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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:28:56 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:28:56 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7105-h.zip b/7105-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ba91c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/7105-h.zip diff --git a/7105-h/7105-h.htm b/7105-h/7105-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2ade1d --- /dev/null +++ b/7105-h/7105-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2803 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>HUCKLEBERRY FINN, By Mark Twain, Part 6.</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>HUCKLEBERRY FINN, By Mark Twain, Part 6.</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Part 6 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Part 6 + Chapters XXVI. to XXX. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: June 27, 2004 [EBook #7105] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN, PART 6. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<br><br><br><br> + + + + +<center> +<h1>ADVENTURES +<br><br> +OF +<br><br> +HUCKLEBERRY FINN</h1> + +<h3>(Tom Sawyer's Comrade)</h3> + +<h2>By Mark Twain</h2> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<h2>Part 6.</h2> +<br> +<br> + <br> +<br> + +<center><img alt="bookcover.jpg (153K)" src="images/bookcover.jpg" +height="1007" width="942"></center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center><img alt="frontispiece.jpg (194K)" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" +height="1028" width="697"></center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center><img alt="titlepage.jpg (75K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" +height="1063" width="769"></center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +<p><a href="#c26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a><br> +A Pious King.—The King's Clergy.—She Asked His +Pardon.—Hiding in the<br> +Room.—Huck Takes the Money.</p> + +<p><a href="#c27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a><br> +The Funeral.—Satisfying Curiosity.—Suspicious of +Huck,—Quick Sales and<br> +Small.</p> + +<p><a href="#c28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a><br> +The Trip to England.—"The Brute!"—Mary Jane Decides +to Leave.—Huck<br> +Parting with Mary Jane.—Mumps.—The Opposition +Line.</p> + +<p><a href="#c29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a><br> +Contested Relationship.—The King Explains the Loss.—A +Question of<br> +Handwriting.—Digging up the Corpse.—Huck Escapes.</p> + +<p><a href="#c30">CHAPTER XXX.</a><br> +The King Went for Him.—A Royal Row.—Powerful +Mellow.</p> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + +<a href="#c26-220">The Cubby</a><br> +<a href="#c26-221">Supper with the Hare-Lip</a><br> +<a href="#c26-224">Honest Injun</a><br> +<a href="#c26-226">The Duke looks under the Bed</a><br> +<a href="#c26-229">Huck takes the Money</a><br> +<a href="#c27-230">A Crack in the Dining-room Door</a><br> +<a href="#c27-232">The Undertaker</a><br> +<a href="#c27-233">"He had a Rat!"</a><br> +<a href="#c27-235">"Was you in my Room?"</a><br> +<a href="#c27-237">Jawing</a><br> +<a href="#c28-239">In Trouble</a><br> +<a href="#c28-241">Indignation</a><br> +<a href="#c28-242">How to Find Them</a><br> +<a href="#c28-244">He Wrote</a><br> +<a href="#c28-246">Hannah with the Mumps</a><br> +<a href="#c28-248">The Auction</a><br> +<a href="#c29-250">The True Brothers</a><br> +<a href="#c29-252">The Doctor leads Huck</a><br> +<a href="#c29-255">The Duke Wrote</a><br> +<a href="#c29-257">"Gentlemen, Gentlemen!"</a><br> +<a href="#c29-260">"Jim Lit Out"</a><br> +<a href="#c30-261">The King shakes Huck</a><br> +<a href="#c30-263">The Duke went for Him</a><br> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center><img alt="notice.jpg (24K)" src="images/notice.jpg" height="236" +width="755"></center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + <br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<blockquote> +<blockquote> +<p>EXPLANATORY</p> + +<p>IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the +Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods +Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and +four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been +done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, +and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal +familiarity with these several forms of speech.</p> + +<p>I make this explanation for the reason that without it many +readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to +talk alike and not succeeding.</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> +</blockquote> +</blockquote> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<h1>HUCKLEBERRY FINN</h1> + +<br> +<br> +<p>Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years +ago</p> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<center><img alt="frontispiece2.jpg (72K)" src="images/frontispiece2.jpg" height="995" width="690"></center> + +<br> +<br> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<a name="c26-220"></a> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c26"></a> +<center> +<img alt="c26-220.jpg (168K)" src="images/c26-220.jpg" height="990" width="786"> +</center> + +<p><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XXVI.</p> + +<p>WELL, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how +they was off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare +room, which would do for Uncle William, and she'd give her own +room to Uncle Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would +turn into the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot; and up +garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it. The king said the +cubby would do for his valley—meaning me.</p> + +<p>So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, +which was plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a +lot of other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle +Harvey's way, but he said they warn't. The frocks was hung along +the wall, and before them was a curtain made out of calico that +hung down to the floor. There was an old hair trunk in one +corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all sorts of little +knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room +with. The king said it was all the more homely and more +pleasanter for these fixings, and so don't disturb them. The +duke's room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was +my cubby.</p> + +<p>That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women +was there, and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and +waited on them, and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane +she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, +and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves +was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was—and +all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out +compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and +said so—said "How DO you get biscuits to brown so nice?" +and "Where, for the land's sake, DID you get these amaz'n +pickles?" and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way +people always does at a supper, you know.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c26-221"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c26-221.jpg (54K)" src="images/c26-221.jpg" height="566" width="444"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the +kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the +niggers clean up the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me +about England, and blest if I didn't think the ice was getting +mighty thin sometimes. She says:</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see the king?"</p> + +<p>"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have—he goes to +our church." I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. + So when I says he goes to our church, she says:</p> + +<p>"What—regular?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—regular. His pew's right over opposite +ourn—on t'other side the pulpit."</p> + +<p>"I thought he lived in London?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?"</p> + +<p>"But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?"</p> + +<p>I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a +chicken bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. + Then I says:</p> + +<p>"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. + That's only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the +sea baths."</p> + +<p>"Why, how you talk—Sheffield ain't on the sea."</p> + +<p>"Well, who said it was?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you did."</p> + +<p>"I DIDN'T nuther."</p> + +<p>"You did!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't."</p> + +<p>"You did."</p> + +<p>"I never said nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>"Well, what DID you say, then?"</p> + +<p>"Said he come to take the sea BATHS—that's what I +said."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't +on the sea?"</p> + +<p>"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any +Congress-water?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no."</p> + +<p>"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to +get a sea bath."</p> + +<p>"How does he get it, then?"</p> + +<p>"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water—in +barrels. There in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, +and he wants his water hot. They can't bile that amount of water +away off there at the sea. They haven't got no conveniences for +it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and +saved time."</p> + +<p>When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so +I was comfortable and glad. Next, she says:</p> + +<p>"Do you go to church, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—regular."</p> + +<p>"Where do you set?"</p> + +<p>"Why, in our pew."</p> + +<p>"WHOSE pew?"</p> + +<p>"Why, OURN—your Uncle Harvey's."</p> + +<p>"His'n? What does HE want with a pew?"</p> + +<p>"Wants it to set in. What did you RECKON he wanted with +it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."</p> + +<p>Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump +again, so I played another chicken bone and got another think. + Then I says:</p> + +<p>"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a +church?"</p> + +<p>"Why, what do they want with more?"</p> + +<p>"What!—to preach before a king? I never did see such a +girl as you. They don't have no less than seventeen."</p> + +<p>"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string +as that, not if I NEVER got to glory. It must take 'em a +week."</p> + +<p>"Shucks, they don't ALL of 'em preach the same day—only +ONE of 'em."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate—and one +thing or another. But mainly they don't do nothing."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, what are they FOR?"</p> + +<p>"Why, they're for STYLE. Don't you know nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't WANT to know no such foolishness as that. How +is servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we +treat our niggers?"</p> + +<p>"NO! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse +than dogs."</p> + +<p>"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and +New Year's week, and Fourth of July?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, just listen! A body could tell YOU hain't ever been to +England by that. Why, Hare-l—why, Joanna, they never see a +holiday from year's end to year's end; never go to the circus, +nor theater, nor nigger shows, nor nowheres."</p> + +<p>"Nor church?"</p> + +<p>"Nor church."</p> + +<p>"But YOU always went to church."</p> + +<p>Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's +servant. But next minute I whirled in on a kind of an +explanation how a valley was different from a common servant and +HAD to go to church whether he wanted to or not, and set with the +family, on account of its being the law. But I didn't do it +pretty good, and when I got done I see she warn't satisfied. She +says:</p> + +<p>"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of +lies?"</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c26-224"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c26-224.jpg (63K)" src="images/c26-224.jpg" height="586" width="432"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>"Honest injun," says I.</p> + +<p>"None of it at all?"</p> + +<p>"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.</p> + +<p>"Lay your hand on this book and say it."</p> + +<p>I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on +it and said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, +and says:</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious +if I'll believe the rest."</p> + +<p>"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping +in with Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to +talk so to him, and him a stranger and so far from his people. + How would you like to be treated so?"</p> + +<p>"That's always your way, Maim—always sailing in to help +somebody before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. + He's told some stretchers, I reckon, and I said I wouldn't +swallow it all; and that's every bit and grain I DID say. I +reckon he can stand a little thing like that, can't he?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's +here in our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to +say it. If you was in his place it would make you feel ashamed; +and so you oughtn't to say a thing to another person that will +make THEM feel ashamed."</p> + +<p>"Why, Maim, he said—"</p> + +<p>"It don't make no difference what he SAID—that ain't the +thing. The thing is for you to treat him KIND, and not be saying +things to make him remember he ain't in his own country and +amongst his own folks."</p> + +<p>I says to myself, THIS is a girl that I'm letting that old +reptle rob her of her money!</p> + +<p>Then Susan SHE waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did +give Hare-lip hark from the tomb!</p> + +<p>Says I to myself, and this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him +rob her of her money!</p> + +<p>Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and +lovely again—which was her way; but when she got done there +warn't hardly anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she +hollered.</p> + +<p>"All right, then," says the other girls; "you just ask his +pardon."</p> + +<p>She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so +beautiful it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a +thousand lies, so she could do it again.</p> + +<p>I says to myself, this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob +her of her money. And when she got through they all jest laid +theirselves out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst +friends. I felt so ornery and low down and mean that I says to +myself, my mind's made up; I'll hive that money for them or +bust.</p> + +<p>So then I lit out—for bed, I said, meaning some time or +another. When I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. + I says to myself, shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow +on these frauds? No—that won't do. He might tell who told +him; then the king and the duke would make it warm for me. Shall +I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? No—I dasn't do it. Her +face would give them a hint, sure; they've got the money, and +they'd slide right out and get away with it. If she was to fetch +in help I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done with, +I judge. No; there ain't no good way but one. I got to steal +that money, somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they +won't suspicion that I done it. They've got a good thing here, +and they ain't a-going to leave till they've played this family +and this town for all they're worth, so I'll find a chance time +enough. I'll steal it and hide it; and by and by, when I'm away +down the river, I'll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it's +hid. But I better hive it tonight if I can, because the doctor +maybe hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has; he might scare +them out of here yet.</p> + +<p>So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the +hall was dark, but I found the duke's room, and started to paw +around it with my hands; but I recollected it wouldn't be much +like the king to let anybody else take care of that money but his +own self; so then I went to his room and begun to paw around +there. But I see I couldn't do nothing without a candle, and I +dasn't light one, of course. So I judged I'd got to do the other +thing—lay for them and eavesdrop. About that time I hears +their footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed; I +reached for it, but it wasn't where I thought it would be; but I +touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane's frocks, so I jumped in +behind that and snuggled in amongst the gowns, and stood there +perfectly still.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c26-226"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c26-226.jpg (73K)" src="images/c26-226.jpg" height="503" width="636"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke +done was to get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I +hadn't found the bed when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's +kind of natural to hide under the bed when you are up to anything +private. They sets down then, and the king says:</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it? And cut it middlin' short, because it's +better for us to be down there a-whoopin' up the mournin' than up +here givin' 'em a chance to talk us over."</p> + +<p>"Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable. + That doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've +got a notion, and I think it's a sound one."</p> + +<p>"What is it, duke?"</p> + +<p>"That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, +and clip it down the river with what we've got. Specially, +seeing we got it so easy—GIVEN back to us, flung at our +heads, as you may say, when of course we allowed to have to steal +it back. I'm for knocking off and lighting out."</p> + +<p>That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it +would a been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and +disappointed, The king rips out and says:</p> + +<p>"What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off +like a passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' +worth o' property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped +in?—and all good, salable stuff, too."</p> + +<p>The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he +didn't want to go no deeper—didn't want to rob a lot of +orphans of EVERYTHING they had.</p> + +<p>"Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We sha'n't rob 'em of +nothing at all but jest this money. The people that BUYS the +property is the suff'rers; because as soon 's it's found out 'at +we didn't own it—which won't be long after we've +slid—the sale won't be valid, and it 'll all go back to the +estate. These yer orphans 'll git their house back agin, and +that's enough for THEM; they're young and spry, and k'n easy earn +a livin'. THEY ain't a-goin to suffer. Why, jest +think—there's thous'n's and thous'n's that ain't nigh so +well off. Bless you, THEY ain't got noth'n' to complain of."</p> + +<p>Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and +said all right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to +stay, and that doctor hanging over them. But the king says:</p> + +<p>"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for HIM? Hain't we got +all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough +majority in any town?"</p> + +<p>So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says:</p> + +<p>"I don't think we put that money in a good place."</p> + +<p>That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get +a hint of no kind to help me. The king says:</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first +you know the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to +box these duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger +can run across money and not borrow some of it?"</p> + +<p>"Your head's level agin, duke," says the king; and he comes +a-fumbling under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. + I stuck tight to the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; +and I wondered what them fellows would say to me if they catched +me; and I tried to think what I'd better do if they did catch me. + But the king he got the bag before I could think more than about +a half a thought, and he never suspicioned I was around. They +took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick that was +under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst +the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only +makes up the feather-bed, and don't turn over the straw tick only +about twice a year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting +stole now.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c26-229"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c26-229.jpg (72K)" src="images/c26-229.jpg" height="528" width="485"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + +<p>But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was +half-way down stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it +there till I could get a chance to do better. I judged I better +hide it outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed +it they would give the house a good ransacking: I knowed that +very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes all on; but I +couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in such a +sweat to get through with the business. By and by I heard the +king and the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid +with my chin at the top of my ladder, and waited to see if +anything was going to happen. But nothing did.</p> + +<p>So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early +ones hadn't begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<a name="c27-230"></a> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c27"></a> +<center> +<img alt="c27-230.jpg (153K)" src="images/c27-230.jpg" height="971" width="807"> +</center> + +<p><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XXVII.</p> + +<p>I CREPT to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I +tiptoed along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a +sound anywheres. I peeped through a crack of the dining-room +door, and see the men that was watching the corpse all sound +asleep on their chairs. The door was open into the parlor, where +the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in both rooms. I +passed along, and the parlor door was open; but I see there +warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I shoved +on by; but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. + Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind +me. I run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the +only place I see to hide the bag was in the coffin. The lid was +shoved along about a foot, showing the dead man's face down in +there, with a wet cloth over it, and his shroud on. I tucked the +money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond where his hands was +crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and then I run +back across the room and in behind the door.</p> + +<p>The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very +soft, and kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her +handkerchief, and I see she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear +her, and her back was to me. I slid out, and as I passed the +dining-room I thought I'd make sure them watchers hadn't seen me; +so I looked through the crack, and everything was all right. + They hadn't stirred.</p> + +<p>I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the +thing playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and +run so much resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, +all right; because when we get down the river a hundred mile or +two I could write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up +again and get it; but that ain't the thing that's going to +happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the money 'll be +found when they come to screw on the lid. Then the king 'll get +it again, and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody +another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I WANTED to slide +down and get it out of there, but I dasn't try it. Every minute +it was getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of them watchers +would begin to stir, and I might get catched—catched with +six thousand dollars in my hands that nobody hadn't hired me to +take care of. I don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as +that, I says to myself.</p> + +<p>When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, +and the watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the +family and the widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their +faces to see if anything had been happening, but I couldn't +tell.</p> + +<p>Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his +man, and they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a +couple of chairs, and then set all our chairs in rows, and +borrowed more from the neighbors till the hall and the parlor and +the dining-room was full. I see the coffin lid was the way it +was before, but I dasn't go to look in under it, with folks +around.</p> + +<p>Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls +took seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a +half an hour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and +looked down at the dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in +a tear, and it was all very still and solemn, only the girls and +the beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their +heads bent, and sobbing a little. There warn't no other sound +but the scraping of the feet on the floor and blowing +noses—because people always blows them more at a funeral +than they do at other places except church.</p> + +<p>When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around +in his black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on +the last touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape +and comfortable, and making no more sound than a cat. He never +spoke; he moved people around, he squeezed in late ones, he +opened up passageways, and done it with nods, and signs with his +hands. Then he took his place over against the wall. He was the softest, +glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see; +and there warn't no more smile to him than there is to a ham.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c27-232"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c27-232.jpg (31K)" src="images/c27-232.jpg" height="557" width="268"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>They had borrowed a melodeum—a sick one; and when +everything was ready a young woman set down and worked it, and it +was pretty skreeky and colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, +and Peter was the only one that had a good thing, according to my +notion. Then the Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and solemn, and +begun to talk; and straight off the most outrageous row busted +out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was only one dog, but he +made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right along; the +parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait—you +couldn't hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and +nobody didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see +that long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much +as to say, "Don't you worry—just depend on me." Then he +stooped down and begun to glide along the wall, just his +shoulders showing over the people's heads. So he glided along, +and the powwow and racket getting more and more outrageous all +the time; and at last, when he had gone around two sides of the +room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds we +heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing +howl or two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson +begun his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or two here +comes this undertaker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall +again; and so he glided and glided around three sides of the +room, and then rose up, and shaded his mouth with his hands, and +stretched his neck out towards the preacher, over the people's +heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "HE HAD A RAT!" + Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to his +place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, +because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that +don't cost nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a +man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular +man in town than what that undertaker was.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c27-233"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c27-233.jpg (48K)" src="images/c27-233.jpg" height="421" width="493"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and +tiresome; and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his +usual rubbage, and at last the job was through, and the +undertaker begun to sneak up on the coffin with his screw-driver. + I was in a sweat then, and watched him pretty keen. But he never +meddled at all; just slid the lid along as soft as mush, and +screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I didn't know +whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s'pose +somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?—now how do I know +whether to write to Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and +didn't find nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it, I +says, I might get hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and +keep dark, and not write at all; the thing's awful mixed now; +trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish +to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole +business!</p> + +<p>They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching +faces again—I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. + But nothing come of it; the faces didn't tell me nothing.</p> + +<p>The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened +everybody up, and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out +the idea that his congregation over in England would be in a +sweat about him, so he must hurry and settle up the estate right +away and leave for home. He was very sorry he was so pushed, and +so was everybody; they wished he could stay longer, but they said +they could see it couldn't be done. And he said of course him +and William would take the girls home with them; and that pleased +everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed and +amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, +too—tickled them so they clean forgot they ever had a +trouble in the world; and told him to sell out as quick as he +wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor things was that glad +and happy it made my heart ache to see +them getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way +for me to chip in and change the general tune.</p> + +<p>Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers +and all the property for auction straight off—sale two days +after the funeral; but anybody could buy private beforehand if +they wanted to.</p> + +<p>So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the +girls' joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come +along, and the king sold them the niggers reasonable, for +three-day drafts as they called it, and away they went, the two +sons up the river to Memphis, and their mother down the river to +Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break +their hearts for grief; they cried around each other, and took on +so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they +hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away +from the town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight +of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each +other's necks and crying; and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, +but would a had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn't +knowed the sale warn't no account and the niggers would be back +home in a week or two.</p> + +<p>The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many +come out flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the +mother and the children that way. It injured the frauds some; +but the old fool he bulled right along, spite of all the duke +could say or do, and I tell you the duke was powerful uneasy.</p> + +<p>Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the +king and the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see +by their look that there was trouble. The king says:</p> + +<p>"Was you in my room night before last?"</p> + +<p>"No, your majesty"—which was the way I always called him +when nobody but our gang warn't around.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c27-235"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c27-235.jpg (75K)" src="images/c27-235.jpg" height="586" width="467"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>"Was you in there yisterday er last night?"</p> + +<p>"No, your majesty."</p> + +<p>"Honor bright, now—no lies."</p> + +<p>"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I +hain't been a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and +the duke and showed it to you."</p> + +<p>The duke says:</p> + +<p>"Have you seen anybody else go in there?"</p> + +<p>"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Stop and think."</p> + +<p>I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:</p> + +<p>"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."</p> + +<p>Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't +ever expected it, and then like they HAD. Then the duke +says:</p> + +<p>"What, all of them?"</p> + +<p>"No—leastways, not all at once—that is, I don't +think I ever see them all come OUT at once but just one +time."</p> + +<p>"Hello! When was that?"</p> + +<p>"It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It +warn't early, because I overslept. I was just starting down the +ladder, and I see them."</p> + +<p>"Well, go on, GO on! What did they do? How'd they act?"</p> + +<p>"They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as +fur as I see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that +they'd shoved in there to do up your majesty's room, or +something, s'posing you was up; and found you WARN'T up, and so +they was hoping to slide out of the way of trouble without waking +you up, if they hadn't already waked you up."</p> + +<p>"Great guns, THIS is a go!" says the king; and both of them +looked pretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there +a-thinking and scratching their heads a minute, and the duke he +bust into a kind of a little raspy chuckle, and says:</p> + +<p>"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. + They let on to be SORRY they was going out of this region! And +I believed they WAS sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. + Don't ever tell ME any more that a nigger ain't got any +histrionic talent. Why, the way they played that thing it would +fool ANYBODY. In my opinion, there's a fortune in 'em. If I had +capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better lay-out than +that—and here we've gone and sold 'em for a song. Yes, and +ain't privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where IS that +song—that draft?"</p> + +<p>"In the bank for to be collected. Where WOULD it be?"</p> + +<p>"Well, THAT'S all right then, thank goodness."</p> + +<p>Says I, kind of timid-like:</p> + +<p>"Is something gone wrong?"</p> + +<p>The king whirls on me and rips out:</p> + +<p>"None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r +own affairs—if you got any. Long as you're in this town +don't you forgit THAT—you hear?" Then he says to the duke, +"We got to jest swaller it and say noth'n': mum's the word for +US."</p> + +<p>As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles +again, and says:</p> + +<p>"Quick sales AND small profits! It's a good +business—yes."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c27-237"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c27-237.jpg (38K)" src="images/c27-237.jpg" height="379" width="529"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>The king snarls around on him and says:</p> + +<p>"I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out so quick. + If the profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, +and none to carry, is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?"</p> + +<p>"Well, THEY'D be in this house yet and we WOULDN'T if I could +a got my advice listened to."</p> + +<p>The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then +swapped around and lit into ME again. He give me down the banks +for not coming and TELLING him I see the niggers come out of his +room acting that way—said any fool would a KNOWED something +was up. And then waltzed in and cussed HIMSELF awhile, and said +it all come of him not laying late and taking his natural rest +that morning, and he'd be blamed if he'd ever do it again. So +they went off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it +all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't done the niggers no +harm by it.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<a name="c28-239"></a> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c28"></a> +<center> +<img alt="c28-239.jpg (155K)" src="images/c28-239.jpg" height="959" width="768"> +</center> + + +<p><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XXVIII.</p> + +<p>BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder +and started for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls' room the +door was open, and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, +which was open and she'd been packing things in it—getting +ready to go to England. But she had stopped now with a folded +gown in her lap, and had her face in her hands, crying. I felt +awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I went in there +and says:</p> + +<p>"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people in trouble, +and I can't—most always. Tell me about it."</p> + +<p>So she done it. And it was the niggers—I just expected +it. She said the beautiful trip to England was most about +spoiled for her; she didn't know HOW she was ever going to be +happy there, knowing the mother and the children warn't ever +going to see each other no more—and then busted out +bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't EVER going to see each +other any more!"</p> + +<p>"But they WILL—and inside of two weeks—and I KNOW +it!" says I.</p> + +<p>Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could +budge she throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it +AGAIN, say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN!</p> + +<p>I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a +close place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set +there, very impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kind +of happy and eased-up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled +out. So I went to studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a +body that ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is +taking considerable many resks, though I ain't had no experience, +and can't say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and yet +here's a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the +truth is better and actuly SAFER than a lie. I must lay it by in +my mind, and think it over some time or other, it's so kind of +strange and unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I says +to myself at last, I'm a-going to chance it; I'll up and tell the +truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a +kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you'll go to. +Then I says:</p> + +<p>"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways +where you could go and stay three or four days?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; Mr. Lothrop's. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers +will see each other again inside of two weeks—here in this +house—and PROVE how I know it—will you go to Mr. +Lothrop's and stay four days?"</p> + +<p>"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"</p> + +<p>"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of YOU +than just your word—I druther have it than another man's +kiss-the-Bible." She smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I +says, "If you don't mind it, I'll shut the door—and bolt +it."</p> + +<p>Then I come back and set down again, and says:</p> + +<p>"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I +got to tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, +because it's a bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there +ain't no help for it. These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at +all; they're a couple of frauds—regular dead-beats. + There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand the rest +middling easy."</p> + +<p>It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over +the shoal water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing +higher and higher all the time, and told her every blame thing, +from where we first struck that young fool going up to the +steamboat, clear through to where she flung herself on to the +king's breast at the front door and he kissed her sixteen or +seventeen times—and then up she jumps, with her face afire +like sunset, and says:</p> + +<p>"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute—not a +SECOND—we'll have them tarred and feathered, and flung in +the river!"</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c28-241"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c28-241.jpg (34K)" src="images/c28-241.jpg" height="513" width="298"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>Says I:</p> + +<p>"Cert'nly. But do you mean BEFORE you go to Mr. Lothrop's, +or—"</p> + +<p>"Oh," she says, "what am I THINKING about!" she says, and set +right down again. "Don't mind what I said—please +don't—you WON'T, now, WILL you?" Laying her silky hand on +mine in that kind of a way that I said I would die first. "I +never thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now go on, and I +won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, and whatever you +say I'll do it."</p> + +<p>"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm +fixed so I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want +to or not—I druther not tell you why; and if you was to +blow on them this town would get me out of their claws, and I'd +be all right; but there'd be another person that you don't know +about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got to save HIM, hain't +we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them."</p> + +<p>Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe +I could get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, +and then leave. But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime +without anybody aboard to answer questions but me; so I didn't +want the plan to begin working till pretty late to-night. I +says:</p> + +<p>"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't +have to stay at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is +it?"</p> + +<p>"A little short of four miles—right out in the country, +back here."</p> + +<p>"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay +low till nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch +you home again—tell them you've thought of something. If +you get here before eleven put a candle in this window, and if I +don't turn up wait TILL eleven, and THEN if I don't turn up it +means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then you come out +and spread the news around, and get these beats jailed."</p> + +<p>"Good," she says, "I'll do it."</p> + +<p>"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took +up along with them, you must up and say I told you the whole +thing beforehand, and you must stand by me all you can."</p> + +<p>"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of +your head!" she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes +snap when she said it, too.</p> + +<p>"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these +rapscallions ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I WAS +here. I could swear they was beats and bummers, that's all, +though that's worth something. Well, there's others can do that +better than what I can, and they're people that ain't going to be +doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you how to find them. + Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There—'Royal +Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When +the court wants to find out something about these two, let them +send up to Bricksville and say they've got the men that played +the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesses—why, you'll +have that entire town down here before you can hardly wink, Miss +Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c28-242"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c28-242.jpg (27K)" src="images/c28-242.jpg" height="358" width="390"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I +says:</p> + +<p>"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody +don't have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after +the auction on accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going +out of this till they get that money; and the way we've fixed it +the sale ain't going to count, and they ain't going to get no +money. It's just like the way it was with the niggers—it +warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before long. Why, +they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet—they're in +the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary."</p> + +<p>"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then +I'll start straight for Mr. Lothrop's."</p> + +<p>"'Deed, THAT ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no +manner of means; go BEFORE breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss +Mary?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I never thought—and come to think, I don't know. + What was it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. + I don't want no better book than what your face is. A body can +set down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you +can go and face your uncles when they come to kiss you +good-morning, and never—"</p> + +<p>"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before +breakfast—I'll be glad to. And leave my sisters with +them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a +while. They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. + I don't want you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in +this town; if a neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this +morning your face would tell something. No, you go right along, +Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them. I'll tell Miss +Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went away +for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a +friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning."</p> + +<p>"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love +given to them."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell HER +so—no harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no +trouble; and it's the little things that smooths people's roads +the most, down here below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, +and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then I says: "There's one more +thing—that bag of money."</p> + +<p>"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to +think HOW they got it."</p> + +<p>"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."</p> + +<p>"Why, who's got it?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I HAD it, because I stole it +from them; and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid +it, but I'm afraid it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss +Mary Jane, I'm just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I +could; I did honest. I come nigh getting caught, and I had to +shove it into the first place I come to, and run—and it +warn't a good place."</p> + +<p>"Oh, stop blaming yourself—it's too bad to do it, and I +won't allow it—you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. + Where did you hide it?"</p> + +<p>I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; +and I couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make +her see that corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money +on his stomach. So for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I +says:</p> + +<p>"I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if +you don't mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a +piece of paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. +Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you reckon that 'll do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when +you was crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, +and I was mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c28-244"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c28-244.jpg (25K)" src="images/c28-244.jpg" height="216" width="619"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there +all by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right +under her own roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I +folded it up and give it to her I see the water come into her +eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says:</p> + +<p>"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; +and if I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and +I'll think of you a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for +you, too!"—and she was gone.</p> + +<p>Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job +that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the +same—she was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for +Judus if she took the notion—there warn't no back-down to +her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in my opinion +she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion +she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't +no flattery. And when it comes to beauty—and goodness, +too—she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since +that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever +seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a +many a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; +and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me to pray for +HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.</p> + +<p>Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because +nobody see her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I +says:</p> + +<p>"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the +river that you all goes to see sometimes?"</p> + +<p>They says:</p> + +<p>"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."</p> + +<p>"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary +Jane she told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful +hurry—one of them's sick."</p> + +<p>"Which one?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks +it's—"</p> + +<p>"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very +one."</p> + +<p>"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took +bad?"</p> + +<p>"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, +Miss Mary Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many +hours."</p> + +<p>"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?"</p> + +<p>I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, +so I says:</p> + +<p>"Mumps."</p> + +<p>"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got +the mumps."</p> + +<p>"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with THESE +mumps. These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary +Jane said."</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c28-246"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c28-246.jpg (36K)" src="images/c28-246.jpg" height="501" width="318"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>"How's it a new kind?"</p> + +<p>"Because it's mixed up with other things."</p> + +<p>"What other things?"</p> + +<p>"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and +consumption, and yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't +know what all."</p> + +<p>"My land! And they call it the MUMPS?"</p> + +<p>"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."</p> + +<p>"Well, what in the nation do they call it the MUMPS for?"</p> + +<p>"Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it starts +with."</p> + +<p>"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his +toe, and take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, +and bust his brains out, and somebody come along and ask what +killed him, and some numskull up and say, 'Why, he stumped his +TOE.' Would ther' be any sense in that? NO. And ther' ain't no +sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?"</p> + +<p>"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW +catching—in the dark? If you don't hitch on to one tooth, +you're bound to on another, ain't you? And you can't get away +with that tooth without fetching the whole harrow along, can you? + Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you may +say—and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to +get it hitched on good."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to +Uncle Harvey and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would. I wouldn't +lose no time."</p> + +<p>"Well, why wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your +uncles obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? + And do you reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you +to go all that journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for +you. So fur, so good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? + Very well, then; is a PREACHER going to deceive a steamboat +clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK?—so as to get +them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he ain't. + What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but +my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for +my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, +and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three +months it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, +if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey—"</p> + +<p>"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be +having good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out +whether Mary Jane's got it or not? Why, you talk like a +muggins."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the +neighbors."</p> + +<p>"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. + Can't you SEE that THEY'D go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but +just to not tell anybody at ALL."</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe you're right—yes, I judge you ARE +right."</p> + +<p>"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a +while, anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, +'Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, +and say I've run over the river to see Mr.'—Mr.—what +IS the name of that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so +much of?—I mean the one that—"</p> + +<p>"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem +to remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she +has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the +auction and buy this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter +would ruther they had it than anybody else; and she's going to +stick to them till they say they'll come, and then, if she ain't +too tired, she's coming home; and if she is, she'll be home in +the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about the +Proctors, but only about the Apthorps—which 'll be +perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their +buying the house; I know it, because she told me so herself."</p> + +<p>"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their +uncles, and give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the +message.</p> + +<p>Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing +because they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke +would ruther Mary Jane was off working for the auction than +around in reach of Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I +had done it pretty neat—I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a +done it no neater himself. Of course he would a throwed more +style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not being brung up +to it.</p> + +<p>Well, they held the auction in the public square, along +towards the end of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung +along, and the old man he was on hand and looking his level +pisonest, up there longside of the auctioneer, and chipping in a +little Scripture now and then, or a little goody-goody saying of +some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing for sympathy all +he knowed how, and just spreading himself generly.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c28-248"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c28-248.jpg (75K)" src="images/c28-248.jpg" height="589" width="481"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was +sold—everything but a little old trifling lot in the +graveyard. So they'd got to work that off—I never see such +a girafft as the king was for wanting to swallow EVERYTHING. + Well, whilst they was at it a steamboat landed, and in about two +minutes up comes a crowd a-whooping and yelling and laughing and +carrying on, and singing out:</p> + +<p>"HERE'S your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to +old Peter Wilks—and you pays your money and you takes your +choice!"</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c29-250"></a> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c29"></a> +<center> +<img alt="c29-250.jpg (176K)" src="images/c29-250.jpg" height="970" width="765"> +</center> + +<p><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XXIX.</p> + +<p>THEY was fetching a very nice-looking old gentleman along, and +a nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, +my souls, how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But +I didn't see no joke about it, and I judged it would strain the +duke and the king some to see any. I reckoned they'd turn pale. + But no, nary a pale did THEY turn. The duke he never let on he +suspicioned what was up, but just went a goo-gooing around, +happy and satisfied, like a jug that's googling out buttermilk; +and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed down sorrowful on +them new-comers like it give him the stomach-ache in his very +heart to think there could be such frauds and rascals in the +world. Oh, he done it admirable. Lots of the principal people +gethered around the king, to let him see they was on his side. + That old gentleman that had just come looked all puzzled to +death. Pretty soon he begun to speak, and I see straight off he +pronounced LIKE an Englishman—not the king's way, though +the king's WAS pretty good for an imitation. I can't give the +old gent's words, nor I can't imitate him; but he turned around +to the crowd, and says, about like this:</p> + +<p>"This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for; and I'll +acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't very well fixed to meet it +and answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he's +broke his arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here +last night in the night by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks' brother +Harvey, and this is his brother William, which can't hear nor +speak—and can't even make signs to amount to much, now't +he's only got one hand to work them with. We are who we say we +are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can prove it. +But up till then I won't say nothing more, but go to the hotel +and wait."</p> + +<p>So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, +and blethers out:</p> + +<p>"Broke his arm—VERY likely, AIN'T it?—and very +convenient, too, for a fraud that's got to make signs, and ain't +learnt how. Lost their baggage! That's MIGHTY good!—and +mighty ingenious—under the CIRCUMSTANCES!"</p> + +<p>So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three +or four, or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; +another one was a sharp-looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of +the old-fashioned kind made out of carpet-stuff, that had just +come off of the steamboat and was talking to him in a low voice, +and glancing towards the king now and then and nodding their +heads—it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to +Louisville; and another one was a big rough husky that come along +and listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to +the king now. And when the king got done this husky up and +says:</p> + +<p>"Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd you come to +this town?"</p> + +<p>"The day before the funeral, friend," says the king.</p> + +<p>"But what time o' day?"</p> + +<p>"In the evenin'—'bout an hour er two before +sundown."</p> + +<p>"HOW'D you come?"</p> + +<p>"I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the +MORNIN'—in a canoe?"</p> + +<p>"I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'."</p> + +<p>"It's a lie."</p> + +<p>Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that +way to an old man and a preacher.</p> + +<p>"Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He was up at +the Pint that mornin'. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up +there, and he was up there. I see him there. He come in a +canoe, along with Tim Collins and a boy."</p> + +<p>The doctor he up and says:</p> + +<p>"Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, +Hines?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why, yonder he is, now. + I know him perfectly easy."</p> + +<p>It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:</p> + +<p>"Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or +not; but if THESE two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all. I +think it's our duty to see that they don't get away from here +till we've looked into this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, +the rest of you. We'll take these fellows to the tavern and +affront them with t'other couple, and I reckon we'll find out +SOMETHING before we get through."</p> + +<p>It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's +friends; so we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he +led me along by the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he +never let go my hand.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c29-252"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c29-252.jpg (62K)" src="images/c29-252.jpg" height="562" width="433"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some +candles, and fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor +says:</p> + +<p>"I don't wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think +they're frauds, and they may have complices that we don't know +nothing about. If they have, won't the complices get away with +that bag of gold Peter Wilks left? It ain't unlikely. If these +men ain't frauds, they won't object to sending for that money and +letting us keep it till they prove they're all right—ain't +that so?"</p> + +<p>Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a +pretty tight place right at the outstart. But the king he only +looked sorrowful, and says:</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain't got no +disposition to throw anything in the way of a fair, open, +out-and-out investigation o' this misable business; but, alas, +the money ain't there; you k'n send and see, if you want to."</p> + +<p>"Where is it, then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her I took and +hid it inside o' the straw tick o' my bed, not wishin' to bank it +for the few days we'd be here, and considerin' the bed a safe +place, we not bein' used to niggers, and suppos'n' 'em honest, +like servants in England. The niggers stole it the very next +mornin' after I had went down stairs; and when I sold 'em I +hadn't missed the money yit, so they got clean away with it. My +servant here k'n tell you 'bout it, gentlemen."</p> + +<p>The doctor and several said "Shucks!" and I see nobody didn't +altogether believe him. One man asked me if I see the niggers +steal it. I said no, but I see them sneaking out of the room and +hustling away, and I never thought nothing, only I reckoned they +was afraid they had waked up my master and was trying to get away +before he made trouble with them. That was all they asked me. + Then the doctor whirls on me and says:</p> + +<p>"Are YOU English, too?"</p> + +<p>I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, +"Stuff!"</p> + +<p>Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and +there we had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never +said a word about supper, nor ever seemed to think about +it—and so they kept it up, and kept it up; and it WAS the +worst mixed-up thing you ever see. They made the king tell his +yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n; and anybody but +a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a SEEN that the old +gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies. And by and by +they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a +left-handed look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed +enough to talk on the right side. I begun to tell about +Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all about the English +Wilkses, and so on; but I didn't get pretty fur till the doctor +begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says:</p> + +<p>"Set down, my boy; I wouldn't strain myself if I was you. I +reckon you ain't used to lying, it don't seem to come handy; what +you want is practice. You do it pretty awkward."</p> + +<p>I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be +let off, anyway.</p> + +<p>The doctor he started to say something, and turns and +says:</p> + +<p>"If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell—" The king +broke in and reached out his hand, and says:</p> + +<p>"Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend that he's +wrote so often about?"</p> + +<p>The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and +looked pleased, and they talked right along awhile, and then got +to one side and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and +says:</p> + +<p>"That 'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it, along with +your brother's, and then they'll know it's all right."</p> + +<p>So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and +twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled +off something; and then they give the pen to the duke—and +then for the first time the duke looked sick. But he took the +pen and wrote. So then the lawyer turns to the new old gentleman +and says:</p> + +<p>"You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your +names."</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c29-255"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c29-255.jpg (36K)" src="images/c29-255.jpg" height="358" width="445"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it. The +lawyer looked powerful astonished, and says:</p> + +<p>"Well, it beats ME"—and snaked a lot of old letters out +of his pocket, and examined them, and then examined the old man's +writing, and then THEM again; and then says: "These old letters +is from Harvey Wilks; and here's THESE two handwritings, and +anybody can see they didn't write them" (the king and the duke +looked sold and foolish, I tell you, to see how the lawyer had +took them in), "and here's THIS old gentleman's hand writing, and +anybody can tell, easy enough, HE didn't write them—fact +is, the scratches he makes ain't properly WRITING at all. Now, +here's some letters from—"</p> + +<p>The new old gentleman says:</p> + +<p>"If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my hand but +my brother there—so he copies for me. It's HIS hand you've +got there, not mine."</p> + +<p>"WELL!" says the lawyer, "this IS a state of things. I've got +some of William's letters, too; so if you'll get him to write a +line or so we can com—"</p> + +<p>"He CAN'T write with his left hand," says the old gentleman. + "If he could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his +own letters and mine too. Look at both, please—they're by +the same hand."</p> + +<p>The lawyer done it, and says:</p> + +<p>"I believe it's so—and if it ain't so, there's a heap +stronger resemblance than I'd noticed before, anyway. Well, +well, well! I thought we was right on the track of a solution, +but it's gone to grass, partly. But anyway, one thing is +proved—THESE two ain't either of 'em Wilkses"—and he +wagged his head towards the king and the duke.</p> + +<p>Well, what do you think? That muleheaded old fool wouldn't +give in THEN! Indeed he wouldn't. Said it warn't no fair test. + Said his brother William was the cussedest joker in the world, +and hadn't tried to write—HE see William was going to play +one of his jokes the minute he put the pen to paper. And so he +warmed up and went warbling right along till he was actuly +beginning to believe what he was saying HIMSELF; but pretty soon +the new gentleman broke in, and says:</p> + +<p>"I've thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped +to lay out my br—helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for +burying?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," says somebody, "me and Ab Turner done it. We're both +here."</p> + +<p>Then the old man turns towards the king, and says:</p> + +<p>"Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his +breast?"</p> + +<p>Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or +he'd a squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut +under, it took him so sudden; and, mind you, it was a thing that +was calculated to make most ANYBODY sqush to get fetched such a +solid one as that without any notice, because how was HE going to +know what was tattooed on the man? He whitened a little; he +couldn't help it; and it was mighty still in there, and everybody +bending a little forwards and gazing at him. Says I to myself, +NOW he'll throw up the sponge—there ain't no more use. + Well, did he? A body can't hardly believe it, but he didn't. I +reckon he thought he'd keep the thing up till he tired them +people out, so they'd thin out, and him and the duke could break +loose and get away. Anyway, he set there, and pretty soon he +begun to smile, and says:</p> + +<p>"Mf! It's a VERY tough question, AIN'T it! YES, sir, I k'n +tell you what's tattooed on his breast. It's jest a small, thin, +blue arrow—that's what it is; and if you don't look clost, +you can't see it. NOW what do you say—hey?"</p> + +<p>Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean +out-and-out cheek.</p> + +<p>The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his +pard, and his eye lights up like he judged he'd got the king THIS +time, and says:</p> + +<p>"There—you've heard what he said! Was there any such +mark on Peter Wilks' breast?"</p> + +<p>Both of them spoke up and says:</p> + +<p>"We didn't see no such mark."</p> + +<p>"Good!" says the old gentleman. "Now, what you DID see on his +breast was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped +when he was young), and a W, with dashes between them, so: + P—B—W"—and he marked them that way on a piece +of paper. "Come, ain't that what you saw?"</p> + +<p>Both of them spoke up again, and says:</p> + +<p>"No, we DIDN'T. We never seen any marks at all."</p> + +<p>Well, everybody WAS in a state of mind now, and they sings +out:</p> + +<p>"The whole BILIN' of 'm 's frauds! Le's duck 'em! le's drown +'em! le's ride 'em on a rail!" and everybody was whooping at +once, and there was a rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps +on the table and yells, and says:</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen—gentleMEN! Hear me just a word—just a +SINGLE word—if you PLEASE! There's one way yet—let's +go and dig up the corpse and look."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c29-257"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c29-257.jpg (39K)" src="images/c29-257.jpg" height="534" width="405"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>That took them.</p> + +<p>"Hooray!" they all shouted, and was starting right off; but +the lawyer and the doctor sung out:</p> + +<p>"Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and +fetch THEM along, too!"</p> + +<p>"We'll do it!" they all shouted; "and if we don't find them +marks we'll lynch the whole gang!"</p> + +<p>I WAS scared, now, I tell you. But there warn't no getting +away, you know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, +straight for the graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the +river, and the whole town at our heels, for we made noise enough, +and it was only nine in the evening.</p> + +<p>As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent Mary Jane out +of town; because now if I could tip her the wink she'd light out +and save me, and blow on our dead-beats.</p> + +<p>Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on +like wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, +and the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to +shiver amongst the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and +most dangersome I ever was in; and I was kinder stunned; +everything was going so different from what I had allowed for; +stead of being fixed so I could take my own time if I wanted to, +and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and +set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the +world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks. If +they didn't find them—</p> + +<p>I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I +couldn't think about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and +it was a beautiful time to give the crowd the slip; but that big +husky had me by the wrist—Hines—and a body might as +well try to give Goliar the slip. He dragged me right along, he +was so excited, and I had to run to keep up.</p> + +<p>When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed +over it like an overflow. And when they got to the grave they +found they had about a hundred times as many shovels as they +wanted, but nobody hadn't thought to fetch a lantern. But they +sailed into digging anyway by the flicker of the lightning, and +sent a man to the nearest house, a half a mile off, to borrow +one.</p> + +<p>So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, +and the rain started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and +the lightning come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; +but them people never took no notice of it, they was so full of +this business; and one minute you could see everything and every +face in that big crowd, and the shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out +of the grave, and the next second the dark wiped it all out, and +you couldn't see nothing at all.</p> + +<p>At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, +and then such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as +there was, to scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in +the dark, that way, it was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist +dreadful pulling and tugging so, and I reckon he clean forgot I +was in the world, he was so excited and panting.</p> + +<p>All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white +glare, and somebody sings out:</p> + +<p>"By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his +breast!"</p> + +<p>Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my +wrist and give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and +the way I lit out and shinned for the road in the dark there +ain't nobody can tell.</p> + +<p>I had the road all to myself, and I fairly +flew—leastways, I had it all to myself except the solid +dark, and the now-and-then glares, and the buzzing of the rain, +and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting of the thunder; +and sure as you are born I did clip it along!</p> + +<p>When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody out in the +storm, so I never hunted for no back streets, but humped it +straight through the main one; and when I begun to get towards +our house I aimed my eye and set it. No light there; the house +all dark—which made me feel sorry and disappointed, I +didn't know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by, FLASH +comes the light in Mary Jane's window! and my heart swelled up +sudden, like to bust; and the same second the house and all was +behind me in the dark, and wasn't ever going to be before me no +more in this world. She WAS the best girl I ever see, and had the +most sand.</p> + +<p>The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make +the towhead, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the +first time the lightning showed me one that wasn't chained I +snatched it and shoved. It was a canoe, and warn't fastened with +nothing but a rope. The towhead was a rattling big distance off, +away out there in the middle of the river, but I didn't lose no +time; and when I struck the raft at last I was so fagged I would +a just laid down to blow and gasp if I could afforded it. But I +didn't. As I sprung aboard I sung out:</p> + +<p>"Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, +we're shut of them!"</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c29-260"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c29-260.jpg (73K)" src="images/c29-260.jpg" height="576" width="456"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he +was so full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my +heart shot up in my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I +forgot he was old King Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and +it most scared the livers and lights out of me. But Jim fished +me out, and was going to hug me and bless me, and so on, he was +so glad I was back and we was shut of the king and the duke, but +I says:</p> + +<p>"Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut +loose and let her slide!"</p> + +<p>So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and +it DID seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the +big river, and nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, +and jump up and crack my heels a few times—I couldn't help +it; but about the third crack I noticed a sound that I knowed +mighty well, and held my breath and listened and waited; and sure +enough, when the next flash busted out over the water, here they +come!—and just a-laying to their oars and making their +skiff hum! It was the king and the duke.</p> + +<p>So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and +it was all I could do to keep from crying.</p> + + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<a name="c30-261"></a> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c30"></a> +<center> +<img alt="c30-261.jpg (165K)" src="images/c30-261.jpg" height="951" width="775"> +</center> + + +<p><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XXX.</p> + +<p>WHEN they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the +collar, and says:</p> + +<p>"Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our +company, hey?"</p> + +<p>I says:</p> + +<p>"No, your majesty, we warn't—PLEASE don't, your +majesty!"</p> + +<p>"Quick, then, and tell us what WAS your idea, or I'll shake +the insides out o' you!"</p> + +<p>"Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it happened, your +majesty. The man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and +kept saying he had a boy about as big as me that died last year, +and he was sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when +they was all took by surprise by finding the gold, and made a +rush for the coffin, he lets go of me and whispers, 'Heel it now, +or they'll hang ye, sure!' and I lit out. It didn't seem no good +for ME to stay—I couldn't do nothing, and I didn't want to +be hung if I could get away. So I never stopped running till I +found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to hurry, or +they'd catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you and +the duke wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, +and was awful glad when we see you coming; you may ask Jim if I +didn't."</p> + +<p>Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and +said, "Oh, yes, it's MIGHTY likely!" and shook me up again, and +said he reckoned he'd drownd me. But the duke says:</p> + +<p>"Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would YOU a done any +different? Did you inquire around for HIM when you got loose? I +don't remember it."</p> + +<p>So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and +everybody in it. But the duke says:</p> + +<p>"You better a blame' sight give YOURSELF a good cussing, for +you're the one that's entitled to it most. You hain't done a +thing from the start that had any sense in it, except coming out +so cool and cheeky with that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That WAS +bright—it was right down bully; and it was the thing that +saved us. For if it hadn't been for that they'd a jailed us till +them Englishmen's baggage come—and then—the +penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to the graveyard, +and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the excited +fools hadn't let go all holts and made that rush to get a look +we'd a slept in our cravats to-night—cravats warranted to +WEAR, too—longer than WE'D need 'em."</p> + +<p>They was still a minute—thinking; then the king says, +kind of absent-minded like:</p> + +<p>"Mf! And we reckoned the NIGGERS stole it!"</p> + +<p>That made me squirm!</p> + +<p>"Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and +sarcastic, "WE did."</p> + +<p>After about a half a minute the king drawls out:</p> + +<p>"Leastways, I did."</p> + +<p>The duke says, the same way:</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I did."</p> + +<p>The king kind of ruffles up, and says:</p> + +<p>"Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?"</p> + +<p>The duke says, pretty brisk:</p> + +<p>"When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was YOU +referring to?"</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" says the king, very sarcastic; "but I don't +know—maybe you was asleep, and didn't know what you was +about."</p> + +<p>The duke bristles up now, and says:</p> + +<p>"Oh, let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a +blame' fool? Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that +coffin?"</p> + +<p>"YES, sir! I know you DO know, because you done it +yourself!"</p> + +<p>"It's a lie!"—and the duke went for him. The king sings +out:</p> + +<p>"Take y'r hands off!—leggo my throat!—I take it +all back!"</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="c30-263"></a> +<br> +<br> +<center> +<img alt="c30-263.jpg (54K)" src="images/c30-263.jpg" height="404" width="657"> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>The duke says:</p> + +<p>"Well, you just own up, first, that you DID hide that money +there, intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come +back and dig it up, and have it all to yourself."</p> + +<p>"Wait jest a minute, duke—answer me this one question, +honest and fair; if you didn't put the money there, say it, and +I'll b'lieve you, and take back everything I said."</p> + +<p>"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, +now!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one +more—now DON'T git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to +hook the money and hide it?"</p> + +<p>The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he +says:</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway. But you +not only had it in mind to do it, but you DONE it."</p> + +<p>"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I +won't say I warn't goin' to do it, because I WAS; but you—I +mean somebody—got in ahead o' me."</p> + +<p>"It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you done it, +or—"</p> + +<p>The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:</p> + +<p>"'Nough!—I OWN UP!"</p> + +<p>I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much +more easier than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his +hands off and says:</p> + +<p>"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's WELL for you +to set there and blubber like a baby—it's fitten for you, +after the way you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for +wanting to gobble everything—and I a-trusting you all the +time, like you was my own father. You ought to been ashamed of +yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor +niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel +ridiculous to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage. + Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the +deffisit—you wanted to get what money I'd got out of the +Nonesuch and one thing or another, and scoop it ALL!"</p> + +<p>The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:</p> + +<p>"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it +warn't me."</p> + +<p>"Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!" says the +duke. "And NOW you see what you GOT by it. They've got all +their own money back, and all of OURN but a shekel or two +BESIDES. G'long to bed, and don't you deffersit ME no more +deffersits, long 's YOU live!"</p> + +<p>So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for +comfort, and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in +about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the +tighter they got the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in +each other's arms. They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed +the king didn't get mellow enough to forget to remember to not +deny about hiding the money-bag again. That made me feel easy +and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we had a long +gabble, and I told Jim everything.</p> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Part 6 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN, PART 6. *** + +***** This file should be named 7105-h.htm or 7105-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/0/7105/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Part 6 + Chapters XXVI. to XXX. + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: June 27, 2004 [EBook #7105] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN, PART 6. *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + +HUCKLEBERRY FINN + +By Mark Twain + +Part 6. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +WELL, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off +for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would do for +Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle Harvey, which was a +little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her sisters and +sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it. +The king said the cubby would do for his valley--meaning me. + +So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was plain +but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps took +out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he said they +warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was a +curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There was an old +hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all sorts of +little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room +with. The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for +these fixings, and so don't disturb them. The duke's room was pretty +small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby. + +That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there, +and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on them, and +the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of the +table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, +and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried +chickens was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to +force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, +and said so--said "How DO you get biscuits to brown so nice?" and "Where, +for the land's sake, DID you get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind +of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you +know. + +And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen +off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up +the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest +if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says: + +"Did you ever see the king?" + +"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church." I +knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes +to our church, she says: + +"What--regular?" + +"Yes--regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the +pulpit." + +"I thought he lived in London?" + +"Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?" + +"But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?" + +I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken +bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says: + +"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's +only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths." + +"Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea." + +"Well, who said it was?" + +"Why, you did." + +"I DIDN'T nuther." + +"You did!" + +"I didn't." + +"You did." + +"I never said nothing of the kind." + +"Well, what DID you say, then?" + +"Said he come to take the sea BATHS--that's what I said." + +"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the +sea?" + +"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?" + +"Why, no." + +"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea +bath." + +"How does he get it, then?" + +"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels. There +in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his water +hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea. +They haven't got no conveniences for it." + +"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved +time." + +When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was +comfortable and glad. Next, she says: + +"Do you go to church, too?" + +"Yes--regular." + +"Where do you set?" + +"Why, in our pew." + +"WHOSE pew?" + +"Why, OURN--your Uncle Harvey's." + +"His'n? What does HE want with a pew?" + +"Wants it to set in. What did you RECKON he wanted with it?" + +"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit." + +Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I +played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says: + +"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?" + +"Why, what do they want with more?" + +"What!--to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you. +They don't have no less than seventeen." + +"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that, not +if I NEVER got to glory. It must take 'em a week." + +"Shucks, they don't ALL of 'em preach the same day--only ONE of 'em." + +"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?" + +"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate--and one thing or +another. But mainly they don't do nothing." + +"Well, then, what are they FOR?" + +"Why, they're for STYLE. Don't you know nothing?" + +"Well, I don't WANT to know no such foolishness as that. How is servants +treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our niggers?" + +"NO! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs." + +"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's +week, and Fourth of July?" + +"Oh, just listen! A body could tell YOU hain't ever been to England by +that. Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year's end +to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger shows, nor +nowheres." + +"Nor church?" + +"Nor church." + +"But YOU always went to church." + +Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But +next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was +different from a common servant and HAD to go to church whether he wanted +to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the law. But +I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she warn't +satisfied. She says: + +"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?" + +"Honest injun," says I. + +"None of it at all?" + +"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I. + +"Lay your hand on this book and say it." + +I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and +said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says: + +"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll +believe the rest." + +"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in with +Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him, +and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be +treated so?" + +"That's always your way, Maim--always sailing in to help somebody before +they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some stretchers, +I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's every bit and +grain I DID say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like that, can't +he?" + +"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's here in our +house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you was in +his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't to say a +thing to another person that will make THEM feel ashamed." + +"Why, Maim, he said--" + +"It don't make no difference what he SAID--that ain't the thing. The +thing is for you to treat him KIND, and not be saying things to make him +remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks." + +I says to myself, THIS is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle rob her +of her money! + +Then Susan SHE waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give +Hare-lip hark from the tomb! + +Says I to myself, and this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her of +her money! + +Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely +again--which was her way; but when she got done there warn't hardly +anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered. + +"All right, then," says the other girls; "you just ask his pardon." + +She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful it +was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so she +could do it again. + +I says to myself, this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her of her +money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves out to +make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so ornery +and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up; I'll hive +that money for them or bust. + +So then I lit out--for bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When I +got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself, shall +I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds? No--that won't +do. He might tell who told him; then the king and the duke would make it +warm for me. Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? No--I dasn't do +it. Her face would give them a hint, sure; they've got the money, and +they'd slide right out and get away with it. If she was to fetch in help +I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done with, I judge. No; +there ain't no good way but one. I got to steal that money, somehow; and +I got to steal it some way that they won't suspicion that I done it. +They've got a good thing here, and they ain't a-going to leave till +they've played this family and this town for all they're worth, so I'll +find a chance time enough. I'll steal it and hide it; and by and by, when +I'm away down the river, I'll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where +it's hid. But I better hive it tonight if I can, because the doctor +maybe hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has; he might scare them out +of here yet. + +So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the hall was dark, +but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it with my hands; +but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let anybody else +take care of that money but his own self; so then I went to his room and +begun to paw around there. But I see I couldn't do nothing without a +candle, and I dasn't light one, of course. So I judged I'd got to do the +other thing--lay for them and eavesdrop. About that time I hears their +footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed; I reached for it, +but it wasn't where I thought it would be; but I touched the curtain that +hid Mary Jane's frocks, so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in +amongst the gowns, and stood there perfectly still. + +They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done was to +get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found the bed +when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to hide under +the bed when you are up to anything private. They sets down then, and +the king says: + +"Well, what is it? And cut it middlin' short, because it's better for us +to be down there a-whoopin' up the mournin' than up here givin' 'em a +chance to talk us over." + +"Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable. That +doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've got a notion, +and I think it's a sound one." + +"What is it, duke?" + +"That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, and clip +it down the river with what we've got. Specially, seeing we got it so +easy--GIVEN back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of +course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for knocking off and +lighting out." + +That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it would a been a +little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed, The king +rips out and says: + +"What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off like a +passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o' +property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?--and all good, +salable stuff, too." + +The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't want +to go no deeper--didn't want to rob a lot of orphans of EVERYTHING they +had. + +"Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We sha'n't rob 'em of nothing at +all but jest this money. The people that BUYS the property is the +suff'rers; because as soon 's it's found out 'at we didn't own it--which +won't be long after we've slid--the sale won't be valid, and it 'll all +go back to the estate. These yer orphans 'll git their house back agin, +and that's enough for THEM; they're young and spry, and k'n easy earn a +livin'. THEY ain't a-goin to suffer. Why, jest think--there's thous'n's +and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off. Bless you, THEY ain't got +noth'n' to complain of." + +Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said all +right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and that +doctor hanging over them. But the king says: + +"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for HIM? Hain't we got all the fools +in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?" + +So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says: + +"I don't think we put that money in a good place." + +That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a hint of +no kind to help me. The king says: + +"Why?" + +"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know +the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up +and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and not +borrow some of it?" + +"Your head's level agin, duke," says the king; and he comes a-fumbling +under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck tight to +the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what them +fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I tried to think what I'd +better do if they did catch me. But the king he got the bag before I +could think more than about a half a thought, and he never suspicioned I +was around. They took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick +that was under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst +the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only makes up +the feather-bed, and don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a +year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting stole now. + +But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-way down +stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I could get +a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of the house +somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the house a good +ransacking: I knowed that very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes +all on; but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in such +a sweat to get through with the business. By and by I heard the king and +the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the +top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was going to happen. But +nothing did. + +So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't +begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +I CREPT to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed +along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I +peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that was +watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door was open +into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in +both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but I see there +warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; +but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. Just then I +heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the +parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the +bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing +the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his +shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond +where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and +then I run back across the room and in behind the door. + +The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and +kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see +she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was to me. I +slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I'd make sure them +watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the crack, and everything +was all right. They hadn't stirred. + +I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing +playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much +resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right; because +when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to +Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but that ain't the +thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the +money 'll be found when they come to screw on the lid. Then the king 'll +get it again, and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody another +chance to smouch it from him. Of course I WANTED to slide down and get it +out of there, but I dasn't try it. Every minute it was getting earlier +now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin to stir, and I +might get catched--catched with six thousand dollars in my hands that +nobody hadn't hired me to take care of. I don't wish to be mixed up in +no such business as that, I says to myself. + +When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the +watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and the +widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything +had been happening, but I couldn't tell. + +Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and they +set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs, and then +set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors till the +hall and the parlor and the dining-room was full. I see the coffin lid +was the way it was before, but I dasn't go to look in under it, with +folks around. + +Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took seats +in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an hour the +people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the dead +man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was all very +still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holding handkerchiefs to +their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a little. There +warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the floor and +blowing noses--because people always blows them more at a funeral than +they do at other places except church. + +When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his black +gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last touches, and +getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable, and making no +more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved people around, he +squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and done it with nods, +and signs with his hands. Then he took his place over against the wall. +He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see; and there +warn't no more smile to him than there is to a ham. + +They had borrowed a melodeum--a sick one; and when everything was ready a +young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and +colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one +that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson +opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the most +outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was only +one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right +along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait--you +couldn't hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and nobody +didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see that +long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say, +"Don't you worry--just depend on me." Then he stooped down and begun to +glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people's heads. +So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and more +outrageous all the time; and at last, when he had gone around two sides +of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds we +heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or +two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn +talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's +back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided and +glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his +mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher, +over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "HE HAD +A RAT!" Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to his +place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, because +naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don't cost +nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be looked up +to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in town than what that +undertaker was. + +Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome; and +then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and at +last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the +coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him +pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along as soft +as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I didn't +know whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s'pose somebody +has hogged that bag on the sly?--now how do I know whether to write to +Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't find nothing, what +would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and +jailed; I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all; the +thing's awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred +times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole +business! + +They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces +again--I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come +of it; the faces didn't tell me nothing. + +The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up, +and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his +congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must +hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He was +very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could +stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be done. And he +said of course him and William would take the girls home with them; and +that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed +and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too--tickled +them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and told +him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor +things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting +fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and +change the general tune. + +Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and all +the property for auction straight off--sale two days after the funeral; +but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to. + +So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy +got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king +sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called it, +and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their +mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them +niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other, +and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they +hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the +town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor +miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying; +and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and +tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the +niggers would be back home in a week or two. + +The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out +flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the +children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he +bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you +the duke was powerful uneasy. + +Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and +the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look +that there was trouble. The king says: + +"Was you in my room night before last?" + +"No, your majesty"--which was the way I always called him when nobody but +our gang warn't around. + +"Was you in there yisterday er last night?" + +"No, your majesty." + +"Honor bright, now--no lies." + +"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't been +a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it +to you." + +The duke says: + +"Have you seen anybody else go in there?" + +"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe." + +"Stop and think." + +I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says: + +"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times." + +Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever +expected it, and then like they HAD. Then the duke says: + +"What, all of them?" + +"No--leastways, not all at once--that is, I don't think I ever see them +all come OUT at once but just one time." + +"Hello! When was that?" + +"It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early, +because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see +them." + +"Well, go on, GO on! What did they do? How'd they act?" + +"They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I +see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in +there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up; +and found you WARN'T up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the way +of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you up." + +"Great guns, THIS is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked pretty +sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and scratching +their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspy +chuckle, and says: + +"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let on to +be SORRY they was going out of this region! And I believed they WAS +sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell ME any more +that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why, the way they played +that thing it would fool ANYBODY. In my opinion, there's a fortune in +'em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better lay-out +than that--and here we've gone and sold 'em for a song. Yes, and ain't +privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where IS that song--that draft?" + +"In the bank for to be collected. Where WOULD it be?" + +"Well, THAT'S all right then, thank goodness." + +Says I, kind of timid-like: + +"Is something gone wrong?" + +The king whirls on me and rips out: + +"None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own +affairs--if you got any. Long as you're in this town don't you forgit +THAT--you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swaller it +and say noth'n': mum's the word for US." + +As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and +says: + +"Quick sales AND small profits! It's a good business--yes." + +The king snarls around on him and says: + +"I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out so quick. If the +profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to carry, +is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?" + +"Well, THEY'D be in this house yet and we WOULDN'T if I could a got my +advice listened to." + +The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped around +and lit into ME again. He give me down the banks for not coming and +TELLING him I see the niggers come out of his room acting that way--said +any fool would a KNOWED something was up. And then waltzed in and cussed +HIMSELF awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late and taking +his natural rest that morning, and he'd be blamed if he'd ever do it +again. So they went off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it +all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder and started +for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls' room the door was open, and +I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and she'd +been packing things in it--getting ready to go to England. But she had +stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her hands, +crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I went in +there and says: + +"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people in trouble, and I can't +--most always. Tell me about it." + +So she done it. And it was the niggers--I just expected it. She said +the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she didn't +know HOW she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and the +children warn't ever going to see each other no more--and then busted out +bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says: + +"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't EVER going to see each other any +more!" + +"But they WILL--and inside of two weeks--and I KNOW it!" says I. + +Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could budge she +throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN, +say it AGAIN! + +I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close place. +I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very impatient +and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and eased-up, like a +person that's had a tooth pulled out. So I went to studying it out. I +says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is +in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, though I ain't had no +experience, and can't say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and +yet here's a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the truth +is better and actuly SAFER than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and +think it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and unregular. +I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last, I'm a-going +to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem +most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see +where you'll go to. Then I says: + +"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you +could go and stay three or four days?" + +"Yes; Mr. Lothrop's. Why?" + +"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will see +each other again inside of two weeks--here in this house--and PROVE how I +know it--will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?" + +"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!" + +"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of YOU than just your +word--I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She smiled +and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it, I'll shut +the door--and bolt it." + +Then I come back and set down again, and says: + +"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell +the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind, +and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These +uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of frauds +--regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand +the rest middling easy." + +It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal +water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher +all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck +that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she +flung herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her +sixteen or seventeen times--and then up she jumps, with her face afire +like sunset, and says: + +"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute--not a SECOND--we'll have them +tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!" + +Says I: + +"Cert'nly. But do you mean BEFORE you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or--" + +"Oh," she says, "what am I THINKING about!" she says, and set right down +again. "Don't mind what I said--please don't--you WON'T, now, WILL you?" +Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I said I would +die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now go on, +and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, and whatever you say +I'll do it." + +"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so I +got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not--I +druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would +get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another +person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got +to save HIM, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them." + +Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I could +get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave. +But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard +to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working +till pretty late to-night. I says: + +"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay +at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?" + +"A little short of four miles--right out in the country, back here." + +"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till +nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again +--tell them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put +a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait TILL eleven, and +THEN if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe. +Then you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats +jailed." + +"Good," she says, "I'll do it." + +"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along +with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and +you must stand by me all you can." + +"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!" +she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said +it, too. + +"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions +ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear +they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something. +Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're +people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you +how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There--'Royal +Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court +wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to +Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch, +and ask for some witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here +before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too." + +I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says: + +"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't have +to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on +accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they +get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count, +and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was with +the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before +long. Why, they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet--they're in +the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary." + +"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start +straight for Mr. Lothrop's." + +"'Deed, THAT ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner of +means; go BEFORE breakfast." + +"Why?" + +"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?" + +"Well, I never thought--and come to think, I don't know. What was it?" + +"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I don't +want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read +it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles +when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never--" + +"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast--I'll be glad to. +And leave my sisters with them?" + +"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while. They +might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to +see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to +ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. No, +you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them. +I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went +away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a +friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning." + +"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to +them." + +"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell HER so--no harm +in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's the +little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below; it +would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then I +says: "There's one more thing--that bag of money." + +"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think HOW +they got it." + +"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it." + +"Why, who's got it?" + +"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I HAD it, because I stole it from them; +and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid +it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as +sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I come +nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I come +to, and run--and it warn't a good place." + +"Oh, stop blaming yourself--it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow it +--you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it?" + +I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I +couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that +corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So +for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says: + +"I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't +mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and +you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you +reckon that 'll do?" + +"Oh, yes." + +So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was +crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty +sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane." + +It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by +herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own +roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to +her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the +hand, hard, and says: + +"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I +don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of +you a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!"--and she was +gone. + +Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more +nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that +kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there +warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but +in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my +opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't +no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she lays +over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go +out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've +thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she +would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me +to pray for HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust. + +Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see +her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says: + +"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that +you all goes to see sometimes?" + +They says: + +"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly." + +"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she +told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of +them's sick." + +"Which one?" + +"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--" + +"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?" + +"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one." + +"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?" + +"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane +said, and they don't think she'll last many hours." + +"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?" + +I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says: + +"Mumps." + +"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the mumps." + +"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with THESE mumps. These +mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said." + +"How's it a new kind?" + +"Because it's mixed up with other things." + +"What other things?" + +"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and +yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all." + +"My land! And they call it the MUMPS?" + +"That's what Miss Mary Jane said." + +"Well, what in the nation do they call it the MUMPS for?" + +"Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it starts with." + +"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take +pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains +out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull +up and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.' Would ther' be any sense in that? +NO. And ther' ain't no sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?" + +"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW catching--in the dark? +If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't +you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole +harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow, +as you may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to +get it hitched on good." + +"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle Harvey +and--" + +"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would. I wouldn't lose no +time." + +"Well, why wouldn't you?" + +"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles +obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you +reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that +journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good. +Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a PREACHER +going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK? +--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he +ain't. What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but +my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my +niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's +my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to +show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to +tell your uncle Harvey--" + +"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good +times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's +got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins." + +"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors." + +"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't you +SEE that THEY'D go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell +anybody at ALL." + +"Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you ARE right." + +"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while, +anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?" + +"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to +give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over +the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what IS the name of that rich family your +uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one that--" + +"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?" + +"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to remember +them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to +ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this house, +because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than anybody +else; and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come, and +then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home; and if she is, she'll be +home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about the +Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll be perfectly true, +because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know +it, because she told me so herself." + +"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and give +them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message. + +Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because +they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther Mary +Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Doctor +Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat--I +reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of course he +would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not +being brung up to it. + +Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the end +of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the old man +he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of the +auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and then, or a little +goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing +for sympathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself generly. + +But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was sold +--everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So they'd got +to work that off--I never see such a girafft as the king was for wanting +to swallow EVERYTHING. Well, whilst they was at it a steamboat landed, +and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-whooping and yelling and +laughing and carrying on, and singing out: + +"HERE'S your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old Peter +Wilks--and you pays your money and you takes your choice!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +THEY was fetching a very nice-looking old gentleman along, and a +nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my souls, +how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But I didn't see no +joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke and the king some to +see any. I reckoned they'd turn pale. But no, nary a pale did THEY +turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but just went +a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that's googling out +buttermilk; and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed down sorrowful +on them new-comers like it give him the stomach-ache in his very heart to +think there could be such frauds and rascals in the world. Oh, he done +it admirable. Lots of the principal people gethered around the king, to +let him see they was on his side. That old gentleman that had just come +looked all puzzled to death. Pretty soon he begun to speak, and I see +straight off he pronounced LIKE an Englishman--not the king's way, though +the king's WAS pretty good for an imitation. I can't give the old gent's +words, nor I can't imitate him; but he turned around to the crowd, and +says, about like this: + +"This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for; and I'll +acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't very well fixed to meet it and +answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he's broke his arm, +and our baggage got put off at a town above here last night in the night +by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks' brother Harvey, and this is his brother +William, which can't hear nor speak--and can't even make signs to amount +to much, now't he's only got one hand to work them with. We are who we +say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can prove it. +But up till then I won't say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait." + +So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, and +blethers out: + +"Broke his arm--VERY likely, AIN'T it?--and very convenient, too, for a +fraud that's got to make signs, and ain't learnt how. Lost their +baggage! That's MIGHTY good!--and mighty ingenious--under the +CIRCUMSTANCES!" + +So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or four, or +maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; another one was a +sharp-looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old-fashioned kind made +out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of the steamboat and was +talking to him in a low voice, and glancing towards the king now and then +and nodding their heads--it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to +Louisville; and another one was a big rough husky that come along and +listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the king +now. And when the king got done this husky up and says: + +"Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd you come to this town?" + +"The day before the funeral, friend," says the king. + +"But what time o' day?" + +"In the evenin'--'bout an hour er two before sundown." + +"HOW'D you come?" + +"I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati." + +"Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the MORNIN'--in a +canoe?" + +"I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'." + +"It's a lie." + +Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an +old man and a preacher. + +"Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He was up at the Pint that +mornin'. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up there, and he was up +there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and +a boy." + +The doctor he up and says: + +"Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?" + +"I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why, yonder he is, now. I know him +perfectly easy." + +It was me he pointed at. The doctor says: + +"Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not; but if +THESE two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all. I think it's our duty +to see that they don't get away from here till we've looked into this +thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you. We'll take these +fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other couple, and I reckon +we'll find out SOMETHING before we get through." + +It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's friends; so we +all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led me along by the +hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go my hand. + +We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles, and +fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor says: + +"I don't wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they're +frauds, and they may have complices that we don't know nothing about. If +they have, won't the complices get away with that bag of gold Peter Wilks +left? It ain't unlikely. If these men ain't frauds, they won't object +to sending for that money and letting us keep it till they prove they're +all right--ain't that so?" + +Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a pretty +tight place right at the outstart. But the king he only looked +sorrowful, and says: + +"Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain't got no disposition to +throw anything in the way of a fair, open, out-and-out investigation o' +this misable business; but, alas, the money ain't there; you k'n send and +see, if you want to." + +"Where is it, then?" + +"Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her I took and hid it +inside o' the straw tick o' my bed, not wishin' to bank it for the few +days we'd be here, and considerin' the bed a safe place, we not bein' +used to niggers, and suppos'n' 'em honest, like servants in England. The +niggers stole it the very next mornin' after I had went down stairs; and +when I sold 'em I hadn't missed the money yit, so they got clean away +with it. My servant here k'n tell you 'bout it, gentlemen." + +The doctor and several said "Shucks!" and I see nobody didn't altogether +believe him. One man asked me if I see the niggers steal it. I said no, +but I see them sneaking out of the room and hustling away, and I never +thought nothing, only I reckoned they was afraid they had waked up my +master and was trying to get away before he made trouble with them. That +was all they asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me and says: + +"Are YOU English, too?" + +I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, "Stuff!" + +Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we had +it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about +supper, nor ever seemed to think about it--and so they kept it up, and +kept it up; and it WAS the worst mixed-up thing you ever see. They made +the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n; and +anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a SEEN that the old +gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies. And by and by they +had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look +out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right +side. I begun to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all +about the English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn't get pretty fur till +the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says: + +"Set down, my boy; I wouldn't strain myself if I was you. I reckon you +ain't used to lying, it don't seem to come handy; what you want is +practice. You do it pretty awkward." + +I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let off, +anyway. + +The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says: + +"If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell--" The king broke in and +reached out his hand, and says: + +"Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend that he's wrote so often +about?" + +The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked pleased, +and they talked right along awhile, and then got to one side and talked +low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and says: + +"That 'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it, along with your +brother's, and then they'll know it's all right." + +So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and twisted +his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something; +and then they give the pen to the duke--and then for the first time the +duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote. So then the lawyer +turns to the new old gentleman and says: + +"You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your names." + +The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it. The lawyer looked +powerful astonished, and says: + +"Well, it beats ME"--and snaked a lot of old letters out of his pocket, +and examined them, and then examined the old man's writing, and then THEM +again; and then says: "These old letters is from Harvey Wilks; and +here's THESE two handwritings, and anybody can see they didn't write +them" (the king and the duke looked sold and foolish, I tell you, to see +how the lawyer had took them in), "and here's THIS old gentleman's hand +writing, and anybody can tell, easy enough, HE didn't write them--fact +is, the scratches he makes ain't properly WRITING at all. Now, here's +some letters from--" + +The new old gentleman says: + +"If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my hand but my brother +there--so he copies for me. It's HIS hand you've got there, not mine." + +"WELL!" says the lawyer, "this IS a state of things. I've got some of +William's letters, too; so if you'll get him to write a line or so we can +com--" + +"He CAN'T write with his left hand," says the old gentleman. "If he +could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his own letters and +mine too. Look at both, please--they're by the same hand." + +The lawyer done it, and says: + +"I believe it's so--and if it ain't so, there's a heap stronger +resemblance than I'd noticed before, anyway. Well, well, well! I +thought we was right on the track of a solution, but it's gone to grass, +partly. But anyway, one thing is proved--THESE two ain't either of 'em +Wilkses"--and he wagged his head towards the king and the duke. + +Well, what do you think? That muleheaded old fool wouldn't give in THEN! +Indeed he wouldn't. Said it warn't no fair test. Said his brother +William was the cussedest joker in the world, and hadn't tried to write +--HE see William was going to play one of his jokes the minute he put the +pen to paper. And so he warmed up and went warbling right along till he +was actuly beginning to believe what he was saying HIMSELF; but pretty +soon the new gentleman broke in, and says: + +"I've thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped to lay out +my br--helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying?" + +"Yes," says somebody, "me and Ab Turner done it. We're both here." + +Then the old man turns towards the king, and says: + +"Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his breast?" + +Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or he'd a +squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut under, it took him +so sudden; and, mind you, it was a thing that was calculated to make most +ANYBODY sqush to get fetched such a solid one as that without any notice, +because how was HE going to know what was tattooed on the man? He +whitened a little; he couldn't help it; and it was mighty still in there, +and everybody bending a little forwards and gazing at him. Says I to +myself, NOW he'll throw up the sponge--there ain't no more use. Well, +did he? A body can't hardly believe it, but he didn't. I reckon he +thought he'd keep the thing up till he tired them people out, so they'd +thin out, and him and the duke could break loose and get away. Anyway, +he set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile, and says: + +"Mf! It's a VERY tough question, AIN'T it! YES, sir, I k'n tell you +what's tattooed on his breast. It's jest a small, thin, blue arrow +--that's what it is; and if you don't look clost, you can't see it. NOW +what do you say--hey?" + +Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean out-and-out +cheek. + +The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard, and his +eye lights up like he judged he'd got the king THIS time, and says: + +"There--you've heard what he said! Was there any such mark on Peter +Wilks' breast?" + +Both of them spoke up and says: + +"We didn't see no such mark." + +"Good!" says the old gentleman. "Now, what you DID see on his breast was +a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was +young), and a W, with dashes between them, so: P--B--W"--and he marked +them that way on a piece of paper. "Come, ain't that what you saw?" + +Both of them spoke up again, and says: + +"No, we DIDN'T. We never seen any marks at all." + +Well, everybody WAS in a state of mind now, and they sings out: + +"The whole BILIN' of 'm 's frauds! Le's duck 'em! le's drown 'em! le's +ride 'em on a rail!" and everybody was whooping at once, and there was a +rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table and yells, and +says: + +"Gentlemen--gentleMEN! Hear me just a word--just a SINGLE word--if you +PLEASE! There's one way yet--let's go and dig up the corpse and look." + +That took them. + +"Hooray!" they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the lawyer +and the doctor sung out: + +"Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and fetch THEM +along, too!" + +"We'll do it!" they all shouted; "and if we don't find them marks we'll +lynch the whole gang!" + +I WAS scared, now, I tell you. But there warn't no getting away, you +know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for the +graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole town +at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only nine in the +evening. + +As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent Mary Jane out of town; +because now if I could tip her the wink she'd light out and save me, and +blow on our dead-beats. + +Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like +wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the +lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst +the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most dangersome I ever +was in; and I was kinder stunned; everything was going so different from +what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed so I could take my own time +if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to +save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the +world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks. If they +didn't find them-- + +I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't think +about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful +time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me by the wrist +--Hines--and a body might as well try to give Goliar the slip. He dragged +me right along, he was so excited, and I had to run to keep up. + +When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed over it +like an overflow. And when they got to the grave they found they had +about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody hadn't +thought to fetch a lantern. But they sailed into digging anyway by the +flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a +mile off, to borrow one. + +So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, and the rain +started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the lightning come +brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them people never took +no notice of it, they was so full of this business; and one minute you +could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the shovelfuls +of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second the dark wiped +it all out, and you couldn't see nothing at all. + +At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then +such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to +scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark, that way, it +was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and tugging so, and I +reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and panting. + +All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare, and +somebody sings out: + +"By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his breast!" + +Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and give +a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit out and +shinned for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell. + +I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew--leastways, I had it all +to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then glares, and the +buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting of +the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it along! + +When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody out in the storm, so I +never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight through the main +one; and when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my eye and set it. +No light there; the house all dark--which made me feel sorry and +disappointed, I didn't know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by, +FLASH comes the light in Mary Jane's window! and my heart swelled up +sudden, like to bust; and the same second the house and all was behind me +in the dark, and wasn't ever going to be before me no more in this world. +She WAS the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand. + +The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the +towhead, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first time +the lightning showed me one that wasn't chained I snatched it and shoved. +It was a canoe, and warn't fastened with nothing but a rope. The towhead +was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the middle of the +river, but I didn't lose no time; and when I struck the raft at last I +was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp if I could +afforded it. But I didn't. As I sprung aboard I sung out: + +"Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, we're shut +of them!" + +Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he was so +full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot up in +my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he was old King +Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and it most scared the livers and +lights out of me. But Jim fished me out, and was going to hug me and +bless me, and so on, he was so glad I was back and we was shut of the +king and the duke, but I says: + +"Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose and +let her slide!" + +So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it DID seem +so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and +nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and crack +my heels a few times--I couldn't help it; but about the third crack I +noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well, and held my breath and +listened and waited; and sure enough, when the next flash busted out over +the water, here they come!--and just a-laying to their oars and making +their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke. + +So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and it was all +I could do to keep from crying. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +WHEN they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar, +and says: + +"Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company, +hey?" + +I says: + +"No, your majesty, we warn't--PLEASE don't, your majesty!" + +"Quick, then, and tell us what WAS your idea, or I'll shake the insides +out o' you!" + +"Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty. The +man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he had a +boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to see a boy +in such a dangerous fix; and when they was all took by surprise by +finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets go of me and +whispers, 'Heel it now, or they'll hang ye, sure!' and I lit out. It +didn't seem no good for ME to stay--I couldn't do nothing, and I didn't +want to be hung if I could get away. So I never stopped running till I +found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to hurry, or they'd catch +me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you and the duke wasn't alive +now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful glad when we +see you coming; you may ask Jim if I didn't." + +Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said, "Oh, yes, +it's MIGHTY likely!" and shook me up again, and said he reckoned he'd +drownd me. But the duke says: + +"Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would YOU a done any different? Did you +inquire around for HIM when you got loose? I don't remember it." + +So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in +it. But the duke says: + +"You better a blame' sight give YOURSELF a good cussing, for you're the +one that's entitled to it most. You hain't done a thing from the start +that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky with that +imaginary blue-arrow mark. That WAS bright--it was right down bully; and +it was the thing that saved us. For if it hadn't been for that they'd a +jailed us till them Englishmen's baggage come--and then--the +penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to the graveyard, and the +gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the excited fools hadn't let +go all holts and made that rush to get a look we'd a slept in our cravats +to-night--cravats warranted to WEAR, too--longer than WE'D need 'em." + +They was still a minute--thinking; then the king says, kind of +absent-minded like: + +"Mf! And we reckoned the NIGGERS stole it!" + +That made me squirm! + +"Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, "WE did." + +After about a half a minute the king drawls out: + +"Leastways, I did." + +The duke says, the same way: + +"On the contrary, I did." + +The king kind of ruffles up, and says: + +"Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?" + +The duke says, pretty brisk: + +"When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was YOU referring +to?" + +"Shucks!" says the king, very sarcastic; "but I don't know--maybe you was +asleep, and didn't know what you was about." + +The duke bristles up now, and says: + +"Oh, let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame' fool? +Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?" + +"YES, sir! I know you DO know, because you done it yourself!" + +"It's a lie!"--and the duke went for him. The king sings out: + +"Take y'r hands off!--leggo my throat!--I take it all back!" + +The duke says: + +"Well, you just own up, first, that you DID hide that money there, +intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig it +up, and have it all to yourself." + +"Wait jest a minute, duke--answer me this one question, honest and fair; +if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take +back everything I said." + +"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now!" + +"Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more--now +DON'T git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide +it?" + +The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says: + +"Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway. But you not only +had it in mind to do it, but you DONE it." + +"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I won't say +I warn't goin' to do it, because I WAS; but you--I mean somebody--got in +ahead o' me." + +"It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you done it, or--" + +The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out: + +"'Nough!--I OWN UP!" + +I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier +than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and says: + +"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's WELL for you to set +there and blubber like a baby--it's fitten for you, after the way you've +acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everything +--and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You ought +to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot +of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel +ridiculous to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage. Cuss you, +I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deffisit--you wanted +to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another, +and scoop it ALL!" + +The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling: + +"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me." + +"Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!" says the duke. "And +NOW you see what you GOT by it. They've got all their own money back, +and all of OURN but a shekel or two BESIDES. G'long to bed, and don't +you deffersit ME no more deffersits, long 's YOU live!" + +So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, +and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an +hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the +lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms. They +both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow enough +to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag again. That +made me feel easy and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we +had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Part 6 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN, PART 6. *** + +***** This file should be named 7105.txt or 7105.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/0/7105/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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