Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’S Comrade) E-Book

Mark Twain

• Herausgeber: MuhammadUsman
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. The book was widely criticized upon release because of its extensive use of coarse language. Throughout the 20th century, and despite arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist, criticism of the book continued due to both its perceived use of racial stereotypes and its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger".

Leseprobe

ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

(Tom Sawyer’s Comrade)

Mark Twain

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.

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.

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,

“Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t 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.

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 were 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 horseshoe 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 on to the shed.  Then I slipped

down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough,

there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.

CHAPTER II.

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of

the widow’s garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn’t scrape our

heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made

a noise.  We scrouched down and laid still.  Miss Watson’s big nigger,

named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty

clear, because there was a light behind him.  He got up and stretched

his neck out about a minute, listening.  Then he says:

“Who dah?” 

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right

between us; we could a touched him, nearly.  Well, likely it was

minutes and minutes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so close

together.  There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I

dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back,

right between my shoulders.  Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch.

 Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since.  If you are with

the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t

sleepy--if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why

you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim

says:

“Say, who is you?  Whar is you?  Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n. 

Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do:  I’s gwyne to set down here and

listen tell I hears it agin.”

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom.  He leaned his back up

against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched

one of mine.  My nose begun to itch.  It itched till the tears come into

my eyes.  But I dasn’t scratch.  Then it begun to itch on the inside.

Next I got to itching underneath.  I didn’t know how I was going to set

still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but

it seemed a sight longer than that.  I was itching in eleven different

places now.  I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a minute longer,

but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try.  Just then Jim begun

to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty soon

comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and we

went creeping away on our hands and knees.  When we was ten foot off Tom

whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun.  But I said

no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I

warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would slip

in the kitchen and get some more.  I didn’t want him to try.  I said Jim

might wake up and come.  But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there

and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.

Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do

Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play

something on him.  I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was

so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence,

and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of

the house.  Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it

on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake.

Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance,

and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again,

and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.  And next time Jim told

it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every

time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they

rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back

was all over saddle-boils.  Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he

got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers.  Niggers would come

miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any

nigger in that country.  Strange niggers would stand with their mouths

open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.  Niggers is

always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but

whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things,

Jim would happen in and say, “Hm!  What you know ‘bout witches?” and

that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.  Jim always kept

that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a

charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could

cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by

saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it.

 Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they

had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldn’t touch

it, because the devil had had his hands on it.  Jim was most ruined for

a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil

and been rode by witches.

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down

into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where

there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever

so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and

awful still and grand.  We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and

Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard.

 So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half,

to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the

secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest

part of the bushes.  Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our

hands and knees.  We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave

opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked

under a wall where you wouldn’t a noticed that there was a hole.  We

went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and

sweaty and cold, and there we stopped.  Tom says:

“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. 

Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name

in blood.”

Everybody was willing.  So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had

wrote the oath on, and read it.  It swore every boy to stick to the

band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to

any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and

his family must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he mustn’t sleep till he

had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign

of the band. And nobody that didn’t belong to the band could use that

mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be

killed.  And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he

must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the

ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with

blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it

and be forgot forever.

Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got

it out of his own head.  He said, some of it, but the rest was out of

pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had

it.

Some thought it would be good to kill the _families_ of boys that told

the secrets.  Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote

it in. Then Ben Rogers says:

“Here’s Huck Finn, he hain’t got no family; what you going to do ‘bout 

him?”

“Well, hain’t he got a father?” says Tom Sawyer. 

“Yes, he’s got a father, but you can’t never find him these days.  He 

used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain’t been seen

in these parts for a year or more.”

They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they

said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it

wouldn’t be fair and square for the others.  Well, nobody could think of

anything to do--everybody was stumped, and set still.  I was most ready

to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss

Watson--they could kill her.  Everybody said:

“Oh, she’ll do.  That’s all right.  Huck can come in.” 

Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,

and I made my mark on the paper.

“Now,” says Ben Rogers, “what’s the line of business of this Gang?” 

“Nothing only robbery and murder,” Tom said. 

“But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--” 

“Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain’t robbery; it’s burglary,” 

 says Tom Sawyer.  “We ain’t burglars.  That ain’t no sort of style.  We 

are highwaymen.  We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks

on, and kill the people and take their watches and money.”

“Must we always kill the people?” 

“Oh, certainly.  It’s best.  Some authorities think different, but 

mostly it’s considered best to kill them--except some that you bring to

the cave here, and keep them till they’re ransomed.”

“Ransomed?  What’s that?” 

“I don’t know.  But that’s what they do.  I’ve seen it in books; and so 

of course that’s what we’ve got to do.”

“But how can we do it if we don’t know what it is?” 

“Why, blame it all, we’ve _got_ to do it.  Don’t I tell you it’s in the 

books?  Do you want to go to doing different from what’s in the books,

and get things all muddled up?”

“Oh, that’s all very fine to _say_, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation 

are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don’t know how to do it

to them?--that’s the thing I want to get at.  Now, what do you reckon it

is?”

“Well, I don’t know.  But per’aps if we keep them till they’re ransomed, 

it means that we keep them till they’re dead.”

“Now, that’s something _like_.  That’ll answer.  Why couldn’t you said 

that before?  We’ll keep them till they’re ransomed to death; and a

bothersome lot they’ll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying

to get loose.”

“How you talk, Ben Rogers.  How can they get loose when there’s a guard 

over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?”

“A guard!  Well, that _is_ good.  So somebody’s got to set up all night 

and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them.  I think that’s

foolishness. Why can’t a body take a club and ransom them as soon as

they get here?”

“Because it ain’t in the books so--that’s why.  Now, Ben Rogers, do you 

want to do things regular, or don’t you?--that’s the idea.  Don’t you

reckon that the people that made the books knows what’s the correct

thing to do?  Do you reckon _you_ can learn ‘em anything?  Not by a good

deal. No, sir, we’ll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.”

“All right.  I don’t mind; but I say it’s a fool way, anyhow.  Say, do 

we kill the women, too?”

“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn’t let on.  Kill 

the women?  No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.  You

fetch them to the cave, and you’re always as polite as pie to them;

and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any

more.”

“Well, if that’s the way I’m agreed, but I don’t take no stock in it. 

Mighty soon we’ll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows

waiting to be ransomed, that there won’t be no place for the robbers.

But go ahead, I ain’t got nothing to say.”

Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was

scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn’t

want to be a robber any more.

So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him

mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets.  But

Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and

meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.

Ben Rogers said he couldn’t get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted

to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it

on Sunday, and that settled the thing.  They agreed to get together and

fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first

captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was

breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was

dog-tired.

CHAPTER III.

WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on

account of my clothes; but the widow she didn’t scold, but only cleaned

off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would

behave awhile if I could.  Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet

and prayed, but nothing come of it.  She told me to pray every day, and

whatever I asked for I would get it.  But it warn’t so.  I tried it.

Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks.  It warn’t any good to me without

hooks.  I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I

couldn’t make it work.  By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to

try for me, but she said I was a fool.  She never told me why, and I

couldn’t make it out no way.

I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it.

 I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t

Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork?  Why can’t the widow get

back her silver snuffbox that was stole?  Why can’t Miss Watson fat up?

No, says I to my self, there ain’t nothing in it.  I went and told the

widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for

it was “spiritual gifts.”  This was too many for me, but she told me

what she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for

other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about

myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it.  I went out in the

woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn’t see no

advantage about it--except for the other people; so at last I reckoned

I wouldn’t worry about it any more, but just let it go.  Sometimes the

widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make

a body’s mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold

and knock it all down again.  I judged I could see that there was two

Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the

widow’s Providence, but if Miss Watson’s got him there warn’t no help

for him any more.  I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong

to the widow’s if he wanted me, though I couldn’t make out how he was

a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was

so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.

Pap he hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable

for me; I didn’t want to see him no more.  He used to always whale me

when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take

to the woods most of the time when he was around.  Well, about this time

he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so

people said.  They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was

just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all

like pap; but they couldn’t make nothing out of the face, because it had

been in the water so long it warn’t much like a face at all.  They said

he was floating on his back in the water.  They took him and buried him

on the bank.  But I warn’t comfortable long, because I happened to think

of something.  I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don’t float on

his back, but on his face.  So I knowed, then, that this warn’t pap, but

a woman dressed up in a man’s clothes.  So I was uncomfortable again.

 I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he

wouldn’t.

We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned.  All

the boys did.  We hadn’t robbed nobody, hadn’t killed any people, but

only just pretended.  We used to hop out of the woods and go charging

down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market,

but we never hived any of them.  Tom Sawyer called the hogs “ingots,”

 and he called the turnips and stuff “julery,” and we would go to the 

cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed

and marked.  But I couldn’t see no profit in it.  One time Tom sent a

boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan

(which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he

had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish

merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two

hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand “sumter”

 mules, all loaded down with di’monds, and they didn’t have only a guard 

of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called

it, and kill the lot and scoop the things.  He said we must slick up

our swords and guns, and get ready.  He never could go after even a

turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it,

though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them

till you rotted, and then they warn’t worth a mouthful of ashes more

than what they was before.  I didn’t believe we could lick such a crowd

of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants,

so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got

the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill.  But there warn’t

no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn’t no camels nor no elephants.

 It warn’t anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class

at that.  We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we

never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got

a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the

teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut.

 I didn’t see no di’monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so.  He said there was

loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too,

and elephants and things.  I said, why couldn’t we see them, then?  He

said if I warn’t so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I

would know without asking.  He said it was all done by enchantment.  He

said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure,

and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had

turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite.

 I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the

magicians.  Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.

“Why,” said he, “a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they 

would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson.  They

are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.”

“Well,” I says, “s’pose we got some genies to help _us_--can’t we lick 

the other crowd then?”

“How you going to get them?” 

“I don’t know.  How do _they_ get them?” 

“Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies 

come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the

smoke a-rolling, and everything they’re told to do they up and do it.

 They don’t think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and

belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it--or any

other man.”

“Who makes them tear around so?” 

“Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring.  They belong to whoever rubs 

the lamp or the ring, and they’ve got to do whatever he says.  If he

tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di’monds, and fill

it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor’s

daughter from China for you to marry, they’ve got to do it--and they’ve

got to do it before sun-up next morning, too.  And more:  they’ve got

to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you

understand.”

“Well,” says I, “I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping 

the palace themselves ‘stead of fooling them away like that.  And what’s

more--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would

drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.”

“How you talk, Huck Finn.  Why, you’d _have_ to come when he rubbed it, 

whether you wanted to or not.”

“What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church?  All right, then; 

I _would_ come; but I lay I’d make that man climb the highest tree there

was in the country.”

“Shucks, it ain’t no use to talk to you, Huck Finn.  You don’t seem to 

know anything, somehow--perfect saphead.”

I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I

would see if there was anything in it.  I got an old tin lamp and an

iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat

like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn’t

no use, none of the genies come.  So then I judged that all that stuff

was only just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies.  I reckoned he believed in the

A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different.  It had all

the marks of a Sunday-school.

CHAPTER IV.

WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter

now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and

write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six

times seven is thirty-five, and I don’t reckon I could ever get any

further than that if I was to live forever.  I don’t take no stock in

mathematics, anyway.

At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.

Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next

day done me good and cheered me up.  So the longer I went to school the

easier it got to be.  I was getting sort of used to the widow’s ways,

too, and they warn’t so raspy on me.  Living in a house and sleeping in

a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I

used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a

rest to me.  I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the

new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but

sure, and doing very satisfactory.  She said she warn’t ashamed of me.

One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast.

 I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left

shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me,

and crossed me off. She says, “Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what

a mess you are always making!”  The widow put in a good word for me, but

that warn’t going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.

 I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and

wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be.

 There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn’t one

of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along

low-spirited and on the watch-out.

I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go

through the high board fence.  There was an inch of new snow on the

ground, and I seen somebody’s tracks.  They had come up from the quarry

and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden

fence.  It was funny they hadn’t come in, after standing around so.  I

couldn’t make it out.  It was very curious, somehow.  I was going to

follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first.  I didn’t

notice anything at first, but next I did.  There was a cross in the left

boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.

I was up in a second and shinning down the hill.  I looked over my

shoulder every now and then, but I didn’t see nobody.  I was at Judge

Thatcher’s as quick as I could get there.  He said:

“Why, my boy, you are all out of breath.  Did you come for your 

interest?”

“No, sir,” I says; “is there some for me?” 

“Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--over a hundred and fifty 

dollars.  Quite a fortune for you.  You had better let me invest it

along with your six thousand, because if you take it you’ll spend it.”

“No, sir,” I says, “I don’t want to spend it.  I don’t want it at 

all--nor the six thousand, nuther.  I want you to take it; I want to give

it to you--the six thousand and all.”

He looked surprised.  He couldn’t seem to make it out.  He says:

“Why, what can you mean, my boy?” 

I says, “Don’t you ask me no questions about it, please.  You’ll take

it--won’t you?”

He says:

“Well, I’m puzzled.  Is something the matter?” 

“Please take it,” says I, “and don’t ask me nothing--then I won’t have to 

tell no lies.”

He studied a while, and then he says:

“Oho-o!  I think I see.  You want to _sell_ all your property to me--not 

give it.  That’s the correct idea.”

Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:

“There; you see it says ‘for a consideration.’  That means I have bought 

it of you and paid you for it.  Here’s a dollar for you.  Now you sign

it.”

So I signed it, and left.

Miss Watson’s nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which

had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do

magic with it.  He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed

everything.  So I went to him that night and told him pap was here

again, for I found his tracks in the snow.  What I wanted to know was,

what he was going to do, and was he going to stay?  Jim got out his

hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped

it on the floor.  It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch.

 Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same.

 Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened.

 But it warn’t no use; he said it wouldn’t talk. He said sometimes it

wouldn’t talk without money.  I told him I had an old slick counterfeit

quarter that warn’t no good because the brass showed through the silver

a little, and it wouldn’t pass nohow, even if the brass didn’t show,

because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it

every time.  (I reckoned I wouldn’t say nothing about the dollar I got

from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball

would take it, because maybe it wouldn’t know the difference.  Jim smelt

it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball

would think it was good.  He said he would split open a raw Irish potato

and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next

morning you couldn’t see no brass, and it wouldn’t feel greasy no more,

and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball.

 Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.

Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened

again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right.  He said it

would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to.  I says, go on.  So the

hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me.  He says:

“Yo’ ole father doan’ know yit what he’s a-gwyne to do.  Sometimes he 

spec he’ll go ‘way, en den agin he spec he’ll stay.  De bes’ way is to

res’ easy en let de ole man take his own way.  Dey’s two angels hoverin’

roun’ ‘bout him.  One uv ‘em is white en shiny, en t’other one is black.

De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail

in en bust it all up.  A body can’t tell yit which one gwyne to fetch

him at de las’.  But you is all right.  You gwyne to have considable

trouble in yo’ life, en considable joy.  Sometimes you gwyne to git

hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne

to git well agin.  Dey’s two gals flyin’ ‘bout you in yo’ life.  One

uv ‘em’s light en t’other one is dark. One is rich en t’other is po’.

 You’s gwyne to marry de po’ one fust en de rich one by en by.  You

wants to keep ‘way fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no

resk, ‘kase it’s down in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung.”

When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his

own self!

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

bothring about.

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 t’other 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 

considerable 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.” 

“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 a-going 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 a-going 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 a-hold 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.”

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 some time he got powerful thirsty and

clumb out on to 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 old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn’t know no other way.

CHAPTER VI.

WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went

for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he

went for me, too, for not stopping school.  He catched me a couple of

times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged

him or outrun him most of the time.  I didn’t want to go to school much

before, but I reckoned I’d go now to spite pap.  That law trial was a

slow business--appeared like they warn’t ever going to get started on it;

so every now and then I’d borrow two or three dollars off of the judge

for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding.  Every time he got money he

got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and

every time he raised Cain he got jailed.  He was just suited--this kind

of thing was right in his line.

He got to hanging around the widow’s too much and so she told him at

last that if he didn’t quit using around there she would make trouble

for him. Well, _wasn’t_ he mad?  He said he would show who was Huck

Finn’s boss.  So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and

catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and

crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn’t

no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick

you couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it was.

He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.

We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the

key under his head nights.  He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon,

and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on.  Every little

while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the

ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got

drunk and had a good time, and licked me.  The widow she found out where

I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but

pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn’t long after that till I was

used to being where I was, and liked it--all but the cowhide part.

It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking

and fishing, and no books nor study.  Two months or more run along, and

my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn’t see how I’d ever

got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat on

a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever

bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the

time.  I didn’t want to go back no more.  I had stopped cussing, because

the widow didn’t like it; but now I took to it again because pap hadn’t

no objections.  It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it

all around.

But by and by pap got too handy with his hick’ry, and I couldn’t stand

it. I was all over welts.  He got to going away so much, too, and

locking me in.  Once he locked me in and was gone three days.  It was

dreadful lonesome.  I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn’t ever

going to get out any more.  I was scared.  I made up my mind I would fix

up some way to leave there.  I had tried to get out of that cabin many

a time, but I couldn’t find no way.  There warn’t a window to it big

enough for a dog to get through.  I couldn’t get up the chimbly; it

was too narrow.  The door was thick, solid oak slabs.  Pap was pretty

careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away;

I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I

was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in

the time.  But this time I found something at last; I found an old rusty

wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the

clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work.  There was an

old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin

behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and

putting the candle out.  I got under the table and raised the blanket,

and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out--big enough

to let me through.  Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting

towards the end of it when I heard pap’s gun in the woods.  I got rid of

the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty

soon pap come in.

Pap warn’t in a good humor--so he was his natural self.  He said he was

down town, and everything was going wrong.  His lawyer said he reckoned

he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on

the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge

Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there’d be

another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my

guardian, and they guessed it would win this time.  This shook me up

considerable, because I didn’t want to go back to the widow’s any more

and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it.  Then the old man

got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of,

and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn’t skipped any,

and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round,

including a considerable parcel of people which he didn’t know the names

of, and so called them what’s-his-name when he got to them, and went

right along with his cussing.

He said he would like to see the widow get me.  He said he would watch

out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place

six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they

dropped and they couldn’t find me.  That made me pretty uneasy again,

but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn’t stay on hand till he got

that chance.

The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had

got. There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,

ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two

newspapers for wadding, besides some tow.  I toted up a load, and went

back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest.  I thought it all

over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and

take to the woods when I run away.  I guessed I wouldn’t stay in one

place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and

hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor

the widow couldn’t ever find me any more.  I judged I would saw out and

leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would.  I

got so full of it I didn’t notice how long I was staying till the old

man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.

I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark.  While

I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of

warmed up, and went to ripping again.  He had been drunk over in town,

and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.  A body

would a thought he was Adam--he was just all mud.  Whenever his liquor

begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says:

“Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it’s like. 

Here’s the law a-standing ready to take a man’s son away from him--a

man’s own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety

and all the expense of raising.  Yes, just as that man has got that

son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin’ for

_him_ and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him.  And they call

_that_ govment!  That ain’t all, nuther.  The law backs that old Judge

Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o’ my property.  Here’s what

the law does:  The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and

up’ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets

him go round in clothes that ain’t fitten for a hog. They call that

govment!  A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes

I’ve a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes,

and I _told_ ‘em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face.  Lots of ‘em

heard me, and can tell what I said.  Says I, for two cents I’d leave the

blamed country and never come a-near it agin.  Them’s the very words.  I

says look at my hat--if you call it a hat--but the lid raises up and the

rest of it goes down till it’s below my chin, and then it ain’t rightly

a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o’

stove-pipe.  Look at it, says I--such a hat for me to wear--one of the

wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights.

“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful.  Why, looky here. 

There was a free nigger there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white as

a white man.  He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the