Chapter X.
AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk
about the dead man
and guess out how
he come to be killed, but Jim didn't
want to. He
said it would fetch bad
luck; and besides, he said, he might
come
and ha'nt us; he said a man
that warn't buried was more likely to
go a-ha'nting around than one that
was planted and comfortable.
That
sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't
say no more; but I
couldn't keep
from studying over it and wishing I
knowed who shot
the man, and what
they done it for.
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they found eight dollars.
We rummaged the clothes we'd got,
and found eight dollars in silver
sewed
up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat.
Jim said he reckoned the people
in that house
stole the coat, because
if they'd a knowed the money was there they
wouldn't a left it. I said I reckoned
they killed him, too; but Jim
didn't want to talk about that. I says:
"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the
snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday? You
said
it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with
my hands.
Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this truck and
eight dollars besides.
I wish we could have
some bad luck like this every day, Jim."
"Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart. It's
a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."
It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after
dinner
Friday, we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of
the ridge, and got
out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some,
and found a rattlesnake in
there. I killed him, and curled him up on
the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so
natural, thinking there'd be some
fun when Jim found him there. Well, by
night I forgot all about the
snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the
blanket while I struck a
light,
the snake's mate was there,
and bit him.
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jim and the snake.
He jumped up yelling, and
the first thing the light showed
was the
varmint curled up and
ready for another spring. I laid
him out in
a second with a
stick, and Jim grabbed pap's
whisky jug and begun
to pour
it down.
He was barefooted, and the
snake bit him right on the heel.
That
all comes of my being
such a fool as to not remember
that wherever
you leave a dead
snake its mate always comes
there and curls
around it. Jim
told me to chop off the snake's
head and throw it
away, and
then skin the body and roast a
piece of it. I done it,
and he
eat it and said it would help
cure him. He made me take off
the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too.
He said that that would
help. Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes
clear away amongst the bushes; for I
warn't going to let Jim find out it was
all my fault, not if I could
help it.
Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his
head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he
went to
sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and
so did his leg;
but by-and-by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged
he was all right; but
I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's
whisky.
Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone
and
he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take aholt
of a
snake-skin again with my hands,
now that I see what had come
of
it. Jim said he reckoned I would
believe him next time. And
he
said that handling a snake-skin was
such awful bad luck that
maybe
we hadn't got to the end of it yet.
He said he druther see
the new
moon over his left shoulder as much
as a thousand times
than take up a
snake-skin in his hand. Well, I
was getting to feel
that way myself,
though I've always reckoned that
looking at the
new moon over your
left shoulder is one of the carelessest
and
foolishest things a body can do.
Old Hank Bunker done it once, and
bragged about it; and in less than
two years he got drunk and fell
off
of the shot tower and spread himself
out so that he was just a
kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him
edgeways between two
barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but
I didn't
see it. Pap told me. But anyway, it all come of looking at the moon
that way, like a fool.
[ILLUSTRATION]
old hank bunker.
Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks
again;
and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big
hooks with a skinned
rabbit and set it and catch a cat-fish that was as
big as a man, being six foot two
inches long, and weighed over two
hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him,
of course; he would a flung us
into Illinois. We just set there and watched him
rip and tear around
till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach,
and a round
ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet,
and
there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat
it
over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever
catched in the
Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a
bigger one. He would a
been worth a good deal over at the village. They
peddle out such a fish as that
by the pound in the market house there;
everybody buys some of him; his
meat's as white as snow and makes a
good fry.
[ILLUSTRATION]
"a fair fit"
Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a
stirring up, some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and
find out
what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must
go in the dark
and look sharp. Then he studied it
over and said, couldn't I put on some of
them old things and dress up
like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we
shortened up one of the
calico gowns and I turned up my trowser-legs to my
kness and got into
it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair
fit. I put
on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to
look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim
said
nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced
around all day
to get the hang of the things, and by-and-by I could do
pretty well in them, only
Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he
said I must quit pulling up my gown
to get at my britches pocket. I
took notice, and done better.
I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.
I started across to the town from a little below the ferry landing, and
the
drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I
tied up and
started along the bank. There was a light burning in a
little shanty that hadn't
been lived in for a long time, and I wondered
who had took up quarters there. I
slipped up and peeped in at the
window. There was a woman about forty year
old in there, knitting by a
candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know her
face; she was a
stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't
know. Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid
I
had come; people might know my voice and find me out. But if this
woman
had been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I
wanted to know;
so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I
wouldn't forget I was a girl.
