by Mark Twain
CHAPTER XXXV
It would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struckdown into the woods; because Tom said we got to have _some_ light tosee how to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us intotrouble; what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that'scalled fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you laythem in a dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds,and set down to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied:
"Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be.And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan.There ain't no watchman to be drugged--now there _ought_ to be awatchman. There ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. Andthere's Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg ofhis bed: why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slipoff the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key tothe punkin-headed nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger.Jim could 'a' got out of that window-hole before this, only therewouldn't be no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on his leg.Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest arrangement I ever see. You gotto invent _all_ the difficulties. Well, we can't help it; we got to dothe best we can with the materials we've got. Anyhow, there's onething--there's more honor in getting him out through a lot ofdifficulties and dangers, where there warn't one of them furnished toyou by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and you hadto contrive them all out of your own head. Now look at just that onething of the lantern. When you come down to the cold facts, we simplygot to _let on_ that a lantern's resky. Why, we could work with atorchlight procession if we wanted to, _I_ believe. Now, whilst Ithink of it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of thefirst chance we get."
"What do we want of a saw?"
"What do we _want_ of a saw? Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bedoff, so as to get the chain loose?"
"Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip thechain off."
"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You _can_ get up theinfant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever readany books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor BenvenutoChelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard ofgetting a prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; theway all the best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, andleave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, andput some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenestseneskal can't see no sign of its being sawed, and thinks the bed-legis perfectly sound. Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg akick, down she goes; slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothingto do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it,break your leg in the moat--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot tooshort, you know--and there's your horses and your trusty vassles, andthey scoop you up and fling you across a saddle, and away you go toyour native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck.I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night ofthe escape, we'll dig one."
I says:
"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out fromunder the cabin?"
But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He hadhis chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes hishead; then sighs again, and says:
"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it."
"For what?" I says.
"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.
"Good land!" I says; "why, there ain't _no_ necessity for it. And whatwould you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"
"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get thechain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg wouldbe better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessityenough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn'tunderstand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; sowe'll let it go. But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; wecan tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And wecan send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way. And I've etworse pies."
"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for arope ladder."
"He _has_ got use for it. How _you_ talk, you better say; you don'tknow nothing about it. He's _got_ to have a rope ladder; they all do."
"What in the nation can he _do_ with it?"
"_Do_ with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what theyall do; and _he's_ got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want todo anything that's regular; you want to be starting something freshall the time. S'pose he _don't_ do nothing with it? ain't it there inhis bed, for a clue, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'llwant clues? Of course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? Thatwould be a _pretty_ howdy-do, _wouldn't_ it! I never heard of such athing."
"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it,all right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on noregulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing upour sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into troublewith Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look atit, a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing,and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick,as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had noexperience, and so he don't care what kind of a--"
"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keepstill--that's what I'd do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escapingby a hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."
"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take myadvice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothes-line."
He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:
"Borrow a shirt, too."
"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"
"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."
"Journal your granny--_Jim_ can't write."
"S'pose he _can't_ write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, ifwe make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old ironbarrel-hoop?"
"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a betterone; and quicker, too."
"_Prisoners_ don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pullpens out of, you muggins. They _always_ make their pens out of thehardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick orsomething like that they can get their hands on; and it takes themweeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, becausethey've got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. _They_ wouldn't use agoose-quill if they had it. It ain't regular."
"Well, then, what 'll we make him the ink out of?"
"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sortand women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that;and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysteriousmessage to let the world know where he's captivated, he can write iton the bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of thewindow. The Iron Mask always done that, and it's a blame' good way,too."
"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."
"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."
"Can't nobody _read_ his plates."
"That ain't got anything to _do_ with it, Huck Finn. All _he's_ got todo is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't _have_ to beable to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisonerwrites on a tin plate, or anywhere else."
"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"
"Why, blame it all, it ain't the _prisoner's_ plates."
"But it's _somebody's_ plates, ain't it?"
"Well, spos'n it is? What does the _prisoner_ care whose--"
He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So wecleared out for the house.
Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off ofthe clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and wewent down and got the fox-
fire, and put that in too. I called itborrowing, because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said itwarn't borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representingprisoners; and prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they getit, and nobody don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in aprisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it'shis right; and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had aperfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use forto get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we warn't prisoners itwould be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery personwould steal when he warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would stealeverything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss,one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger patchand eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime withouttelling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, wecould steal anything we _needed._ Well, I says, I needed thewatermelon. But he said I didn't need it to get out of prison with;there's where the difference was. He said if I'd 'a' wanted it to hidea knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would'a' been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldn't see noadvantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chawover a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see achance to hog a watermelon.
Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody wassettled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; thenTom he carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece tokeep watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on thewoodpile to talk. He says:
"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed."
"Tools?" I says.
"Yes."
"Tools for what?"
"Why, to dig with. We ain't a-going to _gnaw_ him out, are we?"
"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to diga nigger out with?" I says.
He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:
"Huck Finn, did you _ever_ hear of a prisoner having picks andshovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dighimself out with? Now I want to ask you--if you got anyreasonableness in you at all--what kind of a show would _that_ givehim to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and donewith it. Picks and shovels--why, they wouldn't furnish 'em to a king."
"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what dowe want?"
"A couple of case-knives."
"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?"
"Yes."
"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."
"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the _right_way--and it's the regular way. And there ain't no _other_ way, thatever I heard of, and I've read all the books that gives anyinformation about these things. They always dig out with acase-knife--and not through dirt, mind you; generly it's through solidrock. And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever andever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of theCastle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out thatway; how long was _he_ at it, you reckon?"
"I don't know."
"Well, guess."
"I don't know. A month and a half."
"_Thirty-seven year_--and he come out in China. _That's_ the kind. Iwish the bottom of _this_ fortress was solid rock."
"_Jim_ don't know nobody in China."
"What's _that_ got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. Butyou're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick tothe main point?"
"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he _comes_ out; andJim don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's tooold to be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last."
"Yes he will _last,_ too. You don't reckon it's going to takethirty-seven years to dig out through a _dirt_ foundation, do you?"
"How long will it take, Tom?"
"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn'ttake very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans.He'll hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be toadvertise Jim, or something like that. So we can't resk being as longdigging him out as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be acouple of years; but we can't. Things being so uncertain, what Irecommend is this: that we really dig right in, as quick as we can;and after that, we can _let on_, to ourselves, that we was at itthirty-seven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush him away thefirst time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon that 'll be the best way."
"Now, there's _sense_ in that," I says. "Letting on don't costnothing; letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don'tmind letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn'tstrain me none, after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, andsmouch a couple of case-knives."
"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."
"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says,"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under theweather-boarding behind the smokehouse."
He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:
"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along andsmouch the knives--three of them." So I done it.
