THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to
know what we covered up the raft that way for, and laid
by in the daytime instead of running — was Jim a runaway
nigger? Says I:
"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run
SOUTH?"
No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for
things some way, so I says:
"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri,
where I was born, and they all died off but me and pa and
my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed he'd break up and go down
and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little one-horse
place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was
pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up
there warn't nothing left but sixteen dollars and our
nigger, Jim. That warn't enough to take us fourteen
hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way. Well, when
the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he
ketched this piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down
to Orleans on it. Pa's luck didn't hold out; a steamboat
run over the forrard corner of the raft one night, and we
all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and me
come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only
four years old, so they never come up no more. Well, for
the next day or two we had considerable trouble, because
people was always coming out in skiffs and trying to take
Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a runaway
nigger. We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they
don't bother us."
The duke says:
"Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run
in the daytime if we want to. I'll think the thing over
— I'll invent a plan that'll fix it. We'll let it alone
for to-day, because of course we don't want to go by that
town yonder in daylight — it mightn't be healthy."
Towards night it begun to darken up and look like
rain; the heat lightning was squirting around low down in
the sky, and the leaves was beginning to shiver — it was
going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see that. So the
duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see
what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tickÑbetter
than Jim's, which was a cornshuck tick; there's always
cobs around about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you
and hurt; and when you roll over the dry shucks sound
like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it
makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke
allowed he would take my bed; but the king allowed he
wouldn't. He says:
"I should a reckoned the difference in rank would
a sejested to you that a corn-shuck bed warn't just
fitten for me to sleep on. Your Grace 'll take the shuck
bed yourself."
Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being
afraid there was going to be some more trouble amongst
them; so we was pretty glad when the duke says:
"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire
under the iron heel of oppression. Misfortune has broken
my once haughty spirit; I yield, I submit; 'tis my fate.
I am alone in the world — let me suffer; can bear it."
We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king
told us to stand well out towards the middle of the
river, and not show a light till we got a long ways below
the town. We come in sight of the little bunch of lights
by and by — that was the town, you know — and slid by,
about a half a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters
of a mile below we hoisted up our signal lantern; and
about ten o'clock it come on to rain and blow and thunder
and lighten like everything; so the king told us to both
stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and
the duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the
night. It was my watch below till twelve, but I wouldn't
a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed, because a body don't
see such a storm as that every day in the week, not by a
long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And
every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the
white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the
islands looking dusty through the rain, and the trees
thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK! —
bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum — and the
thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit —
and then RIP comes another flash and another sockdolager.
The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes, but I
hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no
trouble about snags; the lightning was glaring and
flittering around so constant that we could see them
plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or that and
miss them.
I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty
sleepy by that time, so Jim he said he would stand the
first half of it for me; he was always mighty good that
way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but the king and
the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't
no show for me; so I laid outside — I didn't mind the
rain, because it was warm, and the waves warn't running
so high now. About two they come up again, though, and
Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind,
because he reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any
harm; but he was mistaken about that, for pretty soon all
of a sudden along comes a regular ripper and washed me
overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. He was the
easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.
I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored
away; and by and by the storm let up for good and all;
and the first cabin-light that showed I rousted him out,
and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day.
The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after
breakfast, and him and the duke played seven-up a while,
five cents a game. Then they got tired of it, and allowed
they would "lay out a campaign," as they called
it. The duke went down into his carpetbag, and fetched up
a lot of little printed bills and read them out loud. One
bill said, "The celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban,
of Paris," would "lecture on the Science of
Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank
day of blank, at ten cents admission, and "furnish
charts of character at twenty-five cents apiece."
The duke said that was HIM. In another bill he was the
"world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the
Younger, of Drury Lane, London." In other bills he
had a lot of other names and done other wonderful things,
like finding water and gold with a "divining-rod,"
"dissipating witch spells," and so on. By and
by he says:
"But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you
ever trod the boards, Royalty?"
"No," says the king.
"You shall, then, before you're three days older,
Fallen Grandeur," says the duke. "The first
good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do the sword
fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and
Juliet. How does that strike you?"
"I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will
pay, Bilgewater; but, you see, I don't know nothing about
play-actin', and hain't ever seen much of it. I was too
small when pap used to have 'em at the palace. Do you
reckon you can learn me?"
"Easy!"
"All right. I'm jist a-freezn' for something
fresh, anyway. Le's commence right away."
So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and
who Juliet was, and said he was used to being Romeo, so
the king could be Juliet.
"But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my
peeled head and my white whiskers is goin' to look
oncommon odd on her, maybe."
"No, don't you worry; these country jakes won't
ever think of that. Besides, you know, you'll be in
costume, and that makes all the difference in the world;
Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight before she
goes to bed, and she's got on her nightgown and her
ruffled nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts."
He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he
said was meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t'other
chap, and a long white cotton nightshirt and a ruffled
nightcap to match. The king was satisfied; so the duke
got out his book and read the parts over in the most
splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at
the same time, to show how it had got to be done; then he
give the book to the king and told him to get his part by
heart.
There was a little one-horse town about three mile
down the bend, and after dinner the duke said he had
ciphered out his idea about how to run in daylight
without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he
would go down to the town and fix that thing. The king
allowed he would go, too, and see if he couldn't strike
something. We was out of coffee, so Jim said I better go
along with them in the canoe and get some.
When we got there there warn't nobody stirring;
streets empty, and perfectly dead and still, like Sunday.
We found a sick nigger sunning himself in a back yard,
and he said everybody that warn't too young or too sick
or too old was gone to campmeeting, about two mile back
in the woods. The king got the directions, and allowed
he'd go and work that camp-meeting for all it was worth,
and I might go, too.
The duke said what he was after was a printing-office.
We found it; a little bit of a concern, up over a
carpenter shop — carpenters and printers all gone to the
meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty, littered-up
place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures of
horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls.
The duke shed his coat and said he was all right now. So
me and the king lit out for the camp-meeting.
We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping,
for it was a most awful hot day. There was as much as a
thousand people there from twenty mile around. The woods
was full of teams and wagons, hitched everywheres,
feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep off
the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed
over with branches, where they had lemonade and
gingerbread to sell, and piles of watermelons and green
corn and such-like truck.
The preaching was going on under the same kinds of
sheds, only they was bigger and held crowds of people.
The benches was made out of outside slabs of logs, with
holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into for
legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had high
platforms to stand on at one end of the sheds. The women
had on sun-bonnets; and some had linsey-woolsey frocks,
some gingham ones, and a few of the young ones had on
calico. Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of
the children didn't have on any clothes but just a
towlinen shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and
some of the young folks was courting on the sly.
The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out
a hymn. He lined out two lines, everybody sung it, and it
was kind of grand to hear it, there was so many of them
and they done it in such a rousing way; then he lined out
two more for them to sing — and so on. The people woke
up more and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards
the end some begun to groan, and some begun to shout.
Then the preacher begun to preach, and begun in earnest,
too; and went weaving first to one side of the platform
and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the
front of it, with his arms and his body going all the
time, and shouting his words out with all his might; and
every now and then he would hold up his Bible and spread
it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that,
shouting, "It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness!
Look upon it and live!" And people would shout out,
"Glory! — A-a-MEN!" And so he went on, and the
people groaning and crying and saying amen:
"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black
with sin! (AMEN!) come, sick and sore! (AMEN!) come, lame
and halt and blind! (AMEN!) come, pore and needy, sunk in
shame! (A-A-MEN!) come, all that's worn and soiled and
suffering! — come with a broken spirit! come with a
contrite heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the
waters that cleanse is free, the door of heaven stands
open — oh, enter in and be at rest!" (A-A-MEN!
GLORY, GLORY HALLELUJAH!)
And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher
said any more, on account of the shouting and crying.
Folks got up everywheres in the crowd, and worked their
way just by main strength to the mourners' bench, with
the tears running down their faces; and when all the
mourners had got up there to the front benches in a
crowd, they sung and shouted and flung themselves down on
the straw, just crazy and wild.
Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you
could hear him over everybody; and next he went a-charging
up on to the platform, and the preacher he begged him to
speak to the people, and he done it. He told them he was
a pirate — been a pirate for thirty years out in the
Indian Ocean — and his crew was thinned out considerable
last spring in a fight, and he was home now to take out
some fresh men, and thanks to goodness he'd been robbed
last night and put ashore off of a steamboat without a
cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing
that ever happened to him, because he was a changed man
now, and happy for the first time in his life; and, poor
as he was, he was going to start right off and work his
way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of his
life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for
he could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted
with all pirate crews in that ocean; and though it would
take him a long time to get there without money, he would
get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he
would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you
give me no credit; it all belongs to them dear people in
Pokeville campmeeting, natural brothers and benefactors
of the race, and that dear preacher there, the truest
friend a pirate ever had!"
And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody.
Then somebody sings out, "Take up a collection for
him, take up a collection!" Well, a half a dozen
made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let
HIM pass the hat around!" Then everybody said it,
the preacher too.
So the king went all through the crowd with his hat
swabbing his eyes, and blessing the people and praising
them and thanking them for being so good to the poor
pirates away off there; and every little while the
prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down
their cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss
him for to remember him by; and he always done it; and
some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or six
times — and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody
wanted him to live in their houses, and said they'd think
it was an honor; but he said as this was the last day of
the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and besides he
was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and
go to work on the pirates.
When we got back to the raft and he come to count up
he found he had collected eighty-seven dollars and
seventy-five cents. And then he had fetched away a three-gallon
jug of whisky, too, that he found under a wagon when he
was starting home through the woods. The king said, take
it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in
the missionarying line. He said it warn't no use talking,
heathens don't amount to shucks alongside of pirates to
work a camp-meeting with.
The duke was thinking HE'D been doing pretty well till
the king come to show up, but after that he didn't think
so so much. He had set up and printed off two little jobs
for farmers in that printing-office — horse bills — and
took the money, four dollars. And he had got in ten
dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he
said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay
in advance — so they done it. The price of the paper was
two dollars a year, but he took in three subscriptions
for half a dollar apiece on condition of them paying him
in advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions
as usual, but he said he had just bought the concern and
knocked down the price as low as he could afford it, and
was going to run it for cash. He set up a little piece of
poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own head —
three verses — kind of sweet and saddish — the name of
it was, "Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heart"
— and he left that all set up and ready to print in the
paper, and didn't charge nothing for it. Well, he took in
nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty
square day's work for it.
Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and
hadn't charged for, because it was for us. It had a
picture of a runaway nigger with a bundle on a stick over
his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it. The
reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a
dot. It said he run away from St. Jacques' plantation,
forty mile below New Orleans, last winter, and likely
went north, and whoever would catch him and send him back
he could have the reward and expenses.
"Now," says the duke, "after to-night
we can run in the daytime if we want to. Whenever we see
anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot with a rope,
and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say
we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel
on a steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from
our friends and are going down to get the reward.
Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but
it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor.
Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing — we
must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards."
We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there
couldn't be no trouble about running daytimes. We judged
we could make miles enough that night to get out of the
reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work in the
printing office was going to make in that little town;
then we could boom right along if we wanted to.
We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till
nearly ten o'clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away
from the town, and didn't hoist our lantern till we was
clear out of sight of it.
When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the
morning, he says:
"Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any
mo' kings on dis trip?"
"No," I says, "I reckon not."
"Well," says he, "dat's all right, den.
I doan' mine one er two kings, but dat's enough. Dis
one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' much better."
I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French,
so he could hear what it was like; but he said he had
been in this country so long, and had so much trouble,
he'd forgot it.