Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Page 5
CHAPTER II.
WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end ofthe widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape ourheads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and madea noise. ?We scrouched down and laid still. ?Miss Watson's big nigger,named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him prettyclear, because there was a light behind him. ?He got up and stretchedhis neck out about a minute, listening. ?Then he says:
"Who dah?"
He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood rightbetween us; we could a touched him, nearly. ?Well, likely it wasminutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so closetogether. ?There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but Idasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back,right between my shoulders. ?Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch.?Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. ?If you are withthe quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain'tsleepy--if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, whyyou will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jimsays:
"Say, who is you? ?Whar is you? ?Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: ?I's gwyne to set down here andlisten tell I hears it agin."
So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. ?He leaned his back upagainst a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touchedone of mine. ?My nose begun to itch. ?It itched till the tears come intomy eyes. ?But I dasn't scratch. ?Then it begun to itch on the inside.Next I got to itching underneath. ?I didn't know how I was going to setstill. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; butit seemed a sight longer than that. ?I was itching in eleven differentplaces now. ?I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer,but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. ?Just then Jim begunto breathe heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty sooncomfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and wewent creeping away on our hands and knees. ?When we was ten foot off Tomwhispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. ?But I saidno; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out Iwarn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slipin the kitchen and get some more. ?I didn't want him to try. ?I said Jimmight wake up and come. ?But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in thereand got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would doTom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and playsomething on him. ?I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything wasso still and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence,and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side ofthe house. ?Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung iton a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake.Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance,and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again,and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. ?And next time Jim toldit he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, everytime he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said theyrode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his backwas all over saddle-boils. ?Jim was monstrous proud about it, and hegot so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. ?Niggers would comemiles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than anynigger in that country. ?Strange niggers would stand with their mouthsopen and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. ?Niggers isalways talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; butwhenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things,Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! ?What you know 'bout witches?" andthat nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. ?Jim always keptthat five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was acharm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he couldcure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just bysaying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it.?Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything theyhad, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldn't touchit, because the devil had had his hands on it. ?Jim was most ruined fora servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the deviland been rode by witches.
Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away downinto the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, wherethere was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling everso fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, andawful still and grand. ?We went down the hill and found Jo Harper andBen Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard.?So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half,to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.
We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep thesecret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickestpart of the bushes. ?Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on ourhands and knees. ?We went about two hundred yards, and then the caveopened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon duckedunder a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. ?Wewent along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp andsweaty and cold, and there we stopped. ?Tom says:
"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his namein blood."
Everybody was willing. ?So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he hadwrote the oath on, and read it. ?It swore every boy to stick to theband, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything toany boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person andhis family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till hehad killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the signof the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use thatmark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must bekilled. ?And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, hemust have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and theashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list withblood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on itand be forgot forever.
Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he gotit out of his own head. ?He said, some of it, but the rest was out ofpirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned hadit.
Some thought it would be good to kill the _families_ of boys that toldthe secrets. ?Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wroteit in. Then Ben Rogers says:
"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bouthim?"
"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.
"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. ?Heused to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seenin these parts for a year or more."
They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because theysaid every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else itwouldn't be fair and square for the others. ?Well, nobody could think ofanything to do--everybody was stumped, and set still. ?I was most readyto cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them MissWatson--they could kill her. ?Everybody said:
"Oh, she'll do. ?That's all right. ?Huck can come in."
Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,and I made my mark on the paper.
"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"
"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.
"But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--"
"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary,"says Tom Sawyer. ?"We ain't burglars. ?That ain't no sort of style. ?Weare highwaymen. ?We stop stages and carriages on the road, with maskson, and kill the people and take their watches and money."
"Must we always kill the people?"
"Oh, certainly. ?It's best. ?Some authorities think different, butmostly it's considered best to kill them--except some that you bring tothe cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed."
"Ransomed? ?What's that?"
"I don't know. ?But that's what they do. ?I've seen it in books; and soof course that's what we've got to do."
"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"
"Why, blame it all, we've _got_ to do it. ?Don't I tell you it's in thebooks? ?Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books,and get things all muddled up?"
"Oh, that's all very fine to _say_, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nationare these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do itto them?--that's the thing I want to get at. ?Now, what do you reckon itis?"
"Well, I don't know. ?But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed,it means that we keep them till they're dead."
"Now, that's something _like_. ?That'll answer. ?Why couldn't you saidthat before? ?We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and abothersome lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always tryingto get loose."
"How you talk, Ben Rogers. ?How can they get loose when there's a guardover them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"
"A guard! ?Well, that _is_ good. ?So somebody's got to set up all nightand never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. ?I think that'sfoolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon asthey get here?"
"Because it ain't in the books so--that's why. ?Now, Ben Rogers, do youwant to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea. ?Don't youreckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correctthing to do? ?Do you reckon _you_ can learn 'em anything? ?Not by a gooddeal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."
"All right. ?I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. ?Say, dowe kill the women, too?"
"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. ?Killthe women? ?No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. ?Youfetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them;and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home anymore."
"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellowswaiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers.But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."
Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he wasscared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn'twant to be a robber any more.
So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made himmad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. ?ButTom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home andmeet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wantedto begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do iton Sunday, and that settled the thing. ?They agreed to get together andfix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer firstcaptain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.
I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day wasbreaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I wasdog-tired.