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Home -> Mark Twain -> Huckleberry Finn -> Chapter 40

Huckleberry Finn - Chapter 40

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

19. Chapter 19

20. Chapter 20

21. Chapter 21

22. Chapter 22

23. Chapter 23

24. Chapter 24

25. Chapter 25

26. Chapter 26

27. Chapter 27

28. Chapter 28

29. Chapter 29

30. Chapter 30

31. Chapter 31

32. Chapter 32

33. Chapter 33

34. Chapter 34

35. Chapter 35

36. Chapter 36

37. Chapter 37

38. Chapter 38

39. Chapter 39

40. Chapter 40

41. Chapter 41

42. Chapter 42

43. Chapter The Last







WE was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went
over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a
look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper,
and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end they
was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done
supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a
word about the new letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as much
about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and her
back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good
lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about
half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and
was going to start with the lunch, but says:

"Where's the butter?"

"I laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone."

"Well, you LEFT it laid out, then--it ain't here."

"We can get along without it," I says.

"We can get along WITH it, too," he says; "just you slide down cellar and
fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along.
I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in
disguise, and be ready to BA like a sheep and shove soon as you get
there."

So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a
person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of
corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs very
stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt
Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my
hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she says:

"You been down cellar?"

"Yes'm."

"What you been doing down there?"

"Noth'n."

"NOTH'N!"

"No'm."

"Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?"

"I don't know 'm."

"You don't KNOW? Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what you
been DOING down there."

"I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I
have."

I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I
s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat
about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says,
very decided:

"You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You
been up to something you no business to, and I lay 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 setting-room.
My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of them
had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down.
They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice,
and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't;
but I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their hats, and
putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their seats,
and fumbling with their buttons. I warn'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 lick me, if
she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this
thing, and what a thundering hornet's-nest we'd got ourselves into, so we
could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim before
these rips got out of patience and come for us.

At last she come and begun 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 fidget now that some was wanting to start right NOW and lay
for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to midnight;
and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the
sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me
a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that scared;
and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning 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 right NOW,
and catching them when they come," I most dropped; and a streak of butter
come a-trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns
white as a sheet, and says:

"For the land's sake, what IS the matter with the child? He's got the
brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"

And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes the
bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me,
and says:

"Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain't
no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, and
when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the color
and all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear, dear, whyd'nt you
TELL me that was what you'd been down there for, I wouldn't a cared. Now
cler out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of you till morning!"

I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one,
and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get my
words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must
jump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full of men, yonder,
with guns!

His eyes just blazed; and he says:

"No!--is that so? AIN'T it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over
again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till--"

"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 slide out and give the
sheep-signal."

But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them
begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say:

"I TOLD you we'd be too soon; they haven't come--the door is locked.
Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the
dark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece,
and listen if you can hear 'em coming."

So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us
whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all right,
and out through the hole, swift but soft--Jim first, me next, and Tom
last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the lean-to,
and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to the door, and Tom
stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make out
nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he would listen for the
steps to get further, and when he nudged us Jim must glide out first, and
him last. So he set his ear to the crack and listened, and listened, and
listened, and the steps a-scraping around out there all the time; and at
last he nudged us, and we slid out, and stooped down, not breathing, and
not making the least noise, and slipped stealthy towards the fence in
Injun file, and got to it all right, and me and Jim over it; but Tom's
britches catched fast on a splinter on the top rail, and then he hear the
steps coming, so he had to pull loose, which snapped the splinter and
made a noise; and as he dropped in our tracks and started somebody sings
out:

"Who's that? Answer, or I'll shoot!"

But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there
was a rush, and a BANG, BANG, BANG! and the bullets fairly whizzed around
us! We heard them sing out:

"Here they are! They've broke for the river! After 'em, boys, and turn
loose the dogs!"

So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore boots
and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We was in the
path to the mill; and when they got pretty close on to us we dodged into
the bush and let them go by, and 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 somebody had let them loose, and here they come, making powwow
enough for a million; but they was our dogs; so we stopped in our tracks
till they catched up; and when they see it warn't nobody but us, and no
excitement to offer them, they only just said howdy, and tore right ahead
towards the shouting and clattering; and then we up-steam again, and
whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill, and then struck
up through the bush to where my canoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled
for dear life towards the middle of the river, but didn't make no more
noise than we was obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable,
for the island where my raft was; and we could hear them yelling and
barking at each other all up and down the bank, till we was so far away
the sounds got dim and died out. And when we stepped on to the raft I
says:

"NOW, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a
slave no more."

"En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en it
'uz done beautiful; en dey ain't NOBODY kin git up a plan dat's mo'
mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz."

We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because
he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.

When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did before.
It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in the
wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but he
says:

"Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don't stop now; don't fool around
here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set
her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!--'deed we did. I wish WE'D a had
the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint Louis,
ascend to heaven!' wrote down in HIS biography; no, sir, we'd a whooped
him over the BORDER--that's what we'd a done with HIM--and done it just
as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps--man the sweeps!"

But me and Jim was consulting--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. Ef it wuz HIM dat 'uz
bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on
en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like
Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You BET he wouldn't! WELL, den, is
JIM gywne to say it? No, sah--I doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'dout
a DOCTOR, not if it's forty year!"

I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say--so
it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. He
raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't
budge; so he was for crawling out and setting 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 bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when you
get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and
fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse full
of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the back
alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the canoe,
in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him and take his
chalk away from him, and don't give it back to him till 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 see
the doctor coming till he was gone again.




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