Chapter V
I had
shut the door to. Then I turned
around, and there he was. I used
to
be scared of him all the time, he tanned
me so much. I reckoned
I was scared
now, too; but in a minute I see I was
mistaken. That
is, after the first jolt,
as you may say, when my breath sort of
hitched—he being so unexpected; but
right away after, I see
I warn't scared
of him worth bothering about.
[ILLUSTRATION]
"pap."
He was most fifty, and he looked it.
His hair was long and tangled and
greasy,
and hung down, and you could see his
eyes shining through
like he was behind
vines. It was all black, no gray; so
was his
long, mixed-up whiskers. There
warn't no color in his face, where
his
face showed; it was white; not like
another man's white, but a
white to
make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh
crawl—a tree-toad white,
a fish-belly white. As for his
clothes—just rags, that was all. He had
one ankle resting on
'tother knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and
two of his toes
stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His
hat was laying on
the floor; an old black slouch with the top caved in,
like a lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair
tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was
up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He
kept a-looking me all over.
By-and-by he says:
"Starchy clothes—very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,
don't you?"
"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on considerble
many frills since I been
away. I'll take you down a peg before
I get done with you. You're
educated, too, they say; can read and write.
You think you're better'n
your father, now, don't you, because he can't?
I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might
meddle with such
hifalut'n foolishness, hey?—who told you
you could?"
"The widow. She told me."
"The widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her
shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business?"
"Nobody never told her."
"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop
that
school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on
airs over
his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme catch
you fooling around that
school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't
read, and she couldn't
write, nuther, before she died. None of the family
couldn't, before they died. I can't; and here
you're a-swelling yourself
up like this. I ain't the man to stand
it—you hear? Say—lemme hear
you read."
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the
wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack
with
his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you,
my
smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good.
First you know
you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son."
He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy. and
says:
"What's this?"
"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."
He tore it up, and says—
"I'll give you something better—I'll give you a cowhide."
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he
says—
"Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and
bedclothes; and
a look'n-glass; and a piece
of carpet on the
floor—and
your own father got to sleep
with the hogs in
the tanyard.
I never see such a son. I
bet I'll take some o'
these
frills out o' you before I'm
done with you. Why there
ain't no end to your airs—
they say you're rich. Hey?
—how's that?"
"They lie—that's how."
[ILLUSTRATION]
huck and his father.
"Looky here—mind how
you talk to me; I'm a-standing
about all I can stand,
now—so don't gimme no sass.
I've been in town two days,
and I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it
away
down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money
to-morrow—
I want it."
"I hain't got no money."
"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."
"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell
you
the same."
"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know
the
reason why. Say—how much you got in your pocket? I want
it."
"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to——"
"It don't make no difference what you want it for—you just shell
it out."
He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
going
down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day.
When he
had got out on the shed, he put his head in again, and cussed
me for putting
on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I
reckoned he was gone, he
come back and put his head in again, and told
me to mind about that school,
because he was going to lay for me and
lick me if I didn't drop that.
Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged
him and tried to make him give up the money, but he couldn't, and then
he
swore he'd make the law force him.
The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away
from
him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge
that had just
come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts
mustn't interfere and
separate families if they could help it; said
he'd druther not take a child away
from its father. So Judge Thatcher
and the widow had to quit on the
business.
That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me
till
I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I
borrowed three
dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
drunk and went a-blowing
around and cussing and whooping and carrying
on; and he kept it up all
over town, with a tin pan, till most
midnight; then they jailed him, and
next day they had him before court,
and jailed him again for a week. But he
said he
was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for
him.
When he got out the new judge said he was agoing to make a man of him.
So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and
had
him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was
just old pie to
him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him
about temperance and such
things till the old man cried, and said he'd
been a fool, and fooled away his life;
but now he was agoing to turn
over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be
ashamed of, and he
hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him.
The judge said
he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his
wife she
cried again; pap said he'd been a man that had always been
misunderstood before,
and the judge said he believed it. The old man
said that what a man wanted
that was down, was sympathy; and the
judge said it was so; so they cried
again. And when it was bedtime, the
old man rose up and held out his
hand, and says:
"Look at it gentlemen, and ladies all; take ahold of it; shake it.
There's
a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more;
it's the hand
of a man that's started in on a new life, and 'll die
before he'll go back. You
mark them words—don't forget I
said them. It's a clean hand now; shake
it—don't be
afeard."
[ILLUSTRATION]
reforming the drunkard.
So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The
judge's
wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a
pledge—made his mark. The
judge said it was the holiest time
on record, or something like that. Then
they tucked the old man into a
beautiful room, which was the spare room, and
in the night sometime he
got powerful thirsty and clumb out onto the porch-roof
and slid down a
stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and
clumb
back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out
again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm
in
two places and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up.
And when they come to look at that
spare room, they had to take soundings
before they could navigate
it.
The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform
the ole man with a shot-gun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.
[ILLUSTRATION]
falling from grace.
