(Tom Sawyer's Comrade)

BY

MARK TWAIN

(Samuel L. Clemens)

NOTICE

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narra-

tive will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a

moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to

find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,

Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

EXPLANATORY

IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit:

the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the

backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike

County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this

last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-

hazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly,

and with the trustworthy guidance and support of

personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without

it many readers would suppose that all these characters

were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

THE AUTHOR.

HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Scene: The Mississippi Valley

Time: Forty to fifty years ago

CHAPTER I.

YOU don't know about me without you have read a

book by the name of The Adventures of Tom

Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was

made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth,

mainly. There was things which he stretched, but

mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never

seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it

was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt

Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and

the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book,

which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as

I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom

and me found the money that the robbers hid in the

cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars

apiece -- all gold. It was an awful sight of money

when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took

it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar

a day apiece all the year round -- more than a body

could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she

took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize

me; but it was rough living in the house all the time,

considering how dismal regular and decent the widow

was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it

no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my

sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But

Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going

to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would

go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went

back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor

lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names,

too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me

in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing

but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well,

then, the old thing commenced again. The widow

rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time.

When you got to the table you couldn't go right to

eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck

down her head and grumble a little over the victuals,

though there warn't really anything the matter with

them, -- that is, nothing only everything was cooked

by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different;

things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps

around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me

about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat

to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out

that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so

then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't

take no stock in dead people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow

to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean

practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it

any more. That is just the way with some people.

They get down on a thing when they don't know

nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about

Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to any-

body, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of

fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in

it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all

right, because she done it herself.

Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid,

with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and

took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She

worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then

the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it

much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull,

and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't

put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't

scrunch up like that, Huckleberry -- set up straight;"

and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch

like that, Huckleberry -- why don't you try to be-

have?" Then she told me all about the bad place,

and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then,

but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go

somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't

particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said;

said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was

going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I

couldn't see no advantage in going where she was

going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it.

But I never said so, because it would only make

trouble, and wouldn't do no good.

Now she had got a start, and she went on and told

me all about the good place. She said all a body

would have to do there was to go around all day long

with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't

think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if

she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she

said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about

that, because I wanted him and me to be together.

Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got

tiresome and lonesome. By and by they fetched the

niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was

off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of

candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a

chair by the window and tried to think of something

cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I

most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and

the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and

I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about some-

body that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog cry-

ing about somebody that was going to die; and the

wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I

couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold

shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I

heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it

wants to tell about something that's on its mind and

can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in

its grave, and has to go about that way every night

grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish

I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went

crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit

in the candle; and before I could budge it was all

shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that

that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some

bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes

off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks

three times and crossed my breast every time; and

then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to

keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence.

You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've

found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I

hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep

off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.

I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my

pipe for a smoke; for the house was all as still as

death now, and so the widow wouldn't know. Well,

after a long time I heard the clock away off in the

town go boom -- boom -- boom -- twelve licks; and

all still again -- stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard

a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees --

something was a stirring. I set still and listened.

Directly I could just barely hear a "me-yow! me-

yow!" down there. That was good! Says I, "me-

yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put

out the light and scrambled out of the window on to

the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and

crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there

was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.

CHAPTER II.

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees

back towards the end of the widow's garden,

stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our

heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell

over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down

and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim,

was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him

pretty clear, because there was a light behind him.

He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute,

listening. Then he says:

"Who dah?"

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing

down and stood right between us; we could a touched

him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes

that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close

together. There was a place on my ankle that got to

itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun

to itch; and next my back, right between my shoul-

ders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well,

I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are

with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to

sleep when you ain't sleepy -- if you are anywheres

where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch

all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon

Jim says:

"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats

ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne

to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I

hears it agin."

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom.

He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his

legs out till one of them most touched one of mine.

My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come

into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun

to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching under-

neath. I didn't know how I was going to set still.

This miserableness went on as much as six or seven

minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I

was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned

I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set

my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim

begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore --

and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me -- kind of a little noise

with his mouth -- and we went creeping away on our

hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom

whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for

fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a dis-

turbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then

Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would

slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want

him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come.

But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got

three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for

pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get

away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl

to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play

something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good

while, everything was so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path,

around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on

the steep top of the hill the other side of the house.

Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung

it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but

he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be-

witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all

over the State, and then set him under the trees again,

and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And

next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to

New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he

spread it more and more, till by and by he said they

rode him all over the world, and tired him most to

death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim

was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he

wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers

would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was

more looked up to than any nigger in that country.

Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open

and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.

Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by

the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and

letting on to know all about such things, Jim would

happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout

witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to

take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center

piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a

charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and

told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch

witches whenever he wanted to just by saying some-

thing to it; but he never told what it was he said to it.

Niggers would come from all around there and give

Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five-

center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the

devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined

for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of

having seen the devil and been rode by witches.

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill-

top we looked away down into the village and could

see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick

folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever

so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole

mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down

the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and

two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard.

So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two

mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and

went ashore.

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made

everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed

them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the

bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on

our hands and knees. We went about two hundred

yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked

about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked

under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there

was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got

into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold,

and there we stopped. Tom says:

"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it

Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join

has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood."

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of

paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It

swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell

any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to

any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to

kill that person and his family must do it, and he

mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them

and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign

of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the

band could use that mark, and if he did he must be

sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And

if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets,

he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass

burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his

name blotted off of the list with blood and never men-

tioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it

and be forgot forever.

Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and

asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said,

some of it, but the rest was out of pirate-books and

robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned

had it.

Some thought it would be good to kill the FAMILIES

of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good

idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben

Rogers says:

"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what

you going to do 'bout him?"

"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.

"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find

him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs

in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts

for a year or more."

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me

out, because they said every boy must have a family

or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and

square for the others. Well, nobody could think of

anything to do -- everybody was stumped, and set

still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I

thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson

-- they could kill her. Everybody said:

"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come

in."

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get

blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.

"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of busi-

ness of this Gang?"

"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.

"But who are we going to rob? -- houses, or cattle,

or --"

"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't rob-

bery; it's burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't

burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are high-

waymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road,

with masks on, and kill the people and take their

watches and money."

"Must we always kill the people?"

"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think

different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them --

except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep

them till they're ransomed."

"Ransomed? What's that?"

"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've

seen it in books; and so of course that's what we've

got to do."

"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"

"Why, blame it all, we've GOT to do it. Don't I tell

you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing

different from what's in the books, and get things all

muddled up?"

"Oh, that's all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but

how in the nation are these fellows going to be ran-

somed if we don't know how to do it to them? -- that's

the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon

it is?"

"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them

till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till

they're dead. "

"Now, that's something LIKE. That'll answer.

Why couldn't you said that before? We'll keep them

till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot

they'll be, too -- eating up everything, and always

trying to get loose."

"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get

loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot

them down if they move a peg?"

"A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebody's

got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so

as to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why

can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as

they get here?"

"Because it ain't in the books so -- that's why.

Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular,

or don't you? -- that's the idea. Don't you reckon

that the people that made the books knows what's the

correct thing to do? Do you reckon YOU can learn

'em anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll

just go on and ransom them in the regular way."

"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool

way, anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too?"

"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I

wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No; nobody ever

saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them

to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them;

and by and by they fall in love with you, and never

want to go home any more."

"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't

take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave

so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be

ransomed, that there won't be no place for the rob-

bers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."

Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when

they waked him up he was scared, and cried, and said

he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't want to

be a robber any more.

So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-

baby, and that made him mad, and he said he would

go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him

five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home

and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some

people.

Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only

Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday; but

all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday,

and that settled the thing. They agreed to get to-

gether and fix a day as soon as they could, and then

we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper

second captain of the Gang, and so started home.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just

before day was breaking. My new clothes was all

greased up and clayey, and I was dog-tired.

CHAPTER III.

WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning

from old Miss Watson on account of my

clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only

cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry

that I thought I would behave awhile if I could. Then

Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but

nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day,

and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't

so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks.

It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried for

the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't

make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss

Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She

never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way.

I set down one time back in the woods, and had a

long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can

get anything they pray for, why don't Deacon Winn

get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the

widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole?

Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to my

self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the

widow about it, and she said the thing a body could

get by praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was

too many for me, but she told me what she meant -- I

must help other people, and do everything I could for

other people, and look out for them all the time, and

never think about myself. This was including Miss

Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and

turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't

see no advantage about it -- except for the other peo-

ple; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it

any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow

would take me one side and talk about Providence in a

way to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next

day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all

down again. I judged I could see that there was two

Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable

show with the widow's Providence, but if Miss Wat-

son's got him there warn't no help for him any more.

I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to

the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make

out how he was a-going to be any better off then than

what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so

kind of low-down and ornery.

Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and

that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him

no more. He used to always whale me when he was

sober and could get his hands on me; though I used

to take to the woods most of the time when he was

around. Well, about this time he was found in the

river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so

people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said

this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged,

and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap;

but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, be-

cause it had been in the water so long it warn't much

like a face at all. They said he was floating on his

back in the water. They took him and buried him on

the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I

happened to think of something. I knowed mighty

well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but

on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap,

but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was

uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would

turn up again by and by, though I wished he wouldn't.

We played robber now and then about a month, and

then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed

nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only just pre-

tended. We used to hop out of the woods and go

charging down on hog-drivers and women in carts

taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived any

of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," and

he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would

go to the cave and powwow over what we had done,

and how many people we had killed and marked. But

I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a

boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he

called a slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to

get together), and then he said he had got secret news

by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish

merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave

Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six hundred

camels, and over a thousand "sumter" mules, all

loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only

a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay

in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and

scoop the things. He said we must slick up our swords

and guns, and get ready. He never could go after

even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and

guns all scoured up for it, though they was only lath

and broomsticks, and you might scour at them till you

rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes

more than what they was before. I didn't believe we

could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but

I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I was on

hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when

we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down

the hill. But there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs,

and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. It

warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only

a primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased

the children up the hollow; but we never got anything

but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got

a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a

tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us

drop everything and cut. I didn't see no di'monds,

and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads

of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs

there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why

couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so

ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I

would know without asking. He said it was all done

by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of

soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on,

but we had enemies which he called magicians; and

they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-

school, just out of spite. I said, all right; then the

thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom

Sawyer said I was a numskull.

"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot

of genies, and they would hash you up like nothing

before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall

as a tree and as big around as a church."

"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to

help US -- can't we lick the other crowd then?"

"How you going to get them?"

"I don't know. How do THEY get them?"

"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring,

and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder

and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke a-rolling,

and everything they're told to do they up and do it.

They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up

by the roots, and belting a Sunday-school superinten-

dent over the head with it -- or any other man."

"Who makes them tear around so?"

"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They

belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and

they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells them

to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and

fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and

fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to

marry, they've got to do it -- and they've got to do it

before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they've

got to waltz that palace around over the country

wherever you want it, you understand."

"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flat-

heads for not keeping the palace themselves 'stead of

fooling them away like that. And what's more -- if I

was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I

would drop my business and come to him for the rub-

bing of an old tin lamp."

"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd HAVE to

come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or

not."

"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a

church? All right, then; I WOULD come; but I lay

I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was in

the country."

"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn.

You don't seem to know anything, somehow -- perfect

saphead."

I thought all this over for two or three days, and

then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it.

I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went out in

the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an

Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it

warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I

judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom

Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs

and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It

had all the marks of a Sunday-school.

CHAPTER IV.

WELL, three or four months run along, and it was

well into the winter now. I had been to school

most all the time and could spell and read and write

just a little, and could say the multiplication table up

to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I

could ever get any further than that if I was to live

forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, any-

way.

At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I

could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I

played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me

good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to

school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of

used to the widow's ways, too, and they warn't so

raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed

pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold

weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods

sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the

old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new

ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming

along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She

said she warn't ashamed of me.

One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar

at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I

could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the

bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and

crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away,

Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!"

The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn't

going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well

enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried

and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall

on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to

keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one

of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just

poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.

I went down to the front garden and clumb over the

stile where you go through the high board fence.

There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I

seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the

quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then

went on around the garden fence. It was funny they

hadn't come in, after standing around so. I couldn't

make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was

going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at

the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first, but

next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel

made with big nails, to keep off the devil.

I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I

looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I

didn't see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick

as I could get there. He said:

"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did

you come for your interest?"

"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"

"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night -- over a

hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you.

You had better let me invest it along with your six

thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."

"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I

don't want it at all -- nor the six thousand, nuther.

I want you to take it; I want to give it to you -- the

six thousand and all."

He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make

it out. He says:

"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"

I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it,

please. You'll take it -- won't you?"

He says:

"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"

"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me noth-

ing -- then I won't have to tell no lies."

He studied a while, and then he says:

"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to SELL all your

property to me -- not give it. That's the correct

idea."

Then he wrote something on a paper and read it

over, and says:

"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That

means I have bought it of you and paid you for it.

Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign it."

So I signed it, and left.

Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as

your fist, which had been took out of the fourth

stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it.

He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed

everything. So I went to him that night and told him

pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow.

What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do,

and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball

and said something over it, and then he held it up and

dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only

rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then

another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got

down on his knees, and put his ear against it and

listened. But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't

talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without

money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit

quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed

through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow,

even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick

it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time.

(I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I

got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money,

but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe

it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit

it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the

hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would

split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in

between and keep it there all night, and next morning

you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy

no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a

minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato

would do that before, but I had forgot it.

Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got

down and listened again. This time he said the hair-

ball was all right. He said it would tell my whole

fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hair-

ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:

"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne

to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin

he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to res' easy en let

de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels

hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en

shiny, en t'other one is black. De white one gits him

to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en

bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne

to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You

gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en con-

sidable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en

sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's

gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout

you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is

dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to

marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You

wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin,

en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat

you's gwyne to git hung."

When I lit my candle and went up to my room that

night there sat pap -- his own self!

CHAPTER V.

I HAD shut the door to. Then I turned around.

and there he was. I used to be scared of him all

the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was

scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken

-- that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when

my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected;

but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth

bothring about.

He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was

long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you

could see his eyes shining through like he was behind

vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long,

mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face,

where his face showed; it was white; not like another

man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white

to make a body's flesh crawl -- a tree-toad white, a

fish-belly white. As for his clothes -- just rags, that

was all. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee;

the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes

stuck through, and he worked them now and then.

His hat was laying on the floor -- an old black slouch

with the top caved in, like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at

me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle

down. I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb

in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By

and by he says:

"Starchy clothes -- very. You think you're a good

deal of a big-bug, DON'T you?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.

"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he.

"You've put on considerable many frills since I been

away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done

with you. You're educated, too, they say -- can read

and write. You think you're better'n your father,

now, don't you, because he can't? I'LL take it out of

you. Who told you you might meddle with such

hifalut'n foolishness, hey? -- who told you you could?"

"The widow. She told me."

"The widow, hey? -- and who told the widow she

could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of

her business?"

"Nobody never told her."

"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky

here -- you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn

people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own

father and let on to be better'n what HE is. You lemme

catch you fooling around that school again, you hear?

Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write,

nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't

before THEY died. I can't; and here you're a-swelling

yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it --

you hear? Say, lemme hear you read."

I took up a book and begun something about Gen-

eral Washington and the wars. When I'd read about

a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his

hand and knocked it across the house. He says:

"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when

you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting

on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my

smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan

you good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I

never see such a son.

He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some

cows and a boy, and says:

"What's this?"

"It's something they give me for learning my

lessons good."

He tore it up, and says:

"I'll give you something better -- I'll give you a

cowhide.

He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute,

and then he says:

"AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A

bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n'-glass; and a piece

of carpet on the floor -- and your own father got to

sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a

son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you

before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to

your airs -- they say you're rich. Hey? -- how's that?"

"They lie -- that's how."

"Looky here -- mind how you talk to me; I'm a-

standing about all I can stand now -- so don't gimme

no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't

heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard

about it away down the river, too. That's why I

come. You git me that money to-morrow -- I want

it."

"I hain't got no money."

"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it.

I want it."

"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge

Thatcher; he'll tell you the same."

"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle,

too, or I'll know the reason why. Say, how much

you got in your pocket? I want it."

"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to --"

"It don't make no difference what you want it for

-- you just shell it out."

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then

he said he was going down town to get some whisky;

said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got

out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed

me for putting on frills and trying to be better than

him; and when I reckoned he was gone he come back

and put his head in again, and told me to mind about

that school, because he was going to lay for me and

lick me if I didn't drop that.

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge

Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried to make

him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then he

swore he'd make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the

court to take me away from him and let one of them

be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had just

come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said

courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they

could help it; said he'd druther not take a child away

from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow

had to quit on the business.

That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He

said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I

didn't raise some money for him. I borrowed three

dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got

drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and

whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over

town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; then they

jailed him, and next day they had him before court,

and jailed him again for a week. But he said HE was

satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make

it warm for HIM.

When he got out the new judge said he was a-going

to make a man of him. So he took him to his

own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and

had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the

family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And

after supper he talked to him about temperance and

such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a

fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going

to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't

be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help

him and not look down on him. The judge said he

could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his

wife she cried again; pap said he'd been a man that had

always been misunderstood before, and the judge said

he believed it. The old man said that what a man

wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge

said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was

bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand,

and says:

"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold

of it; shake it. There's a hand that was the hand of

a hog; but it ain't so no more; it's the hand of a man

that's started in on a new life, and'll die before he'll

go back. You mark them words -- don't forget I said

them. It's a clean hand now; shake it -- don't be

afeard."

So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and

cried. The judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old

man he signed a pledge -- made his mark. The judge

said it was the holiest time on record, or something

like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beauti-

ful room, which was the spare room, and in the night

some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to

the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his

new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again

and had a good old time; and towards daylight he

crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off

the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and

was most froze to death when somebody found him

after sun-up. And when they come to look at that

spare room they had to take soundings before they

could navigate it.

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned

a body could reform the old man with a shotgun,

maybe, but he didn't know no other way.

CHAPTER VI.

WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around

again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in

the courts to make him give up that money, and he

went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched

me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to

school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him

most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much

before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That

law trial was a slow business -- appeared like they

warn't ever going to get started on it; so every now

and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the

judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding.

Every time he got money he got drunk; and every

time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and

every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just

suited -- this kind of thing was right in his line.

He got to hanging around the widow's too much

and so she told him at last that if he didn't quit using

around there she would make trouble for him. Well,

WASN'T he mad? He said he would show who was

Huck Finn's boss. So he watched out for me one day

in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the

river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to

the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't

no houses but an old log hut in a place where the

timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't

know where it was.

He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a

chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he

always locked the door and put the key under his head

nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon,

and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived

on. Every little while he locked me in and went down

to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish

and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got

drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The

widow she found out where I was by and by, and she

sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap

drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after

that till I was used to being where I was, and liked

it -- all but the cowhide part.

It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable

all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study.

Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to

be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got

to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to

wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed

and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a

book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the

time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had

stopped cussing, because the widow didn't like it; but

now I took to it again because pap hadn't no objec-

tions. It was pretty good times up in the woods

there, take it all around.

But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry,

and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts. He got

to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once

he locked me in and was gone three days. It was

dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drowned,

and I wasn't ever going to get out any more. I was

scared. I made up my mind I would fix up some way

to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin

many a time, but I couldn't find no way. There

warn't a window to it big enough for a dog to get

through. I couldn't get up the chimbly; it was too

narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap

was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in

the cabin when he was away; I reckon I had hunted

the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I

was most all the time at it, because it was about the

only way to put in the time. But this time I found

something at last; I found an old rusty wood-saw

without any handle; it was laid in between a rafter

and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and

went to work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed

against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the

table, to keep the wind from blowing through the

chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the

table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw

a section of the big bottom log out -- big enough to

let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I

was getting towards the end of it when I heard pap's

gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work,

and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty

soon pap come in.

Pap warn't in a good humor -- so he was his natural

self. He said he was down town, and everything was

going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would

win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got

started on the trial; but then there was ways to put it

off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do

it And he said people allowed there'd be another

trial to get me away from him and give me to the

widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win

this time. This shook me up considerable, because I

didn't want to go back to the widow's any more and

be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it.

Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed every-

thing and everybody he could think of, and then cussed

them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped

any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a

general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel

of people which he didn't know the names of, and so

called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and

went right along with his cussing.

He said he would like to see the widow get me.

He said he would watch out, and if they tried to come

any such game on him he knowed of a place six or

seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt

till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That

made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute;

I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that

chance.

The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the

things he had got. There was a fifty-pound sack of

corn meal, and a side of bacon, ammunition, and a

four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two

newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted

up a load, and went back and set down on the bow of

the skiff to rest. I thought it all over, and I reckoned

I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and take

to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't

stay in one place, but just tramp right across the

country, mostly night times, and hunt and fish to keep

alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor the

widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I

would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk

enough, and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it

I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man

hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or

drownded.

I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was

about dark. While I was cooking supper the old man

took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up, and

went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in

town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a

sight to look at. A body would a thought he was

Adam -- he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor

begun to work he most always went for the govment.

his time he says:

"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see

what it's like. Here's the law a-standing ready to take

a man's son away from him -- a man's own son, which

he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all

the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got

that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and

begin to do suthin' for HIM and give him a rest, the law

up and goes for him. And they call THAT govment!

That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge

Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my

property. Here's what the law does: The law takes a

man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams

him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him

go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They

call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a

govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to

just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I

TOLD 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots

of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I,

for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never

come a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I says

look at my hat -- if you call it a hat -- but the lid

raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below

my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more

like my head was shoved up through a jint o' stove-

pipe. Look at it, says I -- such a hat for me to wear

-- one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git

my rights.

"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful.

Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from

Ohio -- a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He

had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the

shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's

got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold

watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane -- the awful-

est old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do

you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college,

and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed

everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he

could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me

out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It

was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote

myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when

they told me there was a State in this country where

they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll

never vote agin. Them's the very words I said; they

all heard me; and the country may rot for all me --

I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the

cool way of that nigger -- why, he wouldn't a give me

the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I

says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at

auction and sold? -- that's what I want to know. And

what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he

couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six months,

and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, now --

that's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't

sell a free nigger till he's been in the State six months.

Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets

on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and

yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before

it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal,

white-shirted free nigger, and --"

Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his

old limber legs was taking him to, so he went head over

heels over the tub of salt pork and barked both shins,

and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of

language -- mostly hove at the nigger and the gov-

ment, though he give the tub some, too, all along,

here and there. He hopped around the cabin con-

siderable, first on one leg and then on the other, hold-

ing first one shin and then the other one, and at last he

let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched

the tub a rattling kick. But it warn't good judgment,

because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes

leaking out of the front end of it; so now he raised a

howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he

went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes;

and the cussing he done then laid over anything he

had ever done previous. He said so his own self after-

wards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his

best days, and he said it laid over him, too; but I

reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.

After supper pap took the jug, and said he had

enough whisky there for two drunks and one delirium

tremens. That was always his word. I judged he

would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I

would steal the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other.

He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his

blankets by and by; but luck didn't run my way. He

didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned

and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for

a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep

my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed

what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle

burning.

I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a

sudden there was an awful scream and I was up.

There was pap looking wild, and skipping around every

which way and yelling about snakes. He said they

was crawling up his legs; and then he would give a

jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the

cheek -- but I couldn't see no snakes. He started

and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take

him off! take him off! he's biting me on the neck!"

I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty

soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting;

then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking

things every which way, and striking and grabbing at

the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there

was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by and by,

and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller,

and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and

the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed terri-

ble still. He was laying over by the corner. By and

by he raised up part way and listened, with his head

to one side. He says, very low:

"Tramp -- tramp -- tramp; that's the dead; tramp

-- tramp -- tramp; they're coming after me; but I

won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me -- don't!

hands off -- they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil

alone!"

Then he went down on all fours and crawled off,

begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself

up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine

table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I

could hear him through the blanket.

By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet

looking wild, and he see me and went for me. He

chased me round and round the place with a clasp-

knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he

would kill me, and then I couldn't come for him no

more. I begged, and told him I was only Huck; but

he laughed SUCH a screechy laugh, and roared and

cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I

turned short and dodged under his arm he made a

grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders,

and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket

quick as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he

was all tired out, and dropped down with his back

against the door, and said he would rest a minute and

then kill me. He put his knife under him, and said

he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see

who was who.

So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the

old split-bottom chair and clumb up as easy as I could,

not to make any noise, and got down the gun. I

slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded,

then I laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing

towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to

stir. And how slow and still the time did drag along.

CHAPTER VII.

RGIT up! What you 'bout?"

I opened my eyes and looked around, trying

to make out where I was. It was after sun-up, and I

had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over me

looking sourQand sick, too. He says:

"What you doin' with this gun?"

I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had

been doing, so I says:

"Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for

him."

"Why didn't you roust me out?"

"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge

you."

"Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all

day, but out with you and see if there's a fish on the

lines for breakfast. I'll be along in a minute."

He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the

river-bank. I noticed some pieces of limbs and such

things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark; so I

knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I

would have great times now if I was over at the town.

The June rise used to be always luck for me; because

as soon as that rise begins here comes cordwood float-

ing down, and pieces of log rafts -- sometimes a dozen

logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them

and sell them to the wood-yards and the sawmill.

I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap

and t'other one out for what the rise might fetch

along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe; just a

beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long,

riding high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the

bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for

the canoe. I just expected there'd be somebody lay-

ing down in it, because people often done that to fool

folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to

it they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so

this time. It was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I

clumb in and paddled her ashore. Thinks I, the old

man will be glad when he sees this -- she's worth ten

dollars. But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight

yet, and as I was running her into a little creek like a

gully, all hung over with vines and willows, I struck

another idea: I judged I'd hide her good, and then,

'stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go

down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place

for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on

foot.

It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I

heard the old man coming all the time; but I got her

hid; and then I out and looked around a bunch of

willows, and there was the old man down the path

a piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So

he hadn't seen anything.

When he got along I was hard at it taking up a

"trot" line. He abused me a little for being so slow;

but I told him I fell in the river, and that was what

made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet,

and then he would be asking questions. We got five

catfish off the lines and went home.

While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of

us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could

fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying

to follow me, it would be a certainer thing than trust-

ing to luck to get far enough off before they missed

me; you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well,

I didn't see no way for a while, but by and by pap

raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water,

and he says:

"Another time a man comes a-prowling round here

you roust me out, you hear? That man warn't here

for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time you roust

me out, you hear?"

Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but

what he had been saying give me the very idea I

wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody

won't think of following me.

About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along

up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast,

and lots of driftwood going by on the rise. By and

by along comes part of a log raft -- nine logs fast

together. We went out with the skiff and towed it

ashore. Then we had dinner. Anybody but pap

would a waited and seen the day through, so as to

catch more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine

logs was enough for one time; he must shove right

over to town and sell. So he locked me in and took

the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-

past three. I judged he wouldn't come back that

night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good

start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on

that log again. Before he was t'other side of the river

I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a

speck on the water away off yonder.

I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where

the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches

apart and put it in; then I done the same with the

side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the

coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I

took the wadding; I took the bucket and gourd; I

took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two

blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took

fish-lines and matches and other things -- everything

that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I

wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out

at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave

that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.

I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of

the hole and dragging out so many things. So I

fixed that as good as I could from the outside by

scattering dust on the place, which covered up the

smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece

of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it

and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up

at that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you

stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was

sawed, you wouldn't never notice it; and besides, this

was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely anybody

would go fooling around there.

It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a

track. I followed around to see. I stood on the

bank and looked out over the river. All safe. So I

took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, and

was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild

pig; hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they

had got away from the prairie farms. I shot this fel-

low and took him into camp.

I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it

and hacked it considerable a-doing it. I fetched the

pig in, and took him back nearly to the table and

hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down

on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was

ground -- hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I

took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it -- all I

could drag -- and I started it from the pig, and dragged

it to the door and through the woods down to the river

and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight.

You could easy see that something had been dragged

over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there;

I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of

business, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody

could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing

as that.

Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded

the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung

the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held

him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't drip)

till I got a good piece below the house and then

dumped him into the river. Now I thought of some-

thing else. So I went and got the bag of meal

and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched

them to the house. I took the bag to where it

used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it

with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on

the place -- pap done everything with his clasp-knife

about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a

hundred yards across the grass and through the willows

east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile

wide and full of rushes -- and ducks too, you might

say, in the season. There was a slough or a creek

leading out of it on the other side that went miles away,

I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The

meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to

the lake. I dropped pap's whetstone there too, so as

to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied

up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn't

leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe

again.

It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe

down the river under some willows that hung over the

bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to

a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid

down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan.

I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sack-

ful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for

me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake

and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to

find the robbers that killed me and took the things.

They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my

dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and

won't bother no more about me. All right; I can

stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good

enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and

nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle

over to town nights, and slink around and pick up

things I want. Jackson's Island's the place.

I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I

was asleep. When I woke up I didn't know where I

was for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little

scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles

and miles across. The moon was so bright I could a

counted the drift logs that went a-slipping along, black

and still, hundreds of yards out from shore. Every-

thing was dead quiet, and it looked late, and SMELT

late. You know what I mean -- I don't know the

words to put it in.

I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going

to unhitch and start when I heard a sound away over

the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It

was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from

oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I

peeped out through the willow branches, and there it

was -- a skiff, away across the water. I couldn't tell

how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it

was abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it.

Think's I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting

him. He dropped below me with the current, and

by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy

water, and he went by so close I could a reached out

the gun and touched him. Well, it WAS pap, sure

enough -- and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars.

I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-

spinning down stream soft but quick in the shade of

the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then

struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the

middle of the river, because pretty soon I would be

passing the ferry landing, and people might see me

and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and

then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her

float. I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke

out of my pipe, looking away into the sky; not a

cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay

down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed

it before. And how far a body can hear on the water

such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry land-

ing. I heard what they said, too -- every word of it.

One man said it was getting towards the long days and

the short nights now. T'other one said THIS warn't

one of the short ones, he reckoned -- and then they

laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed

again; then they waked up another fellow and told

him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out

something brisk, and said let him alone. The first

fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his old woman -- she

would think it was pretty good; but he said that

warn't nothing to some things he had said in his time.

I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock, and

he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than about a

week longer. After that the talk got further and

further away, and I couldn't make out the words any

more; but I could hear the mumble, and now and then

a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.

I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and

there was Jackson's Island, about two mile and a half

down stream, heavy timbered and standing up out of

the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like a

steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs

of the bar at the head -- it was all under water now.

It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the

head at a ripping rate, the current was so swift, and

then I got into the dead water and landed on the side

towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a deep

dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part

the willow branches to get in; and when I made fast

nobody could a seen the canoe from the outside.

I went up and set down on a log