Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's comrade). ::

"No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so
hungry I had to stop two mile below
here at a farm; so I ain't hungry no
more. It's what makes me so late. My mother's down sick, and out of money
and everything, and I come to tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the
upper end of the town, she says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you
know him?"

"No; but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite two weeks.
It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You better stay here all
night. Take off your bonnet."

"No," I says, "I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't afeard of the
dark."

She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in byand-by,
maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me. Then she
got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the river, and her
relations down the river, and about how much better off they used to was, and how
they didn't know but they'd made a mistake coming to our town, instead of letting
well alone—and so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming
to her to find out what was going on in the town; but by-and-by she
dropped onto pap and the murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter
right along. She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand
dollars (only she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was,
and what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered.
I says:

"Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on, down in
Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn."

"Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people here that'd like to
know who killed him. Some thinks old Finn done it himself."

"No—is that so?"

"Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come to
getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it was done
by a runaway nigger named Jim."

"Why he—"

I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never noticed I
had put in at all.

"The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there's a reward
out for him—three hundred dollars. And there's a reward out for old Finn
too—two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning after the
murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the ferry-boat hunt, and
right away after he up and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he
was gone, you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone; they
found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done.
So then they put it on him, you see, and while they was full of it, next day back

comes old Finn and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt
for the nigger all over Illinois with. The judge give him some, and that evening
he got drunk and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hard looking
strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't come back sence,
and they ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people
thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done
it, and then he'd get Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a
lawsuit. People do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon.
If he don't come back for a year, he'll be all right. You can't prove anything on
him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk into Huck's
money as easy as nothing."

"Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody
quit thinking the nigger done it?"

"Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get
the nigger pretty soon, now, and maybe they can scare it out of him."

"Why, are they after him yet?"

"Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay round
every day for people to pick up? Some folks thinks the nigger ain't far from
here. I'm one of them—but I hain't talked it around. A few days ago I was
talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log shanty, and they happened
to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call Jackson's
Island. Don't anybody live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say
any more, but I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke
over there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself,
like as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway, says I, it's worth the
trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain't seen any smoke sence, so I reckon
maybe he's gone, if it was him; but husband's going over to see—him and another
man. He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day and I told him as soon
as he got here two hours ago."

I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with my
hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it. My
hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman stopped
talking, I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious, and smiling a

little. I put down the needle and thread and let on to be interested—and I was,
too—and says:

"Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get
it. Is your husband going
over there to-night?"

"Oh, yes. He went up
town with the man I was
telling you of, to get a boat
and see if they could borrow
another gun. They'll go over
after midnight."

"Couldn't they see better
if they was to wait till daytime?"

"Yes. And couldn't the
nigger see better, too? After
midnight he'll likely be asleep,
and they can slip around
through the woods and hunt
up his camp fire all the better
for the dark, if he's got one."

"I didn't think of that."

The woman kept looking
at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit comfortable. Pretty soon she says:

[ILLUSTRATION]

"him and another man."

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

"M—Mary Williams."

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't
look up; seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered, and
was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would say something
more; the longer she set still, the uneasier I was. But now she says:

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

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

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

"Yes'm."

I was feeling better, then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I
couldn't look up yet.

Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor
they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place,
and so forth, and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about
the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every
little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when
she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed me a bar
of lead, twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it
generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't know
whether she could throw true, now. But she watched for a chance, and
directly she banged away at a rat, but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!"
it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted
to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on.
I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd
a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that that was firstrate,
and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got the lump
of lead and fetched it back and brought along a hank of yarn, which she wanted
me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them
and went on talking about her and her husband's matters. But she broke off
to say:

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

So she dropped the lump into my lap, just at that moment, and I clapped my
legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute. Then
she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, but very pleasant, and
says:

"Come, now—what's your real name?"

"Wh-what, mum?"

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

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

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

"No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt
you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your secret, and
trust me. I'll keep it; and what's more, I'll help you. So'll my old man, if you
want him to. You see, you're a runaway 'prentice—that's all. It ain't anything.
There ain't any harm in it. You've been treated bad, and you made up
your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about
it, now—that's a good boy."

So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just
make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she mustn't go back on her
promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had
bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the
river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer; he went away to
be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's
old clothes, and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the thirty
miles; I traveled nights, and hid day-times and slept, and the bag of bread and
meat I carried from home lasted me all the way and I had a plenty. I said I
believed my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I
struck out for this town of Goshen."

"Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's ten
mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?"

"Why, a man I met at day-break this morning, just as I was going to turn
into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I must
take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen."

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

"Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got to be
moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before day-light."

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

So she put me up a snack, and says:

"Say—when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer
up prompt, now—don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?"

"The hind end, mum."

"Well, then, a horse?"

"The for'rard end, mum."

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

"North side."

"If fifteen cows is browsing on
a hillside, how many of them eats
with their heads pointed the same
direction?"

[ILLUSTRATION]

she puts up a snack.

"The whole fifteen, mum."

"Well, I reckon you have lived
in the country. I thought maybe
you was trying to hocus me
again. What's your real name,
now?"

"George Peters, mum."

"Well, try to remember it,
George. Don't forget and tell me
it's Elexander before you go, and
then get out by saying it's GeorgeElexander
when I catch you.
And don't go about women in
that old calico. You do a girl
tolerable poor, but you might
fool men, maybe. Bless you,
child, when you set out to thread
a needle, don't hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold
the needle still and poke the thread at it—that's the way a woman most always
does; but a man always does 'tother way. And when you throw at a rat or
anything, hitch yourself up a tip-toe, and fetch your hand up over your head as
awkard as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed
from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to turn on—like a girl; not
from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And mind
you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap, she throws her knees apart:

she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of
lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I
contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your uncle,
Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into trouble you
send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what I can to get you
out of it. Keep the river road, all the way, and next time you tramp, take shoes
and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one, and your feet 'll be in a
condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon."

[ILLUSTRATION]

"hump yourself."

I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks and
slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I jumped in
and was off in a hurry. I went up stream far enough to make the head of the
island, and then started across. I took off the sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no
blinders on, then. When I was about the middle, I hear the clock begin to
strike; so I stops and listens; the sound come faint over the water, but clear—
eleven. When I struck the head of the island I never waited to blow, though I

was most winded, but I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used
to be, and started a good fire there on a high-and-dry spot.

Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place a mile and a half
below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the timber and
up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound asleep on the ground.
I roused him out and says:

"Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose. They're
after us!"

Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he worked
for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By that time
everything we had in the world was on our raft and she was ready to be shoved
out from the willow cove where she was hid. We put out the camp fire at
the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a candle outside after that.

I took the canoe out from shore a little piece and took a look, but if there
was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and shadows ain't good to see by.
Then we got out the raft and slipped along down in the shade, past the foot
of the island dead still, never saying a word.

	Chapter XI. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's comrade).

University of Virginia Library

Chapter XI.

"come in."

"him and another man."

she puts up a snack.

"hump yourself."