by Mark Twain
CHAPTER III
Well, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson onaccount of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but onlycleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought Iwould behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in thecloset and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray everyday, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. Itried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good tome without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, butsomehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked MissWatson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told mewhy, and I couldn't make it out no way.
I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it.I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don'tDeacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widowget back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why can't Miss Watsonfat up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it. I went andtold the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get bypraying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, butshe told me what she meant--I must help other people, and doeverything I could for other people, and look out for them all thetime, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, asI took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind along time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it--except for theother people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it anymore, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one sideand talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth water; butmaybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all downagain. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poorchap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but ifMiss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more. I thoughtit all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wantedme, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better offthen than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind oflow-down and ornery.
Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortablefor me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale mewhen he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to taketo the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about thistime he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town,so people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded manwas just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, whichwas all like pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face,because it had been in the water so long it warn't much like a face atall. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took himand buried him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because Ihappened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drowndedman don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, thatthis warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I wasuncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by andby, though I wished he wouldn't.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. Allthe boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, butonly just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go chargingdown on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market,but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots,"and he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to thecave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we hadkilled and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tomsent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called aslogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then hesaid he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcelof Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollowwith two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over athousand "sumter" mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and theydidn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would layin ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things.He said we must slick up our swords and guns, and get ready. He nevercould go after even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and gunsall scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, andyou might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn't worth amouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn't believe wecould lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to seethe camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in theambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods anddown the hill. But there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs, and therewarn't no camels nor no elephants. It warn't anything but aSunday-school picnic, and only a primer class at that. We busted itup, and chased the children up the hollow; but we never got anythingbut some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and JoeHarper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in,and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no di'monds, and Itold Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway; andhe said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said,why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so ignorant, buthad read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. Hesaid it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds ofsoldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we hadenemies which he called magicians, and they had turned the whole thinginto an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all right;then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyersaid I was a numskull.
"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and theywould hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson.They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church."
"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help _us_--can't we lickthe other crowd then?"
"How you going to get them?"
"I don't know. How do _they_ get them?"
"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the geniescome tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around andthe smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and doit. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots,and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it--orany other man."
"Who makes them tear around so?"
"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubsthe lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If hetells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, andfill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch anemperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to doit--and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. Andmore: they've got to waltz that palace around over the countrywherever you want it, you understand."
"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flatheads for not keepingthe palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. Andwhat's more--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho beforeI would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tinlamp."
"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd _have_ to come when he rubbed it,whether you wanted to or not."
"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right,then; I _would_ come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highesttree there was in the country."
"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem toknow anything, somehow--perfect saphead."
I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned Iwould see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and aniron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till Isweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but itwarn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all thatstuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believedin the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. Ithad all the marks of a Sunday-school.
