AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man
and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't
want to. He said it would fetch bad luck; and besides, he
said, he might come and ha'nt us; he said a man that
warn't buried was more likely to go aha'nting around than
one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty
reasonable, so I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep
from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the
man, and what they done it for.
We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight
dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old
blanket overcoat. Jim said he reckoned the people in that
house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the
money was there they wouldn't a left it. I said I
reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to
talk about that. I says:
"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you
say when I fetched in the snake-skin that I found on the
top of the ridge day before yesterday? You said it was
the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin
with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in
all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could
have some bad luck like this every day, Jim."
"Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you
git too peart. It's a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."
It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that
talk. Well, after dinner Friday we was laying around in
the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of
tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and found a
rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on
the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking
there'd be some fun when Jim found him there. Well, by
night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung
himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the
snake's mate was there, and bit him.
He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light
showed was the varmint curled up and ready for another
spring. I laid him out in a second with a stick, and Jim
grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to pour it down.
He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the
heel. That all comes of my being such a fool as to not
remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate
always comes there and curls around it. Jim told me to
chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then
skin the body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he
eat it and said it would help cure him. He made me take
off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too. He
said that that would help. Then I slid out quiet and
throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I
warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not
if I could help it.
Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he
got out of his head and pitched around and yelled; but
every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the
jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his
leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I
judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a
snake than pap's whisky.
Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the
swelling was all gone and he was around again. I made up
my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again
with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Jim
said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he
said that handling a snakeskin was such awful bad luck
that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he
druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much
as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand.
Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've
always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your
left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest
things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and
bragged about it; and in less than two years he got drunk
and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so
that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and
they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a
coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see
it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the
moon that way, like a fool.
Well, the days went along, and the river went down
between its banks again; and about the first thing we
done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned
rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as
a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over
two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he
would a flung us into Illinois. We just set there and
watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We
found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and
lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet,
and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a
long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It
was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi,
I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He
would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They
peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the
markethouse there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's
as white as snow and makes a good fry.
Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and
I wanted to get a stirring up some way. I said I reckoned
I would slip over the river and find out what was going
on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must go in the
dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said,
couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up
like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened
up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs
to my knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with
the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the sun-bonnet
and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in
and see my face was like looking down a joint of
stovepipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the
daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day to get the
hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well
in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he
said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket.
I took notice, and done better.
I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just
after dark.
I started across to the town from a little below the
ferry-landing, and the drift of the current fetched me in
at the bottom of the town. I tied up and started along
the bank. There was a light burning in a little shanty
that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered
who had took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped
in at the window. There was a woman about forty year old
in there knitting by a candle that was on a pine table. I
didn't know her face; she was a stranger, for you
couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know.
Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was
getting afraid I had come; people might know my voice and
find me out. But if this woman had been in such a little
town two days she could tell me all I wanted to know; so
I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't
forget I was a girl.