Huckleberry Finn by Dave Mckay, Mark Twain (dark books to read TXT) đ
- Author: Dave Mckay, Mark Twain
Book online «Huckleberry Finn by Dave Mckay, Mark Twain (dark books to read TXT) đ». Author Dave Mckay, Mark Twain
Chapter 4
Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could read and write just a little, and could say the times table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I donât think I could ever get any farther than that if I was to live forever. I donât put no worth in sums, anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got too tired I wouldnât go, and the trouble I got into next day for doing it done me good and made me feel better. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting kind of used to the widowâs ways, too, and they werenât so rough on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to go out secretly and sleep in under the trees sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very much okay. She said she wasnât embarrassed by me at all.
One morning I happened to turn over the salt at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quickly as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and cut me off. She says, âTake your hands away, Huckleberry; youâre always so messy!â The widow put in a good word for me, but that werenât going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.
I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and weak, and thinking about where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There's ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this werenât one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just went along slowly and low-spirited and on the watch for it.
I went down to the front garden and climbed over the gate where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen someoneâs footprints.
They had come up from the rock yard and stood around the gate a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadnât come in, after standing around so. I couldnât make it out. It was very strange. I was going to follow around, but I bent down to look at the footprints first. I didnât see anything special at first, but then I did. There was a cross in the left heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and running down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didnât see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcherâs as fast as I could get there. He said: âWhy, my boy, you are breathing so heavily. Did you come for your interest?â
âNo, sir,â I says; âIs there some for me?â
âOh, yes, come in last night for half a year -- over a hundred and fifty dollars. A lot of wealth for you. You had better let me put it back with your six thousand, because if you take it youâll spend it.â
âNo, sir,â I says, âI donât want to spend it. I donât want it at all -- or the six thousand either. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you -- the six thousand and all.â
He looked surprised. He couldnât seem to make it out. He says: âWhy, what can you mean, my boy?â
I says, âDonât you ask me no questions about it, please. Youâll take it -- wonât you?â
He says: âWell, Iâm confused. Is something wrong?â
âPlease take it,â says I, âand donât ask me nothing -- then I wonât have to tell no lies.â
He studied a while, and then he says: âOh! I think I see what youâre saying. But you need to sell your wealth to me -- not give it. Thatâs the right way.â
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says: âThere; you see it says âfor a sum.â That means you have sold it to me. Hereâs a dollar for you. Now you sign it.â
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watsonâs slave, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of a cow, and he used it to do magic. He said there was a spirit in it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his footprints in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only moved about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it werenât no use; he said it wouldnât talk. He said sometimes it wouldnât talk without money. I told him I had an old counterfeit coin that werenât no good because the yellow metal showed through the silver a little, and it wouldnât pass anyway, even if the yellow didnât show, because it was so smooth it felt like it had oil on it, and that would tell on it every time. (I wasnât going to say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldnât know the difference. Jim smelled it and squeezed it with his teeth and rubbed it, and said he could do something so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would cut open a potato and put the coin in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldnât see no yellow, and it wouldnât feel like oil no more, and so anyone in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I didnât think of it at the time.
Jim put the coin under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would tell my whole future if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me.
He says: âYour old father donât know yet what heâs a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he thinks heâll go away, den again he thinks heâll stay. De best way is to rest easy and let de old man take his own way. Deyâs two angels hanging round about him. One of âem is white and full of light, and tâother is black. De white one gets him to go right a little, den de black one sails in and breaks it all up. A body canât tell yet which one gwyne to lead him at de last. But you is all right. You gwyne to have a lot of trouble in your life, and a lot of happiness. Sometimes you gwyne to get hurt, and sometimes you gwyne to get sick; but every time youâs gwyne to get well again. Deyâs two girls flying about you in your life. One of âemâs light and tâother is dark. One is rich and tâother is poor. Youâs gwyne to marry de poor one first and de rich one by and by. You wants to keep away from de water as much as you can, and donât do anything dangerous, because itâs down in de ball dat youâs gwyne to be hanged.â
Chapter 5
When I took a candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap himself!
I had shut the door to. Then I turned around. and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he hit me so much. I thought I was scared now, too; but in a minute I seen I was wrong -- that is, after the first surprise, as you may say, when my breathing kind of stopped, he being so not what I was thinking would be there; then right away after, I seen I wasnât scared of him worth worrying about.
He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and messy and dirty, and was hanging down so you could see his eyes looking through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no grey; so was his long, confused beard. There werenât no colour in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another manâs white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a bodyâs skin turn cold -- a tree-frog white, a fish-stomach white. As for his clothes -- just pieces of broken cloth, that was all. He had one ankle resting on the other knee; the shoe on that foot was broken open, and two of his toes were sticking through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was lying on the floor -- an old black hat with a concave top.
I stood a-looking at him; he sat there a-looking at me, with his chair leaning back a little. I put the candle down. I could see the window was up; so he had climbed in by the tool room. He kept a-looking me all over. By and by he says: âStraight clothes -- very. You think youâre the best part of a big head now, donât you?â
âMaybe I am, maybe I ainât,â I says.
âDonât you give me none of your lip,â says he. âYouâve put on way too many airs since I been away. Iâll take you down a step or two before I get done with you. Youâre educated, too, they say -- can read and write. You think youâre better than your father, now, donât you, because he canât? Iâll take it out of you. Who told you you might be part of such high minded foolishness, hey? -- who told you you could?â
âThe widow. She told me.â
âThe widow, hey? -- and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ainât none of her business?â
âNobody never told her.â
âWell, Iâll learn her to mix things up. And you drop that school, you hear? Iâll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better than what he is. Don't let me catch you going to that school again, you hear? Your mother couldnât read, and she couldnât write either, before she died. None of the family couldnât before they died. I canât; and here youâre a-lifting yourself up like this. I ainât the man to stand it --
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