第 36 页

grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see no

sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound.

Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip

off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope

ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moat

--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know--and there's

your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you

across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or

wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat to this cabin.

If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one."

I says:

"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under

the cabin?"

But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had his

chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head;

then sighs again, and says:

"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it."

"For what?" I says.

"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.

"Good land!" I says; "why, there ain't NO necessity for it. And what

would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"

"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the

chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would

be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity

enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't

understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so

we'll let it go. But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we

can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we

can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way. And I've et

worse pies."

"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a rope

ladder."

"He HAS got use for it. How YOU talk, you better say; you don't know

nothing about it. He's GOT to have a rope ladder; they all do."

"What in the nation can he DO with it?"

"DO with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what they all

do; and HE'S got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do

anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the

time. S'pose he DON'T do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, for

a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews? Of

course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That would be a

PRETTY howdy-do, WOULDN'T it! I never heard of such a thing."

"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it, all

right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no

regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing up

our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble

with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at it,

a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing, and is

just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag

ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no experience, and so

he don't care what kind of a--"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep still

--that's what I'D do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a

hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."

"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my advice,

you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline."

He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:

"Borrow a shirt, too."

"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"

"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."

"Journal your granny--JIM can't write."

"S'pose he CAN'T write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if we

make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron

barrel-hoop?"

"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better

one; and quicker, too."

"PRISONERS don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens

out of, you muggins. They ALWAYS make their pens out of the hardest,

toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like

that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks and

months and months to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by

rubbing it on the wall. THEY wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had it.

It ain't regular."

"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?"

"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort and

women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; and

when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to

let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom

of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask

always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too."

"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."

"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."

"Can't nobody READ his plates."

"That ain't got anything to DO with it, Huck Finn. All HE'S got to do is

to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't HAVE to be able to

read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on

a tin plate, or anywhere else."

"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"

"Why, blame it all, it ain't the PRISONER'S plates."

"But it's SOMEBODY'S plates, ain't it?"

"Well, spos'n it is? What does the PRISONER care whose--"

He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we

cleared out for the house.

Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the

clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went

down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing,

because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn't

borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners; and

prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody

don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in a prisoner to

steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's his right; and

so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to

steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves

out of prison with. He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very

different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he

warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was

that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that,

when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made

me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for.

Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we NEEDED. Well,

I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn't need it to get out

of prison with; there's where the difference was. He said if I'd a

wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal

with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I

couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set

down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I

see a chance to hog a watermelon.

Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled

down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he

carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep

watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile

to talk. He says:

"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed."

"Tools?" I says.

"Yes."

"Tools for what?"

"Why, to dig with. We ain't a-going to GNAW him out, are we?"

"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a

nigger out with?" I says.

He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:

"Huck Finn, did you EVER hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and

all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now

I want to ask you--if you got any reasonableness in you at all--what kind

of a show would THAT give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend

him the key and done with it. Picks and shovels--why, they wouldn't

furnish 'em to a king."

"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do we

want?"

"A couple of case-knives."

"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?"

"Yes."

"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."

"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the RIGHT way--and

it's the regular way. And there ain't no OTHER way, that ever I heard

of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these

things. They always dig out with a case-knife--and not through dirt, mind

you; generly it's through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks

and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in

the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that

dug himself out that way; how long was HE at it, you reckon?"

"I don't know."

"Well, guess."

"I don't know. A month and a half."

"THIRTY-SEVEN YEAR--and he come out in China. THAT'S the kind. I wish

the bottom of THIS fortress was solid rock."

"JIM don't know nobody in China."

"What's THAT got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But

you're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to

the main point?"

"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he COMES out; and Jim

don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too old to

be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last."

"Yes he will LAST, too. You don't reckon it's going to take thirty-seven

years to dig out through a DIRT foundation, do you?"

"How long will it take, Tom?"

"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't take

very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. He'll

hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to advertise Jim,

or something like that. So we can't resk being as long digging him out

as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years; but

we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this: that we

really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can LET ON,

to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch

him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon

that 'll be the best way."

"Now, there's SENSE in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost nothing;

letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind letting

on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain me none,

after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of

case-knives."

"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."

"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says,

"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the

weather-boarding behind the smoke-house."

He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:

"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and smouch

the knives--three of them." So I done it.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the

lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile

of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the way,

about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom said we

was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and when we got

through there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole

there, because Jim's counter-pin hung down most to the ground, and you'd

have to raise it up and look under to see the hole. So we dug and dug

with the case-knives till most midnight; and then we was dog-tired, and

our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn't see we'd done anything

hardly. At last I says:

"This ain't no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year job,

Tom Sawyer."

He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped

digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking.

Then he says:

"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work. If we was prisoners it

would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry;

and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was

changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could

keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the

way it ought to be done. But WE can't fool along; we got to rush; we

ain't got no time to spare. If we was to put in another night this way

we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get well--couldn't