WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old
Miss Watson on account of my clothes; but the widow she
didn't scold, but only cleaned off the grease and clay,
and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave awhile
if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet
and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray
every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But
it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no
hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried
for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't
make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to
try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me
why, and I couldn't make it out no way.
I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long
think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get
anything they pray for, why don't Deacon Winn get back
the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get back
her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson
fat up? No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it.
I went and told the widow about it, and she said the
thing a body could get by praying for it was "spiritual
gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me
what she meant — I must help other people, and do
everything I could for other people, and look out for
them all the time, and never think about myself. This was
including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the
woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I
couldn't see no advantage about it — except for the
other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry
about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the
widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in
a way to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next day
Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again.
I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and
a poor chap would stand considerable show with the
widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there
warn't no help for him any more. I thought it all out,
and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted
me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be
any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was
so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.
Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that
was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more.
He used to always whale me when he was sober and could
get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods
most of the time when he was around. Well, about this
time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve
mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him,
anyway; said this drownded man was just his size, and was
ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like
pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face,
because it had been in the water so long it warn't much
like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back
in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank.
But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to
think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded
man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I
knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed
up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I
judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though
I wished he wouldn't.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then
I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody,
hadn't killed any people, but only just pretended. We
used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog-drivers
and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we
never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs
"ingots," and he called the turnips and stuff
"julery," and we would go to the cave and
powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had
killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it.
One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing
stick, which he called a slogan (which was the sign for
the Gang to get together), and then he said he had got
secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of
Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in
Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six hundred
camels, and over a thousand "sumter" mules, all
loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a
guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in
ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop
the things. He said we must slick up our swords and guns,
and get ready. He never could go after even a turnip-cart
but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for
it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you
might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn't
worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before.
I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards
and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants,
so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade;
and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and
down the hill. But there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs,
and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. It warn't
anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class
at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the
hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and
jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got
a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in,
and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no
di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was
loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs
there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why
couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so
ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would
know without asking. He said it was all done by
enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers
there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had
enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned
the whole thing into an infant Sundayschool, just out of
spite. I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was
to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.
"Why," said he, "a magician could call
up a lot of genies, and they would hash you up like
nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as
tall as a tree and as big around as a church."
"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some
genies to help US — can't we lick the other crowd then?"
"How you going to get them?"
"I don't know. How do THEY get them?"
"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring,
and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder and
lightning a-ripping around and the smoke a-rolling, and
everything they're told to do they up and do it. They
don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the
roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over
the head with it — or any other man."
"Who makes them tear around so?"
"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They
belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they've
got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a
palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full
of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an
emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've
got to do it — and they've got to do it before sun-up
next morning, too. And more: they've got to waltz that
palace around over the country wherever you want it, you
understand."
"Well," says I, "I think they are a
pack of flatheads for not keeping the palace themselves
'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's more —
if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before
I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing
of an old tin lamp."
"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd HAVE to come
when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not."
"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a
church? All right, then; I WOULD come; but I lay I'd make
that man climb the highest tree there was in the country."
"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck
Finn. You don't seem to know anything, somehow — perfect
saphead."
I thought all this over for two or three days, and
then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it.
I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went out in
the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an
Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it
warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged
that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's
lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the
elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all
the marks of a Sunday-school.