第 32 页

tells all about him, to a dot--paints him like a picture, and tells the

plantation he's frum, below NewrLEANS. No-sirree-BOB, they ain't no

trouble 'bout THAT speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker,

won't ye?"

I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the

wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore

my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all

this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it

was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because

they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him

a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty

dollars.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a

slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave,

and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss

Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things:

she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for

leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if

she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd

make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced.

And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a

nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that

town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's

just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to

take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no

disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the

more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down

and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden

that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and

letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up

there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that

hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's

always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable

doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks

I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up

somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so

much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, "There was the

Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a

learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that

nigger goes to everlasting fire."

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I

couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I

kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It

warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I

knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't

right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing

double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was

holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY

I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that

nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was

a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do.

At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and then

see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a

feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece

of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below

Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the

reward if you send.

HUCK FINN.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever

felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it

straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking

how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost

and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our

trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day

and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we

a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I

couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the

other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of

calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I

come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up

there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me

honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how

good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling

the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was

the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got

now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was

a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and

I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then

says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them

stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole

thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which

was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a

starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I

could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I

was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some

considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that

suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down

the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my

raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept the

night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and

put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or another

in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below

where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and

then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk

her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a

mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.

Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on it,

"Phelps's Sawmill," and when I come to the farm-houses, two or three

hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody

around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind, because I

didn't want to see nobody just yet--I only wanted to get the lay of the

land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the

village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along,

straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was

the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch--three-night

performance--like that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I

was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says:

"Hel-LO! Where'd YOU come from?" Then he says, kind of glad and eager,

"Where's the raft?--got her in a good place?"

I says:

"Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace."

Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:

"What was your idea for asking ME?" he says.

"Well," I says, "when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says to

myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went

a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered

me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a

sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and

the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him

along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after

him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the

country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark; then we

fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and

see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to

leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in

the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property no

more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down and

cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what DID become of the raft,

then?--and Jim--poor Jim!"

"Blamed if I know--that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had

made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery

the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but what

he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found

the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook

us, and run off down the river.'"

"I wouldn't shake my NIGGER, would I?--the only nigger I had in the

world, and the only property."

"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him

OUR nigger; yes, we did consider him so--goodness knows we had trouble

enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke,

there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake.

And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where's that ten

cents? Give it here."

I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to

spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the

money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never

said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:

"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done

that!"

"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"

"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's

gone."

"SOLD him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he was MY nigger, and that

was my money. Where is he?--I want my nigger."

"Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all--so dry up your blubbering.

Looky here--do you think YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think

I'd trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us--"

He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes before.

I went on a-whimpering, and says:

"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow.

I got to turn out and find my nigger."

He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on

his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:

"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll

promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you

where to find him."

So I promised, and he says:

"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph--" and then he stopped. You see, he

started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to

study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he

was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the

way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:

"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--and he

lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette."

"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this

very afternoon."

"No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you lose any time about it,

neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in

your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with

US, d'ye hear?"

That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I wanted

to be left free to work my plans.

"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want

to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim IS your nigger--some idiots

don't require documents--leastways I've heard there's such down South

here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe

he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting

'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you

don't work your jaw any BETWEEN here and there."

So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I

kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out

at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I

stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. I

reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling

around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get

away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I wanted

to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.

CHAPTER XXXII.

WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny;

the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint