University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXXI.

We dasn't stop again at any town, for
days and days; kept right along
down the river. We was down south
in the warm weather, now, and a
mighty long ways from home. We
begun to come to trees with Spanish
moss on them, hanging down from
the limbs like long gray beards. It
was the first I ever see it growing,
and it made the woods look solemn
and dismal. So now the frauds
reckoned they was out of danger,
and they begun to work the villages
again.

[ILLUSTRATION]

spanish moss.

First they done a lecture on
temperance; but they didn't make
enough for them both to get
drunk on. Then in another village
they started a dancing school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than
a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made, the general public jumped in
and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried a go at yellocution;
but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good
cussing and made them skip out. They tackled missionarying, and mesmerizering,
and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a little of everything; but they
couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and

laid around the raft, as she floated along, thinking, and thinking, and never
saying nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.

And at last they took a change, and begun to lay their heads together in the
wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim and
me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged they was studying
up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it over and over, and at
last we made up our minds they was going to break into somebody's house or
store, or was going into the counterfeit-money business, or something. So then
we was pretty scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing
in the world to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show we would
give them the cold shake, and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one
morning we hid the raft in a good safe place about two mile below a little bit of
a shabby village, named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore, and told us all
to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got
any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ("House to rob, you mean," says I to
myself; "and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder
what's become of me and Jim and the raft—and you'll have to take it out in
wondering.") And he said if he warn't back by midday, the duke and me would
know it was all right, and we was to come along.

So we staid where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and
was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't seem
to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing. Something was
a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and no king; we could
have a change, anyway—and maybe a chance for the change, on top of it. So
me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around there for the king,
and by-and-by we found him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight,
and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport, and he a cussing and threatening
with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to
them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to
sass back; and the minute they was fairly at it, I lit out, and shook the reefs out
of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer—for I see our chance;
and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and

Jim again. I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung
out—

"Set her loose, Jim, we're all right, now!"

But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was
gone! I set up a shout—and then another—and then another one; and run this
way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't no use—old
Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help it. But I couldn't
set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I better
do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger,
dressed so and so, and he says:

"Yes."

"Wherebouts?" says I.

"Down to Silas Phelps's place, two mile below here. He's a runaway nigger,
and they've got him. Was you looking for him?"

"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago,
and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out—and told me to lay down and
stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard to come out."

"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him.
He run off f'm down South, som'ers."

"It's a good job they got him."

"Well, I reckon! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. It's like
picking up money out'n the road."

"Yes, it is—and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him first.
Who nailed him?"

"It was an old fellow—a stranger—and he sold out his chance in him for
forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think o'that,
now! You bet I'd wait, if it was seven year."

"That's me, every time," says I. "But maybe his chance ain't worth no
more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't straight
about it."

"But it is, though—straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It tells
all about him, to a dot—paints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's

frum, below Newrleans. No-sirree-bob, they ain't no trouble 'bout that speculation,
you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye?"

I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the
wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head
sore, but I couldn't see no way
out of the trouble. After all
this long journey, and after
all we'd done for them scoundrels,
here was it all come to
nothing, everything all busted
up and ruined, because they
could have the heart to serve
Jim such a trick as that, and
make him a slave again all his
life, and amongst strangers,
too, for forty dirty dollars.

[ILLUSTRATION]

"who nailed him?"

Once I said to myself it
would be a thousand times
better for Jim to be a slave
at home where his family
was, as long as he'd got to be
a slave, and so I'd better
write a letter to Tom Sawyer
and tell him to tell Miss
Watson where he was. But
I soon give up that notion,
for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness
for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if she
didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make
Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of
me! It would get all around, that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his
freedom; and if I was to ever see anybody from that town again, I'd be ready to

get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a
low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks
as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The
more I studied about this, the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the
more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit
me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in
the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from
up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't
ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the
lookout, and ain't agoing to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur
and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the
best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself, by saying I was brung up
wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying,
"There was the Sunday school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done
it they'd a learnt you, there, that people that acts as I'd been acting about that
nigger goes to everlasting fire."

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray; and see if I
couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was, and be better. So I kneeled
down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use
to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why
they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I
warn't square; is was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up
sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was
trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing,
and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down
in me I knowed it was a lie—and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie—I found
that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At
last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter—and then see if I can
pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight
off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad
and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr.
Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck Finn.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in
my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but
laid the paper down and set
there thinking—thinking how
good it was all this happened
so, and how near I come to
being lost and going to hell.
And went on thinking. And
got to thinking over our trip
down the river; and I see
Jim before me, all the time,
in the day, and in the nighttime,
sometimes moonlight,
sometimes storms, and we a
floating along, talking, and
singing, and laughing. But
somehow I couldn't seem to
strike no places to harden me
against him, but only the
other kind. I'd see him
standing my watch on top of
his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he
was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the
swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always
call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how
good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men
we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend
old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I
happened to look around, and see that paper.

[ILLUSTRATION]

thinking.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a
trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I
knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to
myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"—and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them
stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole
thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was
in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I
would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up
anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for
good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over considerable
many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I
took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river a piece, and as soon
as it was fairly dark I crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid it there,
and then turned in. I slept the night through, and got up before it was light,
and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and
one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore.
I landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the
woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and
sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a
mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.

Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it,
"Phelps's Sawmill," and when I come to the farm-houses, two or three hundred
yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody around, though
it was good daylight, now. But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see
nobody just yet—I only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to my
plan, I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below. So I just
took a look, and shoved along, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see,
when I got there, was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch—three-night
performance—like that other time. They had the cheek,

them frauds! I was right on him, before I could shirk. He looked astonished,
and says:

"Hel-lo! Where'd you come from?" Then he says, kind of glad and eager,
"Where's the raft?—got her in a good place?"

I says:

"Why, that's just what I was agoing to ask your grace."

Then he didn't look so joyful—and says:

"What was your idea for asking me?" he says.

"Well," I says, "when I see the king in that doggery yesterday, I says to myself,
we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went a loafing
around town to put in the time, and wait. A man up and offered me ten cents
to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went
along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me aholt of
the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me, and
jerked loose and run, and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had
to chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till
dark, then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got
there and see it was gone, I says to myself, 'they've got into trouble and had to
leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in the world,
and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing,
and no way to make my living;' so I set down and cried. I slept in the
woods all night. But what did become of the raft then?—and Jim, poor Jim!"

"Blamed if I know—that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had
made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the
loafers had matched half dollars with him and got every cent but what he'd spent
for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone,
we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the
river.'"

"I wouldn't shake my nigger, would I?—the only nigger I had in the world,
and the only property."

"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him
our nigger; yes, we did consider him so—goodness knows we had trouble enough

for him. So when we see the raft was gone, and we flat broke, there warn't anything
for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And I've pegged
along ever since, dry as a powderhorn.
Where's that ten cents?
Give it here."

I had considerable money, so
I give him ten cents, but begged
him to spend it for something to
eat, and give me some, because
it was all the money I had, and I
hadn't had nothing to eat since
yesterday. He never said nothing.
The next minute he
whirls on me and says:

"Do you reckon that nigger
would blow on us? We'd skin
him if he done that!"

"How can he blow? Hain't
he run off?"

"No! That old fool sold
him, and never divided with
me, and the money's gone."

[ILLUSTRATION]

he gave him ten cents.

"Sold him?" I says, and
begun to cry; "why, he was my nigger, and that was my money. Where is
he?—I want my nigger."

"Well, you can't get your nigger, that's all—so dry up your blubbering.
Looky here—do you think you'd venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I'd
trust you. Why, if you was to blow on us—"

He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I
went on a-whimpering, and says:

"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow. I
got to turn out and find my nigger."

He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on his
arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:

"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll promise
you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him."

So I promised, and he says:

"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph——" and then he stopped. You see he
started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped, that way, and begun to study
and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he was. He
wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the
whole three days. So pretty soon he says: "The man that bought him is named
Abram Foster—Abram G. Foster—and he lives forty mile back here in the
country, on the road to Lafayette."

[ILLUSTRATION]

striking for the back country.

"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this very
afternoon."

"No you won't, you'll start now; and don't you lose any time about it,
neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head
and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with us, d'ye hear?"

That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted to
be left free to work my plans.

"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to.
Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim is your nigger—some idiots don't
require documents—leastways I've heard there's such down South here. And
when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you
when you explain to him what the idea was for getting 'em out. Go 'long, now,
and tell him anything you want to; but mind you don't work your jaw any
between here and there."

So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I
kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out at that.
I went straight out in the country as much as a mile, before I stopped; then I
doubled back through the woods towards Phelps's. I reckoned I better start in
on my plan straight off, without fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim's
mouth till these fellows could get away. I didn't want no trouble with their
kind. I'd seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of
them.