University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXXIX

In the morning we went up to the village
and bought a wire rat trap and fetched
it down, and unstopped the best rat
hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen
of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we
took it and put it in a safe place under
Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone
for spiders, little Thomas Franklin Benjamin
Jefferson Elexander Phelps found
it there, and opened the door of it to see
if the rats would come out, and they did;
and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we
got back she was a standing on top of the
bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing
what they could to keep off the dull times
for her. So she took and dusted us both
with the hickry, and we was as much as
two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen,
drat that meddlesome cub, and they
warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock. I
never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was.

[ILLUSTRATION]

keeping off dull times.

We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and caterpillars,
and one thing or another; and we like-to got a hornet's nest, but we
didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give it right up, but staid with
them as long as we could; because we allowed we'd tire them out or they'd

got to tire us out, and they done it. Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on
the places, and was pretty near all right again, but couldn't set down convenient.
And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and housesnakes,
and put them in a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was
supper time, and a rattling good honest day's work; and hungry?—oh, no, I
reckon not! And there warn't a blessed snake up there, when we went back—we
didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out, somehow, and left. But it didn't
matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres. So we judged
we could get some of them again. No, there warn't no real scarcity of snakes
about the house for a considerble spell. You'd see them dripping from the
rafters and places, every now and then; and they generly landed in your plate,
or down the back of your neck, and most of the time where you didn't want them.
Well, they was handsome, and striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of
them; but that never made no difference to Aunt Sally, she despised snakes, be the
breed what they might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it; and
every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference what
she was doing, she would just lay that work down and light out. I never see
such a woman. And you could hear her whoop to Jericho. You couldn't get
her to take aholt of one of them with the tongs. And if she turned over
and found one in bed, she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would
think the house was afire. She disturbed the old man so, that he said he
could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes created. Why, after every last
snake had been gone clear out of the house for as much as a week, Aunt Sally
warn't over it yet; she warn't near over it; when she was setting thinking about
something, you could touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she
would jump right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all
women was just so. He said they was made that way; for some reason or
other.

We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way; and she allowed
these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded up the
place again with them. I didn't mind the lickings, because they didn't amount
to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had, to lay in another lot. But we got

them laid in, and all the other things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as
Jim's was when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't like
the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for him and make
it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats, and the snakes, and
the grindstone, there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely; and when there
was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively, he said, because
they never all slept at one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes
was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on
watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang having
a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place, the spiders would
take a chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out, this time, he
wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.

[ILLUSTRATION]

sawdust diet.

Well, by the end of three weeks, everything was in pretty good shape. The
shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every
time a rat bit Jim he would get up and
write a little in his journal whilst the ink
was fresh; the pens was made, the inscriptions
and so on was all carved on
the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in
two, and we had et up the sawdust, and it
give us a most amazing stomach-ache.
We reckoned we was all going to die, but
didn't. It was the most undigestible
sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the
same. But as I was saying, we'd got all
the work done, now, at last; and we was
all pretty much fagged out, too, but
mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a
couple of times to the plantation below
Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because
there warn't no such plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St.
Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones, it

give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said,
now for the nonnamous letters.

"What's them?" I says.

"Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one
way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around, that gives
notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going to light out of
the Tooleries, a servant girl done it. It's a very good way, and so is the nonnamous
letters. We'll use them both. And it's usual for the prisoner's mother
to change clothes with him, and she stays in, and he slides out in her clothes.
We'll do that too."

"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to warn anybody for, that something's
up? Let them find it out for themselves—it's their lookout."

"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted
from the very start—left us to do everything. They're so confiding and mulletheaded
they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we don't give them notice,
there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us, and so after all our
hard work and trouble this escape 'll go off perfectly flat: won't amount to nothing—won't
be nothing to it."

"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."

"Shucks," he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:

"But I ain't going to make no complaint. Anyway that suits you suits me.
What you going to do about the servant-girl?"

"You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that
yaller girl's frock."

"Why, Tom, that'll make trouble next morning; because of course she prob'bly
hain't got any but that one."

"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the nonnamous
letter and shove it under the front door."

"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my own
togs."

"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl then, would you?"

"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, anyway."

"That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do, is just to do
our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us do it or not. Hain't you
got no principle at all?"

"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl. Who's Jim's
mother?"

"I'm his mother. I'll
hook a gown from Aunt
Sally."

"Well, then, you'll have
to stay in the cabin when me
and Jim leaves."

"Not much. I'll stuff
Jim's clothes full of straw
and lay it on his bed to represent
his mother in disguise,
and Jim 'll take the
nigger woman's gown off of
me and wear it, and we'll all
evade together. When a prisoner
of style escapes, it's
called an evasion. It's always
called so when a king
escapes, f'rinstance. And the
same with a king's son; it
don't make no difference
whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one."

[ILLUSTRATION]

trouble is brewing.

So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's
frock, that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the way Tom
told me to. It said:

Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout. Unknown Friend.

Next night we stuck a picture which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and
crossbones, on the front door; and next night another one of a coffin, on the

back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They couldn't a been worse
scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them behind everything
and under the beds and shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally
she jumped, and said "ouch!" if anything fell, she jumped and said "ouch!"
if you happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she done the same; she
couldn't face noway and be satisfied, because she allowed there was something
behind her every time—so she was always a whirling around, sudden, and saying
"ouch," and before she'd get two-thirds around, she'd whirl back again, and
say it again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but she dasn't set up. So the
thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more
satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right.

So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the
streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we better
do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going to have a nigger
on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the lightning-rod to spy
around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back
of his neck and come back. This letter said:

Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang of cutthroats from over
in the Ingean Territory going to steal your runaway nigger to-night, and they have been trying to
scare you so as you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang, but have
got religgion and wish to quit it and lead a honest life again, and will betray the helish design.
They will sneak down from northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go
in the nigger's cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger;
but stead of that, I will BA like a sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all; then whilst they are
getting his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them at your leasure. Don't
do anything but just the way I am telling you, if you do they will suspicion something and raise
whoopjamboreehoo. I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.