第 18 页

trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my

mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was

to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss

Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and I

judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way

she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess

wouldn't ever happened.

When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a

piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and

tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, and

got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up

Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.

It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck through

the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so I tramped

off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows, red-hot to

jump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was gone! My

souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath for most a minute.

Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot from me says:

"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise."

It was Jim's voice--nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the

bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was

so glad to see me. He says:

"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin. Jack's

been heah; he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home no

mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er de

crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack comes

agin en tells me for certain you IS dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git

you back again, honey."

I says:

"All right--that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll think

I've been killed, and floated down the river--there's something up there

that 'll help them think so--so don't you lose no time, Jim, but just

shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can."

I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the

middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and

judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat

since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and

pork and cabbage and greens--there ain't nothing in the world so good

when it's cooked right--and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a

good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was

Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a

raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a

raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

CHAPTER XIX.

TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by,

they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put

in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a mile

and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as

night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always in

the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and

willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we

slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off;

then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep,

and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still

--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs

a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water,

was a kind of dull line--that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn't

make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness

spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't black

any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever

so far away--trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks

--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices,

it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a

streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's

a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak

look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the

east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge

of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the river, being a

woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through

it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from

over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods

and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they've left dead

fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next

you've got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the

song-birds just going it!

A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of

the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the

lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off

to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see

a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side

you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or

side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor

nothing to see--just solid lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft sliding

by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're

most always doing it on a raft; you'd see the axe flash and come down

--you don't hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time

it's above the man's head then you hear the K'CHUNK!--it had took all

that time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying

around, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and the

rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats

wouldn't run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear

them talking and cussing and laughing--heard them plain; but we couldn't

see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits

carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits;

but I says:

"No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'"

Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the

middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted

her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and

talked about all kinds of things--we was always naked, day and night,

whenever the mosquitoes would let us--the new clothes Buck's folks made

for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on

clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest

time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a

spark--which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water

you could see a spark or two--on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe

you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts.

It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled

with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and

discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he

allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would

have took too long to MAKE so many. Jim said the moon could a LAID them;

well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it,

because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.

We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim

allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.

Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the

dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of

her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful

pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and

her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her

waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the

raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't

tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.

After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or three

hours the shores was black--no more sparks in the cabin windows. These

sparks was our clock--the first one that showed again meant morning was

coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.

One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to

the main shore--it was only two hundred yards--and paddled about a mile

up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get some

berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed

the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as

they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was

after anybody I judged it was ME--or maybe Jim. I was about to dig out

from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung out

and begged me to save their lives--said they hadn't been doing nothing,

and was being chased for it--said there was men and dogs a-coming. They

wanted to jump right in, but I says:

"Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got time

to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you

take to the water and wade down to me and get in--that'll throw the dogs

off the scent."

They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, and

in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off,

shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't see

them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got

further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at

all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the

river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid

in the cottonwoods and was safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head

and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a

greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed

into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses--no, he only had one. He had

an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over

his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After

breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out

was that these chaps didn't know one another.

"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.

"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth--and

it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it--but I

stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of

sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you

told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I

told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out WITH you.

That's the whole yarn--what's yourn?

"Well, I'd ben a-running' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a week,

and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makin' it

mighty warm for the rummies, I TELL you, and takin' as much as five or

six dollars a night--ten cents a head, children and niggers free--and

business a-growin' all the time, when somehow or another a little report

got around last night that I had a way of puttin' in my time with a

private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and told

me the people was getherin' on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and

they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, and

then run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and feather

me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast--I warn't

hungry."

"Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it

together; what do you think?"

"I ain't undisposed. What's your line--mainly?"

"Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theater-actor

--tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when there's a

chance; teach singing-geography school for a change; sling a lecture

sometimes--oh, I do lots of things--most anything that comes handy, so it

ain't work. What's your lay?"

"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o'

hands is my best holt--for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I

k'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out

the facts for me. Preachin's my line, too, and workin' camp-meetin's,

and missionaryin' around."

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh

and says:

"Alas!"

"What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head.

"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded

down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with

a rag.

"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the

baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

"Yes, it IS good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who

fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame YOU,