by Mark Twain
CHAPTER VII
"Git up! What you 'bout?"
I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. Itwas after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing overme looking sour--and sick, too. He says:
"What you doin' with this gun?"
I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so Isays:
"Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him."
"Why didn't you roust me out?"
"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you."
"Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out withyou and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll bealong in a minute."
He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticedsome pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinklingof bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I wouldhave great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used tobe always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comescordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts--sometimes a dozenlogs together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them tothe woodyards and the sawmill.
I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one outfor what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes acanoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long,riding high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like afrog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I justexpected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people oftendone that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out mostto it they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. Itwas a drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore.Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this--she's worth tendollars. But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I wasrunning her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vinesand willows, I struck another idea: I judged I'd hide her good, andthen, 'stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down theriver about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not havesuch a rough time tramping on foot.
It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old mancoming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and lookedaround a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path apiece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seenanything.
When he got along I was hard at it taking up a "trot" line. He abusedme a little for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, andthat was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, andthen he would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the linesand went home.
While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being aboutwore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keeppap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainerthing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missedme; you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see noway for a while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink anotherbarrel of water, and he says:
"Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, youhear? That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time youroust me out, you hear?"
Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; what he had been sayinggive me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now sonobody won't think of following me.
About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. Theriver was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on therise. By and by along comes part of a log raft--nine logs fasttogether. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we haddinner. Anybody but pap would 'a' waited and seen the day through, soas to catch more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs wasenough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So helocked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft abouthalf past three. I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waitedtill I reckoned he had got a good start; then I out with my saw, andwent to work on that log again. Before he was t'other side of theriver I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on thewater away off yonder.
HUCKLEBERRY FINN]
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid,and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done thesame with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all thecoffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took thewadding; I took the bucket and gourd; took a dipper and a tin cup, andmy old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. Itook fish-lines and matches and other things--everything that wasworth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an ax, but therewasn't any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I wasgoing to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole anddragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could fromthe outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up thesmoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back intoits place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold itthere, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground.If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was sawed, youwouldn't never notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin,and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there.
It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. Ifollowed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over theriver. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods,and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soonwent wild in them bottoms after they had got away from theprairie-farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
I took the ax and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked itconsiderable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him backnearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the ax, and laidhim down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it wasground--hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack andput a lot of big rocks in it--all I could drag--and I started it fromthe pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to theriver and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easysee that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish TomSawyer was there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind ofbusiness, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could spread himselflike Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.
Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the ax good, andstuck it on the back side, and slung the ax in the corner. Then I tookup the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn'tdrip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him intothe river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bagof meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to thehouse. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole inthe bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks onthe place--pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking.Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass andthrough the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was fivemile wide and full of rushes--and ducks too, you might say, in theseason. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the otherside that went miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to theriver. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to thelake. I dropped pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it hadbeen done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal-sack with astring, so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to thecanoe again.
It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river undersome willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise.I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laiddown in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says tomyself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shoreand then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track tothe lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to findthe robbers that killed me and to
ok the things. They won't ever huntthe river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired ofthat, and won't bother no more about me. All right; I can stopanywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I knowthat island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I canpaddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things Iwant. Jackson's Island's the place.
I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When Iwoke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and lookedaround, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles andmiles across. The moon was so bright I could 'a' counted thedrift-logs that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds ofyards out from shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late,and _smelt_ late. You know what I mean--I don't know the words to putit in.
I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch andstart when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Prettysoon I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound thatcomes from oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I peepedout through the willow branches, and there it was--a skiff, awayacross the water. I couldn't tell how many was in it. It kepta-coming, and when it was abreast of me I see there warn't but one manin it. Thinks I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. Hedropped below me with the current, and by and by he came a-swinging upshore in the easy water, and he went by so close I could 'a' reachedout the gun and touched him. Well, it _was_ pap, sure enough--andsober, too, by the way he laid his oars.
I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down-streamsoft, but quick, in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half,and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more toward the middle ofthe river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry-landing,and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood,and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. Ilaid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, lookingaway into the sky; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep whenyou lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before.And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard peopletalking at the ferry-landing. I heard what they said, too--every wordof it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the shortnights now. T'other one said _this_ warn't one of the short ones, hereckoned--and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and theylaughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, andlaughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out something brisk, and saidlet him alone. The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his oldwoman--she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn'tnothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say itwas nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait morethan about a week longer. After that the talk got further and furtheraway, and I couldn't make out the words any more; but I could hear themumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.
I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson'sIsland, about two mile and a half down-stream, heavy-timbered andstanding up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid,like a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the barat the head--it was all under water now.
It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a rippingrate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water andlanded on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into adeep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willowbranches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could 'a' seen thecanoe from the outside.
I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and lookedout on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to thetown, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.A monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile upstream, coming alongdown, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creepingdown, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say,"Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just asplain as if the man was by my side.
There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods,and laid down for a nap before breakfast.
