by Dave Mckay
And Jim said you must not count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table cloth after the sun goes down. And he said if a man owned a bee hive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before the sun come up next morning, or else the bees would all become weak and quit work and die. Jim said bees only wouldn’t hurt stupid people; but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they didn't hurt me.
I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them. Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him if there weren’t any good luck signs.
He says: “Very few -- and dey ain’t no use to a body. What you want to know when good luck’s a-coming for? Want to keep it off?” And he said: “If you’s got a lot of hair on your arms and on your chest, it’s a sign dat you’s a-gwyne to be rich. Well, dey’s some good in a sign like dat, if it’s a-gwyne to be far ahead. You see, maybe you’s got to be poor a long time first, and so you could get discouraged and kill yourself if you didn’t know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich by me by.”
“Have you got hair on your arms and on your breast, Jim?”
“What’s de good to ask dat question? Don’t you see I has?”
“Well, are you rich?”
“No, but I been rich once, and gwyne to be rich again. Once I had fourteen dollars, but I took to doing business and got cleaned out.”“What did you do business in, Jim?”
“Well, first I started wid animals. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I won't do it again. De cow up and died on my hands.”
“You lost the ten dollars?”
“No, I didn’t lose it all. I only lost about nine of it. I sold de skin and fat for a dollar and ten cents.”
“Did you do more business with the five dollars ten cents you had left?”
“Yes. You know dat slave wid one leg dat belongs to old Mr. Bradish? He started up a bank, and said anyone put in a dollar would get four dollars more at de end of de year. Well, all de Blacks went in, but dey didn’t have much. I was de only one dat had much. So I held out for more dan four dollars, and I said if I didn’t get it I’d start a bank myself. Dat nigger wanted to keep me out de business for sure because he says dey weren’t business enough for two banks, so he says I could put in my five dollars and he’d pay me thirty-five at de end of de year.
“So I done it. Den I planned to put de thirty-five dollars to work and keep things a-moving. Dey was a slave named Bob, dat had found a boat and his master didn’t know about it; and he sold it to me. I told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de end of de year come; but someone robbed de boat dat night, and next day de one-legged Black say de bank collapsed. So dey didn’t none of us get no money.”
“What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?”
“Well, I was gwyne to spend it, but I had a dream, and de dream told me to give it to a Black named Balum; he’s one of dem stupid people, you know.
But he’s lucky, dey say, and I could see I wasn’t. De dream say let Balum do business wid de ten cents and he’d make a lot of money for me. Well, Balum he took de money, and when he was in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de poor is giving to de Lord, and will get his money back a hundred times over. So Balum he took and give de whole ten cents to de poor, and sit back to see what was gwyne to come of it.”
“Well, what did come of it, Jim?”
“Nuffin never come of it. I couldn’t get back dat money no way; and Balum he couldn’t too. I ain’t gwyne to give no more money without I see what’s coming back of it. Sure to get your money back a hundred times, de preacher says! If I could get de ten cents back, I’d call it square, and be glad of it.”
“Well, it’s all right anyway, Jim, long as you’re going to be rich again some time or other.”
“Yes; and I’s rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, and I’s worth eight hundred dollars. I wished I had de money, I wouldn’t want no more.”
Chapter 9
I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I’d found when I was looking around; so we took off walking and soon got to it, because the island was only three miles long and four hundred yards wide.
This place was a long, steep hill about forty foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and the bushes so thick. We walked and climbed around all over it, and by and by found a good big cave in the rock, almost up to the top on the side toward Illinois. The cave was as big as two or three rooms pushed together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool in there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we didn’t want to be climbing up and down there all the time.
Jim said if the canoe was hiding in a good place near the hill, and we had all the traps in the cave, we could hurry there if anyone was to come to the island, and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to get wet?
So we went back and got the canoe, and brought it up opposite the cave, and carried all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, where the willow branches was thick. We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and started to get ready for dinner.
The door of the cave was big enough to wheel a barrel through it, and on one side of the door the floor projected out a little, and was flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we made it there and cooked dinner.
We put the blankets down inside for a rug, and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things at the back of the cave. Pretty soon it turned dark, and started to thunder and lightning; so the birds was right about it. Soon after it started to rain, and it rained like all hell, too, and I never seen the wind blow so.
It was one of these real summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside. It was beautiful; and the rain would come down so thick that the trees off a little ways looked grey and like a spider web; and here would come an explosion of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the white under side of the leaves; and then an even bigger wind would follow along and make the branches throw their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest -- fst! it was as light as heaven, and you’d have a little show of tree tops a-moving about away off in the distance, hundreds of yards farther than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and then you’d hear the thunder let go with an awful noise, and then go groaning and turning down the sky toward the under side of the world, like pushing empty barrels down steps -- where it’s long steps and they jump around a lot, you know.
“Jim, this is nice,” I says. “I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else. Pass me another piece of fish and some hot corn bread.”
"Well, you wouldn’t a been here if it hadn’t a been for Jim. You’d a been down dere in de trees widout any dinner, and getting almost drowned, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it’s gwyne to rain, and so do de birds, child.”
The river went up higher and higher for ten or twelve days, until at last it was over the sides of the river. The water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same old distance across -- a half a mile -- because the Missouri side was just a wall of cliffs.
Each day we went all over the island in the canoe. It was pretty cool in under the trees, even if the sun was burning outside. We went bending in and out between the trees, and sometimes the vines were hanging so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and when the island had been flooded a day or two they got so quiet, because of being hungry, that you could take the canoe right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not t
he snakes and turtles -- they would drop off into the water. The line of hills our cave was in was full of them. We could a had animals enough to play with if we had wanted them.
One night we caught a little piece of a timber raft -- nice boards. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the top stood above water six or seven inches -- a solid, level floor. We could see saw logs go by in the light sometimes, but we let them go; we didn’t show ourselves in the light.
Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before the sun come up, here comes a whole timber house down, on the west side. She was a big one, and leaning over a lot. We took the canoe out and got on it -- climbed in at a window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we tied the canoe to it and sat there waiting for the sun to come up.
The light started to come before we got to the foot of the island, so we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, a table, two old chairs, and lots of things around the floor, and there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man.
So Jim says: “Hello, you!”
But it didn’t move. So I shouted again, then Jim says: “He ain’t asleep -- he’s dead. You hold here -- I’ll go see.” He went in, and got down close and looked, and says:
“It’s a dead man. Yes, it is; with no clothes on, too. He got a bullet in de back. I’d say he’s been dead two or three days. Come in, Huck, but don’t look at his face -- it’s too awful.”
I didn’t look at him at all. Jim throwed some old dirty cloths over him, but there was no need for that; I didn’t want to see him. There was lots of old dirty cards all around over the floor, and old whiskey bottles, and two masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls was the stupidest kind of words and pictures made with coals from a fire. There was two old dirty dresses, and a sun hat, and some women’s under clothes hanging against the wall, and some men’s clothes, too. We put the lot into the canoe -- maybe we could find a use for them. There was a boy’s old hat on the floor; I took that, too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a piece of cloth in it for a baby to put in its mouth to get milk from it. We would of took the bottle, but it was broken. There was a dirty old timber box, and an old broken suitcase. They was open, but there weren’t nothing left in them that was of any good to us. The way things was all over the place we said to ourselves that the people must of left in a hurry, and weren’t fixed so as to carry off most of their things.
We got an old tin lantern, and a sharp meat knife without any handle, and a nice new knife worth money in any shop, and a lot of candles made from fat, and a tin stick to hold a candle, and a tin cup, and a dirty old quilt off the bed, and a hand bag with needles and wax and buttons and thread and all such things in it, and an axe and some nails, and a fish line as thick as my little finger with some very big hooks on it, and a big piece of leather, and a horse shoe, and some bottles of medicine that didn’t have no name on them; and just as we was leaving Jim found a dirty old violin bow, and a timber leg. The belts to hold it on was broken off of it, but, apart from that, it was a good enough leg, but it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn’t find the other one, even after hunting all around.
And so, take it all around, we made a good time of it. When we was ready to leave we was four hundred yards below the island, and it was pretty much light outside; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a black man a good ways off. I took the boat over to the Illinois side, and was pushed down the river almost a half a mile doing it. I worked my way back up to the island in the dead water under the high ground on that side, and hadn’t no accidents and didn’t see nobody. We got home all safe.
Chapter 10
After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and about how he come to be killed, but Jim didn’t want to. He said it would bring bad luck; and on top of that, he said, his ghost might come looking for us; he said a man that weren’t buried would more often do that than one that was planted and com- fortable. That sounded pretty true, so I didn’t say no more; but I couldn’t stop from studying over it and wishing I knowed who killed the man, and what they done it for.
We went through the clothes we’d got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up inside an old coat.
Jim said he had a feeling the people robbed the coat and didn’t know it had money in it, because if they’d a-knowed they wouldn’t a left it. I said I had a feeling they killed him, too; but Jim didn’t want to talk about that.
I says: “Now you think it’s bad luck; but what did you say when I showed you the snake skin that I found on the top of the hill day before yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake skin with my hands. Well, here’s your bad luck! We’ve brought in all these things and eight dollars on top of it. I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim.”
“Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don’t you get too smart. It’s a-coming. Remember I tell you, it’s a-coming.”
It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after dinner Friday we was lying around in the grass at the highest end of the hill, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cave to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and put him on the foot of Jim’s blanket, ever so alive looking, thinking there’d be some fun when Jim found him there. Well, that night I wasn't thinking about the snake, and when Jim threw himself down on the blanket as I was lighting a candle the snake’s mate was there, and took a bite of him.
He jumped up shouting, and the first thing the light showed was the snake coiled up for another jump at him. I killed it in a second with a stick, and Jim picked up pap’s whiskey bottle and started to pour it down his throat.
He had no shoes on, and the snake went for him right on the heel. That all comes of my being so stupid as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and hugs it. Jim told me to cut off the snake’s head and throw it away, and then skin the body and cook a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it would help him heal. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too. Then I went out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away in the bushes; for I weren’t going to let Jim find out it was me that brought the snake’s mate there, not if I could help it.
Jim kept on drinking at the whiskey, and now and then he got out of his head and ran around and shouted; but every time he come to himself he went to drinking whiskey again. His foot went up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by the effect of drinking started to come, and so I judged he was all right; but I think it would be better the snake’s bite than pap’s whiskey.
Jim was sick for four days and nights. Then his leg went back down and he was around again. I said to myself then I wouldn’t ever take hold of a snake skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Jim said he could see I would believe him next time. And he said that handling a snake skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn’t got to the end of it yet. He said he would be happier to see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself. Still, I’ve always said that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the most dangerous and foolish things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and talked proud of it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of a tower, and hit the ground so hard that he was just as thin as a blanket, as you may say; and they put him like that between two barn doors, and buried him like that, so they say, but I didn’t see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a stupid person.
Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its sides again; and about the first thing we done was to put meat from a skinned rabbit on one of the big hooks and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches lon
g, and weighed over two hundred pounds. It’s easy to see that we couldn’t handle him; he would a throwed us into Illinois. We just sat there and watched him throw himself around until he died. We found a metal button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of other things. We cut the ball open with the axe, and there was a thread cylinder in it. Jim said he’d had it there a long time, to cover it over so with chemicals from his stomach and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever caught in the Mississippi, I’d say. Jim said he hadn’t ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a lot of money over at the village. They sell out such a fish as that one by the pound in the market there; everybody buys some of him; his meat’s as white as snow and makes a good meal.
Next morning I said it was getting slow and boring, and I wanted to get some action up some way. I said I would just go quietly over the river and find out what was happening. Jim liked that plan; but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn’t I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good plan, too. So we made one of the dresses a little shorter, and I turned up my pant legs to my knees and got into it. Jim tied it behind with the hooks, and it was a good job. I put on the sun hat and tied it, so that for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a stove pipe with a bend in it. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the light of day. I worked at it all day to get the feel of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn’t walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my dress to get at my pocket. I listened to him, and done better.
