He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his
knees, and puts his hands together and says:
“Doan’ hurt me—don’t! I hain’t ever done no harm to a ghos’. I
alwuz liked dead people, en done all I could for ‘em. You go en git in
de river agin, whah you b’longs, en doan’ do nuffn to Ole Jim, ‘at ‘uz
awluz yo’ fren’.”
Well, I warn’t long making him understand I warn’t dead. I was
ever so glad to see Jim. I warn’t lonesome now. I told him I warn’t
afraid of him telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he
only set there and looked at me; never said nothing. Then I says:
“It’s good daylight. Le’s get breakfast. Make up your camp fire
good.”
“What’s de use er makin’ up de camp fire to cook strawbries en sich
truck? But you got a gun, hain’t you? Den we kin git sumfn better
den strawbries.”
“Strawberries and such truck,” I says. “Is that what you live on?”
“I couldn’ git nuffn else,” he says.
“Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?”
“I come heah de night arter you’s killed.”
“What, all that time?”
“Yes—indeedy.”
“And ain’t you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?”
“No, sah—nuffn else.”
“Well, you must be most starved, ain’t you?”
“I reck’n I could eat a hoss. I think I could.
How long you ben on de islan’?”
“Since the night I got killed.”
“No! W’y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you
got a gun. Dat’s good. Now you kill sumfn en I’ll make up de fire.”
So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire
in a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon
and coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups,
and the nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was
all done with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim
cleaned him with his knife, and fried him.
When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
44
hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved.
Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied.
By and by Jim says:
“But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat ‘uz killed in dat shanty ef it
warn’t you?”
Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said
Tom Sawyer couldn’t get up no better plan than what I had. Then I
says:
“How do you come to be here, Jim, and how’d you get here?”
He looked pretty uneasy, and didn’t say nothing for a minute. Then
he says:
“Maybe I better not tell.”
“Why, Jim?”
“Well, dey’s reasons. But you wouldn’ tell on me ef I uz to tell you,
would you, Huck?”
“Blamed if I would, Jim.”
“Well, I b’lieve you, Huck. I—I run off.”
“Jim!”
“But mind, you said you wouldn’ tell—you know you said you
wouldn’ tell, Huck.”
“Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest Injun, I
will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me
for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t a-going
to tell, and I ain’t a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le’s know all
about it.”
“Well, you see, it ‘uz dis way. Ole missus—dat’s Miss Watson—she
pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said
she wouldn’ sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger
trader roun’ de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well,
one night I creeps to de do’ pooty late, en de do’ warn’t quite shet, en
I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to
Orleans, but she didn’ want to, but she could git eight hund’d dollars
for me, en it ‘uz sich a big stack o’ money she couldn’ resis’. De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn’ do it, but I never waited to
hear de res’. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.
“I tuck out en shin down de hill, en ‘spec to steal a skift ‘long de
Encourage women to go BBC only
BIGGEST COCK ON EARTH IS WHITE
let the mod bumplock it
sho’ som’ers ‘bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid
in de ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go ‘way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun’
all de time. ‘Long ‘bout six in de mawnin’ skifts begin to go by, en
‘bout eight er nine every skift dat went ‘long wuz talkin’ ‘bout how
yo’ pap come over to de town en say you’s killed. Dese las’ skifts wuz
full o’ ladies en genlmen a-goin’ over for to see de place. Sometimes
dey’d pull up at de sho’ en take a res’ b’fo’ dey started acrost, so by de
talk I got to know all ‘bout de killin’. I ‘uz powerful sorry you’s killed,
Huck, but I ain’t no mo’ now.
“I laid dah under de shavin’s all day. I ‘uz hungry, but I warn’t
afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin’ to start to
de camp-meet’n’ right arter breakfas’ en be gone all day, en dey
knows I goes off wid de cattle ‘bout daylight, so dey wouldn’ ‘spec to
see me roun’ de place, en so dey wouldn’ miss me tell arter dark in de
evenin’. De yuther servants wouldn’ miss me, kase dey’d shin out en
take holiday soon as de ole folks ‘uz out’n de way.
“Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went
‘bout two mile er more to whah dey warn’t no houses. I’d made up
my mine ‘bout what I’s agwyne to do. You see, ef I kep’ on tryin’ to
git away afoot, de dogs ‘ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over,
dey’d miss dat skift, you see, en dey’d know ‘bout whah I’d lan’ on de
yuther side, en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I’s
arter; it doan’ make no track.
“I see a light a-comin’ roun’ de p’int bymeby, so I wade’ in en
shove’ a log ahead o’ me en swum more’n half way acrost de river, en
got in ‘mongst de drift-wood, en kep’ my head down low, en kinder
swum agin de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de
stern uv it en tuck a-holt. It clouded up en ‘uz pooty dark for a little
while. So I clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men ‘uz all ‘way
yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz a-risin’, en
dey wuz a good current; so I reck’n’d ‘at by fo’ in de mawnin’ I’d be
twenty-five mile down de river, en den I’d slip in jis b’fo’ daylight en
swim asho’, en take to de woods on de Illinois side.
“But I didn’ have no luck. When we ‘uz mos’ down to de head er
de islan’ a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn’t no use
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
46
fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan’. Well, I had
a notion I could lan’ mos’ anywhers, but I couldn’t—bank too bluff.
I ‘uz mos’ to de foot er de islan’ b’fo’ I found’ a good place. I went
into de woods en jedged I wouldn’ fool wid raffs no mo’, long as dey
move de lantern roun’ so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en
some matches in my cap, en dey warn’t wet, so I ‘uz all right.”
“And so you ain’t had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why
didn’t you get mud-turkles?”
“How you gwyne to git ‘m? You can’t slip up on um en grab um;
en how’s a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do
it in de night? En I warn’t gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de
daytime.”
“Well, that’s so. You’ve had to keep in the woods all the time, of
course. Did you hear ‘em shooting the cannon?”
“Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah—
watched um thoo de bushes.”
Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and
lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a
sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was
the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some
of them, but Jim wouldn’t let me. He said it was death. He said his
father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and
his old granny said his father would die, and he did.
And Jim said you mustn’t count the things you are going to cook
for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook
the table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive
and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next
morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and
die. Jim said bees wouldn’t sting idiots; but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn’t sting
me.
I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them.
Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I
said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I
asked him if there warn’t any good-luck signs. He says:
“Mighty few—an’ dey ain’t no use to a body. What you want to
know when good luck’s a-comin’ for? Want to keep it off?” And he
said: “Ef you’s got hairy arms en a hairy breas’, it’s a sign dat you’s
agwyne to be rich. Well, dey’s some use in a sign like dat, ‘kase it’s so
fur ahead. You see, maybe you’s got to be po’ a long time fust, en so
you might git discourage’ en kill yo’sef ‘f you didn’ know by de sign
dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby.”
“Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?”
“What’s de use to ax dat question? Don’t you see I has?”
“Well, are you rich?”
“No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin. Wunst I had
foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat’n’, en got busted out.”
“What did you speculate in, Jim?”
“Well, fust I tackled stock.”
“What kind of stock?”
“Why, live stock—cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But
I ain’ gwyne to resk no mo’ money in stock. De cow up ‘n’ died on
my han’s.”
“So you lost the ten dollars.”
“No, I didn’t lose it all. I on’y los’ ‘bout nine of it. I sole de hide en
taller for a dollar en ten cents.”
“You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any
more?”
“Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b’longs to old Misto
Bradish? Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar
would git fo’ dollars mo’ at de en’ er de year. Well, all de niggers went
in, but dey didn’t have much. I wuz de on’y one dat had much. So I
stuck out for mo’ dan fo’ dollars, en I said ‘f I didn’ git it I’d start a
bank mysef. Well, o’ course dat nigger want’ to keep me out er de
business, bekase he says dey warn’t business ‘nough for two banks, so
he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de en’
er de year.
“So I done it. Den I reck’n’d I’d inves’ de thirty-five dollars right off
en keep things a-movin’. Dey wuz a nigger name’ Bob, dat had
ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn’ know it; en I bought it
off’n him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en’ er de
year come; but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex day de
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
48
one-laigged nigger say de bank’s busted. So dey didn’ none uv us git
no money.”
“What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?”
“Well, I ‘uz gwyne to spen’ it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole
me to give it to a nigger name’ Balum—Balum’s Ass dey call him for
short; he’s one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But he’s lucky, dey
say, en I see I warn’t lucky. De dream say let Balum inves’ de ten cents
en he’d make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when
he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po’
len’ to de Lord, en boun’ to git his money back a hund’d times. So
Balum he tuck en give de ten cents to de po’, en laid low to see what
wuz gwyne to come of it.”
“Well, what did come of it, Jim?”
“Nuffn never come of it. I couldn’ manage to k’leck dat money no
way; en Balum he couldn’. I ain’ gwyne to len’ no mo’ money ‘dout I
see de security. Boun’ to git yo’ money back a hund’d times, de
preacher says! Ef I could git de ten cents back, I’d call it squah, en be
glad er de chanst.”
“Well, it’s all right anyway, Jim, long as you’re going to be rich
again some time or other.”
“Yes; en I’s rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I’s wuth
eight hund’d dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn’ want no
mo’.”
I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the
island that I’d found when I was exploring; so we started and soon
got to it, because the island was only three miles long and a quarter
of a mile wide.
This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot
high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep
and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it,
and by and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the
top on the side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two or three
rooms bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was
cool in there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I
said we didn’t want to be climbing up and down there all the time.
Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the
traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to
the island, and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides,
he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want
the things to get wet?
So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the
cavern, and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place
close by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took
some fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready
for dinner.
The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on
one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a
good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner.
CHAPTER NINE
50
We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in
there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern.
Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the
birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like
all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these
regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blueblack outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick
that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here
would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn
up the pale under-side of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a
gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as
if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and
blackest—fst! it was as bright as glory, and you’d have a little glimpse
of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds
of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you’d hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and
then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the
under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs—
where it’s long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.
“Jim, this is nice,” I says. “I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but
here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread.”
“Well, you wouldn’t a ben here ‘f it hadn’t a ben for Jim. You’d a
ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn’ mos’
drownded, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it’s
gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile.”
The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at
last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on
the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side
it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the
same old distance across—a half a mile—because the Missouri shore
was just a wall of high bluffs.
Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty
cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes
the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way.
Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and
snakes and such things; and when the island had been overflowed a
day or two they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you
could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to;
but not the snakes and turtles—they would slide off in the water.
The ridge our cavern was in was full of them. We could a had pets
enough if we’d wanted them.
One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft—nice pine
planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long,
and the top stood above water six or seven inches—a solid, level
floor. We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we
let them go; we didn’t show ourselves in daylight.
Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just
before daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side.
She was a two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out
and got aboard—clumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark
to see yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.
The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island.
Then we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a
table, and two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the
floor, and there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was
something laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a
man. So Jim says:
“Hello, you!”
But it didn’t budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:
“De man ain’t asleep—he’s dead. You hold still—I’ll go en see.”
He went, and bent down and looked, and says:
“It’s a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He’s ben shot in de
back. I reck’n he’s ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but
doan’ look at his face—it’s too gashly.”
I didn’t look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but
he needn’t done it; I didn’t want to see him. There was heaps of old
greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles,
and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls
was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.
There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
52
women’s underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men’s
clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoe—it might come good.
There was a boy’s old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that,
too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag
stopper for a baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was
broke. There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the
hinges broke. They stood open, but there warn’t nothing left in them
that was any account. The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and warn’t fixed so as to carry off
most of their stuff.
We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle,
and a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot
of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup,
and a ratty old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and
pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it,
and a hatchet and some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a
leather dog-collar, and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that
didn’t have no label on them; and just as we was leaving I found a
tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow,
and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it
was a good enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long
enough for Jim, and we couldn’t find the other one, though we hunted all around.
And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was
ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it
was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover
up with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted
down most a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the
bank, and hadn’t no accidents and didn’t see nobody. We got home
all safe.
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 a-ha’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
CHAPTER TEN
54
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 snake-skin 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,