第 24 页

because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay all

day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we left him all

alone we had to tie him, because if anybody happened on to him all by

himself and not tied it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway nigger,

you know. So the duke said it WAS kind of hard to have to lay roped all

day, and he'd cipher out some way to get around it.

He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He dressed

Jim up in King Lear's outfit--it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a

white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his theater paint and

painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck all over a dead, dull,

solid blue, like a man that's been drownded nine days. Blamed if he

warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see. Then the duke took and

wrote out a sign on a shingle so:

Sick Arab--but harmless when not out of his head.

And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or five

foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a sight

better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all

over every time there was a sound. The duke told him to make himself

free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling around, he must hop out

of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or two like a wild

beast, and he reckoned they would light out and leave him alone. Which

was sound enough judgment; but you take the average man, and he wouldn't

wait for him to howl. Why, he didn't only look like he was dead, he

looked considerable more than that.

These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there was so

much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe the

news might a worked along down by this time. They couldn't hit no

project that suited exactly; so at last the duke said he reckoned he'd

lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put up

something on the Arkansaw village; and the king he allowed he would drop

over to t'other village without any plan, but just trust in Providence to

lead him the profitable way--meaning the devil, I reckon. We had all

bought store clothes where we stopped last; and now the king put his'n

on, and he told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. The king's

duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I never

knowed how clothes could change a body before. Why, before, he looked

like the orneriest old rip that ever was; but now, when he'd take off his

new white beaver and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that grand and

good and pious that you'd say he had walked right out of the ark, and

maybe was old Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my

paddle ready. There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away up

under the point, about three mile above the town--been there a couple

of hours, taking on freight. Says the king:

"Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St.

Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the steamboat,

Huckleberry; we'll come down to the village on her."

I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride. I

fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went scooting

along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to a nice

innocent-looking young country jake setting on a log swabbing the sweat

off of his face, for it was powerful warm weather; and he had a couple of

big carpet-bags by him.

"Run her nose in shore," says the king. I done it. "Wher' you bound

for, young man?"

"For the steamboat; going to Orleans."

"Git aboard," says the king. "Hold on a minute, my servant 'll he'p you

with them bags. Jump out and he'p the gentleman, Adolphus"--meaning me,

I see.

I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap was

mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage such weather.

He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him he'd come

down the river and landed at the other village this morning, and now he

was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up there. The

young fellow says:

"When I first see you I says to myself, 'It's Mr. Wilks, sure, and he

come mighty near getting here in time.' But then I says again, 'No, I

reckon it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river.' You

AIN'T him, are you?"

"No, my name's Blodgett--Elexander Blodgett--REVEREND Elexander Blodgett,

I s'pose I must say, as I'm one o' the Lord's poor servants. But still

I'm jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving in time, all

the same, if he's missed anything by it--which I hope he hasn't."

"Well, he don't miss any property by it, because he'll get that all

right; but he's missed seeing his brother Peter die--which he mayn't

mind, nobody can tell as to that--but his brother would a give anything

in this world to see HIM before he died; never talked about nothing else

all these three weeks; hadn't seen him since they was boys together--and

hadn't ever seen his brother William at all--that's the deef and dumb

one--William ain't more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter and George

were the only ones that come out here; George was the married brother;

him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and William's the only ones

that's left now; and, as I was saying, they haven't got here in time."

"Did anybody send 'em word?"

"Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter

said then that he sorter felt like he warn't going to get well this time.

You see, he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too young to be much

company for him, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and so he was

kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn't seem to care

much to live. He most desperately wanted to see Harvey--and William,

too, for that matter--because he was one of them kind that can't bear to

make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he'd told in

it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the property

divided up so George's g'yirls would be all right--for George didn't

leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get him to put a pen

to."

"Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Wher' does he live?"

"Oh, he lives in England--Sheffield--preaches there--hasn't ever been in

this country. He hasn't had any too much time--and besides he mightn't a

got the letter at all, you know."

"Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his brothers, poor soul.

You going to Orleans, you say?"

"Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in a ship, next

Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives."

"It's a pretty long journey. But it'll be lovely; wisht I was a-going.

Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?"

"Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's about fourteen

--that's the one that gives herself to good works and has a hare-lip."

"Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so."

"Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they ain't

going to let them come to no harm. There's Hobson, the Babtis' preacher;

and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi

Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow

Bartley, and--well, there's a lot of them; but these are the ones that

Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes, when he wrote

home; so Harvey 'll know where to look for friends when he gets here."

Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied

that young fellow. Blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody and

everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about

Peter's business--which was a tanner; and about George's--which was a

carpenter; and about Harvey's--which was a dissentering minister; and so

on, and so on. Then he says:

"What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?"

"Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn't stop

there. When they're deep they won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat

will, but this is a St. Louis one."

"Was Peter Wilks well off?"

"Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it's reckoned he

left three or four thousand in cash hid up som'ers."

"When did you say he died?"

"I didn't say, but it was last night."

"Funeral to-morrow, likely?"

"Yes, 'bout the middle of the day."

"Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to go, one time or

another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we're all right."

"Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always say that."

When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she

got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my

ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up

another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says:

"Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new

carpet-bags. And if he's gone over to t'other side, go over there and

git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now."

I see what HE was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I got

back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a log, and

the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had said it

--every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he tried to

talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for a slouch.

I can't imitate him, and so I ain't a-going to try to; but he really done

it pretty good. Then he says:

"How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?"

The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and

dumb person on the histronic boards. So then they waited for a

steamboat.

About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along,

but they didn't come from high enough up the river; but at last there was

a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went

aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted

to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and

said they wouldn't land us. But the king was ca'm. He says:

"If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and

put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't it?"

So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the

village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when

they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says:

"Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher' Mr. Peter Wilks lives?" they give

a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, "What

d' I tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle:

"I'm sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he DID live

yesterday evening."

Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to smash, and fell up

against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his

back, and says:

"Alas, alas, our poor brother--gone, and we never got to see him; oh,

it's too, too hard!"

Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to the

duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a carpet-bag and bust out

a-crying. If they warn't the beatenest lot, them two frauds, that ever I

struck.

Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all

sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill

for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about

his brother's last moments, and the king he told it all over again on his

hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead tanner like

they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I struck anything like

it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people

tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on

their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd,

and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and

dooryards was full; and every minute somebody would say, over a fence:

"Is it THEM?"

And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say:

"You bet it is."

When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the

three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane WAS red-headed, but that

don't make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her face and

her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles was come.

The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the

hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they HAD it! Everybody most,

leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have

such good times.

Then the king he hunched the duke private--I see him do it--and then he

looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so

then him and the duke, with a hand across each other's shoulder, and

t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody

dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise stopping,