Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 11 to 15
Page 5
CHAPTER XV.
WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottomof Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we wasafter. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up theOhio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towheadto tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddledahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything butlittle saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right onthe edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raftcome booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away shewent. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared Icouldn't budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me--and then therewarn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see twenty yards. I jumped intothe canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set herback a stroke. But she didn't come. I was in such a hurry I hadn'tuntied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited myhands shook so I couldn't hardly do anything with them.
As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, rightdown the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the towheadwarn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shotout into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which way I wasgoing than a dead man.
Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank or atowhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's mightyfidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. Iwhooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop,and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp tohear it again. The next time it come I see I warn't heading for it, butheading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away tothe left of it--and not gaining on it much either, for I was flyingaround, this way and that and t'other, but it was going straight aheadall the time.
I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all thetime, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoopsthat was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly Ihears the whoop BEHIND me. I was tangled good now. That was somebodyelse's whoop, or else I was turned around.
I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind meyet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing itsplace, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again,and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down-stream, and Iwas all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. Icouldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don't looknatural nor sound natural in a fog.
The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on acut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed meoff to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared,the currrent was tearing by them so swift.
In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I setperfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn'tdraw a breath while it thumped a hundred.
I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was anisland, and Jim had gone down t'other side of it. It warn't no towheadthat you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of aregular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half amile wide.
I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. Iwas floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don'tever think of that. No, you FEEL like you are laying dead still on thewater; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don't think toyourself how fast YOU'RE going, but you catch your breath and think, my!how that snag's tearing along. If you think it ain't dismal and lonesomeout in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it once--you'llsee.
Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hearsthe answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn't do it,and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had littledim glimpses of them on both sides of me--sometimes just a narrow channelbetween, and some that I couldn't see I knowed was there because I'd hearthe wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hungover the banks. Well, I warn't long loosing the whoops down amongst thetowheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, becauseit was worse than chasing a Jack-o'-lantern. You never knowed a sounddodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.
I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, tokeep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raftmust be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would getfurther ahead and clear out of hearing--it was floating a little fasterthan what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn'thear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on asnag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laiddown in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more. I didn't want togo to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn't help it; so Ithought I would take jest one little cat-nap.
But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the starswas shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a bigbend stern first. First I didn't know where I was; I thought I wasdreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come updim out of last week.
It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kindof timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by thestars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the water.I took after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but a couple ofsawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that;then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.
When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between hisknees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. Theother oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves andbranches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.
I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to gap,and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:
"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"
"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead--you ain'drownded--you's back agin? It's too good for true, honey, it's toogood for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you ain'dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck--de same oleHuck, thanks to goodness!"
"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?"
"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'?"
"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"
"How does I talk wild?"
"HOW? Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all thatstuff, as if I'd been gone away?"
"Huck--Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. HAIN'T youben gone away?"
"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been goneanywheres. Where would I go to?"
"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I ME, or who ISI? Is I heah, or whah IS I? Now dat's what I wants to know."
"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're atangle-headed old fool, Jim."
"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you tote out de line in decanoe fer to make fas' to de tow-head?"
"No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't see no tow-head."
"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en deraf' go a-hummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in defog?"
"What fog?"
"Why, de fog!--de fog dat's been aroun' all night. En didn't you whoop,en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us gotlos' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know whah hewuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turribletime en mo
s' git drownded? Now ain' dat so, boss--ain't it so? Youanswer me dat."
"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor noislands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking withyou all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckonI done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of courseyou've been dreaming."
"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?"
"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of ithappen."
"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as--"
"It don't make no difference how plain it is; there ain't nothing in it.I know, because I've been here all the time."
Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studyingover it. Then he says:
"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain't depowerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' dat'stired me like dis one."
"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body likeeverything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me allabout it, Jim."
So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as ithappened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must startin and "'terpret" it, because it was sent for a warning. He said thefirst towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but thecurrent was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops waswarnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn't tryhard to make out to understand them they'd just take us into bad luck,'stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles we wasgoing to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks,but if we minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate them, wewould pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river,which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it wasclearing up again now.
"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim," Isays; "but what does THESE things stand for?"
It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You couldsee them first-rate now.
Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trashagain. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he couldn'tseem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place again rightaway. But when he did get the thing straightened around he looked at mesteady without ever smiling, and says:
"What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore outwid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos'broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become er me ende raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun', detears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo' foot, I's sothankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could make a fool uvole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is TRASH; en trash is what people isdat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em ashamed."
Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there withoutsaying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so meanI could almost kissed HIS foot to get him to take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humblemyself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for itafterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn'tdone that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way.