WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and days;
kept right along down the river. We was down south in the
warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home. We
begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging
down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the
first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look
solemn and dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was
out of danger, and they begun to work the villages again.
First they done a lecture on temperance; but they
didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in
another village they started a dancing-school; but they
didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does; so
the first prance they made the general public jumped in
and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to
go at yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till
the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing,
and made them skip out. They tackled missionarying, and
mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and a
little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have no
luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid
around the raft as she floated along, thinking and
thinking, and never saying nothing, by the half a day at
a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
And at last they took a change and begun to lay their
heads together in the wigwam and talk low and
confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim and me got
uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged they was
studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We
turned it over and over, and at last we made up our minds
they was going to break into somebody's house or store,
or was going into the counterfeitmoney business, or
something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an
agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to
do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show
we would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave
them behind. Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a
good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of a
shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went
ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to
town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind
of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ("House to rob, you
MEAN," says I to myself; "and when you get
through robbing it you'll come back here and wonder what
has become of me and Jim and the raft — and you'll have
to take it out in wondering.") And he said if he
warn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was
all right, and we was to come along.
So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and
sweated around, and was in a mighty sour way. He scolded
us for everything, and we couldn't seem to do nothing
right; he found fault with every little thing. Something
was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come
and no king; we could have a change, anyway — and maybe
a chance for THE chance on top of it. So me and the duke
went up to the village, and hunted around there for the
king, and by and by we found him in the back room of a
little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers
bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening
with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and
couldn't do nothing to them. The duke he begun to abuse
him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and
the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and shook the
reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road
like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind
that it would be a long day before they ever see me and
Jim again. I got down there all out of breath but loaded
up with joy, and sung out:
"Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!"
But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the
wigwam. Jim was gone! I set up a shout — and then
another — and then another one; and run this way and
that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't
no use — old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I
couldn't help it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty
soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I
better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him
if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he
says:
"Yes."
"Whereabouts?" says I.
"Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here.
He's a runaway nigger, and they've got him. Was you
looking for him?"
"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods
about an hour or two ago, and he said if I hollered he'd
cut my livers out — and told me to lay down and stay
where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard
to come out."
"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard
no more, becuz they've got him. He run off f'm down
South, som'ers."
"It's a good job they got him."
"Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd dollars
reward on him. It's like picking up money out'n the road."
"Yes, it is — and I could a had it if I'd been
big enough; I see him FIRST. Who nailed him?"
"It was an old fellow — a stranger — and he
sold out his chance in him for forty dollars, becuz he's
got to go up the river and can't wait. Think o' that, now!
You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year."
"That's me, every time," says I. "But
maybe his chance ain't worth no more than that, if he'll
sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't straight
about it."
"But it IS, though — straight as a string. I see
the handbill myself. It tells all about him, to a dot —
paints him like a picture, and tells the plantation he's
frum, below NewrLEANS. No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no
trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a
chaw tobacker, won't ye?"
I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft,
and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn't come
to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I
couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this
long journey, and after all we'd done for them
scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything
all busted up and ruined, because they could have the
heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a
slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for
forty dirty dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times
better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family
was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave, and so I'd better
write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss
Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for
two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality
and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him
straight down the river again; and if she didn't,
everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and
they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel
ornery and disgraced. And then think of ME! It would get
all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his
freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town
again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for
shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down
thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of
it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace.
That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this
the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more
wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at
last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the
plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and
letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the
time from up there in heaven,whilst I was stealing a poor
old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and
now was showing me there's One that's always on the
lookout, and ain't agoing to allow no such miserable
doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most
dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the
best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by
saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to
blame; but something inside of me kept saying, "There
was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if
you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people
that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to
everlasting fire."
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to
pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of
a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the
words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use
to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I
knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because
my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it
was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to
give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to
the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY
I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go
and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was;
but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed
it. You can't pray a lie — I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and
didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I
says, I'll go and write the letter — and then see if I
can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as
light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles
all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all
glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two
mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he
will give him up for the reward if you send.
HUCK FINN.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first
time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could
pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the
paper down and set there thinking — thinking how good it
was all this happened so, and how near I come to being
lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to
thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim
before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time,
sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating
along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I
couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against
him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my
watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could
go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come
back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the
swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times;
and would always call me honey, and pet me and do
everything he could think of for me, and how good he
always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by
telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so
grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had
in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I
happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my
hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide,
forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a
minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to
myself:
"All right, then, I'll GO to hell" — and
tore it up.
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was
said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more
about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head,
and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in
my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And
for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of
slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I
would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in
for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and
turned over some considerable many ways in my mind; and
at last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then I took
the bearings of a woody island that was down the river a
piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with
my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then
turned in. I slept the night through, and got up before
it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my store
clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or another
in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I
landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid
my bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with
water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I
could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter
of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the
bank.
Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill
I see a sign on it, "Phelps's Sawmill," and
when I come to the farm-houses, two or three hundred
yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't
see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I
didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody just yet
— I only wanted to get the lay of the land. According to
my plan, I was going to turn up there from the village,
not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along,
straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I
got there was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the
Royal Nonesuch — three-night performance — like that
other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I was right
on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and
says:
"Hel-LO! Where'd YOU come from?" Then he
says, kind of glad and eager, "Where's the raft? —
got her in a good place?"
I says:
"Why, that's just what I was going to ask your
grace."
Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:
"What was your idea for asking ME?" he says.
"Well," I says, "when I see the king in
that doggery yesterday I says to myself, we can't get him
home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went a-loafing
around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and
offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the
river and back to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but
when we was dragging him to the boat, and the man left me
a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him
along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run,
and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to
chase him all over the country till we tired him out. We
never got him till dark; then we fetched him over, and I
started down for the raft. When I got there and see it
was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and
had to leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the
only nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a
strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor
nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down and
cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what DID
become of the raft, then? — and Jim — poor Jim!"
"Blamed if I know — that is, what's become of
the raft. That old fool had made a trade and got forty
dollars, and when we found him in the doggery the loafers
had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but
what he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late
last night and found the raft gone, we said, 'That little
rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down
the river.'"
"I wouldn't shake my NIGGER, would I? — the only
nigger I had in the world, and the only property."
"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd
come to consider him OUR nigger; yes, we did consider him
so — goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So
when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there
warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch
another shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a
powder-horn. Where's that ten cents? Give it here."
I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but
begged him to spend it for something to eat, and give me
some, because it was all the money I had, and I hadn't
had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing.
The next minute he whirls on me and says:
"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd
skin him if he done that!"
"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"
"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided
with me, and the money's gone."
"SOLD him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why,
he was MY nigger, and that was my money. Where is he? —
I want my nigger."
"Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all —
so dry up your blubbering. Looky here — do you think
YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I'd trust
you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us —"
He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out
of his eyes before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got
no time to blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find my
nigger."
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his
bills fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up
his forehead. At last he says:
"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three
days. If you'll promise you won't blow, and won't let the
nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him."
So I promised, and he says:
"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph——" and
then he stopped. You see, he started to tell me the
truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to study
and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And
so he was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure
of having me out of the way the whole three days. So
pretty soon he says:
"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster —
Abram G. Foster — and he lives forty mile back here in
the country, on the road to Lafayette."
"All right," I says, "I can walk it in
three days. And I'll start this very afternoon."
"No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you
lose any time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by
the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move
right along, and then you won't get into trouble with US,
d'ye hear?"
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I
played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans.
"So clear out," he says; "and you can
tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get
him to believe that Jim IS your nigger — some idiots
don't require documents — leastways I've heard there's
such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill
and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you when you
explain to him what the idea was for getting 'em out. Go
'long now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind
you don't work your jaw any BETWEEN here and there."
So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't
look around, but I kinder felt like he was watching me.
But I knowed I could tire him out at that. I went
straight out in the country as much as a mile before I
stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards
Phelps'. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight
off without fooling around, because I wanted to stop
Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away. I didn't
want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I wanted to
of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.