Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (good book club books .TXT) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
- Performer: 0142437174
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And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jimâs bed; and they kept on piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warnât hardly room in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered âWitchesâ once, and keeled over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jimâs meat, and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back again and shut the door, and I knowed heâd fixed the other door too. Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and asking him if heâd been imagining he saw something again. He raised up, and blinked his eyes around, and says:
âMars Sid, youâll say Iâs a fool, but if I didnât bâlieve I see most a million dogs, er devils, er someân, I wisht I may die right heah in dese tracks. I did, mosâ sholy. Mars Sid, I felt umâI felt um, sah; dey was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jisâ wisht I could git my hanâs on one er dem witches jisâ wunstâonây jisâ wunstâitâs all Iâd ast. But mosâly I wisht deyâd lemme âlone, I does.â
Tom says:
âWell, I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just at this runaway niggerâs breakfast-time? Itâs because theyâre hungry; thatâs the reason. You make them a witch pie; thatâs the thing for you to do.â
âBut my lanâ, Mars Sid, howâs I gwyne to make âm a witch pie? I doanâ know how to make it. I hainât ever hearn er sich a thing bâfoâ.â
âWell, then, Iâll have to make it myself.â
âWill you do it, honey?âwill you? Iâll wusshup de grounâ undâ yoâ foot, I will!â
âAll right, Iâll do it, seeing itâs you, and youâve been good to us and showed us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful. When we come around, you turn your back; and then whatever weâve put in the pan, donât you let on you see it at all. And donât you look when Jim unloads the panâsomething might happen, I donât know what. And above all, donât you handle the witch-things.â
âHannel âM, Mars Sid? What is you a-talkinâ âbout? I wouldnâ lay de weight er my finger on um, not fâr ten hundâd thousân billion dollars, I wouldnât.â
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THAT was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pile in the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces of bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well as we could, to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it full of flour and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nails that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in Aunt Sallyâs apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and tâother we stuck in the band of Uncle Silasâs hat, which was on the bureau, because we heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the runaway niggerâs house this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle Silasâs coat-pocket, and Aunt Sally wasnât come yet, so we had to wait a little while.
And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldnât hardly wait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one hand and cracking the handiest childâs head with her thimble with the other, and says:
âIâve hunted high and Iâve hunted low, and it does beat all what has become of your other shirt.â
My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the children in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cry out of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold out for half price if there was a bidder. But after that we was all right againâit was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas he says:
âItâs most uncommon curious, I canât understand it. I know perfectly well I took it off, becauseââ
âBecause you hainât got but one on. Just listen at the man! I know you took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gethering memory, too, because it was on the cloâs-line yesterdayâI see it there myself. But itâs gone, thatâs the long and the short of it, and youâll just have to change to a red flannâl one till I can get time to make a new one. And it âll be the third Iâve made in two years. It just keeps a body on the jump to keep you in shirts; and whatever you do manage to do with âm all is moreân I can make out. A body âd think you would learn to take some sort of care of âem at your time of life.â
âI know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtnât to be altogether my fault, because, you know, I donât see them nor have nothing to do with them except when theyâre on me; and I donât believe Iâve ever lost one of them off of me.â
âWell, it ainât your fault if you havenât, Silas; youâd a done it if you could, I reckon. And the shirt ainât all thatâs gone, nuther. Therâs a spoon gone; and that ainât all. There was ten, and now therâs only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never took the spoon, thatâs certain.â
âWhy, what else is gone, Sally?â
âTherâs six candles goneâthatâs what. The rats could a got the candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they donât walk off with the whole place, the way youâre always going to stop their holes and donât do it; and if they warnât fools theyâd sleep in your hair, Silasâyouâd never find it out; but you canât lay the spoon on the rats, and that I know.â
âWell, Sally, Iâm in fault, and I acknowledge it; Iâve been remiss; but I wonât let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes.â
âOh, I wouldnât hurry; next year âll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta Phelps!â
Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps on to the passage, and says:
âMissus, deyâs a sheet gone.â
âA sheet gone! Well, for the landâs sake!â
âIâll stop up them holes to-day,â says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.
âOh, do shet up!âsâpose the rats took the sheet? whereâs it gone, Lize?â
âClah to goodness I hainât no notion, Missâ Sally. She wuz on de cloâsline yistiddy, but she done gone: she ainâ dah no moâ now.â
âI reckon the world is coming to an end. I never see the beat of it in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six canââ
âMissus,â comes a young yaller wench, âdeyâs a brass cannelstick missân.â
âCler out from here, you hussy, er Iâll take a skillet to ye!â
Well, she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She stopped, with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was in Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says:
âItâs just as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time; and like as not youâve got the other things there, too. Howâd it get there?â
âI reely donât know, Sally,â he says, kind of apologizing, âor you know I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen before breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put my Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ainât in; but Iâll go and see; and if the Testament is where I had it, Iâll know I didnât put it in, and that will show that I laid the Testament down and took up the spoon, andââ
âOh, for the landâs sake! Give a body a rest! Go âlong now, the whole kit and biling of ye; and donât come nigh me again till Iâve got back my peace of mind.â
IâD a heard her if sheâd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it out; and Iâd a got up and obeyed her if Iâd a been dead. As we was passing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and the shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says:
âWell, it ainât no use to send things by him no more, he ainât reliable.â Then he says: "But he done us a good turn with the spoon, anyway, without knowing it, and so weâll go and do him one without him knowing itâstop up his rat-holes.â
There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape. Then we heard steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in tâother, looking as absent-minded as year before last. He went a mooning around, first to one rat-hole and then another, till heâd been to them all. Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candle and thinking. Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs, saying:
âWell, for the life of me I canât remember when I done it. I could show her now that I warnât to blame on account of the rats. But never mindâlet it go. I reckon it wouldnât do no good.â
And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a mighty nice old man. And always is.
Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said weâd got to have it; so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out he told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the spoon-basket till
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