by Dave Mckay
So Tom said, "Now for the secret letters."
“What’s them?” I says.
“Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it’s done one way, sometimes another. But there’s always someone looking around that gives a warning to the governor of the prison. When Louis XVI was going to get out a servant-girl done it. It’s a very good way, and so is the secret letters. We’ll use them both. And it’s the way for the prisoner’s mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in, and he goes out in her clothes. We’ll do that, too.”
“But look here, Tom, what do we want to warn anyone for that something’s up? Let them find it out for themselves -- it’s their job.”
“Yes, I know; but you can’t trust them. It’s the way they’ve acted from the very start -- left us to do everything. They’re so trusting and stupid they don’t see nothing at all. So if we don’t give them word there won’t be nobody or nothing to get in our way, and so after all our hard work and trouble this break out’ll go off perfectly flat; won’t come to nothing -- won’t be nothing to it.”
“Well, as for me, Tom, that’s the way I’d like it.”
“Shoot!” he says, and looked angry. So I says: “But I ain’t going to complain. Any way you like is good enough for me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?”
“You’ll be her. You go in, in the middle of the night, and borrow that yellow girl’s dress.”
“Why, Tom, that’ll make trouble next morning; because she probably ain’t got any but that one.”
“I know; but you don’t want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the secret letter and push it under the front door.”
“All right, then, I’ll do it; but I could carry it just as easily in my own clothes.”
“You wouldn’t look like a servant-girl then, would you?”
“No, but there won’t be nobody to see what I look like, anyway.”
“That ain’t got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just to do our job, and not worry about if anyone sees us do it or not. Ain’t you got no conscience at all?”
“All right, I ain’t saying nothing; I’m the servant-girl. Who’s Jim’s mother?”
“I’m his mother. I’ll hook a dress from Aunt Sally.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to stay in the shack when me and Jim leaves.”
“Not much. I’ll fill Jim’s clothes full of dry grass and lay it on his bed to take the place of his mother, and Jim’ll take the black woman’s dress off of me and wear it, and we’ll all leave together.”
So Tom he wrote the secret letter, and I borrowed the yellow dress that night, and put it on, and pushed the letter under the front door, the way Tom told me to.
It said: Warning. Trouble is all around you. Keep a sharp watch. A SECRET FRIEND.
Next night we added a picture, which Tom made in blood, of a head without skin and crossed bones, on the front door; and next night another one of a box for a dead body on the back door. I never seen a family in such a worry over it. They couldn’t a been worse scared if the place had been full of ghosts waiting for them behind everything and under the beds and flying through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally would jump and say “ow!” if anything fell, she’d jump and say “ow!” if you happened to touch her, when she weren’t looking, she done the same; she couldn’t face no way and be at peace, because she believed there was something behind her every time -- so she was always a-turning around quickly, and saying “ow,” and before she’d got two-thirds around she’d turn back again, and say it again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but afraid to sit up too. So the thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he never seen a thing work better. He said it showed it was done right.
So he said, now for the best part! So the very next morning at the first sign of the sun we got another letter ready, and was thinking about what we should do with it, because we heard them say the night before that they was going to have a servant on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the lightning-rod to look around; and the servant at the back door was asleep, and he put it in the back of his neck and come back.
This letter said:
Don’t turn on me, I want to be your friend. There is a dangerous gang of killers from over in the Indian lands going to rob your runaway slave tonight, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will stay in the house and not trouble them. I am one of the gang, but have got religion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will tell on their evil plans. They will come secretly down from the north, along the fence, right on midnight, with a false key, and go in the slave’s shack to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger for them; but instead of that I will make a sound like a sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all; then while they are getting his chains loose, you run out and lock them in, and can kill them any time you like. Don’t do anything but just the way I am telling you; if you do they will see something is wrong and make all kinds of trouble. I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.
A SECRET FRIEND.
Chapter 40
We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took a lunch and my canoe and went over the river a-fishing.
We had a good time, and took a look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to dinner, and found them in such a worry they didn’t know which end was up, and made us go right to bed the minute we was done eating, and wouldn’t tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a word about the new letter. As soon as we was half up the steps and Aunt Sally's back was turned we raced for the food in the basement and got what we needed for a good lunch for the next day and took it up to our room and went to bed. We got up about half-past eleven, and Tom put onAunt Sally’s dress that he had robbed and was going to start with the lunch, but says: “Where’s the butter?”
“I took out a piece of it,” I says, “on some corn-bread.”
“Well, you left it down there, then -- it ain’t here.”
“We can get along without it,” I says.
“We can get along with it, too,” he says; “run down to the basement and get it. And then come down the lightning-rod and join me. I’ll go and put the dry grass into Jim’s clothes to be his mother hiding out in his clothes, and I'll be ready to make a sound like a sheep and run off as soon as you get there.”
So out he went, and down to the basement I went. The piece of butter, big as your fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the corn-bread with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up the steps very quietly. I got to the living-room floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I put the things in my hat, and put my hat on my head, and the next second she sees me; and she says: “You been down in the basement?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“What you been doing down there?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No ma’am.”
“Well, what made you to go down there this time of night?”
“I don’t know ma’am.”
“You don’t know? Don’t answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what you been doing down there.”
“I ain’t been doing nothing, Aunt Sally, Hope to die if I did.”
I was thinking she’d let me go now; as a general rule she would; but there was so many strange things going on she was worrying about every little thing that weren’t yard-stick straight; so she says, real hard: “You go into that sitting-room and stay there until I come. You been up to something you've no business to, and I promise I’ll find out what it is before I’m done with you.”
So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the sitting-room. My, but there was a crowd there!
Fifteen farmers, and every one of 'em had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and went and sat down. They was sitting around, some talking in a low voice, and all of them worried, but trying to look like they weren’t. I knowed they was, because they was taking off their
hats, and putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their seats, and playing with their buttons. I weren’t easy myself, but I didn’t take my hat off, all the same.
I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and whip me, if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we’d gone too far with this thing, and what a thundering wasp-nest we’d got ourselves into, so we could stop playing around straight off, and clear out with Jim before these people got tired of waiting for the sheep sound and come for us.
At last she come and started to ask me questions, but I couldn’t answer them straight, I didn’t know which end of me was up; because these men was in such a hurry that some was wanting to start right now and get those killers, and saying it weren’t but a few minutes to midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the sheep sound; and here was Aunty shooting questions at me, and me a-shaking all over and ready to die on the spot I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter starting to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty soon, when one of them says, “I’m for going and getting in the cabin first, and catching them when they come,” I almost dropped; and a line of butter come a-running down the front of my head, and Aunt Sally she sees it, and turns white as a sheet, and says: “Good lord, what is the problem with this child? He’s got a brain sickness as sure as you’re born, and they’re coming out!”
Everybody run to see, and she pulls off my hat, and out comes the bread and what was left of the butter, and she took and hugged me, and says: “What a turn you give me! and how glad and thankful I am it ain’t no worse; for luck’s against us, and it never rains but it pours, and when I seen that butter I thought we’d lost you, for I knowed by the colour it was just like your brains would be if -- My boy, why didn't you tell me that was what you’d been down there for, I wouldn’t a cared. Now clear out to bed, and don’t let me see no more of you until morning!”
I was up to my room in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another, and running through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn’t hardly get my words out, I was so scared; but I told Tom as quickly as I could we must jump for it now, and not a minute to lose -- the house was full of men with guns!
His eyes just come alive; and he says: “No! -- is that so? Ain’t it great! Why, Huck, if we was to do over again, I think I could get two hundred of them to come! If we could put it off until -- “
“Hurry! Hurry!” I says. “Where’s Jim?”
Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can
touch him. He’s dressed, and everything’s ready. Now we’ll get out and give the sheep sign.”
But then we heard men coming to the door, and starting to work with the lock. A man said: “I told you we’d be too soon; they haven’t come -- the door's locked. Here, I’ll lock some of you inside, and you wait for ‘em in the dark and kill ‘em when they come. The others of you move around a piece, and listen to hear ‘em coming.”
So in they come, but couldn’t see us in the dark, and almost stepped on us as we was squeezing under the bed. We got under all right, and out through the hole, quickly but softly -- Jim first, me next, and Tom last, which was the way Tom said to do it. Now we was in the lean-to, and heard steps close by outside. So we moved to the door, and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the opening, but couldn’t make out nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get farther, and when he touched us Jim must go out first, and him last. So he put his ear to the opening and listened, and listened, with the steps a-moving around out there all the time; and at last he touched us, and we went out, and got down low, not breathing, and not making the least noise, and moved quietly toward the fence in a line, and got to it all right, and me and Jim over it; but Tom’s pants caught hard on a sharp piece sticking out of the fence, and then he heard the steps coming, so he pulled loose, which made a noise.
As he dropped in behind us, someone sings out: “Who’s that? Answer, or I’ll shoot!”
We didn’t answer; we just opened up and ran. Then there was a movement, and bang, bang, bang! the bullets were flying around us! We heard them sing out: “Here they are! They’re running for the river! After ‘em, boys; turn loose the dogs!”
So here they come. We could hear them because they was wearing heavy shoes and shouting. We was on the footpath to the timber yard; and when they got close we jumped into the bushes and let them go by, then dropped in behind them. They’d had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn’t scare off the robbers; but by this time someone had let them out. Here they come, making noise enough for a million; but they was our dogs, so we stopped where we was until they caught up; and when they seen it was us, and no fight to give them, they only just said hello, and ran ahead toward the shouting and running feet. Then we raced along after them until we was nearly to the timber yard, and then went up through the bushes to where my canoe was tied, and jumped in and pulled for our lives toward the middle of the river, but didn’t make no more noise than we was forced to. Then we headed out, easy and comfortable, for the island where my raft was. We could hear them shouting and barking at each other all up and down the side of the river, until we was so far away the sounds got quiet and then died out. When we stepped onto the raft I says: “Now, Jim, you’re a free man again, and I believe you won’t ever be a slave no more.”
“And a mighty good job it was, Huck. It was planned beautiful, and it was done beautiful; and dey ain’t nobody can get up a plan dat’s more mixed-up and wonderful dan what dat one was.”
We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the most glad of all because he had a bullet in the back of his leg.
When me and Jim heard that, we didn’t feel so good as we did before. It was hurting him a lot, and bleeding; so we laid him in the tent and cut up one of the duke’s shirts to bandage him, but he says: “Give me the shirt; I can do it myself. Don’t stop now; don’t play around here, with the adventure going so beautifully; man the oars, and cut her loose! We done it beautifully! -- true we did. I wish we’d a had the job of getting Louis XVI out, there wouldn’t a been no ‘Son of St. Louis gone up to heaven!’ wrote down in his life story; no, sir, we’d a carried him over the border -- that’s what we’d a done with him -- and done it easy as nothing, too. Man the oars -- man the oars!”
But me and Jim was talking -- and thinking. And after we’d thought a minute, I says: “Say it, Jim.”
So he says: “Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. If it was Tom dat was being set free, and one of us was to get hurt, would he say, ‘Go on and save me, never mind about a doctor for to save dis one?’ Is dat like Master Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You know he wouldn’t! Well, den, is Jim gywne to say it? No, sir -- I don’t move a step out of dis place widout a doctor, not if it’s forty years!”
I knowed he was white inside, and I knowed he’d say what he said -- so I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. He disagreed strongly about it, but me and Jim stayed with it and wouldn’t move; so he was for going out on his hands and knees and cutting the raft loose himself; but we wouldn’t let him. Then he give us a piece of his mind, but it didn’t do no good.
So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says: “Well, then, if you’re going to go, I’ll tell you what to do when you get to the village. Shut the door and cover the doctor’s eyes tight and fast, and make him promise to be quiet as the dead, and put a bag full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the back streets and everywhere in the dark, and then bring him here in the canoe, in a round about way through the islands, and look through his pockets and take his chalk away from him, and don’t give it back to him until you get him back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it again. It’s the way they all do.”
So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he seen the doctor coming until he was gone again.
Chapter 41
The doctor was a very
nice, kind-looking man. I told him me and my brother was over on the Island hunting yesterday, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and hit him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, and not let anybody know, because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise our parents.
“Who are your parents?” he says.
“The Phelpses.”
“Oh,” he says.
After a minute, he says: “How'd you say the shooting happened?”
“He had a dream,” I says, “and it put a bullet in his leg.”
“Strange dream,” he says.
So he got his lantern and his saddle-bags, and we started.
But when he saw the canoe he didn’t like the look of her -- said she was big enough for one, but didn’t look safe for two.
