Chapter the last.
The first time I catched Tom, private,
I asked him what was his
idea, time of the
evasion?—what it
was he'd planned to do if the evasion
worked all right and he managed
to set a nigger free that was
already free before? And he said,
what he had planned in his head,
from the start, if we got Jim out all
safe, was for us to run him down
the
river, on the raft, and have adventures
plumb to the mouth of the
river, and then
tell him about his
being free, and take him back up
home on a
steamboat, in style, and
pay him for his lost time, and write
word
ahead and get out all the niggers
around,
and have them waltz
him into town with a torchlight
procession and
a brass band, and then he would be a hero, and so would we.
But I
reckened it was about as well the way it was.
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out of bondage.
We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle
Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom,
they
made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him
all he
wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we had
him up to the
sick-room; and had a high talk; and
Tom give Jim forty dollars for being
prisoner for us so patient, and
doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased most to
death, and busted out,
and says:
"Dah, now, Huck, what I tell you?—what
I
tell you up dah on Jackson islan'? I tole you
I
got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it; en I
tole you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich
agin; en it's come true; en heah she is! Dah,
now! doan' talk to me—signs is signs, mine
I
tell you; en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz
gwineter be rich agin as
I's a stannin' heah dis
minute!"
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tom's liberality.
And then Tom he talked along, and talked
along, and says, le's all three
slide out of here,
one of these nights, and get an outfit, and go
for
howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in
the Territory,
for a couple of weeks or two; and
I says, all right, that suits me, but
I aint got no
money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get
none from home, because
it's likely pap's been back before now, and got
it all away from Judge Thatcher
and drunk it up.
"No he hain't," Tom says; "it's all there, yet—six thousand
dollars and
more; and your pap hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when
I come away,
anyhow."
Jim says, kind of solemn:
"He ain't a comin' back no mo', Huck."
I says:
"Why, Jim?"
"Nemmine why, Huck—but he ain't comin' back no mo'."
But I kept at him; so at last he says:
"Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a
man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let you
come in? Well, den, you k'n git yo'
money when you wants it; kase dat wuz
him."
Tom's most well, now, and got his bullet around his neck on a
watch-guard
for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so
there ain't nothing more
to write about, and I am rotten glad of it,
because if I'd a knowed what a trouble
it was to make a book I wouldn't
a tackled it and aint't agoing to no more. But
I reckon I got to light
out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally
she's going
to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before.
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the end. yours truly, huck finn.
