University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXXV.

It would be most an hour, yet, till
breakfast, so we left, and struck
down into the woods; because Tom
said we got to have some light to
see how to dig by, and a lantern
makes too much, and might get us
into trouble; what we must have
was a lot of them rotten chunks
that's called fox-fire and just makes
a soft kind of a glow when you lay
them in a dark place. We fetched
an armful and hid it in the weeds,
and set down to rest, and Tom says,
kind of dissatisfied:

[ILLUSTRATION]

getting wood.

"Blame it, this whole thing is
just as easy and awkard as it can
be. And so it makes it so rotten
difficult to get up a difficult plan.
There ain't no watchman to be
drugged—now there ought to be a watchman. There ain't even a dog to give a
sleeping-mixture to. And there's Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain,
to the leg of his bed: why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off
the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the punkinheaded
nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim could a got out
of that window hole before this, only there wouldn't be no use trying to travel

with a ten-foot chain on his leg. Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest arrangement
I ever see. You got to invent all the difficulties. Well, we can't help it,
we got to do the best we can with the materials we've got. Anyhow, there's one
thing—there's more honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties and
dangers, where there warn't one of them furnished to you by the people who it
was their duty to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all out of your own
head. Now look at just that one thing of the lantern. When you come down
to the cold facts, we simply got to let on that a lantern's resky. Why, we could
work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe. Now, whilst I
think of it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of, the first chance
we get."

"What do we want of a saw?"

"What do we want of it? Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed off, so
as to get the chain loose?"

"Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the
chain off."

"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You can get up the infant-schooliest
ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever read any books at
all?—Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny, nor Henri IV.,
nor none of them heroes? Whoever heard of getting a prisoner loose in such an
old-maidy way as that? No; the way all the best authorities does, is to saw the
bed-leg in two, and leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found,
and put some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal
can't see no sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound.
Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip off your
chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope-ladder to the battlements,
shin down it, break your leg in the moat—because a rope-ladder is
nineteen foot too short, you know—and there's your horses and your trusty vassles,
and they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle and away you go, to your
native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there
was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig
one."

I says:

"What do we want of a moat, when we're going to snake him out from under
the cabin?"

But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had his
chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon, he sighs, and shakes his head; then
sighs again, and says:

"No, it wouldn't do—there ain't necessity enough for it."

"For what?" I says.

"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.

'Good land!" I says, "why, there ain't no necessity for it. And what
would you want to saw his leg
off for, anyway?"

[ILLUSTRATION]

one of the best authorities.

"Well, some of the best
authorities has done it. They
couldn't get the chain off, so
they just cut their hand off, and
shoved. And a leg would be
better still. But we got to let
that go. There ain't necessity
enough in this case; and besides,
Jim's a nigger and wouldn't
understand the reasons for it,
and how it's the custom in Europe;
so we'll let it go. But
there's one thing—he can have a
rope-ladder; we can tear up our
sheets and make him a ropeladder
easy enough. And we
can send it to him in a pie; it's
mostly done that way. And I've et worse pies."

"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a ropeladder."

"He has got use for it. How you talk, you better say; you don't know
nothing about it. He's got to have a rope ladder; they all do."

"What in the nation can he do with it?"

"Do with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what they all
do; and he's got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do anything
that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the time. Spose he
don't do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, for a clew, after he's gone?
and don't you reckon they'll want clews? Of course they will. And you
wouldn't leave them any? That would be a pretty howdy-do, wouldn't it! I
never heard of such a thing."

"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it, all right,
let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no regulations; but there's
one thing, Tom Sawyer—if we go to tearing up our sheets to make Jim a ropeladder,
we're going to get into trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're
born. Now, the way I look at it, a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and
don't waste nothing, and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw
tick, as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no experience,
and so he don't care what kind of a——"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you, I'd keep still—that's
what I'd do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a hickry-bark
ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."

"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my advice,
you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothes-line."

He said that would do. And that give him another idea, and he says:

"Borrow a shirt, too."

"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"

"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."

"Journal your granny—Jim can't write."

"Spose he can't write—he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if we
make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron barrel-hoop?"

"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better one;
and quicker, too."

"Prisoners don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens out
of, you muggins. They always make their pens out of the hardest, toughest,
troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like that they can get
their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks, and months and months
to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. They
wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had it. It ain't regular."

"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?"

"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort and
women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; and when he
wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to let the world know
where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom of a tin plate with a fork and
throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask always done that, and it's a blame'
good way, too."

"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."

"That ain't anything; we can get him some."

"Can't nobody read his plates."

"That ain't got nothing to do with it, Huck Finn. All he's got to do is to
write on the plate and throw it out. You don't have to be able to read it. Why,
half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on a tin plate, or anywhere
else."

"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"

"Why, blame it all, it ain't the prisoner's plates."

"But it's somebody's plates, ain't it?"

"Well, spos'n it is? What does the prisoner care whose——"

He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we
cleared out for the house.

Along during that morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the
clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went down and
got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing, because that was
what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn't borrowing, it was stealing.
He said we was representing prisoners; and prisoners don't care how they get a
thing so they get it, and nobody don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no

crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's
his right; and so, as long as
we was representing a prisoner,
we had a perfect right
to steal anything on this
place we had the least use
for, to get ourselves out of
prison with. He said if we
warn't prisoners it would be
a very different thing, and
nobody but a mean ornery
person would steal when he
warn't a prisoner. So we
allowed we would steal everything
there was that come
handy. And yet he made a
mighty fuss, one day, after
that, when I stole a watermelon
out of the nigger patch
and eat it; and he made me
go and give the niggers a
dime, without telling them
what it was for. Tom said
that what he meant was, we
could steal anything we needed. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But
he said I didn't need it to get out of prison with, there's where the difference
was. He said if I'd a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill
the seneskal with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I
couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner, if I got to set down and
chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that, every time I see a chance to hog
a watermelon.

[ILLUSTRATION]

the breakfast-horn.

Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled

down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he carried the
sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep watch. By-and-by he
come out, and we went and set down on the wood-pile, to talk. He says:

"Everything's all right, now, except tools; and that's easy fixed."

"Tools?" I says.

"Yes."

"Tools for what?"

"Why, to dig with. We ain't agoing to gnaw him out, are we?"

"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a
nigger out with?" I says.

He turns on me looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:

"Huck Finn, did you ever hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and all
the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now I want
to ask you—if you got any reasonableness in you at all—what kind of a show
would that give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key,
and done with it. Picks and shovels—why they wouldn't furnish 'em to a
king."

"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do we
want?"

"A couple of case-knives."

"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?"

"Yes."

"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."

"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the right way—and it's the
regular way. And there ain't no other way, that ever I heard of, and I've read
all the books that gives any information about these things. They always dig
out with a case-knife—and not through dirt, mind you; generly it's through
solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and
ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castle
Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that way; how long was
he at it, you reckon?"

"I don't know."

"Well, guess."

"I don't know. A month and a half?"

"Thirty-seven year—and he come out in China. That's the kind. I wish
the bottom of this fortress was solid rock."

"Jim don't know nobody in China."

"What's that got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But you're
always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to the main point?"

"All right—I don't care where he
comes out, so he comes out; and Jim
don't, either, I reckon. But there's one
thing, anyway—Jim's too old to be dug
out with a case-knife. He won't last."

"Yes he will last, too. You don't
reckon it's going to take thirty-seven
years to dig out through a dirt foundation,
do you?"

"How long will it take, Tom?"

[ILLUSTRATION]

smouching the knives.

"Well, we can't resk being as long
as we ought to, because it mayn't take
very long for Uncle Silas to hear from
down there by New Orleans. He'll hear
Jim ain't from there. Then his next
move will be to advertise Jim, or something
like that. So we can't resk being
as long digging him out as we ought to.
By rights I reckon we ought to be a
couple of years; but we can't. Things
being so uncertain, what I recommend is
this: that we really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can let
on, to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch him
out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon that'll be
the best way"

"Now, there's sense in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost nothing;
letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind letting on we was
at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain me none, after I got my hand
in. So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of case-knives."

"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."

"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says, "there's an
old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the weatherboarding behind
the smoke-house."

He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:

"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and smouch
the knives—three of them." So I done it.