Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (good book club books .TXT) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
- Performer: 0142437174
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âBlamed if I knowâthat is, whatâs 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 heâd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, âThat little rascal has stole our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.ââ
âI wouldnât shake my nigger, would I?âthe only nigger I had in the world, and the only property.â
âWe never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon weâd come to consider him our nigger; yes, we did consider him soâgoodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there warnât anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And Iâve pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Whereâs that ten cents? Give it here.â
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 hadnât had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:
âDo you reckon that nigger would blow on us? Weâd skin him if he done that!â
âHow can he blow? Hainât he run off?â
âNo! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the moneyâs gone.â
âSold him?â I says, and begun to cry; âwhy, he was my nigger, and that was my money. Where is he?âI want my nigger.â
âWell, you canât get your nigger, thatâs allâso dry up your blubbering. Looky hereâdo you think youâd venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think Iâd trust you. Why, if you was to blow on usââ
He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
âI donât want to blow on nobody; and I ainât got no time to blow, nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger.â
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:
âIâll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If youâll promise you wonât blow, and wonât let the nigger blow, Iâll tell you where to find him.â
So I promised, and he says:
âA farmer by the name of Silas Phââ 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 wouldnât trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:
âThe man that bought him is named Abram FosterâAbram G. Fosterâand he lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette.â
âAll right,â I says, âI can walk it in three days. And Iâll start this very afternoon.â
âNo you wont, youâll start now; and donât 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 wonât get into trouble with us, dâye hear?â
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted to be left free to work my plans.
âSo clear out,â he says; âand you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim is your niggerâsome idiots donât require documentsâleastways Iâve heard thereâs such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill and the rewardâs bogus, maybe heâll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting âem out. Go âlong now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you donât work your jaw any between here and there.â
So I left, and struck for the back country. I didnât 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 Phelpsâ. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jimâs mouth till these fellows could get away. I didnât want no trouble with their kind. Iâd seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.
CHAPTER XXXII.
WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybodyâs dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like itâs spirits whisperingâspirits thatâs been dead ever so many yearsâand you always think theyâre talking about you. As a general thing it makes a body wish he was dead, too, and done with it all.
Phelpsâ was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folksâhewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row tâother side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods.
I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and then I knowed for certain I wished I was deadâfor that is the lonesomest sound in the whole world.
I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for Iâd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if I left it alone.
When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may sayâspokes made out of dogsâcircle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her hand, singing out, âBegone you Tige! you Spot! begone sah!â and she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ainât no harm in a hound, nohow.
And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their motherâs gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers was doing. She was smiling all over so she could hardly standâand says:
âItâs you, at last!âainât it?â
I out with a âYesâmâ before I thought.
She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and she couldnât seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, âYou donât look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I donât care for that, Iâm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, itâs your cousin Tom!âtell him howdy.â
But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:
âLize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right awayâor did you get your breakfast on the boat?â
I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
âNow I can have a good look at you; and, laws-a-me, Iâve been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and itâs come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kepâ you?âboat get aground?â
âYesâmâsheââ
âDonât say yesâmâsay Aunt Sally. Whereâd she get aground?â
I didnât rightly know what to say, because I didnât know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming upâfrom down towards Orleans. That didnât help me much, though; for I didnât know the names of bars down that way. I see Iâd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground onâorâNow I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
âIt warnât the groundingâthat didnât keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.â
âGood gracious! anybody hurt?â
âNoâm. Killed a nigger.â
âWell, itâs lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I think he died
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