by Mark Twain
He was bragging about it. Tom Sawyer and the gang pretended to be highwaymen, but pap went and done it just to get drinking money. He robbed the dead. Hearing him describe it, it didn’t seem the same as how Tom said it would be. It didn’t have the same glamour and shininess as Tom’s version.
I was quiet too long thinking about his new line of work, and he went back at me again.
“Ain’t you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; a nice lamp on the table; a piece of soft carpet on the floor so’s you don’t pick up a nasty splinter on your way to the breakfast table. And your own father sleepin’ with the hogs in the tanyard. I never seen such a son. Why, there ain’t no end to your airs – they say you’re rich, too. Hey? – what’s that about?”
“They lie – that’s what that’s about.”
“Looky here – mind how you talk to me; I’m a-standing all I can stand from you – so don’t gimme no sass. I’ve been in town for two days, and that’s all I hear about is you being rich. I heard it down the river, too. That’s why I came. I want it.”
“I hain’t got no money.”
“It’s a lie. Judge Thatcher’s people got it. You get it. I want it.”
“I ain’t got no money, I tell you. You ask any of Judge Thatcher’s people; they’ll tell you the same.”
“All right. I’ll ask around. Say, how much you got in your pocket right now? I want it.”
“I only got a dollar –“
“Well, I only got nothin’, so you shell it out.”
He took the dollar and smiled at me, but it warn’t a pleasant smile, and said he was goin’ down-town to get some whiskey – said he hadn’t had a drink all day. He went out the window, then stuck his head back in and cussed me for putting on frills and tryin’ to be better than him; and then I reckoned he was gone, but I heard him come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn’t drop it.
The next day he was drunk, and he started a commotion at Judge Thatcher’s house, and then went to the Welshman’s and started another one there. The Welshman wouldn’t give him a cent and told him to get off his property, and pap yelled that he’d make the courts force him to give him my money. Both the Welshman and the widow went to court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian, but the judge who heard them said the courts cain’t interfere and separate families if they could help it. The judge said he’d druther not take a child away from his natural father, then he banged his gavel, and that was that.
That pleased the old man so he couldn’t rest. He said he’d cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn’t raise some money for him. I gave him three dollars that I got from the Welshman and pap took it and got drunk. They put him in jail for a few days, let him out, I’d raise some more money fer him, he’d get drunk again, then he’d go to jail again until he was sober. But he was satisfied with this arrangement; said he was the boss of his son, and he’d make it warm for me if I didn’t continue like I was.
This went on the rest of the summer. The town had had enough of pap, but pap was going to do whatever pleased him. He smelt a fortune in the air, and didn’t fix on leavin’ without it. For him, going to jail for a day or two every so often was a nice vacation. He’d rest up until it was time to leave, then come see me again.
Chapter Six
Pap’s New Life
Well, pretty soon the old man was in the courts ag’in, asking that what was mine be made his. He went at me, too, for not stopping school, and when he catched me, he gave me a thrashin’. I didn’t want to go to school before, but I reckoned I’d go now just to spite pap. A few times a week I borrowed a couple dollars from the Welshman for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. The Welshman asked me no questions why I needed the money, which I was glad of. Every time pap got money, he got drunk, and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town, then off he’d go to jail.
He got to hanging around the Thatcher’s so much that she one day she came out herself and told him if he didn’t quit, she’d make more trouble for him. Well, wasn’t he mad? So he watched out for me one day and catched me, and took me a ways up the river in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn’t no houses but an old log hut where the timber was so thick you couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it was.
We lived in that old cabin, and I never had a chance to run off. He always locked the door at night and slept with the key under his head. He had a gun, which he stole I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he’d lock me up in that hut and go down river to the ferry, and trade fish and game for whisky. Then he fetched it home and got drunk and licked me. It warn’t long till I got used to being where I was, and liked it – all but the cowhide part.
It was kind of lazy and jolly, just being comfortable all day long, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. A few months or so went by and my clothes got to be all dirt and rags, and I didn’t see how I ever got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have Miss Watson pecking at you all the time. I didn’t want to go back no more.
But by and by pap got too handy with his hick’ry, and I couldn’t stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded or a Zum had finally got the better hand with him, and I warn’t ever goin’ to get out anymore. That scared me good, I can tell you.
I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there, and tried all sorts of ways to get out of that cabin, but I couldn’t find no way. There warn’t a window to it being enough for a dog to get through. I couldn’t get up the chimbly; it was too narrow. The door was thick, solid slabs of oak. I reckon I had hunted the place over more than a hundred times, because that was just about the only way to spend the time when you didn’t have no door, and there was nothing.
A few times I could hear leaves and twigs getting crumbled outside, and I knew if it warn’t pap, it was some wandering Zum. They’d skritch and claw at the door and at the logs, and put their hands through the window like they might be able to accidentally grab something, but I just stayed in the middle of the room till they left, figuring if there was nothing I could do to get out, there warn’t a thing they could do to get in. When this happened during the day it was bad enough, but when this happened at night, it was worse. I hid under a horse-blanket and said my goodbyes, and even made little prayers that I was positive no one was going to answer. If I heared them foolin’ around on the roof, I’d try and kick up the fire, figuring it would give them pause, but the brief flare of light in the room gave me no comfort at all.
When pap finally returned, he warn’t in a good humor, despite having a sack of decent swag from the Zum he cleaned out on his travels. He said he had been in the village, and everything was going wrong. He had a new lawyer now, but the lawyer wouldn’t answer his questions the way he wanted them answered, and told him the whole thing was going to take a long, long time, as this was what the widow Thatcher’s people were aimin’ to do – they was tryin’ to outlast pap, and pap’s lawyer guessed that the widow’s people could do it and win it all this time. This shook me up considerable. It shook up the old man, too. He got to cussing, and cussed everyone and everything he could think of, and then cussed them all again to make sure he hadn’t skipped anyone.
He said he would like to see the widow Thatcher’s people or the Welshman try to get me. He said he knowed of a place another six or seven miles off to stow me in, where they might hunt and call for me till they were blue in the face and not find me. That made me uneasy again, but I reckoned I wouldn’t stay on hand till he got that chance.
The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got. There was a fifty-pound sack of co
rn meal, a side of bacon, ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whiskey. It was a lot more provisions than he normally had money for. It seems no one else had considered plundering the Zum except pap, and he had the whole field to himself. I toted up a load, and went back to set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some fishing lines, and take to the woods when I ran away. I guessed I wouldn’t stay in one place, but tramp right across the country, mostly at night; the Zum might try and kill me, but leastways they wouldn’t be turning me in. I’d hunt and fish to stay alive, and get so far away that the old man and the widow wouldn’t ever be able to find me again. I figured I’d leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got so full of the idea I didn’t notice how long I was staying by the skiff till the old man hollered and asked me if I was asleep or drownded.
I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper, the old man took a sip or two and got kind of warmed up, and went to ripping again. Soon enough he was staggering around the cabin like a comical Zum, ranting and cussing. Whenever his liquor went to work he always went after the govment. So this time he says:
“Call this a govment! Why, just look at it and see what’s it like! Here’s the law a-standin’ ready to take a man’s son away from him – a man’s only son! Yes, just as that man got the son raised at last, and has him ready to work and begin to do suthin’ for him and give him a rest, the law up and goes after him. And they call that govment! Here’s what the law does: the law takes a chap with six thousand dollars and up’ards to his name, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go ‘round in clothes that ain’t fitten for a hog. They call that govment! I told old Thatcher’s lawyer – sometimes I’ve a great notion to just leave this country for good and all. Yes, I told ‘em so! Says I, for two cents I’d leave the blamed country and never come a-near it ag’in. That’s my very words. Look at me, says I – one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights, and walkin’ around in rags from head to foot. Some govment!”
Pap started a-goin’ on so he never noticed where his old legs was taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork, and barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of language – he mostly hove at the owned folk and the Zum, and the govment, too. He hopped around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then the other one, and at last he fetched the tub a mighty kick. But it warn’t good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple toes leaking out the front end of it; so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body’s hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, cussing and angry like he was crazy in the head.
After supper, pap took the jug, and said he had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one delirium tremons. That was always his word for: plenty. I judged he would get blind drunk in an hour, and then I would steal the key and be off. He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets by and by; but luck didn’t run my way. He didn’t go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed about, and it reminded me of old Hoss Williams, when Injun Joe and Muff dug him up, and me and Tom Sawyer hiding in the bushes. At last I got so sleepy I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and so before I knowed what I was about, I was sound asleep, the candle still burning and pap moaning and kicking just a few feet off.
I woke next morning to hear pap go out the cabin door and lock it behind him. The sun wasn’t even up yet, and the birds hadn’t started. Sometimes pap would do this, get up half-way through a sleep and go outside to the water and wet himself down for a little relief, but locking the door behind him meant he was going to be gone awhile. At least I had some bacon and a big ol’ bag of corn meal. I slept a little while more, then made myself a breakfast and ate until I was ready to go back asleep ag’in, which was the only other thing I could think to do. I knew he’d come back sooner or later, as the jug of whiskey was still on the table, and nowhere near empty. If he didn’t, it meant that he was dead, and then so was I.
Chapter Seven
I Fool Pap and get Away
“Git up! What you ‘bout?”
I opened my eyes and looked around, tryin’ to make out where I was for a moment. It had been a few days since pap locked me in that morning before sun-up, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over me with a big burlap bag filled to bustin’. He was beside himself with what for him was happiness.
“I was comin’ down the river the other morning and I sees some smoke goin’ through the trees at the edge of the river. Somethin’ twarn’t right. So I check and, sure ‘nough, there was a cabin tucked away in there, see, a man and wife. The wife was dead – it must’ve been some of them new Zum what can plan and think ahead. The husband kilt one and drove t’others off, but he was in a bad way. They got him pretty good, he had parts of him spillin out, and he lost a whole lot ‘a’ blood. He asked me to help him give his wife a decent burial, and him too if it came to it. Then he jus’ up and dies. I drug ‘em both inside the cabin, cleaned out some surprisingly nice things given their situation, checked around for any hidden money – and oh yes, thank you, I found it – then threw a kerosene lamp against a wall and got out before anyone else started nosin’ around. I should have me this kind of day every day.”
I says: “I thought you was goin’ to bury ‘em?”
Normally, this would have been all I had to say for a session with the cowhide, but he was in a good mood.
“They was dead, lad, and past care. For all they knew, they was buried. Well, all right now. Don’t stand there palavering all day, but out with you and see if there’s a fish on the lines for breakfast. I’m going to take this catch inside and sort what I got – see what I’ll take into town next for some money.”
I went out to check on the lines, down by the riverbank. I noticed some limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. The rise of the river was always luck for me, because when the rise begins, here comes cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts – sometimes a dozen logs tied together; so all you have to do is catch them and sell them to the woodyards and the sawmill.
I went along the bank with one eye out for pap and t’other one out for what the rise might fetch along. Wait long enough and there’d always be a surprise or two. Tom Sawyer was with a few of the boys one year and watched a Zum go floatin’ past. It couldn’t swim; it couldn’t drown. It just looked angry, like it was trying to fight the river as it bobbed along, but the river wasn’t takin’ any guff. The boys hung to the edge of the river the rest of the day, hoping that more of them would float by, but that one was it.
Well, all at once I see a canoe all by itself; just a beauty, too, about fourteen feet or so, riding high like a duck. I shot head-first off the bank, clothes on and all, and I got to it in a minute, clumb in, and paddled her to shore. It was a drift-canoe, sure enough. Thinks I, won’t the old man be glad to see this – she’s worth ten dollars, easy. But when I get to shore pap was nowhere in sight, and I ran the canoe into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and willows. Then I had a better idea; I judged I’d hide her proper and then, instead of takin’ to the woods when I run off, I’d go down the river aways and camp in one place for good, and not have such a hard time tramping around on foot.
I finished covering over the canoe and went to find pap. He abused me a little for being so slow, but I told him I fell in the river, and that was what made me so long. We got five catfish off the lines and went back home.
During breakfast, he says I should keep an eye out for the Zum, especially now that the new ones are bein’ so tricky, as the cabin was getting quite a collection of things he planned to sell in town, and he didn’t want the enterprise cast asunder. He says:
“You see any of them Zum a-prowlin’ round here, you roust me up, you hear? I’ll take care of ‘em good. So roust me out, you hear?”
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nbsp; Then he unbuckled his belt to make himself more comfortable, threw the catfish bones into the fire, and dropped down and went to sleep, and I started thinking ‘bout what he had said. I says to myself, I can fix it now that nobody won’t ever think of followin’ me.
About twelve o’clock we went out and walked up along the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and by and by along comes part of a log raft – nine big logs fast together. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. After this, pap reckoned he would take the logs right then over to town, and he took the skiff and commenced to tow the logs, saying he would be back by dark. But this time, he didn’t lock me inside, as I guess he figured it was short notice and I’d have nowhere else to run.
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon and the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition. I took the bucket and gourd; took a dipper and the coffee pot, a tin cup, the fish-lines and matches and some other things. I cleaned out the place. The only stuff I wouldn’t take is the swag pap took from his robbing of the dead. Maybe he figured people had rights, but whatever rights they had ceased at the moment of their death, and I didn’t hold with it. I didn’t want any of his Zum treasures, or his loot from the man and woman kilt by the new Zum. It was fine that pap said it wasn’t really stolen from people, because they warn’t no longer people, but only things that the Good Book said was a ‘bomination, but I didn’t care. The Zum might scare me, but when I thought about it and they warn’t in the vicinity, they just made me sad, and I couldn’t see profiting by their misery. Anyway, I fetched out the gun, and now the canoe was loaded.
