“What we goin’ do now, Huck? De plan ain’t no good, not wid you in de pokey.”
“Did the mules get found?”
“Dey was fetched back jest after you lef’, Huck.”
So if the letter had of been delivered regular I never would of landed in the spot I’m in, but it’s too late to spill tears over crocodile milk as the saying goes. Tom says:
“What plan? What mules?”
So I told him how Jim and me was going to run off to California and he says what a grand idea it was and how he’d come along too if that was agreeable. Well it warn’t, not by a long haul. Tom Sawyer is the bossingest person I ever met. If he come along he’d have me and Jim jumping through hoops and telling us what to do every hour of the day and night like he done on the Phelps’s farm that time trying to get Jim free. But I never said it out loud, being brung up polite. What I say instead is:
“That’s a dandy idea, Tom. We’d be proud to have you along only we can’t none of us go while I’m locked up in here.”
“Then we’ll have to get you out,” he says.
One thing for sure about Tom Sawyer, you hand him a problem and he’ll give you the answer right quick.
“How we goin’ to do it?” asks Jim, and Tom says cool and breezy-like:
“I’ll have a selection of strategies ready in a day or two.”
And I believed it. Why, he practickly had brains oozing out his ears. He goes on:
“Have they searched you yet for hidden weapons and such?”
“They never bothered, seeing the knife was still planted in the judge, just took my belt so’s I won’t go and hang myself with it.”
“How about your bootlaces?”
“I still got ’em.”
“Then you can plait them together and make a passable decent hanging rope. Won’t they look foolish come morning when they find you dangling.”
“But I don’t plan on hanging myself. What I want is to escape.”
“It’s a perfect opportunity to prove how clever a prisoner can be, Huck.”
“Dang it, Tom, you ain’t thinking straight. Here, take this and look after it for me.”
And I hauled out the money belt and shoved it through the window.
“There’s two thousand dollars there,” I say. “You can use some of it to help me escape if it costs money, only don’t use more’n you have to.”
“That much’ll get you at least a dozen regular escapes, or just three or four of the history-making type. Which kind do you want?”
“I’ll just be needing the one, I reckon, and a regular at that. I can’t afford to make no history.”
“Money’s a small price to pay for immortal fame, Huck. Anyone can escape on the cheap. What you need is something with real style that’ll get talked about up and down the river till kingdom come, maybe even over in Europe where all the expert escapers live.”
“I ain’t concerned about fame or nothing, just to get free.”
“Well don’t fret. A simple thing like a jail escape is easy organized, but first you’ve got to stand trial and get convicted. That way they’ll raise twice as much whoop and holler when you cut loose and run.”
You can see how Tom Sawyer for all his considerable brains still come out with some of the foolishest notions. He would of gone on for hours with such talk but I cut him off sharpish, getting my dander up, explainable when a body’s in jail for a murder he never done.
“Lookit, Tom, just you get me out and never mind no waiting for trials and convicts, nor fame and whoop and holler neither. I never killed the judge only there ain’t a way I can prove it. They’ll hang me for sure if I don’t slip the leash and soon. I mean it.”
He seen I warn’t in no mood for nonsense and promised he’d give it a good thinking over and come up with a way out, then they got set to leave, but before they done it Jim reaches his hand through the bars and give a grip to my shoulder and says:
“You hol’ on, Huck, an’ don’ give in. I ain’t forgot what you done for me dat time on de river. You bin a frien’ to me, Huck, an’ I ain’t goin’ to let you get hung.”
It brung on the chokes, the way he done it, serious and grim-faced, and I just nodded to show I understand. Then they was gone and I had the night ahead of me to ponder on things, none of it cheery, but I pretty soon fell asleep anyway.
Next morning Sheriff Bottoms come in and says he looked all around Judge Thatcher’s house but never found the letter nor the footprint, the snow on the front step being all trampled underfoot. It never come as a surprise to me. He says:
“Are you keeping your story same as before or do you want to change it?”
“I’ll keep it,” says I, and he tugged on the end of his nose awhile and says:
“I sent a message to Judge Walsall down in Pikesville to come up for the hearing. He’ll likely be here in a day or two. You’ll just have to wait until then. I’ll make things comfortable as I can for you meantime. Is there anything you want special?”
“No thank you, Sheriff.”
He was a decent man, not used to murder and such, which never happened in St. Petersburg since the night Injun Joe killed Doc Robinson in the graveyard and Muff Potter got blamed. Mostly he just had to handle river men that got drunk and hurt each other down by the wharf. It was plain he warn’t happy about having me there in the cell. He says:
“You must be cold in here with that window. I’ll put up the outside shutter again. I took it down to give the place some air after a drunk spilled his supper in the corner.”
That give my heart a flutter. I needed that window to talk with Tom and Jim through, so I say innocent as I can:
“Please don’t bother none about it, Sheriff. The stovepipe gives off a power of heat and with the shutter up I’d feel awful penned in. Also I can still get a whiff of that drunk’s supper now and then. I’d prefer to be airigated if it’s all the same to you.”
So he left the window like it was and my heart quieted down again. I recollected how me and Tom used to pass extra food to Muff Potter through that selfsame window when he was here. It was guilt made us do it, knowing he was innocent same as me. But maybe you know that story already.
In the afternoon Ben Rogers come tapping at the bars and we started jawing. The sheriff was in the office so he never heard. First off Ben says I’m famous and he asks can he have a lock of my hair or maybe a thread from my coat, or better yet a handful so he can sell them ten cents apiece and split the profit with me half and half. I seen right away Ben would be a big success in the world so I was agreeable, and he passed a knife through the bars so I could saw off a hank of headstraw followed up by some few dozen threads frayed off my sleeve. I say he can keep the profits entire if I can keep the knife, a bargain since he stood to make maybe five dollars and the knife warn’t the best I ever seen, the blade all over rust. He jumped at the offer and stuffed the trade in his pockets.
“Thank you kindly, Huck,” he says. “You’re a friend I reckon. I’m proud to know you, never mind what the town’s saying.”
I ask what that is and he says:
“Why, they say it’s a disgrace the way you tried to shift the blame onto your poor old Pap that’s dead and can’t answer to it. They’re calling it a low-down act and typical of you.”
So there you see how a town won’t ever forget a body’s past, even if he’s made the attempt to be sivilized. And while Pap was around they never called him poor old Finn, more like dangblasted old Finn and other things even hotter. They made up their minds I done the deed and warn’t about to think different. I hoped Tom Sawyer was squeezing his brain for plans, without which I was already hanged. Then Ben says:
“Well, if there’s anything else I can bring you, just give the word.”
I let on a hacksaw would do fine but he just give a twisted kind of grin and says he don’t know where to lay hands on one. So we give each other a “So long” and I’m alone again. I stood awhile looking out the window. No houses thereabouts, so I stared at the
trees all covered in snow, real pretty and seeming a long way away. There was flakes coming down slow and fine like powder, swirling some here and there in the wind and not a sound. I come near to a fit of the mournfuls at the way things was, but never let myself give in to it all the way, hope springing eternal, as the saying goes. But it never sprang very high.
Mrs. Bottoms brung me more food, cooked decent too, even if I’m a murderer, and asks if I been reading the Bible any.
“Yes, ma’am,” says I, “it’s a sturdy staff in my time of torment. Them stories and sayings is a comfort all right, and I’m glad you give it to me.”
“It’s just a loan,” she says. Until I’m hung, she means. “And which of the stories have you found to be most inspiring?”
The one that come to mind is Samson bringing down the temple, which is the kind of talent I could of used right now to bust out, but what I say is:
“I’m partial to the one about Daniel in the lion’s den, ma’am. It’s a real treat to read.”
She give a satisfied smile at that and says:
“Can you tell me what it was that protected Daniel while he was in that terrible place?”
“It … well … I reckon it must of been something that come in right handy.”
I seen a circus once with lions and they was awful broken down and mangy and never seemed interested in nothing, so maybe Daniel met some of that kind. Mrs. Bottoms says:
“It was the power of the Lord that done it. His all-embracing Love filled that den with divine light and rendered the beasts docile and tame, all because Daniel was beloved of the Lord.”
Pap fell drunk in a hogpen once and everyone knows hogs is the meanest most temperamental critturs that come out of the ark, and will eat a baby or the leg off a man if they get the chance, but they never went for Pap, so unless he was beloved of the Lord too I figured Daniel’s trick warn’t such a miracle. But you can’t say that to a church-going woman like Mrs. Bottoms, so I nodded and smiled while she rattled on about repenting and forgiving and turning cheeks and such. After a time her breath give out and she left, but not before giving me the news that God is the world’s greatest forgiver. Why, He’ll forgive just about anything if you get on your knees and ask Him nice with plenty of groveling. I give her my promise I’d pray for guidance that very night and she went off happy, just running over with holy spirit. It don’t take a lot to make her kind satisfied, so I reckoned the lie was worthwhile. Payment for the food is how I seen it.
Sheriff Bottoms come in awhile later to see if I’m still a prisoner, which I was, so he went out again. Then Tom Sawyer is at the window, and he shoved in a brick of yeller soap.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“It’s obvious, Huck. There’s only one thing to do with soap in prison.”
“But I don’t have no water except to drink.”
He shook his head exasperated and says:
“It’s for whittling. You have to whittle a gun out of it and when the sheriff comes in you tell him to let you out or you’ll shoot him dead.”
“If he’s dead he can’t let me out, and I’m a double murderer on top of it.”
“You can’t shoot him. It’s a soap gun, see? It’s all bluff.”
“It won’t work. Who ever seen a yeller gun?”
“I planned for that,” he says, and shoves a tin of bootblack in. “Just you smear it with that and it’ll look deadly as the real thing.”
“Couldn’t you of got me a real gun?”
“Too easy,” he says. “Where’s the challenge? The whole point about escaping is to outwit the enemy with your superior cleverness. Without a strong helping of that it’s just an ordinary getaway.”
“One of them’d do me fine right now. Ain’t you had no other plans? You promised a parcel of good ones.”
“Course I have. I organized a whole slew of what they call contingencies. If the first one don’t work you move right along to the next. One of them’s bound to do the trick. I’m worried you don’t have the right kind of escaper’s attitude, Huck.”
Well, that got me irritated, you can see why, so I say:
“There ain’t the time for this brand of foolishness, not any more. I got to be out of here tomorrow at the latest before Judge Walsall gets here from Pikesville. I sunk my trust in you and all you done so far is play games. I’ll give the soap a try, seeing as you went to the trouble of planning it, but I don’t count on it working, not by a mile, so you better think of a way to bust me out before it’s too late. I always reckoned you was smart but now I’m in two minds about it.”
“Well there’s no need to be huffy,” he says, upset by the talking-to I give him, not usual for me so it hit him unexpected. We sort of glared at each other, hot under the collar, then he says:
“All right then, we’ll dump the contingencies and concentrate on the one and only plan that’s bound to work for sure.”
“And what plan’s that?” I ask.
“I don’t have it ready to hand as yet,” he admits, then goes on. “But it’ll be a real sock-dolager, foolproof and certified. This time tomorrow you’ll be free. It’s a promise.”
And he put his hand through to shake on it, serious and mannish, so I wrung his fingers hard to show I was sorry for what I said and he went off looking thoughtful like Napoleon planning the Hundred Years War, which must of needed considerable pondering.
I hid the bootblack under the mattress, then set to with the soap and Ben Rogers’s knife and pretty soon had a fair-sized pile of shavings around me. Then in come the sheriff sudden-like and catched me on the hop. I whipped the stuff behind me quick and he asks if I’m hungry again seeing as his wife left food warming on the office stove.
“No thank you, Sheriff. I reckon I’ve lost the habit of appetite lately,” says I. It warn’t true but prisoners is allowed to stretch the facts as part of the job. Then I seen it was a good way to make him leave so I could stash the soap and knife under the mattress and the shavings too, so I say:
“Now you come to mention it I’m hungry. I could eat a panful.”
Then he seen the mess around my feet. It was a clean cell before, so he noticed it.
“Where’s that there?” he says, and points.
“Where?”
“Right there on the floor. And what’s that you’re hiding behind your back?”
I seen there warn’t no use to pretend so I fished out the soap on its own and kept the knife behind me still.
“What is it?” he says, suspicious.
“This? Why, it’s … taffy candy,” says I, and bit off a hunk and started chewing.
“Where’d it come from?” he wants to know, and I say:
“I had it with me, Sheriff. A boy my age gets peckish once in awhile. It’s the crumbling kind and I reckon I’ve spilled some on the floor.”
He watched me chew awhile. I’ve had medicine tasted better than that soap. Then he says:
“I’m partial to taffy myself. Care to share a piece of it?”
“I’d just as soon not do it, Sheriff. It’s the awfulest taffy I ever et. You’d likely choke on it.”
He’s got a little smile on his face now, and he says:
“Maybe there’s too much soap in it. Most recipes say not to put in more’n a pinch.”
“Soap?” says I, and my eyebrows lift innocent-like.
“Smells just like it,” he says. “Are you sure it ain’t soap?”
I took another bite and my eyebrows lifted clear into my hat.
“Gosh sakes, Sheriff, you’re right! That explains the taste.”
He’s grinning open now, watching the foam creep out from behind my teeth. He says:
“What else have you got hid there, gumdrops maybe?”
I brung out the knife reluctant and he says:
“Where’d that come from?”
“It’s my own that I had in my pocket all along.”
“It warn’t handed to you through the window?”
“Why, wh
o’d do a thing like that? Prisoners is out of bounds to everyone. The whole world knows that.”
“Well you better hand it over. It’s against the regulations for you to have a knife, even a puny one like that. You can keep the soap.”
So I had to give it over, and there was the plan busted wide open before I ever truly started on it. I never had trust in it anyhow. I stood there kicking the shavings around and feeling foolish while Sheriff Bottoms went out back of the jailhouse and hammered the shutter in place, which proves he never believed me. The cell was darkish after that and it suited my mood. If Tom Sawyer come up with a plan that needed something passed through the window it was a goner. Then the sheriff come back in with a broom and says I have to sweep up the soap I shaved off. His wife won’t like it, he says, and never lets a speck of dust in their own place. So I swept it up neat. It was easy chores but it come close to making me set down and weep, which I don’t ever do as a rule.
That night I never slept a wink.
4
Escape!—A Rough Ride—Bad Signs on the Arkansas—Goodbye, Mississippi—Heading West
Next morning Sheriff Bottoms told me it looks like Judge Walsall could be delayed getting here by snow on the road. He’d be coming up by coach, not steamer, on account of all the ice in the river. Big chunks have stove in riverboats before now. The news cheered me up some, but not much. I hoped Tom Sawyer never heard it or he’d maybe slack off on his plan hatching. I was in the grip of devils all morning and past noon, just itching for the plan to happen and get free, walking in circles like a dog on a chain. I was in a distressful state.
Then I heard the office door slammed open and Tom Sawyer’s voice come through to me, shouting and excited.
“Sheriff! Sheriff! There’s awful screaming going on over at the Wilsons’ place! Someone’s being murdered for sure! You got to come quick and stop it! Bring your gun!”
It was the best playacting I ever heard. There’s a bang as the sheriff’s chair legs hit the floor and then his boots clumping about and I seen the plan clear as day; the sheriff would rush off to stop the murder Tom invented and Tom, he’d say he was too winded to rush on back with him and when the sheriff was out of sight he’d grab the keys and set me loose. Then I heard the clinking of keys and my heart went into my boots. The sheriff’s taking them along with him! And then Tom’s voice says he’ll come too and the sheriff never stopped to argue. Crash! bang! goes the office door and then nothing. I near tore my hair out with the frustrativeness of it. If that was Tom Sawyer’s best plan he’s a sap-head. Any fool could of seen beforehand the sheriff would take the keys with him. Sheriffs is paid to remember stuff like that. I set to cussing with all the words I learned off Pap, the briskest kind of language, and kicked over the latrine bucket, a mistake since it warn’t empty.
The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Page 5
