第 9 页

just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We

found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of

rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool

in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so and

make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the

Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He

would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They peddle out such

a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there; everybody buys

some of him; his meat's as white as snow and makes a good fry.

Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a

stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and

find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must go

in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I

put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good

notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up

my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with

the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it

under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like

looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even

in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of

the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I

didn't walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to

get at my britches-pocket. I took notice, and done better.

I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.

I started across to the town from a little below the ferry-landing, and

the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I tied

up and started along the bank. There was a light burning in a little

shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered who had

took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped in at the window. There

was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by a candle that was

on a pine table. I didn't know her face; she was a stranger, for you

couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know. Now this was

lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid I had come; people

might know my voice and find me out. But if this woman had been in such

a little town two days she could tell me all I wanted to know; so I

knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.

CHAPTER XI.

"COME in," says the woman, and I did. She says: "Take a cheer."

I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says:

"What might your name be?"

"Sarah Williams."

"Where 'bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?'

"No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I've walked all the way and

I'm all tired out."

"Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something."

"No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below

here at a farm; so I ain't hungry no more. It's what makes me so late.

My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to

tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the town, she

says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you know him?"

"No; but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite two

weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You better

stay here all night. Take off your bonnet."

"No," I says; "I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't afeared

of the dark."

She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in by

and by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me.

Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the

river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off

they used to was, and how they didn't know but they'd made a mistake

coming to our town, instead of letting well alone--and so on and so on,

till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was

going on in the town; but by and by she dropped on to pap and the murder,

and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. She told

about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only she got it

ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I

was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I says:

"Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on down in

Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn."

"Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people HERE that'd like

to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself."

"No--is that so?"

"Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come

to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it

was done by a runaway nigger named Jim."

"Why HE--"

I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never

noticed I had put in at all:

"The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there's a

reward out for him--three hundred dollars. And there's a reward out for

old Finn, too--two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the morning

after the murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the

ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they

wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found

out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten

o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you

see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and

went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all

over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got

drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty

hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't

come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing

blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and

fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get

Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People

do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he

don't come back for a year he'll be all right. You can't prove anything

on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in

Huck's money as easy as nothing."

"Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has

everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?"

"Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get

the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him."

"Why, are they after him yet?"

"Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay around

every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain't far

from here. I'm one of them--but I hain't talked it around. A few days

ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log

shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island

over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't anybody live there?

says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any more, but I done some

thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over there, about the

head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like

as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway, says I, it's worth the

trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain't seen any smoke sence, so I

reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him; but husband's going over to see

--him and another man. He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day,

and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago."

I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with my

hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it.

My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman stopped

talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious and smiling

a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to be interested

--and I was, too--and says:

"Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get

it. Is your husband going over there to-night?"

"Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a

boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over after

midnight."

"Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?"

"Yes. And couldn't the nigger see better, too? After midnight he'll

likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up

his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one."

"I didn't think of that."

The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit

comfortable. Pretty soon she says,

"What did you say your name was, honey?"

"M--Mary Williams."

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't

look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered,

and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would

say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But now

she says:

"Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"

"Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some

calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."

"Oh, that's the way of it?"

"Yes'm."

I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I

couldn't look up yet.

Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor

they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the

place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right

about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner

every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at

them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed

me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot

with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't

know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and

directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!"

it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted

to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't

let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let

drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick

rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the

next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and

brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with. I

held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking

about her and her husband's matters. But she broke off to say:

"Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,

handy."

So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my

legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute.

Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very

pleasant, and says:

"Come, now, what's your real name?"

"Wh--what, mum?"

"What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?"

I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do. But I

says:

"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the way

here, I'll--"

"No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt

you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your

secret, and trust me. I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help you.

So'll my old man if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway

'prentice, that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it.

You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you,

child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that's a good

boy."

So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would

just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go back

on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the

law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back

from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer;

he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and

stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been

three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid

daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home

lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my uncle

Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for

this town of Goshen.

"Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's

ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?"

"Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn

into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I

must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen."

"He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong."