University of Virginia Library

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."

[ILLUSTRATION]

"GIT UP."

"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 cord-wood 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 'tother 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.

[ILLUSTRATION]

the shanty.

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 apiece 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 cat-fish off of 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 drift-wood 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 'tother 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 wood pile, 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 ever notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin and it
warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there.

[ILLUSTRATION]

shooting the pig.

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 ax, 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 bloodied the ax good, and stuck it
on the back side, and slung the ax 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, hundred 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. Thinks I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped
below me, with the current, and by-and-by he come 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 to 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 drift-wood 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. 'Tother 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.

[ILLUSTRATION]

taking a rest.

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.