No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again-till you ask me.»
«Till I ASK you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask you
—or the likes of you.»
«Well,» he says, «it does surprise me so. I can't make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But-« He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, «Didn't YOU think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?»
«Why, no; I-I-well, no, I b'lieve I didn't.»
Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:
«Tom, didn't YOU think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid Sawyer-'»
«My land!» she says, breaking in and jumping for him, «you impudent young rascal, to fool a body so-« and was going to hug him, but he fended her off, and says:
«No, not till you've asked me first.»
So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says:
«Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for YOU at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but him.»
«It's because it warn't INTENDED for any of us to come but Tom,» he says; «but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger to come.»
«No-not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I don't mind the terms-I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it, I was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack.»
«I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you want to come back and ha'nt ME for?»
I says:
«I hain't come back-I hain't been GONE.»
When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite satisfied yet. He says:
«Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injun, you ain't a ghost?»
«Honest injun, I ain't,» I says.
«Well-I-I-well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn't you ever murdered AT ALL?»
«No. I warn't ever murdered at all-I played it on them. You come in here and feel of me if you don't believe me.»
So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me again he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says:
«It's all right; I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you; and you needn't let on to know me at first.»
I says:
«All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing-a thing that NOBODY don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that I'm a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is JIM-old Miss Watson's Jim.»
He says:
«What! Why, Jim is-«
He stopped and went to studying. I says:
«I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low-down business; but what if it is? I'm low down; and I'm a-going to steal him, and I want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?»
His eye lit up, and he says:
«I'll HELP you steal him!»
Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard-and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a NIGGER-STEALER!
«Oh, shucks!» I says; «you're joking.»
«I ain't joking, either.»
«Well, then,» I says, «joking or no joking, if you hear anything said about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that YOU don't know nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him.»
Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and he says:
«Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in that mare to do it? I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair-not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse now-I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas all she was worth.»
That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and done the same way, down South.
In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty yards, and says:
«Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe it's a stranger. Jimmy» (that's one of the children) «run and tell Lize to put on another plate for dinner.»
Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger don't come EVERY year, and so he lays over the yaller-fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an audience-and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, and says:
«Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?»
«No, my boy,» says the old gentleman, «I'm sorry to say 't your driver has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more. Come in, come in.»
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, «Too late-he's out of sight.»
«Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's.»
«Oh, I CAN'T make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it. I'll walk
—I don't mind the distance.»
«But we won't LET you walk-it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do it. Come right in.»
«Oh, DO,» says Aunt Sally; «it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we can't let you walk. And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us. Come right in and make yourself at home.»
So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson-and he made another bow.
Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand, and says:
«You owdacious puppy!»
He looked kind of hurt, and says:
«I'm surprised at you, m'am.»
«You're s'rp-Why, what do you reckon I am? I've a good notion to take and-Say, what do you mean by kissing me?»
He looked kind of humble, and says:
«I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I-I-thought you'd like it.»
«Why, you born fool!» She took up the spinning stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. «What made you think I'd like it?»
«Well, I don't know. Only, they-they-told me you would.»
«THEY told you I would. Whoever told you's ANOTHER lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who's THEY?»
«Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am.»
It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
«Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot short.»
He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
«I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said it-every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no more
—I won't, honest.»
«You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd RECKON you won't!»
«No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again-till you ask me.»
«Till I ASK you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask you
—or the likes of you.»
«Well,» he says, «it does surprise me so. I can't make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But-« He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, «Didn't YOU think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?»
«Why, no; I-I-well, no, I b'lieve I didn't.»
Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:
«Tom, didn't YOU think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid Sawyer-'»
«My land!» she says, breaking in and jumping for him, «you impudent young rascal, to fool a body so-« and was going to hug him, but he fended her off, and says:
«No, not till you've asked me first.»
So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says:
«Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for YOU at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but him.»
«It's because it warn't INTENDED for any of us to come but Tom,» he says; «but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger to come.»
«No-not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I don't mind the terms-I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it, I was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack.»