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+
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete
+by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete
+
+Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #76]
+
+Last Updated: October 20, 2012]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN ***
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES
+
+OF
+
+HUCKLEBERRY FINN
+
+(Tom Sawyer's Comrade)
+
+By Mark Twain
+
+Complete
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER I. Civilizing Huck.—Miss Watson.—Tom Sawyer Waits.
+
+CHAPTER II. The Boys Escape Jim.—Torn Sawyer's Gang.—Deep-laid Plans.
+
+CHAPTER III. A Good Going-over.—Grace Triumphant.—"One of Tom Sawyers's
+Lies".
+
+CHAPTER IV. Huck and the Judge.—Superstition.
+
+CHAPTER V. Huck's Father.—The Fond Parent.—Reform.
+
+CHAPTER VI. He Went for Judge Thatcher.—Huck Decided to Leave.—Political
+Economy.—Thrashing Around.
+
+CHAPTER VII. Laying for Him.—Locked in the Cabin.—Sinking the
+Body.—Resting.
+
+CHAPTER VIII. Sleeping in the Woods.—Raising the Dead.—Exploring the
+Island.—Finding Jim.—Jim's Escape.—Signs.—Balum.
+
+CHAPTER IX. The Cave.—The Floating House.
+
+CHAPTER X. The Find.—Old Hank Bunker.—In Disguise.
+
+CHAPTER XI. Huck and the Woman.—The Search.—Prevarication.—Going to
+Goshen.
+
+CHAPTER XII. Slow Navigation.—Borrowing Things.—Boarding the Wreck.—The
+Plotters.—Hunting for the Boat.
+
+CHAPTER XIII. Escaping from the Wreck.—The Watchman.—Sinking.
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A General Good Time.—The Harem.—French.
+
+CHAPTER XV. Huck Loses the Raft.—In the Fog.—Huck Finds the Raft.—Trash.
+
+CHAPTER XVI. Expectation.—A White Lie.—Floating Currency.—Running by
+Cairo.—Swimming Ashore.
+
+CHAPTER XVII. An Evening Call.—The Farm in Arkansaw.—Interior
+Decorations.—Stephen Dowling Bots.—Poetical Effusions.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. Col. Grangerford.—Aristocracy.—Feuds.—The
+Testament.—Recovering the Raft.—The Wood—pile.—Pork and Cabbage.
+
+CHAPTER XIX. Tying Up Day—times.—An Astronomical Theory.—Running a
+Temperance Revival.—The Duke of Bridgewater.—The Troubles of Royalty.
+
+CHAPTER XX. Huck Explains.—Laying Out a Campaign.—Working the
+Camp—meeting.—A Pirate at the Camp—meeting.—The Duke as a Printer.
+
+CHAPTER XXI. Sword Exercise.—Hamlet's Soliloquy.—They Loafed Around
+Town.—A Lazy Town.—Old Boggs.—Dead.
+
+CHAPTER XXII. Sherburn.—Attending the Circus.—Intoxication in the
+Ring.—The Thrilling Tragedy.
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. Sold.—Royal Comparisons.—Jim Gets Home-sick.
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. Jim in Royal Robes.—They Take a Passenger.—Getting
+Information.—Family Grief.
+
+CHAPTER XXV. Is It Them?—Singing the "Doxologer."—Awful Square—Funeral
+Orgies.—A Bad Investment .
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. A Pious King.—The King's Clergy.—She Asked His
+Pardon.—Hiding in the Room.—Huck Takes the Money.
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. The Funeral.—Satisfying Curiosity.—Suspicious of
+Huck,—Quick Sales and Small.
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. The Trip to England.—"The Brute!"—Mary Jane Decides to
+Leave.—Huck Parting with Mary Jane.—Mumps.—The Opposition Line.
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. Contested Relationship.—The King Explains the Loss.—A
+Question of Handwriting.—Digging up the Corpse.—Huck Escapes.
+
+CHAPTER XXX. The King Went for Him.—A Royal Row.—Powerful Mellow.
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. Ominous Plans.—News from Jim.—Old Recollections.—A Sheep
+Story.—Valuable Information.
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. Still and Sunday—like.—Mistaken Identity.—Up a Stump.—In
+a Dilemma.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. A Nigger Stealer.—Southern Hospitality.—A Pretty Long
+Blessing.—Tar and Feathers.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. The Hut by the Ash Hopper.—Outrageous.—Climbing the
+Lightning Rod.—Troubled with Witches.
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. Escaping Properly.—Dark Schemes.—Discrimination in
+Stealing.—A Deep Hole.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. The Lightning Rod.—His Level Best.—A Bequest to
+Posterity.—A High Figure.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last Shirt.—Mooning Around.—Sailing Orders.—The
+Witch Pie.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Coat of Arms.—A Skilled Superintendent.—Unpleasant
+Glory.—A Tearful Subject.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. Rats.—Lively Bed—fellows.—The Straw Dummy.
+
+CHAPTER XL. Fishing.—The Vigilance Committee.—A Lively Run.—Jim Advises
+a Doctor.
+
+CHAPTER XLI. The Doctor.—Uncle Silas.—Sister Hotchkiss.—Aunt Sally in
+Trouble.
+
+CHAPTER XLII. Tom Sawyer Wounded.—The Doctor's Story.—Tom
+Confesses.—Aunt Polly Arrives.—Hand Out Them Letters    .
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST. Out of Bondage.—Paying the Captive.—Yours Truly, Huck
+Finn.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+The Widows
+
+Moses and the "Bulrushers"
+
+Miss Watson
+
+Huck Stealing Away
+
+They Tip-toed Along
+
+Jim
+
+Tom Sawyer's Band of Robbers  
+
+Huck Creeps into his Window
+
+Miss Watson's Lecture
+
+The Robbers Dispersed
+
+Rubbing the Lamp
+
+! ! ! !
+
+Judge Thatcher surprised
+
+Jim Listening
+
+"Pap"
+
+Huck and his Father
+
+Reforming the Drunkard
+
+Falling from Grace
+
+The Widows
+
+Moses and the "Bulrushers"
+
+Miss Watson
+
+Huck Stealing Away
+
+They Tip-toed Along
+
+Jim
+
+Tom Sawyer's Band of Robbers  
+
+Huck Creeps into his Window
+
+Miss Watson's Lecture
+
+The Robbers Dispersed
+
+Rubbing the Lamp
+
+! ! ! !
+
+Judge Thatcher surprised
+
+Jim Listening
+
+"Pap"
+
+Huck and his Father
+
+Reforming the Drunkard
+
+Falling from Grace
+
+Getting out of the Way
+
+Solid Comfort
+
+Thinking it Over
+
+Raising a Howl
+
+"Git Up"
+
+The Shanty
+
+Shooting the Pig
+
+Taking a Rest
+
+In the Woods
+
+Watching the Boat
+
+Discovering the Camp Fire
+
+Jim and the Ghost
+
+Misto Bradish's Nigger
+
+Exploring the Cave
+
+In the Cave
+
+Jim sees a Dead Man
+
+They Found Eight Dollars
+
+Jim and the Snake
+
+Old Hank Bunker
+
+"A Fair Fit"
+
+"Come In"
+
+"Him and another Man"
+
+She puts up a Snack
+
+"Hump Yourself"
+
+On the Raft
+
+He sometimes Lifted a Chicken
+
+"Please don't, Bill"
+
+"It ain't Good Morals"
+
+"Oh! Lordy, Lordy!"
+
+In a Fix
+
+"Hello, What's Up?"
+
+The Wreck
+
+We turned in and Slept
+
+Turning over the Truck
+
+Solomon and his Million Wives
+
+The story of "Sollermun"
+
+"We Would Sell the Raft"
+
+Among the Snags
+
+Asleep on the Raft
+
+"Something being Raftsman"
+
+"Boy, that's a Lie"
+
+"Here I is, Huck"
+
+Climbing up the Bank
+
+"Who's There?"
+
+"Buck"
+
+"It made Her look Spidery"
+
+"They got him out and emptied Him"  
+
+The House
+
+Col. Grangerford
+
+Young Harney Shepherdson
+
+Miss Charlotte
+
+"And asked me if I Liked Her"
+
+"Behind the Wood-pile"
+
+Hiding Day-times
+
+"And Dogs a-Coming"
+
+"By rights I am a Duke!"
+
+"I am the Late Dauphin"
+
+Tail Piece
+
+On the Raft
+
+The King as Juliet
+
+"Courting on the Sly"
+
+"A Pirate for Thirty Years"
+
+Another little Job
+
+Practizing
+
+Hamlet's Soliloquy
+
+"Gimme a Chaw"
+
+A Little Monthly Drunk
+
+The Death of Boggs
+
+Sherburn steps out
+
+A Dead Head
+
+He shed Seventeen Suits
+
+Tragedy
+
+Their Pockets Bulged
+
+Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor
+
+Harmless
+
+Adolphus
+
+He fairly emptied that Young Fellow
+
+"Alas, our Poor Brother"
+
+"You Bet it is"
+
+Leaking
+
+Making up the "Deffisit"
+
+Going for him
+
+The Doctor
+
+The Bag of Money
+
+The Cubby
+
+Supper with the Hare-Lip
+
+Honest Injun
+
+The Duke looks under the Bed
+
+Huck takes the Money
+
+A Crack in the Dining-room Door
+
+The Undertaker
+
+"He had a Rat!"
+
+"Was you in my Room?"
+
+Jawing
+
+In Trouble
+
+Indignation
+
+How to Find Them
+
+He Wrote
+
+Hannah with the Mumps
+
+The Auction
+
+The True Brothers
+
+The Doctor leads Huck
+
+The Duke Wrote
+
+"Gentlemen, Gentlemen!"
+
+"Jim Lit Out"
+
+The King shakes Huck
+
+The Duke went for Him
+
+Spanish Moss
+
+"Who Nailed Him?"
+
+Thinking
+
+He gave him Ten Cents
+
+Striking for the Back Country
+
+Still and Sunday-like
+
+She hugged him tight
+
+"Who do you reckon it is?"
+
+"It was Tom Sawyer"
+
+"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?"
+
+A pretty long Blessing
+
+Traveling By Rail
+
+Vittles
+
+A Simple Job
+
+Witches
+
+Getting Wood
+
+One of the Best Authorities
+
+The Breakfast-Horn
+
+Smouching the Knives
+
+Going down the Lightning-Rod
+
+Stealing spoons
+
+Tom advises a Witch Pie
+
+The Rubbage-Pile
+
+"Missus, dey's a Sheet Gone"
+
+In a Tearing Way
+
+One of his Ancestors
+
+Jim's Coat of Arms
+
+A Tough Job
+
+Buttons on their Tails
+
+Irrigation
+
+Keeping off Dull Times
+
+Sawdust Diet
+
+Trouble is Brewing
+
+Fishing
+
+Every one had a Gun
+
+Tom caught on a Splinter
+
+Jim advises a Doctor
+
+The Doctor
+
+Uncle Silas in Danger
+
+Old Mrs. Hotchkiss
+
+Aunt Sally talks to Huck
+
+Tom Sawyer wounded
+
+The Doctor speaks for Jim
+
+Tom rose square up in Bed
+
+"Hand out them Letters"
+
+Out of Bondage
+
+Tom's Liberality
+
+Yours Truly
+
+
+
+
+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 haphazard 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 anybody,
+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
+behave?"  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 somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a
+dog crying 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 shoulders.  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 underneath.  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 disturbance, 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 something 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 hilltop 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 mentioned 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 business 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 robbery; it's burglary,"
+says Tom Sawyer.  "We ain't burglars.  That ain't no sort of style.  We
+are highwaymen.  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 ransomed 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 robbers.
+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 together 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 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.
+
+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, because 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 pretended.  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 superintendent 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 rubbing 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, anyway.
+
+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 nothing—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 considable 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 General 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 beautiful 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 objections.  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 drownded, 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 everything 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, this 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 awfulest 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 govment, though he give
+the tub some, too, all along, here and there.  He hopped around the
+cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding
+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 afterwards.
+ 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 terrible 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.
+
+"GIT 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 sour and 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 floating 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 laying 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 trusting 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 fellow 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 something 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 sackful 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. Everything 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 landing. 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 at the head of the island, and looked
+out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town,
+three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.  A
+monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile up stream, coming along down,
+with a lantern in the middle of it.  I watched it come creeping down,
+and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say, "Stern
+oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!"  I heard that just as plain
+as if the man was by my side.
+
+There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods, and
+laid down for a nap before breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight
+o'clock.  I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about
+things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied.  I
+could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees
+all about, and gloomy in there amongst them.  There was freckled places
+on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the
+freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little
+breeze up there.  A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me
+very friendly.
+
+I was powerful lazy and comfortable—didn't want to get up and cook
+breakfast.  Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep
+sound of "boom!" away up the river.  I rouses up, and rests on my elbow
+and listens; pretty soon I hears it again.  I hopped up, and went and
+looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying
+on the water a long ways up—about abreast the ferry.  And there was the
+ferryboat full of people floating along down.  I knowed what was the
+matter now.  "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's
+side.  You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my
+carcass come to the top.
+
+I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire,
+because they might see the smoke.  So I set there and watched the
+cannon-smoke and listened to the boom.  The river was a mile wide there,
+and it always looks pretty on a summer morning—so I was having a good
+enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to
+eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in
+loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the
+drownded carcass and stop there.  So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and
+if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show.  I
+changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could
+have, and I warn't disappointed.  A big double loaf come along, and I
+most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out
+further.  Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the
+shore—I knowed enough for that.  But by and by along comes another one,
+and this time I won.  I took out the plug and shook out the little dab
+of quicksilver, and set my teeth in.  It was "baker's bread"—what the
+quality eat; none of your low-down corn-pone.
+
+I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching
+the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied.  And
+then something struck me.  I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson
+or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone
+and done it.  So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that
+thing—that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the
+parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for
+only just the right kind.
+
+I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching.  The
+ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance
+to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in
+close, where the bread did.  When she'd got pretty well along down
+towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread,
+and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place.  Where
+the log forked I could peep through.
+
+By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could
+a run out a plank and walked ashore.  Most everybody was on the boat.
+ Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom
+Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more.
+ Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and
+says:
+
+"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's
+washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge.  I
+hope so, anyway."
+
+I didn't hope so.  They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly
+in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might.  I could see
+them first-rate, but they couldn't see me.  Then the captain sung out:
+
+"Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that
+it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and
+I judged I was gone.  If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd
+a got the corpse they was after.  Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to
+goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder
+of the island.  I could hear the booming now and then, further and
+further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more.
+ The island was three mile long.  I judged they had got to the foot, and
+was giving it up.  But they didn't yet a while.  They turned around
+the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side,
+under steam, and booming once in a while as they went.  I crossed over
+to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the
+island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and
+went home to the town.
+
+I knowed I was all right now.  Nobody else would come a-hunting after
+me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick
+woods.  I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things
+under so the rain couldn't get at them.  I catched a catfish and haggled
+him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had
+supper.  Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.
+
+When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well
+satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set
+on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the
+stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed;
+there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you
+can't stay so, you soon get over it.
+
+And so for three days and nights.  No difference—just the same thing.
+But the next day I went exploring around down through the island.  I was
+boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know
+all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time.  I found plenty
+strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green
+razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show.  They
+would all come handy by and by, I judged.
+
+Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't
+far from the foot of the island.  I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot
+nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh
+home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake,
+and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after
+it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I
+bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.
+
+My heart jumped up amongst my lungs.  I never waited for to look
+further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as
+fast as ever I could.  Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the
+thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear
+nothing else.  I slunk along another piece further, then listened again;
+and so on, and so on.  If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod
+on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a pers