by Mark Twain
CHAPTER VI
Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then hewent for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money,and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me acouple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same,and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go toschool much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That lawtrial was a slow business--appeared like they warn't ever going to getstarted on it; so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollarsoff of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every timehe got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cainaround town; and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was justsuited--this kind of thing was right in his line.
He got to hanging around the widow's too much, and so she told him atlast that if he didn't quit using around there she would make troublefor him. Well, _wasn't_ he mad? He said he would show who was HuckFinn's boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, andcatched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, andcrossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn'tno houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thickyou couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was.
He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put thekey under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon,and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every littlewhile he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to theferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home andgot drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found outwhere I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold ofme; but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after thattill I was used to being where I was, and liked it--all but thecowhide part.
It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smokingand fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, andmy clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd evergot to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eaton a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and beforever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at youall the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing,because the widow didn't like it; but now I took to it again becausepap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woodsthere, take it all around.
But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't standit. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, andlocking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It wasdreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't evergoing to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fixup some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin manya time, but I couldn't find no way. There warn't a window to it bigenough for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly; it wastoo narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was prettycareful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he wasaway; I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times;well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only wayto put in the time. But this time I found something at last; I foundan old rusty wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between arafter and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went towork. There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at thefar end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowingthrough the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the tableand raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the bigbottom log out--big enough to let me through. Well, it was a good longjob, but I was getting toward the end of it when I heard pap's gun inthe woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanketand hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in.
Pap warn't in a good humor--so he was his natural self. He said he wasdown-town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckonedhe would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started onthe trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, andJudge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'dbe another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow formy guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me upconsiderable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any moreand be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the oldman got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could thinkof, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skippedany, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss allround, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't knowthe names of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them,and went right along with his cussing.
He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watchout, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of aplace six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt tillthey dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasyagain, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand tillhe got that chance.
The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got.There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and twonewspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and wentback and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it allover, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, andtake to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in oneplace, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night-times,and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the oldman nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would sawout and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned hewould. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying tillthe old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.
I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark.While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sortof warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over intown, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.A body would 'a' thought he was Adam--he was just all mud. Wheneverhis liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment. Thistime he says:
"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like.Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him--aman's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxietyand all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that sonraised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for_him_ and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call_that_ govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old JudgeThatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's whatthe law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars andup'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and letshim go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call thatgovment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. SometimesI've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes,and I _told_ 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'emheard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leavethe blamed country and never come a-near it ag'in. Them's the verywords. I says, look at my hat--if you call it a hat--but the lidraises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, andthen it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shovedup through a jint o' stove-pipe. Look at it, says I--such a hat for meto wear--one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git myrights.
"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here.There was a free nigger there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white asa white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and theshiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fineclothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and asilver-headed cane--the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state.And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college
, andcould talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And thatain't the wust. They said he could _vote_ when he was at home. Well,that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn'ttoo drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state inthis country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I saysI'll never vote ag'in. Them's the very words I said; they all heardme; and the country may rot for all me--I'll never vote ag'in as longas I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger--why, he wouldn't'a' give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says tothe people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold?--that'swhat I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they saidhe couldn't be sold till he'd been in the state six months, and hehadn't been there that long yet. There, now--that's a specimen. Theycall that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been inthe state six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment,and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's gotto set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a-hold of aprowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and--"
Pap was a-going on so he never noticed where his old limber legs wastaking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt porkand barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottestkind of language--mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though hegive the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped aroundthe cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other,holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let outwith his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattlingkick. But it warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that hada couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now heraised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he wentin the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing hedone then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so hisown self afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days,and he said it laid over him, too; but I reckon that was sort ofpiling it on, maybe.
After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there fortwo drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. Ijudged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I wouldsteal the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank,and tumbled down on his blankets by and by; but luck didn't run myway. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moanedand thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I gotso sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before Iknowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.
I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was anawful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skippingaround every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they wascrawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, andsay one had bit him on the cheek--but I couldn't see no snakes. Hestarted and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take him off!take him off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look sowild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell downpanting; then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking thingsevery which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands,and screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore outby and by, and laid still awhile, moaning. Then he laid stiller, anddidn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off inthe woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by thecorner. By and by he raised up part way and listened, with his head toone side. He says, very low:
"Tramp--tramp--tramp; that's the dead; tramp--tramp--tramp; they'recoming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touchme--don't! hands off--they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devilalone!"
Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to lethim alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed inunder the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying.I could hear him through the blanket.
By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and hesee me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with aclasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would killme, and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged, and told him Iwas only Huck; but he laughed _such_ a screechy laugh, and roared andcussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and dodgedunder his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between myshoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacketquick as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tiredout, and dropped down with his back against the door, and said hewould rest a minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, andsaid he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who.
So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the old split-bottomchair and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and gotdown the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded,and then I laid it across the turnip-barrel, pointing towards pap, andset down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still thetime did drag along.
