第 40 页

him. And he said that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone

there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely; and when there was, a body

couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively, he said,

because THEY never all slept at one time, but took turn about, so when

the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in

the snakes come on watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his

way, and t'other gang having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt

a new place the spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed over.

He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner

again, not for a salary.

Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape. The

shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would

get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh; the

pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the

grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust,

and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache. We reckoned we was all going

to die, but didn't. It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever see; and

Tom said the same. But as I was saying, we'd got all the work done now,

at last; and we was all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim. The

old man had wrote a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to

come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because

there warn't no such plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in

the St. Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis

ones it give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose.

So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters.

"What's them?" I says.

"Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one

way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around that

gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going to

light out of the Tooleries a servant-girl done it. It's a very good way,

and so is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both. And it's usual

for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in,

and he slides out in her clothes. We'll do that, too."

"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to WARN anybody for that

something's up? Let them find it out for themselves--it's their

lookout."

"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted

from the very start--left us to do EVERYTHING. They're so confiding and

mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we don't

GIVE them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us,

and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll go off

perfectly flat; won't amount to nothing--won't be nothing TO it."

"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."

"Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:

"But I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits

me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?"

"You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that

yaller girl's frock."

"Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she

prob'bly hain't got any but that one."

"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the

nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door."

"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my

own togs."

"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl THEN, would you?"

"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, ANYWAY."

"That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just to

do our DUTY, and not worry about whether anybody SEES us do it or not.

Hain't you got no principle at all?"

"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl. Who's Jim's

mother?"

"I'm his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."

"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves."

"Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed

to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's

gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When a

prisoner of style escapes it's called an evasion. It's always called so

when a king escapes, f'rinstance. And the same with a king's son; it

don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one."

So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's

frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the

way Tom told me to. It said:

Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout. UNKNOWN FRIEND.

Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and

crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a coffin on

the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They couldn't a

been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them

behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air. If a

door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said "ouch!" if anything fell, she

jumped and said "ouch!" if you happened to touch her, when she warn't

noticing, she done the same; she couldn't face noway and be satisfied,

because she allowed there was something behind her every time--so she was

always a-whirling around sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd got

two-thirds around she'd whirl back again, and say it again; and she was

afraid to go to bed, but she dasn't set up. So the thing was working

very well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory.

He said it showed it was done right.

So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the

streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we

better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going to

have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the

lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep,

and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This letter said:

Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang of

cut-throats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your runaway

nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will

stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang, but have

got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will

betray the helish design. They will sneak down from northards, along the

fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the nigger's cabin

to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any

danger; but stead of that I will BA like a sheep soon as they get in and

not blow at all; then whilst they are getting his chains loose, you slip

there and lock them in, and can kill them at your leasure. Don't do

anything but just the way I am telling you; if you do they will suspicion

something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I do not wish any reward but to

know I have done the right thing. UNKNOWN FRIEND.

CHAPTER XL.

WE was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went

over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a

look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper,

and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end they

was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done

supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a

word about the new letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as much

about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and her

back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good

lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about

half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and

was going to start with the lunch, but says:

"Where's the butter?"

"I laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone."

"Well, you LEFT it laid out, then--it ain't here."

"We can get along without it," I says.

"We can get along WITH it, too," he says; "just you slide down cellar and

fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along.

I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in

disguise, and be ready to BA like a sheep and shove soon as you get

there."

So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a

person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of

corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs very

stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt

Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my

hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she says:

"You been down cellar?"

"Yes'm."

"What you been doing down there?"

"Noth'n."

"NOTH'N!"

"No'm."

"Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?"

"I don't know 'm."

"You don't KNOW? Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what you

been DOING down there."

"I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I

have."

I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I

s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat

about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says,

very decided:

"You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You

been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it

is before I'M done with you."

So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room.

My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of them

had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down.

They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice,

and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't;

but I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their hats, and

putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their seats,

and fumbling with their buttons. I warn't easy myself, but I didn't take

my hat off, all the same.

I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if

she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this

thing, and what a thundering hornet's-nest we'd got ourselves into, so we

could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim before

these rips got out of patience and come for us.

At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I COULDN'T answer

them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because these men

was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right NOW and lay

for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to midnight;

and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the

sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me

a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that scared;

and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning to melt

and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty soon, when one of

them says, "I'M for going and getting in the cabin FIRST and right NOW,

and catching them when they come," I most dropped; and a streak of butter

come a-trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns

white as a sheet, and says:

"For the land's sake, what IS the matter with the child? He's got the

brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"

And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes the

bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me,

and says:

"Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain't

no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and

when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color

and all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear, dear, whyd'nt you

TELL me that was what you'd been down there for, I wouldn't a cared. Now

cler out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of you till morning!"

I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one,

and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get my

words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must

jump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full of men, yonder,

with guns!

His eyes just blazed; and he says:

"No!--is that so? AIN'T it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over

again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till--"

"Hurry! HURRY!" I says. "Where's Jim?"

"Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him. He's

dressed, and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give the

sheep-signal."

But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them

begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say:

"I TOLD you we'd be too soon; they haven't come--the door is locked.

Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the

dark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece,