Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 36 to the Last

by Mark Twain

  CHAPTER XLII.

  THE old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't get no trackof Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not sayingnothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and noteating anything. And by and by the old man says:

  "Did I give you the letter?"

  "What letter?"

  "The one I got yesterday out of the post-office."

  "No, you didn't give me no letter."

  "Well, I must a forgot it."

  So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he hadlaid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:

  "Why, it's from St. Petersburg--it's from Sis."

  I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn't stir. But beforeshe could break it open she dropped it and run--for she see something.And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old doctor; andJim, in HER calico dress, with his hands tied behind him; and a lot ofpeople. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come handy, andrushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:

  "Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!"

  And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other,which showed he warn't in his right mind; then she flung up her hands,and says:

  "He's alive, thank God! And that's enough!" and she snatched a kiss ofhim, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering ordersright and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tonguecould go, every jump of the way.

  I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the olddoctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men wasvery huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all theother niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run away likeJim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a whole familyscared most to death for days and nights. But the others said, don't doit, it wouldn't answer at all; he ain't our nigger, and his owner wouldturn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled them down alittle, because the people that's always the most anxious for to hang anigger that hain't done just right is always the very ones that ain't themost anxious to pay for him when they've got their satisfaction out ofhim.

  They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side thehead once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on toknow me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes onhim, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to a bigstaple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands, too, and bothlegs, and said he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to eat afterthis till his owner come, or he was sold at auction because he didn'tcome in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and said acouple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the cabin everynight, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime; and about this timethey was through with the job and was tapering off with a kind of generlgood-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and takes a look, andsays:

  "Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't abad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut thebullet out without some help, and he warn't in no condition for me toleave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little worse,and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn't let me comea-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill me, and noend of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do anything atall with him; so I says, I got to have HELP somehow; and the minute Isays it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says he'll help, andhe done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I judged he must be arunaway nigger, and there I WAS! and there I had to stick right straightalong all the rest of the day and all night. It was a fix, I tell you!I had a couple of patients with the chills, and of course I'd of liked torun up to town and see them, but I dasn't, because the nigger might getaway, and then I'd be to blame; and yet never a skiff come close enoughfor me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight thismorning; and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller,and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too,and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked thenigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth athousand dollars--and kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed,and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at home--better,maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I WAS, with both of 'm on myhands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then somemen in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger wassetting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; soI motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him andtied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble.And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oarsand hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and thenigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain'tno bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think about him."

  Somebody says:

  "Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say."

  Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful tothat old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it wasaccording to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a goodheart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they allagreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have somenotice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised, right outand hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more.

  Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say hecould have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rottenheavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but theydidn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but Ijudged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soonas I'd got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of me--explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shotwhen I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night paddlingaround hunting the runaway nigger.

  But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day andall night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged him.

  Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt Sallywas gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I found himawake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that would wash.But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and pale, notfire-faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and laid for himto wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there Iwas, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still, and set down by me,and begun to whisper, and said we could all be joyful now, because allthe symptoms was first-rate, and he'd been sleeping like that for ever solong, and looking better and peacefuller all the time, and ten to onehe'd wake up in his right mind.

  So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened hiseyes very natural, and takes a look, and says:

  "Hello!--why, I'm at HOME! How's that? Where's the raft?"

  "It's all right," I says.

  "And JIM?"

  "The same," I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash. But he nevernoticed, but says:

  "Good! Splendid! NOW we're all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?"

  I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says: "About what, Sid?"

  "Why, about the way the whole thing was done."

  "What whole thing?"

  "Why, THE whole thing. There ain't but one; how we set the runawaynigger free--me and Tom."

  "Good land! Set the run--What IS the child talking about! Dear, dear,out of his head again!"

  "NO, I ain't out of my HEAD; I know all what I'm talking about. We DIDset him free--me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we DONE it. And wedone it elegant, too." He'd got a start, and she never checked him up,just set and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and
I see itwarn't no use for ME to put in. "Why, Aunty, it cost us a power of work--weeks of it--hours and hours, every night, whilst you was all asleep.And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt, and yourdress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the warming-pan,and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things, and you can'tthink what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, andone thing or another, and you can't think HALF the fun it was. And wehad to make up the pictures of coffins and things, and nonnamous lettersfrom the robbers, and get up and down the lightning-rod, and dig the holeinto the cabin, and made the rope ladder and send it in cooked up in apie, and send in spoons and things to work with in your apron pocket--"

  "Mercy sakes!"

  "--and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company forJim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat thatyou come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before wewas out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let driveat us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let them goby, and when the dogs come they warn't interested in us, but went for themost noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft, and was allsafe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by ourselves, and WASN'Tit bully, Aunty!"

  "Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was YOU,you little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble, and turnedeverybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to death. I'veas good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out o' you this veryminute. To think, here I've been, night after night, a--YOU just getwell once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the Old Harry out o' botho' ye!"

  But Tom, he WAS so proud and joyful, he just COULDN'T hold in, and histongue just WENT it--she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all along, andboth of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and she says:

  "WELL, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it NOW, for mind I tellyou if I catch you meddling with him again--"

  "Meddling with WHO?" Tom says, dropping his smile and looking surprised.

  "With WHO? Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who'd you reckon?"

  Tom looks at me very grave, and says:

  "Tom, didn't you just tell me he was all right? Hasn't he got away?"

  "HIM?" says Aunt Sally; "the runaway nigger? 'Deed he hasn't. They'vegot him back, safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again, on bread andwater, and loaded down with chains, till he's claimed or sold!"

  Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening andshutting like gills, and sings out to me:

  "They hain't no RIGHT to shut him up! SHOVE!--and don't you lose aminute. Turn him loose! he ain't no slave; he's as free as any creturthat walks this earth!"

  "What DOES the child mean?"

  "I mean every word I SAY, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go, I'LL go.I've knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old Miss Watsondied two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell himdown the river, and SAID so; and she set him free in her will."

  "Then what on earth did YOU want to set him free for, seeing he wasalready free?"

  "Well, that IS a question, I must say; and just like women! Why, Iwanted the ADVENTURE of it; and I'd a waded neck-deep in blood to--goodness alive, AUNT POLLY!"

  If she warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking assweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!

  Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and criedover her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed, for itwas getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me. And I peeped out, and ina little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and stood therelooking across at Tom over her spectacles--kind of grinding him into theearth, you know. And then she says:

  "Yes, you BETTER turn y'r head away--I would if I was you, Tom."

  "Oh, deary me!" says Aunt Sally; "IS he changed so? Why, that ain't TOM,it's Sid; Tom's--Tom's--why, where is Tom? He was here a minute ago."

  "You mean where's Huck FINN--that's what you mean! I reckon I hain'traised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I SEEhim. That WOULD be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that bed,Huck Finn."

  So I done it. But not feeling brash.

  Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever see--except one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told itall to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn'tknow nothing at all the rest of the day, and preached a prayer-meetingsermon that night that gave him a rattling ruputation, because the oldestman in the world couldn't a understood it. So Tom's Aunt Polly, she toldall about who I was, and what; and I had to up and tell how I was in sucha tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom Sawyer--she chippedin and says, "Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally, I'm used to it now, and'tain't no need to change"--that when Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer Ihad to stand it--there warn't no other way, and I knowed he wouldn'tmind, because it would be nuts for him, being a mystery, and he'd make anadventure out of it, and be perfectly satisfied. And so it turned out,and he let on to be Sid, and made things as soft as he could for me.

  And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson settingJim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and tookall that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn'tever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how he COULDhelp a body set a nigger free with his bringing-up.

  Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom andSID had come all right and safe, she says to herself:

  "Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off thatway without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all theway down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that creetur'sup to THIS time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of youabout it."

  "Why, I never heard nothing from you," says Aunt Sally.

  "Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could meanby Sid being here."

  "Well, I never got 'em, Sis."

  Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:

  "You, Tom!"

  "Well--WHAT?" he says, kind of pettish.

  "Don t you what ME, you impudent thing--hand out them letters."

  "What letters?"

  "THEM letters. I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I'll--"

  "They're in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as theywas when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, Ihain't touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought ifyou warn't in no hurry, I'd--"

  "Well, you DO need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And Iwrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he--"

  "No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but IT'S all right, I'vegot that one."

  I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe itwas just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.

  CHAPTER THE LAST

  THE first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea, timeof the evasion?--what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked allright and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before?And he said, what he had planned in his head from the start, if we gotJim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river on the raft, andhave adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him abouthis being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style, andpay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and get out all theniggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlightprocession and a brass-band, and then he would be a hero, and so wouldwe. But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was.

  We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and UncleSilas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom,they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give himall
he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we had himup to the sick-room, and had a high talk; and Tom give Jim forty dollarsfor being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so good, and Jimwas pleased most to death, and busted out, and says:

  "DAH, now, Huck, what I tell you?--what I tell you up dah on Jacksonislan'? I TOLE you I got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it; en ITOLE you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich AGIN; en it's cometrue; en heah she is! DAH, now! doan' talk to ME--signs is SIGNS, mine Itell you; en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz gwineter be rich agin as I'sa-stannin' heah dis minute!"

  And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le's all threeslide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go forhowling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for acouple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I ain'tgot no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get none fromhome, because it's likely pap's been back before now, and got it all awayfrom Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.

  "No, he hain't," Tom says; "it's all there yet--six thousand dollars andmore; and your pap hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when I come away,anyhow."

  Jim says, kind of solemn:

  "He ain't a-comin' back no mo', Huck."

  I says:

  "Why, Jim?"

  "Nemmine why, Huck--but he ain't comin' back no mo."

  But I kept at him; so at last he says:

  "Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz aman in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let youcome in? Well, den, you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase datwuz him."

  Tom's most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guardfor a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain'tnothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd aknowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it, andain't a-going to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for theTerritory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt meand sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.