The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain (best thriller novels to read txt) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
Book online «The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain (best thriller novels to read txt) đ». Author Mark Twain
One morning I happened to turn over the saltcellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, âTake your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!â The widow put in a good word for me, but that warnât going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasnât one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebodyâs tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile 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 curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didnât notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didnât see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcherâs as quick as I could get there. He said:
âWhy, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?â
âNo, sir,â I says; âis there some for me?â
âOh, yes, a half-yearly is in last nightâ âover a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along 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 allâ ânor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to youâ âthe 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 itâ âwonât you?â
He says:
âWell, Iâm puzzled. Is something the matter?â
âPlease take it,â says I, âand donât ask me nothingâ âthen I wonât have to tell no lies.â
He studied a while, and then he says:
âOho-o! I think I see. You want to sell all your property to meâ ânot give it. Thatâs the correct idea.â
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
âThere; you see it says âfor a consideration.â That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Hereâs a dollar for you. Now you sign it.â
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watsonâs nigger, Jim, had a hairball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks 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 hairball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled 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 warnât no use; he said it wouldnât talk. He said sometimes it wouldnât talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warnât no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldnât pass nohow, even if the brass didnât show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldnât say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hairball would take it, because maybe it wouldnât know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hairball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldnât see no brass, and it wouldnât feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hairball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hairball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hairball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hairball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
âYoâ ole
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