THE first time I catched Tom private I asked him what
was his idea, time of the evasion? — what it was he'd
planned to do if the evasion worked all right and he
managed to set a nigger free that was already free
before? And he said, what he had planned in his head from
the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run
him down the river on the raft, and have adventures plumb
to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about his
being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in
style, and pay him for his lost time, and write word
ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them
waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a
brass-band, and then he would be a hero, and so would we.
But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was.
We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt
Polly and Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good
he helped the doctor nurse Tom, they made a heap of fuss
over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him all he
wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we
had him up to the sick-room, and had a high talk; and Tom
give Jim forty dollars for being prisoner for us so
patient, and doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased
most to death, and busted out, and says:
"DAH, now, Huck, what I tell you? — what I tell
you up dah on Jackson islan'? I TOLE you I got a hairy
breas', en what's de sign un it; en I TOLE you I ben rich
wunst, en gwineter to be rich AGIN; en it's come true; en
heah she is! DAH, now! doan' talk to ME — signs is
SIGNS, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I
'uz gwineter be rich agin as I's astannin' heah dis
minute!"
And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and
says, le's all three slide out of here one of these
nights and get an outfit, and go for howling adventures
amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for a couple
of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me,
but I ain't got no money for to buy the outfit, and I
reckon I couldn't get none from home, because it's likely
pap's been back before now, and got it all away from
Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.
"No, he hain't," Tom says; "it's all
there yet — six thousand dollars and more; and your pap
hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when I come away,
anyhow."
Jim says, kind of solemn:
"He ain't a-comin' back no mo', Huck."
I says:
"Why, Jim?"
"Nemmine why, Huck — but he ain't comin' back no
mo."
But I kept at him; so at last he says:
"Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down
de river, en dey wuz a man in dah, kivered up, en I went
in en unkivered him and didn' let you come in? Well, den,
you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase dat wuz him."
Tom's most well now, and got his bullet around his
neck on a watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing
what time it is, and so there ain't nothing more to write
about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a
knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a
tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more. But I reckon I
got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest,
because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize
me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.