WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to
Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River
comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell
the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio
amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we
made for a towhead to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try
to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the canoe,
with the line to make fast, there warn't anything but
little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one
of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was
a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively
she tore it out by the roots and away she went. I see the
fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I
couldn't budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me
— and then there warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't
see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to
the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a
stroke. But she didn't come. I was in such a hurry I
hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I
was so excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do
anything with them.
As soon as I got started I took out after the raft,
hot and heavy, right down the towhead. That was all right
as far as it went, but the towhead warn't sixty yards
long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot out
into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which
way I was going than a dead man.
Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run
into the bank or a towhead or something; I got to set
still and float, and yet it's mighty fidgety business to
have to hold your hands still at such a time. I whooped
and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small
whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it,
listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come I
see I warn't heading for it, but heading away to the
right of it. And the next time I was heading away to the
left of it — and not gaining on it much either, for I
was flying around, this way and that and t'other, but it
was going straight ahead all the time.
I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and
beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was the
still places between the whoops that was making the
trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I
hears the whoop BEHIND me. I was tangled good now. That
was somebody else's whoop, or else I was turned around.
I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it
was behind me yet, but in a different place; it kept
coming, and kept changing its place, and I kept
answering, till by and by it was in front of me again,
and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down-stream,
and I was all right if that was Jim and not some other
raftsman hollering. I couldn't tell nothing about voices
in a fog, for nothing don't look natural nor sound
natural in a fog.
The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming
down on a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it,
and the current throwed me off to the left and shot by,
amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared, the currrent
was tearing by them so swift.
In another second or two it was solid white and still
again. I set perfectly still then, listening to my heart
thump, and I reckon I didn't draw a breath while it
thumped a hundred.
I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was.
That cut bank was an island, and Jim had gone down
t'other side of it. It warn't no towhead that you could
float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a
regular island; it might be five or six miles long and
more than half a mile wide.
I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen
minutes, I reckon. I was floating along, of course, four
or five miles an hour; but you don't ever think of that.
No, you FEEL like you are laying dead still on the water;
and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don't
think to yourself how fast YOU'RE going, but you catch
your breath and think, my! how that snag's tearing along.
If you think it ain't dismal and lonesome out in a fog
that way by yourself in the night, you try it once —
you'll see.
Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then;
at last I hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to
follow it, but I couldn't do it, and directly I judged
I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had little dim
glimpses of them on both sides of me — sometimes just a
narrow channel between, and some that I couldn't see I
knowed was there because I'd hear the wash of the current
against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the
banks. Well, I warn't long loosing the whoops down
amongst the towheads; and I only tried to chase them a
little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a
Jack-o'-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge around
so, and swap places so quick and so much.
I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or
five times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the
river; and so I judged the raft must be butting into the
bank every now and then, or else it would get further
ahead and clear out of hearing — it was floating a
little faster than what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and
by, but I couldn't hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I
reckoned Jim had fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was
all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid down in
the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more. I didn't
want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I
couldn't help it; so I thought I would take jest one
little cat-nap.
But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I
waked up the stars was shining bright, the fog was all
gone, and I was spinning down a big bend stern first.
First I didn't know where I was; I thought I was
dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they
seemed to come up dim out of last week.
It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest
and the thickest kind of timber on both banks; just a
solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked
away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the water. I
took after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but
a couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see
another speck, and chased that; then another, and this
time I was right. It was the raft.
When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head
down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm
hanging over the steering-oar. The other oar was smashed
off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and
branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.
I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the
raft, and began to gap, and stretch my fists out against
Jim, and says:
"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you
stir me up?"
"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain'
dead — you ain' drownded — you's back agin? It's too
good for true, honey, it's too good for true. Lemme look
at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you ain' dead! you's
back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck — de
same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"
"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been
adrinking?"
"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a
chance to be a-drinkin'?"
"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"
"How does I talk wild?"
"HOW? Why, hain't you been talking about my
coming back, and all that stuff, as if I'd been gone
away?"
"Huck — Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look
me in de eye. HAIN'T you ben gone away?"
"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean?
I hain't been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?"
"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey
is. Is I ME, or who IS I? Is I heah, or whah IS I? Now
dat's what I wants to know."
"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I
think you're a tangle-headed old fool, Jim."
"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you
tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fas' to de
towhead?"
"No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't see no tow-head."
"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't
de line pull loose en de raf' go a-hummin' down de river,
en leave you en de canoe behine in de fog?"
"What fog?"
"Why, de fog! — de fog dat's been aroun' all
night. En didn't you whoop, en didn't I whoop, tell we
got mix' up in de islands en one un us got los' en
t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know
whah he wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem
islands en have a turrible time en mos' git drownded? Now
ain' dat so, boss — ain't it so? You answer me dat."
"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't
seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing.
I been setting here talking with you all night till you
went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I done
the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of
course you've been dreaming."
"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in
ten minutes?"
"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because
there didn't any of it happen."
"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as
—"
"It don't make no difference how plain it is;
there ain't nothing in it. I know, because I've been here
all the time."
Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set
there studying over it. Then he says:
"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but
dog my cats ef it ain't de powerfullest dream I ever see.
En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' dat's tired me like
dis one."
"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does
tire a body like everything sometimes. But this one was a
staving dream; tell me all about it, Jim."
So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right
through, just as it happened, only he painted it up
considerable. Then he said he must start in and "'terpret"
it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the first
towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some
good, but the current was another man that would get us
away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to
us every now and then, and if we didn't try hard to make
out to understand them they'd just take us into bad luck,
'stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was
troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people
and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our
business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, we
would pull through and get out of the fog and into the
big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn't
have no more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to
the raft, but it was clearing up again now.
"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as
far as it goes, Jim," I says; "but what does
THESE things stand for?"
It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the
smashed oar. You could see them first-rate now.
Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and
back at the trash again. He had got the dream fixed so
strong in his head that he couldn't seem to shake it
loose and get the facts back into its place again right
away. But when he did get the thing straightened around
he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:
"What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you.
When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin' for
you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos' broke bekase you
wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become er me en
de raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all
safe en soun', de tears come, en I could a got down on my
knees en kiss yo' foot, I's so thankful. En all you wuz
thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim
wid a lie. Dat truck dah is TRASH; en trash is what
people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes
'em ashamed."
Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went
in there without saying anything but that. But that was
enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed HIS
foot to get him to take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up
to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I
warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn't do
him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if
I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way.