huckleberryfinn

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 people; 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 Watson'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.

* * *

The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit

comfortable. Pretty soon she says"

"What did you say your name was, honey?"

"M--Mary Williams."

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I

didn't look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of

cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman

would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But

now she says:

"Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"

"Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some

calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."

"Oh, that's the way of it?"

"Yes'm."

I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I

couldn't look up yet.

Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor

they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place,

and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about the

rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every

little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when

she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed me a bar of

lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly,

but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't know whether she

could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and directly banged

away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!" it hurt her arm

so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away

before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on. I got the

thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd a

stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was

first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got

the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn

which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she put

the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband's

matters. But she broke off to say:

"Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,

handy."

So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped

my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute.

Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very

pleasant, and says:

"Come, now, what's your real name?"

"Wh--what, mum?"

"What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?"

I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do. But

I says:

"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the

way here, I'll--"

"No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt

you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your

secret, and trust me. I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help you.

So'll my old man if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway 'prentice,

that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it. You've been

treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I

wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that's a good boy."

So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I

would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go

back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and

the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile

back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no

longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so Itook my chance

and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had

been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid

daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home

lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my uncle

Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for

this town of Goshen.

"Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's ten

mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?"

"Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn

into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I

must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen."

"He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong."

"Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got

to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight."

"Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it."

So she put me up a snack, and says:

"Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer

up prompt now--don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?"

"The hind end, mum."

"Well, then, a horse?"

"The for'rard end, mum."

"Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?"

"North side."

"If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with

their heads pointed the same direction?"

"The whole fifteen, mum."

"Well, I reckon you HAVE lived in the country. I thought maybe you was

trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now?"

"George Peters, mum."

"Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's

Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander

when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a

girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child,

when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch

the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it;

that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other

way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe

and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your

rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like

there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist

and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when

a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she

don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of

lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and

I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your

uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into

trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what

I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time

you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one, and

your feet'll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon."

* * *

We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a

steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.

"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with

the parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads

off. But mostly they hang round the harem."

"Roun' de which?"

"Harem."

"What's de harem?"

"The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem?

Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."

"Why, yes, dat's so; I--I'd done forgot it. A harem's a bo'd'n-house, I

reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de

wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say Sollermun

de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in dat. Bekase why:

would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a blim-blammin' all de

time? No--'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take en buil' a biler-factry;

en den he could shet DOWN de biler-factry when he want to res'."

"Well, but he WAS the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me

so, her own self."

"I doan k'yer what de widder say, he WARN'T no wise man nuther. He had

some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile

dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"

"Yes, the widow told me all about it."

"WELL, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' take en

look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women; heah's

you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's de

chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun' mongs' de

neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b'long to, en han' it over

to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat had any

gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half un it to

you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way Sollermun was

gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what's de use er dat half

a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I wouldn'

give a dern for a million un um."

"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point--blame it, you've

missed it a thousand mile."

"Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I knows

sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat. De

'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile;

en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half

a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk to me 'bout

Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."

"But I tell you you don't get the point."

"Blame de point! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de REAL

pint is down furder--it's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was

raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne

to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it. HE know how to

value 'em. But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen runnin'

roun' de house, en it's diffunt. HE as soon chop a chile in two as a cat.

Dey's plenty mo'. A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't no consekens to

Sollermun, dad fatch him!"

I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there

warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any

nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon

slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France

long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a

king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there.

"Po' little chap."

"But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."

"Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome--dey ain' no kings here, is

dey, Huck?"

"No."

"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?"

"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them

learns people how to talk French."

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"

"NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single

word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.

S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you

think?"

"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat is, if

he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know

how to talk French?"

"Well, den, why couldn't he SAY it?"

"Why, he IS a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's WAY of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo'

'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other,

ain't it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different

from US?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a FRENCHMAN to talk

different from us? You answer me that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a

man?--er is a cow a cat?"

"No, she ain't either of them."

"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the

yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"

"Yes."

"WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like a man? You answer me

DAT!"

* * *

This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste

obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the

Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. It

was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name of

Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded:

ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D

And did young Stephen sicken,

And did young Stephen die?

And did the sad hearts thicken,

And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of

Young Stephen Dowling Bots;

Though sad hearts round him thickened,

'Twas not from sickness' shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,

Nor measles drear with spots;

Not these impaired the sacred name

Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe

That head of curly knots,

Nor stomach troubles laid him low,

Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,

Whilst I his fate do tell.

His soul did from this cold world fly

By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him;

Alas it was too late;

His spirit was gone for to sport aloft

In the realms of the good and great.

If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was

fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by. Buck

said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to

stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't

find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down

another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write about

anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful.

Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on

hand with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called them tributes. The

neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the

undertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and

then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was

Whistler. She warn't ever the same after that; she never complained, but

she kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many's the time I

made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her

poor old scrap-book and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating

me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones

and all, and warn't going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline

made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't

seem right that there warn't nobody to make some about her now she was

gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn't seem

to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim and nice, and all

the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was

alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room

herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a good

deal and read her Bible there mostly.

* * *

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh

and says:

"Alas!"

"What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head.

"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be

degraded down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of his

eye with a rag.

"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the

baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

"Yes, it IS good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who

fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame YOU,

gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let the

cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave somewhere for

me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take everything from

me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take that. Some day

I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at

rest." He went on a-wiping.

"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heaving

your pore broken heart at US f'r? WE hain't done nothing."

"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought

myself down--yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer--perfectly

right--I don't make any moan."

"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"

"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass--

'tis no matter. The secret of my birth--"

"The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say--"

"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to you,

for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"

Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.

Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?"

"Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled

to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure air

of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father dying

about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the titles and

estates--the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal descendant of

that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and here am I,

forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold

world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the companionship of

felons on a raft!"

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but

he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we was

a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything

else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to

bow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your

Lordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain "Bridgewater,"

which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to

wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood

around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or

some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to

him.

But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say,

and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on

around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along in

the afternoon, he says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you

ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."

"No?"

"No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down

wrongfully out'n a high place."

"Alas!"

"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And,

by jings, HE begins to cry.

"Hold! What do you mean?"

"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of

sobbing.

"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,

and says, "That secret of your being: speak!"

"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:

"You are what?"

"Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very

moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy

the Sixteen and Marry Antonette."

"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must

be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."

"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has

brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you

see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled,

trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of France."

Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what

to do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too.

So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort HIM.

But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all

could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier and

better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got

down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"

and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence till

he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this and

that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might set

down. This done him heaps ofgood, and so he got cheerful and comfortable.

But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit satisfied with

the way things was going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him,

and said the duke's great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of

Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by HIS father, and was allowed to

come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while,

till by and by the king says:

"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer

raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only

make things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it

ain't your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry? Make

the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto. This

ain't no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy

life--come, give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took

away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it

would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft;

for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be

satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no

kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never

said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you

don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us

to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would

keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't

tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the

best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their

own way.

* * *

After dinner the duke says:

"Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so

I guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to

answer encores with, anyway."

"What's onkores, Bilgewater?"

The duke told him, and then says:

"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and

you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy."

"Hamlet's which?"

"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in

Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I

haven't got it in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can

piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if

I can call it back from recollection's vaults."

So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible

every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would

squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan; next

he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was beautiful to

see him. By and by he got it. He told us to give attention. Then he

strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms

stretched away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky; and

then he begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that, all

through his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his

chest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before.

This is the speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to

the king:

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so

long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to

Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the innocent

sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling the arrows

of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of. There's the

respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou

couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's

wrong, the proud man's contumely, The law's delay, and the quietus which

his pangs might take, In the dead waste and middle of the night, when

churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But that the

undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, Breathes forth

contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of resolution, like the

poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er with care, And all the clouds that

lowered o'er our housetops, With this regard their currents turn awry, And

lose the name of action. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But

soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get

thee to a nunnery--go!

Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he

could do it first-rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and when

he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he

would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it off.

* * *

That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there,

and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on them, and

the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of the

table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and

how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens

was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out

compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said

so--said "How DO you get biscuits to brown so nice?" and "Where, for the

land's sake, DID you get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind of

humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.

And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen

off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up

the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest if

I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says:

"Did you ever see the king?"

"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church." I

knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes

to our church, she says:

"What--regular?"

"Yes--regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the

pulpit."

"I thought he lived in London?"

"Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?"

"But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?"

I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken

bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:

"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's

only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths."

"Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea."

"Well, who said it was?"

"Why, you did."

"I DIDN'T nuther."

"You did!"

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I never said nothing of the kind."

"Well, what DID you say, then?"

"Said he come to take the sea BATHS--that's what I said."

"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the

sea?"

"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?"

"Yes."

"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"

"Why, no."

"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea

bath."

"How does he get it, then?"

"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels.

There in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his

water hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea.

They haven't got no conveniences for it."

"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved

time."

When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was

comfortable and glad. Next, she says:

"Do you go to church, too?"

"Yes--regular."

"Where do you set?"

"Why, in our pew."

"WHOSE pew?"

"Why, OURN--your Uncle Harvey's."

"His'n? What does HE want with a pew?"

"Wants it to set in. What did you RECKON he wanted with it?"

"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."

Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I

played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says:

"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?"

"Why, what do they want with more?"

"What!--to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you.

They don't have no less than seventeen."

"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that, not

if I NEVER got to glory. It must take 'em a week."

"Shucks, they don't ALL of 'em preach the same day--only ONE of 'em."

"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"

"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate--and one thing or

another. But mainly they don't do nothing."

"Well, then, what are they FOR?"

"Why, they're for STYLE. Don't you know nothing?"

"Well, I don't WANT to know no such foolishness as that. How is

servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our

niggers?"

"NO! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs."

"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's

week, and Fourth of July?"

"Oh, just listen! A body could tell YOU hain't ever been to England by

that. Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year's end

to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger shows, nor

nowheres."

"Nor church?"

"Nor church."

"But YOU always went to church."

Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But

next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was

different from a common servant and HAD to go to church whether he wanted

to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the law. But I

didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she warn't satisfied.

She says:

"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?"

"Honest injun," says I.

"None of it at all?"

"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.

"Lay your hand on this book and say it."

I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and

said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:

"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll

believe the rest."

"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in with

Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him, and

him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be

treated so?"

"That's always your way, Maim--always sailing in to help somebody

before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some

stretchers, I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's

every bit and grain I DID say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like

that, can't he?"

"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's here in

our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you was

in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't to say a

thing to another person that will make THEM feel ashamed."

"Why, Maim, he said--"

"It don't make no difference what he SAID--that ain't the thing. The

thing is for you to treat him KIND, and not be saying things to make him

remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks." I says

to myself, THIS is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle rob her of her

money!

Then Susan SHE waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give

Hare-lip hark from the tomb!

Says I to myself, and this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her

of her money!

Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely

again--which was her way; but when she got done there warn't hardly

anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.

"All right, then," says the other girls; "you just ask his pardon."

She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful

it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so she

could do it again.

I says to myself, this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her of

her money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves out to

make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so ornery and

low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up; I'll hive

that money for them or bust.

* * *

"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will see

each other again inside of two weeks--here in this house--and PROVE how I

know it--will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?"

"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"

"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of YOU than just

your word--I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She

smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it, I'll

shut the door--and bolt it."

Then I come back and set down again, and says:

"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell

the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind,

and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These uncles

of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of frauds-- regular

dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand the rest

middling easy."

It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal

water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher all

the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck that

young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she flung

herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her

sixteen or seventeen times--and then up she jumps, with her face afire

like sunset, and says:

"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute--not a SECOND--we'll have them

tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!"

Says I:

"Cert'nly. But do you mean BEFORE you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or--"

"Oh," she says, "what am I THINKING about!" she says, and set right

down again. "Don't mind what I said--please don't--you WON'T, now, WILL

you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I said I

would die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now go

on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, and whatever you

say I'll do it."

"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so I

got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not--I

druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would

get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another

person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got to

save HIM, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them."

Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I could

get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave.

But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard to

answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working till

pretty late to-night. I says:

"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to

stay at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"

"A little short of four miles--right out in the country, back here."

"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till

nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again--

tell them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put a

candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait TILL eleven, and THEN

if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then

you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats jailed."

"Good," she says, "I'll do it."

"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along

with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and

you must stand by me all you can."

"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!"

she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said

it, too.

"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions

ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear they

was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something. Well,

there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're people that

ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you how to find

them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There--'Royal Nonesuch,

Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court wants to find

out something about these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say

they've got the men thatplayed the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some

witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here before you can

hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too."

I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:

"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't

have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on

accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they

get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count,

and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was with

the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before long.

Why, they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet--they're in the

worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary."

"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start

straight for Mr. Lothrop's."

"'Deed, THAT ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner

of means; go BEFORE breakfast."

"Why?"

"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?"

"Well, I never thought--and come to think, I don't know. What was it?"

"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I don't

want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read

it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles

when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never--"

"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast--I'll be glad to.

And leave my sisters with them?"

"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while. They

might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to see

them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to ask

how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. No, you

go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them. I'll

tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went away

for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a friend,

and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning."

"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to

them."

"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell HER so--no harm

in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's the

little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below; it

would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then I

says: "There's one more thing--that bag of money."

"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think HOW

they got it."

"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."

"Why, who's got it?"

"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I HAD it, because I stole it from them;

and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid

it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as sorry

as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I come nigh

getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I come to, and

run--and it warn't a good place."

"Oh, stop blaming yourself--it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow

it-- you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it?"

I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I

couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that

corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So for

a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:

"I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't

mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and

you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to.

Do you reckon that 'll do?"

"Oh, yes."

So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was

crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty

sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."

It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by

herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own

roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to

her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand,

hard, and says:

"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I

don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of you

a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!"--and she was gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more

nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that

kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there

warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in

my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my

opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't

no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she lays over

them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of

that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of

her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray

for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me to pray for

HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see

her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that

you all goes to see sometimes?"

They says:

"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she

told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of

them's sick."

"Which one?"

"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--"

"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"

"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."

"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary

Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?"

I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:

"Mumps."

"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the

mumps."

"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with THESE mumps.

These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

"How's it a new kind?"

"Because it's mixed up with other things."

"What other things?"

"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and

yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."

"My land! And they call it the MUMPS?"

"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

"Well, what in the nation do they call it the MUMPS for?"

"Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it starts with."

"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take

pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains

out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up

and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.' Would ther' be any sense in that? NO.

And ther' ain't no sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?"

"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW catching--in the dark?

If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't you?

And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the wholeharrow

along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you

may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to get it

hitched on good."

"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle

Harvey and--"

"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would. I wouldn't lose no

time."

"Well, why wouldn't you?"

"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles

obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you

reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that

journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good.

Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a PREACHER

going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK?

--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he

ain't. What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but my

church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my niece

has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my

bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show

on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to tell

your uncle Harvey--"

"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good

times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got

it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors."

"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't you

SEE that THEY'D go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell

anybody at ALL."

"Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you ARE right."

"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while,

anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"

"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to

give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over

the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what IS the name of that rich family your

uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one that--"

"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"

"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to

remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over

for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this

house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than

anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come,

and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home; and if she is,

she'll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about

the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll be perfectly true,

because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know

it, because she told me so herself."

"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and

give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.

Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because

they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther Mary

Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Doctor

Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat--I reckoned

Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of course he would a

throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not being

brung up to it.

* * *

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 HuckFinn 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.

* * *