Huckleberry Finn

by Dave Mckay

  Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he pulled himself up straight, and the lightning started to come out from his eyes, you wanted to climb a tree first, and find out what the trouble was later. He didn’t ever have to tell anyone to be good -- everybody was always good acting where he was. Everybody loved to have him around, too; he was like the sun most always -- I mean he made it seem like good weather. When he turned into a dark cloud it was awful for half a minute, and that was enough; there wouldn’t nothing go wrong again for a week.

  When him and the old woman come down in the morning all the family got up from their chairs and give them good-day, and didn’t sit down again until they had sat down. Then Tom and Bob would mix a glass of whiskey and hand it to him, and he held it in his hand and waited until Tom’s and Bob’s was mixed, and then they would say, “We are here to serve you, sir, and madam.” And they said thank you, and so they would all three drink.

  Bob was the oldest and Tom next -- tall, beautiful men with very wide shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They dressed in white from head to foot too, like the old man, and each had wide hats made from leaves, from South America.

  Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud and wonderful, but as good as she could be when she weren’t angry; and when she was angry she had a look that would make you stop dead, like her father. She was beautiful.

  So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was kind and sweet and soft, and she was only twenty.

  Each person had their own slave to wait on them -- Buck too. My slave had a very easy time, because I never had anyone to do things for me, but Buck’s was on the jump most of the time.

  This was all there was of the family now, but in the past there was more -- three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.

  The old man owned a lot of farms and over a hundred slaves. That week a crowd of people come there on horses, from ten or fifteen mile around, and stayed a few days. We had parties round about and on the river, and dances and meals on the grass under the trees when it was day, and more dances at the house at night. These people was mostly relatives. The men brought their guns with them. It was a good looking lot of quality, I tell you.

  There was another well born family around there -- five or six families -- mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as well born and rich and great as the Grangerfords. The Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same river-boat landing, which was about two miles above our house. When I went there I saw a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their nice horses.

  Later the next week Buck and me was out in the country hunting, and heard a horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says: “Quickly! Jump behind the trees!”

  We done it, and looked out secretly through the leaves. Pretty soon a good-looking young man come riding down the road, sitting easy on his horse and looking like a soldier. He had his rifle across the saddle. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson.

  I heard Buck’s gun go off at my ear, and Harney’s hat fell off. He lifted his rifle and came straight toward the place where we was hiding. But we didn’t wait. We started through the trees on a run. The trees weren’t thick, so I looked over my shoulder for bullets, and two times I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun, but not shoot; and then he turned and left the way he come -- to get his hat, I think, but I couldn’t see. We never stopped running until we got home.

  When we told the old man, his eyes lighted up a minute -- He was happy mostly, I judged. -- then his face kind of smoothed down, and he says, quietly: “I don’t like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn’t you step into the road, my boy?”

  “The Shepherdsons don’t, father. They always take us by surprise.”

  Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling his story. The two young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned white, but the colour come back when she found the man weren’t hurt.

  Soon as I could get Buck alone down under the trees, I says: “Did you want to kill him, Buck?”

  “Sure I did.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Him? He never done nothing to me.”

  “Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?”

  “Why, nothing -- only it’s because of the feud.”

  “What’s a feud?”

  “Where was you brought up? Don’t you know what a feud is?”

  “Never heard of it before -- tell me about it.”

  “Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way: A man has a fight with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins join in -- and by and by everyone’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.”

  “Has this one been going on long, Buck?”

  “Well, I should think so! It started thirty years ago, or some-where along there. There was trouble about something, and then they went to court to fix it; and the court went against one of the men, and so he up and killed the man that won in the court -- which you could understand him doing. Anyone would.”

  “What was the trouble about, Buck? -- land?”

  “Maybe -- I don’t know.”

  “Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?”

  “Lord, how do I know? It was so long ago.”

  “Don’t anyone know?”

  “Oh, yes, my father knows, I think, and some of the other old people; but they don’t know now what the argument was about in the first place.”

  “Has there been many killed, Buck?”

  “Yes; it makes for a lot of funerals. But they don’t always kill. Pa’s got some metal in him from their guns; but he don’t worry much about that because he don’t weigh much, anyway. Bob’s been cut up some with a knife, and Tom’s been hurt one or two times.”

  “Has anyone been killed this year, Buck?”

  “Yes; we got one and they got one. About three months ago my cousin Bud, fourteen years old, was riding through the trees on t’other side of the river, and didn’t have no weapon with him, which was just foolishness, and in a place away from any houses he hears a horse a-coming behind him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-riding after him with his gun in his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and instead of jumping off and taking to the bushes, Bud thought he could run away from him; so they had it, run and follow, for five mile or more, the old man a-getting closer all the time; so at last Bud seen he weren’t going to get away, so he stopped and turned around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know, and the old man he come up and did just that. But he didn’t get much time to talk about his luck, for inside of a week our people killed him back.”

  “I think it was low down of that old man to kill a boy who didn’t have a weapon, Buck.”

  “I don’t think it was low down. Not at all. There ain’t any Shepherdsons who are low down -- not a one. And there ain’t no low down Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kept up his end in a fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come out a winner. They was all on horses; he jumped off of his horse and got behind some cut timber, and kept his horse in front of him to stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and ran around the old man, shooting away at him, and he was shooting away at them. Him and his horse both went home crippled and with holes in them, but the Grangerfords had to be carried home -- and one of them was dead, and another died the next day. No, sir; if a body’s out hunting for people who are afraid to fight he don’t want to waste any time with them Shepherdsons, because they don’t have any that are afraid of a good fight.”

  Next Sunday we all went to church, about three miles away, everybody on horses. The men took their rifles along; so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them close by against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pre
tty bad preaching -- all about loving your brother, and other boring talk; but everybody said it was good preaching, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and forgiveness and preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.

  About an hour after dinner everybody was sleeping, some in their chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty boring. Buck and a dog was lying out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went up to our room, and judged I would have a sleep myself.

  I found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took me in her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I would do something for her and not tell anyone, and I said I would. Then she said she’d left her Bible on the bench at church between two song books, and would I go back there secretly and bring it to her. I said I would. So I went off up the road, and there weren’t anyone at the church, apart from maybe a pig or two, for there weren’t any lock on the door, and pigs like a timber floor in the summer because it’s cool. If you study it, you’ll see that most people don’t go to church only when they have to; but a pig is different.

  Says I to myself, something’s up; it ain’t right for a girl to be so worried about a Bible. So I give it a shake, and out drops a piece of paper with “Half past two” wrote on it. I went through it, but couldn’t find anything more. I couldn’t make anything of it, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I got back to my room there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Bible until she found the paper. When she read it she looked glad; and before a body could think she give me a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anyone.

  She was red in the face, and her eyes lighted up, and it made her powerful pretty. When I was over the hug I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked if I could read writing, and I told her “no, only a few words,” then she said the paper weren’t anything but a marker to keep her place in the Bible, and I could go and play now.

  I went down to the river, studying over this, when I saw my slave was following along behind. When we was away from the house he looked around a second, then comes a-running, and says: “Master George, if you’ll come down to de wet land I’ll show you a whole family of snakes.”

  Thinks I, that’s mighty strange. He asked the same thing yesterday. He should know a body don’t love snakes enough to go around hunting for them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says: “All right; run ahead.”

  I followed half a mile; then we went into the wet land and walked ankle deep another half-mile. We come to a little flat piece of dry land thick with trees and bushes and vines.

  He says: “Push right in dere just a few steps, Master George; dere’s where dey is. I’s seen ‘em before; I don’t care to see ‘em no more.”

  Then he went off to where I couldn’t see him for the trees. I pushed into the place a ways and come to a little open place as big as a bedroom with vines hanging all around it, and found a man lying there asleep -- and, by boom, it was my old Jim!

  I waked him up, and I thought it was going to be a great surprise to him to see me again, but it weren’t. He nearly cried he was so glad, but he weren’t surprised. Said he had been swimming along behind me that night, and heard me shout every time, but was afraid to answer, because he didn’t want nobody to catch him and force him to be a slave again. Says he: “I got hurt a little, and couldn’t swim fast, so I was a good ways behind you toward de last. When you landed I thought I could catch up wid you on de land widout having to shout at you, but when I see dat house I slowed down. I was off too far to hear what dey said to you -- I was afraid of de dogs; but when it was all quiet again I knowed you was in de house, so I went out into de trees to wait for day. Early in de morning some of de slaves come along, gwyne to de fields, and dey took me and showed me dis place, where de dogs can’t find me because of de water, and dey brings me things to eat every night, and tells me how you’s a-getting along.”

  “Why didn’t you tell my man to bring me here sooner, Jim?”

  “Well, it weren’t no use to worry you, Huck, until we could do sumfin -- but we’s all right now. I been a-buying pans and food, as I am able, and a-fixing up de raft nights when -- “

  “What raft, Jim?”

  “Our old raft.”

  “You mean to say our old raft weren’t broken all to sticks?”

  “No, she weren’t. She was broken up a little -- one end of her was; but dey weren’t no great problem, only our traps was almost all lost. If we hadn’t been swimming so far under water, and if de night hadn’t been so dark, and if we weren’t so scared, and been such pumpkin-heads, as de saying is, we’d a seen de raft. But it’s just as well we didn’t, because now she’s all fixed up again almost as good as new, and we’s got a new lot of things, in de place of what was lost.”

  “So, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim -- did you catch her?”

  “How I gwyne to catch her when I’s out in de trees? No; some of de slaves found her caught on a tree branch along here in de bend, and dey put her in a hiding place on a side river, and dey was so much talking about who she belong to de most dat I come to hear about it, so I ups and ends de problem by telling ‘em she don’t belong to none of ‘em, but to you and me; and I asked ‘em if dey gwyne to rob a young white man’s raft, and get a whipping for it? Den I give ‘em ten cents each, and dey was mighty glad, and wished some more rafts would come along and make ‘em rich again. Dey’s mighty good to me, dese niggers is, and whatever I wants ‘em to do for me I don’t have to ask ‘em more dan once, honey. Dat Jack’s a good man, and pretty smart.”

  “Yes, he is. He ain’t ever told me you was here; told me to come, and he’d show me a lot of snakes. That way, if anything happens he ain’t mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it’ll be the truth.”

  I don’t want to talk much about the next day. I think I’ll cut it short. I waked up just as the sun was coming up, and was a- going to turn over and go to sleep again when it seemed that things were too quiet. That weren’t right. Next I seen that Buck was up and gone. Well, I gets up, confused, and goes down the steps -- nobody around; everything as quiet as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by where they cut timber, I comes across my Jack, and says: “What’s it all about?”

  Says he: “Don’t you know, Master George?”

  “No,” says I, “I don’t.”

  “Well, den, Miss Sophia’s run off! True, she has. She run off in de night some time -- nobody don’t know just when; run off to get married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know -- or dat is what dey think. De family found it out about half an hour ago -- maybe more -- and I tell you dey weren’t no time lost. Such hurrying up guns and horses you never seen another! De women has gone to tell de relatives, and old Master Saul and de boys took dey guns and horses and headed up de river road to catch dat young man and kill him before he can get across de river wid Miss Sophia. I think dey’s gwyne to be rough times.”

  “Buck went off without waking me up.”

  "I believe he did! Dey weren’t gwyne to mix you up in it. Master Buck he just took his rifle and promised he’s gwyne to bring home a Shepherdson or die trying. Well, dey’ll be a lot of ‘em dere, I think, and you can be sure he’ll bring one if he can.”

  I took up the river road as fast as I could. By and by I starts to hear shooting a good ways off. When I came to where I could see the building where the river boats land I worked along under the trees and bushes until I reached a good place, and then I climbed up into the fork of a tree that was out of reach, and watched. There was a wall of firewood four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn’t.

  There was four or five men movin
g around on their horses in the open place before the big timber shop, shouting and using bad language, and trying to get at two boys that was behind another wall of firewood that was beside the river-boat landing; but they couldn’t come it. Every time one of them showed him- self on the river side of the timber the boys would shoot at him. The two boys was down low back to back behind the timber, so they could watch both ways.

  By and by the men started riding toward the shop; then up gets one of the boys, points his rifle over the firewood, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All the men jumped off of their horses and run to the hurt one and started to carry him to the shop; and that same minute the two boys started on the run. They got half way to the tree I was in before the men saw it. When the men seen it, they jumped on their horses and took out after them. They was faster than the boys, but it didn’t do no good, the boys had too good a start; they got to the firewood that was in front of my tree, and got in behind it, and so they had the better of the men again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a thin young man about nineteen years old.