by Mark Twain
“Ransom? What’s that?”
“I’m not altogether sure, but it kind of means giving them back to their families when they give us money. I’ve seen it in books; and so of course that’s what we’ll do. We’ll keep them alive and exchange them for money. We’ll ask them what they think they’re worth and use that as a starting point. And we’ll have to make sure they stay alive, cause no one is going to give us money if they’ve gone Zum. I know I wouldn’t. I’d just say – keep ‘em. Do whatever you want with ‘em now. They’s spoilt.”
“Say, do we ransom the women, too?”
“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn’t let on. Ransom the women? No; I never seen anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you’re always polite as pie to them; and by and by they fall in love with you and the good work you’re doing, and they never want to go home no more.”
“Well, if that’s the way it’s got to be, but I don’t take no stock in it. Mighty soon the cave will be all cluttered up with women in love with us, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, and we’ll be like clerks in a store and nothing like a gang. But go ahead, I ain’t got nothing more to say.”
Little Tommy Barnes had fallen asleep during the discussion, and when he woke back up, he was scared and said he wanted to go home to his ma, but then he remembered his folks was both dead, killed by the Zum, and he was living with relatives that didn’t care so much for him anyway. He didn’t want to be a gang member anymore.
So they all made fun of him and called him crybaby. Heck, most everyone’s missin’ someone on account of the Zum. But Tom gave him five cents and told him to quiet down, and said we’d meet again next week.
Ben Rogers said he couldn’t get out much, only Sundays, and all the boys agreed it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and so that settled the thing. Tom was elected first captain, Joe Harper second captain, and that was that. We ended the meeting and headed home.
I got home just before daybreak. There was a few gunshots I heard from somewhere outside of town, but that didn’t have anything to do with me, so I climbed up into my window, all clayey from the cave and dog-tired.
Chapter Three
We Ambuscade the Army of Zum
Well, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on account of my clothes; but the widow didn’t scold, but only took the clothes to clean off the dirt and the clay, and looked so sad that I thought I would behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson put me in a closet and urged me to pray, but nothing came of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get.
But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I had me a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks. I prayed for fishhooks three or four times, but I couldn’t make it work. By and by I asked Miss Watson to try for me, and she grabbed me and looked at my neck to see if there was a mark from someone taking my head off and putting it back, which is a thing you do to a person instead of saying how stupid they are. She said I was a fool, and never told me why, and I couldn’t make out why she was being so mean.
I set myelf down in the woods one time and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a person can get anything they pray for, why can’t the widow get back her silver snuff box that was stole? Why cant Miss Watson fat up? Why can’t the Widow Thatcher get the judge back after he was attacked and kilt by Injun Joe and his confederate? Heck, why can’t everyone get their loved ones back from them murderous Zum? No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said what a person could get from it was what she called ‘spiritual gifts’. She said I must help other people, and do what I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself. I went out in the woods again and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn’t see no advantage in it – except for the other people; so I just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me aside and talk about Providence in a way to make a body’s mouth water, and everything made sense and you even felt sorry for the Zum and whatever it was that made them that way; but maybe the next day Miss Watson would grab hold of me and knock it all down again.
Pap he hadn’t been seen for more than a year, dead or alive, and I was comfortable with that. I didn’t really want to see him no more. Ever since he got into that fistfight with one of them Zum, he had himself some kind of moderate reputation, and it was easier for him to get drinks as long as he agreed to tell the story that went with it. But he always used to whale on me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; so I would take to the woods most of the time when he was around, for at least the Zum didn’t always seem to want to get at me like Pap did. It was said that he got drunk once too often and fell in the river and drownded, but I think it was just folks trying to cheer me up. I judged the ole man would turn up again by and by, but I hoped he wouldn’t.
The gang stayed together for about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn’t tracked down any Zum, we hadn’t ransomed anybody, and we hadn’t done any highwayman things. It was only pretend. We used to hop out of the woods like brigands when farmers came by taking garden stuff to market in a wagon, but we never attacked any of them. Tom Sawyer would snag some produce and wave it around, calling it ‘julery’ and treasure, but it would just be a handful of turnips, and I didn’t see the profit in it.
Once Tom called us all together and said he had got secret news that a whole band of Zum, the new kind and the old kind together, was going to camp in Cave Hollow, the new ones mounted on horseback barking out orders, and the old ones on foot, carrying out orders as best they could, and there’d be wagons loaded down with di’monds, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and swoop down on them when they warn’t expecting anything, disrupting their affairs altogether and scooping up what treasure as we was able. I didn’t believe we could lick such an assembly, but I wanted to see how far the new Zum had come, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade. We got the word and rushed down the hill, but there warn’t any Zum on horseback, no hundreds of Zum massing for some attack, no wagons of gold and di’monds. It warn’t anything but a Sunday school picnic, and only a primer class at that. We busted it up and chased them around until the teacher charged in and made us drop everything, and we cut. I told Tom later that there was nothing like he said there was, and he said it was all done by enchantment. The Zum had some magicians that was their ally, and they turned the whole thing into a Sunday school picnic, just out of spite. I couldn’t see why they would have to do that, but all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for these magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numbskull.
“Well,” I says, “s’pose we get some magicians to help us.”
“How you goin’ to get them?” he says.
“I don’t know. How did they get them?”
“Well, they rub an old lamp, and soon enough there’s a puff of colored smoke, and the magician appears, tall as trees and big around as a church. And everything they’re told to do they do.”
“Who gets to tell them what to do?”
“Why, whoever rubbed the lamp. They belong to whoever rubs the lamb, and they got to do whatever he tells them, because he owns them.”
“What! So I’m a magician in a bottle, I come out when someone rubs it, and I’m big as a tree and round about as a church? I don’t know as I’d have anyone tell me what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I’d do whatever I want.”
“Shucks, it ain’t no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don’t seem to know anything – a perfect saphead.”
I thought all this over for two or three whole days, and then it came to me that it was just one of Tom Sawyer’s lies, like Pap, or Jim riding down to New Orleans on the back of a witch. It was a good story, and it got a crowd of people to listen to you, but that’s all it was - just talk.
Chapter Four
The Finger-bone Oracle
Well, three or four months run along, and it was winter
now. I had been to school most of the time and could spell and read and write a little, and could say the multiplication tables up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don’t reckon I could get any farther than that if I live forever.
At first I hated school, but by and by I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I git next day done me good and cheered me up. I was getting used to the widow’s ways, too, and they warn’t so raspy on me. Before the cold weather I used to slide out at night and sleep in the woods, so that was a rest for me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting to like the new ways too, and the widow said I was coming along, slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory.
One morning I happened to turn over a saltcellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was ahead of me, and crossed me off. The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn’t going to keep off the bad luck, I knew that well enough. After breakfast, I wondered where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. If ever I expected one of them Zum to meet me on the front porch and commence to tear me to pieces, this was the day.
I went down to the garden and walked out the front gate to the stockade, which was now open for the day. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody’s tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood outside the front gate like they was waitin’. It was funny they hadn’t come in after standin’ around so. T’wasn’t a Zum track, as they seemed to have more of a faltering, sliding shuffle, and bits are always fallin’ off ‘em as they traipse along. I couldn’t make it out. It was very curious. I stopped down to get a closer look at the track, and I noticed a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil. Then I knew’d who it was.
I was off in a second and went down the hill, stopping in front of the Thatchers. Then I remembered that the Judge was gone, kilt, and it was just the Widow Thatcher and young Becky, so I kept going and went to the Welshman’s. He was always straight with me. When he came to the door, he said:
“Well, my boy, you are all out of breath. What can I do for you?”
“I need some help, sir,” I says. “My fortune, the one Judge Thatcher’s people have invested for me – I don’t want it no more. I want you to take it and divvy it up. You take some of it, and spread around the rest. I don’t care. The Widow Thatcher, Aunt Polly, whatever you think is good.”
He looked surprised. He couldn’t seem to make it out. He says:
“Why, what do you mean, my boy?”
I says: “Don’t ask me no questions about it, please. You’ll do this for me, won’t you?”
He says:
“Well, I’m puzzled, that’s for certain. Is something the matter?”
“Please,” says I, “don’t ask me no questions – then I won’t have to tell no lies.”
Then he studies me for awhile and says:
“Oooh. I think I see. You want to sell me all your property – not give it. That’s the idea.”
Then he takes me inside and writes something on a piece of paper and reads it over.
“There,” he says when he is satisfied with it. “You see, it says, ‘for a consideration.’ That means I have bought it and paid you for it. Here’s a dollar. Now you sign it.”
So I signed it as best I could, and left.
Miss Watson owned a servant named Jim, and he had a special possession he could do magic with. Seemed a negro preacher had actually thought to take the word of the gospel to the Zum – which is a thing no one else had really thought of. People were always trying to baptize and save the injuns, and the savages, and the heathens wherever they found ‘em, and this fella jes took it one step further. I don’t know what he was thinkin’, but I guess his faith was deeper than most, and he thought the Zum was all god’s creatures – nasty and horrible, maybe, but not completely doomed. And sure enough, they found him one day, next to his wagon, all tore up, ripped asunder, and that was the end of that experiment. But Jim said that when he went to he’p bury the body, the preacher’s pointer finger was pointing toward heaven, like the rest of us should not worry because he was going to go to the good place. The finger came off as they rolled him into a hole, and Jim kept the bones and strung them together with a piece of rawhide, so it still looked like a pointing finger, except with a rawhide knot at both ends. Jim said there was a powerful spirit inside it, a powerful good spirit, and it knowed everything. So I went to see him that night and told him that pap was here again, and what was he goin’ to do, and was he goin’ to stay?
Jim got out the magic finger bones and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it to the floor. It fell pretty solid, and when it landed it was pointin’ at me, which I didn’t take as a good thing. Jim tried it again, and this time when it landed, it was pointin’ at him. He got down on his knees, put his ear against it, and listened. But it warn’t no use; he said it wouldn’t talk to him. So I gave him a quarter I had that wasn’t really a quarter but a fake made out of brass.
Jim put the quarter under the finger bones and got down and listened again. This time he said the finger would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the finger-bones talked to Jim, and Jim relayed the message to me. He says:
“You ole father doan’ know yit what he a-gwyne to do. Maybe he’ll go ‘way, ag’in maybe he’ll stay. Dey’s two angels hoverin’ roun’ ‘bout him. One uv ‘em is white an’ shiny, t’other one is black. A body can’t tell yit which one gwyne to get to him at de las’. Huck, you gwyne to have considerable trouble in yo’ life, en considerable joy, too. But you is all right. Sometimes you gwyne to get hurt, an’ sometimes you gwyne to get sick, but each time you’s gwyne to git well ag’in. You wants to keep away fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no risks dat way.”
And when I sneaked back into my room that night, trying to make sense of all Jim had told me, there sat pap – his own self!
Chapter Five
Pap Starts in on a New Life
I had shut the door and turned around, and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much, and I reckoned I was scared now, too; but after the first jolt, when my breath sort of hitched, I wasn’t so scared of him as worth bothering about.
He was more than fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. His hair was all black, and so was his long, mixed-up whiskers, which had food and such in them. There warn’t no color to his face, though; it was just white, a white to make a body’s flesh crawl – a tree-toad white, a fish belly white. The Zum that Tom Sawyer and I set afire in the cave was white like that, and it warn’t pleasant. I bet pap jolted a lot of people. As for his clothes – he was all rags, nothing more. His hat was layin’ on the floor – an old black slouch with the top caved in.
I stood a-looking at him; he sat there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set my candle down. I noticed that the window in my room was up; so he had clumb in by the shed, just the way I do. By and by he says:
“Starchy clothes. Very nice. You think you’re a bit of a big deal, don’t you?”
“Maybe I am, and maybe I ain’t,” I says.
“Don’t give me none o’ your lip,” says he. “You’ve put on considerable airs since I been away. I’ll take you down a peg or two before I’m done with you. You’re educated too, they say – can read and write. You think you’re better’n your own father now, don’t you, because he can’t? I’ll take it out of you. Who told you you could meddle with such foolishness, boy? Who told you you could?”
“The widow told me.”
“The widow, hey? – and who told the widow she could meddle in a thing that ain’t none of her business?”
“Nobody tells her nothin’.”
“Well, I’ll learn her not to meddle. And look here – you drop that school, hear? Don
’t you lemme catch you foolin’ around with that school again. Your mother couldn’t read, and she couldn’t write, neither. None of the family could. I cant; and here you are all puffed-up like. I ain’t the man to stand for it. Say, lemme hear you read.”
I took up a book and began reading something about General Washington and the wars, a million years before the Zum. Soon enough, he whacked the book with his hand and knocked it across the room. He says:
“It’s so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now lookey; you stop puttin’ on frills. I won’t have it. I’ll lay for you, mister smartypants; and if I catch you at that school ag’in I’ll tan you good. Next thing you know, you’ll get religion, too. I never seen such a son.”
He took up a picture I had of some cows and a boy walking along, and he says:
“What’s this?”
“It’s something they give me for learning my lessons good.”
He tore it up and threw the pieces to the floor. He was getting angry by my answers, and I figured I would try to de-rail him. So I says:
“What you been up to, pap?”
It kind of surprised him, me interrupting him, and took him out of himself for a moment. But a big smile came to his face and he rubbed his hands together like he was in front of a campfire getting ready to eat.
“I found me an angle, so I have. You remember the story of me getting into it with that Zum when I was all liquor’d up? After a day or two, I realized it didn’t matter what happened to them at all – no one gave a pence. So I started layin’ for ‘em. I’d see one, I’d trail him until it was all by himself. Then I’d bring it down with a bat or a sharp edge. They almost always had stuff in their pockets. What was it anymore to them? A pocket watch, a wallet, a little money, all kinds of odds and ends. Hell, sometimes more than a little money. What do the rest of them care? Nothin’, that’s what. They just want ‘em gone. So I oblige them. I guess I’m what you’d call a highwayman.”
