Chapter I.
YOU don't know about me, without you
have read a
book by the name of "The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that
ain't
no matter. That book was made
by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the
truth, mainly. There was things
which he stretched, but mainly he
told the truth. That is nothing. I
never seen anybody but lied, one
time
or another, without it was Aunt Polly,
or the widow, or maybe
Mary. Aunt
Polly—Tom's Aunt Polly, she
is—and
Mary, and the Widow Douglas, is all
told about
in that book—which is
mostly a true book; with some stretchers,
as I said before.
[ILLUSTRATION]
the widow's.
Now the way that the book winds
up, is this: Tom and me found the money
that the robbers hid in the cave,
and it made us rich. We got six
thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an
awful sight of
money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher, he took it
and put it
out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece, all the year
round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow
Douglas, she
took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me;
but it was rough living
in the house all the time, considering how
dismal regular and decent the widow
was in all her ways; and so when I
couldn't stand it no longer, I lit out. I got
into my old rags, and my
sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But
Tom Sawyer, he hunted me up and said
he was going to start a band of robbers,
and I might join if I would go
back to the widow and be respectable. So I went
back.
The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
called
me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.
She put me
in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but
sweat and sweat, and
feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing
commenced again. The widow
rung a bell for supper, and you had to come
to time. When you got to the table
you couldn't go right to eating,
but you had to wait for
the
widow to tuck down her
head and grumble a little
over the
victuals, though
there warn't really anything
the matter with
them. That
is, nothing only everything
was cooked by itself. In
a
barrel of odds and ends it is
different; things get mixed
up, and the juice kind of
swaps around, and the things
go
better.
[ILLUSTRATION]
learning about moses and the "bulrushers."
After supper she got out
her book and learned me
about Moses and
the Bulrushers;
and I was in a
sweat
to find out all about him;
but by-and-by she let it out that
Moses had been dead a considerable long time;
so then I didn't care no
more about him; because I don't take no stock in dead
people.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must
try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They
get down on a thing when they don't
know nothing about it. Here she
was a bothering about Moses, which was
no kin to her, and no use to anybody,
being
gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing
a thing
that had some good in it. And she took snuff too; of course
that was
all right, because she done it herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had
just come to live with her, and took
a set at me now, with a
spelling-book.
She worked me middling hard for about
an hour, and
then the widow made her
ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer.
Then for an hour it was deadly dull,
and I was fidgety. Miss Watson
would
say, "Dont put your feet up there,
Huckleberry;" and "dont
scrunch up
like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;"
and
pretty soon she would say, "Don't
gap and stretch like that,
Huckleberry—
why don't you try to behave?" Then
she
told me all about the bad place,
and I said I wished I was there.
She
got mad, then, but I didn't mean no
harm. All I wanted was to
go somewheres;
all I wanted was a
change, I
warn't particular. She said it was
wicked to say what I
said; said she
wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to
the good place. Well, I
couldn't see no advantage in going where she
was going, so I made up my
mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said
so, because it would only
make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
[ILLUSTRATION]
Miss Watson
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the
good
place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around
all
day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think
much of it. But I never said so. I
asked her if she reckoned Tom
Sawyer would go there, and, she said, not
by a considerable sight. I was
glad about that, because I wanted him
and me to be together.
Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome.
By-and-by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then
everybody
was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle
and put
it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and
tried to
think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so
lonesome I
most wished I was dead. The stars was shining, and the
leaves rustled in
the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away
off, who-whooing
about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a
dog crying about
somebody that was going to die; and the wind was
trying to whisper something
to me and I
couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold
shivers run over
me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a
sound that a
ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its
mind
and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave
and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so
down-hearted
and scared, I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a
spider went
crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in
the candle; and
before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't
need anybody to tell
me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch
me some bad luck, so
I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me.
I got up and turned
around in my tracks three times and crossed my
breast every time; and
then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a
thread to keep witches
away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that
when you've lost a
horse-shoe that you've found, instead of nailing it
up over the door, but I
hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to
keep off bad luck when
you'd killed a spider.
I set down again, a shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;
for the house was all as still as death, now, and so the widow wouldn't
know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town
go
boom—boom—boom—twelve licks—and
all still again—stiller than
ever. Pretty soon I heard a
twig snap, down in the dark amongst the
trees—something was a
stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could
just barely hear a
"me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That was good! Says I,
"me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put
out the light and
scrambled out of the window onto the shed. Then I
slipped down to
the ground and crawled in amongst the trees, and sure
enough there was
Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
[ILLUSTRATION]
huck stealing away.
