Chapter XXXVI.
As soon as we reckoned everybody
was asleep, that
night, we went down
the lightning-rod, and shut ourselves
up in
the lean-to, and got out our
pile of fox-fire, and went to work.
We cleared everything out of the way,
about four or five foot along the
middle
of the bottom log. Tom said
he
was right behind Jim's bed now, and
we'd dig in under it, and
when we got
through there couldn't nobody in the
cabin ever know
there was any hole
there, because Jim's counterpin hung
down most
to the ground, and you'd
have to raise it up and look under to
see
the hole. So we dug and dug,
with the case-knives, till most midnight;
and then we was dog-tired,
and
our hands was blistered, and yet you
couldn't see we'd done
anything, hardly. At last I says:
[ILLUSTRATION]
going down the lightning-rod.
"This ain't no thirty-seven year job, this is a thirty-eight year job,
Tom
Sawyer."
He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped digging,
and then for a good little while I
knowed he was thinking. Then he
says:
"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't agoing to work. If we was prisoners it
would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry;
and
we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was
changing
watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could
keep it up right
along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the
way it ought to be done.
But we can't fool
along, we got to rush; we ain't got no time to spare. If we was
to put
in another night this way, we'd have to knock off for a week to let our
hands get well—couldn't touch a case-knife with them sooner."
"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"
"I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like it to
get
out—but there ain't only just the one way; we got to dig
him out with the picks,
and let on it's
case-knives."
"Now you're talking!" I says;
"your head gets leveler and leveler all the
time, Tom Sawyer," I says.
"Picks is the thing, moral or no moral; and as for
me, I don't care
shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I start in to steal
a
nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school book, I ain't no ways
particular
how it's done so it's done. What I want is my nigger; or
what I want is my
watermelon; or what I want is my Sunday-school book;
and if a pick's the handiest
thing, that's
the thing I'm agoing to dig that nigger or that watermelon or
that
Sunday-school book out with; and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities
thinks about it nuther."
"Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like
this;
if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand
by and see the rules
broke—because right is right, and wrong
is wrong, and a body ain't got no business
doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better. It might answer for
you to dig Jim out with a pick, without any letting-on, because you don't know
no better; but
it wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme a caseknife."
He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and
says:
"Gimme a case-knife."
I didn't know just what to do—but then I thought. I scratched around
amongst the old tools, and got a
pick-ax and give it to him, and he took it and
went to work, and never
said a word.
He was always just that particular. Full of principle
So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about, and
made the fur fly. We stuck to it
about a half an hour, which was
as
long as we could stand up; but we
had a good deal of a hole to
show
for it. When I got up stairs, I
looked out at the window and
see
Tom doing his level best with the
lightning-rod, but he
couldn't come
it, his hands was so sore. At last
he says:
"It ain't no use, it can't be
done. What you reckon I better
do?
Can't you think up no way?"
"Yes," I says, "but I reckon
it ain't regular. Come up the
stairs,
and let on it's a lightning-rod."
So he done it.
[ILLUSTRATION]
stealing spoons.
Next day Tom stole a pewter
spoon and a brass candlestick in the
house, for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I
hung
around the nigger cabins, and laid for a chance, and stole three
tin plates. Tom
said it wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever
see the plates that Jim
throwed out, because they'd fall in the
dog-fennel and jimpson weeds under the
window-hole—then we
could tote them back and he could use them over again.
So Tom was
satisfied. Then he says:
"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."
"Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."
He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard
of
such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By-and-by he
said he had
ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to
decide on any of
them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first.
That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took one
of
the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard Jim
snoring;
so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we whirled
in with the pick
and shovel, and in about two hours and a half the job
was done. We crept in
under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and pawed
around and found the candle and
lit it, and stood over Jim a while, and
found him looking hearty and healthy, and
then we woke him up gentle
and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most
cried; and called us
honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was for
having us
hunt up a cold chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with, right away,
and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he showed him how unregular
it would be, and set down and
told him all about our plans, and how we
could alter them in a minute
any time there was an alarm; and not to be the least
afraid, because we
would see he got away, sure. So Jim he said it was
all right,
and we set there and talked over old times a while, and then
Tom asked a lot of
questions, and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in
every day or two to pray
with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he
was comfortable and had plenty to
eat, and both of them was kind as
they could be, Tom says:
"Now I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things
by them."
I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass ideas
I
ever struck;" but he never paid no attention to me; went right on. It
was his
way when he'd got his plans set.
So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie, and other
large
things, by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the
lookout, and not
be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and
we would put small things
in uncle's coat pockets and he must steal
them out; and we would tie things to
aunt's apron strings or put them
in her apron pocket, if we got a chance; and
told him what they would
be and what they was for. And told him how to keep
a journal on the
shirt with his blood, and all that. He told him everything.
Jim he couldn't see no sense in the
most of it, but he allowed we was white folks
and knowed better than
him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just
as Tom
said.
Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good
sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to bed,
with
hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high
spirits. He said
it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the
most intellectural; and said if
he only could see his way to it we
would keep it up all the rest of our lives
and leave Jim to our
children to get out; for he believed Jim would come
to like it better
and better the more he got used to it. He said that in that
way it
could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the best
time on record. And he said it would make us all celebrated that had a
hand
in it.
In the morning we went out to the wood-pile and chopped up the brass candlestick
into handy sizes, and Tom
put them and the pewter spoon in his pocket.
Then we went to the nigger
cabins, and while I got Nat's notice off, Tom shoved
a piece of
candlestick into the middle of a corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and
we went along with Nat to see how it would work, and it just worked
noble;
when Jim bit into it it most mashed all his teeth out; and there
warn't ever anything
could a worked
better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what
it was only
just a piece of rock or something like that that's always getting into
bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing but what he jabbed
his
fork into it in three or four places, first.
And whilst we was a standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
couple
of the hounds bulging in, from under Jim's bed; and they kept on
piling in till
there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room
in there to get your
breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to
door. The nigger Nat he
only just hollered "witches!" once, and keeled
over onto the floor amongst the
dogs, and begun to groan like he was
dying. Tom jerked the door open and
flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and
the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he
was out himself and back
again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the
other door too.
Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting
him, and asking him if he'd been
imagining he saw something again. He raised
up, and blinked his eyes
around, and says:
"Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a
million
dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in
dese tracks. I did, mos'
sholy. Mars Sid, I felt
um—I felt um, sah; dey was all over me.
Dad fetch it,
I jis' wisht I could git my han's
on one er dem
witches jis' wunst
—on'y jis' wunst—it's all I'd
ast. But mos'ly I wisht dey'd
lemme
'lone, I does."
Tom says:
"Well, I tell you what I
think. What makes them
come
here just at this runaway nigger's
breakfast-time? It's because
they're hungry; that's the
reason. You make
them a
witch pie; that's the thing for
you to do."
"But my lan', Mars Sid,
how's I gwyne to make 'm
a
witch pie? I doan' know how
to make it. I hain't ever hearn
er sich a thing b'fo.'"
[ILLUSTRATION]
tom advises a witch pie.
"Well, then, I'll have to
make it myself."
"Will you do it, honey?—will you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo'
foot, I
will!"
"All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and
showed
us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful. When we
come
around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the
pan, don't you
let on you see it at all. And don't you look, when Jim
unloads the pan—something
might happen, I don't know what. And
above all, don't you
handle the
witch-things."
"Hannel 'm Mars Sid? What is
you a talkin' 'bout? I wouldn' lay de
weight er my finger on um, not
f'r ten hund'd thous'n' billion dollars, I
wouldn't."
