University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXIII.

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tragedy.

Well, all day him and the king was hard
at it, rigging up a stage, and a curtain,
and a row of candles for footlights;
and that night the house
was jam full of men in no time.
When the place couldn't hold no
more, the duke he quit tending door
and went around the back way and
come onto the stage and stood up
before the curtain, and made a
little speech, and praised up this
tragedy, and said it was the most
thrillingest one that ever was; and
so he went on a-bragging about the
tragedy and about Edmund Kean
the Elder, which was to play the
main principal part in it; and at
last when he'd got everybody's expectations
up high enough, he rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the
king come a-prancing out on all fours, naked; and he was painted all over, ringstreaked-and-striped,
all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow. And—but
never mind the rest of his outfit, it was just wild, but it was awful funny. The
people most killed themselves laughing; and when the king got done capering,
and capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped and stormed and hawhawed
till he come back and done it over again; and after that, they made him

do it another time. Well, it would a made a cow laugh to see the shines that old
idiot cut.

Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says the
great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on accounts of pressing
London engagements, where the seats is all sold aready for it in Drury Lane;
and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has succeeded in pleasing
them and instructing them, he will be deeply obleeged if they will mention it to
their friends and get them to come and see it.

Twenty people sings out:

"What, is it over? Is that all?"

The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody sings out "sold,"
and rose up mad, and was agoing for that stage and them tragedians. But a big
fine-looking man jumps up on a bench, and shouts:

"Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen." They stopped to listen. "We are
sold—mighty badly sold. But we don't want to be the laughing-stock of this
whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as long as we live.
No. What we want, is to go out of here quiet, and talk this show up, and sell
the rest of the town! Then we'll all be in the same boat. Ain't that sensible?"
("You bet it is!—the jedge is right!" everybody sings out.) "All right, then
—not a word about any sell. Go along home, and advise everybody to come and
see the tragedy."

Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid that
show was. House was jammed again, that night, and we sold this crowd the
same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the raft, we all had
a supper; and by-and-by, about midnight, they made Jim and me back her out
and float her down the middle of the river and fetch her in and hide her about
two mile below town.

The third night the house was crammed again—and they warn't new-comers,
this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood by
the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his pockets
bulging, or something muffled up under his coat—and I see it warn't no perfumery
neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and

rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being
around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in. I shoved in
there for a minute, but it was too
various for me, I couldn't stand it.
Well, when the place couldn't hold no
more people, the duke he give a fellow
a quarter and told him to tend door for
him a minute, and then he started
around for the stage door, I after him;
but the minute we turned the corner
and was in the dark, he says:

"Walk fast, now, till you get away
from the houses, and then shin for the
raft like the dickens was after you!"

I done it, and he done the same. We
struck the raft at the same time, and in
less than two seconds we was gliding
down stream, all dark and still, and
edging towards the middle of the river,
nobody saying a word. I reckoned the
poor king was in for a gaudy time of
it with the audience; but nothing of
the sort; pretty soon he crawls out from under the wigwam, and says:

"Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, Duke?"

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their pockets bulged.

He hadn't been up town at all.

We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below that village.
Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke fairly laughed their
bones loose over the way they'd served them people. The duke says:

"Greenhorns, flatheads! I knew the first house would keep mum and let
the rest of the town get roped in; and I knew they'd lay for us the third night,
and consider it was their turn now. Well, it is their turn, and I'd give something
to know how much they'd take for it. I would just like to know how

they're putting in their opportunity. They can turn it into a picnic, if they
want to—they brought plenty provisions."

Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in that three
nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagon-load like that, before.

By-and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says:

"Don't it 'sprise you, de way dem kings carries on, Huck?"

"No," I says, "it don't."

"Why don't it, Huck?"

"Well, it don't, because it's in the breed. I reckon they're all alike."

"But, Huck, dese kings o'ourn is regular rapscallions; dat's jist what dey
is; dey's reglar rapscallions."

"Well, that's what I'm a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as
I can make out."

"Is dat so?"

"You read about them once—you'll see. Look at Henry the Eight;
this'n's a Sunday-School Superintendent to him. And look at Charles Second,
and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward Second,
and Richard Third, and forty more; besides all them Saxon heptarchies that
used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain. My, you ought to seen old
Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry
a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it
just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he
says. They fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they
chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes. Next morning
'Chop off her head'—and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair
Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made
every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had
hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book,
and called it Domesday Book—which was a good name and stated the case.
You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one
of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants
to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it—give notice?

—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in
Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and
dares them to come on. That was
his style—he never give anybody a
chance. He had suspicions of his
father, the Duke of Wellington.
Well, what did he do?—ask him to
show up? No—drownded him in
a butt of mamsey, like a cat. Spose
people left money laying around
where he was—what did he do?
He collared it. Spose he contracted
to do a thing; and you paid him,
and didn't set down there and see
that he done it—what did he do?
He always done the other thing.
Spose he opened his mouth—what
then? If he didn't shut it up
powerful quick, he'd lose a lie, every
time. That's the kind of a bug
Henry was; and if we'd a had him
along 'stead of our kings, he'd a
fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs,
because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain't
nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to
make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the
way they're raised."

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henry the eighth in boston harbor.

"But dis one do smell so like de nation, Huck."

"Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a king smells; history
don't tell no way."

"Now de duke, he's a tolerble likely man, in some ways."

"Yes, a duke's different. But not very different. This one's a middling

hard lot, for a duke. When he's drunk, there ain't no near-sighted man could
tell him from a king."

"Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um, Huck. Dese is all I
kin stan'."

"It's the way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them on our hands, and
we got to remember what they are, and make allowances. Sometimes I wish
we could hear of a country that's out of kings."

What was the use to tell Jim these warn't real kings and dukes? It wouldn't
a done no good; and besides, it was just as I said; you couldn't tell them from
the real kind.

I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn. He often done
that. When I waked up, just at day-break, he was setting there with his head
down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I didn't take notice,
nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and
his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn't
ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as
much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I
reckon it's so. He was often moaning and mourning that way, nights, when he
judged I was asleep, and saying, "Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! its
mighty hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'!" He was a
mighty good nigger, Jim was.

But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young ones;
and by-and-by he says:

"What makes me feel so bad dis time, 'uz bekase I hear sumpn over yonder
on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time I treat
my little 'Lizabeth so ornery. She warn't on'y 'bout fo' year ole, en she tuck de
sk'yarlet-fever, en had a powful rough spell; but she got well, en one day she was
a-stannin' aroun', en I says to her, I says:

"Shet de do'.'

"She never done it; jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up at me. It make me
mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says:

"'Doan' you hear me?—shet de do'!'

"She jis' stood de same way, kiner smilin' up. I was a-bilin'! I says:

"'I lay I make you mine!'

"En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat sont her a-sprawlin'. Den I
went into de yuther room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten minutes; en when I come back,
dah was dat do' a-stannin' open yit, en dat chile stannin' mos' right in it,
a-lookin' down and mournin', en de tears runnin' down. My, but I wuz mad,
I was agwyne for de chile, but jis' den—it was a do' dat open innerds—jis' den,
'long come de wind en slam it to, behine de chile, ker-blam!—en my lan', de
chile never move'! My breff mos' hop outer me; en I feel so—so—I doan' know
how I feel. I crope out, all a-tremblin', en crope aroun' en open de do' easy en
slow, en poke my head in behine de chile, sof' en still, en all uv a sudden, I says
pow! jis' as loud as I could yell. She never budge! Oh, Huck, I bust out
a-cryin' en grab her up in my arms, en say, 'Oh, de po' little thing! de Lord God
Amighty fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as long's he
live!' Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb—en I'd
ben a-treat'n her so!"