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HUCKLEBERRY FINN

By Mark Twain

NOTICE

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;

persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons

attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

EXPLANATORY

IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro

dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the

ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last.

The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork;

but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of

personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would

suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not

succeeding.

THE AUTHOR.

HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago

CHAPTER I.

YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The

Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made

by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which

he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never

seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or

the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she is--and

Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is

mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money

that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six

thousand dollars apiece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money when

it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at

interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round

--more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took

me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough

living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and

decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no

longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again,

and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he

was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back

to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she

called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.

She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat

and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced

again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time.

When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to

wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the

victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them,--that

is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds

and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of

swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the

Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by

she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then

I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead

people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she

wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must

try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They

get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was

a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody,

being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a

thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that

was all right, because she done it herself.

Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on,

had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a

spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then

the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for

an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say,

"Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like

that, Huckleberry--set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say,

"Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry--why don't you try to

behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I

was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was

to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She

said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the

whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well,

I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my

mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only

make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.

Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good

place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all

day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much

of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would

go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about

that, because I wanted him and me to be together.

Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By

and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody

was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it

on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to

think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I

most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled

in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing

about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about

somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper

something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the

cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of

a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's

on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in

its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so

down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a

spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in

the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't

need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch

me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me.

I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast

every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to

keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've

lost a horseshoe that you've found, instead of nailing it up over the

door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad

luck when you'd killed a spider.

I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;

for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't

know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go

boom--boom--boom--twelve licks; and all still again--stiller than ever.

Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees

--something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could

just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That was good! Says I,

"me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and

scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the

ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom

Sawyer waiting for me.

CHAPTER II.

WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of

the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our

heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a

noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger,

named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty

clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his

neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

"Who dah?"

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right

between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes

and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close

together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I

dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right

between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well,

I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality,

or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy--if you

are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all

over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.

Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen

tell I hears it agin."

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up

against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched

one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into

my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside.

Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set

still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it

seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different

places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I

set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe

heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty soon comfortable

again.

Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and we

went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom

whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said

no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I

warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip

in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim

might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there

and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.

Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do

Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play

something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was

so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence,

and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of

the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on

a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake.

Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance,

and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again,

and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told

it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time

he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode

him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all

over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he

wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to

hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in

that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and

look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking

about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was

talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in

and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked

up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece

round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to

him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and

fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it; but

he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all

around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that

five-center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had

his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck

up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.

Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down

into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where

there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so

fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and

awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben

Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we

unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the

big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the