第 12 页

below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do

something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current?

There ain't no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.' Now if you'll go

and--"

"By Jackson, I'd LIKE to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will; but who

in the dingnation's a-going' to PAY for it? Do you reckon your pap--"

"Why THAT'S all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, PARTICULAR, that her

uncle Hornback--"

"Great guns! is HE her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light over

yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of

a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you out to Jim

Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And don't you fool around any,

because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all

safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm a-going up

around the corner here to roust out my engineer."

I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back

and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the

easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some

woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat start.

But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of

taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I

wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for

helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the

kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.

Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along

down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for

her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance

for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a

little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit

heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could

stand it I could.

Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the river on

a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach I laid

on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for

Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle

Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up

and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down

the river.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and when

it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got

there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we

struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in

and slept like dead people.

CHAPTER XIV.

BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole

off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all

sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three

boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of our

lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the

woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time.

I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferryboat,

and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn't

want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he

crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone he nearly died,

because he judged it was all up with HIM anyway it could be fixed; for if

he didn't get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved,

whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and

then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was

most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger.

I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and

how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each

other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead

of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says:

"I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un um,

skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a

pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?"

"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want

it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them."

"AIN' dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?"

"THEY don't do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around."

"No; is dat so?"

"Of course it is. They just set around--except, maybe, when there's a

war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or

go hawking--just hawking and sp--Sh!--d' you hear a noise?"

We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a

steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.

"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the

parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off.

But mostly they hang round the harem."

"Roun' de which?"

"Harem."

"What's de harem?"

"The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem?

Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."

"Why, yes, dat's so; I--I'd done forgot it. A harem's a bo'd'n-house, I

reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de

wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say

Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in dat.

Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a

blim-blammin' all de time? No--'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take

en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet DOWN de biler-factry when

he want to res'."

"Well, but he WAS the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me

so, her own self."

"I doan k'yer what de widder say, he WARN'T no wise man nuther. He had

some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile

dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"

"Yes, the widow told me all about it."

"WELL, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' take en

look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women; heah's

you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's de

chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun'

mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b'long to, en

han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat

had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half

un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way

Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what's

de use er dat half a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a

half a chile? I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um."

"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point--blame it, you've missed

it a thousand mile."

"Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I

knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat.

De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile;

en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half

a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk to me

'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."

"But I tell you you don't get the point."

"Blame de point! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de REAL

pint is down furder--it's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was

raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen; is dat man

gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it. HE

know how to value 'em. But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million

chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt. HE as soon chop a chile

in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'. A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't

no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!"

I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there

warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any

nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let

Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in

France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a

been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died

there.

"Po' little chap."

"But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."

"Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome--dey ain' no kings here, is

dey, Huck?"

"No."

"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?"

"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them

learns people how to talk French."

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"

"NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.

S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you

think?"

"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat is, if he

warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know

how to talk French?"

"Well, den, why couldn't he SAY it?"

"Why, he IS a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's WAY of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout

it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't

it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different

from US?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a FRENCHMAN to talk

different from us? You answer me that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a

man?--er is a cow a cat?"

"No, she ain't either of them."

"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the

yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"

"Yes."

"WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like a man? You answer me

DAT!"

I see it warn't no use wasting words--you can't learn a nigger to argue.

So I quit.

CHAPTER XV.

WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom

of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was

after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the

Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.

Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead

to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled

ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything but

little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on

the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft

come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she

went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I

couldn't budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me--and then there

warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see twenty yards. I jumped into

the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her

back a stroke. But she didn't come. I was in such a hurry I hadn't

untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my

hands shook so I couldn't hardly do anything with them.

As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right

down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead

warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot

out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which way I was

going than a dead man.

Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank or a

towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's mighty

fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I

whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop,

and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to

hear it again. The next time it come I see I warn't heading for it, but

heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away to

the left of it--and not gaining on it much either, for I was flying

around, this way and that and t'other, but it was going straight ahead