University of Virginia Library

Chapter XL.

We was feeling pretty good, after breakfast,
and took my canoe and went
over the river a fishing, with a lunch,
and had a good time, and took a look
at the raft and found her all right,
and got home late to supper, and
found them in such a sweat and
worry they didn't know which end
they was standing on, and made us
go right off to bed the minute we
was done supper, and wouldn't tell
us what the trouble was, and never
let on a word about the new letter,
but didn't need to, because we
knowed as much about it as anybody
did, and as soon as we was
half up stairs and her back was turned, we slid for the cellar cubboard and loaded
up a good lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up
about half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and
was going to start with the lunch, but says:

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fishing.

"Where's the butter?"

"I laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone."

"Well, you left it laid out, then—it ain't here."

"We can get along without it," I says.

"We can get along with it, too," he says; "just you slide down cellar and

fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along. I'll
go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in disguise, and
be ready to ba like a sheep and shove soon as you get there."

So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a
person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of corn-pone with it
on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs, very stealthy, and got up to
the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped
the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she
see me; and she says:

"You been down cellar?"

"Yes'm."

"What you been doing down there?"

"Noth'n."

"Noth'n!"

"No'm."

"Well, then, what possessed you to go down there, this time of night?"

"I don't know'm."

"You don't know? Don't answer me that way, Tom, I want to know what
you been doing down there?"

"I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I
have."

I reckoned she'd let me go, now, and as a generl thing she would; but I
spose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat about
every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says, very decided:

"You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You
been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it is before
I'm done with you."

So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room. My,
but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of them had a gun.
I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down. They was setting
around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and
uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't; but I knowed they was, because they

was always taking off their hats, and putting them on, and scratching their heads,
and changing their seats, and fumbling with their buttons. I warn't easy myself,
but I didn't take my hat off, all the same.

I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if
she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this thing,
and what a thundering hornet's nest we'd got ourselves into, so we could stop
fooling around, straight off, and clear out with Jim before these rips got out of
patience and come for us.

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every one had a gun.

At last she come, and begun to ask me questions, but I couldn't answer them
straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because these men was in such
a fidget now, that some was wanting to start right now and lay for them desperadoes,
and saying it warn't but a few minutes to midnight; and others was trying
to get them to hold on and wait for the sheep-signal; and here was aunty
pegging away at the questions, and me a shaking all over and ready to sink down
in my tracks I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the
butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears: and pretty

soon, when one of them says, "I'm for going and getting in the cabin first, and
right now, and catching them when they come," I most dropped; and a streak of
butter come a trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns
white as a sheet, and says:

"For the land's sake what is the matter with the child!—he's got the
brain fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"

And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes the
bread, and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me, and
says:

"Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain't
no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and when I see
that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color and all, it was just
like your brains would be if— Dear, dear, whyd'nt you tell me that was what
you'd been down there for, I wouldn't a cared. Now cler out to bed, and don't
lemme see no more of you till morning!"

I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one, and
shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get my words out,
I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could, we must jump for it, now,
and not a minute to lose—the house full of men, yonder, with guns!

His eyes just blazed; and he says:

"No!—is that so? Ain't it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over again,
I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till——"

"Hurry! hurry!" I says. "Where's Jim?"

"Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him. He's
dressed, and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give the sheepsignal."

But then we heard the tramp of men, coming to the door, and heard them
begin to fumble with the padlock; and heard a man say:

"I told you we'd be too soon; they haven't come—the door is locked. Here,
I'll lock some of you into the cabin and you lay for 'em in the dark and kill 'em
when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece, and listen if you can hear
'em coming."

So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us whilst
we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right, and out
through the hole, swift but soft—Jim first, me next, and Tom last, which was
according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the lean-to, and heard trampings
close by outside. So we crept to the door, and Tom stopped us there and put his
eye to the crack, but couldn't make out
nothing, it was so dark; and whispered
and said he would listen for the steps to
get further, and when he nudged us Jim
must glide out first, and him last. So
he set his ear to the crack and listened,
and listened, and listened, and the steps
a scraping around, out there, all the time;
and at last he nudged us, and we slid out,
and stooped down, not breathing, and
not making the least noise, and slipped
stealthy towards the fence, in Injun file,
and got to it, all right, and me and Jim
over it; but Tom's britches catched
fast on a splinter on the top rail, and
then he hear the steps coming, so he
had to pull loose, which snapped the
splinter and made a noise; and as he
dropped in our tracks and started,
somebody sings out:

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tom caught on a splinter.

"Who's that? Answer, or I'll shoot!"

But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there
was a rush, and a bang, bang, bang! and the bullets fairly whizzed around us!
We heard them sing out:

"Here they are! They've broke for the river! after 'em, boys! And turn
loose the dogs!"

So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them, because they wore boots,

and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots, and didn't yell. We was in the path to
the mill; and when they got pretty close onto us, we dodged into the bush and let
them go by, and then dropped in behind them. They'd had all the dogs shut up,
so they wouldn't scare off the robbers; but by this time somebody had let them
loose, and here they come, making pow-wow enough for a million; but they was
our dogs; so we stopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when they see it
warn't nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only just said howdy,
and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering; and then we up steam
again and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill, and then struck
up through the bush to where my canoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled for
dear life towards the middle of the river, but didn't make no more noise than
we was obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island
where my raft was; and we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all
up and down the bank, till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out.
And when we stepped onto the raft, I says:

"Now, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a slave
no more."

"En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en it 'uz
done beautiful; en dey ain't nobody kin git up a plan dat's mo' mixed-up en
splendid den what dat one waz."

We was all as glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all, because
he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.

When me and Jim heard that, we didn't feel so brash as what we did before.
It was hurting him considerble, and bleeding; so we laid him in the wigwam
and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but he says:

"Gimme the rags, I can do it myself. Don't stop, now; don't fool around
here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set her
loose! Boys, we done it elegant!—'deed we did. I wish we'd a had the handling
of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!'
wrote down in his biography: no, sir, we'd a whooped him over the border—
that's what we'd a done with him—and done it just as slick as nothing at all, too.
Man the sweeps—man the sweeps!"

But me and Jim was consulting—and thinking. And after we'd thought a
minute, I says:

"Say it, Jim."

So he says:

"Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz him dat 'uz
bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on
en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one? Is dat like Mars
Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You bet he wouldn't! Well, den, is Jim
gwyne to say it? No, sah—I doan' budge a step out'n dis place, 'dout a doctor;
not if it's forty year!"

I knowed he was white inside,
and I reckoned he'd say what he did
say—so it was all right, now, and I
told Tom I was agoing for a doctor.
He raised considerable row about it,
but me and Jim stuck to it and
wouldn't budge; so he was for crawling
out and setting the raft loose
himself; but we wouldn't let him.
Then he give us a piece of his mind
—but it didn't do no good.

So when he see me getting the
canoe ready, he says:

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jim advises a doctor.

"Well, then, if you're bound to
go, I'll tell you the way to do, when
you get to the village. Shut the
door, and blindfold the doctor tight
and fast, and make him swear to be
silent as the grave, and put a purse
full of gold in his hand, and then
take and lead him all around the back alleys and everywheres, in the dark, and
then fetch him here in the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands.

and search him and take his chalk away from him, and don't give it back to
him till you get him back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so
he can find it again. It's the way they all do."

So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see
the doctor coming, till he was gone again.