Latest / Classic Children's Stories Collection / Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Part 2 - Mark Sawyer
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Careful. I ain't opposed to spendin money on circuses when
- 0:04Speaker 1: there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use
- 0:07Speaker 1: in wastin it on them. It was a real bully circus.
- 0:12Speaker 1: It was a splendidous sight, that ever was when they
- 0:15Speaker 1: all come ridin in two and two, a gentleman an
- 0:19Speaker 1: lady side by side, the men just in their drawers
- 0:22Speaker 1: and under shirts, an no shoes nor stirrups, an restin
- 0:26Speaker 1: their hands on their thighs, easy an comfortable. There must
- 0:30Speaker 1: have been twenty of 'em, an every lady with a
- 0:33Speaker 1: lovely complexion, an perfectly beautiful, an lookin jest like a
- 0:38Speaker 1: gang of real sure enough queen's, and dressed in clothes
- 0:41Speaker 1: across millions of dollars, an jest littered with diamonds. It
- 0:47Speaker 1: was a powerful, fine sight. I never see anything so
- 0:50Speaker 1: lovely an that one by one they got up an
- 0:53Speaker 1: stood an went a weaving around the ring, so gentle, an, wavy,
- 0:58Speaker 1: an graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy
- 1:02Speaker 1: and straight, with their heads bobbing and skimming along away
- 1:07Speaker 1: up there under the tent roof, and every lady's rose
- 1:10Speaker 1: leafy dress flapping, soft and silky round her hips, and
- 1:15Speaker 1: she looking like the most loveliest parasol. And then faster
- 1:21Speaker 1: and faster they went, all of them, dancing, first one
- 1:24Speaker 1: foot out in the air, and then the other, the
- 1:27Speaker 1: horses leaning more and more, and the ringmaster going round
- 1:30Speaker 1: and round the centrepole, cracking his whip and shouting Hi, Hi,
- 1:35Speaker 1: and the clown cracking jokes behind him, and by and
- 1:39Speaker 1: by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put
- 1:42Speaker 1: her knuckles on her hips, and every gentleman folded his arms.
- 1:46Speaker 1: And then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves,
- 1:51Speaker 1: And so one after the other they all skipped off
- 1:53Speaker 1: into the ring and made the sweetest bow I ever see,
- 1:58Speaker 1: and then skimpered out for buddy, clapped their hands and
- 2:01Speaker 1: went just about wild. Well, all through the circuits they
- 2:06Speaker 1: done the most astonishin things, And all the time that
- 2:09Speaker 1: clown carried on, so it most killed the people. The
- 2:13Speaker 1: ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him, but he
- 2:16Speaker 1: was back at him, quick as a wink, with the
- 2:18Speaker 1: funniest things about it ever said an how he ever
- 2:22Speaker 1: could think of so many of em, an so sudden
- 2:24Speaker 1: and so pat was what I couldn't no way understand
- 2:29Speaker 1: why I couldn't have thought of them in a year
- 2:32Speaker 1: and by and by, a drunk man tried to get
- 2:34Speaker 1: into the ring, said he wanted to ride, said he
- 2:38Speaker 1: could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They
- 2:41Speaker 1: argued and try to keep him out, but he won't listen.
- 2:44Speaker 1: An the whole show come to a standstill. Then the
- 2:48Speaker 1: people begun to holler at him, an make fun of him.
- 2:51Speaker 1: An that made him mad. An he begun to rip
- 2:53Speaker 1: and tear, so that stirred up the people, and a
- 2:57Speaker 1: lot of men begun to pile down off of the
- 2:59Speaker 1: benches and swarm towards the rings, saying, knock him down,
- 3:03Speaker 1: throw em out. A one or two women began to scream.
- 3:07Speaker 1: So then the ringmaster he made a little speech and
- 3:10Speaker 1: said he hoped there wouln't be no disturbance. An if
- 3:13Speaker 1: the man would promise he wouldn't make no more trouble,
- 3:16Speaker 1: he would let him ride if he thought he could
- 3:18Speaker 1: stay on the horse. So everybody laughed and said all right,
- 3:22Speaker 1: and the man got on. The minute he was on
- 3:26Speaker 1: the horse, begun to rip and tear and jump and
- 3:28Speaker 1: covort around the two circus men hanging on to his
- 3:32Speaker 1: bridle trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging
- 3:36Speaker 1: on to his neck, and his heels flying in the
- 3:38Speaker 1: air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up,
- 3:42Speaker 1: shouting and laughing till tears were rolled down, And alas
- 3:47Speaker 1: sure enough all the circus men could do, the horse
- 3:51Speaker 1: broke loose, and away he went like the very nation,
- 3:55Speaker 1: rounding round the ring with that sock laying down on
- 3:58Speaker 1: him and hanging to his neck, with first one leg
- 4:01Speaker 1: hanging' most to the ground on one side, an then
- 4:03Speaker 1: the other one on the other side. An the people
- 4:07Speaker 1: est crazy. It warn't funny to me, though, I was
- 4:11Speaker 1: all of a tremble to see his danger. But pretty
- 4:14Speaker 1: soon he struggled up a straddle, an grabbed the bridle,
- 4:18Speaker 1: a reelin this way an that, an the next minute
- 4:21Speaker 1: he sprung up, an dropped the bridle, an stood an
- 4:25Speaker 1: the horse a goin' like a house a fire too.
- 4:28Speaker 1: He just stood up there as sailin' around as easy
- 4:31Speaker 1: an comfortable, as if he warn't ever drunk in his life.
- 4:35Speaker 1: And then he begun to pull off his clothes an
- 4:37Speaker 1: sling them. He shed them so thick they kind of
- 4:40Speaker 1: clogged up the air, an altogether he shed seventeen suits.
- 4:46Speaker 1: An then there he was slim, an handsome, An dressed
- 4:50Speaker 1: so gaudiest, an prettiest you ever saw. An he lit
- 4:54Speaker 1: into that horse with his whip, An made him fairly
- 4:57Speaker 1: hum An finally skipped off, An made his bow and
- 5:01Speaker 1: danced off to the dressing room. An everybody just a
- 5:04Speaker 1: howlin with pleasure and astonishment. Then the ring master he
- 5:10Speaker 1: see how he'd been fooled. An he was the sickest
- 5:13Speaker 1: ring master you ever see. I reckon why it was
- 5:17Speaker 1: one of his own men. He had got up that
- 5:20Speaker 1: joke all out of his own head. An never let
- 5:23Speaker 1: on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be
- 5:27Speaker 1: took in. So but I wouldn't have been in that
- 5:29Speaker 1: ringmaster's place, not for a thousand dollars. I dunno. There
- 5:34Speaker 1: may be bullier circuses than what that one was, but
- 5:38Speaker 1: I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good
- 5:43Speaker 1: enough for me. An wherever I run across it, it
- 5:46Speaker 1: can have all o my custom every time. Well, that
- 5:50Speaker 1: night we had our show, but there warn't only about
- 5:53Speaker 1: twelve people there, jest enough to pay expenses. An they
- 5:58Speaker 1: laughed all the time. An that may the Duke mad,
- 6:01Speaker 1: and everybody left anyway before the show was over, but
- 6:05Speaker 1: one boy, which was asleep. So the Duke said, these
- 6:09Speaker 1: Arkansas lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare. What they wanted
- 6:13Speaker 1: was low comedy, and maybe something rather worse than low comedy.
- 6:17Speaker 1: He reckoned. He said he could size their style. So
- 6:21Speaker 1: next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper
- 6:25Speaker 1: and some black paint and drawed off some handbills and
- 6:28Speaker 1: stuck them up all over the village. The bills said
- 6:33Speaker 1: at the courthouse exclamation for three nights only exclamation the
- 6:39Speaker 1: world renowned tragedians David Garrick the Younger Exclamation and Edmund
- 6:46Speaker 1: Keene the Elder Exclamation of the London and Continental Theaters
- 6:52Speaker 1: in their thrilling Tragedy of the King's Chamelopard or the
- 6:58Speaker 1: Royal Nune such exclamation exclamation, Exclamation admissioned fifty cents. Then
- 7:07Speaker 1: at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which
- 7:10Speaker 1: said ladies and children not admitted there, says he. If
- 7:19Speaker 1: that line don't fetch em, I don't know, Arkansas, end
- 7:26Speaker 1: of chapter twenty two, Chapter twenty three, Well, all day
- 7:34Speaker 1: him and the King was hard at it rakin up
- 7:36Speaker 1: a stage and a curtain and a row of candles
- 7:39Speaker 1: for footlights. An that night the house was jammed full
- 7:42Speaker 1: of men in no time. When the place couldn't hold
- 7:45Speaker 1: no more, the Duke he quit tendon door and went
- 7:48Speaker 1: around the back way, An come on to the stage
- 7:51Speaker 1: and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech.
- 7:54Speaker 1: An praised up this tragedy and said it was the
- 7:57Speaker 1: most thrillinest one that ever was. And so he went
- 8:01Speaker 1: on a bragging about the tragedy and about Edmund Keen
- 8:04Speaker 1: the Elder, which was to play the main principal part
- 8:08Speaker 1: in it. And at last, when he'd got everybody's expectations
- 8:11Speaker 1: up high enough, he rolled up the curtain, and the
- 8:15Speaker 1: next minute the King come up, prancing out on all fours, naked,
- 8:20Speaker 1: and he was painted all over, rings, streaked and striped,
- 8:24Speaker 1: all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow. And
- 8:30Speaker 1: but never mind the rest of his outfit. It was
- 8:32Speaker 1: just wild, but it was awful funny. The people most
- 8:36Speaker 1: killed themselves laughing. And when the King got done capering
- 8:40Speaker 1: and capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped
- 8:44Speaker 1: and stormed and haw hawed till he come back and
- 8:47Speaker 1: done it over again, and after that they made him
- 8:50Speaker 1: do it another time. Well it would make a cow
- 8:53Speaker 1: laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut. Then
- 8:58Speaker 1: the Duke he lets the curtain down and bows to
- 9:00Speaker 1: the people and says, the great tragedy will be performed
- 9:03Speaker 1: only two nights more on accounts of press in London
- 9:07Speaker 1: engagements where the seats is all sold already for it
- 9:11Speaker 1: in Drury Lane. And then he makes them another deep
- 9:14Speaker 1: bow and says, if he has succeeded in pleasing them
- 9:17Speaker 1: and instructing them, he will be deeply obleeged if they
- 9:21Speaker 1: will mention it to their friends and get them to
- 9:23Speaker 1: come and see it. Twenty people sings out, wood, is
- 9:28Speaker 1: it over? Is that all? The Duke says, yes. Then
- 9:33Speaker 1: there was a fine time. Everybody sings out sold and
- 9:38Speaker 1: rows up mad, and was a going for that stage
- 9:41Speaker 1: and them tragedians. But a big, fine looking man jumps
- 9:46Speaker 1: up on a bench and shouts, hold on, just a word, gentlemen.
- 9:51Speaker 1: They stop to listen. We are sold, mighty badly sold.
- 9:56Speaker 1: But we don't want to be the laughing stock of
- 9:58Speaker 1: this whole toun I reckon and never hear the last
- 10:01Speaker 1: of this thing as long as we live. Know what
- 10:04Speaker 1: we want is to go out of here quiet and
- 10:06Speaker 1: talk this show up and sell the rest of the town.
- 10:10Speaker 1: Then we'll all be in the same boat. Ain't that sensible?
- 10:15Speaker 1: You bet? It is the judge's right. Everybody sings out,
- 10:19Speaker 1: all right, then not a word about any cell. Go
- 10:23Speaker 1: along home and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy.
- 10:27Speaker 1: Next day, you couldn't hear nothing around that town but
- 10:30Speaker 1: about how splendid that show was. House was jammed again
- 10:34Speaker 1: that night, and we sold this crowd the same way.
- 10:38Speaker 1: When me and the King and the Duke got home
- 10:40Speaker 1: to the raft, we all had a supper, and by
- 10:43Speaker 1: and by about midnight, they made Jim and me back
- 10:46Speaker 1: her out and float her down the middle of the
- 10:48Speaker 1: river and fetch her in and hide her about two
- 10:51Speaker 1: mile below town. The third night, the house was crammed again,
- 10:56Speaker 1: and they warn't newcomers this time, but people that at
- 11:00Speaker 1: the show the other two nights. I stood by the
- 11:03Speaker 1: Duke at the door, and I see that every man
- 11:05Speaker 1: that went in had his pocket's bulgin' or something muffled
- 11:10Speaker 1: up under his coat. And I see it warn't no
- 11:13Speaker 1: perfumery neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly
- 11:18Speaker 1: eggs by the barrel, and writing cabbages and such things,
- 11:23Speaker 1: and if I know the signs of a dead cat
- 11:25Speaker 1: being around, and I bet I do. There was sixty
- 11:28Speaker 1: four of them went in. I shoved in there for
- 11:32Speaker 1: a minute, but it was too various for me. I
- 11:35Speaker 1: couldn't stand it well. When the police couldn't hold no
- 11:39Speaker 1: more people, the duke he'd give a fellow a quarter
- 11:42Speaker 1: and told him to tend door for a minute, and
- 11:45Speaker 1: then he started around for the stage door. Aye after him.
- 11:49Speaker 1: But the minute we turned the corner and was in
- 11:51Speaker 1: the dark, he says, walk fast now till you get
- 11:55Speaker 1: away from the houses, and then shin for the raft,
- 11:59Speaker 1: like the Dickens was after you. I done it, an
- 12:03Speaker 1: he done the same. We struck the raft at the
- 12:06Speaker 1: same time, and in less than two seconds we was
- 12:09Speaker 1: gliding downstream, all dark and still, and edgin' towards the
- 12:13Speaker 1: middle of the river, nobody saying a word. I reckon.
- 12:18Speaker 1: The poor king was in for a gaudy time of
- 12:20Speaker 1: it with the audience, but nothing of the sort. Pretty
- 12:24Speaker 1: soon he crawls out from under the wigwoman says, well,
- 12:28Speaker 1: how'd the old thing panned out this time, Duke, he
- 12:31Speaker 1: hadn't been uptown at all. We never showed a light
- 12:35Speaker 1: till we was about ten mile below the village. Then
- 12:38Speaker 1: we lit up and had a supper, and the King
- 12:40Speaker 1: and the Duke fairly laughed their bones loose over the
- 12:43Speaker 1: way they'd served them people. The Duke says, green horns,
- 12:48Speaker 1: flat heads. I knew the first house would keep mum
- 12:52Speaker 1: and let the rest of the town get roped in,
- 12:55Speaker 1: And I knew they'd live for us the third night,
- 12:58Speaker 1: and consider it was turned. Now, well it is their turn,
- 13:04Speaker 1: and I'd give something to know how much they'd take
- 13:07Speaker 1: for it. I would just like to know how they're
- 13:11Speaker 1: putting in their opportunity. They can turn it into a
- 13:15Speaker 1: picnic if they want to. They brought plenty of provisions,
- 13:21Speaker 1: them raps gallions. Took in four hundred and sixty five dollars,
- 13:24Speaker 1: and that three nights. I never seen money hauled in
- 13:28Speaker 1: by the wagon load like that before. By and bye.
- 13:32Speaker 1: When they was sleeping and snoring, Jim says, don't it
- 13:36Speaker 1: surprise you deuade em King's carries on hook? No, I
- 13:41Speaker 1: says it don't. Why don't it hook? Well, it don't
- 13:46Speaker 1: because it's in the breed. I reckon they're all alike.
- 13:51Speaker 1: But hook these kings iron is regular rapscallions. That's just
- 13:55Speaker 1: what they is. They'd regular rapscallions. Well that's what I'm
- 14:00Speaker 1: I'm a sayin' All kings is mostly rapscallions as fur
- 14:03Speaker 1: as I can make out? Is that? So you read
- 14:07Speaker 1: about them once, you'll see. Look at Henry the eighth,
- 14:11Speaker 1: this'n is a Sunday school superintendent. To him, an look
- 14:15Speaker 1: at Charles second an Louis fourteen, and Louis fifteen an
- 14:19Speaker 1: James second, an Edward second, and Richard third, an forty
- 14:23Speaker 1: more besides all them, Saxton hep turkeys that used to
- 14:27Speaker 1: rip around so in old times, an raise caine, My,
- 14:31Speaker 1: you ought to see old Henry the eighth when he
- 14:33Speaker 1: was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to
- 14:37Speaker 1: marry a new wife every day, an chop off her
- 14:40Speaker 1: head next mornin', an he would do it just as
- 14:42Speaker 1: indifferent as if he was ordinin up eggs. Fetch up
- 14:46Speaker 1: Nell Gwynn, he says, they fetch her up next mornin',
- 14:51Speaker 1: chop off her head, an they chop it off. Fetch
- 14:55Speaker 1: up Jane Shore he says, an up, she comes next mornin',
- 15:00Speaker 1: off her head, and they chop it off. Bring up,
- 15:04Speaker 1: fair Rosamond, Fair Rosamond answers the bell next mornin', chop
- 15:10Speaker 1: off her head. And he made every one of them
- 15:12Speaker 1: tell him a tale every night. And he kept that
- 15:15Speaker 1: up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales
- 15:17Speaker 1: that way. And then he put them all in a
- 15:20Speaker 1: book and called it Doomsday Book, which was a good name,
- 15:23Speaker 1: and stated the case, you don't know kings, Jim, but
- 15:27Speaker 1: I know them, And this old rip o hourn is
- 15:29Speaker 1: one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry,
- 15:33Speaker 1: he takes a notion he wants to get up some
- 15:35Speaker 1: trouble with this country. How does he go at it?
- 15:38Speaker 1: Give notice, give a country a show? No, All of
- 15:42Speaker 1: a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor
- 15:46Speaker 1: overboard and wax out a declaration of independence and dares
- 15:51Speaker 1: them to come on. That was his style. He never
- 15:54Speaker 1: give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father,
- 15:59Speaker 1: the Duke a Well, and and well what did he do?
- 16:03Speaker 1: Asked him to show up? No, drownded him in a
- 16:07Speaker 1: butt of Mamsie like a cat. Suppose people left money
- 16:12Speaker 1: laying around where he was, What did he do? He
- 16:15Speaker 1: collared it? S'ppose he contracted to do a thing and
- 16:19Speaker 1: you paid him and didn't sit down there and see
- 16:21Speaker 1: that he done it? What did he do? He always
- 16:24Speaker 1: done the other thing? Suppose he opened his mouth? What
- 16:28Speaker 1: then if he didn't shut it up powerful quick, he'd
- 16:32Speaker 1: lose a lie every time. That's a kind of a bug.
- 16:35Speaker 1: Henry was. And if we'd had him alongstead of our kings,
- 16:39Speaker 1: he'd have fooled that town a heap worse than iurn done.
- 16:43Speaker 1: I don't say that iron is lambs, because they ain't
- 16:46Speaker 1: when he come right down to the cold facts. But
- 16:49Speaker 1: they ain't nothing to that old ram anyway. All I
- 16:53Speaker 1: say is kings's kings, and you got to make allowances
- 16:57Speaker 1: take them all round. They're a mighty ornery lot. It's
- 17:01Speaker 1: the way they're raised. But this one do smell so
- 17:07Speaker 1: like a nation hook, Well, they all do, Jim. We
- 17:11Speaker 1: can't help the way a king smells. History. Don't tell
- 17:15Speaker 1: no way now to Duke. He's a tolerable likely man
- 17:19Speaker 1: In some ways. Yes, the Duke's different, but not very different.
- 17:25Speaker 1: This one's a middlin hard lot for duke when he's drunk.
- 17:29Speaker 1: There ain't no near sighted man could tell him from
- 17:31Speaker 1: a king. Well, anyways, I don't hanker for no mor'n
- 17:36Speaker 1: um hook. These is all I can stand. It's the
- 17:40Speaker 1: way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them on
- 17:43Speaker 1: our hands, and we got to remember what they are
- 17:46Speaker 1: an make allowances. Sometimes I wish we could hear of
- 17:50Speaker 1: a country that's out of kings. What was the use
- 17:54Speaker 1: to tell Jim these warn't real kings an dukes? It
- 17:57Speaker 1: wouldn't have done no good. An Besides, it was just
- 18:01Speaker 1: as I said, you couldn't tell them from the real kind.
- 18:06Speaker 1: I went to sleep, an Jim didn't call me when
- 18:08Speaker 1: it was my turn. He often done that. When I
- 18:12Speaker 1: waked up, just to daybreak, he was sittin there with
- 18:15Speaker 1: his head down betwixt his knees, moanin an mournin to himself.
- 18:20Speaker 1: I didn't take notice, nor let on I knowed what
- 18:24Speaker 1: it was about. He was thinking about his wife and
- 18:27Speaker 1: his children away up yonder an. He was low an
- 18:31Speaker 1: homesick because he hadn't ever been away from home before
- 18:34Speaker 1: in his life. And I do believe he cared just
- 18:37Speaker 1: as much for his people as white folks does for
- 18:39Speaker 1: there An it don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so.
- 18:44Speaker 1: He was often moanin an mournin' that way nights when
- 18:48Speaker 1: he judged I was asleep and saying, poor little Elizabeth,
- 18:53Speaker 1: poor little Johnny. It's mighty hard. I speck, I ain't
- 18:57Speaker 1: ever goin to see you, no mo no moule. He
- 19:01Speaker 1: was a mighty good nigger, Jim was. But this time
- 19:05Speaker 1: I somehow got to talkin to him about his wife,
- 19:07Speaker 1: an young ones an by an by. He says, w
- 19:12Speaker 1: makes me feel so bad this time as b case,
- 19:14Speaker 1: I hear somethin over yonder on the bank, like a
- 19:17Speaker 1: whack or a slam while goo an it mind me
- 19:21Speaker 1: a the time I treat my little Elizabeth so ornery.
- 19:25Speaker 1: She warn't only about four year oll an, she took
- 19:28Speaker 1: the scarlet fever an had a powerful rough spell, but
- 19:32Speaker 1: she got well. An one day she was a standin round, an,
- 19:35Speaker 1: I says to her, I says, shut the door. She
- 19:39Speaker 1: never done it, jest stood there kinder smilin up at me.
- 19:44Speaker 1: It made me mad, an, I says, again, mighty loud,
- 19:47Speaker 1: I says, don't you hear me shut the door. She
- 19:51Speaker 1: jes stood the same way, kiner smilin' up. I was
- 19:55Speaker 1: a violin, I says, I lay, I make you mine
- 20:00Speaker 1: an wid that I fetch her a slapside the head
- 20:02Speaker 1: ts sent her a sprawlin'. Then I went into the
- 20:06Speaker 1: other room. An it's gone about ten minutes. An when
- 20:09Speaker 1: I come back, there was that door standin open yit
- 20:13Speaker 1: an that child standin' most right in it. A lookin
- 20:16Speaker 1: down an mournin an the tears runnin down. My but
- 20:21Speaker 1: I was mad. I was a gwine for the child.
- 20:25Speaker 1: But jest. Then it was a door that opened enterds.
- 20:29Speaker 1: Just then long come the wind. An slam it too
- 20:31Speaker 1: behind a child, curblam an my lynb the child never
- 20:37Speaker 1: move my breath most hop outter me an I feel
- 20:41Speaker 1: so so, I dun't know how I feel. I crope
- 20:47Speaker 1: out all a tremblin' an crope around an opened the
- 20:50Speaker 1: door easy and slow, an poke my head in behind
- 20:54Speaker 1: a child, soft and still, and all of a sudden,
- 20:57Speaker 1: I says, pow jest as loud as I can yell.
- 21:01Speaker 1: She never budge, oh hook, I bust out a crying
- 21:06Speaker 1: and grab her up in my arms. And say, oh,
- 21:09Speaker 1: the poor little thing, to Lord God Almighty, forgive po
- 21:13Speaker 1: old Jim, because he never going to forgive himself as
- 21:16Speaker 1: long as he lived. Oh, she was plumb, deaf and dumb,
- 21:20Speaker 1: Hook plumb deaf and dumb, and I'd been a treating
- 21:24Speaker 1: her so end of chapter twenty three, Chapter twenty four.
- 21:35Speaker 1: Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little
- 21:38Speaker 1: will of tooe head out in the middle where there
- 21:40Speaker 1: was a village on each side of the river, and
- 21:43Speaker 1: the Duke and the King began to lay out a
- 21:45Speaker 1: plan for work in them towns. Jim, he spoke to
- 21:49Speaker 1: the Duke and said he hoped it wouldn't take but
- 21:51Speaker 1: a few hours, because it got my heavy and tiresome
- 21:55Speaker 1: to him when he had to lay all day in
- 21:57Speaker 1: the wigwam tied with the rope. See, when we left
- 22:00Speaker 1: him all alone, we had to tie him because if
- 22:03Speaker 1: anybody happened on to him all by himself and not tied,
- 22:07Speaker 1: it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway nigger,
- 22:09Speaker 1: you know. So the Duke said it was kind of
- 22:12Speaker 1: hard to have to lay roped all day, and he'd
- 22:15Speaker 1: cipher out some way to get around it. He was
- 22:18Speaker 1: uncommon bright, the Duke was, and he soon struck it.
- 22:23Speaker 1: He dressed Jim up in the king lear's outfit. It
- 22:26Speaker 1: was a long curtained calico gown and a white horsehair
- 22:30Speaker 1: wig and whiskers. And then he took his theater paint
- 22:33Speaker 1: and painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck
- 22:37Speaker 1: all over a dead, dull, solid blue, like a man
- 22:41Speaker 1: that's been drownded nine days blamed. If he warn't the
- 22:46Speaker 1: horriblest looking outrage I ever see. Then the Duke took
- 22:50Speaker 1: and rode out a sign on a shingle, so sick
- 22:54Speaker 1: arab but harmless when not out of his head, and
- 22:59Speaker 1: he nailed that sh jingle to a lath and stood
- 23:02Speaker 1: the lad up four or five foot in front of
- 23:04Speaker 1: the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a
- 23:08Speaker 1: sight better than Lyin tied a couple of years every
- 23:11Speaker 1: day and tremblin all over every time there was a sound.
- 23:15Speaker 1: The Duke told him to make himself free and easy,
- 23:18Speaker 1: an if anybody ever come meddlin round, he must hop
- 23:21Speaker 1: out of the wigwam, an carry on a little and
- 23:24Speaker 1: fetch a howl or two like a wild beast. And
- 23:27Speaker 1: he reckoned they would light out an leave him alone,
- 23:30Speaker 1: which would sound enough judgment. But you take the average
- 23:33Speaker 1: man an he wouldn't wait for him to howl. Why
- 23:37Speaker 1: he didn't only look like he was dead, he looked considerable.
- 23:40Speaker 1: More than that. These raps gallions wanted to try the
- 23:44Speaker 1: nuns such again because there was so much money in it,
- 23:48Speaker 1: but they judged it wouldn't be safe because maybe the
- 23:51Speaker 1: news might have worked along down by this time. They
- 23:55Speaker 1: couldn't hit no project that suited exactly. So at last
- 23:59Speaker 1: the Duke said he reckoned. He'd lay off and work
- 24:01Speaker 1: his brains an hour or two an see if he
- 24:03Speaker 1: couldn't put up something on the Arkansas village. An the
- 24:07Speaker 1: king he allowed he would drop over to the other
- 24:09Speaker 1: village without any plan, but jest trust in providence to
- 24:13Speaker 1: lead him the profitable way. Meanin' the devil, I reckon.
- 24:18Speaker 1: We had all bought store clothes where we stopped last,
- 24:21Speaker 1: and now the king put his han on, an he
- 24:23Speaker 1: told me to put mine on. I done it. Of course,
- 24:27Speaker 1: the King's duds was all black, An he did look
- 24:30Speaker 1: real swell, a starchy. I never knowed how clothes could
- 24:34Speaker 1: change a body before. Why before he looked like the
- 24:38Speaker 1: ornariest old rip that ever was. But now when he'd
- 24:42Speaker 1: take off his new white beaver an make a bow
- 24:45Speaker 1: an do a smile. He looked that grand and good,
- 24:49Speaker 1: an pious that you'd say he had walked right out
- 24:52Speaker 1: of the yark, and maybe was Old Leviticus himself. Jim
- 24:56Speaker 1: cleaned up the canoe, and I got my paddle ready.
- 25:00Speaker 1: There's a big steamboat layin at the shore way up
- 25:02Speaker 1: under the point, about three mile above the town. Been
- 25:06Speaker 1: there a couple o hours takin on freight, says the king.
- 25:11Speaker 1: See how I'm dressed, I reckon. Maybe i'd better arrive
- 25:14Speaker 1: down from Saint Louis or Cincinnati, some other big place.
- 25:18Speaker 1: Go for the steamboat, Huckleberry, we'll come down to the
- 25:20Speaker 1: village on her. I didn't have to be ordered twice
- 25:24Speaker 1: to go an take a steamboat ride. I fetched the
- 25:27Speaker 1: shore a half a mile above the village, an then
- 25:30Speaker 1: went scootin along the bluff bank in the easy water.
- 25:33Speaker 1: Pretty soon we come to a nice innocent lookin young country.
- 25:37Speaker 1: Jake settin on a log, swappin' the sweat off of
- 25:40Speaker 1: his face, for it was powerful warm weather. An he
- 25:43Speaker 1: had a couple of big carpet bags by him runner
- 25:47Speaker 1: knows in shore, says the King. I dunn it where
- 25:52Speaker 1: ye bound? For young man, for the steamboat goin' to Orleans,
- 25:57Speaker 1: get aboard, says the King. Hold on a minute, my
- 26:01Speaker 1: servant to help you with them bags. Jump out an
- 26:03Speaker 1: help the gentleman at office meanin me, I guess I
- 26:08Speaker 1: done so? An then we all three started on again.
- 26:12Speaker 1: The young chap was mighty thankful, said it was tough
- 26:15Speaker 1: work towed in his baggage such weather. He asked the
- 26:18Speaker 1: King where he was goin an The King told him
- 26:21Speaker 1: he'd come down the river an landed at the other
- 26:23Speaker 1: village this mornin'. An now he is goin up a
- 26:26Speaker 1: few mile to see an old friend on a farm
- 26:28Speaker 1: up there. The young fellow says. When I first see you,
- 26:33Speaker 1: I says to myself, it's mister Wilks. Sure an he
- 26:37Speaker 1: come mighty near gettin here in time. But then I says, no,
- 26:42Speaker 1: I reckon, it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be
- 26:44Speaker 1: paddlin up the river. You ain't him, are you? No?
- 26:50Speaker 1: My name's Blotchett, Alexander Bligett, Reverend Alexander Bligett. I suppose
- 26:56Speaker 1: I must say, as I'm one o the lord's poor servants.
- 26:59Speaker 1: But still I'm just as able to be sorry for
- 27:01Speaker 1: mister Wilkes for a night arriving in time. All the same.
- 27:04Speaker 1: If he's missed anything by it, which I hope he hasn't, Well,
- 27:09Speaker 1: he didn't miss any property by it, because he'll get
- 27:11Speaker 1: that all right. But he's missed seeing his brother Peter die,
- 27:15Speaker 1: which he mayn't mind. Nobody can tell as to that.
- 27:18Speaker 1: But his brother would give anything in this world to
- 27:21Speaker 1: see him before he died, never talked about nothing else
- 27:25Speaker 1: all these three weeks. Hadn't seen him since they was
- 27:28Speaker 1: boys together. I hadn't seen his brother William at all.
- 27:32Speaker 1: That's a diff and dumb one. William ate more than
- 27:35Speaker 1: thirty or thirty five. Peter and George were the only
- 27:38Speaker 1: ones that come out here. George was the merry brother.
- 27:42Speaker 1: Him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and
- 27:46Speaker 1: William's the only ones that's left now. And as I
- 27:49Speaker 1: was saying, they haven't got here in time, did anybody
- 27:53Speaker 1: send him word? Oh? Yes, a month or two ago
- 27:57Speaker 1: when Peter was first took because Peter said then that
- 28:00Speaker 1: he sort of felt like he warn't goin to get
- 28:02Speaker 1: well this time. You see, he was pretty old an
- 28:05Speaker 1: George's girls was too young to be much company for him,
- 28:09Speaker 1: except Mary Jane, the red headed one, and so he
- 28:12Speaker 1: was kind er lonesome. After George and his wife died
- 28:15Speaker 1: and didn't seem to care much to live, he most
- 28:18Speaker 1: desperately wanted to see Harvey. An William too for that matter,
- 28:22Speaker 1: cause he was one of them kind that can't bear
- 28:25Speaker 1: to make a will. He left a letter behind for
- 28:28Speaker 1: Harvey and said he'd told a minute where his money
- 28:30Speaker 1: was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the
- 28:32Speaker 1: property divided up, so George's girls would be all right.
- 28:36Speaker 1: For George didn't leave nothin', an that letter was all
- 28:39Speaker 1: they could get him to put a pen to mighty. Reckon, Harvey,
- 28:44Speaker 1: don't come. Where does he live? Oh? He lives in England,
- 28:49Speaker 1: Sheffield preaches. There hasn't ever been in this country. He
- 28:53Speaker 1: hasn't had any too much time. An besides, he mightn't
- 28:57Speaker 1: a got the letter at all, you know, Too bad,
- 29:00Speaker 1: Too bad he couldn't have lived to see his brother's
- 29:03Speaker 1: poor soul. You going to Orleans, you say, yes, But
- 29:07Speaker 1: that ain't only a part of it. I'm goin' in
- 29:10Speaker 1: a ship next Wednesday for Rio Jannaro, where my uncle lives.
- 29:16Speaker 1: It's a pretty long journey, but it'll be lovely. Wished
- 29:18Speaker 1: I was a goin. It's Mary Jane, the oldest. How
- 29:21Speaker 1: old is the others? Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and
- 29:26Speaker 1: Joanna's about fourteen. That's the one that gives herself to
- 29:29Speaker 1: good works and has a hair lip. Poor things to
- 29:33Speaker 1: be left alone in the cold world, so well, they
- 29:38Speaker 1: could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they
- 29:41Speaker 1: ain't gonna let them come to no harm. There's Hobson,
- 29:45Speaker 1: the Baptist preacher, and Deacon light Hoovey, and Ben Rucker
- 29:49Speaker 1: and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell the lawyer, and doctor
- 29:53Speaker 1: Robinson and their wives, and the widow Bartley, and well
- 29:59Speaker 1: there's a lot of them. But these are the ones
- 30:01Speaker 1: that Peter was thickest with and used to ride about
- 30:04Speaker 1: sometimes when he rode home. So Harvey'll know where to
- 30:07Speaker 1: look for friends when he gets here. Well, the old
- 30:11Speaker 1: man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied
- 30:15Speaker 1: that young fellow blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody
- 30:18Speaker 1: an everything in that blessed town, an all about the Wilkeses,
- 30:22Speaker 1: an about Peter's business, which was a tanner, an about George's,
- 30:26Speaker 1: which was a carpenter, and about Harvey's which was a
- 30:30Speaker 1: dissenter and minister, and so on and so on. Then
- 30:34Speaker 1: he says, what did you want to walk all the
- 30:36Speaker 1: way up to the steamboat for? Because she's a big
- 30:40Speaker 1: o' Orleans boat. An, I was afeared she mightn't stop
- 30:42Speaker 1: there when they're deep. They won't stop for a hail.
- 30:46Speaker 1: A Cincinnati boat will. But this is a Saint Lewis. One.
- 30:51Speaker 1: Was Peter Wilkes well off? Oh, yes, pretty well off?
- 30:55Speaker 1: He had houses and land, an it's reckin. He left
- 30:58Speaker 1: three or four thousand in cash head up somewheres. When
- 31:03Speaker 1: did you say he died? I didn't say, but it
- 31:06Speaker 1: was last night, funeral tomorrow likely, yes, about the middle
- 31:11Speaker 1: of the day. Well, it's all terrible, sad, but we've
- 31:16Speaker 1: all got to go one time or another. So what
- 31:19Speaker 1: we want to do is to be prepared. Then we're
- 31:21Speaker 1: all right, Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used
- 31:26Speaker 1: to always say that. When we struck the boat, she
- 31:30Speaker 1: was about done loading, and pretty soon she got off.
- 31:34Speaker 1: The King never said nothing about goin aboard, so I
- 31:37Speaker 1: lost my ride after all. When the boat was gone,
- 31:40Speaker 1: the King made me paddle up another mile to a
- 31:42Speaker 1: lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says, now,
- 31:47Speaker 1: hustle back right off and fetch the duke up here
- 31:49Speaker 1: an the new carpet bags. An if he's gone over
- 31:52Speaker 1: to the other side, go over there and get him
- 31:54Speaker 1: and tell him to get himself up regardless. Shove along.
- 31:57Speaker 1: Now I see what he was up to, but I
- 32:02Speaker 1: never said nothing. Of course, when I got back with
- 32:05Speaker 1: the duke, we hid the canoe, and then they sit
- 32:08Speaker 1: down on a log and the King told him everything
- 32:11Speaker 1: just like the young fellow had said it, every last
- 32:14Speaker 1: word of it, and all the time he was doin it.
- 32:17Speaker 1: He tried to talk like an Englishman. An he'd done
- 32:20Speaker 1: it pretty well too, for a slouch. I can't imitate him,
- 32:24Speaker 1: so I ain't a goin to try to, but he
- 32:27Speaker 1: really done it pretty good. Then he says, how were
- 32:31Speaker 1: you on the diiff and dumb Billgewater. The Duke said,
- 32:34Speaker 1: leave him alone for that, that he had played a
- 32:37Speaker 1: diff and dumb person before on the histronic boards. So
- 32:41Speaker 1: then they waited for a steamboat about the middle of
- 32:45Speaker 1: the afternoon, a couple of little boats come along, but
- 32:48Speaker 1: they didn't come from high enough up the river. But
- 32:51Speaker 1: at last there was a big one an they hailed her.
- 32:54Speaker 1: She sent out for her y'awl, and we went to board,
- 32:58Speaker 1: and she was from Cincinnati. And when they found we
- 33:01Speaker 1: only wanted to go four or five miles, they was
- 33:03Speaker 1: boomin mad an gave us a cussin an said they
- 33:06Speaker 1: wouldn't land us. But the King was calm. He says,
- 33:11Speaker 1: if gentlemen can afford to pay a dollar a mile
- 33:14Speaker 1: apiece to be took on an put off in a yawl,
- 33:16Speaker 1: a steamboat can afford to carry him, can it? So
- 33:20Speaker 1: they softened down and said it was all right. And
- 33:23Speaker 1: when we got to the village they yawled us ashore.
- 33:26Speaker 1: About two dozen men flocked down where they see the
- 33:29Speaker 1: yawl a comin' an. When the King says, can any
- 33:33Speaker 1: of you gentlemen tell me where mister Peter Wilkes lives?
- 33:36Speaker 1: They give a glance at one another and nodded their
- 33:39Speaker 1: heads as much as to say, what did I tell you?
- 33:43Speaker 1: Then one of them says, kind o soft and gentle,
- 33:48Speaker 1: I'm sorry, sir, but the best we can do is
- 33:51Speaker 1: tell you where he did live yesterday evenin' sudden is
- 33:55Speaker 1: winkin' the ornery old creature went and to smash and
- 33:59Speaker 1: fell up again the man and put his chin on
- 34:02Speaker 1: his shoulder and cried down his back and says, alas alas,
- 34:07Speaker 1: our poor brother gone, and we'd never got to see him. Oh,
- 34:11Speaker 1: it's too too hard. Then he turns around, blubbering and
- 34:17Speaker 1: makes a lot of idiotic signs to the Duke on
- 34:19Speaker 1: his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a carpet
- 34:22Speaker 1: bag and bust out a cryin' if they warn't the
- 34:26Speaker 1: beatin a slot, them two frauds, that ever I struck, Well,
- 34:31Speaker 1: the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said
- 34:34Speaker 1: all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their
- 34:37Speaker 1: carpet bags up the hill for them and let them
- 34:40Speaker 1: lean on them and cry, and told the king all
- 34:42Speaker 1: about his brother's last moments. And the king he told
- 34:46Speaker 1: it all over again on his hands to the Duke,
- 34:49Speaker 1: and both of them took on about that dead tanner
- 34:52Speaker 1: like they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I
- 34:56Speaker 1: struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It was a
- 34:59Speaker 1: no to make a body ashamed of the human race.
- 35:05Speaker 1: End of chapter twenty four, Chapter twenty five. The news
- 35:13Speaker 1: was all over town in two minutes, and you could
- 35:15Speaker 1: see the people tearing down on the run from every
- 35:18Speaker 1: which way, some of them putting on their coats as
- 35:21Speaker 1: they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of
- 35:24Speaker 1: a crowd, and the noise of the tramp and was
- 35:27Speaker 1: like a soldier march. The windows and dooryards was full,
- 35:31Speaker 1: and every minute somebody would say over a fence is
- 35:35Speaker 1: it them? And somebody trotting along with the gang would
- 35:38Speaker 1: answer back and say, you bet it is. When we
- 35:42Speaker 1: got to the house, the street in front of it
- 35:44Speaker 1: was packed, and the three girls were standing in the door.
- 35:48Speaker 1: Mary Jane was redheaded, but that dough'll make no difference.
- 35:53Speaker 1: She was most awful beautiful, and her face in her
- 35:56Speaker 1: eyes was all lit up like glory. She was so glad.
- 35:59Speaker 1: Her uncle said, come the king. He spread his arms,
- 36:02Speaker 1: and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the hare
- 36:05Speaker 1: lip jumped for the duke, and there they had it. Everybody,
- 36:09Speaker 1: most least away as women cried for joy to see
- 36:12Speaker 1: them meet again at last and have such good times.
- 36:16Speaker 1: Then the king he hunched the duke private. I see
- 36:20Speaker 1: him do it. And then he looked around and see
- 36:22Speaker 1: the coffin over in the corner on two chairs. So
- 36:25Speaker 1: then him and the Duke, with a hand across each
- 36:28Speaker 1: other's shoulder and the other hand to their eyes, walked
- 36:31Speaker 1: slow and solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give
- 36:35Speaker 1: them room, and all the talk and noise stopping people
- 36:39Speaker 1: saying sh and all the men taking their hats off
- 36:43Speaker 1: and drooping their heads so you could have heard a pinfall.
- 36:47Speaker 1: And when they got there, they bent over and looked
- 36:50Speaker 1: in the coffin and took one sight, and then they
- 36:52Speaker 1: bust out a crying, so you could have heard them
- 36:55Speaker 1: to Orleans most. And then they put their arms round
- 36:58Speaker 1: each other's necks and hung their over each other's shoulders.
- 37:02Speaker 1: And then for three minutes or maybe four, I never
- 37:05Speaker 1: see two men leak the way they done, And mind you,
- 37:08Speaker 1: everybody was doing the same, and the place was that damp.
- 37:12Speaker 1: I never see anything like it. Then one of them
- 37:15Speaker 1: got on one side of the coffin and the other
- 37:17Speaker 1: on the other side, and they kneeled down and rested
- 37:20Speaker 1: their foreheads on the coffin and led on to pray
- 37:23Speaker 1: all to themselves. Well, when it come to that, it
- 37:28Speaker 1: worked the crowd like you never see anything like it,
- 37:30Speaker 1: And everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud,
- 37:34Speaker 1: the poor girls too, and every woman nearly went up
- 37:38Speaker 1: to the girls without saying a word, and kissed them
- 37:41Speaker 1: solemn on the forehead, and then put their hand on
- 37:44Speaker 1: their head and looked up towards the sky with the
- 37:46Speaker 1: tears running down, and then busted out and went off
- 37:50Speaker 1: sobbing and swabbin and give the next woman a show.
- 37:54Speaker 1: I never see anything so disgusting. Well, by and by
- 37:59Speaker 1: the king, he gets up and comes forward a little
- 38:02Speaker 1: and works himself up and slobbers out of speech, all
- 38:05Speaker 1: full of tears and flapdoodle about. It's beIN a sore
- 38:08Speaker 1: trial for him and his poor brother to lose the
- 38:11Speaker 1: diseased and to mis seein diseased alive after the long
- 38:15Speaker 1: journey of four thousand mile, But it's a trial that's
- 38:18Speaker 1: sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and
- 38:22Speaker 1: these holy tears. And so he thanks them out of
- 38:24Speaker 1: his heart and out of his brother's heart, because out
- 38:27Speaker 1: of their mouths they can't words, being too weak and
- 38:30Speaker 1: cold and all that kind of rotten slush till it
- 38:33Speaker 1: was just sickening. And then he blubbers out a pious
- 38:36Speaker 1: goody good at Amen, and turns himself loose and goes
- 38:39Speaker 1: to cry and fit to bust an. The minute the
- 38:42Speaker 1: words were out of his mouth, somebody over in the
- 38:45Speaker 1: crowd struck up the dock solager, and everybody joined in
- 38:49Speaker 1: with all their might, and it just warmed you up
- 38:51Speaker 1: and made you feel as good as church. Letting out
- 38:54Speaker 1: music is a good thing. And after all that soul
- 38:57Speaker 1: butterin hoguash, I never see freshen up things so and
- 39:01Speaker 1: sounds so honest and bully. Then the king begins to
- 39:06Speaker 1: work his jaw again and says how him and his
- 39:08Speaker 1: nieces would be glad if a few of the main
- 39:10Speaker 1: principal friends of the family would take supper here with
- 39:13Speaker 1: them this evenin' and help set up with the ashes
- 39:16Speaker 1: of the diseased, And says, if his poor brother lay
- 39:19Speaker 1: in the yonder could speak, he knows who he would name,
- 39:22Speaker 1: for they was names that was very dear to him
- 39:25Speaker 1: and mentioned often in his letters, and so he will
- 39:28Speaker 1: name the same to wit as follows fiz Reverend mister
- 39:33Speaker 1: Hobson and Deacon light Hoovey and mister ben Rucker and
- 39:37Speaker 1: Abner Shackleford and Levey Bell and doctor Robinson and their
- 39:41Speaker 1: wives and the widow Bartley. Reverend Hobson and doctor Robinson
- 39:46Speaker 1: was down to the end of the town a hunting together,
- 39:49Speaker 1: that is, I mean, the doctor was shipping a sick
- 39:51Speaker 1: man to the other world, and the preacher was pintin
- 39:54Speaker 1: him right. Lawyer Bell was away up to Louisville on business,
- 39:58Speaker 1: but the rest was on hand, and so they all
- 40:01Speaker 1: come and shook hands with the king and thanked him
- 40:03Speaker 1: and talked to him. And then they shook hands with
- 40:05Speaker 1: the Duke and didn't say nothing, but just kept a
- 40:08Speaker 1: smiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads,
- 40:12Speaker 1: whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands
- 40:14Speaker 1: and said goo goo goo goo goo all the time
- 40:19Speaker 1: like a baby. They can talk. So the king he
- 40:22Speaker 1: blattered on and managed to inquire by pretty much everybody
- 40:26Speaker 1: and dog in town by his name, and mentioned all
- 40:29Speaker 1: sorts of little things that happened one time or another
- 40:32Speaker 1: in the town, or to George's family, or to Peter,
- 40:36Speaker 1: and he always led on that Peter wrote him the things,
- 40:39Speaker 1: but that was a lie. He got every blessed one
- 40:42Speaker 1: of them out of that young flathead that we canoed
- 40:44Speaker 1: up to the steamboat. Then Mary Jane, she fetched the
- 40:48Speaker 1: letter her father left behind, and the King he read
- 40:52Speaker 1: it out loud and cried over it. It gave the
- 40:55Speaker 1: dwelling house and three thousand dollars gold to the girls,
- 40:59Speaker 1: and it gave the tan yard, which was doin a
- 41:01Speaker 1: good business, along with some other houses and land worth
- 41:05Speaker 1: about seven thousand and three thousand dollars in gold to
- 41:09Speaker 1: Harvey an William, and told where the six thousand cash
- 41:12Speaker 1: was hid down cellar. So these two frauds said they'd
- 41:16Speaker 1: go and fetch it up an have everything square and
- 41:18Speaker 1: above board, and told me to come with a candle.
- 41:22Speaker 1: We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they
- 41:24Speaker 1: found the bag, they spilt it out on the floor,
- 41:27Speaker 1: and it was a lovely sight, all them yowler boys. My,
- 41:32Speaker 1: the way the King's eyes did shine. He slapped the
- 41:35Speaker 1: Duke on the shoulder and says, oh, this ain't bully
- 41:39Speaker 1: nor nothin'. Oh no, I reckon not, why billy, it
- 41:42Speaker 1: beats the nun such, don't it? The Duke allowed it?
- 41:46Speaker 1: Did they pawed the yowler boys, an sifted them through
- 41:50Speaker 1: their fingers, an let them jingle down on the floor.
- 41:53Speaker 1: And the King says, it ain't no use talkin' bein'
- 41:56Speaker 1: brothers to a rich dead man and representatives of firm
- 42:00Speaker 1: and heirs. That's got left is the line for you,
- 42:02Speaker 1: an me bilch, this year comes a trustin to providence.
- 42:06Speaker 1: It's the best way in the long run. I've tried
- 42:09Speaker 1: him on. There ain't no better way. Most everybody would
- 42:13Speaker 1: have been satisfied with the pile and took it on trust.
- 42:16Speaker 1: But no, they must count it. So they counts it.
- 42:20Speaker 1: An it comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars, short,
- 42:24Speaker 1: says the king turn him. I wonder what he done
- 42:27Speaker 1: with that four hundred and fifteen dollars. They worried over
- 42:30Speaker 1: that a while, an ransacked all around for it. Then
- 42:34Speaker 1: the Duke says, well, he was a pretty sick man.
- 42:38Speaker 1: An likely he made a mistake. I reckon, that's the
- 42:42Speaker 1: way of it. The best way is to let it go,
- 42:46Speaker 1: an keep still about it. We can spare it. Oh shucks,
- 42:51Speaker 1: yes we can spare it. I don't care nothin bout that.
- 42:54Speaker 1: It's a count. I'm thinkin bout we wun'n't be awful
- 42:57Speaker 1: squarin open and above board here you know we want
- 43:00Speaker 1: to lug this here money upstairs and count it before everybody.
- 43:03Speaker 1: Then there ain't nothin suspicious for when the dead men
- 43:06Speaker 1: says they're six thousand dollars, you know we don't want
- 43:09Speaker 1: to hold on, says the Duke. Let's make up the
- 43:13Speaker 1: deaf sit. An he begun to haul out yeller boys
- 43:16Speaker 1: out of his pocket. It's a most amazin' idea, Duke,
- 43:20Speaker 1: you have got a rattlin' clever head on you, says
- 43:23Speaker 1: the King. Blest if the old nun such ain't a
- 43:26Speaker 1: helpin us out again. An he begun to haul out
- 43:30Speaker 1: yellow jackets and stack them up. It most busted them,
- 43:34Speaker 1: But they made up the six thousand, clean and clear,
- 43:38Speaker 1: say says the Duke. I got another idea. Let's go
- 43:43Speaker 1: upstairs an count this money, an then take an give
- 43:47Speaker 1: it to the girls. Good leinn, duke, let me hug you.
- 43:53Speaker 1: It's a most death an idea it ever a man struck.
- 43:56Speaker 1: You've certainly got the most astonishin' head I ever see. Oh,
- 44:00Speaker 1: this is the boss Dodge. There ain't no mistake about it.
- 44:04Speaker 1: Let him fetch along their suspicions. Now if they want to,
- 44:07Speaker 1: this'll lay em out. When we got up stairs, everybody
- 44:11Speaker 1: gathered around the table, and the king he counted it
- 44:13Speaker 1: and stacked it up three hundred dollars in a pile,
- 44:17Speaker 1: twenty elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it and
- 44:21Speaker 1: licked their chops. Then they raked it into the bag again,
- 44:25Speaker 1: and I see the King begin to swell himself up
- 44:27Speaker 1: for another speech. He says, friends, all, my poor brother
- 44:32Speaker 1: that lays yonder has done generous by them that's left
- 44:35Speaker 1: behind an the veil of sorers. He is done generous
- 44:39Speaker 1: by these, your poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered,
- 44:43Speaker 1: an that's left fatherless and motherless. Yes, an we that
- 44:47Speaker 1: knowed him knows that he would a done more generous
- 44:49Speaker 1: by him if he hadn't been a fear of wounding
- 44:51Speaker 1: his dear willyum a me, Now, wouldn't he? There ain't
- 44:55Speaker 1: no question bout it in my mind. Well, then, what
- 44:58Speaker 1: kind o brothers would it be that it's standin his
- 45:01Speaker 1: way at such a time? And what kind of uncles
- 45:03Speaker 1: would it be that it'd ribe, yes, bribe such poor
- 45:06Speaker 1: sweet lambs, as is it he loved at such a time?
- 45:10Speaker 1: If I know William An, I think I do he well,
- 45:14Speaker 1: I'll just ask him. He turns around and begins to
- 45:18Speaker 1: make a lot of signs to the Duke with his hands.
- 45:21Speaker 1: An the Duke, he looks at him stupid an leather
- 45:23Speaker 1: headed awhile then all of a sudden he seems to
- 45:26Speaker 1: catch his meanin' An jumps for the King goo, gooing
- 45:30Speaker 1: with all his might for joy, An hugs him about
- 45:33Speaker 1: fifteen times before he lets up. Then the King says,
- 45:37Speaker 1: I knowed it. I reckon that'll convince anybody the way
- 45:41Speaker 1: he feels about it. Here Mary Jane, Susan joanner take
- 45:45Speaker 1: the money, take it all. It's a gift to him
- 45:48Speaker 1: that lays yonder cold but joyful Mary Jane, She went
- 45:53Speaker 1: for him, Susan, and the hairlip went for the Duke. An.
- 45:57Speaker 1: Then such another huggin an kissing eye never see yet,
- 46:01Speaker 1: And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes,
- 46:04Speaker 1: and most shook the hands off of them frauds, saying
- 46:07Speaker 1: all the time, you, dear good souls, how lovely, how
- 46:12Speaker 1: could you? Well? Then pretty soon all hands got to
- 46:16Speaker 1: talkin about the diseased again, and how good he was,
- 46:20Speaker 1: and what a loss he was and all that. And
- 46:22Speaker 1: before long a big iron jawed man worked himself in
- 46:26Speaker 1: there from outside and stood a listening and looking and
- 46:29Speaker 1: not saying anything, and nobody saying anything to him either,
- 46:33Speaker 1: because the king was talking, and they was all busy listening.
- 46:38Speaker 1: The King was saying, in the middle of something he'd
- 46:40Speaker 1: started in on, they a being particular friends of the diseased.
- 46:45Speaker 1: That's why they're invited here this evenin'. But tomorrow we
- 46:48Speaker 1: want all to come, everybody, for he respected everybody, he
- 46:52Speaker 1: liked everybody, and so it's fitting that his funeral orgies
- 46:55Speaker 1: should be public. And so he went on a moonin
- 46:59Speaker 1: on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and every
- 47:03Speaker 1: little while he fetching his funeral orgies again, till the
- 47:07Speaker 1: Duke he couldn't stand it no more. So he writes
- 47:09Speaker 1: on a little scrap of paper, ibsequeeze, you old fool an,
- 47:14Speaker 1: folds it up and goes to googoing and reaching it
- 47:16Speaker 1: over people's heads to him. The King reads it and
- 47:20Speaker 1: puts it in his pocket and says, poor William, afflicted
- 47:23Speaker 1: as he is, his heart's all is right, asks me
- 47:27Speaker 1: to invite everybody to come to the funeral, wants me
- 47:30Speaker 1: to make him all welcome. But he needn't no word.
- 47:33Speaker 1: It was just what I was at. Then he weaves
- 47:36Speaker 1: along again, perfectly calm, and goes to droppin in his
- 47:39Speaker 1: funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he
- 47:43Speaker 1: done before. When he done it the third time, he says,
- 47:47Speaker 1: I say orgies not because it's the common term, because
- 47:50Speaker 1: it ain't obsque's bein' the common term, but because orgies
- 47:54Speaker 1: is the right term. Obsquiz ain't used in England no more.
- 47:58Speaker 1: Now it's gone out. We say orgies now in England.
- 48:02Speaker 1: Orches is better because it means the thing you're after.
- 48:05Speaker 1: More exact, it's a word that's made up out in
- 48:07Speaker 1: the Greek or joe outside open abroad an the Hebrew
- 48:14Speaker 1: geesum the plant cover up. Hence in ter so ye
- 48:20Speaker 1: see funeral, orgies is an open or public funeral. He
- 48:25Speaker 1: was the worst I ever struck, well, the iron jawed man.
- 48:30Speaker 1: He laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody
- 48:35Speaker 1: says why doctor at Abner Shackleford says, why Robinson ain't
- 48:41Speaker 1: ye heard the news? This is Harvey Wilkes. The king.
- 48:46Speaker 1: He smiled eager and shoved out his flapper and says,
- 48:50Speaker 1: is it my poor brother's, dear good friend, a physician.
- 48:53Speaker 1: I keep your hands off o me, says the doctor.
- 48:58Speaker 1: You talk like an Englishman, don't you. It's the worst
- 49:01Speaker 1: imitation I ever heard you, Peter Wilks's brother. You're a fraud,
- 49:06Speaker 1: that's what you are. Well, how they all took on.
- 49:12Speaker 1: They crowded around the doctor and tried to quiet him down,
- 49:15Speaker 1: and tried to explain to him and tell him how
- 49:17Speaker 1: Harvey showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and
- 49:21Speaker 1: note everybody by name and the names of the very dogs,
- 49:25Speaker 1: and begged and begged him not to hurt Harvey's feelings
- 49:29Speaker 1: and the poor girl's feelings and all that. But I
- 49:32Speaker 1: warn't no use. He stormed right along and said any
- 49:35Speaker 1: man that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate
- 49:38Speaker 1: the lingo no better than what he did was a
- 49:40Speaker 1: fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to
- 49:44Speaker 1: the king and crying, and all of a sudden the
- 49:47Speaker 1: doctor ups and turns on them. He says, I was
- 49:51Speaker 1: your father's friend, and I'm your friend, and I warn you,
- 49:55Speaker 1: as a friend and an honest one that wants to
- 49:58Speaker 1: protect you and keep you eye to harm in trouble,
- 50:00Speaker 1: to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing
- 50:03Speaker 1: to do with him, the ignorant tramp with his idiotic
- 50:06Speaker 1: drink and Hebrew, as he calls it. He is the
- 50:09Speaker 1: thinnest kind of an impostor. He has come here with
- 50:12Speaker 1: a lot of empty names and facts which you picked
- 50:14Speaker 1: up somewheres, and you take them for proofs and her
- 50:18Speaker 1: help to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here who
- 50:21Speaker 1: ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilkes, you know me
- 50:25Speaker 1: for your friend and for your unselfish friend too. Now
- 50:29Speaker 1: listen to me. Turn this pitiful rascal out. I beg
- 50:33Speaker 1: you to do it, will you? Mary Jane straightened herself up,
- 50:39Speaker 1: and my but she was handsome. She says, here is
- 50:44Speaker 1: my answer. She hove up the bag of money and
- 50:48Speaker 1: put it in the King's hands and says, take the
- 50:51Speaker 1: six thousand dollars and invest for me and my sisters
- 50:55Speaker 1: any way you want to, and don't give us no
- 50:57Speaker 1: receipt for it. Then she put her arm around the
- 51:00Speaker 1: King on one side, and Susan and the hair lip
- 51:03Speaker 1: done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands
- 51:07Speaker 1: and stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst
- 51:10Speaker 1: the King held up his head and smiled proud. The
- 51:14Speaker 1: doctor says, all right, I wash my hands of the matter,
- 51:19Speaker 1: but I wore you all that a time's coming when
- 51:21Speaker 1: you're goin to feel sick whenever you think of this day.
- 51:25Speaker 1: And away he went. All right, doctor, says the king
- 51:31Speaker 1: kinder mockin' him. We'll try and get him to send
- 51:34Speaker 1: for you, which made them all laugh, and they said
- 51:38Speaker 1: it was a prime good hit. End of chapter twenty five,
- 51:44Speaker 1: Chapter twenty six. Well, when they was all gone, the
- 51:51Speaker 1: king he asked Mary Jane how they was off for
- 51:53Speaker 1: spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room
- 51:56Speaker 1: which would do for Uncle William, and she'd give her
- 51:59Speaker 1: own room to uncle, which was a little bigger, and
- 52:02Speaker 1: she would turn into the room with her sisters and
- 52:04Speaker 1: sleep on a cot an up Garrett was a little
- 52:07Speaker 1: cubby with a pallet in it. The King said the
- 52:10Speaker 1: cubby would do for his valley. Meanin me, sir. Mary
- 52:14Speaker 1: Jane took us up and she showed them their rooms,
- 52:16Speaker 1: which was plain but nice. She said she'd have her
- 52:19Speaker 1: frocks an a lot o other traps took out of
- 52:21Speaker 1: her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but
- 52:24Speaker 1: he said they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall,
- 52:28Speaker 1: and before them was a curtain made out a calico
- 52:30Speaker 1: that hung down to the floor. There was an old
- 52:33Speaker 1: hare drunk in one corner, and a guitar box in another,
- 52:37Speaker 1: and all sorts of little knick knacks and jim cracks
- 52:40Speaker 1: around like girls briskin' up a room with The King
- 52:44Speaker 1: said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter
- 52:46Speaker 1: for these fixin's, and so don't disturb them. The Duke's
- 52:51Speaker 1: room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so
- 52:54Speaker 1: was my cubby. That night they had a big supper,
- 52:57Speaker 1: and all them men and women was there, and I
- 53:00Speaker 1: stood behind the King in the Duke's chairs and waited
- 53:02Speaker 1: on them, and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane,
- 53:07Speaker 1: she said, at the head of the table was Susan
- 53:09Speaker 1: alongside her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and
- 53:12Speaker 1: how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough
- 53:16Speaker 1: the fried chickens was, and all that kind of rot
- 53:19Speaker 1: the way women always do for to force out compliments,
- 53:22Speaker 1: and the people all knowed everything was tipped type and said,
- 53:25Speaker 1: so said, how do you get the biscuits to brown
- 53:29Speaker 1: so nice? And where, for the land's sake did you
- 53:32Speaker 1: get these amazing pickles, and all that kind of humbug
- 53:36Speaker 1: talkie talk, just the way people always does at a supper,
- 53:39Speaker 1: you know. And when it was all done, me and
- 53:42Speaker 1: the hair lip had supper in the kitchen off of
- 53:45Speaker 1: the Leavin's, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean
- 53:48Speaker 1: up the things. The hair lip she got to pumpin'
- 53:51Speaker 1: me by England an blessed if I didn't think the
- 53:54Speaker 1: ice was gettin mighty thin. Sometimes she says, did you
- 53:59Speaker 1: ever see the king? Who William Ford? Well, I bet
- 54:04Speaker 1: I have. He goes to our church. I knowed he
- 54:07Speaker 1: was dead years ago, but I never let on. So
- 54:10Speaker 1: when I says he goes to our church, she says,
- 54:13Speaker 1: what regular? Yes? Regular? His pew's right over opposite iron,
- 54:18Speaker 1: on the other side of the pulpit. I thought he
- 54:22Speaker 1: lived in London, Well he does, where would he live?
- 54:27Speaker 1: But I thought you lived in Sheffield. I see, I
- 54:31Speaker 1: was up a stump. I had to let on to
- 54:33Speaker 1: get choked with a chicken bones so as to get
- 54:35Speaker 1: time to think how to get down again? Then I says,
- 54:40Speaker 1: I mean he goes to our church regular when he's
- 54:42Speaker 1: in Sheffield. That's only in the summer time, when he
- 54:45Speaker 1: comes there to take the sea baths. Why how you
- 54:49Speaker 1: talk Sheffield ain't on the sea? Well who said it was?
- 54:54Speaker 1: Why you did? I didn't? Other you did? I didn't
- 54:58Speaker 1: you did? I never se said nothing of the kind.
- 55:02Speaker 1: Well what did you say, then, said he come to
- 55:05Speaker 1: take the sea baths? That's what I said. Well, then
- 55:09Speaker 1: how's he going to take the sea baths if it
- 55:11Speaker 1: ain't on the sea? Looking here, I says, did you
- 55:15Speaker 1: ever see any Congress water? Yes? Well did you have
- 55:19Speaker 1: to go to Congress to get it? Why? No, Well
- 55:23Speaker 1: neither does William forth have to go to the sea
- 55:26Speaker 1: to get a sea bath? How does he get it? Then?
- 55:29Speaker 1: Gets it the way people down here gets Congress water
- 55:32Speaker 1: in barrels. They're in the palace at Sheffield. They've got furnaces,
- 55:36Speaker 1: and he wants his water hot. They can't buy all
- 55:39Speaker 1: that amount of water away off there at the sea.
- 55:42Speaker 1: They haven't got no conveniences for it. Oh, I see
- 55:46Speaker 1: now he might have said that in the first place
- 55:48Speaker 1: and save time. When she said that, I see us
- 55:52Speaker 1: out of the woods again, and so I was comfortable
- 55:54Speaker 1: and glad. Next she says, do you go to church too? Yes? Regular?
- 56:01Speaker 1: Where do you sit? Why in our pew? Who's pew?
- 56:07Speaker 1: Why iurn your uncle Harvey's his'n'? What does he want
- 56:12Speaker 1: with a pew? Wants it to sit in? What do
- 56:15Speaker 1: you reckon he wanted with it? Why? I thought he'd
- 56:19Speaker 1: be in the pulpit right him. I forgot he was
- 56:23Speaker 1: a preacher. I see he was up a stump again.
- 56:26Speaker 1: So I played another chicken bone and got another think,
- 56:29Speaker 1: And I says, blame it. Do you suppose there ain't
- 56:32Speaker 1: but one preacher to a church? Why what do they
- 56:35Speaker 1: want with more? What to preach before a king? I
- 56:40Speaker 1: never did see such a girl as you. They don't
- 56:43Speaker 1: have no less than seventeen seventeen my land. Why I
- 56:49Speaker 1: wouldn't set out such a string as that? Not if
- 56:51Speaker 1: I never got to glory, it must take him a week? Shucks.
- 56:56Speaker 1: They don't all of em preach the same day? Only
- 56:59Speaker 1: one of them. Well, then what does the rest of
- 57:02Speaker 1: 'em do? Oh? Nothin much loll around pass the plate?
- 57:07Speaker 1: An one thing or another, But mainly they don't do nothin'. Well,
- 57:12Speaker 1: then what are they for? Why they're for style? Don't
- 57:16Speaker 1: you know nothin'? Well, I don't wanna know no such
- 57:20Speaker 1: foolishness as that. How servants treat d in England? Do
- 57:24Speaker 1: they treat 'em better an we treat our niggers? No,
- 57:28Speaker 1: a servant ain't nobody there. They treat 'em worse'n dogs.
- 57:32Speaker 1: Don't they give 'em holidays the way we do Christmas
- 57:35Speaker 1: in New Year's week and fourth of July? Oh, just listen,
- 57:40Speaker 1: the body could tell you hain't ever been to England
- 57:42Speaker 1: by that? Why her? Why Joanna? They never see a
- 57:47Speaker 1: holiday from years and to year's end, never go to
- 57:50Speaker 1: the circus, nor theater, nor nigger's shows, nor nowheres, nor
- 57:55Speaker 1: church nor church. But you always went to church. Well,
- 58:01Speaker 1: I was going up again. I forgot I was the
- 58:04Speaker 1: old man's servant. But next minute I whirled in on
- 58:07Speaker 1: a kind of an explanation how a valley was different
- 58:10Speaker 1: from a common servant and had to go to church
- 58:13Speaker 1: whether he wanted to or not, and set with the
- 58:15Speaker 1: family on account of its being the law. But I
- 58:18Speaker 1: didn't do it pretty good and when I got done,
- 58:21Speaker 1: I see she warn't satisfied. She says, honest Injun, Now,
- 58:26Speaker 1: ain't you been tellin me a lot o lies? Honest Injun?
- 58:30Speaker 1: Says I. None of it at all, None of it
- 58:34Speaker 1: at all, not a lie in it, says I lay
- 58:38Speaker 1: your hand on this book and say it. I see
- 58:41Speaker 1: it warn't nothing but a dictionary. So I laid my
- 58:43Speaker 1: hand on it and said it. So then she looked
- 58:46Speaker 1: a little better, satisfied, and says, well, then I'll believe
- 58:50Speaker 1: some of it, but I hope to be gracious if
- 58:53Speaker 1: I'll believed the rest. What is it you won't believe? Joe,
- 58:58Speaker 1: says Mary Jane, stepping in with Susan behind her. It
- 59:02Speaker 1: ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him.
- 59:04Speaker 1: An him a stranger, an so far from his people,
- 59:08Speaker 1: How would you like to be treated? So that's always
- 59:12Speaker 1: your way, ma'am, always sailin in to help somebody before
- 59:15Speaker 1: they are hurt. I hain't done nothin to him. He's
- 59:18Speaker 1: told some stretchers. I reckon an I said, I wouldn't
- 59:21Speaker 1: swallow at all. An that's every bit an grain I
- 59:23Speaker 1: did say. I reckon. He can stand a little thing
- 59:26Speaker 1: like that can't he I don't care whether twas little
- 59:30Speaker 1: or whether twas big. He's here in our house and
- 59:33Speaker 1: a stranger. An, it wasn't good o you to say it.
- 59:36Speaker 1: If you was in his place, he would make you
- 59:38Speaker 1: feel ashamed. An, So you oughtn't to say a thing
- 59:41Speaker 1: to another person that will make them feel ashamed. Why, ma'am,
- 59:45Speaker 1: he said, It don't make no difference what he said.
- 59:48Speaker 1: That ain't the thing. The thing is for you to
- 59:50Speaker 1: treat him kind an, not be sayin things to make him.
- 59:53Speaker 1: Remember he ain't in his own country an monks his
- 59:56Speaker 1: own folks. I says to myself, this is a girl
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: that I'm lettin. That old reptle rob her of her money. Then, Susan,
- 1:00:06Speaker 1: she waltst in an, if you'll believe me, she did
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: give Harelip hark from the tomb, says I to myself, An,
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: this is another one that I'm lettin him rob her
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: of her money. Then Mary Jane, she took another innin
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: an went in sweet an lovely again, which was her way.
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: But when she got done, there warn't hardly anything left
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: a poor Harelip. So she hollered. All right, then says
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: the other girls, you jest ask his pardon. She done
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: it too, an, she'd done it beautiful. She done it
- 1:00:41Speaker 1: so beautiful it was good to hear. And I wish
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: I could tell her a thousand lies so she could
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: do it again. I says to myself, this is another
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: one that I'm lettin him, rob her of her money.
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: An when she got through, they all just laid theirselves
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: to make me feel at home and know I was
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: am amongst friends. I felt so ornery and low down
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: an mean that, I says to myself, my mind's made up.
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: I'll hive that money for them or bust. So then
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: I lit out for bed, I said. Meanin some time
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: or another, when I got by myself, I went to
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: thinkin the thing over, I says to myself, Shall I
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: go to that doctor private an blob on these frauds? No,
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: that won't do. He might tell who told him. Then
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: the King and the Duke would make it warm for me.
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: Shall I go private and tell Mary Jane, No, I'd
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: das'n't do it. Her face would give them a hint.
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: Sure they've got the money, and they'd slide right out
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: an get away with it. If she was to fetch
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: in an help, i'd get mixed up in the business
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: before it was done with. I judge, No, there ain't
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: no good way but one. I got to steal that
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: money somehow, An I got to steal it some way
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: that they want suspicion that I'd done it. They've got
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: a good thing here, an, they ain't a goin to
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: leave till they've played this family in this town for
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: all they're worth. So I'll find a chance. Time enough,
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: I'll steal it and hide it, and by and by,
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: when i'm away down the river, i'll write a letter
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: and tell Mary Jane where it's hid. But i'd better
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: hide it tonight if I can, because the doctor maybe
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has.
- 1:02:26Speaker 1: He might scare them out of here yet, so thinks
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: I I'll go and search them rooms upstairs. The hall
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: was dark, but I found the Duke's room and started
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: to pall around it with my hands. But I recollected
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: it wouldn't be much like the King to let anybody
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: else take care of that money but his own self.
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: So then I went to his room and begun to
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: pall around there. But I see I couldn't do nothing
- 1:02:51Speaker 1: without a candle, and I doesn't like one, of course,
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: so I judged I've got to do the other thing.
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: Lay for them an eavesdrop. About that time, I hears
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: their footsteps comin' and was goin to skip under the bed.
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: I reached for it, but it wasn't where I thought
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: it would be. But I touched the curtain that hid
- 1:03:12Speaker 1: Marry James Frocks. So I jumped in behind that and
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: snuggled in amongst the gowns and stood there perfectly still.
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: They come in an shut the door, and the first
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: thing the Duke done was to get down and look
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: the bed when I wanted it. And yet you know,
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: it's kind of natural to hide under the bed when
- 1:03:33Speaker 1: you were up to anything private. They sits down then,
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: an the king says, well, what is it? An cut
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: it midlin' short, because it's better for us to be
- 1:03:42Speaker 1: down there or whoopin' up the mornin than up here,
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: giving them a chance to talk us over. Well, this
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: is it, capit. I ain't easy. I ain't comfortable that
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans.
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: I've got it an, I think it's a sound one.
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: What is it, duke, that we better glide out o
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: this before three in the mornin' an clip it down
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: the river with what we've got, specially seein we got
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: it so easy givin back to us, flung at our heads,
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: as you may say, when of course we allowed to
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: have to steal it back. I'm for knocking off an
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: lightin out that made me feel pretty bad. About an
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: hour or two ago it would have been a little different,
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: but now it made me feel bad. An disappointed, the
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: king rips out and says, what an nat sell out
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: the rest of the property, march off like a pass
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: o the fools an leave eight or nine thousand dollars
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: worth of property laying around, just sufferin to be scooped
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: in an all good saleable stuff too. The duke, he grumbled,
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: said the bag of gold was enough. An he didn't
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: want to go no deeper. Didn't want to rop a
- 1:04:58Speaker 1: lot of orphans of everything they had. Why how you talk,
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: says the king. We shan't rob them a nothin' at all,
- 1:05:06Speaker 1: but just this money. The people that buys the property
- 1:05:09Speaker 1: is the sufferers. Because as soon as it's found out
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: that we didn't known it, which won't be long after
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: we've flid. The sale won't be valid and it'll all
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: go back to the state. These yourar friens will get
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: their house back again. An that's enough for them. They're young,
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: an spry, an cain easy earn a livin'. They ain't
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: not goin to suffer. Why jest think there's thousands an
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: thousands that ain't nice, so well off, bless you. They
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: ain't got nothin to complain of. Well the king he
- 1:05:39Speaker 1: talked him blind. So at last you give in and
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: said all right, but said he believed it was blamed
- 1:05:45Speaker 1: foolishness to stay an that doctor hanging over them. But
- 1:05:49Speaker 1: the King says, cuss the doctor, what do we care
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: for him? Ain't we got all the fools in town
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: on our side? An ain't that a big enough majority
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: in any towns? So they got ready to go downstairs again.
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: The Duke says, I don't think we put that money
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: in a good place that cheered me up. I'd begin
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: to think I warn't goin to get a hint of
- 1:06:12Speaker 1: no kind to help me. The King says, why, because
- 1:06:17Speaker 1: Mary Jane'll beIN mournin' from this out. An First, you know,
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: a nigger that does up the rooms will get in
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: order to box these duds up, an put em away?
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: An do you reckon? A nigger can run across money,
- 1:06:30Speaker 1: an not borrow some of it. Your head's level again, duke,
- 1:06:35Speaker 1: says the king. An he comes a fumblin' under the
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: curtain two or three foot from where I was. I
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: stuck tight to the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery,
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: and I wondered what them fellers would say if they
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: catched me, And I tried to think what I'd better
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: do if they did catch me. But the King he
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: got the bag before I could think more than about
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: a half a thought. An he never suspicioned I was
- 1:06:59Speaker 1: a round. They took and shoved the bag through a
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: rip and the straw tick that was under the feather bed,
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: and crammed it in a foot or two amongst the straw,
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: and said it was all right now, because the nigger
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: only makes up the feather bed, and don't turn over
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: the straw tick only about twice a year, and so
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: it warn't no danger of getting stolen now. But I
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: knowed better. I had it out of there before they
- 1:07:24Speaker 1: was half way downstairs, I groped along up to my
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: cubby and hit it there till I could get a
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: chance to do better. I judged I better hide it
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed it,
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: they would give the house a good ransacking. I knowed
- 1:07:38Speaker 1: that very well. Then I turned in with my clothes
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: all on. But I couldn't have gone to sleep if
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: I'd wanted to. I was in such a sweat to
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: get through with the business. By and by I heard
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: the King and the Duke come up, So I rolled
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: off my pallet and laid with my chin at the
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: top of my letter and waited to see if anything
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: was going to happen. But nothing did. So I held
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: on till all the late sounds had quit, an the
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: early ones hadn't begun yet. An then I slipped down
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: the ladder end of chapter twenty six, Chapter twenty seven.
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: I crept to their doors an listened. They was snorin,
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: so I tiptoed along an got downstairs. All right, there
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: warn't a sound anywheres. I peeped through a crack of
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: the dining room door an see the men that was
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: watchin the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: door was open into the parlor where the corpse was
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: layin an there was a candle in both rooms. I
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: passed along an the parlor door was open, but I
- 1:08:45Speaker 1: see there warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter.
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: So I shoved on by. But the front door was
- 1:08:52Speaker 1: locked and the key wasn't there. Just then I heard
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: somebody comin down the stairs back behind me. I run
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: in the parlor and took a swift look around, and
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: the only place I see to hide the bag was
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot,
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: showing the dead man's face down in there, with a
- 1:09:11Speaker 1: wet cloth over it and his shroud on. I tucked
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: the money bag in under the lid, just down beyond
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: where his hands was crossed, which made me creep. They
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: was so cold. And then I run back across the
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: room and in behind the door. The person comin was
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: Mary Jane. She went to the coffin very soft, and
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: kneeled down and looked in. Then she put up her handkerchief,
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: and I see she'd begun to cry, though I couldn't hear,
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: and her back was to me. I slid out, and
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: as I passed the dining room, I thought i'd make
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: sure them watchers hadn't seen me. So I looked through
- 1:09:50Speaker 1: the crack and everything was all right. They hadn't stirred.
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: I slipped up to bed, feeling rather blue on accounts
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: of the thing playing out that way, after I had
- 1:10:02Speaker 1: took so much trouble and run so much risk about it,
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: says I, if it could stay where it is all right,
- 1:10:09Speaker 1: because when we get down the river a hundred mile
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: or two, I could write back to Mary Jane and
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: she could dig him up again and get it. But
- 1:10:17Speaker 1: that ain't the thing that's going to happen. The thing
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: that's going to happen is the money'll be found when
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: they come to screw on the lid. Then the King
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: will get it again, and it'll be a long day
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: before he gives anybody another chance to smouch it from him.
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: Of course I wanted to slide down and get it
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: out of there, but I doesn't try it every minute.
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: It was getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: them watchers will begin to stir and I might get catched.
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: Catched with six thousand dollars in my hands that nobody
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: hadn't hired me to take care of. I don't wish
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: to be mixed up, and no such business as that,
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: I says to myself. When I got downstairs in the morning,
- 1:10:58Speaker 1: the parlor was shut up and the watchers was gone.
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: There warn't nobody around but the family and the widow
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: Bartley in our tribe. I watched their faces to see
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: if anything had been happening, but I couldn't tell. Towards
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: the middle of the day, the undertaker come with his man,
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: and they set the coffin in the middle of the
- 1:11:18Speaker 1: room on a couple of chairs, and then set all
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: our chairs in a row, and borrowed more from the neighbors,
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: till the hall and the parlor and the dining room
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: was full. I see the coffin lid was the way
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: it was before, but I doesn't go to look in
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: under it with folks around. Then the people begun to
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: flock in, and the beats and the girl took seats
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: in the front row at the head of the coffin,
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: and for half an hour the people filed around slow
- 1:11:46Speaker 1: in single rank and looked down at the dead man's face.
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: A minute and some dropped in a tear, and it
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: was all very still and solemn, only the girls and
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: the beats, holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: heads bent. An sobbin a little. There warn't no other
- 1:12:03Speaker 1: sound but the scrapin' of the feet on the floor,
- 1:12:05Speaker 1: an blowin' noses, cause people always blows them more at
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: a funeral than they do at other places, except church.
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: When the place was packed full. The undertaker he slid
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: around in his black gloves with his softy sootherin ways,
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: putting on the last touches, and getting people and things
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: all ship shape and comfortable, an makin no more sound
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: than a cat. He never spoke, He moved people around,
- 1:12:33Speaker 1: He squeezed in late ones, He opened up passageways, an
- 1:12:36Speaker 1: done it with nods, an signs with his hands. Then
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: he took his place over against the wall. He was
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: the softest, glidenest stealthiest man I ever see. An there
- 1:12:48Speaker 1: warn't no more smile to him than there is to
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: a ham. They had borrowed a melodium, a sick one.
- 1:12:56Speaker 1: When everything was ready, a young woman set down and
- 1:12:59Speaker 1: worked it. An it was pretty screaky, an collicky, an
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: everybody joined in an sung an Peter was the only
- 1:13:06Speaker 1: one that had a good thing, according to my notion.
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: Then the Reverend Hobson opened up slow and solemn, an
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: begun to talk an straight off. The most outrageous robe
- 1:13:18Speaker 1: busted out in the cellar a body ever heard. It
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: was only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket.
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: An he kept it up right along the parson. He
- 1:13:28Speaker 1: had to stand there over the coffin an wait, you
- 1:13:31Speaker 1: couldn't hear yourself think it was right down awkward an
- 1:13:35Speaker 1: nobody didn't seem to know what to do for Pretty
- 1:13:38Speaker 1: soon they see that long legged undertaker make a sign
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: to the preacher as much as to say, don't you
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: worry jest depend on me. Then he stooped down an
- 1:13:49Speaker 1: begun to glide along the wall. Just his shoulders showIn
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: over the people's heads. So he glided along an the
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: pow wow, a racket gettin more an more outraged all
- 1:13:59Speaker 1: the time, And at last, when he had gone around
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: two sides of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: in about two seconds we heard a whack, and the
- 1:14:10Speaker 1: dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two,
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: or two, here comes this undertaker's back and shoulders, gliding
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: along the wall again. And so he glided and glided
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: around three sides of the room, and then rose up
- 1:14:32Speaker 1: and shaded his mouth with his hands and stretched his
- 1:14:36Speaker 1: neck out towards the preacher over the people's heads, and
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: says in a kind of a coarse whisper, he had
- 1:14:43Speaker 1: a rat. Then he drooped down and glided along the
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: wall again to his place. You could see it was
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: a great satisfaction to the people, because naturally they wanted
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: to know a little thing like that don't cost nothing,
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: and it's just the little things that makes a man
- 1:14:59Speaker 1: to be he looked up to and liked. There warn't
- 1:15:02Speaker 1: no more popular man in town than what that undertaker was. Well,
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: the funeral sermon was very good, but pizzin' long and tiresome.
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: And then the king he shoved in and got off
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: some of his usual rubbage, and at last the job
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: was through, and the undertaker began to sneak up on
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: the coffin with his screwdriver. I was in a sweat
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: then and watched him pretty keen, but he never meddled
- 1:15:29Speaker 1: at all just slid the little along as soft as mush,
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was.
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: I didn't know whether the money was in there or not.
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: So says I, suppose somebody has hogged that bag on
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: the sly. Now, how do I know whether to write
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: to Marry Jane or not? Suppose she dug him up
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: and didn't find nothing, what would she think of me?
- 1:15:54Speaker 1: Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and jailed.
- 1:15:57Speaker 1: I'd better lay low and keep dark right at all?
- 1:16:01Speaker 1: The thing's awful mixed now. Trying to better it, I've
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: i'd just let it alone. Dad fetch the whole business.
- 1:16:13Speaker 1: They buried him, and we come back home, and I
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: went to watching faces again. I couldn't help it, and
- 1:16:18Speaker 1: I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come of it. The
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: faces didn't tell me nothing. The King he visited around
- 1:16:26Speaker 1: in the evening and sweetened everybody up and made himself
- 1:16:30Speaker 1: ever so friendly. And he give out the idea that
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: his congregation over in England would be in a sweat
- 1:16:36Speaker 1: about him, so he must hurry and settle up the
- 1:16:39Speaker 1: estate right away and leave for home. He was very sorry.
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: He was so pushed, and so was everybody. They wished
- 1:16:47Speaker 1: he could stay longer, but they said they could see
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: it couldn't be done. And he said, of course him
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: and William would take the girls home with them, and
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be
- 1:16:59Speaker 1: well fixed and amongst their own relations. And to please
- 1:17:03Speaker 1: the girls too tickled them, so they clean forgot they
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: ever had a trouble in the world, and told him
- 1:17:09Speaker 1: to sell out as quick as he wanted to. They
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: would be ready. Them poor things. Was that glad and happy.
- 1:17:16Speaker 1: It made my heart ache to see them gettin fooled
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: and lied to. So, but I didn't see no safe
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: way for me to ship in and change the general
- 1:17:24Speaker 1: tune well blamed if the King didn't build a house
- 1:17:28Speaker 1: and the niggers and all the property for auctions straight
- 1:17:31Speaker 1: off sail two days after the funeral. But anybody could
- 1:17:35Speaker 1: buy a private beforehand if they wanted to. So the
- 1:17:39Speaker 1: next day after the funeral, long about noon time, the
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: girl's joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: traders come along, and the King sold them the niggers
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: reasonable for three days drafts, as they called it, and
- 1:17:53Speaker 1: away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis,
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: and their mother down the river to Orleans. I thought
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: them poor girls, an them niggers would break their hearts
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: for grief. They cried round each other, an took on.
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: So it must made me down sick to see it.
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: The girls said they hadn't never dreamed to seein the
- 1:18:14Speaker 1: family separated or sold away from the town. I can't
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: ever get it out of my memory, the sight of
- 1:18:21Speaker 1: them poor miserable girls, an niggers hanging around each other's necks,
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: an cryin an, I reckon, I couldn't have stood it
- 1:18:28Speaker 1: at all, But would a had to bust out an
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale,
- 1:18:33Speaker 1: warn't no account, an the niggers would be back home
- 1:18:36Speaker 1: in a week or two. The thing made a big
- 1:18:40Speaker 1: stir in the town, too, An A good many come
- 1:18:42Speaker 1: out flat footed. An said it was scandalous to separate
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: the mother and the children that way. It injured the
- 1:18:49Speaker 1: frauds some. But the old fool he bowled right along.
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: Spite of all the Duke could say or do, An,
- 1:18:56Speaker 1: I tell you, the Duke was powerful, uneasy, next day
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: was auction day, about broad day. In the morning, the
- 1:19:04Speaker 1: Duke and the King come up in the garret and
- 1:19:06Speaker 1: woke me up, and I see by their look that
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: there was trouble. The King says, was you in my
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: room not before last? Know your majesty, which was the
- 1:19:18Speaker 1: way I always called him when nobody but our gang
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: warn't around. Was you in there yesterday or last night?
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: Know your majesty, Honor Bright. Now no lies, Honor Bright,
- 1:19:31Speaker 1: your majesty. I'm telling you the truth. I ain't been
- 1:19:34Speaker 1: a near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: and the Duke and showed it to you. The Duke says,
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: have you seen anybody else go in there? Know your grace?
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: Not as I remember, I believe, stop and think I
- 1:19:50Speaker 1: studied awhile an see my chance? Then I says, well,
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: I see the niggers go in there several times. Both
- 1:19:59Speaker 1: of them gave a little jump and looked like they
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: hadn't ever expected it, and then like they had. Then
- 1:20:06Speaker 1: the Duke says, what all of them? No least two ways,
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: not all at once, that is, I don't think I
- 1:20:15Speaker 1: ever saw them all come out at once, but just
- 1:20:18Speaker 1: one time. Hello, When was that it was the day
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: we had the funeral in the morning, and weren't early
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder,
- 1:20:30Speaker 1: and I see them, well, go on, go on. What
- 1:20:36Speaker 1: did they do? How'd they act? They didn't do nothing,
- 1:20:41Speaker 1: and they didn't act anyway much as far as I
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: can see. They tiptoed away. So I seen easy enough
- 1:20:48Speaker 1: that they'd shoved in there to do up your Majesty's
- 1:20:51Speaker 1: room or something, supposing you was up and found you
- 1:20:54Speaker 1: warmed up, and so they was hoping to slide out
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: of the way of trouble without waking you up, if
- 1:20:59Speaker 1: they had already waked you up. Great guns, this is
- 1:21:04Speaker 1: a go, says the king. And both of them looked
- 1:21:07Speaker 1: pretty sick and tolerable, silly. They stood there thinking and
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: scratching their heads a minute, and the Duke he busting
- 1:21:14Speaker 1: to a kind of a little raspy chuckle and says,
- 1:21:19Speaker 1: it does beat all. How neat the niggers played their hand.
- 1:21:23Speaker 1: They let on to be sorry. They was goin out
- 1:21:26Speaker 1: of this region. And I believed they was sorry, and
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell
- 1:21:35Speaker 1: me anymore that a nigger ain't got no histrionic talent.
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: Why the way they played that thing? It would fool
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: anybody in my opinion, there's a fortune in 'em. If
- 1:21:50Speaker 1: I had a capital and a theater, I wouldn't want
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: a better layout than that. And here we've gone and
- 1:21:57Speaker 1: sold em for a song. Yes, and ain't privileged to
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: sing the song? Yet? Say where is that song? That
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: draft in the bank to be collected? Where would it be? Well,
- 1:22:14Speaker 1: that's all right then, thank goodness, says I kind of timin,
- 1:22:20Speaker 1: like is something going wrong? The King whirls on me
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: and rips out, none of your business. You keep your
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: head shutting, mind your own affairs. If you got any
- 1:22:31Speaker 1: long as you're in this town, don't you forget that?
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: You hear? Then he says to the Duke, we got
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: to just swallow it and say nothing. Mum's the word
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: for us. As they was starting down the ladder. The
- 1:22:44Speaker 1: duke he chuckles again and says, quick sales and small profits,
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: it's a good business. Yes. The King snarls around on
- 1:22:55Speaker 1: him and says, I was trying to do for the
- 1:22:58Speaker 1: best and selling them out so quick. If the prophets
- 1:23:01Speaker 1: had turned out to be none lackin' considerable an none
- 1:23:05Speaker 1: to carry isn't my fault any more'n it's yorn. Well
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: they'd be in this house yet, An we wouldn't if
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: I could a got my advice. Listen to the king
- 1:23:18Speaker 1: sashed back as much as was safe fer him. An
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: then swapped around An lit into me again. He give
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: me down the banks for not comin An tellin him.
- 1:23:28Speaker 1: I see the niggers comin out of his room actin
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: that way, said any fool would a knowed somethin was up.
- 1:23:34Speaker 1: An then waltzed in a cussed himself, awhile An said
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: it all comin him, not layin late An takin his
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: natural rest that mornin' An he'd be blamed if he'd
- 1:23:44Speaker 1: ever do it again. So they went off a jawin An.
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: I felt dreadful, glad I'd worked it all off on
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: the niggers. An yet hadn't done the niggers no harm
- 1:23:54Speaker 1: by it. End of chapter twenty seven, Chapter twenty eight,
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: Bye and bye. It was gettin' up time, so I
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: come down the ladder and started for downstairs. But as
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: I come to the girl's room, the door was open.
- 1:24:13Speaker 1: An I see Mary Jane settin by her old hair,
- 1:24:15Speaker 1: trunk which was open. An she'd been packin things in it,
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: gettin ready to go to England. But she had stopped
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: now with a folded gown in her lap, and had
- 1:24:25Speaker 1: her face in her hands, crying. I felt awful bad
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: to see it. Of course anybody would. I went in there,
- 1:24:33Speaker 1: An says miss Mary Jane. You can't a bear to
- 1:24:36Speaker 1: see people in trouble. An, I can't. Most always tell
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: me about it. So she done it. An it was
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: the niggers. I just expected it, she said. The beautiful
- 1:24:49Speaker 1: trip to England was most about spoiled for her. She
- 1:24:53Speaker 1: didn't know how she was ever goin to be happy there,
- 1:24:56Speaker 1: knowing the mother and the children weren't ever goin to
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: see each other no more. An then busted out bitterer
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: than ever. An flung up her hands and says, oh, dear, dear,
- 1:25:07Speaker 1: to think they ain't ever goin to see each other
- 1:25:09Speaker 1: any more, But they will an inside of two weeks,
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: and I know it, says I. Laws. It was out
- 1:25:19Speaker 1: before I could think, An, before I could budge. She
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: throws her arms around my neck. An told me to
- 1:25:25Speaker 1: say it again, to say it again, say it again.
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much.
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: An was in a close place. I asked her to
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: let me think a minute, and she sat there very
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kinda happy and
- 1:25:44Speaker 1: eased up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out.
- 1:25:48Speaker 1: So I went to studyin it out, I says to myself.
- 1:25:52Speaker 1: I reckon a body that ups an tells the truth
- 1:25:54Speaker 1: when he's in a tight place, is taking consider'ble many resks.
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: Though I ain't had no experience, AN can't say for certain,
- 1:26:02Speaker 1: but it looks so to me anyway. And yet here's
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: a case where I'm blessed. If it didn't look to
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: me like the truth is better and actually safer than
- 1:26:11Speaker 1: a lie. I must lay it by in my mind,
- 1:26:14Speaker 1: an think it over some time or other. It's so
- 1:26:17Speaker 1: kind of strange and unregular. I never see nothin like it. Well,
- 1:26:22Speaker 1: I says to myself. At last, I'm a goin to
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: chance it. I'll up an tell the truth this time,
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: though it does seem most like settin down on a
- 1:26:31Speaker 1: cagapowder an touchin it off, just to see where you'll
- 1:26:34Speaker 1: go to. Then, I says, miss Mary Jane, is there
- 1:26:38Speaker 1: any place out of town a little ways where you
- 1:26:41Speaker 1: could go and stay three or four days. Yes, mister Lothrups,
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: Why never mind? Why yet? If I'll tell you how
- 1:26:51Speaker 1: I know the niggers will see each other again inside
- 1:26:53Speaker 1: of two weeks here in this house, an prove how
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: I know it? Will you go to mister Lothrups and
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: stay four days? For days, she says, I'll stay a year,
- 1:27:05Speaker 1: all right, I says, I don't want nothing more out
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: of you than just your word. I'd rather have it
- 1:27:12Speaker 1: than another man's kiss the Bible. She smiled, and redden
- 1:27:16Speaker 1: up very sweet, and I says, if you don't mind it,
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: I'll shut the door an bolt it. Then I come
- 1:27:23Speaker 1: back and sat down and says, don't you holler? Jest,
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: sit still and take it like a man. I got
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: to tell the truth. An you want to brace up,
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: miss Mary, because it's a bad kind an goin to
- 1:27:35Speaker 1: be hard to take. But there ain't no help for it.
- 1:27:38Speaker 1: These uncles of yorn ain't no uncles at all. There
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: are a couple of frauds, regular dead beats there. Now
- 1:27:46Speaker 1: we're over the worst of it. You can stand the rest,
- 1:27:49Speaker 1: middlin easy. It jolted her up, like everything of course,
- 1:27:54Speaker 1: but I was over the shoal water now, So I
- 1:27:57Speaker 1: went right along her eyes a blazin' high an hire
- 1:28:00Speaker 1: all the time, and told her every blame thing from
- 1:28:04Speaker 1: when we first struck that young fool. Goin up to
- 1:28:07Speaker 1: the steamboat, clear through to where she flung herself onto
- 1:28:11Speaker 1: the King's breast at the front door, and he kissed
- 1:28:14Speaker 1: her sixteen or seventeen times. And then up she jumps,
- 1:28:18Speaker 1: with her face a fire like sunset, and says, the
- 1:28:21Speaker 1: brute come, don't waste a minute, not a second. We'll
- 1:28:25Speaker 1: have them tired and feathered and flung in the river.
- 1:28:28Speaker 1: Says I certainly, But do you mean before you go
- 1:28:32Speaker 1: to mister Lothrop's or oh, she says, What am I
- 1:28:37Speaker 1: thinking about? She says, and sat right down again. Don't
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: mind what I said? Please don't. You won't now, will you?
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of
- 1:28:48Speaker 1: a way that I said I would die first, I
- 1:28:52Speaker 1: never thought I was so stirred up, she says. Now
- 1:28:55Speaker 1: go on, and I won't do so any more. You
- 1:28:58Speaker 1: tell me what to do, and whatever you say, I'll
- 1:29:00Speaker 1: do it. Well, I says, it's a rough gang them
- 1:29:05Speaker 1: two frauds. An, I'm fixed, So I got to travel
- 1:29:09Speaker 1: with them awhile longer, whether I want to or not.
- 1:29:12Speaker 1: I'd rather not tell you why. An if you was
- 1:29:15Speaker 1: to blow on them, this town will get me out
- 1:29:17Speaker 1: of their claws. An, I'd be all right, But there'd
- 1:29:21Speaker 1: be another person that you don't know about who'd beIN
- 1:29:23Speaker 1: big trouble. Well, we got to save him, ain't we,
- 1:29:28Speaker 1: of course? Well, then we won't blow on them. Sayin'
- 1:29:33Speaker 1: them words put a good idea in my head. I
- 1:29:36Speaker 1: see how maybe I could get me an Jim rid
- 1:29:38Speaker 1: of the frauds, get them jailed here, and then leave.
- 1:29:42Speaker 1: But I didn't want to run the raft in the
- 1:29:44Speaker 1: daytime without anybody aboard to answer questions but me so,
- 1:29:47Speaker 1: I didn't want the plan to begin working till pretty
- 1:29:50Speaker 1: late to night, I says miss Mary Jane. I'll tell
- 1:29:54Speaker 1: you what we'll do, An you won't have to stay
- 1:29:56Speaker 1: at mister Lothrop so long, Nuther, how fur is it
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: a little short of four miles right out in the
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: country back here? Well that'll answer. Now you go long
- 1:30:08Speaker 1: out there, an lay low till nine or half past
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: to night, an then get them to fetch you home again.
- 1:30:14Speaker 1: Tell them you've thought o somethin. If you get here
- 1:30:17Speaker 1: before eleven, put a candle in this window. An. If
- 1:30:20Speaker 1: I don't turn up, wait till eleven. An, then if
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: I don't turn up, it means I'm gone, an out
- 1:30:25Speaker 1: o the way, an safe. Then you come out an
- 1:30:28Speaker 1: spread the news around and get these beats jailed. Good,
- 1:30:32Speaker 1: she says, I'll do it. An if it just happens
- 1:30:36Speaker 1: so that I don't get away but get took up
- 1:30:38Speaker 1: along with them, you must up, an say, I told
- 1:30:41Speaker 1: you the whole thing beforehand. An, you must stand by
- 1:30:44Speaker 1: me all you can stand by you. Indeed I will.
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: They sha'n't touch a hair of your head, she says. An,
- 1:30:52Speaker 1: I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when
- 1:30:55Speaker 1: you said it too. If I get away, I sha'n't here,
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: I says, ter prove these raps gallions ain't your uncles. An.
- 1:31:04Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. If I was here, I could
- 1:31:07Speaker 1: swear they was beats an bummers. That's all though that's
- 1:31:10Speaker 1: worth something. Well, there's others can do that better than
- 1:31:14Speaker 1: what I can. An, they're people that ain't goin to
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: be doubted as quick as i'd be. I'll tell you
- 1:31:19Speaker 1: how to find them. Give me a pencil and a
- 1:31:22Speaker 1: piece of paper there royal nun such Bricksville. Put it away,
- 1:31:28Speaker 1: and don't lose it. When the court wants to find
- 1:31:31Speaker 1: out something about these two, let them send up to
- 1:31:34Speaker 1: Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: royal nuns such, and ask for some witnesses. Why you'll
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: have that entire time down here before you can hardly wink,
- 1:31:44Speaker 1: Miss mary An, they'll come a violin too. I judged
- 1:31:49Speaker 1: we got everything fixed about right now, So I says,
- 1:31:53Speaker 1: just let the auction go right along, and don't worry nobody.
- 1:31:56Speaker 1: Don't have to pay for the things they buy till
- 1:31:58Speaker 1: a whole day after the offer on accounts of the
- 1:32:01Speaker 1: short notice. And they ain't goin out of this till
- 1:32:04Speaker 1: they get that money. And the way we fixed it,
- 1:32:07Speaker 1: the sale ain't goin to count and they ain't goin
- 1:32:10Speaker 1: to get no money. It's just like the way it
- 1:32:12Speaker 1: was with the niggers. And warn't no sale, and the
- 1:32:15Speaker 1: niggers will be back before long. Why they can't collect
- 1:32:19Speaker 1: the money for the niggers yet they're in the worst
- 1:32:22Speaker 1: kind of a fix, Miss mary Well, She says, I'll
- 1:32:27Speaker 1: run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start straight
- 1:32:29Speaker 1: for mister Lothrop's deed. That ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane,
- 1:32:35Speaker 1: I says, by no manner of means go before breakfast.
- 1:32:40Speaker 1: Why what did you reckon? I wanted you to go
- 1:32:43Speaker 1: it off for miss Mary? Well, I never thought an
- 1:32:48Speaker 1: come to think. I don't know what was it? Why?
- 1:32:52Speaker 1: It's because you ain't one of these leather faced people.
- 1:32:55Speaker 1: I don't want no better book than what your face is.
- 1:32:58Speaker 1: A body can sit down and read it off like
- 1:33:00Speaker 1: coarse print. Do you reckon? You can go an face
- 1:33:03Speaker 1: your uncles when they come to kiss you good mornin an.
- 1:33:05Speaker 1: Never there there don't. Yes, I'll go before breakfast. I'll
- 1:33:10Speaker 1: be glad to an leave my sisters with them. Yes,
- 1:33:15Speaker 1: never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet,
- 1:33:17Speaker 1: awhile they might suspicion something. If all you was to go,
- 1:33:22Speaker 1: I don't want you to see them, nor your sisters,
- 1:33:25Speaker 1: nor nobody in this town. If a neighbor was to
- 1:33:28Speaker 1: ask how was your uncle this mornin', your face will
- 1:33:30Speaker 1: tell somethin. No, you go right along, miss Mary Jane. An,
- 1:33:34Speaker 1: I'll fix it with all of them. I'll tell miss Susan,
- 1:33:37Speaker 1: to give your love to your uncles and say you've
- 1:33:39Speaker 1: went away for a few hours to get a little
- 1:33:42Speaker 1: rest and change, or to see a friend, and you'll
- 1:33:45Speaker 1: be back tonight or early in the Mornin' gone to
- 1:33:48Speaker 1: see a friend is all right, but I won't have
- 1:33:51Speaker 1: my love given to them. Well then it shan't be.
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: It was well enough to tell her, so, no harm
- 1:33:59Speaker 1: an't It was only a little thing to do and
- 1:34:01Speaker 1: no trouble. And it's the little things that smooths people's
- 1:34:05Speaker 1: roads most down here below. It would make Mary Jane
- 1:34:09Speaker 1: comfortable and it wouldn't cost nothin. Then I says, there's
- 1:34:13Speaker 1: one more thing, that bag of money. Well they've got that,
- 1:34:19Speaker 1: and it makes me feel pretty silly to think how
- 1:34:21Speaker 1: they got it. No, you're out there. They hain't got it.
- 1:34:26Speaker 1: Why who's got it? I wish I know it, but
- 1:34:30Speaker 1: I don't. I had it because I stole it from them,
- 1:34:33Speaker 1: and I stole it to give to you, and I
- 1:34:35Speaker 1: know where I hit it, but I'm afraid it ain't
- 1:34:38Speaker 1: there no more. I'm awful sorry, miss Mary Jane. I'm
- 1:34:42Speaker 1: just as sorry as I can be. But I done
- 1:34:44Speaker 1: the best I could. I did honest, I come nigh
- 1:34:48Speaker 1: getting caught, and I had to shove it into the
- 1:34:50Speaker 1: first place I come to a run an. It warn't
- 1:34:53Speaker 1: a good place. Oh, stop blaming yourself. It's too bad
- 1:34:57Speaker 1: to do it, and I won't allow it. You couldn't
- 1:35:00Speaker 1: help it if it wasn't your fault. Where did you
- 1:35:02Speaker 1: hide it? I didn't want to set her to thinkin
- 1:35:06Speaker 1: about her troubles again, and I couldn't seem to get
- 1:35:09Speaker 1: my mouth to tell her what would make her see
- 1:35:11Speaker 1: that corpse layin' in the coffin with that bag of
- 1:35:14Speaker 1: money on his stomach. So for a minute I didn't
- 1:35:18Speaker 1: say nothin. Then I says, I'd rather not tell you
- 1:35:22Speaker 1: where I put it, miss Mary Jane, if you don't
- 1:35:25Speaker 1: mind letting me off, But I'll write it for you
- 1:35:28Speaker 1: on a piece of paper and you can read it
- 1:35:30Speaker 1: along the road to mister Lothrop's if you want to
- 1:35:33Speaker 1: do you reckon? That'll do? Oh? Yes, so I wrote,
- 1:35:39Speaker 1: I put it in the coffin. I was in there
- 1:35:41Speaker 1: when you was cryin there away in the night. I
- 1:35:45Speaker 1: was behind the door, and I was mighty sorry for you,
- 1:35:48Speaker 1: Miss Mary Jane. It made my eyes water a little
- 1:35:52Speaker 1: ter remember her crying there all by herself in the night.
- 1:35:55Speaker 1: An them devils layin there right under her own roof,
- 1:35:59Speaker 1: shamin her and ribbin' her. And when I folded it
- 1:36:02Speaker 1: up and give it to her, I see the water
- 1:36:04Speaker 1: coming to her eyes too. And she shook me by
- 1:36:07Speaker 1: the hand hard and says, good bye. I'm going to
- 1:36:11Speaker 1: do everything just as you've told me. And if I
- 1:36:14Speaker 1: don't ever see you again, I shan't ever forget you.
- 1:36:17Speaker 1: And I'll think of you a many and a many
- 1:36:19Speaker 1: a time, and I'll pray for you too. And she
- 1:36:23Speaker 1: was gone pray for me, I reckoned. If she knowed me,
- 1:36:28Speaker 1: she'd take a job that was more near her size.
- 1:36:31Speaker 1: I bet she'd done it just the same. She was
- 1:36:34Speaker 1: just that kind. She had the grit to pray for
- 1:36:37Speaker 1: Judas if she took the notion, there warn't no back
- 1:36:40Speaker 1: down to her. I judge, you may say what you
- 1:36:43Speaker 1: want too, But in my opinion, she had more sand
- 1:36:47Speaker 1: in her than any girl I ever see. In my opinion,
- 1:36:50Speaker 1: she was just full of sand. And sounds like flattery,
- 1:36:53Speaker 1: but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to
- 1:36:56Speaker 1: beauty an goodness too, she lays over them all. I
- 1:37:02Speaker 1: ain't ever seen her since that time that I see
- 1:37:04Speaker 1: her go out of that door. No, I hain't ever
- 1:37:07Speaker 1: seen her since, But I reckon, I've thought of her
- 1:37:10Speaker 1: a many and a many a million times, and of
- 1:37:13Speaker 1: her saying she would pray for me. And if ever
- 1:37:16Speaker 1: i'd a thought it would do any good for me
- 1:37:18Speaker 1: to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't have done it,
- 1:37:21Speaker 1: or bust well, Mary Jane, she lit out the back way,
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: I reckon, because nobody see her go. When I struck
- 1:37:29Speaker 1: Susan in the hairlip, I says, what's the name of
- 1:37:32Speaker 1: them people over on the other side of the river
- 1:37:34Speaker 1: that ye all goes to sea? Sometimes? They says, there's several,
- 1:37:39Speaker 1: but the Proctor's mainly that's the name, I says, I
- 1:37:44Speaker 1: most forgot it. Well, miss Mary Jane. She told me
- 1:37:47Speaker 1: to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry.
- 1:37:50Speaker 1: One of them's sick, which one I don't know. Least
- 1:37:55Speaker 1: two ways I kinder forget, but I think it's six alive.
- 1:37:59Speaker 1: I hope it ain't Hannah. I'm sorry to say it,
- 1:38:03Speaker 1: I says, but Hannah's the very one, My goodness, An,
- 1:38:08Speaker 1: she's so well. Only last week as she took bad.
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: It ain't no name for it. They set up with
- 1:38:16Speaker 1: her all night, Miss Mary Jane said, an, they don't
- 1:38:18Speaker 1: think she'll last many hours. Only think of that, now,
- 1:38:24Speaker 1: what's the matter with her? I couldn't think of anything
- 1:38:27Speaker 1: reasonable right off that way, So I says, mumps, mumps,
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: shirt granny. They don't set up with people that's got
- 1:38:35Speaker 1: the mumps. They don't, don't they. You better bet they
- 1:38:39Speaker 1: do with these mumps. These mumps is different. It's a
- 1:38:43Speaker 1: new kind. Miss Mary Jane said. How's it a new kind?
- 1:38:48Speaker 1: Because it's mixed up with other things? What other things? Well,
- 1:38:53Speaker 1: measles and whooping cough and air simplest and consumption and
- 1:38:58Speaker 1: y'aller genders and brain fever and I don't know what
- 1:39:00Speaker 1: all my land. And they call it the mumps, that's
- 1:39:05Speaker 1: what Miss Mary Jane said. Well, what in the nation
- 1:39:09Speaker 1: do they call it the mumps for? Why? Because it
- 1:39:13Speaker 1: is the mumps, that's what it starts with. Well, there
- 1:39:17Speaker 1: ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: toe and take poison and fall down the well and
- 1:39:22Speaker 1: break his neck and bust his brains out, and somebody
- 1:39:25Speaker 1: come along and asks what killed him? And some numps
- 1:39:27Speaker 1: skull up and say why he stumped his toe? Will
- 1:39:31Speaker 1: there be any sense in that? No? And there ain't
- 1:39:34Speaker 1: no sense in this another? Is it catchin? Is it catchin'?
- 1:39:40Speaker 1: Why how you talk? Is a harow kitchen in the dark.
- 1:39:45Speaker 1: If you don't hitch onto one tooth, you're bound to
- 1:39:47Speaker 1: one another, ain't you? And you can't get away with
- 1:39:50Speaker 1: that tooth without fetching the whole harrow along, can you? Well?
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: These kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow,
- 1:39:56Speaker 1: as you may say, And it ain't no slouch of
- 1:39:59Speaker 1: a harow another you come to get it hitched on? Good? Well,
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: it's awful, I think, said the hair lip. I'll go
- 1:40:08Speaker 1: to Uncle Harvey aunt. Oh, yes, I says I would.
- 1:40:13Speaker 1: Of course I would. I wouldn't lose no time. Well,
- 1:40:17Speaker 1: why wouldn't you jest? Look at him minute? Maybe you
- 1:40:21Speaker 1: can see, ain't yer Uncle's obleached to get along home
- 1:40:25Speaker 1: to England as fast as they can? An? Do you reckon?
- 1:40:28Speaker 1: They be mean enough to go off an leave you
- 1:40:29Speaker 1: to go all that journey by yourselves. You know they'll
- 1:40:33Speaker 1: wait for you so first, So good yer, uncle Harvey's preacher,
- 1:40:37Speaker 1: ain't he very well? Then, is a preacher goin to
- 1:40:41Speaker 1: deceive it steamboat clerk? Is he goin to deceive its
- 1:40:44Speaker 1: ship clerk, so as to git them to let miss
- 1:40:47Speaker 1: Mary Jane go aboard? Now you know he ain't. What
- 1:40:51Speaker 1: will he do then? Why he'll say it's a great pity.
- 1:40:55Speaker 1: But my church matters has got to git along the
- 1:40:57Speaker 1: best they can, for my niece has been exposed to
- 1:41:00Speaker 1: the dreadful pluribus unu munths, and so it's my bounding
- 1:41:05Speaker 1: duty to sit down here and wait the three months
- 1:41:08Speaker 1: it takes to show on her if she's got it.
- 1:41:11Speaker 1: But never mind if you think it's best to tell
- 1:41:13Speaker 1: your uncle Harvey shucks and stay fooling around here when
- 1:41:16Speaker 1: we could all be having a good time into England
- 1:41:19Speaker 1: whilst we was waitin to find out whether Mary Jane's
- 1:41:21Speaker 1: guided or not? Why you talk like a muggin's Well, anyway,
- 1:41:26Speaker 1: maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors. Listen at that,
- 1:41:30Speaker 1: Now you do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't you
- 1:41:34Speaker 1: see that they ain't go and tell there ain't no way,
- 1:41:37Speaker 1: but jest not to tell anybody at all. Well, maybe
- 1:41:42Speaker 1: you're right, Yes, I judge you are right, But I reckon,
- 1:41:46Speaker 1: we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out for
- 1:41:48Speaker 1: a while anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her. Yes,
- 1:41:53Speaker 1: miss Mary Jane, she wants you to do that, she says,
- 1:41:56Speaker 1: Tell them to give Uncle Harvey an will you my
- 1:41:59Speaker 1: love an a kiss? An say, I've run over the
- 1:42:01Speaker 1: river to see mister mister, what is the name of
- 1:42:05Speaker 1: that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so
- 1:42:08Speaker 1: much of? I mean the one that why, you must
- 1:42:12Speaker 1: mean the Apthorp's, ain't it? Of course? Bother them kind
- 1:42:15Speaker 1: o names a bidy can't ever seem to remember them
- 1:42:18Speaker 1: half the time. Somehow, Yes, she said, say she is
- 1:42:23Speaker 1: run over to ask the Apthorpes to be sure an
- 1:42:25Speaker 1: come to the auction an buy this house, because she
- 1:42:28Speaker 1: allied her uncle Peter would rather they had it than
- 1:42:30Speaker 1: anybody else. An, She's goin to stick to them till
- 1:42:33Speaker 1: they say they'll come. An then if she ain't too tired,
- 1:42:36Speaker 1: she's comin home. An if she is, she'll be home
- 1:42:39Speaker 1: in the mornin'. Anyway, she said, don't say nothin about
- 1:42:43Speaker 1: the Proctors, but only by the Apthorps, which will be
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about
- 1:42:48Speaker 1: there buyin the house. I know it because she told
- 1:42:51Speaker 1: me so herself. All right, they said, and cleared out
- 1:42:57Speaker 1: to lay for their uncles and give them the love
- 1:42:59Speaker 1: an the kisses, and tell them the message. Everything was
- 1:43:02Speaker 1: all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothin' because they
- 1:43:06Speaker 1: wanted to go to England. An the King and the
- 1:43:08Speaker 1: Duke would rather marry. Jane was off working for the
- 1:43:10Speaker 1: auction than around and reach a doctor Robinson. I felt
- 1:43:15Speaker 1: very good. I judged I had done it pretty neat.
- 1:43:18Speaker 1: I reckon Tom Sawyer couldn't have done it no needer himself.
- 1:43:21Speaker 1: O course he would have thrown more style into it.
- 1:43:24Speaker 1: But I can't do that, very handy, not beIN brung
- 1:43:27Speaker 1: up to it well. They held the auction in the
- 1:43:31Speaker 1: public square along towards the end of the afternoon, and
- 1:43:35Speaker 1: had strung along an strung along an the old man.
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: He was on hand and looking his level of poisonous
- 1:43:42Speaker 1: up there alongside of the auctioneer, an chippin in a
- 1:43:45Speaker 1: little scripture now and then, or a little goody goody
- 1:43:48Speaker 1: saying of some kind. An the Duke he was a
- 1:43:51Speaker 1: round goo goin for sympathy. All he knowed how and
- 1:43:55Speaker 1: just spreadin himself generally. But by and by the thing
- 1:44:00Speaker 1: dragged through and everything was sold, everything but a little
- 1:44:03Speaker 1: old trifling lot in the graveyard. So they've got to
- 1:44:07Speaker 1: work that off. I never see such a graft as
- 1:44:11Speaker 1: the King was for wanting to swallow everything. Well. Whilst
- 1:44:15Speaker 1: they was added, a steamboat landed and in about two
- 1:44:19Speaker 1: minutes up comes a crowd of whooping and yelling and
- 1:44:22Speaker 1: laughing and carrying on and singing out, here's your opposition line,
- 1:44:27Speaker 1: here's your two sets of airs to old Peter Wilkes,
- 1:44:31Speaker 1: and you pays your money, and you takes your choice.
- 1:44:35Speaker 1: End of chapter twenty eight. Chapter twenty nine. They was
- 1:44:43Speaker 1: fetching a very nice looking old gentleman along and a
- 1:44:46Speaker 1: nice looking younger one with his right arm in the sling.
- 1:44:50Speaker 1: And my soul's how the people yelled and laughed and
- 1:44:55Speaker 1: kept it up. But I didn't see no joke about it,
- 1:44:58Speaker 1: and I judged it with drained the Duke and the
- 1:45:01Speaker 1: King some to see any I reckon they'd turn pale,
- 1:45:05Speaker 1: But no nary a pal did they turn. The Duke
- 1:45:09Speaker 1: he never let on. He's suspicioned what was up. But
- 1:45:12Speaker 1: jest went to googlin' around, happy and satisfied, like a
- 1:45:16Speaker 1: jug that's googlin' out buttermilk. And as for the King,
- 1:45:21Speaker 1: he just gazed an gazed down, sorrowful on them newcomers.
- 1:45:25Speaker 1: I could give him the stomach ache in his very
- 1:45:28Speaker 1: heart to think there could be such frauds an rascals
- 1:45:31Speaker 1: in the world. Oh, he done it, admirable. Lots of
- 1:45:36Speaker 1: the principal people gathered round the king to let him
- 1:45:39Speaker 1: see they was on his side. That old gentleman that
- 1:45:42Speaker 1: had just come looked all puzzled to death. Pretty soon
- 1:45:46Speaker 1: he begun to speak an I see straight off, he
- 1:45:50Speaker 1: pronounced like an Englishman, not the King's way, though the
- 1:45:54Speaker 1: King's was pretty good foreign imitation. I can't give the
- 1:45:58Speaker 1: old jent's words, nor I can't imitate him. But he
- 1:46:02Speaker 1: turned round to the crowd and says about like this.
- 1:46:07Speaker 1: This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for.
- 1:46:10Speaker 1: And I'll acknowledge candid and Frank, I ain't very well
- 1:46:13Speaker 1: fixed to meet it and answer it. For my brother
- 1:46:16Speaker 1: and me has had misfortunes. He's broke his arm, and
- 1:46:20Speaker 1: our baggage got put off at a town above here
- 1:46:22Speaker 1: last night in the night by a mistake. I am
- 1:46:26Speaker 1: Peter Wilkes's brother Harvey, and this is his brother William,
- 1:46:29Speaker 1: which can't here nor speak, and can't even make signs
- 1:46:32Speaker 1: to amount to much. Now t's only got one hand
- 1:46:35Speaker 1: to work them with. We are who we say we are,
- 1:46:38Speaker 1: and in a day or two, when I get the baggage,
- 1:46:40Speaker 1: I can prove it. But up till then, I won't
- 1:46:43Speaker 1: say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait.
- 1:46:47Speaker 1: So him and the new dummy started off, and the King,
- 1:46:51Speaker 1: he laughs and blothers out, broke his arm. Very likely,
- 1:46:56Speaker 1: ain't it? And very convenient too for a fraud that's
- 1:46:59Speaker 1: got to make sense fines and ain't learnt how lost
- 1:47:02Speaker 1: their baggage. That's mighty good and mighty and genius under
- 1:47:07Speaker 1: the circumstances. So he laughed again, and so did everybody
- 1:47:12Speaker 1: else except three or four or maybe half a dozen.
- 1:47:16Speaker 1: One of these was that doctor. Another one was a
- 1:47:19Speaker 1: sharp looking gentleman with a carpet bag of the old
- 1:47:22Speaker 1: fashioned kind made out of carpet stuff that had just
- 1:47:25Speaker 1: come off of the steamboat, and was talking to him
- 1:47:27Speaker 1: in a low voice and glancing towards the king now
- 1:47:31Speaker 1: and then and noding their heads. It was Levi Bell,
- 1:47:35Speaker 1: the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville. And another
- 1:47:39Speaker 1: one was a big rough husky that come along and
- 1:47:42Speaker 1: listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening
- 1:47:45Speaker 1: to the king now. And when the king got done,
- 1:47:49Speaker 1: this husky up and says, say, look here, if you
- 1:47:53Speaker 1: are Harvey Wilkes, whence you come to this town the
- 1:47:57Speaker 1: day before the funeral? Friend says king, But what time
- 1:48:02Speaker 1: of day? In the evening, about an hour or two
- 1:48:05Speaker 1: before sundown? How'd you come? I come down on the
- 1:48:10Speaker 1: Susan Powell from Cincinnati. Well, then, how'd you come to
- 1:48:15Speaker 1: be up at the point in the mornin in a canoe?
- 1:48:19Speaker 1: I warn't up at the point in the mornin'. It's
- 1:48:22Speaker 1: a lie. Several of them jumped for him and begged
- 1:48:26Speaker 1: him not to talk that way to an old man,
- 1:48:29Speaker 1: and a preacher. Preacher be hanged. He's a fraud and
- 1:48:33Speaker 1: a liar. He was up at the point that mornin'.
- 1:48:36Speaker 1: I live up there, don't I? Well? I was up there,
- 1:48:40Speaker 1: an he was up there. I see him there. He
- 1:48:43Speaker 1: come in a canoe along with Tim Collins and a
- 1:48:46Speaker 1: boy the doctor. He up and says would you know
- 1:48:50Speaker 1: the boy again if you was to see him, Hines,
- 1:48:53Speaker 1: I reckon, I would, but I don't know why yonder
- 1:48:57Speaker 1: he is now. I know him perfectly easy. It was me,
- 1:49:02Speaker 1: He pointed at the doctor, says, neighbors, I don't know
- 1:49:08Speaker 1: whether the new couple is frauds or not, but if
- 1:49:10Speaker 1: these two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all.
- 1:49:15Speaker 1: I think it's our duty to see that they don't
- 1:49:17Speaker 1: get away from here till we've looked into this thing.
- 1:49:20Speaker 1: Come along, Hines, Come along the rest of you. We'll
- 1:49:23Speaker 1: take these fellows to the tavern and to front them
- 1:49:26Speaker 1: with the other couple, and I reckon we'll find out
- 1:49:29Speaker 1: something before we get through. It was nuts for the crowd,
- 1:49:33Speaker 1: though maybe not for the King's friends. So we all started.
- 1:49:38Speaker 1: He was about sundown. The doctor. He led me along
- 1:49:42Speaker 1: by the hand and was plenty kind enough, but he
- 1:49:45Speaker 1: never let go my hand. We all got in a
- 1:49:49Speaker 1: big room in the hotel and lit up some candles
- 1:49:52Speaker 1: and fetched in the new couple first. The doctor says,
- 1:49:57Speaker 1: I don't wish to be hard on these two men,
- 1:50:00Speaker 1: but I think they're frauds. An they may have complices
- 1:50:03Speaker 1: that we don't know nothin bout. If they have, won't
- 1:50:07Speaker 1: the complices get away with that bag of gold Peter
- 1:50:10Speaker 1: Wilkes left. It ain't unlikely if these men ain't frauds,
- 1:50:15Speaker 1: they won't object to sendin for that money, an lettin
- 1:50:18Speaker 1: us keep it till they prove they're all right? Ain't
- 1:50:21Speaker 1: that so everybody agreed to that? So I judge they
- 1:50:27Speaker 1: had our gang in a pretty tight place right at
- 1:50:29Speaker 1: the outstart. But the king, he only looked sorrowful and says, gentlemen,
- 1:50:36Speaker 1: I wish the money was there, for I ain't got
- 1:50:38Speaker 1: no disposition to throw anything in the way of a fair, open,
- 1:50:43Speaker 1: out an out investigation of this miserable business. But alas
- 1:50:48Speaker 1: the money ain't there, you can send an see if
- 1:50:52Speaker 1: you want to where is it? Then? Well, when my
- 1:50:57Speaker 1: niece give it to me to keep fer her, I
- 1:50:59Speaker 1: took a hit it inside the straw tick o my bed,
- 1:51:02Speaker 1: not wishing to bank it for the few days we'd
- 1:51:04Speaker 1: be here, an considering the bed a safe place, we
- 1:51:08Speaker 1: not bein' used to niggers and supposin', I'm honest, like
- 1:51:11Speaker 1: servants in England. The niggers stole the very next mornin'
- 1:51:15Speaker 1: after I had went downstairs, and when I sold em,
- 1:51:18Speaker 1: I hadn't missed the money yet, so they got cleaned
- 1:51:20Speaker 1: away with it. My servant here can tell you about it. Gentlemen,
- 1:51:25Speaker 1: the doctor and several said shucks, an, I see. Nobody
- 1:51:30Speaker 1: didn't altogether believe him. One man asked me, if I
- 1:51:34Speaker 1: see the nigger steal it? I said no, but I
- 1:51:37Speaker 1: see them sneakin out of the room and hustlin away. An,
- 1:51:40Speaker 1: I never thought nothin', only I reckon they was afraid
- 1:51:43Speaker 1: they had waked up my master and was trying to
- 1:51:45Speaker 1: get away before he made trouble with them. That was
- 1:51:49Speaker 1: all they asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me
- 1:51:52Speaker 1: and says, are you English too? I says yes, an
- 1:51:57Speaker 1: him and some others laughed and said well. Then they
- 1:52:02Speaker 1: sailed in on the general investigation. And there we had
- 1:52:06Speaker 1: it up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody
- 1:52:10Speaker 1: never said a word about supper, nor ever seemed to
- 1:52:13Speaker 1: think about it. And so they kept it up and
- 1:52:16Speaker 1: kept it up, and it was the worst mixed up
- 1:52:20Speaker 1: thing you ever see. They made the king tell his yarn,
- 1:52:24Speaker 1: and they made the old gentleman tell his'n an. Anybody
- 1:52:27Speaker 1: but a lot of prejudiced truckleheads would a scene that
- 1:52:30Speaker 1: the old gentleman was spending truth and the other one lies.
- 1:52:35Speaker 1: And by and by they had me up to tell
- 1:52:37Speaker 1: what I knowed the King. He gave me a left
- 1:52:40Speaker 1: handed look out of the corner of his eye, and
- 1:52:43Speaker 1: so I knowed enough to talk on the right side.
- 1:52:46Speaker 1: I begun to tell about Sheffield and how we lived there,
- 1:52:50Speaker 1: and all about the English Wilkeses and so on. But
- 1:52:53Speaker 1: I didn't get pretty fur till the doctor begun to
- 1:52:56Speaker 1: laugh and leave. I bell. The lawyer says, set down,
- 1:53:00Speaker 1: my boy, I wouldn't strain myself if I was you.
- 1:53:04Speaker 1: I reckon, you ain't used to lyin it. Don't seem
- 1:53:07Speaker 1: to come handy. What you want is practice. You do
- 1:53:11Speaker 1: it pretty awkward. I didn't care nothin for the compliment,
- 1:53:15Speaker 1: but I was glad to be let off anyway. The
- 1:53:19Speaker 1: doctor he started to say something, and turns and says,
- 1:53:23Speaker 1: if you'd been in town at first, LEVI bell. The
- 1:53:27Speaker 1: King broke in and reached out his hand and says,
- 1:53:30Speaker 1: why is this my poor dead brother's old friend that
- 1:53:33Speaker 1: he's wrote so often about the lawyer and him shook hands,
- 1:53:38Speaker 1: and the lawyer smiled and looked pleased, and they talked
- 1:53:42Speaker 1: right along awhile, and then got to one side and
- 1:53:45Speaker 1: talked low, and at last the lawyer speaks up and says,
- 1:53:50Speaker 1: that'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it
- 1:53:53Speaker 1: along with your brothers, and then they'll know it's all right.
- 1:53:58Speaker 1: So they got some paper and a pa an the king.
- 1:54:01Speaker 1: He sat down, an twisted his head to one side,
- 1:54:04Speaker 1: an chawed his tongue and scrawled off somethin' And then
- 1:54:08Speaker 1: they give the pen to the Duke. And then for
- 1:54:10Speaker 1: the first time, the Duke looked sick, but he took
- 1:54:14Speaker 1: the pen and wrote. So then the lawyers turns to
- 1:54:17Speaker 1: the new old gentleman and says, you an your brother,
- 1:54:22Speaker 1: please write a line or two an sign your names.
- 1:54:26Speaker 1: The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it. The
- 1:54:30Speaker 1: lawyer looked powerful, astonished and says, well, it beats me,
- 1:54:36Speaker 1: and snaked a light of old letters out of his
- 1:54:38Speaker 1: pocket an examined them, an then examine the old man's writin',
- 1:54:43Speaker 1: an then them again, and then says, these old letters
- 1:54:48Speaker 1: is from Harvey Wilkes an these two handwritin's an anybody
- 1:54:52Speaker 1: can see they didn't write them. The King and the
- 1:54:55Speaker 1: Duke looked sold and foolish. I tell you to see
- 1:54:57Speaker 1: how the lawyer had took them in. And here's this
- 1:55:01Speaker 1: old gentleman's handwritin' an anybody can tell easy enough he
- 1:55:05Speaker 1: didn't write them. Fact is a scratch as he makes,
- 1:55:08Speaker 1: ain't properly writin at all. Now here's some letters from
- 1:55:13Speaker 1: the new old gentleman says, if you please let me explain.
- 1:55:18Speaker 1: Nobody can read my hand but my brother there, so
- 1:55:21Speaker 1: he copies for me. It's his hand you've got there,
- 1:55:24Speaker 1: not mine. Well, says the lawyer. This is a state
- 1:55:29Speaker 1: of things. I've got some of William's letters too, So
- 1:55:33Speaker 1: if you'll get him to write a line or so,
- 1:55:35Speaker 1: we can come. He can't write with his left hand,
- 1:55:39Speaker 1: says the old gentleman. If he could use his right hand,
- 1:55:42Speaker 1: you would see that he wrote his own letters and
- 1:55:44Speaker 1: mine too. Look at both, please, they're by the same hand.
- 1:55:49Speaker 1: The lawyer done it, and says, I believe it's so.
- 1:55:54Speaker 1: And if it ain't so, there's a heap's stronger resemblance
- 1:55:57Speaker 1: than i'd noticed before. Anyway. Well, well, well, I thought
- 1:56:02Speaker 1: we was right on the track of a solution. And
- 1:56:04Speaker 1: it's gone to grass partly. But anyway, one thing is proved.
- 1:56:10Speaker 1: These two ain't either of them Wilkes's. And he wagged
- 1:56:14Speaker 1: his head towards the King and the Duke. Well, what
- 1:56:18Speaker 1: do you think that mule headed old fool when't given
- 1:56:21Speaker 1: then indeed he wouldn't said it warn't no fair test,
- 1:56:26Speaker 1: said his brother William was the cussedest joker in the world,
- 1:56:30Speaker 1: and hadn't tried to write. He see, William was going
- 1:56:34Speaker 1: to play one of his jokes the minute he put
- 1:56:36Speaker 1: the pen to paper, And so he warmed up and
- 1:56:38Speaker 1: went marblin right along till he was actually beginnin to
- 1:56:42Speaker 1: believe what he was saying himself. But pretty soon the
- 1:56:45Speaker 1: new gentleman broke in and says, I've thought of something.
- 1:56:49Speaker 1: Is there anybody here that helps to lay out my
- 1:56:52Speaker 1: bru helped to lay out the late Peter Wilkes for burying? Yes,
- 1:56:58Speaker 1: says somebody me an ab turn underdone it. We're both here.
- 1:57:03Speaker 1: Then the old man turns toward the King and says,
- 1:57:07Speaker 1: perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on
- 1:57:10Speaker 1: his breast blamed if the King didn't have to brace
- 1:57:14Speaker 1: up mighty quick or he'd a swished down like a
- 1:57:17Speaker 1: bluff bank that the river has cut under. It took
- 1:57:21Speaker 1: him so sudden, and mind you, it was a thing
- 1:57:24Speaker 1: that was calculated to make most anybody squish, to get
- 1:57:27Speaker 1: fetched such a solid one as that without any notice.
- 1:57:31Speaker 1: Because how was he goin to know what was tattooed
- 1:57:33Speaker 1: on the man? He whitened a little, He couldn't help it.
- 1:57:38Speaker 1: An it was mighty still in there, and everybody bendin
- 1:57:41Speaker 1: a little forwards, an gazin at him, says, I to myself,
- 1:57:46Speaker 1: now he'll throw up the sponge. There ain't no more use.
- 1:57:50Speaker 1: Well did he a bite? Can't hardly believe it, But
- 1:57:54Speaker 1: he didn't. I reckon. He thought he'd keep the thing
- 1:57:57Speaker 1: till he tired them people out, so thin out an
- 1:58:01Speaker 1: him and the Duke would break loose and get away. Anyway,
- 1:58:05Speaker 1: He sat there, and pretty soon he began to smile
- 1:58:07Speaker 1: and says, humph, it's a very tough question, ain't it. Yes, sir,
- 1:58:13Speaker 1: I can tell you what's tattooed on his breast. It's
- 1:58:16Speaker 1: just a small, thin blue arrow, that's what it is.
- 1:58:19Speaker 1: And if you don't look close, you can't see it. Now,
- 1:58:23Speaker 1: what do you say, hey, well, I never see anything
- 1:58:27Speaker 1: like that, old blister for clean out an out cheek.
- 1:58:31Speaker 1: The new gentleman turns brisk towards ab Turner and his part,
- 1:58:35Speaker 1: and his eyes lights up like he judge she'd got
- 1:58:38Speaker 1: the king this time, and says, there you've heard what
- 1:58:42Speaker 1: he said. Was there any such mark on Peter Wilkes's breast?
- 1:58:46Speaker 1: Both of them spoke up and says, we didn't see
- 1:58:49Speaker 1: no such mark. Good, says the old gentleman. Now what
- 1:58:54Speaker 1: you did see on his breast was a small dim
- 1:58:58Speaker 1: pea and a bee, which is an initial he dropped
- 1:59:02Speaker 1: when he was young, and a W with dashes between them.
- 1:59:06Speaker 1: So p dash b dash w An you mark them
- 1:59:13Speaker 1: that way on a piece of paper. Come, ain't that
- 1:59:16Speaker 1: what you saw? Both of them spoke up again and says, no,
- 1:59:21Speaker 1: we didn't, We never seen any marks at all. Well,
- 1:59:26Speaker 1: everybody was in a state of mind now, an they
- 1:59:29Speaker 1: sings that the whole bolin of 'em's frauds. Let's stuck em,
- 1:59:34Speaker 1: let's drown him, let's ride him on a rail, And
- 1:59:37Speaker 1: everybody was whoopin at once. An there was a rattlin'
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: pie wow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table
- 1:59:44Speaker 1: and yells and says, gentlemen, gentlemen, hear me, just a word,
- 1:59:50Speaker 1: just a single word, if you please. There's one way yet,
- 1:59:55Speaker 1: Let's go and dig up the corpse. An look that
- 1:59:59Speaker 1: took the hooray. They all shouted, and was startin right off.
- 2:00:05Speaker 1: But the lawyer and the doctor sung out, hold on,
- 2:00:08Speaker 1: hold on collar all these four men, an the boy an,
- 2:00:13Speaker 1: fetch them along too, we'll do it, they all shouted.
- 2:00:18Speaker 1: An if we don't find them marks, we'll lynch the
- 2:00:20Speaker 1: whole gang. I was scared, now, I tell you, but
- 2:00:25Speaker 1: there warn't no gettin away, you know. They gripped us
- 2:00:28Speaker 1: all an marched us right along, straight for the graveyard,
- 2:00:32Speaker 1: which was a mile and a half down the river.
- 2:00:35Speaker 1: An the whole town at our heels. For we made
- 2:00:37Speaker 1: noise enough, An it was only nine in the evenin
- 2:00:41Speaker 1: As we went by our house, I wished to hand
- 2:00:43Speaker 1: sent Mary Jane out of town, because now if I
- 2:00:46Speaker 1: could tip her the wink, she'd lie out an save
- 2:00:49Speaker 1: me a blow on our dead beats. Well, we swarmed
- 2:00:53Speaker 1: along down the river roades, carryin on like wildcats. An
- 2:00:58Speaker 1: to make it more scary, the sky was darkened up
- 2:01:02Speaker 1: and the lightnin beginnin to wink an flitter, an the
- 2:01:05Speaker 1: wind to shiver amongst the leaves. This was the most
- 2:01:08Speaker 1: awful trouble, an most dangersome I ever was in An
- 2:01:13Speaker 1: I was kinder stunned. Everything was going so different from
- 2:01:17Speaker 1: what I had allowed forstead of beIN fixed so I
- 2:01:20Speaker 1: could take my own time if I wanted to an
- 2:01:23Speaker 1: see all the fun and have Mary Jane at my
- 2:01:25Speaker 1: back to save me, an set me free. When the
- 2:01:28Speaker 1: clothes fit come here was nothing in the world betwixt
- 2:01:32Speaker 1: me an sudden death, but just them tattoo marks. If
- 2:01:36Speaker 1: they didn't find them, I couldn't bear to think about it.
- 2:01:40Speaker 1: An Yet, somehow I couldn't think about nothin else it
- 2:01:45Speaker 1: got darker and darker. An it was a beautiful time
- 2:01:48Speaker 1: to give the crowd the slip, but that big husky
- 2:01:52Speaker 1: had me by the wrist. Hines an a body might
- 2:01:55Speaker 1: as well try to give Gollier the slip. He dragged
- 2:01:59Speaker 1: me along. He was so excited, and I had to
- 2:02:03Speaker 1: run to keep up. When they got there, they swarmed
- 2:02:07Speaker 1: into the graveyard and washed over it like an overflow.
- 2:02:11Speaker 1: And when they got to the grave they found they
- 2:02:13Speaker 1: had about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted,
- 2:02:16Speaker 1: but nobody hadn't thought to fetch a lantern. But they
- 2:02:20Speaker 1: sailed into diggin' anyway by the flicker of the lightning,
- 2:02:24Speaker 1: and sent a man to the nearest house a half
- 2:02:26Speaker 1: mile off to borrow one. So they dug and dug
- 2:02:31Speaker 1: like everything, and it got awful dark, and the rain started,
- 2:02:36Speaker 1: and the wind swished and swished along, and the lightning
- 2:02:39Speaker 1: come brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed. But them
- 2:02:44Speaker 1: people never took no notice of it. They was so
- 2:02:47Speaker 1: full of this business. And one minute you could see
- 2:02:50Speaker 1: everything in every facin that big crowd, and the shovelfuls
- 2:02:54Speaker 1: of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the
- 2:02:56Speaker 1: next second the dark watted it all out, and you
- 2:02:59Speaker 1: couldn't see nothin at all. At last they got out
- 2:03:03Speaker 1: the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid. An then
- 2:03:07Speaker 1: such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was
- 2:03:11Speaker 1: to scrouch in and get a sight you never see.
- 2:03:15Speaker 1: And in the dark that way, it was awful. Hines,
- 2:03:19Speaker 1: he hurt my wrists, dreadful pulling and tugging, so an
- 2:03:22Speaker 1: I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world.
- 2:03:25Speaker 1: He was so excited and panting. All of a sudden,
- 2:03:29Speaker 1: the lightnin' let go a perfect sluice of white glare. An,
- 2:03:33Speaker 1: somebody sings out by the livin Jingo, here's the back
- 2:03:37Speaker 1: of gold on his breast. Hines let out a whoop
- 2:03:42Speaker 1: like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and give a
- 2:03:45Speaker 1: big serge to bust his way in and get a look.
- 2:03:49Speaker 1: An the way I lit out, an shinned for the
- 2:03:51Speaker 1: road in the dark, there ain't nobody can tell. I
- 2:03:55Speaker 1: had the road all to myself. An I fairly flew leastways.
- 2:03:59Speaker 1: I had it all to myself except the solid dark.
- 2:04:02Speaker 1: And then now an then glares an the buzzin' of
- 2:04:04Speaker 1: the rain, an the thrashin' of the wind, an the
- 2:04:07Speaker 1: splittin' of the thunder. An, sure as you are born,
- 2:04:10Speaker 1: I did clip it along. When I struck the town,
- 2:04:14Speaker 1: I see there warn't nobody out in the storm. So
- 2:04:17Speaker 1: I never hunted for no back streets, but humped it
- 2:04:20Speaker 1: straight through the main one. An when I begun to
- 2:04:23Speaker 1: get towards our house, I aimed my eye an set
- 2:04:26Speaker 1: it no light there the house all dark, which made
- 2:04:31Speaker 1: me feel sorry and disappointed. I didn't know why. But
- 2:04:36Speaker 1: at last jest as I was sailin by flash comes
- 2:04:39Speaker 1: the light in Mary Jane's window. An My heart swelled
- 2:04:42Speaker 1: up sudden like to bust. An. The same second the
- 2:04:46Speaker 1: house was all behind me in the dark. An wasn't
- 2:04:49Speaker 1: ever goin to be before me no more in this world.
- 2:04:52Speaker 1: She was the best girl I ever see. An had
- 2:04:56Speaker 1: the most sand. The minute I was far enough above
- 2:05:00Speaker 1: the town to see I could make the towhead, I
- 2:05:03Speaker 1: begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow. An.
- 2:05:06Speaker 1: The first time the lightnin' showed me one that wasn't chained,
- 2:05:09Speaker 1: I snatched it, An shoved. It was a canoe. An
- 2:05:13Speaker 1: it warn't fastened with nothin but a rope. The towhead
- 2:05:16Speaker 1: was a rattlin big distance off away out there in
- 2:05:19Speaker 1: the middle of the river. But I didn't lose no time. An.
- 2:05:23Speaker 1: When I struck the raft at last, I was so
- 2:05:26Speaker 1: fagged I would have just laid down to blow a
- 2:05:29Speaker 1: gasp if I could afforded it, But I didn't. As
- 2:05:33Speaker 1: I sprung aboard, I sung out out with you. Jim
- 2:05:36Speaker 1: An said he loose glory be to Goodn's wort. Shut
- 2:05:39Speaker 1: of them. Jim let out An was a comin' for
- 2:05:43Speaker 1: me with both arms spread. He was so full of joy.
- 2:05:46Speaker 1: But when I glimpsed him in thy lightnin my heart
- 2:05:49Speaker 1: shut up in my mouth. An I went overboard backwards,
- 2:05:53Speaker 1: for I forgot he was old king, lear and a
- 2:05:55Speaker 1: drowned a rab all in one an. It most scared
- 2:05:59Speaker 1: the livers and lights o o me. But Jim he
- 2:06:02Speaker 1: fished me out. An was goin to hug me, an
- 2:06:04Speaker 1: bless me, and so on. He was so glad I
- 2:06:06Speaker 1: was back. An. We was shut of the king and
- 2:06:09Speaker 1: the duke. But I says, not now have it for breakfast?
- 2:06:13Speaker 1: Have it for breakfast? Cut loose, an let her slide.
- 2:06:17Speaker 1: So in two seconds away we went a slidin down
- 2:06:21Speaker 1: the river. An. It did seem so good to be
- 2:06:24Speaker 1: free again, an all by ourselves on the big river,
- 2:06:29Speaker 1: an nobody to bother us. I had to skip around
- 2:06:33Speaker 1: a bit, an jump up, an crack my heels a
- 2:06:35Speaker 1: few times. I couldn't help it. But about the third
- 2:06:39Speaker 1: crack I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well.
- 2:06:43Speaker 1: An held my breath, An listened, an waited, an sure enough,
- 2:06:48Speaker 1: when the next flash busted out over the water. Here
- 2:06:51Speaker 1: they come an jest a layin to their oars, an
- 2:06:55Speaker 1: makin their skiff. Hum. It was the King and the Duke.
- 2:07:00Speaker 1: So I wilted right down onto the planks. Then an
- 2:07:04Speaker 1: give up. It was all I could do to keep
- 2:07:07Speaker 1: from cryin' end of chapter twenty nine, Chapter thirty. When
- 2:07:18Speaker 1: they got aboard, the King went for me and shook
- 2:07:21Speaker 1: me by the collar and says, tryin to give us
- 2:07:24Speaker 1: the slip? Was ye, you pup tired of our company? Hey,
- 2:07:29Speaker 1: I says, knowing your majesty, we warn't. Please, don't your
- 2:07:33Speaker 1: majesty quick then an tell us what was your idea?
- 2:07:37Speaker 1: Or I'll shake the insides out o you honest, I'll
- 2:07:41Speaker 1: tell you everything, jest as it happened, your majesty. The
- 2:07:44Speaker 1: man that had a hole to me was very good
- 2:07:46Speaker 1: to me and kept saying he had a boy bout
- 2:07:49Speaker 1: as big as me that died last year. An he
- 2:07:52Speaker 1: was sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous fix.
- 2:07:55Speaker 1: When they was all took by surprise by finding the
- 2:07:57Speaker 1: gold and made a rush for the coffee, an he
- 2:08:01Speaker 1: let's go o me and whispers, heal it now, or
- 2:08:04Speaker 1: they'll hang Ye sure, an I lit out it didn't
- 2:08:08Speaker 1: seem no good for me to stay. I couldn't do
- 2:08:11Speaker 1: nothin an. I didn't want to be hung if I
- 2:08:13Speaker 1: could get away, so I never stopped running till I
- 2:08:17Speaker 1: found the canoe. An when I got here, I told
- 2:08:19Speaker 1: Jim to hurry or they'd catch me and hang me yet,
- 2:08:22Speaker 1: and I said, I was afeared you an the Duke
- 2:08:24Speaker 1: wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so
- 2:08:28Speaker 1: is Jim. An was awful glad when we see you comin',
- 2:08:32Speaker 1: you may ask Jim if I didn't. Jim said it
- 2:08:36Speaker 1: was so, and the King told him to shut up,
- 2:08:39Speaker 1: and said, oh yes, it's a mighty likely, and shook
- 2:08:43Speaker 1: me up again and said he reckoned, he drowned me.
- 2:08:47Speaker 1: But the Duke says, let go the boy, you old idiot.
- 2:08:51Speaker 1: Would you ha done any different? Did you inquire around
- 2:08:55Speaker 1: for him when you got loose? I don't remember it.
- 2:08:59Speaker 1: So the King went go of me and begun to
- 2:09:01Speaker 1: cuss that town and everybody in it. But the Duke says,
- 2:09:06Speaker 1: you better a blame sight, give yourself a good cussin,
- 2:09:10Speaker 1: for you're the one that's entitled to it most. You
- 2:09:13Speaker 1: hain't done a thing from the start that had any
- 2:09:16Speaker 1: sense in it except comin out so cool and cheeky
- 2:09:20Speaker 1: with that imaginary blue ara mark that was bright. It
- 2:09:25Speaker 1: was right down, bully An. It was the thing that
- 2:09:28Speaker 1: saved us. For if it hadn't been for that, they'd
- 2:09:32Speaker 1: a jailed us till them englishmen's baggage came an then
- 2:09:37Speaker 1: the penitentiary, you bet, But that trick took him to
- 2:09:41Speaker 1: the graveyard. An the gold done us a still bigger kindness,
- 2:09:47Speaker 1: For if the excited fools hadn't let go all holts
- 2:09:51Speaker 1: An made that rush to get a look, we'd a
- 2:09:54Speaker 1: slept in our cravates tonight. Cravates warned it to wear
- 2:09:58Speaker 1: too long than we didn't need him. They was still
- 2:10:03Speaker 1: a minute thinking. Then the King says, kind of absent
- 2:10:07Speaker 1: minded like humph, and we reckon the niggers stole it.
- 2:10:13Speaker 1: That made me squirm, Yes, said the Duke, kinder, slow
- 2:10:19Speaker 1: and deliberate and sarcastic. We did. After about a half
- 2:10:25Speaker 1: a minute, the King draws out leastways I did. The
- 2:10:31Speaker 1: Duke says the same way. On the contrary, I did.
- 2:10:38Speaker 1: The King kind of ruffles up and says, look at here,
- 2:10:41Speaker 1: Bill Dwater, what are you referring to The Duke says
- 2:10:46Speaker 1: pretty brisk. When it comes to that, maybe you'll let
- 2:10:50Speaker 1: me ask what was you referring to? Shucks, says the King,
- 2:10:57Speaker 1: very sarcastic. But I don't know. Maybe you was asleep
- 2:11:01Speaker 1: and didn't know what he was about. The Duke bristles
- 2:11:05Speaker 1: up now and says, oh, let up on this cussed nonsense.
- 2:11:10Speaker 1: Do you take me for a blame fool? Don't you reckon?
- 2:11:14Speaker 1: I know who hid that money in that coffin. Yes, sir,
- 2:11:18Speaker 1: I know you do know, because you've done it yourself.
- 2:11:22Speaker 1: It's a lie. An The Duke went for him. The
- 2:11:26Speaker 1: King sings, out, take your hands off, lick on my throat.
- 2:11:30Speaker 1: I take it on back. The Duke says, well, you
- 2:11:35Speaker 1: est own up first that you did hide that money there,
- 2:11:39Speaker 1: intended to give me the slip one of these days
- 2:11:43Speaker 1: an come back and dig it up and have it
- 2:11:45Speaker 1: all to yourself. Wait just a minute, Duke, answer me
- 2:11:50Speaker 1: this one question, honest and fair. If you didn't put
- 2:11:53Speaker 1: the money there, say it, and I'll believe you and
- 2:11:56Speaker 1: take back everything I said, you old scoundrel, I didn't
- 2:12:02Speaker 1: and you know I didn't there. Now, well, then I
- 2:12:07Speaker 1: believe you but answer me only just this one more now,
- 2:12:11Speaker 1: don't get mad. Didn't you have it in your mind
- 2:12:14Speaker 1: to hook the money and hide it? The Duke never
- 2:12:18Speaker 1: said nothing for a little bit. Then he says, well,
- 2:12:23Speaker 1: I don't care if I did. I didn't do it
- 2:12:26Speaker 1: anyway for you, not on the head in mind to
- 2:12:30Speaker 1: do it. But you done it. I wished I never
- 2:12:34Speaker 1: die if I done it, Duke, And that's honest. I
- 2:12:37Speaker 1: won't say I weren't going to do it, because I was.
- 2:12:40Speaker 1: But you, I mean, somebody got in ahead of me.
- 2:12:45Speaker 1: It's a lie. You done it, and you got to
- 2:12:48Speaker 1: say you done it or The King began to gurgle,
- 2:12:52Speaker 1: and then he gasps out nough, I own up. I
- 2:12:57Speaker 1: was very glad to hear him say that, and it
- 2:13:00Speaker 1: made me feel much more easier than what I was
- 2:13:02Speaker 1: feeling before. So the Duke took his hands off and says,
- 2:13:07Speaker 1: if you ever deny it again, I'll drown you. It's
- 2:13:11Speaker 1: well for you to sit there and blubber like a baby.
- 2:13:15Speaker 1: It's fittin for you after the way you've acted. I
- 2:13:19Speaker 1: never see such an old ostridch for wantin to gobble everything.
- 2:13:23Speaker 1: And I trust in you all the time, like you
- 2:13:26Speaker 1: was my own father. You ought to ben ashamed o
- 2:13:30Speaker 1: yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to
- 2:13:34Speaker 1: a lot of poor niggers an you never say a
- 2:13:37Speaker 1: word for him. It makes me feel ridiculous to think
- 2:13:41Speaker 1: I was soft enough to believe that rubbage cuss you.
- 2:13:46Speaker 1: I can see now why you was so anxious to
- 2:13:49Speaker 1: make up the deaf sit. You wanted to get what
- 2:13:52Speaker 1: money I'd got out of the nuns. Such an one
- 2:13:55Speaker 1: thing or another? An scoop it all, the King says,
- 2:14:01Speaker 1: timid and still a snufflin'. Why, duke, it was you
- 2:14:05Speaker 1: that said make up the deaf sit and warn't me
- 2:14:10Speaker 1: dry up? I don't want to hear no more out
- 2:14:13Speaker 1: o you, says the duke. An now you see what
- 2:14:17Speaker 1: you got by it. They've got all their own money back,
- 2:14:21Speaker 1: and all of our but a shekel or two besides
- 2:14:26Speaker 1: golong to bed An. Don't you deficit me no more
- 2:14:29Speaker 1: deficits long as you live. So the king sneaked into
- 2:14:36Speaker 1: the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, And
- 2:14:40Speaker 1: before long the Duke tackled his bottle, and so in
- 2:14:44Speaker 1: about half an hour they was as thick as thieves. Again,
- 2:14:48Speaker 1: and the tighter they got, the lovin'er they got, an
- 2:14:51Speaker 1: went a snorin in each other's arms. They both got
- 2:14:55Speaker 1: powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow
- 2:14:58Speaker 1: enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding
- 2:15:01Speaker 1: the money back again. That made me feel easy and satisfied.
- 2:15:07Speaker 1: Of course, when they got to snoring, we had a
- 2:15:10Speaker 1: long gabble and I told Jim everything. End of chapter
- 2:15:16Speaker 1: thirty Chapter thirty one. We doesn't stop again at any
- 2:15:25Speaker 1: time for days and days kept right along down the river.
- 2:15:30Speaker 1: We was down south in the warm weather now, and
- 2:15:32Speaker 1: a mighty long ways from home. We begun to come
- 2:15:36Speaker 1: to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from
- 2:15:39Speaker 1: the limbs like long gray beards. It was the first
- 2:15:44Speaker 1: I ever see it growing, and it made the woods
- 2:15:46Speaker 1: look solemn and dismal. So now the frauds reckoned. They
- 2:15:50Speaker 1: was out of danger, an they'd begun to work the
- 2:15:52Speaker 1: villages again. First they'd done a lecture on temperance, but
- 2:15:57Speaker 1: they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk gone.
- 2:16:01Speaker 1: Then in another village they started a dance in school,
- 2:16:04Speaker 1: but they didn't know no more how to dance, and
- 2:16:06Speaker 1: a kangaroo does. So the first prance they made, the
- 2:16:09Speaker 1: general public jumped in and prance them out of town.
- 2:16:13Speaker 1: Another time they tried to go at yell acution, but
- 2:16:16Speaker 1: they didn't yell acute long till the audience got up
- 2:16:19Speaker 1: and give them a solid good cussin and made them
- 2:16:22Speaker 1: skip out. They tackled missionary in and mesmerizing and doctoring
- 2:16:28Speaker 1: and telling fortunes and a little at everything, but they
- 2:16:32Speaker 1: couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they
- 2:16:35Speaker 1: got just about dead broke and laid around the raft
- 2:16:39Speaker 1: as she floated along, thinking and thinking and never saying nothing.
- 2:16:44Speaker 1: By the half a day at a time, and dreadful,
- 2:16:47Speaker 1: blue and desperate, And at last they took a change
- 2:16:51Speaker 1: and begun to lay their heads together in the wigwam
- 2:16:54Speaker 1: and talk low and confidential two or three hours at
- 2:16:58Speaker 1: a time. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like
- 2:17:02Speaker 1: the look of it. We judged they were studying up
- 2:17:06Speaker 1: some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it
- 2:17:09Speaker 1: over and over, and at last we made up our
- 2:17:12Speaker 1: minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store,
- 2:17:16Speaker 1: or was going into the counterfeit money business or something.
- 2:17:19Speaker 1: So then We was pretty scared and made up an
- 2:17:22Speaker 1: agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to
- 2:17:24Speaker 1: do with such actions, and if we ever got the
- 2:17:27Speaker 1: least show, we would give them the cold shake and
- 2:17:30Speaker 1: clear out and leave them behind. Well. Early one morning
- 2:17:34Speaker 1: we hid the raft in a good safe place about
- 2:17:38Speaker 1: two miles below a little bit of a shabby village
- 2:17:40Speaker 1: named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told
- 2:17:44Speaker 1: us all to stay hid whilst he went up to
- 2:17:47Speaker 1: town and smelt around to see if anybody had got
- 2:17:50Speaker 1: any wind of the royal nun such there yet house
- 2:17:53Speaker 1: to rob you mean, says I to myself. And when
- 2:17:57Speaker 1: you get through robbin it, you'll come back here and
- 2:18:00Speaker 1: what has become a mean jim in the raft and
- 2:18:02Speaker 1: you'll have to take it out an wonderin'. And he
- 2:18:05Speaker 1: said if he warn't back by midday, the Duke and
- 2:18:08Speaker 1: me would know it was all right and we was
- 2:18:10Speaker 1: to come along. So we stayed where we was. The
- 2:18:14Speaker 1: Duke he fretted and sweated around and was in a
- 2:18:17Speaker 1: mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we
- 2:18:21Speaker 1: couldn't seem to do nothing right. He found fault with
- 2:18:24Speaker 1: every little thing. Somethin was a bruin. Sure, I was
- 2:18:30Speaker 1: good an glad when midday came and no king. We
- 2:18:34Speaker 1: could have a change anyway, and maybe a chance for
- 2:18:37Speaker 1: thee chance on top of it. So me and the
- 2:18:40Speaker 1: Duke went up to the village and hunted around there
- 2:18:43Speaker 1: for the King, and by and by we found him
- 2:18:45Speaker 1: in the back room of a little low doggery, very
- 2:18:49Speaker 1: tight and a lot of loafers bully ragging him for sport,
- 2:18:53Speaker 1: and he a cussin' and a threatening with all his might,
- 2:18:57Speaker 1: and so tight he couldn't walk and couldn't do no
- 2:19:00Speaker 1: nothing to them. The Duke he begun to abuse him
- 2:19:03Speaker 1: for an old fool, and the King begun to sash back.
- 2:19:07Speaker 1: And the minute they was fairly at it, I lit
- 2:19:10Speaker 1: out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs
- 2:19:13Speaker 1: and spun down the river road like a deer, for
- 2:19:15Speaker 1: I see our chance, and I made up my mind
- 2:19:18Speaker 1: that it would be a long day before they ever
- 2:19:20Speaker 1: seen me and Jim again. I got down there, all
- 2:19:24Speaker 1: out of breath, but loaded up with joy, and sung
- 2:19:27Speaker 1: out set her loose, Jim, We're all right now, But
- 2:19:31Speaker 1: there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam,
- 2:19:35Speaker 1: Jim was gone. I set up a shout, and then another,
- 2:19:40Speaker 1: and then another one, and run this way and that
- 2:19:43Speaker 1: in the woods, whooping and screeching. But it warn't no use.
- 2:19:48Speaker 1: Old Jim was gone. Then I sat down and cried.
- 2:19:52Speaker 1: I couldn't help it, but I couldn't sit still long.
- 2:19:56Speaker 1: Pretty Soon I went out on the road, trying to
- 2:19:59Speaker 1: think what I better do. And I run across a
- 2:20:02Speaker 1: boy walkin and asked him if he'd seen a strange
- 2:20:05Speaker 1: nigger dress so and so, and he says yes, whereabouts,
- 2:20:10Speaker 1: says I down to Silas Phelps's place two mile below here.
- 2:20:16Speaker 1: He's a runaway nigger. An they've got him. Was you
- 2:20:19Speaker 1: lookin for him? You bet I ain't. I run across
- 2:20:23Speaker 1: him in the woods about an hour or two ago,
- 2:20:25Speaker 1: an he said if I hollered, he'd cut my livers
- 2:20:28Speaker 1: out and told me to lay down and stay where
- 2:20:30Speaker 1: I was. And i'd done it, been there ever since,
- 2:20:32Speaker 1: afeared to come out. Well, he says, you needn't be
- 2:20:37Speaker 1: afeared no more, because they've got him. He run off
- 2:20:40Speaker 1: from down south somewheres. It's a good job they got him. Well,
- 2:20:45Speaker 1: I reckon, there's two hundred dollars reward on him. It's
- 2:20:49Speaker 1: like pickin up money out in the road. Yes, it is. An.
- 2:20:54Speaker 1: I could have had it if i'd been big enough.
- 2:20:57Speaker 1: I see him first. Who nailed him? It was an
- 2:21:02Speaker 1: old fellow, a stranger. An. He sold out his chance
- 2:21:05Speaker 1: in him for forty dollars because he's got to go
- 2:21:08Speaker 1: up the river and can't wait. Think o that now,
- 2:21:12Speaker 1: you bet i'd wait if it was seven year. That's
- 2:21:16Speaker 1: me every time, says I. But maybe his chance ain't
- 2:21:20Speaker 1: worth no more than that if he'll sell it so cheap.
- 2:21:23Speaker 1: Maybe there's something ain't straight about it. But it is though,
- 2:21:28Speaker 1: straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It
- 2:21:33Speaker 1: tells all about him to a dit paints him like
- 2:21:36Speaker 1: a picture. An tells the plantation he's from below, No
- 2:21:40Speaker 1: or Leans, No, sirree Bob. They ain't no trouble about
- 2:21:44Speaker 1: that speculation. You bet you say, gimme a try tobacco,
- 2:21:49Speaker 1: won't ye? I didn't have none, So he left. I
- 2:21:54Speaker 1: went to the raft, an set down in the wig.
- 2:21:57Speaker 1: WHI I'm to think? But I couldn't come up to nothing.
- 2:22:01Speaker 1: I thought till I wore my head sore. But I
- 2:22:04Speaker 1: couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all
- 2:22:08Speaker 1: this long journey, and after all we'd done for them
- 2:22:10Speaker 1: scoundrels here, it was all come to nothing, everything all
- 2:22:15Speaker 1: busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart
- 2:22:18Speaker 1: to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make
- 2:22:21Speaker 1: him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers too,
- 2:22:26Speaker 1: for forty dirty dollars. Once I said to myself it
- 2:22:31Speaker 1: would be a thousand times better for Jim to be
- 2:22:33Speaker 1: a slave at home where his family was, as long
- 2:22:36Speaker 1: as he'd got to be a slave. And so I'd
- 2:22:39Speaker 1: better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him
- 2:22:42Speaker 1: to tell miss Watson where he was. But I soon
- 2:22:46Speaker 1: give up that notion, for two things. She'd be mad
- 2:22:49Speaker 1: and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her,
- 2:22:54Speaker 1: and so she'd sell him straight down the river again.
- 2:22:57Speaker 1: And if she didn't, everybody naturally did spies is an
- 2:23:00Speaker 1: ungrateful nigger, and then make Jim feel it all the time,
- 2:23:05Speaker 1: and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced, and then think
- 2:23:09Speaker 1: of me. It would get all around the huck Finn
- 2:23:12Speaker 1: helped a nigger to get his freedom. And if I
- 2:23:14Speaker 1: was ever to see anybody from that town again, I'd
- 2:23:18Speaker 1: be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame.
- 2:23:21Speaker 1: That's just the way a person does a low down thing,
- 2:23:24Speaker 1: and then he don't want to take no consequences of it, thinks,
- 2:23:28Speaker 1: as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.
- 2:23:31Speaker 1: That was my fix, exactly. The more I studied about this,
- 2:23:36Speaker 1: the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the
- 2:23:39Speaker 1: more wicked and low down and ornery I got to feelin',
- 2:23:43Speaker 1: And at last when it hit me all of a sudden,
- 2:23:46Speaker 1: that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me
- 2:23:49Speaker 1: in the face and letting me know my wickedness was
- 2:23:52Speaker 1: being watched all the time from up there in heaven,
- 2:23:54Speaker 1: whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that
- 2:23:57Speaker 1: hadn't ever done me no harm, and now will show
- 2:24:00Speaker 1: on me. There's one that's always on the lookout, and
- 2:24:02Speaker 1: ain't a goin to allow no such miserable Doin's to
- 2:24:05Speaker 1: go only just so far and no further. I most
- 2:24:08Speaker 1: dropped in my tracks. I was so scared well, I
- 2:24:13Speaker 1: tried the best I could to kinder soften it up
- 2:24:16Speaker 1: somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked,
- 2:24:20Speaker 1: and so I warn't so much to blame, but something
- 2:24:23Speaker 1: inside of me kept saying, there was the Sunday School.
- 2:24:27Speaker 1: You could have gone to it, and if you'd ha
- 2:24:29Speaker 1: done it, they'd learnt you There the people that acts
- 2:24:32Speaker 1: as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlastin' fire.
- 2:24:38Speaker 1: It made me shiver, an I about made up my
- 2:24:40Speaker 1: mind to pray an see if I couldn't try to
- 2:24:43Speaker 1: quit beIN the kind of a boy I was an
- 2:24:45Speaker 1: be better. So I kneeled down, But the words wouldn't come.
- 2:24:51Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they It warn't no use to try and
- 2:24:54Speaker 1: hide it from him nor from me neither. I knowed
- 2:24:58Speaker 1: very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my
- 2:25:02Speaker 1: heart warn't right, and it was because I warn't square.
- 2:25:05Speaker 1: It was because I was playing double. I was letting
- 2:25:09Speaker 1: on to give up sin, but away inside of me,
- 2:25:12Speaker 1: I was holding on to the biggest one of all.
- 2:25:15Speaker 1: I was trying to make my mouth say I would
- 2:25:17Speaker 1: do the right thing and the clean thing, and going
- 2:25:20Speaker 1: right to that nigger's owner until where he was. But
- 2:25:24Speaker 1: deep down in me, I knowed it was a lie,
- 2:25:27Speaker 1: and he knowed it. You can't pray a lie. I
- 2:25:31Speaker 1: found that out. So I was full of trouble, full
- 2:25:36Speaker 1: as I could be, and didn't know what to do.
- 2:25:39Speaker 1: At last I had an idea, and I says, I'll
- 2:25:43Speaker 1: go and write the letter and then see if I
- 2:25:45Speaker 1: can pray. Why it was astonishing the way I felt
- 2:25:49Speaker 1: as light as a feather right straight off, and my
- 2:25:52Speaker 1: trouble's all gone. So I got a piece of paper
- 2:25:55Speaker 1: and a pencil, all glad and excited, and sat down
- 2:25:59Speaker 1: and wrote, Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down
- 2:26:04Speaker 1: here to my blow Pikesville. An. Mister Phelps has got him,
- 2:26:09Speaker 1: an he will give him up for the reward if
- 2:26:11Speaker 1: you send huck Finn. I felt good, an, all washed
- 2:26:17Speaker 1: clean of sin, for the first time I had ever
- 2:26:20Speaker 1: felt so in my life. An, I knowed I could
- 2:26:23Speaker 1: pray now, but I didn't do it straight off, but
- 2:26:27Speaker 1: laid the paper down, an set there thinkin' thinkin how
- 2:26:31Speaker 1: good it was all this happened, so an, how near
- 2:26:34Speaker 1: I come to beIN lost? An goin to hell? An
- 2:26:36Speaker 1: went on thinkin, an got to thinkin over our trip
- 2:26:40Speaker 1: down the river. And I see Jim before me all
- 2:26:43Speaker 1: the time in the day and in the night time,
- 2:26:47Speaker 1: sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms an we are floating along, talkin
- 2:26:54Speaker 1: and singin an laughin'. But somehow I couldn't seem to
- 2:26:58Speaker 1: strike no place to hearten me against him, but only
- 2:27:02Speaker 1: the other kind. I'd see him stand in my watch
- 2:27:06Speaker 1: on top of his'n' instead of calling me, so I
- 2:27:09Speaker 1: could go on sleeping and see him. How glad he
- 2:27:13Speaker 1: was when I come back out of the fog, and
- 2:27:16Speaker 1: when I come home to him again in the swamp
- 2:27:18Speaker 1: up there where the feud was, and such like times,
- 2:27:23Speaker 1: and would always call me honey and pet me, and
- 2:27:25Speaker 1: do everything he could think of for me, and how
- 2:27:28Speaker 1: good he always was. And at last I struck the
- 2:27:33Speaker 1: time I saved him by telling the men we had
- 2:27:36Speaker 1: smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful and said I
- 2:27:39Speaker 1: was the best friend Old Jim ever had in the world,
- 2:27:43Speaker 1: and the only one he's got now. And then I
- 2:27:47Speaker 1: happened to look around and see that paper. It was
- 2:27:51Speaker 1: a close place. I took it up and held it
- 2:27:55Speaker 1: in my hand. I was a trembling because I'd got
- 2:27:59Speaker 1: to decide for ever betwixt two things, and I knowed it.
- 2:28:03Speaker 1: I studied a minute sare to holding my breath and
- 2:28:07Speaker 1: then says to myself, all right, then I'll go to
- 2:28:12Speaker 1: hell and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and
- 2:28:17Speaker 1: awful words, but they was said, and I let them
- 2:28:20Speaker 1: stay said, and never thought no more about reforming. I
- 2:28:23Speaker 1: shoved the whole thing out of my head and said
- 2:28:26Speaker 1: I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line,
- 2:28:30Speaker 1: beIN brung up to it and the other warn't, and
- 2:28:33Speaker 1: for a starter, I will go to work and steal
- 2:28:36Speaker 1: Jim out of slavery again. And if I could think
- 2:28:39Speaker 1: up anything worse, I would do that too, because as
- 2:28:42Speaker 1: long as I was in and in for good, I
- 2:28:44Speaker 1: might as well go the whole hog. Then I set
- 2:28:48Speaker 1: to thinking over how to get at it, and turned
- 2:28:51Speaker 1: over some considerable many ways in my mind, and at
- 2:28:54Speaker 1: last fixed up a plan that suited me. So then
- 2:28:58Speaker 1: I took the bearings of a wood the island that
- 2:29:00Speaker 1: was down the river apiece an as soon as it
- 2:29:03Speaker 1: was fairly dark, I crept out with my raft and
- 2:29:06Speaker 1: went for it and hid it there, and then turned in.
- 2:29:10Speaker 1: I slept the night through and got up before it
- 2:29:13Speaker 1: was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my
- 2:29:16Speaker 1: store clothes, and tied up some others in one thing
- 2:29:19Speaker 1: or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and
- 2:29:22Speaker 1: cleared for shore. I landed below where I judged was
- 2:29:26Speaker 1: Phelps's place, and hidden my bundle in the woods, and
- 2:29:29Speaker 1: then filled up the canoe with water and loaded rocks
- 2:29:32Speaker 1: into her and sunk her where I could find her
- 2:29:34Speaker 1: again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a
- 2:29:37Speaker 1: mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.
- 2:29:42Speaker 1: Then I struck up the road, and when I passed
- 2:29:44Speaker 1: the mill, I see a sign on it Phelps saw Mill.
- 2:29:49Speaker 1: And when I come to the farm houses two or
- 2:29:51Speaker 1: three hundred yards further long, I kept my eyes pealed,
- 2:29:55Speaker 1: but didn't see nobody around, though it was good daylight now,
- 2:30:00Speaker 1: but I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see
- 2:30:02Speaker 1: nobody just yet. I only wanted to get the lay
- 2:30:05Speaker 1: of the land. According my plan, I was goin to
- 2:30:08Speaker 1: turn up there from the village, not from below, so
- 2:30:12Speaker 1: I just took a look an shoved along straight for town. Well,
- 2:30:17Speaker 1: the first man I see when I got there was
- 2:30:20Speaker 1: the duke. He was stickin up a bill for the
- 2:30:24Speaker 1: Royal nun such three night performance like that other time
- 2:30:28Speaker 1: they had the cheek them frauds. I was right on
- 2:30:32Speaker 1: him before I could shirk. He looked astonished and says, hullo,
- 2:30:38Speaker 1: where'd you come from? Then he says, kind of glad
- 2:30:42Speaker 1: and eager. Where's the raft got her in a good place?
- 2:30:48Speaker 1: I says, why, that's just what I was goin to
- 2:30:51Speaker 1: ask your grace. Then he didn't look so joyful and says,
- 2:30:56Speaker 1: what was your idea for askin me? He says, well,
- 2:31:02Speaker 1: I says, when I see the king an that doggery yesterday,
- 2:31:06Speaker 1: I says to myself. We can't get him home for
- 2:31:09Speaker 1: hours till he's soberer. So I went a loafing around
- 2:31:12Speaker 1: town to put in the time and wait. A man
- 2:31:15Speaker 1: up An offered me ten cents to help him pull
- 2:31:17Speaker 1: the skiff over the river an back to fetch a sheep,
- 2:31:20Speaker 1: and so I went along. But when we was dragging
- 2:31:23Speaker 1: him to the boat and the man left me a
- 2:31:25Speaker 1: holt so of the rope and went behind him to
- 2:31:27Speaker 1: shove him along, he was too strong for me and
- 2:31:30Speaker 1: jerked loose and run and we after him. We didn't
- 2:31:34Speaker 1: have no dog, and so we had to chase him
- 2:31:37Speaker 1: all over the country till we tired him out. We
- 2:31:40Speaker 1: never got him till dark. Then we fetched him over
- 2:31:43Speaker 1: an I started down for the raft. When I got there,
- 2:31:47Speaker 1: an I see it was gone. I says to myself,
- 2:31:49Speaker 1: they've gotten into trouble. AN had to leave. An They've
- 2:31:52Speaker 1: took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've gotten
- 2:31:55Speaker 1: the world. And now I'm in a strange country and
- 2:31:57Speaker 1: ain't got no property, no more, no or nothing, and
- 2:32:01Speaker 1: no way to make my living. So I sat down
- 2:32:04Speaker 1: and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But
- 2:32:09Speaker 1: what did become of the raft? Then? And Jim, poor
- 2:32:13Speaker 1: Jim blamed if I know that is what's become of
- 2:32:18Speaker 1: the raft. That old fool had made a trade and
- 2:32:22Speaker 1: got forty dollars, And when we found him in the doggery,
- 2:32:26Speaker 1: the loafers had matched half dollars with him and got
- 2:32:30Speaker 1: every cent but what he'd spent for whiskey. And when
- 2:32:34Speaker 1: I got him home late last night and found the
- 2:32:36Speaker 1: raft gone, we said that little rascal has stole our
- 2:32:41Speaker 1: raft and shook us and run off down the river.
- 2:32:46Speaker 1: I wouldn't shake my nigger, would I The only nigger
- 2:32:49Speaker 1: I had in the world, and the only property. We
- 2:32:52Speaker 1: never thought of that fact, is I reckon. We'd come
- 2:32:57Speaker 1: to consider him our nigger. Yeah, we did consider him
- 2:33:01Speaker 1: so Goodness knows we had trouble enough for him. So
- 2:33:06Speaker 1: when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke,
- 2:33:10Speaker 1: there warn't anything for it but to try the royal nuns.
- 2:33:13Speaker 1: Such another shake, And I've pegged along ever since, dry
- 2:33:18Speaker 1: as a powder horn. Where's that ten cents? Give it here?
- 2:33:25Speaker 1: I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents,
- 2:33:29Speaker 1: but begged him to spend it for something to eat
- 2:33:31Speaker 1: and give me some because it was all the money
- 2:33:33Speaker 1: I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday.
- 2:33:38Speaker 1: He never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on
- 2:33:42Speaker 1: me and says, do you reckon that nigger will blow
- 2:33:45Speaker 1: on us? We'd skin him if he done that? How
- 2:33:50Speaker 1: can he blow? Ain't he run off? No, that old
- 2:33:55Speaker 1: fool sold him and never divided with me. And the
- 2:34:00Speaker 1: he's gone sold him, I says, an begun to cry.
- 2:34:05Speaker 1: Why he was my nigger? An that was my money?
- 2:34:09Speaker 1: Where is he? I want my nigger? Well you can't
- 2:34:13Speaker 1: get yer nigger, that's all, So dry up your blubberin
- 2:34:17Speaker 1: look ye here? Do ye think you'd venture to blow
- 2:34:21Speaker 1: on us? Blamed? If I think I'd trust you? Why
- 2:34:26Speaker 1: if you was to blow on us. He stopped. But
- 2:34:30Speaker 1: I never see the duke look so ugly out of
- 2:34:33Speaker 1: his eyes before I went on a whimperin An says,
- 2:34:38Speaker 1: I don't want to blow on nobody. An, I ain't
- 2:34:41Speaker 1: got no time to blow nohow, I got to turn
- 2:34:44Speaker 1: out an find my nigger. He looked kinder bothered. An
- 2:34:49Speaker 1: stood there with his bills flutterin on his arm, thinkin
- 2:34:53Speaker 1: and wrinkling up his forehead. At last, he says, I'll
- 2:34:58Speaker 1: tell ye somethin'. We got to be here three days.
- 2:35:03Speaker 1: If you'll promise you won't blow and won't let the
- 2:35:05Speaker 1: nigger blow, I'll tell you where to find him. So
- 2:35:10Speaker 1: I promised, and he says, a farmer by the name
- 2:35:14Speaker 1: of Silas. And then he stopped. You see, he started
- 2:35:19Speaker 1: to tell me the truth. But when he stopped that
- 2:35:22Speaker 1: way and begun to study and think again, I reckoned
- 2:35:25Speaker 1: he was changing his mind, and so he was. He
- 2:35:29Speaker 1: wouldn't trust me. He wanted to make sure of having
- 2:35:31Speaker 1: me out of the way the whole three days. So
- 2:35:35Speaker 1: pretty soon he says. The man that bought him is
- 2:35:38Speaker 1: named Abram Foster, Abram G. Foster, and he lives fot
- 2:35:44Speaker 1: a mile back here in the country on the road
- 2:35:47Speaker 1: to Lafaye. Yet all right, I says, I can walk
- 2:35:52Speaker 1: it him three days, and I'll start this very afternoon.
- 2:35:57Speaker 1: No you won't. You'll start now. An. Don't you lose
- 2:36:01Speaker 1: any time about it, neither nor do any gabblin. By
- 2:36:05Speaker 1: the way, jest, keep a tight tongue in your head.
- 2:36:08Speaker 1: An move right along, An, then you won't get into
- 2:36:11Speaker 1: trouble with us, d'ye hear? That was the order I wanted, An,
- 2:36:17Speaker 1: that was the one I played for. I wanted to
- 2:36:19Speaker 1: be left free to work my plans. So clear out,
- 2:36:24Speaker 1: he says, An. You can tell mister Foster whatever you
- 2:36:27Speaker 1: want to. Maybe you can git him to believe that
- 2:36:31Speaker 1: Jim is your nigger. Some idiots don't require documents, leastways
- 2:36:36Speaker 1: I've heard they're such down south here. When you tell
- 2:36:40Speaker 1: him the handbill an, the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe
- 2:36:44Speaker 1: you when you explain to him what the idea was
- 2:36:47Speaker 1: for gettin em out, Go along now, An, tell him
- 2:36:51Speaker 1: anything you want to, but mind you don't work your
- 2:36:55Speaker 1: jaw any between here and there. So I left and
- 2:37:00Speaker 1: struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but
- 2:37:04Speaker 1: I kind of felt like he was watching me, but
- 2:37:07Speaker 1: I knowed I could tire him out of that. I
- 2:37:10Speaker 1: went straight out in the country as much as a
- 2:37:12Speaker 1: mile before I stopped. Then I doubled back through the
- 2:37:15Speaker 1: woods towards Phelps's. I reckoned, I'd better start in on
- 2:37:19Speaker 1: my plants straight off, without fooling around, because I wanted
- 2:37:23Speaker 1: to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away.
- 2:37:27Speaker 1: I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen
- 2:37:30Speaker 1: all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get
- 2:37:33Speaker 1: entirely shut of them. End of chapter thirty one. This
- 2:37:43Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
- 2:37:47Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
- 2:37:51Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recorded by Annie Coleman in Saint Louis, Missouri,
- 2:37:58Speaker 1: in May two thousand and six. The Adventures of Huckleberry
- 2:38:02Speaker 1: Finn by Mark Twain, Chapter thirty two. When I got there,
- 2:38:10Speaker 1: it was all still and sunday like and hot and sunshiny.
- 2:38:14Speaker 1: The hands was gone to the fields, and there was
- 2:38:17Speaker 1: them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in
- 2:38:20Speaker 1: the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like
- 2:38:23Speaker 1: everybody's dead and gone. And if a breeze fans along
- 2:38:27Speaker 1: and quivers the leaves, it makes you feel mournful because
- 2:38:30Speaker 1: you feel like it's spirits, whispering spirits that's been dead
- 2:38:35Speaker 1: ever so many years, and you always think they're talking
- 2:38:38Speaker 1: about you as a general thing. It makes a body
- 2:38:42Speaker 1: wish he was dead too and done with it all.
- 2:38:45Speaker 1: Phelps's was one of these little one horse cotton plantations,
- 2:38:50Speaker 1: and they all look alike. A rail fence round a
- 2:38:53Speaker 1: two acre yard, a style made out of log sawed
- 2:38:56Speaker 1: off and upended in steps like barrels of a different
- 2:39:00Speaker 1: at length to climb over the fence with, and for
- 2:39:03Speaker 1: the women to stand on when they are going to
- 2:39:05Speaker 1: jump on to a horse. Some sickly grass patches in
- 2:39:08Speaker 1: the big yard, but mostly it was barren, smooth like
- 2:39:12Speaker 1: an old hat with the nub rubbed off. Big double
- 2:39:16Speaker 1: log house for the white folks. Hewed logs with the
- 2:39:20Speaker 1: chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mudstrips
- 2:39:24Speaker 1: been whitewashed sometime or another round log kitchen with a big, broad,
- 2:39:30Speaker 1: open but roofed passage joining it to the house. Logs
- 2:39:34Speaker 1: smoke house back of the kitchen, three little log nigger
- 2:39:38Speaker 1: cabins in a road the other side of the smoke house,
- 2:39:41Speaker 1: one little hut all by itself away down against the
- 2:39:44Speaker 1: back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side,
- 2:39:48Speaker 1: ash hopper and big kettle to buy a soap in
- 2:39:51Speaker 1: by the little hut bench by the kitchen door, with
- 2:39:55Speaker 1: bucket of water, and a gourd hound to sleep there
- 2:39:58Speaker 1: in the sun. More hounds asleep round about about three
- 2:40:03Speaker 1: shade trees away off in a corner, some currant bushes
- 2:40:06Speaker 1: and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence. Outside
- 2:40:10Speaker 1: of the fence, a garden and a watermelon patch. Then
- 2:40:14Speaker 1: the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods.
- 2:40:19Speaker 1: I went around and clumb over the back style by
- 2:40:22Speaker 1: the ash hopper, and started for the kitchen. When I
- 2:40:26Speaker 1: got a little ways, I heard the dim hum of
- 2:40:28Speaker 1: a spinning wheel, wailing along up and sinking along down again.
- 2:40:34Speaker 1: And then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead,
- 2:40:37Speaker 1: for that is the lonesomest sound in the whole world.
- 2:40:41Speaker 1: I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan,
- 2:40:45Speaker 1: but just trusting to Providence to put the right words
- 2:40:48Speaker 1: in my mouth when the time come. For I noticed
- 2:40:51Speaker 1: that Providence always did put the right words in my
- 2:40:54Speaker 1: mouth if I left it alone. When I got half way,
- 2:40:58Speaker 1: first one hound and then another got up and went
- 2:41:01Speaker 1: for me, And of course I stopped and faced them
- 2:41:04Speaker 1: and kept still, and such another pow wow as they
- 2:41:07Speaker 1: made in a quarter of a minute. I was a
- 2:41:11Speaker 1: kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say,
- 2:41:13Speaker 1: spokes made out of dogs. Circle of fifteen of them
- 2:41:17Speaker 1: packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched
- 2:41:21Speaker 1: up towards me, a barkin' an howlin', an more comin'.
- 2:41:25Speaker 1: You could see them sailin over fences and round corners
- 2:41:29Speaker 1: from everywheres. A nigger woman come tearin out of the
- 2:41:32Speaker 1: kitchen with a rolling pin in her hand, singin out
- 2:41:36Speaker 1: begone you tag you spot begone sah. And she fetched
- 2:41:41Speaker 1: first one and then another, then with a clip and
- 2:41:43Speaker 1: sent them howlin'. And then the rest followed, and the
- 2:41:47Speaker 1: next second half of them come back, wagging their tails
- 2:41:50Speaker 1: round me and making friends with me. There ain't no harm,
- 2:41:54Speaker 1: an hound, no how an. Behind the woman comes a
- 2:41:58Speaker 1: little nigger girl and two little nicker boys without anything
- 2:42:01Speaker 1: on but tow linen shirts. And they hung on to
- 2:42:04Speaker 1: their mother's gown and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful,
- 2:42:09Speaker 1: the way they always do. And here comes the white
- 2:42:12Speaker 1: woman runnin from the house, about forty five or fifty
- 2:42:16Speaker 1: years old, bare headed and her spinnin sticking her hand,
- 2:42:20Speaker 1: and behind her comes her little white children, acting the
- 2:42:24Speaker 1: same way the little niggers was goin. She was smilin
- 2:42:27Speaker 1: all over so she could hardly stand, and says, it's
- 2:42:31Speaker 1: you at last, ain't it? I out with a yis'um
- 2:42:37Speaker 1: before I thought. She grabbed me and hugged me tight,
- 2:42:41Speaker 1: and then gripped me by both hands and shook and shook,
- 2:42:45Speaker 1: and the tears come in her eyes. An run down
- 2:42:47Speaker 1: over an. She couldn't seem to hug an shake enough,
- 2:42:51Speaker 1: An kept saying, you don't look as much like your
- 2:42:54Speaker 1: mother as I reckoned you would. But loss sikes, I
- 2:42:57Speaker 1: don't care for that. I'm so glad to see you, dear, dear,
- 2:43:01Speaker 1: it does seem like I could eat you up. Children.
- 2:43:03Speaker 1: It's your cousin Tom, tell him howdye. But they ducked
- 2:43:08Speaker 1: their heads and put their fingers in their mouths and
- 2:43:10Speaker 1: hid behind her. So she run on lies hurry up
- 2:43:15Speaker 1: an get him a hot breakfast. Right away, or did
- 2:43:17Speaker 1: you get your breakfast on the boat? I said I
- 2:43:20Speaker 1: had got it on the boat. So then she started
- 2:43:23Speaker 1: for the house, leading me by the hand, and the
- 2:43:26Speaker 1: children taggin after. When we got there, she stepped me
- 2:43:29Speaker 1: down in a split bottomed chair and set herself down
- 2:43:32Speaker 1: on a little low stool in front of me, holding
- 2:43:35Speaker 1: both of my hands, and says, now I can have
- 2:43:38Speaker 1: a good look at you, an laws an me. I've
- 2:43:41Speaker 1: been hungry for it a many an a many a
- 2:43:44Speaker 1: time all these long years. An, It's comin at last.
- 2:43:48Speaker 1: We've been expectin you a couple of days and more.
- 2:43:51Speaker 1: What kep you boat get a ground? Yes'm? She don't
- 2:43:56Speaker 1: say yes'm, see aunt sally, which get aground? I didn't
- 2:44:02Speaker 1: rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether
- 2:44:05Speaker 1: the boat would be comin up the river or down.
- 2:44:08Speaker 1: But I go a good deal on instinct, and my
- 2:44:10Speaker 1: instincts said she would be comin up from down towards Orleans.
- 2:44:15Speaker 1: That didn't help me much, though, for I didn't know
- 2:44:17Speaker 1: the names of bars down that way. I see, I
- 2:44:21Speaker 1: got to invent a bar, or forget the name of
- 2:44:23Speaker 1: the one we got aground on or now I struck
- 2:44:27Speaker 1: an idea, An fetched it out. It warn't the groundin
- 2:44:31Speaker 1: that didn't keep us back, but a little we blowed
- 2:44:34Speaker 1: out a cylinder head. Good gracious, anybody hurt? No, um
- 2:44:41Speaker 1: killed a nigger. Well it's lucky because sometimes people do
- 2:44:46Speaker 1: get hurt. Two years ago, last Christmas, your uncle Silas
- 2:44:49Speaker 1: was comin up from New Orleans on the lally rook An.
- 2:44:52Speaker 1: She blowed out a cylinder head an crippled a man,
- 2:44:55Speaker 1: and I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist,
- 2:44:59Speaker 1: your uncle, not a family in Baton Rouge that knowed
- 2:45:02Speaker 1: his people very well. Yes, I remember now he did die.
- 2:45:06Speaker 1: Mortification set in an They had to amputate him, but
- 2:45:10Speaker 1: it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification, that was it.
- 2:45:14Speaker 1: He turned blue all over an died in the hope
- 2:45:17Speaker 1: of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight
- 2:45:21Speaker 1: to look at. Your uncle's been up to the town
- 2:45:24Speaker 1: every day to fetch you an he's gone again, not
- 2:45:27Speaker 1: morn an hour ago. I'll be back any minute. Now.
- 2:45:30Speaker 1: You must have met him on the road, didn't you,
- 2:45:32Speaker 1: Oldish man with a No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sallie.
- 2:45:37Speaker 1: The boat landed just to daylight, and I left my
- 2:45:40Speaker 1: baggage on the wharf boat and went looking around the
- 2:45:43Speaker 1: town an out a piece in the country to put
- 2:45:45Speaker 1: in the time and not get here too soon. And
- 2:45:48Speaker 1: so I come down the back way. Who'd you give
- 2:45:51Speaker 1: the baggage to nobody? Why? Child, it'll be stole, not
- 2:45:57Speaker 1: where I hidden. I reckon it won't, I says. How'd
- 2:46:01Speaker 1: you get your breakfast so early on the boat? It
- 2:46:05Speaker 1: was kinder thin ice, But I says, the captain seen
- 2:46:09Speaker 1: me standing around and told me I'd better have something
- 2:46:11Speaker 1: to eat before I went ashore. So he took me
- 2:46:14Speaker 1: in the Texas to the officer's lunch and give me
- 2:46:17Speaker 1: all I wanted. I was getting so uneasy I couldn't
- 2:46:21Speaker 1: listen good. I had my mind on the children all
- 2:46:24Speaker 1: the time. I wanted to get them out to one
- 2:46:26Speaker 1: side and pump them a little and find out who
- 2:46:29Speaker 1: I was. But I couldn't get no show. Missus Phelps
- 2:46:32Speaker 1: kept it up and run on. So pretty soon she
- 2:46:35Speaker 1: made the cold chill streak all down my back, because
- 2:46:38Speaker 1: she says, but here we're a running on this way,
- 2:46:42Speaker 1: and you hain't told me a word about Cis nor
- 2:46:45Speaker 1: any of them. Now, I'll rest of my works a little,
- 2:46:48Speaker 1: and you start up, yorn. Just tell me everything. Tell
- 2:46:52Speaker 1: me all about em, all every one of em, and
- 2:46:54Speaker 1: how they are, and what they're doing, and what they
- 2:46:57Speaker 1: told you to tell me, and every last thing you
- 2:47:00Speaker 1: can think of. Well, I see I was up a stump,
- 2:47:05Speaker 1: an up it. Good providence had stood by me. This
- 2:47:09Speaker 1: fur all right, But I was hard an tight o ground.
- 2:47:12Speaker 1: Now I see it warn't a bit of use to
- 2:47:14Speaker 1: try to go ahead. I'd got to throw up my hand.
- 2:47:18Speaker 1: So I says to myself, here's another place where I
- 2:47:21Speaker 1: got to risk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin,
- 2:47:25Speaker 1: but she had grabbed me an hustled me in behind
- 2:47:28Speaker 1: the bed, An says, here he comes, stick your head
- 2:47:32Speaker 1: down lower there, that'll do. He can't be seen. Now,
- 2:47:36Speaker 1: don't you let on your hair. I'll play joke on him. Children,
- 2:47:40Speaker 1: don't you say a word. I see I was in
- 2:47:44Speaker 1: a fix now, But it warn't no use to worry.
- 2:47:47Speaker 1: There warn't nothin to do, But jes hold still, an
- 2:47:49Speaker 1: try to be ready to stand from under. When the
- 2:47:52Speaker 1: lightnin struck, I had just one little glimpse of the
- 2:47:55Speaker 1: old gentleman when he come in. Then the bed hid him.
- 2:48:00Speaker 1: Missus phelps She jumps from him and says, has he come? No,
- 2:48:05Speaker 1: says her husband. Goodness gracious, She says, what in the
- 2:48:11Speaker 1: world can have to come o him? I can't imagine,
- 2:48:15Speaker 1: says the old gentleman. And I must say it makes
- 2:48:18Speaker 1: me dreadful, uneasy, uneasy, she says, I'm ready to go distracted.
- 2:48:25Speaker 1: He must a come, and you've missed him along the road.
- 2:48:28Speaker 1: I know it's so, Something tells me. So why Sally,
- 2:48:34Speaker 1: I couldn't miss him along the road? You know that?
- 2:48:38Speaker 1: But oh, dear, dear, what will SIS say? He must
- 2:48:42Speaker 1: a come, he must have missed him? He? Oh, don't
- 2:48:46Speaker 1: distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know
- 2:48:50Speaker 1: what in the world to make of it. I'm at
- 2:48:52Speaker 1: my wits end. An, I don't mind acknowledging that I'm
- 2:48:56Speaker 1: right down scared. But there's no hope that he's come
- 2:48:59Speaker 1: for couldn't come an me miss him? Salah, It's terrible,
- 2:49:04Speaker 1: just terrible. Something's happened to the boat. Sure, why Silas,
- 2:49:10Speaker 1: look yonder up the road. Ain't that somebody comin? He
- 2:49:15Speaker 1: sprung to the window at the head of the bed.
- 2:49:18Speaker 1: An that give missus Phelps a chance? She wanted. She
- 2:49:21Speaker 1: stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and
- 2:49:23Speaker 1: give me a pull, and out I come. And when
- 2:49:26Speaker 1: he turned back from the window, there she stood, a
- 2:49:29Speaker 1: beaming and a smilin' like a house of fire. And
- 2:49:32Speaker 1: I standin pretty, meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman
- 2:49:37Speaker 1: stared and says, why who's that? Who do you reckon
- 2:49:42Speaker 1: it is? I ain't no idea who is it? It's
- 2:49:48Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer by jings, I'm most slumped through the floor,
- 2:49:55Speaker 1: But there warn't no time to swap knives. The old
- 2:49:58Speaker 1: man grabbed me by the hand and sho and kept
- 2:50:00Speaker 1: on shaking. And all the time how the woman did
- 2:50:04Speaker 1: dance around and laugh and cry, And then how they
- 2:50:07Speaker 1: both did fire off questions about sid and marrying the
- 2:50:10Speaker 1: rest of the tribe. But if they was joyful, it
- 2:50:14Speaker 1: weren't nothing to what I was. For. It was like
- 2:50:17Speaker 1: being born again. I was so glad to find out
- 2:50:19Speaker 1: who I was. Well. They froze to me for two hours,
- 2:50:23Speaker 1: and at last, when my chin was so tired it
- 2:50:26Speaker 1: couldn't hardly go anymore, I had told them more about
- 2:50:29Speaker 1: my family, I mean, the Sawyer family, than ever happened
- 2:50:33Speaker 1: to any six Sawyer families, and I explained all about
- 2:50:37Speaker 1: how we blow it out a cylinder head at the
- 2:50:39Speaker 1: mouth of White River, and it took us three days
- 2:50:42Speaker 1: to fix it, which was all right and worked first
- 2:50:44Speaker 1: rate because they didn't know but what it would take
- 2:50:47Speaker 1: three days to fix it. If i'd ha called it
- 2:50:50Speaker 1: a bolt head, it would have done just as well.
- 2:50:53Speaker 1: Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side,
- 2:50:56Speaker 1: and pretty uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer
- 2:51:00Speaker 1: was easy and comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable
- 2:51:04Speaker 1: till by and by I hear a steamboat coughing along
- 2:51:08Speaker 1: down the river. Then I says to myself, s'pose Tom
- 2:51:13Speaker 1: Sawyer comes down on that boat, and s'pose he steps
- 2:51:16Speaker 1: in here an a minute and sings out my name
- 2:51:19Speaker 1: before I can throw him a wink to keep quiet. Well,
- 2:51:24Speaker 1: I couldn't have it that way. It wouldn't do at all.
- 2:51:27Speaker 1: I must go up the road and waylay him. So
- 2:51:30Speaker 1: I told the folks I reckoned, I will go up
- 2:51:32Speaker 1: to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old
- 2:51:36Speaker 1: gentleman was for going along with me, but I said no,
- 2:51:39Speaker 1: I could drive the horse myself, and i'd ruther he
- 2:51:42Speaker 1: wouldn't take no trouble about me. End of chapter thirty two,
- 2:51:49Speaker 1: Chapter thirty three. So I started for town in the wagon,
- 2:51:56Speaker 1: and when I was halfway, I see a wagon coming,
- 2:51:59Speaker 1: and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped
- 2:52:03Speaker 1: and waited till he come along. I says, hold on,
- 2:52:07Speaker 1: And it stopped alongside, and his mouth opened up like
- 2:52:11Speaker 1: a trunk and stayed so, and he swallowed two or
- 2:52:15Speaker 1: three times, like a person that's got a dry throat,
- 2:52:18Speaker 1: and then says, I ain't ever done you no harm?
- 2:52:22Speaker 1: You know that? So then what you want to come
- 2:52:25Speaker 1: back and haunt me for? I says, I ain't come back.
- 2:52:30Speaker 1: I ain't been gone. When he heard my voice, it
- 2:52:33Speaker 1: righted him up some, but he warn't quite satisfied yet.
- 2:52:37Speaker 1: He says, don't you play nothing on me, because I
- 2:52:41Speaker 1: wouldn't on you, honest engine. You ain't a ghost, honest engine,
- 2:52:46Speaker 1: I ain't, I says, well I I. Well, that ought
- 2:52:53Speaker 1: to settle it, of course, but I can't somehow seem
- 2:52:56Speaker 1: to understand it. No way. Look here, weren't you ever
- 2:52:59Speaker 1: murdered at all? No? I war ever murdered at all.
- 2:53:03Speaker 1: I played it on them. You come in here and
- 2:53:06Speaker 1: feel of me if you don't believe me. So he
- 2:53:09Speaker 1: done it, and it satisfied him, and he was that
- 2:53:12Speaker 1: glad to see me again. He didn't know what to do,
- 2:53:16Speaker 1: and he wanted to know all about it right off,
- 2:53:18Speaker 1: because it was a grand adventure and mysterious, and so
- 2:53:22Speaker 1: it hit him where he lived. But I said leave
- 2:53:25Speaker 1: it alone till by and by, and told his driver
- 2:53:27Speaker 1: to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and
- 2:53:30Speaker 1: I told him the kind of a fix I was in,
- 2:53:32Speaker 1: and what did he reckon? We better do? He said,
- 2:53:36Speaker 1: Let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So
- 2:53:39Speaker 1: he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says, it's
- 2:53:43Speaker 1: all right. I've got it. Take my trunk and your
- 2:53:46Speaker 1: wagon and let on. It's yorn, and you turn back
- 2:53:50Speaker 1: and full a long slow so as to get to
- 2:53:52Speaker 1: the house about the time you ought to, And all
- 2:53:55Speaker 1: go towards town a piece and take a fresh start
- 2:53:59Speaker 1: and get there quarter or a half an hour after you.
- 2:54:02Speaker 1: And you needn't let on to know me at first,
- 2:54:06Speaker 1: I says, all right, but wait a minute. There's one
- 2:54:09Speaker 1: more thing, a thing that nobody don't know but me,
- 2:54:13Speaker 1: and that is there's a nigger here that I'm a
- 2:54:16Speaker 1: trying to steal out of slavery. And his name is Jim. Oh,
- 2:54:21Speaker 1: Miss Watson's Jim. He says, what why Jim is? He
- 2:54:28Speaker 1: stopped and went to study in. I says, I know
- 2:54:32Speaker 1: what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low down business.
- 2:54:36Speaker 1: But what if it is? I'm low down and I'm
- 2:54:38Speaker 1: a going to steal him? And I want you keep
- 2:54:40Speaker 1: mum and not let on? Will you? His eye lit
- 2:54:44Speaker 1: up and he says, I'll help you steal him. Well,
- 2:54:50Speaker 1: I let go all holts then like I was shot.
- 2:54:53Speaker 1: It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard, and
- 2:54:56Speaker 1: I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer felt considerable in my estimation.
- 2:55:01Speaker 1: Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a nigger stealer.
- 2:55:06Speaker 1: Ah shucks, I says, you're jokin'. I ain't jokin' either. Well,
- 2:55:13Speaker 1: then I says, jokin or no jokin'. If you hear
- 2:55:17Speaker 1: anything said about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember
- 2:55:20Speaker 1: that you don't know nothin about him. An I don't
- 2:55:23Speaker 1: know nothin about him. Then we took the trunk and
- 2:55:27Speaker 1: put it on my wagon, and he drove off his way,
- 2:55:29Speaker 1: an I drove mine. But of course, I forgot all
- 2:55:32Speaker 1: about driving slow on account of beIN glad and full
- 2:55:36Speaker 1: of sinkin', so I got home a heap too quick
- 2:55:38Speaker 1: for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was
- 2:55:41Speaker 1: at the door, and he says, why this is wonderful?
- 2:55:45Speaker 1: Whoever would have thought it was in that mare to
- 2:55:47Speaker 1: do it? I wish we'da timed her an she hain't
- 2:55:51Speaker 1: sweated a hare, not a hare. It's wonderful. Why I
- 2:55:56Speaker 1: wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse? Now, I
- 2:55:58Speaker 1: wouldn't honest, And yet i'd a sold her for fifteen before,
- 2:56:02Speaker 1: and thought twas all she was worth. That's all he said.
- 2:56:06Speaker 1: He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see.
- 2:56:10Speaker 1: But it warn't surprising because he warn't only just a farmer.
- 2:56:14Speaker 1: He was a preacher too, and had a little one
- 2:56:16Speaker 1: horse log church down back of the plantation, which he
- 2:56:20Speaker 1: built it himself at his own expense, for a church
- 2:56:23Speaker 1: and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preachin and
- 2:56:27Speaker 1: it was worth it too. There was plenty other farmer
- 2:56:30Speaker 1: preachers like that An done the same way down south.
- 2:56:34Speaker 1: In about half an hour, Tom's wagon drove up to
- 2:56:37Speaker 1: the front style and Aunt Sally. She seed through the
- 2:56:40Speaker 1: window because it was only about fifty yards and says,
- 2:56:45Speaker 1: why there's somebody come, I wonder who tis? Why? I
- 2:56:49Speaker 1: do believe it's a stranger, Jimmy, that's one of the
- 2:56:52Speaker 1: children running to lies to put on another plate for dinner.
- 2:56:57Speaker 1: Everybody made a rush for the front door, because of
- 2:57:00Speaker 1: course a stranger don't come every year, and so he
- 2:57:03Speaker 1: lays over the yowler fever for interest. When he does come,
- 2:57:08Speaker 1: Tom was over the stile and starting for the house.
- 2:57:11Speaker 1: The wagon was spinning up the road for the village,
- 2:57:13Speaker 1: and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom
- 2:57:17Speaker 1: had his store clothes on and an audience, and that
- 2:57:20Speaker 1: was always nuts for Tom Sawyer and them circumstances. It
- 2:57:25Speaker 1: warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount
- 2:57:27Speaker 1: of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to
- 2:57:31Speaker 1: meet you along up that yard like a sheep. No,
- 2:57:34Speaker 1: he come calm and important like the ram. When he
- 2:57:38Speaker 1: got in front of us, he lifts his hat ever
- 2:57:40Speaker 1: so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of
- 2:57:43Speaker 1: a box that had butterflies asleep in it, and he
- 2:57:46Speaker 1: didn't want to disturb them, and says mister Archibald Nichols.
- 2:57:50Speaker 1: I presume no, my boy, says the old gentleman. I'm
- 2:57:56Speaker 1: sorry to say to your driver has deceived you. Nichols's
- 2:57:59Speaker 1: places down a matter three mile more. Come in, Come in, Tom.
- 2:58:05Speaker 1: He took a look back over his shoulder and says,
- 2:58:08Speaker 1: too late, he's out of sight. Yes, he's gone, my son,
- 2:58:12Speaker 1: And you must come in and eat your dinner with us,
- 2:58:14Speaker 1: and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols. Oh,
- 2:58:18Speaker 1: I can't make you so much trouble. I couldn't think
- 2:58:21Speaker 1: of it. I'll walk. I don't mind the distance, but
- 2:58:24Speaker 1: we won't let you walk. It wouldn't be Southern hospitality
- 2:58:28Speaker 1: to do it. Come right in, oh, do, says Aunt Sally.
- 2:58:33Speaker 1: It ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a
- 2:58:36Speaker 1: bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long,
- 2:58:39Speaker 1: dusty three mile and we can't let you walk. And besides,
- 2:58:43Speaker 1: I've already told him to put on another plate when
- 2:58:45Speaker 1: I see you coming, So you mustn't disappoint us. Come
- 2:58:48Speaker 1: right in and make yourself at home. So Tom he
- 2:58:52Speaker 1: thanked him, very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded,
- 2:58:56Speaker 1: and come in and when he was in he said
- 2:58:58Speaker 1: he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name
- 2:59:02Speaker 1: was William Thompson, and he made another bow. Well, he
- 2:59:07Speaker 1: run on and on and on, making up stuff about
- 2:59:10Speaker 1: Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent. And I
- 2:59:13Speaker 1: getting a little nervous and wondering how this was going
- 2:59:16Speaker 1: to help me out of my scrape. And at last,
- 2:59:19Speaker 1: still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally
- 2:59:23Speaker 1: right on the mouth, and then settled back again in
- 2:59:26Speaker 1: his chair, comfortable, and was going on talking. But she
- 2:59:30Speaker 1: jumped up and wiped it off with the back of
- 2:59:32Speaker 1: her hand and says, you audacious puppy. He looked kind
- 2:59:37Speaker 1: of hurt and says, I'm surprised at you, ma'am. You're sir,
- 2:59:43Speaker 1: what do you reckon? I am, I have a good
- 2:59:45Speaker 1: notion to taking. Say what do you mean by kissing me?
- 2:59:49Speaker 1: He looked kind of humble and says, I didn't mean nothing, ma'am.
- 2:59:54Speaker 1: I didn't mean no harm. I thought you'd like it.
- 2:59:59Speaker 1: Why you fool. She took up the spinning stick, and
- 3:00:03Speaker 1: it looked like it was all she could do to
- 3:00:05Speaker 1: keep from giving him a crack with it. What men
- 3:00:07Speaker 1: do you think i'd like it, Well, I don't know.
- 3:00:11Speaker 1: Only they They told me you would, They told you
- 3:00:16Speaker 1: I would. Whoever told you was another lunatic. I never
- 3:00:20Speaker 1: heard the beat of it. Who's they? Why? Everybody? They
- 3:00:24Speaker 1: all said so, ma'am. It was all she could do
- 3:00:27Speaker 1: to hold in, and her eyes snapped and her fingers
- 3:00:31Speaker 1: worked like she wanted to scratch him. And she says,
- 3:00:34Speaker 1: who's everybody out with their names? Or there'll be an
- 3:00:37Speaker 1: idiot short. He got up and looked distressed and fumbled
- 3:00:42Speaker 1: his hat and says, I'm sorry. I warn't expecting it.
- 3:00:46Speaker 1: They told me to. They all told me to. They
- 3:00:49Speaker 1: all said kiss her and said she'd like it. They
- 3:00:52Speaker 1: all said, every one of them. But I'm sorry, ma'am.
- 3:00:55Speaker 1: And I won't do it no more. I won't. Honest,
- 3:00:58Speaker 1: you won't, won't you? Well, I should reckon you won't. No,
- 3:01:02Speaker 1: I'm honest about it. I won't ever do it again
- 3:01:05Speaker 1: till you ask me, till I ask you. Well, I
- 3:01:09Speaker 1: never see the beat of it in my born days.
- 3:01:12Speaker 1: I lay you'll be the methusulum numbskull of creation before
- 3:01:15Speaker 1: ever I ask you, or the lax of you. Well,
- 3:01:20Speaker 1: he says, it does surprise me, So I can't make
- 3:01:24Speaker 1: it out somehow They said you would, and I thought
- 3:01:27Speaker 1: you would. But he stopped and looked around slow, like
- 3:01:31Speaker 1: he wished she could run across a friendly eye somewheeres
- 3:01:34Speaker 1: and fetched up on the old gentleman's and says, didn't
- 3:01:38Speaker 1: you think she'd like me to kiss her? Sir? Why no? I? I? Well, no,
- 3:01:44Speaker 1: I believe I didn't. Then he looks on around the
- 3:01:47Speaker 1: same way to me and says, Tom, didn't you think
- 3:01:52Speaker 1: Aunt Sally'd open up her arms and say, sid sawyer
- 3:01:56Speaker 1: my land? She says, breaking in and jumping for him.
- 3:02:00Speaker 1: You impudent, young rascal to fool a body. So and
- 3:02:04Speaker 1: was goin to hug him, but he fended her off
- 3:02:06Speaker 1: and says, no, not till you've asked me first. So
- 3:02:10Speaker 1: she didn't lose no time, but asked him and hugged
- 3:02:12Speaker 1: him and kissed him over and over again, and then
- 3:02:15Speaker 1: turned him over to the old man and he took
- 3:02:18Speaker 1: what was left, and after they got a little quiet again,
- 3:02:21Speaker 1: she says, why, dear me, I never see such a surprise.
- 3:02:26Speaker 1: We weren't looking for you at all, but only Tom
- 3:02:29Speaker 1: Sis never wrote to me by anybody coming but him
- 3:02:33Speaker 1: it's because it warn't intended for any of us to come,
- 3:02:35Speaker 1: but Tom, he says, But I begged and begged, and
- 3:02:39Speaker 1: at the last minute she let me come too. So
- 3:02:42Speaker 1: coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would
- 3:02:45Speaker 1: be a first rate surprise for him to come here
- 3:02:47Speaker 1: to the house first, and for me to buy and
- 3:02:49Speaker 1: buy a tag along and drop in and led on
- 3:02:52Speaker 1: to be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally.
- 3:02:55Speaker 1: This ain't no healthy place for a stranger to come.
- 3:02:59Speaker 1: No impudent whelps said you ought to have your jaws boxed.
- 3:03:04Speaker 1: I ain't been so put out since I don't know when,
- 3:03:06Speaker 1: but I don't care. I don't mind the terms. I'd
- 3:03:09Speaker 1: be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have
- 3:03:11Speaker 1: you here. Well, to think of that performance, I don't
- 3:03:16Speaker 1: deny it. I was most putrefied with astonishment when you
- 3:03:19Speaker 1: give me that smack. We had dinner out in that
- 3:03:23Speaker 1: broad open passage betwixt the house and the kitchen, and
- 3:03:26Speaker 1: there was things enough on that table for seven families,
- 3:03:30Speaker 1: and all hot too. None of your flabby, tough meat
- 3:03:33Speaker 1: that's laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all
- 3:03:35Speaker 1: night and tastes like a hunk of old cold cannibal
- 3:03:38Speaker 1: in the mornin' Uncle Silas. He asked a pretty long
- 3:03:42Speaker 1: blessing over it. But it was worth it, and it
- 3:03:45Speaker 1: didn't cool it a bit neither the way I've seen
- 3:03:47Speaker 1: them kind of interruptions do lots of times. There was
- 3:03:51Speaker 1: a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and
- 3:03:54Speaker 1: me and Tom was on the lookout all the time.
- 3:03:57Speaker 1: But it warn't no use. They didn't happen to say
- 3:03:59Speaker 1: no nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid
- 3:04:02Speaker 1: to try to work up to it. But at supper
- 3:04:05Speaker 1: at night, one of the little boys says, Pa, men's
- 3:04:10Speaker 1: Tom and Sid and Me go to the show? No,
- 3:04:13Speaker 1: says the old man. I reckon, there ain't goin to
- 3:04:16Speaker 1: be Annie, And you couldn't go if there was, because
- 3:04:19Speaker 1: the runaway nigger told Burton and me all about that
- 3:04:21Speaker 1: scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the people.
- 3:04:25Speaker 1: So I reckon they've drove the audacious loafers out of
- 3:04:28Speaker 1: town before this time. So there it was, but I
- 3:04:33Speaker 1: couldn't help it. Tom and Me was to sleep in
- 3:04:35Speaker 1: the same room in bed, so beIN tired. We bid
- 3:04:39Speaker 1: good night and went up to bed. Right after supper
- 3:04:42Speaker 1: and clumb out of the window and down the lightning ride.
- 3:04:45Speaker 1: An shoved for the town, for I didn't believe anybody
- 3:04:49Speaker 1: was going to give the King and the Duke a hint,
- 3:04:51Speaker 1: and so if I didn't hurry up and give them one,
- 3:04:54Speaker 1: they'd get into trouble. Sure. On the road, Tom he
- 3:04:58Speaker 1: told me all about how it was re reckon, I
- 3:05:00Speaker 1: was murdered, and how Pap disappeared pretty soon and didn't
- 3:05:04Speaker 1: come back no more. And what a stir there was
- 3:05:06Speaker 1: when Jim run away, and I told Tom all about
- 3:05:09Speaker 1: our royal none such raps, gallions, and as much of
- 3:05:12Speaker 1: the rapped voyage as I had time to And as
- 3:05:15Speaker 1: we struck into the town, here comes a raging rush
- 3:05:19Speaker 1: of people with torches and an awful whooping and yelling
- 3:05:22Speaker 1: and banging tin pans and blowing horns. And we jumped
- 3:05:25Speaker 1: to one side to let them go by. And as
- 3:05:28Speaker 1: they went by, I'd see they had the King and
- 3:05:31Speaker 1: the Duke a straddle of a rail. That is, I
- 3:05:35Speaker 1: knowed it was the King and the Duke, though they
- 3:05:38Speaker 1: was all over tar and feathers and didn't look like
- 3:05:41Speaker 1: nothing in the world I was human, just looked like
- 3:05:44Speaker 1: a couple of monstrous, big soldier plumes. Well, it made
- 3:05:49Speaker 1: me sick to see it, and I was sorry for them,
- 3:05:52Speaker 1: poor pitiful rascals. It seemed like I couldn't ever feel
- 3:05:55Speaker 1: any hardness against them anymore in the world. It was
- 3:05:59Speaker 1: a dreadful thing to see. Human beIN's can be awful
- 3:06:03Speaker 1: cruel to one another. We see, we was too late,
- 3:06:08Speaker 1: couldn't do no good. We asked them stragglers about it,
- 3:06:11Speaker 1: An they said, everybody went to the show looking very innocent.
- 3:06:14Speaker 1: An laid low and kept dark till the poor old
- 3:06:17Speaker 1: king was in the middle of his cavortin's on the stage.
- 3:06:20Speaker 1: An then somebody give a signal, An the house rose
- 3:06:22Speaker 1: up and went for them. So we poked along back home. An,
- 3:06:26Speaker 1: I warn't feelin so brash as I was before, but
- 3:06:30Speaker 1: kind of ornery and humble. An to blame somehow, though
- 3:06:34Speaker 1: I hadn't done nothin. But that's always the way. It
- 3:06:37Speaker 1: don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong.
- 3:06:40Speaker 1: A person's conscience ain't got no sense, an jest goes
- 3:06:43Speaker 1: for him anyway. If I had a yellow dog that
- 3:06:46Speaker 1: didn't know no more than a person's conscience does, I
- 3:06:49Speaker 1: would poison him. It takes up more room than all
- 3:06:53Speaker 1: the rest of a person's insides. An yet ain't no
- 3:06:56Speaker 1: good no how Tom Sawyer, He says the same end
- 3:07:04Speaker 1: of chapter thirty three, Chapter thirty four, We stopped talking
- 3:07:10Speaker 1: an got to thinkin by and by Tom says, look
- 3:07:15Speaker 1: ye here, huck, what fools we are not to think
- 3:07:17Speaker 1: of it before? I bet I know where Jim is.
- 3:07:22Speaker 1: No where an that hook down by the ash hopper.
- 3:07:26Speaker 1: Why look a here when we was at dinner, didn't
- 3:07:29Speaker 1: you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles? Yes?
- 3:07:34Speaker 1: What did you think the vittles was for for a dog?
- 3:07:38Speaker 1: So'd I? Well it wasn't for a dog? Why because
- 3:07:43Speaker 1: part of it was watermelon? So it was I noticed it. Well,
- 3:07:49Speaker 1: it does beat all that I never thought about a
- 3:07:51Speaker 1: dog not eatin watermelon. It shows how a body can
- 3:07:54Speaker 1: see an don't see at the same time. Well, the
- 3:07:58Speaker 1: nigger unlocked the paddler when he went in, and he
- 3:08:01Speaker 1: locked it again when he came out. He fetched uncle
- 3:08:04Speaker 1: a key about the time we got up from the table.
- 3:08:07Speaker 1: Same key. I bet watermelon shows man. Lock shows a prisoner.
- 3:08:12Speaker 1: An it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a plantation,
- 3:08:16Speaker 1: and where the people's all so kind and good. Jim's
- 3:08:19Speaker 1: the prisoner. All right, I'm glad we found it out,
- 3:08:23Speaker 1: Detective Fashion. I wouldn't give shucks for any other way. Now,
- 3:08:27Speaker 1: you work your mind and study out a plan to
- 3:08:30Speaker 1: steal Jim, and I will study out one too, and
- 3:08:33Speaker 1: we'll take the one we like the best. What a
- 3:08:37Speaker 1: head for just a boy to have. If I had
- 3:08:40Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer's head, I wouldn't trade it off to be
- 3:08:42Speaker 1: a duke, nor made of a steamboat, nor clown in
- 3:08:46Speaker 1: a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went
- 3:08:49Speaker 1: to thinking out a plan, but only just to be
- 3:08:52Speaker 1: doing something I knowed very well where the right plan
- 3:08:55Speaker 1: is going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says, ready, yes,
- 3:09:01Speaker 1: I says, all right, bringin out. My plan is this,
- 3:09:06Speaker 1: I says, We can easy find out if it's jimin there.
- 3:09:10Speaker 1: Then get up to my canoe tomorrow mornin an fetch
- 3:09:13Speaker 1: my raft over from the island. Then the first dark
- 3:09:16Speaker 1: knight that comes steal the key out of the old
- 3:09:19Speaker 1: man's breeches after he goes to bed, an shove off
- 3:09:23Speaker 1: down the river on the raft with Jim. Hidin daytimes,
- 3:09:26Speaker 1: an runnin nights tho way me an Jim used to
- 3:09:28Speaker 1: do before. Wouldn't that plan work work? Why? Certainly it
- 3:09:34Speaker 1: would work like rats a fightin', But it's too blamed simple.
- 3:09:39Speaker 1: There ain't nothin to it. What's the good of a
- 3:09:42Speaker 1: plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as
- 3:09:44Speaker 1: mild as goose milk? Why huck, It wouldn't make no
- 3:09:48Speaker 1: more talk than breakin into a soap factory. I never
- 3:09:52Speaker 1: said nothin, cause I warn't expectin nothin different. But I
- 3:09:55Speaker 1: knowed mighty well that whenever he got his plan ready,
- 3:09:59Speaker 1: it wouldn't have none of them objections to it. And
- 3:10:02Speaker 1: it didn't. He told me what it was, and I
- 3:10:05Speaker 1: see in him minute it was worth fifteen of mine
- 3:10:08Speaker 1: for style, and would make Jim just as free a
- 3:10:11Speaker 1: man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed. Besides,
- 3:10:16Speaker 1: so I was satisfied and said we would waltz in
- 3:10:19Speaker 1: on it. I needn't tell what it was here, because
- 3:10:23Speaker 1: I knowed it wouldn't stay the way it was. I
- 3:10:26Speaker 1: knowed he would be a changing it around every which
- 3:10:28Speaker 1: way as we went along, and even in new bullinesses,
- 3:10:32Speaker 1: whenever he got a chance and that is what he done. Well,
- 3:10:37Speaker 1: one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom
- 3:10:39Speaker 1: Sawyer was in earnest and was actually going to help
- 3:10:43Speaker 1: steal that nigger out of slavery. That was the thing
- 3:10:46Speaker 1: that was too many for me. Here was a boy
- 3:10:49Speaker 1: that was respectable and well brung up and had a
- 3:10:52Speaker 1: character to lose, and folks at home that had characters,
- 3:10:56Speaker 1: and he was bright and not leather headed, and knowing
- 3:10:59Speaker 1: and not ignorant, and not mean but kind. And yet
- 3:11:03Speaker 1: here he was without any more pride or rightness or
- 3:11:06Speaker 1: feeling than to stoop to this business and make himself
- 3:11:10Speaker 1: ashame and his family ashamed before everybody. I couldn't understand it,
- 3:11:15Speaker 1: no way at all. It was outrageous, and I know
- 3:11:19Speaker 1: what I ought to just up and tell him so
- 3:11:21Speaker 1: and so be his true friend and let him quit
- 3:11:24Speaker 1: the thing right where he was and save himself. And
- 3:11:27Speaker 1: I did start to tell him, but he shut me
- 3:11:30Speaker 1: up and says, don't you reckon, I know what I'm about.
- 3:11:33Speaker 1: Don't I generally know what I'm about? Yes? Didn't I
- 3:11:38Speaker 1: say I was going to help steal the nigger? Yes? Well,
- 3:11:43Speaker 1: then that's all he said, And that's all I said.
- 3:11:47Speaker 1: It weren't no use to say anymore, because when he
- 3:11:50Speaker 1: said he'd do a thing, he always done it. But
- 3:11:54Speaker 1: I couldn't make out how he was willing to go
- 3:11:56Speaker 1: into this thing, so I just let it go and
- 3:11:59Speaker 1: never bother no more about it. If he was bound
- 3:12:02Speaker 1: to have it, so I couldn't help it. When we
- 3:12:05Speaker 1: got home, the house was all dark and still, so
- 3:12:09Speaker 1: we went on down to the hut by the ash
- 3:12:11Speaker 1: hopper for to examine it. We went through the yards
- 3:12:15Speaker 1: so as to see what the hounds would do. They
- 3:12:17Speaker 1: knowed us and didn't make no more noise than country
- 3:12:20Speaker 1: dogs is always doing when anything comes by in the night.
- 3:12:24Speaker 1: When we got to the cabin, we took a look
- 3:12:26Speaker 1: at the front and the two sides, and on the
- 3:12:28Speaker 1: side I warn't acquainted with, which was the north side,
- 3:12:32Speaker 1: we found a square window hole up tolerable high, with
- 3:12:36Speaker 1: just one stout board nailed across it. I says, here's
- 3:12:40Speaker 1: the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get
- 3:12:43Speaker 1: through if we wrench off the board. Tom says, it's
- 3:12:47Speaker 1: as simple as tit tat toe three in a row
- 3:12:50Speaker 1: and as easy as plain hooky. I should hope we
- 3:12:53Speaker 1: can find a way that's a little more complicated than
- 3:12:56Speaker 1: that huck Finn. Well, then I says, how will it
- 3:13:01Speaker 1: do to saw him out the way I done before
- 3:13:03Speaker 1: I was murdered that time? That's more like, he says.
- 3:13:08Speaker 1: It's real mysterious and troublesome and good, he says, But
- 3:13:12Speaker 1: I bet we can find a way that's twice as long.
- 3:13:15Speaker 1: There ain't no hurry. Let's keep on looking around. Betwixt
- 3:13:20Speaker 1: the hut and the fence. On the back side was
- 3:13:22Speaker 1: a lean to that joined the hut at the eaves
- 3:13:25Speaker 1: and was made out a plank. It was as long
- 3:13:28Speaker 1: as the hut, but narrow, only about six foot wide.
- 3:13:32Speaker 1: The door to it was at the south end and
- 3:13:34Speaker 1: was padlocked. Tom he went to the soap kettle and
- 3:13:38Speaker 1: searched around and fetched back the iron thing they left
- 3:13:41Speaker 1: the lid with, so he took it and prized out
- 3:13:44Speaker 1: one of the staples. The chain fell down, and we
- 3:13:47Speaker 1: opened the door and went in and shut it and
- 3:13:49Speaker 1: struck a match. And see the shed was only built
- 3:13:52Speaker 1: against a cabin and had no connection with it. And
- 3:13:55Speaker 1: there warn't no floor to the shed, nor nothin in
- 3:13:58Speaker 1: it but some old rust. He played out hoes and
- 3:14:01Speaker 1: spades and picks and a crippled plow. The match went out,
- 3:14:06Speaker 1: and so did we and shoved in the staple again
- 3:14:09Speaker 1: and the door was locked as good as ever. Time
- 3:14:12Speaker 1: was joyful. He says, now we're all right. We'll dig
- 3:14:17Speaker 1: him out. It'll take about a week. Then we started
- 3:14:21Speaker 1: for the house and I went in the back door.
- 3:14:24Speaker 1: He'll only have to pull a buckskin latch string. They
- 3:14:27Speaker 1: don't fasten the doors. But that warn't romantical enough for
- 3:14:30Speaker 1: Tom Sawyer. No way would do him. But he must
- 3:14:34Speaker 1: climb up the lightning ride. But after he got up
- 3:14:37Speaker 1: halfway about three times and missed fire and fell every time,
- 3:14:41Speaker 1: and the last time most busted his brains out, he
- 3:14:44Speaker 1: thought he'd give it up. But after he was rested,
- 3:14:47Speaker 1: he allowed he would give her one more turn for luck,
- 3:14:50Speaker 1: and this time he made the trip. In the mornin'
- 3:14:54Speaker 1: we was up a break a day, an down to
- 3:14:57Speaker 1: the nigger cabins to pet the dogs and make free
- 3:15:00Speaker 1: friends with the nigger that fed Jim. If it was
- 3:15:03Speaker 1: Jim that was beIN fed. The niggers was just getting
- 3:15:06Speaker 1: through breakfast and starting for the fields, and Jim's nigger
- 3:15:09Speaker 1: was pilin up a tin pan with bread an meatin things,
- 3:15:13Speaker 1: and whilst the others was leaving, the key come from
- 3:15:16Speaker 1: the house. This nigger had a good natured, chuckle headed face,
- 3:15:21Speaker 1: and his wool was all tied up in little bunches
- 3:15:23Speaker 1: with thread that was to keep witches off. He said.
- 3:15:27Speaker 1: The witches was pestering him awful these nights, and making
- 3:15:30Speaker 1: him see all kinds of strange things and hear all
- 3:15:33Speaker 1: kinds of strange words and noises, and he didn't believe
- 3:15:36Speaker 1: he was ever witched so long before in his life.
- 3:15:39Speaker 1: He got so worked up and got to running on
- 3:15:42Speaker 1: so about his troubles, he forgot all about what he'd
- 3:15:45Speaker 1: been a goin to do. So Tom says, what's the
- 3:15:49Speaker 1: victuals for goin to feed the dogs? The nigger kind
- 3:15:53Speaker 1: of smiled around gradually over his face, like when you
- 3:15:56Speaker 1: heave a brick bat and a mud puddle, And he says, yes,
- 3:16:01Speaker 1: Mars said a dog, curious dog too? Does he want
- 3:16:06Speaker 1: to go and look at him? Yes? I hunched Tom
- 3:16:10Speaker 1: and whispers, you going right here in the daybreak. That
- 3:16:14Speaker 1: warn't the plan, No it weren't, but it's a plan now,
- 3:16:19Speaker 1: So drapped him. We went along, but I didn't like
- 3:16:22Speaker 1: it much When we got in, we couldn't hardly see anything,
- 3:16:25Speaker 1: it was so dark. But Jim was there sure enough,
- 3:16:28Speaker 1: and he could see us, and he sings out, why
- 3:16:31Speaker 1: hook an good land? Ain't that missed? To Tom, I
- 3:16:37Speaker 1: just knowed how it would be. I just expected it.
- 3:16:40Speaker 1: I didn't know nothing to do, and if I had,
- 3:16:42Speaker 1: I couldn't have done it. Because the nigger busted in
- 3:16:44Speaker 1: and says, why the gracious six do he know you? Gentlemen?
- 3:16:50Speaker 1: We could see pretty well now, Tom. He looked at
- 3:16:53Speaker 1: the nigger steady and kind of wondering and says, does
- 3:16:56Speaker 1: who know us? Why this year runaway nigger? I don't
- 3:17:01Speaker 1: reckon he does, But what put that into your head?
- 3:17:05Speaker 1: What put it there? Then he just dismant, sing out
- 3:17:08Speaker 1: like he knowed you. Tom says, in a puzzled up
- 3:17:11Speaker 1: kind of way, why that's mighty curious. Who sung out?
- 3:17:16Speaker 1: When did he sing out? What did he sing out?
- 3:17:19Speaker 1: And turns to me, perfectly calm and says, did you
- 3:17:23Speaker 1: hear anybody sing out? Of course there warn't nothin to
- 3:17:27Speaker 1: be said, but the one thing, so I says, no,
- 3:17:30Speaker 1: I ain't heard nobody say nothin'. Then he turns to
- 3:17:34Speaker 1: Jim and looks him over like you never see him before,
- 3:17:37Speaker 1: and says, did you sing out? No? Suh, says Jim,
- 3:17:43Speaker 1: I hain't said nothin suh, not a word? No Suh,
- 3:17:47Speaker 1: I hain't said a word. Did you ever see yus before? No, sah,
- 3:17:52Speaker 1: not as I knows on. So Tom turns to the nigger,
- 3:17:56Speaker 1: which was looking wild and distressed, and says, kind of severe.
- 3:18:00Speaker 1: What do you Reckon's the matter with ye? Anyway? What
- 3:18:03Speaker 1: made you think somebody sung out? Oh? It's to dab
- 3:18:07Speaker 1: blame witches, sah an, I wished I was dead, I do.
- 3:18:11Speaker 1: They's always at at s an. They'd most kill me.
- 3:18:14Speaker 1: They scares me. So please don't tell nobody by it,
- 3:18:17Speaker 1: sir or old Mars Silas, he'll scold me cause he
- 3:18:21Speaker 1: said they ain't no witches. I jest wish to goodness
- 3:18:24Speaker 1: he was he a Now then what would he say?
- 3:18:27Speaker 1: I just bet he couldn't find no way to get
- 3:18:29Speaker 1: around it this time. But it's always jist. So people
- 3:18:34Speaker 1: that sot stays sot, they won't look into nothin' an
- 3:18:37Speaker 1: find it out for theyselves. An when you find it out,
- 3:18:40Speaker 1: an tell em bout it. They don't believe you Tom
- 3:18:45Speaker 1: give him a dime. An said, we wouldn't tell nobody.
- 3:18:48Speaker 1: An told him to buy some more thread to tie
- 3:18:50Speaker 1: up his wool with. An then looks at Jim and says,
- 3:18:55Speaker 1: I wonder if Uncle Silas is goin to hang this nigger.
- 3:18:58Speaker 1: If I was to catch nigger that was ungrateful enough
- 3:19:01Speaker 1: to run away, I wouldn't give him up. I'd hang him.
- 3:19:05Speaker 1: And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to look
- 3:19:07Speaker 1: at the dime and bite it to see if it
- 3:19:09Speaker 1: was good, he whispers to Jim and says, don't ever
- 3:19:13Speaker 1: let on to know us. And if you hear any
- 3:19:16Speaker 1: diggin goin on nights, it's us. We're going to set
- 3:19:19Speaker 1: you free. Jim only had time to grab us by
- 3:19:22Speaker 1: the hand and squeeze it. Then the nigger come back,
- 3:19:26Speaker 1: and we said we'd come again sometime if the nigger
- 3:19:28Speaker 1: wanted us to, and he said he would, more particular
- 3:19:32Speaker 1: if it was dark, because the witches went for him
- 3:19:35Speaker 1: mostly in the dark, and it was good to have
- 3:19:37Speaker 1: folks around. Then end of chapter thirty four, chapter thirty five,
- 3:19:47Speaker 1: it would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so
- 3:19:50Speaker 1: we left and struck down into the woods because Tom said,
- 3:19:53Speaker 1: we got to have some light to see how to
- 3:19:56Speaker 1: dig by, and a lantern makes too much and might
- 3:19:59Speaker 1: get us into trouble. What we must have was a
- 3:20:02Speaker 1: lot of them rotten chunks that's called fox fire and
- 3:20:05Speaker 1: just makes a soft kind of a glow when you
- 3:20:08Speaker 1: lay them in a dark place. We fetched an armful
- 3:20:11Speaker 1: and hid it in the weeds and set down to rest.
- 3:20:14Speaker 1: And Tom says, kind of dissatisfied, blame it. This whole
- 3:20:19Speaker 1: thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be,
- 3:20:22Speaker 1: and so it makes it so rotten difficult to get
- 3:20:25Speaker 1: up a difficult plan. There ain't no watchman to be drugged.
- 3:20:29Speaker 1: Now there ought to be a watchman. There ain't even
- 3:20:32Speaker 1: a dog to give a sleepin' mixture too. An, there's
- 3:20:35Speaker 1: Jim chained by one leg with a ten foot chain
- 3:20:38Speaker 1: to the leg of his bed. Why all you got
- 3:20:41Speaker 1: to do is lift up the bedstead and slip off
- 3:20:43Speaker 1: the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody sends the
- 3:20:48Speaker 1: key to the punkin headed nigger. An, don't send nobody
- 3:20:51Speaker 1: to watch the nigger. Jim coulda got out of that
- 3:20:54Speaker 1: window hole before this, only there wouldn't be no use
- 3:20:56Speaker 1: tryin to travel with a ten foot chain on his leg.
- 3:21:00Speaker 1: Why drag huck, it's the stupid disarrangement I ever see.
- 3:21:04Speaker 1: You got to invent all the difficulties. Well, we can't
- 3:21:08Speaker 1: help it. We got to do the best we can
- 3:21:10Speaker 1: with the materials we've got. Anyhow, there's one thing. There's
- 3:21:14Speaker 1: more honor in getting him out through a lot of
- 3:21:16Speaker 1: difficulties and dangers where there weren't one of them furnished
- 3:21:20Speaker 1: to you by the people who it was their duty
- 3:21:22Speaker 1: to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all
- 3:21:25Speaker 1: out of your own head. Now look at just that
- 3:21:28Speaker 1: one thing in the lantern, when you come down to
- 3:21:30Speaker 1: the cold facts. We simply got to let on that
- 3:21:34Speaker 1: a lantern's risky. Why we could work with a torchlight
- 3:21:37Speaker 1: procession if we wanted to, I believe now whilst I
- 3:21:41Speaker 1: think of it. We got to hunt up something to
- 3:21:43Speaker 1: make a saw out of the first chance we get,
- 3:21:46Speaker 1: What do we want of a saw? What do we
- 3:21:49Speaker 1: want of a saw? Hain't We got to saw the
- 3:21:52Speaker 1: leg of Jim's bed off so as to get the
- 3:21:54Speaker 1: chain loose. Why you just said about it could lift
- 3:21:58Speaker 1: up the bedstead and slip the chain off off. Well,
- 3:22:01Speaker 1: if that ain't just like you, huck Finn, you can
- 3:22:04Speaker 1: get up the infant schooliest ways that are going at
- 3:22:07Speaker 1: a thing. Why han't you ever read any books at all?
- 3:22:11Speaker 1: Bearn Train, nor Casanova, nor Benvenudo, Cellini, nor Henry Forth,
- 3:22:17Speaker 1: nor none of them here arose? Whoever heard again in
- 3:22:20Speaker 1: a prisoner loose in such an old matey way as that? No,
- 3:22:24Speaker 1: The way all the best authorities does is to saw
- 3:22:27Speaker 1: the bed leg in two and leave it just so,
- 3:22:30Speaker 1: and swallow the saw dust so it can't be found,
- 3:22:33Speaker 1: and put some dirt and grease around the sawed place,
- 3:22:37Speaker 1: so the very keenest cinescal can't see no sign of
- 3:22:40Speaker 1: its being sawed, and thinks the bed leg is perfectly sound.
- 3:22:45Speaker 1: Then the night you're ready fetch the leg a kick down,
- 3:22:49Speaker 1: she goes, slip off your chain, and there you are
- 3:22:52Speaker 1: nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder to the
- 3:22:54Speaker 1: battlement's shin down it break your leg in the moat,
- 3:22:58Speaker 1: because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know.
- 3:23:01Speaker 1: And there's your horses and your trusty vassals, and they
- 3:23:04Speaker 1: scoop you up and fling you across the saddle. On
- 3:23:06Speaker 1: away you go to your native Languedoc or Navarre or
- 3:23:10Speaker 1: wherever it is. It's gaudy, huck. I wish there was
- 3:23:13Speaker 1: a moat to this cabin. If we get time the
- 3:23:17Speaker 1: night of the escape, we'll dig one, I says, what
- 3:23:21Speaker 1: shall we want of a moat when we're going to
- 3:23:22Speaker 1: snake him out from under the cabin? But he never
- 3:23:26Speaker 1: heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He
- 3:23:29Speaker 1: had his chin in his hand. Thinking pretty soon. He
- 3:23:33Speaker 1: sighs and shakes his head, then sighs again and says, no,
- 3:23:38Speaker 1: it wouldn't do. There ain't necessity enough for it. For what,
- 3:23:43Speaker 1: I says, why to saw Jim's leg off? He says,
- 3:23:48Speaker 1: good Land, I says, why There ain't no necessity for it?
- 3:23:53Speaker 1: And what would you want to saw his leg off for? Anyway? Well,
- 3:23:57Speaker 1: some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't
- 3:24:00Speaker 1: get the chain off, so they just cut their hand
- 3:24:02Speaker 1: off and shoved, and a leg would be better still,
- 3:24:06Speaker 1: But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity
- 3:24:09Speaker 1: enough in this case. And besides Jim's and nigger w
- 3:24:12Speaker 1: onen't understand the reasons for it, and how it's the
- 3:24:14Speaker 1: custom in Europe. So we'll let it go. But there's
- 3:24:18Speaker 1: one thing. He can have a rope ladder. We can
- 3:24:21Speaker 1: tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder,
- 3:24:23Speaker 1: easy enough, and we can send it to him in
- 3:24:25Speaker 1: a pie. It's mostly done that way, and I've ate
- 3:24:29Speaker 1: worse pies. Why, Tom Sawyer, How you talk? I says,
- 3:24:34Speaker 1: Jim ain't got no use for a rope ladder. He
- 3:24:37Speaker 1: has got used for it. How you talk? You better
- 3:24:41Speaker 1: say he don't know nothing about it. He's got to
- 3:24:44Speaker 1: have a rope ladder. They all do. What in the
- 3:24:48Speaker 1: nation can he do with it? Do with it? He
- 3:24:51Speaker 1: can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what
- 3:24:54Speaker 1: they all do. And he's got to too, Huck. You
- 3:24:58Speaker 1: don't ever seem to want to do anything. It's regular.
- 3:25:01Speaker 1: You wanna be starting something fresh all the time. Suppose
- 3:25:04Speaker 1: he don't do nothing with it? Ain't it there in
- 3:25:07Speaker 1: his bed for a clue after he's gone? And don't
- 3:25:10Speaker 1: you reckon? They'll want clues, of course they will, and
- 3:25:13Speaker 1: you wouldn't leave them Annie. That would be pretty how
- 3:25:17Speaker 1: to do, wouldn't it. I never heard of such thing? Well,
- 3:25:22Speaker 1: I says, If it's in the regulations and he's got
- 3:25:25Speaker 1: to have it, all right, let him have it, because
- 3:25:27Speaker 1: I don't wish to go back on no regulations. But
- 3:25:31Speaker 1: there's one thing, Tom Sawyer. If we go to tearing
- 3:25:34Speaker 1: up our sheets to make jim rope ladder, we'ren't going
- 3:25:37Speaker 1: to get into trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure
- 3:25:39Speaker 1: as you're born. And now, the way I look at it,
- 3:25:42Speaker 1: the hickrew bark ladder don't cost nothing and don't waste nothing.
- 3:25:46Speaker 1: And it's just as good to load up a pie
- 3:25:48Speaker 1: with a hide in a straw tick as any rag
- 3:25:50Speaker 1: ladder you can start. And as for Jim, he ain't
- 3:25:54Speaker 1: had no experience, and so he don't care what kind
- 3:25:56Speaker 1: of a oh shucks huck finn. If I was as
- 3:26:00Speaker 1: ignorant as you, I'd keep still. That's what I do.
- 3:26:03Speaker 1: Whoever heard of a state prisoner is given by a
- 3:26:06Speaker 1: hickory bar ladder. Why it's perfectly ridiculous. Well, all right,
- 3:26:13Speaker 1: Tom picks out your own way. But if you'll take
- 3:26:15Speaker 1: my advice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of
- 3:26:18Speaker 1: the clothesline. He said that would do, And that give
- 3:26:21Speaker 1: him another idea, and he says borrow a shirt too.
- 3:26:26Speaker 1: What do we want of a shirt? Tom? Want it
- 3:26:29Speaker 1: for Jim to keep a journal. On journal, you're granny.
- 3:26:32Speaker 1: Jim can't write. Suppose he can't write, he can make
- 3:26:36Speaker 1: marks on the shirt, canny. If we make him a
- 3:26:39Speaker 1: pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece
- 3:26:42Speaker 1: of an old iron barrel hoop, what tom, We can
- 3:26:45Speaker 1: pull a feather out of a goose and make him
- 3:26:47Speaker 1: a better one and quicker too. Prisoners don't have geese
- 3:26:51Speaker 1: running around the dungeon keep to pull pins out of,
- 3:26:54Speaker 1: you muggins. They always make their pens out of the hardest, toughest,
- 3:26:58Speaker 1: troublesomest piece of old old brass candlestick or something like
- 3:27:02Speaker 1: that they can get their hands on, and it takes
- 3:27:05Speaker 1: them weeks and weeks and months and months to file
- 3:27:07Speaker 1: it out too, because they've got to do it by
- 3:27:10Speaker 1: rubbing it on the wall. They wouldn't use a goose
- 3:27:13Speaker 1: quill if they had it it ain't regular. Well, then
- 3:27:17Speaker 1: what'll we make him? The ink out of many makes
- 3:27:20Speaker 1: it out of iron, rust and tears. But that's the
- 3:27:23Speaker 1: common sword in women. The best authorities uses their own blood.
- 3:27:29Speaker 1: Jim can do that when he wants to send any little, common, ordinary,
- 3:27:33Speaker 1: mysterious message to let the world know where he's captivated.
- 3:27:37Speaker 1: He can write it on the bottom of a tin
- 3:27:39Speaker 1: plate with a fork and throw it out of the window.
- 3:27:42Speaker 1: The iron mask always done that, And it's a blame
- 3:27:45Speaker 1: good way too. Jim ain't got no tin plates. They
- 3:27:49Speaker 1: feed him in a pan. That ain't nothing we can
- 3:27:53Speaker 1: get him. Some can't nobody read his plates. That hain't
- 3:27:58Speaker 1: got anything to do with it, huck. All he's got
- 3:28:00Speaker 1: to do is write on the plate and throw it out.
- 3:28:03Speaker 1: You don't have to be able to read it. Why
- 3:28:06Speaker 1: half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes
- 3:28:08Speaker 1: on a tin plate or anywhere else. Well, then what's
- 3:28:13Speaker 1: the sense and wasting the plates? Why blame it all?
- 3:28:16Speaker 1: It ain't the prisoner's plates, But it's somebody's plates, ain't it. Well,
- 3:28:22Speaker 1: supposing it is, what does the prisoner care? Who's He
- 3:28:27Speaker 1: broke off there because we heard the breakfast horn blowing,
- 3:28:31Speaker 1: so we cleared out for the house along. During the morning,
- 3:28:35Speaker 1: I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of
- 3:28:37Speaker 1: the clothesline, and I found an old sack and put
- 3:28:40Speaker 1: them in it, And we went down and got the
- 3:28:43Speaker 1: fox fire and put that in it too. I call
- 3:28:46Speaker 1: it borrowing because that was what Pap always called it.
- 3:28:49Speaker 1: But Tom said it warn't borrowing, it was stealing. He said,
- 3:28:53Speaker 1: we was representing prisoners, and prisoners don't care how they
- 3:28:56Speaker 1: get a thing, so they get it, and nobody don't
- 3:28:59Speaker 1: blame them for it either. It ain't no crime in
- 3:29:02Speaker 1: a prisoner to steal things he needs to get away with.
- 3:29:05Speaker 1: Tom said it's his right, and so as long as
- 3:29:09Speaker 1: we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right
- 3:29:12Speaker 1: to steal anything on this place we had the least
- 3:29:14Speaker 1: use for to get ourselves out of prison with. He said,
- 3:29:18Speaker 1: if we want prisoners, it would be a very different thing.
- 3:29:21Speaker 1: And nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when
- 3:29:25Speaker 1: he warn't a prisoner. So we allied we would steal
- 3:29:28Speaker 1: everything there was to come handy. And yet he made
- 3:29:31Speaker 1: a mighty fuss one day after that when I stole
- 3:29:34Speaker 1: a watermelon out of the nigger patch, need it, and
- 3:29:36Speaker 1: he made me go and give the niggers a dime
- 3:29:38Speaker 1: without telling them what it was for. Tom said that
- 3:29:42Speaker 1: what he meant was we could steal anything we needed. Well,
- 3:29:46Speaker 1: I says I needed the watermelon, but he said I
- 3:29:49Speaker 1: didn't need it to get out of prison with. That's
- 3:29:52Speaker 1: where the difference was, he said, if I'd have wanted
- 3:29:55Speaker 1: it to hide a knife in and smuggle it to
- 3:29:57Speaker 1: Jim to kill the centiskull with, it would have been
- 3:29:59Speaker 1: all right. So I let it go with that, though
- 3:30:03Speaker 1: I couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner
- 3:30:06Speaker 1: if I got to sit down and try over a
- 3:30:08Speaker 1: lot of gold leaf distinctions like that every time I
- 3:30:10Speaker 1: see a chance to hog a watermelon. Well, as I
- 3:30:14Speaker 1: was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled
- 3:30:17Speaker 1: down to business and nobody in sight around the yard.
- 3:30:21Speaker 1: Then Tom he carried the sack into the lean to
- 3:30:24Speaker 1: whilst I stood off a piece to keep watch. Bye
- 3:30:28Speaker 1: and bye he come out, and we went and sitting
- 3:30:30Speaker 1: down on the woodpile to talk. He says, everything's all
- 3:30:34Speaker 1: right now except tools, and that's easy fixed tools. I says, yes,
- 3:30:41Speaker 1: tools for what what to dig with? We ain't a
- 3:30:45Speaker 1: going to gnaw him out? Are we? Ain't them old
- 3:30:49Speaker 1: crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig
- 3:30:51Speaker 1: a nigger out with, I says. He turns on me,
- 3:30:55Speaker 1: looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says, huck,
- 3:31:00Speaker 1: did you ever hear of a prisoner? Having picks and
- 3:31:03Speaker 1: shovels and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to
- 3:31:06Speaker 1: dig himself out with. Now, I want to ask you,
- 3:31:09Speaker 1: if you've got any reasonableness in you at all, what
- 3:31:13Speaker 1: kind of a show would that give him? To be
- 3:31:15Speaker 1: a hero. Why they might as well lend him the
- 3:31:18Speaker 1: key and done with it, picks and shovels. Why they
- 3:31:21Speaker 1: wouldn't furnish him to a king? Well, then, I says,
- 3:31:26Speaker 1: if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do
- 3:31:29Speaker 1: we want a couple of case knives to dig the
- 3:31:33Speaker 1: foundation out from under that cabin? With? Yes, confound it.
- 3:31:38Speaker 1: It's foolish, Tom, It don't make no difference how foolish
- 3:31:42Speaker 1: it is. It's the right way, and it's the regular way.
- 3:31:46Speaker 1: And there ain't no other way that ever I heard of,
- 3:31:49Speaker 1: and I've read all the books that gives any information
- 3:31:51Speaker 1: about these things. They always dig out with a case knife,
- 3:31:55Speaker 1: and not through dirt, mind you. Generally it's through solid rock.
- 3:31:59Speaker 1: And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks and
- 3:32:02Speaker 1: forever and ever. Why look at one of them prisoners
- 3:32:05Speaker 1: in the bottom dungeon of the Castle d'ef in the harbor,
- 3:32:09Speaker 1: of Marseilles that dug himself out that way? How long
- 3:32:13Speaker 1: was he at it? You reckon? I don't know. Well,
- 3:32:17Speaker 1: guess I don't know. A month and a half, thirty
- 3:32:21Speaker 1: seven years and he come out in China. That's the
- 3:32:25Speaker 1: kind I wish the bottom of this fortress was solid rock.
- 3:32:30Speaker 1: Jim don't know nobody in China. What's that got to
- 3:32:34Speaker 1: do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But you're
- 3:32:37Speaker 1: always a wandering off on a side issue. Why can't
- 3:32:40Speaker 1: you stick to the main point? All right? I don't
- 3:32:43Speaker 1: care where he comes out. So he comes out, and
- 3:32:46Speaker 1: Jim don't either, I reckon. But there's one thing anyway,
- 3:32:50Speaker 1: Jim's too old to be dug out with a case knife.
- 3:32:54Speaker 1: He won't last. Yes, he will last too, He don't reckon.
- 3:32:59Speaker 1: It's going to take thirty seven years to dig out
- 3:33:01Speaker 1: through a dirt foundation. Do you how long will it take? Tom? Well,
- 3:33:07Speaker 1: we can't risk being as long as we ought to,
- 3:33:09Speaker 1: because it mayn't take very long for Uncle Silas to
- 3:33:12Speaker 1: hear from down there. By New Orleans, he'll hear Jim
- 3:33:16Speaker 1: ain't from there. Then his next move will be to
- 3:33:19Speaker 1: advertise Jim or something like that. So we can't resk
- 3:33:22Speaker 1: being as long digging him out as we ought to
- 3:33:25Speaker 1: by rights, I reckon, we ought to be a couple
- 3:33:27Speaker 1: of years, but we can't. Things being so uncertain. What
- 3:33:32Speaker 1: I recommend is this that we really dig right in
- 3:33:35Speaker 1: as quick as we can, and after that we can
- 3:33:38Speaker 1: let on to ourselves that we was at it thirty
- 3:33:41Speaker 1: seven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush
- 3:33:44Speaker 1: him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon,
- 3:33:47Speaker 1: that'll be the best way. Now, there's sense in that.
- 3:33:52Speaker 1: I says, letting on don't cost nothing. Letting on ain't
- 3:33:56Speaker 1: no trouble. And if it's any object, I don't mind
- 3:33:59Speaker 1: letting on. We was we had one hundred and fifty year.
- 3:34:02Speaker 1: It wouldn't strain me none after I got my hand in.
- 3:34:05Speaker 1: So I'll mosey along now and smouch a couple of
- 3:34:08Speaker 1: case knives. Smouch three. He says, we want to make
- 3:34:12Speaker 1: a saw out of it, Tom, if it ain't unregular
- 3:34:17Speaker 1: and irreligious to suggest it, I says, there's an old
- 3:34:22Speaker 1: rusty saw blade around Yonder, sticking under the weather board
- 3:34:25Speaker 1: and behind the smokehouse. He looked kind of weary and
- 3:34:29Speaker 1: discouraged like, and says it ain't no use to try
- 3:34:32Speaker 1: to learn you nothing, huck, run along and smouch the knives,
- 3:34:37Speaker 1: three of them. So I done it. End of chapter
- 3:34:43Speaker 1: thirty five, Chapter thirty six. As soon as we reckoned,
- 3:34:49Speaker 1: everybody was asleep that night. We went down the lightning
- 3:34:52Speaker 1: ride and shut ourselves up in the lean to and
- 3:34:55Speaker 1: got out our pile of fox fire and went to work.
- 3:34:59Speaker 1: We cleared every everything out of the way, about four
- 3:35:02Speaker 1: or five foot along the middle of the bottom log.
- 3:35:05Speaker 1: Tom said, we was right behind Jim's bed now, and
- 3:35:08Speaker 1: we'd dig in under it. And when we got through
- 3:35:11Speaker 1: there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was
- 3:35:14Speaker 1: any hole there, because Jim's counterpin hung down most to
- 3:35:17Speaker 1: the ground, and you'd have to raise it up and
- 3:35:20Speaker 1: look under to see the hole. So we dug and
- 3:35:23Speaker 1: dug with the case knives till most midnight, and then
- 3:35:27Speaker 1: we was dog tired and our hands was blistered, and
- 3:35:30Speaker 1: yet you couldn't see we'd done hardly anything. At last,
- 3:35:35Speaker 1: I says, this ain't no thirty seven year job. This
- 3:35:39Speaker 1: is a thirty eight year job. Tom sawyer. He never
- 3:35:43Speaker 1: said nothing, but he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped digging.
- 3:35:49Speaker 1: And then for a good little while I knowed that
- 3:35:51Speaker 1: he was thinking. Then he says, it ain't no use, Huck,
- 3:35:56Speaker 1: It ain't a going to work. If we was prisoners,
- 3:35:59Speaker 1: it would because then we'd have as many years as
- 3:36:01Speaker 1: we wanted, and no hurry, and we couldn't get but
- 3:36:04Speaker 1: a few minutes to dig every day while they was
- 3:36:06Speaker 1: changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and
- 3:36:10Speaker 1: we could keep it up right along, year in and
- 3:36:12Speaker 1: year out, and do it right and the way it
- 3:36:14Speaker 1: ought to be done. But we can't fool along. We
- 3:36:17Speaker 1: got to rush. We ain't got no time to spare.
- 3:36:20Speaker 1: If we was to put in another night this way,
- 3:36:22Speaker 1: we'd have to knock off for a week to let
- 3:36:24Speaker 1: our hands get well. Couldn't touch a case knife with
- 3:36:27Speaker 1: them sooner. Well then what we're going to do, Tom,
- 3:36:32Speaker 1: I'll tell you it ain't right, and it ain't moral,
- 3:36:36Speaker 1: and I wouldn't like it to get out. But there
- 3:36:38Speaker 1: ain't only just the one way. We got to dig
- 3:36:41Speaker 1: him out with the picks and let on its case knives.
- 3:36:45Speaker 1: Now you're talking, I says, your head gets leveler and
- 3:36:49Speaker 1: leveler all the time, Tom Sawyer, I says, picks is
- 3:36:53Speaker 1: the thing moral or no moral And as for me,
- 3:36:57Speaker 1: I don't care shucks for the morality of it. Now,
- 3:37:00Speaker 1: when I start in to steal a nigger or a
- 3:37:03Speaker 1: watermelon or a Sunday school book, I ain't noways particular
- 3:37:06Speaker 1: how it's done. So it's done. What I want is
- 3:37:10Speaker 1: my nigger, or what I want is my watermelon, or
- 3:37:13Speaker 1: what I want is my Sunday school book. And if
- 3:37:16Speaker 1: it picks the handiest thing, that's the thing I'm a
- 3:37:19Speaker 1: goin to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that
- 3:37:21Speaker 1: Sunday school book out with. And I don't give a
- 3:37:24Speaker 1: dead rat what the authorities thinks about it. Another well,
- 3:37:29Speaker 1: he says, there's excuse for picks and letting on in
- 3:37:32Speaker 1: a case like this if it warn't so, I wouldn't
- 3:37:35Speaker 1: approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by and see
- 3:37:38Speaker 1: the rules broke, because right is right and wrong is wrong.
- 3:37:42Speaker 1: And a body ain't got no business doing wrong when
- 3:37:44Speaker 1: he ain't ignorant and knows better. And my answer for
- 3:37:48Speaker 1: you to dig jim out with a pick without any
- 3:37:51Speaker 1: letting on because you don't know no better. But it
- 3:37:54Speaker 1: wouldn't for me because I do know better. Give me
- 3:37:57Speaker 1: a case knife. He had his own him, but I
- 3:38:01Speaker 1: handed him mine. He flung it down and says, gimme
- 3:38:05Speaker 1: a case knife. I didn't know just what to do,
- 3:38:09Speaker 1: but then I thought. I scratched around amongst the old tools,
- 3:38:14Speaker 1: an got a pickcack's an give it to him, and
- 3:38:16Speaker 1: he took it and went to work and never said
- 3:38:18Speaker 1: a word. He was always just that particular full of principle.
- 3:38:25Speaker 1: So then I got a shovel and we picked and shoveled,
- 3:38:29Speaker 1: turned about and made the fur fly. We stuck to
- 3:38:32Speaker 1: it about a half an hour, which is as long
- 3:38:34Speaker 1: as we could stand up. But we had a good
- 3:38:36Speaker 1: deal of a hole to show for it. When I
- 3:38:39Speaker 1: got upstairs, I looked out at the window and see
- 3:38:42Speaker 1: Tom doin his level best with the lightning ride. But
- 3:38:45Speaker 1: he couldn't come it. His hands was so sore. At last,
- 3:38:49Speaker 1: he says, it ain't no use, it can't be done.
- 3:38:52Speaker 1: What you reckon i'd better do? Can't you think of
- 3:38:55Speaker 1: no way? Yes, I says, but I reckon that they
- 3:38:59Speaker 1: a'm regular come up the stairs and let on it's
- 3:39:03Speaker 1: a lightning ride. So he done it. Next day Tom
- 3:39:09Speaker 1: stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the
- 3:39:12Speaker 1: house for to make some pins for Jim out of
- 3:39:16Speaker 1: and six tallow candles. And I hung around the nigger
- 3:39:19Speaker 1: cabins and laid for a chance and stole three tin plates.
- 3:39:24Speaker 1: Tom says it wasn't enough, But I said nobody wouldn't
- 3:39:27Speaker 1: ever see the plates that Jim throwed out because they'd
- 3:39:30Speaker 1: fallen the dog fennel and jimpson weeds under the window hole.
- 3:39:34Speaker 1: Then we could tote them back and he could use
- 3:39:36Speaker 1: them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then he says,
- 3:39:41Speaker 1: now the thing to study out is how to get
- 3:39:45Speaker 1: the things to Jim take them in through the hole.
- 3:39:49Speaker 1: I says, when we get it done, he only just
- 3:39:52Speaker 1: looked scornful and said something about nobody ever heard of
- 3:39:56Speaker 1: such an idiotic idea, And then he went to studying
- 3:40:00Speaker 1: by and by. He said he had ciphered out two
- 3:40:02Speaker 1: or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide
- 3:40:05Speaker 1: on any of em yet, said we'd got to post
- 3:40:08Speaker 1: Jim first. That night, we went down the lightnin ride
- 3:40:12Speaker 1: a little after ten and took one of the candles
- 3:40:15Speaker 1: along and listened under the window hole. An heard Jim snorin,
- 3:40:19Speaker 1: so we'd pitched it in an it didn't wake him.
- 3:40:22Speaker 1: Then we whirled in with the pickin' shovel an in
- 3:40:25Speaker 1: about two hours and a half the job was done.
- 3:40:28Speaker 1: We crept in under Jim's bed, an into the cabin
- 3:40:32Speaker 1: an pawed around an found the candle and lit it,
- 3:40:35Speaker 1: and stood over Jim awhile and found him lookin hearty
- 3:40:38Speaker 1: and healthy, And then we woke him up, gentle an gradual.
- 3:40:43Speaker 1: He was so glad to see us, he most cried,
- 3:40:46Speaker 1: An called us honey, and all the pet names he
- 3:40:48Speaker 1: could think of. An was for havin us hunt up
- 3:40:51Speaker 1: a cold chisel to cut the chain off of his
- 3:40:53Speaker 1: leg with right away, an clearin out without losin any time.
- 3:40:57Speaker 1: But Tom he showed him how unray regular it would be,
- 3:41:01Speaker 1: and set down and told him all about our plans
- 3:41:04Speaker 1: and how we could alter them in a minute any
- 3:41:06Speaker 1: time there was an alarm, and not to be the
- 3:41:09Speaker 1: least afraid, because we would see he got away. Sure,
- 3:41:13Speaker 1: So Jim, he said it was all right, and we
- 3:41:16Speaker 1: sat there and talked over old times a while, and
- 3:41:19Speaker 1: then Tom asked a lot of questions. When Jim told
- 3:41:22Speaker 1: him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to
- 3:41:24Speaker 1: pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see
- 3:41:27Speaker 1: if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and
- 3:41:30Speaker 1: both of them was as kind as they could be.
- 3:41:33Speaker 1: Tom says, now I know how to fix it. We'll
- 3:41:37Speaker 1: send you some things by them. I said, don't do
- 3:41:41Speaker 1: nothing of the kind. It's one of the most jackass
- 3:41:44Speaker 1: ideas I ever struck. But he paid no attention to me,
- 3:41:48Speaker 1: went right on. It was his way when he'd got
- 3:41:51Speaker 1: his plans set. So he told Jim how we'd have
- 3:41:55Speaker 1: to smuggle in the rope, ladder, pie and other large
- 3:41:58Speaker 1: things by Nat nigger that fed him, and he must
- 3:42:02Speaker 1: be on the lookout and not be surprised, and not
- 3:42:05Speaker 1: let Nat see him open them. And we would put
- 3:42:07Speaker 1: small things in uncle's coat pockets, and he must steal
- 3:42:11Speaker 1: them out. And we would tie things to aunt's apron springs,
- 3:42:15Speaker 1: or put them in her apron pocket if we got
- 3:42:17Speaker 1: a chance. And told him what they would be and
- 3:42:20Speaker 1: what they was for, and told him how to keep
- 3:42:22Speaker 1: a journal on the shirt with his blood and all that.
- 3:42:26Speaker 1: He told him everything. Jim, he couldn't see no sense
- 3:42:30Speaker 1: in the most of it, but he allowed we was
- 3:42:32Speaker 1: white folks an knowed better than him. So he was
- 3:42:35Speaker 1: satisfied and said he would do it all just as
- 3:42:38Speaker 1: Tom said. Jim had plenty corn, cob pipes and tobacco,
- 3:42:43Speaker 1: so we had a right down, good sociable time. Then
- 3:42:46Speaker 1: we crawled out through the hole and sew home to
- 3:42:49Speaker 1: bed with hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom
- 3:42:53Speaker 1: was in high spirits. He said it was the best
- 3:42:55Speaker 1: funny ever had in his life, and the most intellectual,
- 3:42:59Speaker 1: and said, if he only could see his way to it,
- 3:43:02Speaker 1: we would keep it up all the rest of our
- 3:43:04Speaker 1: lives and leave Jim to our children to get out,
- 3:43:07Speaker 1: for he believed Jim would come to like it better
- 3:43:09Speaker 1: and better the more he got used to it. He
- 3:43:12Speaker 1: said that in that way it could be strung out
- 3:43:14Speaker 1: to as much as eighty year and would be the
- 3:43:17Speaker 1: best time on record, and he said it would make
- 3:43:19Speaker 1: us all celebrated that had a hand in it. In
- 3:43:23Speaker 1: the morning, we went out to the woodpile and chopped
- 3:43:25Speaker 1: up the brass candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put
- 3:43:29Speaker 1: them and the pewter spoon in his pocket. Then we
- 3:43:33Speaker 1: went to the nigger cabins, and while I got NAT's
- 3:43:35Speaker 1: notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the
- 3:43:39Speaker 1: middle of a corn pone that was in Jim's pan,
- 3:43:42Speaker 1: and we went along with Nat to see how it
- 3:43:44Speaker 1: would work. And it just worked noble. When Jim bit
- 3:43:48Speaker 1: into it, it most mashed all his teeth out, And
- 3:43:51Speaker 1: there warn't ever anything could have worked better. Tom said
- 3:43:54Speaker 1: so himself. Jim, he never let on but what it
- 3:43:58Speaker 1: was only just a piece of rock or something like that.
- 3:44:00Speaker 1: That's always getting into bread, you know. But after that
- 3:44:03Speaker 1: he never bit into nothin' but what He jabbed his
- 3:44:06Speaker 1: fork into it in three or four places. First, an,
- 3:44:10Speaker 1: whilst we was a standin there in the dimish flight,
- 3:44:13Speaker 1: here comes a couple of hounds bulgin in from under
- 3:44:16Speaker 1: Jim's bed, and they kept on pilin in till there
- 3:44:19Speaker 1: was eleven of them. An there warn't hardly roomin there
- 3:44:22Speaker 1: to get your breath. By James, we forgot to fasten
- 3:44:25Speaker 1: that lean to door. The nigger Nat he only just
- 3:44:29Speaker 1: hollered witches. Once An keeled over on to the floor
- 3:44:33Speaker 1: amongst the dogs had begun to groan like he was dyin'.
- 3:44:37Speaker 1: Tom drook the door open and flung out a slab
- 3:44:40Speaker 1: of Jim's meat, and the dogs went for it, and
- 3:44:43Speaker 1: in two seconds he was out himself. An back again,
- 3:44:46Speaker 1: An shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the
- 3:44:48Speaker 1: other door too. Then he went to work on the nigger,
- 3:44:52Speaker 1: coaxin him and pettin him. A askin him if he'd
- 3:44:55Speaker 1: been imaginin' he saw something. He raised up, An blinked
- 3:44:59Speaker 1: his eyes around and says. Mars said, you'll say I
- 3:45:03Speaker 1: was a fool. But if I didn't believe I seen
- 3:45:05Speaker 1: most a million dogs or her devils are summon, I
- 3:45:09Speaker 1: wished I made day right here in these tracks. I
- 3:45:12Speaker 1: did most surely, MA said, I felt them. I felt them, sir,
- 3:45:17Speaker 1: They was all over me. They had to fetch it.
- 3:45:20Speaker 1: I just wish I could get my hands on one
- 3:45:23Speaker 1: or damn witches, just once, only just once, It's all
- 3:45:26Speaker 1: I'd asked. But mostly I wish they'd let me loan
- 3:45:30Speaker 1: I does. Tom says, well, I tell you what I think.
- 3:45:36Speaker 1: What makes them come here, just at this runaway nigger's
- 3:45:39Speaker 1: breakfast time? It's because they're hungry. That's the reason. You
- 3:45:44Speaker 1: make them a witch pie. That's the thing for you
- 3:45:47Speaker 1: to do. But my land Mar said, How's I going
- 3:45:51Speaker 1: to make them a witch pie? I don't know how
- 3:45:53Speaker 1: to make it. I ain't ever heard of such a thing. Before. Well,
- 3:45:58Speaker 1: then I'll have to make it myself. Will you do it, honey?
- 3:46:02Speaker 1: Will you? I'll wish up the ground under your foot.
- 3:46:04Speaker 1: I will, all right, I'll do it. Seein it's you,
- 3:46:08Speaker 1: and you've been good to us and showed us the
- 3:46:10Speaker 1: runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful when
- 3:46:14Speaker 1: we come around, you turn your back. And then whatever
- 3:46:17Speaker 1: we've put in the pan, don't you let on you
- 3:46:20Speaker 1: see it at all? And don't you look when Jim
- 3:46:22Speaker 1: unloads the pan. Something might happen. I don't know what.
- 3:46:26Speaker 1: And above all, don't you handle the witch things handlin
- 3:46:31Speaker 1: mar suit. What is you a talkin'bout? I wouldn't lay
- 3:46:35Speaker 1: the weight of my finger on 'em, not for ten
- 3:46:38Speaker 1: hundred thousand billion dollars. I wouldn't. End of chapter thirty six,
- 3:46:46Speaker 1: Chapter thirty seven. That was all fixed. So then we
- 3:46:53Speaker 1: went away and went to the rubbish pile in the
- 3:46:55Speaker 1: backyard where they keep the old boots and rags, an
- 3:46:58Speaker 1: pieces of bottles, and wore out ten things in all
- 3:47:01Speaker 1: such truck and scratched around an found an old tin
- 3:47:05Speaker 1: wash pan and stopped up the holes as well as
- 3:47:07Speaker 1: we could to bake the pie in and took it
- 3:47:10Speaker 1: down cellar and stole it full of flour. An started
- 3:47:13Speaker 1: for breakfast and found a couple of shingle nails of Tom,
- 3:47:16Speaker 1: so they would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble
- 3:47:19Speaker 1: his name. An sorrows on the dungeon walls with and
- 3:47:22Speaker 1: dropped one of them in Aunt Sally's apron pocket, which
- 3:47:25Speaker 1: was hanging on a chair, and the other we stuck
- 3:47:27Speaker 1: in the band to Uncle Silas's hat, which was on
- 3:47:30Speaker 1: the bureau, because we heard the children say there pa
- 3:47:33Speaker 1: An Ma was goin to the runaway nigger's house this
- 3:47:36Speaker 1: mornin' An then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the
- 3:47:39Speaker 1: pewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coat pocket, and Aunt Sallie
- 3:47:42Speaker 1: wasn't come yet, so we had to wait a little while.
- 3:47:46Speaker 1: And when she come she was hot an red an
- 3:47:48Speaker 1: cross and couldn't hardly wait for the blessin' an. Then
- 3:47:52Speaker 1: she went to sluicin out coffee with one hand, an
- 3:47:55Speaker 1: crackin' the handiest child's head with her thimble with the other,
- 3:47:58Speaker 1: An says, I've hunted high and I've hunted low, and
- 3:48:02Speaker 1: it does beat all what has become of your other shirt?
- 3:48:06Speaker 1: My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things,
- 3:48:10Speaker 1: and a hard piece of corn crust started down my
- 3:48:12Speaker 1: throat after it, and got me on the road with
- 3:48:15Speaker 1: a cough, and was shot across the table, and took
- 3:48:18Speaker 1: one of the children in the eye and curled him
- 3:48:20Speaker 1: up like a fishin' worm, and let a cry out
- 3:48:22Speaker 1: of him the size of a war whoop, and tom.
- 3:48:25Speaker 1: He turned kind of blue around the gills. And it
- 3:48:28Speaker 1: all amounted to a considerable state of things for about
- 3:48:31Speaker 1: a quarter of a minute, or as much as that,
- 3:48:34Speaker 1: And I would have sold out for half price if
- 3:48:36Speaker 1: there was a bitter But after that we was all
- 3:48:39Speaker 1: right again. It was the sudden surprise of it that
- 3:48:42Speaker 1: not us kind of cold Uncle Silas he says, it's
- 3:48:46Speaker 1: most uncommon curious. I can't understand it. I know perfectly
- 3:48:51Speaker 1: well I took it off because because you hain't got
- 3:48:55Speaker 1: but one on. Just listen at the man. I know
- 3:48:58Speaker 1: you took it off, and I know it by a
- 3:49:00Speaker 1: better way than your wool gathering memory, too, because it
- 3:49:03Speaker 1: was on the clothes line yesterday. I see it there myself.
- 3:49:07Speaker 1: But it's gone. That's the long and short of it.
- 3:49:09Speaker 1: And you'll just have to change to a red flannel
- 3:49:11Speaker 1: one till I can get time to make a new one,
- 3:49:14Speaker 1: and it'll be the third one I've made in two years.
- 3:49:17Speaker 1: It just keeps a body on the jump to keep
- 3:49:19Speaker 1: you in shirts, and whatever you do manage to do
- 3:49:22Speaker 1: with them, all is more. And I can make out
- 3:49:24Speaker 1: a body. Think you would learn to take some sort
- 3:49:27Speaker 1: of care of them at your time of life. I
- 3:49:30Speaker 1: know it's Sally. I do try all I can, but
- 3:49:33Speaker 1: it oughtn't to be altogether my fault, because you know
- 3:49:37Speaker 1: I don't see them, nor have nothing to do with
- 3:49:39Speaker 1: them except when they're on me, and I don't believe
- 3:49:42Speaker 1: I've ever lost one of them off of me. Well,
- 3:49:46Speaker 1: it ain't your fault if you haven't, silas you'd have
- 3:49:48Speaker 1: done it if you could. I reckon, And the shirt
- 3:49:50Speaker 1: ain't all that's gone. Another there's a spoon gone, And
- 3:49:53Speaker 1: that ain't all. There was ten and now there's only nine.
- 3:49:57Speaker 1: The calf got the shirt, I reckon, But the calf
- 3:49:59Speaker 1: never took the spoon, that's certain. Why what else is gone? Sally?
- 3:50:05Speaker 1: There's six candles gone. That's what the rats could have
- 3:50:08Speaker 1: got the candles, and I reckon they did. I wonder
- 3:50:11Speaker 1: they didn't walk off of the whole place the way
- 3:50:13Speaker 1: you're always going to stop their holes and don't do it.
- 3:50:16Speaker 1: And if they weren't fools, they'd sleep in your hair, Silas,
- 3:50:19Speaker 1: you'd never find it out. But you can't lay the
- 3:50:22Speaker 1: spoon on the rats. And that I know well, Sally.
- 3:50:26Speaker 1: I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it. I've been remiss,
- 3:50:30Speaker 1: but I won't let tomorrow go by without stopping up
- 3:50:32Speaker 1: them holes. Oh, I wouldn't hurry next year'll do, Matilda,
- 3:50:37Speaker 1: Angelina Aramenta phelps whack, comes a thimble, and the child
- 3:50:43Speaker 1: snatches her claws out of the sugar bowl without fooling
- 3:50:45Speaker 1: around Annie. Just then the nigger woman steps onto the
- 3:50:49Speaker 1: passage and says, missus, day's a sheet gone, a sheet gone. Well,
- 3:50:56Speaker 1: for the land's sake, I'll step up them holes today,
- 3:51:01Speaker 1: says uncle Silas, lookin sorrowful. Oh do shut up? S'pose
- 3:51:05Speaker 1: the rats took the sheet? Where's it gone? Lies clyde O. Goodness,
- 3:51:11Speaker 1: I hain't no notion, miss Sally. She was on the
- 3:51:14Speaker 1: clothes line yesterday, but she done gone. She ain't den
- 3:51:17Speaker 1: no more. Now I reckon the world. It's comin to
- 3:51:21Speaker 1: an end. I never see the beat of it in
- 3:51:23Speaker 1: all my born days. A shirt and a sheet and
- 3:51:26Speaker 1: a spoon. An six can't missus, comes the young yeller
- 3:51:30Speaker 1: wench dare's a breast candlestick missin' clear out from here,
- 3:51:35Speaker 1: ye hussy. Or I'll take a skillet to ye. Well,
- 3:51:39Speaker 1: she was jest a violin. I begun to lay for
- 3:51:42Speaker 1: a chance, I reckoned. I would sneak out an go
- 3:51:44Speaker 1: fer the woods till the weather moderated. She kept a
- 3:51:48Speaker 1: ragin right along, runnin her insurrection all by herself, an
- 3:51:52Speaker 1: everybody else mighty, meek and quiet. An at last, Uncle
- 3:51:57Speaker 1: Silas lookin kind o foolish fishes up that spoon out
- 3:52:01Speaker 1: of his pocket. She stopped with her mouth open and
- 3:52:04Speaker 1: her hands up. And as for me, I wish I
- 3:52:08Speaker 1: was in Jerusalem or somewheres, but not long, because she says,
- 3:52:13Speaker 1: it's just as I expected. See you had it in
- 3:52:16Speaker 1: your pocket all the time, and like as not, you've
- 3:52:19Speaker 1: got the other things there too. How to get there?
- 3:52:23Speaker 1: I really don't know, sally, he says, kind of apologizing.
- 3:52:28Speaker 1: Or you know, I would tell I was a studyin
- 3:52:31Speaker 1: over my text and act seventeen before breakfast, and I
- 3:52:35Speaker 1: reckon I put it in there, not noticing meanin to
- 3:52:38Speaker 1: put my testament in. And it must be so, because
- 3:52:41Speaker 1: my testament ain't in. But I'll go and see, and
- 3:52:45Speaker 1: if the testament is where I had it, I'll no,
- 3:52:47Speaker 1: I didn't put it in, and that will show that
- 3:52:49Speaker 1: I laid the testament down and took up the spoon.
- 3:52:52Speaker 1: And oh, for the land's sake, give a body a rest.
- 3:52:56Speaker 1: Go long now, the whole kitten violin of ye, and
- 3:52:59Speaker 1: don't come nie me again till I've got back my
- 3:53:01Speaker 1: peace of mind. I'd heard her if she'd a said
- 3:53:04Speaker 1: it to herself, let alone speakin it out, and i'd
- 3:53:07Speaker 1: a got up and obeyed her if i'd a been dead.
- 3:53:11Speaker 1: As he was passing through the settin' room, the old man,
- 3:53:13Speaker 1: he took up his hat and the shingle nail fell
- 3:53:16Speaker 1: out on the floor, and he just merely picked it
- 3:53:19Speaker 1: up and laid it on the mantel shelf, and never
- 3:53:21Speaker 1: said nothin', and went out tom see him do it,
- 3:53:25Speaker 1: and remembered about the spoon, and says, well, it ain't
- 3:53:28Speaker 1: no use to send things by him no more. He
- 3:53:31Speaker 1: ain't reliable, then, he says, but he done us a
- 3:53:34Speaker 1: good turn with a spoon anyhow, without knowin it. And
- 3:53:37Speaker 1: so we'll go and do him one without him knowin it.
- 3:53:41Speaker 1: Stop up his rat holes. There was a noble good
- 3:53:44Speaker 1: lot of them down cellar, and it took us a
- 3:53:46Speaker 1: whole hour, but we'd done the job tight an good,
- 3:53:49Speaker 1: an ship shape. Then we heard steps on the stairs,
- 3:53:53Speaker 1: an blowed out our light and hid, and here comes
- 3:53:55Speaker 1: the old man with a candle in one hand and
- 3:53:58Speaker 1: a bundle of stuff in the other, lookin' as absent
- 3:54:01Speaker 1: minded as year before last. He went to moonin around
- 3:54:05Speaker 1: first of one rat hole and then another, till he'd
- 3:54:08Speaker 1: been to them all. Then he stood about five minutes,
- 3:54:11Speaker 1: picking towel drip off of his candle and thinking. Then
- 3:54:15Speaker 1: he turns off slow an dreamy towards the stairs, saying,
- 3:54:19Speaker 1: well for the laugh, O me, I can't remember when
- 3:54:22Speaker 1: i'd done it. I could show her now that I
- 3:54:24Speaker 1: warn't to blame on account o other rats. But never mind,
- 3:54:28Speaker 1: let it go, I reckon it wouldn't do no good.
- 3:54:33Speaker 1: And so he went on a mumblin' upstairs, and then
- 3:54:35Speaker 1: we left. He was a mighty nice old man, and
- 3:54:39Speaker 1: always is. Tom was a good deal bothered about what
- 3:54:43Speaker 1: to do for a spoon, But he said we'd got
- 3:54:45Speaker 1: to have it, so he took a think. When he
- 3:54:48Speaker 1: had ciphered it out, he told me how we was
- 3:54:51Speaker 1: to do. Then we went an waited around the spoon
- 3:54:54Speaker 1: basket till we see Aunt Sally comin. And then Tom
- 3:54:57Speaker 1: went to countin the spoons, an layin' them out to
- 3:55:00Speaker 1: one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve.
- 3:55:03Speaker 1: And Tom says, why, Aunt Sally, there ain't put nine
- 3:55:07Speaker 1: spoons yet? She says, go along to your play and
- 3:55:11Speaker 1: don't bother me. I know better. I counted em myself. Well,
- 3:55:15Speaker 1: I've counted them twice, Auntie, and I can't make but nine.
- 3:55:19Speaker 1: She looked out of all patience. But of course she
- 3:55:22Speaker 1: come to count anybody would, I declared her, gracious, there
- 3:55:26Speaker 1: ain't but nine. She says, why wouldn't the world plague
- 3:55:31Speaker 1: take the things? I'll count 'em again, So I slipped
- 3:55:35Speaker 1: back the one I had. When she got done counting,
- 3:55:38Speaker 1: she says, hang the troublesome rubbish, there's ten now, And
- 3:55:43Speaker 1: she looked huffy and bothered both. But Tom says, why Auntie,
- 3:55:47Speaker 1: I don't think there's ten? You numskull didn't you see
- 3:55:51Speaker 1: me count em? I know, but well i'll count him again.
- 3:55:56Speaker 1: So I smouched one, an they come out nine, same
- 3:55:59Speaker 1: as the other time. Well, she was in a terring' way,
- 3:56:04Speaker 1: just a tremblin all over. She was so mad, but
- 3:56:06Speaker 1: she counted and counted till she got that addled. She'd
- 3:56:10Speaker 1: start to count in a basket for a spoon sometimes,
- 3:56:13Speaker 1: and so three times they'd come out right, and three
- 3:56:16Speaker 1: times they come out wrong. Then she grabbed up the
- 3:56:19Speaker 1: basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the
- 3:56:22Speaker 1: cat gally west, and she said, Claire out an let
- 3:56:25Speaker 1: her have some peace. An if we came bothering her again,
- 3:56:28Speaker 1: betwixt that and dinner, she'd skin us. So we had
- 3:56:32Speaker 1: the odd spoon and dropped it in her apron pocket
- 3:56:34Speaker 1: while she was a givin us our sailin' orders. An
- 3:56:37Speaker 1: Jim got it all right along with her shingle nail.
- 3:56:40Speaker 1: Before noon, we was very well satisfied with this business.
- 3:56:45Speaker 1: And Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took,
- 3:56:48Speaker 1: because he said, now she couldn't ever count them spoons
- 3:56:50Speaker 1: twice alike again to save her life, and wouldn't believe
- 3:56:53Speaker 1: she'd counted them right if she did, and said that
- 3:56:56Speaker 1: after she'd about counted her head off for the next
- 3:56:59Speaker 1: three days, he judge she'd give it up and offer
- 3:57:01Speaker 1: to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them anymore.
- 3:57:05Speaker 1: So we put the sheet back on the line that night,
- 3:57:07Speaker 1: and stole one out of her closet, and kept on
- 3:57:10Speaker 1: putting it back and stealing it again for a couple
- 3:57:12Speaker 1: of days till she didn't know how many sheets she
- 3:57:14Speaker 1: had anymore. And she didn't care, and warn't a goin
- 3:57:18Speaker 1: to bullyrag the rest of her soul out about it,
- 3:57:20Speaker 1: and wouldn't count them again, not to save her life.
- 3:57:23Speaker 1: She'd rather die first. So we was all right now.
- 3:57:27Speaker 1: As to the shirt and the sheet, and the spoon
- 3:57:29Speaker 1: and the candles, by the help of the calf and
- 3:57:31Speaker 1: the rats and the mixed up counting. And as to
- 3:57:34Speaker 1: the candlestick, it warn't no consequence. It would blow over
- 3:57:37Speaker 1: by and by. But that pie was a job. We
- 3:57:41Speaker 1: had no end of trouble with that pie. We fixed
- 3:57:44Speaker 1: it up away down in the woods and cooked it there,
- 3:57:46Speaker 1: and we got it done at last, and very satisfactory too,
- 3:57:50Speaker 1: but not all in one day. And we had to
- 3:57:52Speaker 1: use up three wash pans full of flour before we
- 3:57:55Speaker 1: got through, and we got burnt pretty much all over
- 3:57:59Speaker 1: in places, and eyes put out with the smoke, because
- 3:58:02Speaker 1: you see, we didn't want nothing but a crust, and
- 3:58:04Speaker 1: we couldn't prop it up right and she would always
- 3:58:07Speaker 1: cave in. But of course we thought of the right
- 3:58:10Speaker 1: way at last, which was to cook the latter two
- 3:58:13Speaker 1: in the pie. So then we laid in with Jim
- 3:58:16Speaker 1: the second night and tore up the sheet all in
- 3:58:18Speaker 1: little strings and twisted them together, and long before daylight
- 3:58:22Speaker 1: we had a lovely rope that you could have hung
- 3:58:24Speaker 1: in person with we let on. It took nine months
- 3:58:28Speaker 1: to make it, and in the forenoon we took it
- 3:58:31Speaker 1: down to the woods, but it wouldn't go into the pie,
- 3:58:35Speaker 1: being made of a whole sheet. That way, there was
- 3:58:37Speaker 1: rope enough for forty pies if we'd have wanted them,
- 3:58:40Speaker 1: and plenty left over for soup or sausage or anything
- 3:58:43Speaker 1: you choose. We could have had a whole dinner, but
- 3:58:47Speaker 1: we didn't need it. All we needed was just enough
- 3:58:49Speaker 1: for the pie, and so we throwed the rest away.
- 3:58:53Speaker 1: We didn't cook none of the pies in the washpan,
- 3:58:55Speaker 1: afraid the soldier would melt, but Uncle silas he had
- 3:58:59Speaker 1: a noble bread warming pan which she thought considerable of
- 3:59:03Speaker 1: because it belonged to one of his ancestors, with a
- 3:59:05Speaker 1: long wooden handle that come over from England with William
- 3:59:08Speaker 1: the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early ships,
- 3:59:12Speaker 1: and was hit away up Garrett with a lot of
- 3:59:15Speaker 1: other old pies and things that was valuable, not on
- 3:59:18Speaker 1: account of being any account, because they weren't, but on
- 3:59:21Speaker 1: account of them being relics, you know. And we sneaked
- 3:59:24Speaker 1: her out private and took her down there. But she
- 3:59:27Speaker 1: failed on the first pies because we didn't know how,
- 3:59:31Speaker 1: but she come up smiling on the last one. We
- 3:59:34Speaker 1: took and lined her with dough and set her in
- 3:59:36Speaker 1: the coals, and loaded her up with rag rope and
- 3:59:39Speaker 1: put on a dough roof and shut down the lid
- 3:59:41Speaker 1: and put hot embers on top, and stood off five
- 3:59:45Speaker 1: foot with the long handle, cool and comfortable, and in
- 3:59:49Speaker 1: fifteen minutes she turned out a pie that was a
- 3:59:51Speaker 1: satisfaction to look at. But the person that edit would
- 3:59:54Speaker 1: want to fetch a couple of CAGs that toothpicks along
- 3:59:57Speaker 1: for of that rope ladder wouldn't cramp him down business
- 4:00:00Speaker 1: I dun'no nothing what I'm talking about, and laying him
- 4:00:03Speaker 1: in enough stomach ache to last him till next time. Too.
- 4:00:07Speaker 1: Nat didn't look when we put the witch pie in
- 4:00:09Speaker 1: Jim's pan, and we put the three tin plates in
- 4:00:12Speaker 1: the bottom of the pan under the victuals. And so
- 4:00:15Speaker 1: Jim got everything all right, And as soon as he
- 4:00:18Speaker 1: was by himself, he busted into the pie and hid
- 4:00:21Speaker 1: the rope ladder inside of his straw tick and scratched
- 4:00:24Speaker 1: some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out
- 4:00:27Speaker 1: of the window hole. End of chapter thirty seven. Chapter
- 4:00:34Speaker 1: thirty eight. Making them pens was a distressed, tough job,
- 4:00:40Speaker 1: and so was the saw. And Jim alied. The inscription
- 4:00:44Speaker 1: was going to be the toughest of all. That's the
- 4:00:46Speaker 1: one which a prisoner has to scrabble on the wall.
- 4:00:49Speaker 1: But he had to have it time, said he'd got to.
- 4:00:52Speaker 1: There warn't no case of a state prisoner not scrabbling
- 4:00:55Speaker 1: his inscription to leave behind and his coat of arms.
- 4:00:59Speaker 1: Look at Lee to Jane Gray, he says, look at
- 4:01:02Speaker 1: Guilford Dudley, look at old Northumberland. Why Huck suppose it
- 4:01:07Speaker 1: is considerable trouble. What you going to do? How you
- 4:01:10Speaker 1: going to get around it? Jim's got to do his
- 4:01:13Speaker 1: inscription and coat of arms? They all do. Jim says,
- 4:01:18Speaker 1: why mars, Tom, I ain't got no coat of arm.
- 4:01:21Speaker 1: I ain't got nothing but this year old shirt. And
- 4:01:24Speaker 1: you knows I got to keep the journal on. Dad. Oh,
- 4:01:27Speaker 1: you don't understand, Jim. A coat of arms is very different. Well,
- 4:01:32Speaker 1: I says. Jim's right anyway when he says he ain't
- 4:01:35Speaker 1: got no coat of arms, because he hain't, I reckon.
- 4:01:39Speaker 1: I know that. Tom says, but you bet he'll have
- 4:01:43Speaker 1: one before he gets out of this, because he's going
- 4:01:45Speaker 1: out right, and there ain't goin to be no flaws
- 4:01:48Speaker 1: in his record. So whilst me and Jim filed away
- 4:01:52Speaker 1: at the pens on a brick bat a piece, Jim
- 4:01:55Speaker 1: a making his and out of the brass, and I'm
- 4:01:57Speaker 1: making mine out of the spoon. Tom set to work
- 4:02:00Speaker 1: to think out the coat of arms by and bye.
- 4:02:03Speaker 1: He said he'd struck so many good ones he didn't
- 4:02:05Speaker 1: hardly know which to take, but there was one which
- 4:02:08Speaker 1: he reckoned. He'd decide on, he says, on the sketchen,
- 4:02:12Speaker 1: we'll have a bend or in the dexter base, a
- 4:02:16Speaker 1: saltire murray and the fest with a dog kutchin for
- 4:02:20Speaker 1: common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled for slavery,
- 4:02:25Speaker 1: with a chevron vert and a chief engrailed, and three
- 4:02:29Speaker 1: invected lines on a field azure with the nombril points
- 4:02:33Speaker 1: rampant on a dancet indented crest, a runaway nigger sable
- 4:02:39Speaker 1: with his bundle over his shoulder, on a bar sinister,
- 4:02:42Speaker 1: and a couple of ghouls for supporters. Which is you
- 4:02:45Speaker 1: and me? Motto maggiora fretta minora otto got it out
- 4:02:52Speaker 1: of a book means the more haste, the less speed,
- 4:02:57Speaker 1: gee willikins, I said, but what does the rest of
- 4:03:01Speaker 1: it mean? We ain't got no time to bother over that,
- 4:03:05Speaker 1: He says. We got to dig in like all get out. Well, anyway,
- 4:03:10Speaker 1: I says, what's some of it? What's a fess? A fess?
- 4:03:15Speaker 1: A fess is. You don't need to know what a
- 4:03:18Speaker 1: fess is. I'll show him how to make it when
- 4:03:20Speaker 1: he gets to it. Shucks, Tom, I says, I think
- 4:03:25Speaker 1: you might tell a person what's a bar sinister? Oh?
- 4:03:29Speaker 1: I don't know, but he's got to have it all
- 4:03:31Speaker 1: the nobility does. That was just his way. If it
- 4:03:35Speaker 1: didn't suit him to explain a thing to you, he
- 4:03:37Speaker 1: wouldn't do it. You might pump at him a week,
- 4:03:39Speaker 1: it wouldn't make no difference. He'd got all that coat
- 4:03:43Speaker 1: of arms business fixed. So now he started in to
- 4:03:45Speaker 1: finish up the rest of that part of the work,
- 4:03:48Speaker 1: which was to plan out a mournful inscription, said, Jim
- 4:03:51Speaker 1: got to have one like they all done. He made
- 4:03:55Speaker 1: up a lot and wrote them out on a paper
- 4:03:57Speaker 1: and read them off. So one Here a captive heart busted.
- 4:04:03Speaker 1: Two Here a poor prisoner forsook by the world, and
- 4:04:08Speaker 1: friends fretted his sorrowful life. Three Here a lonely heart broke,
- 4:04:15Speaker 1: and a worn spirit went to its rest after thirty
- 4:04:19Speaker 1: seven years of solitary captivity. Four Here, homeless and friendless,
- 4:04:26Speaker 1: after thirty seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger,
- 4:04:32Speaker 1: natural son of Louis fourteen. Tom's voice trembled whilst he
- 4:04:39Speaker 1: was reading them, and he most broke down when he
- 4:04:42Speaker 1: got done. He couldn't no way make up his mind
- 4:04:44Speaker 1: which one for Jim to scrabble on to the wall.
- 4:04:47Speaker 1: They was all so good but at last he allowed
- 4:04:50Speaker 1: he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said
- 4:04:53Speaker 1: it would take him a year to scrabble such a
- 4:04:55Speaker 1: light of truck on to the logs with a nail,
- 4:04:57Speaker 1: and he didn't know how to make letters besides, so
- 4:05:00Speaker 1: Tom said he would block them out for him, and
- 4:05:02Speaker 1: then he wouldn't have nothin to do but just follow
- 4:05:04Speaker 1: the lines. Then pretty soon, he says, come to think
- 4:05:09Speaker 1: the logs ain't a goin to do. They don't have
- 4:05:11Speaker 1: log walls and a dungeon. We got to dig the
- 4:05:14Speaker 1: inscriptions into a rock. We'll fetch a rock. Jim said
- 4:05:18Speaker 1: the rock was worse than the logs. He said it
- 4:05:21Speaker 1: would take him such a pizzin' long time to dig
- 4:05:23Speaker 1: them into a rock. He wouldn't ever get out. But
- 4:05:26Speaker 1: Tom said he would let me help him do it.
- 4:05:29Speaker 1: Then he took a look to see how me and
- 4:05:31Speaker 1: Jim was gettin along with the pens. It was most pesky,
- 4:05:34Speaker 1: tedious hard work and slow an didn't give my hands
- 4:05:38Speaker 1: no show to get well of the sores, and we
- 4:05:40Speaker 1: didn't seem to make no headway hardly. So Tom says,
- 4:05:44Speaker 1: I know how to fix it. We got to have
- 4:05:46Speaker 1: a rock for the coat of arms and mournful inscriptions.
- 4:05:50Speaker 1: An we can kill two birds of that same rock.
- 4:05:52Speaker 1: There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the middle, and
- 4:05:56Speaker 1: we'll smatch it an carve the things on it, and
- 4:05:59Speaker 1: file out the pens and the saw on it too.
- 4:06:02Speaker 1: It warn't no slatch of an idea, and it warn't
- 4:06:05Speaker 1: no slatch of a grindstone another. But we'd aloud we'd
- 4:06:08Speaker 1: tackle it. It warn't quite midnight yet, so we cleared
- 4:06:11Speaker 1: out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smouched
- 4:06:15Speaker 1: the grindstone and set out to roll her home. But
- 4:06:18Speaker 1: it was a most nation tough job. Sometimes do what
- 4:06:22Speaker 1: we could, we couldn't keep her from fallin over an
- 4:06:26Speaker 1: she come mighty near mashing us every time. Tom said
- 4:06:29Speaker 1: she was going to get one of us, sure before
- 4:06:31Speaker 1: we got through. We got her half way, and then
- 4:06:34Speaker 1: we was plumb played out and most drownded with sweat.
- 4:06:39Speaker 1: We see it warn't no use. We got to go
- 4:06:41Speaker 1: and fetch Jim. So he raised up his bed and
- 4:06:44Speaker 1: slid the chain off of the bed leg and wrapped
- 4:06:47Speaker 1: it around and round his neck. And we crawled out
- 4:06:50Speaker 1: through our hole and down there and Jim and me
- 4:06:52Speaker 1: laid into that grindstone and walked her along like nothin.
- 4:06:56Speaker 1: And Tom superintended. He could out superintend to any boy
- 4:07:00Speaker 1: I ever see. He knowed how to do everything. Our
- 4:07:05Speaker 1: hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to
- 4:07:08Speaker 1: get the grindstone through. But Jim he took the pick
- 4:07:11Speaker 1: and soon made it big enough. Then Tom marked out
- 4:07:14Speaker 1: them things in it with the nail and set Jim
- 4:07:17Speaker 1: to work on them with the nail for a chisel,
- 4:07:20Speaker 1: and an iron bolt from the rubbage, and the lean
- 4:07:22Speaker 1: to for a hammer, and told him to work till
- 4:07:24Speaker 1: the rest of his candle quit on him, and then
- 4:07:27Speaker 1: he could go to bed and hide the grindstone under
- 4:07:29Speaker 1: his straw tick and sleep on it. Then we helped
- 4:07:33Speaker 1: him fix his chain back on the bed leg, and
- 4:07:35Speaker 1: was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom thought of something
- 4:07:39Speaker 1: and says, you got any spiders in here? Jim no,
- 4:07:43Speaker 1: s thanks to goodness. I hate murse. Tom. All right,
- 4:07:47Speaker 1: we'll get you some, but bless you, honey, I don't
- 4:07:51Speaker 1: want none. I's a fear num I shoustin soon have
- 4:07:54Speaker 1: rattlesnakes around. Tom thought a minute or two and says
- 4:07:59Speaker 1: it's a good eye. And I reckon. It's been done.
- 4:08:02Speaker 1: It must have been done. It stands to reason. Yes,
- 4:08:05Speaker 1: it's a prime good idea. Where could you keep it?
- 4:08:09Speaker 1: Keep what? Mars Tom? Why a rattlesnake? The goodness gracious alive?
- 4:08:15Speaker 1: Mars Tom? Why if there was a rattlesnake to come
- 4:08:17Speaker 1: in here? I take a bus right out through that
- 4:08:20Speaker 1: log while I would with my head. Why, Jim, you
- 4:08:23Speaker 1: wouldn't be afraid of it. After a little you could
- 4:08:26Speaker 1: tame it. Tame it? Yes, easy enough. Every animal is
- 4:08:32Speaker 1: grateful for kindness and petting, and they wouldn't think of
- 4:08:34Speaker 1: hurting a person that pets them. Any book will tell
- 4:08:37Speaker 1: you that you try, that's all I ask, Just try
- 4:08:41Speaker 1: for two or three days. Why you can get him
- 4:08:44Speaker 1: so in a little while that he'll love you and
- 4:08:46Speaker 1: sleep with you and won't stay away from you a minute?
- 4:08:49Speaker 1: And we'll let you wrap him round your neck and
- 4:08:52Speaker 1: put his head in your mouth. Please, Mars Tom, don't
- 4:08:55Speaker 1: talk so I can't stand it. He let me shove
- 4:08:59Speaker 1: his head my mo for a favor hanging I lay.
- 4:09:02Speaker 1: He'd wait a powerful long time for I asked him,
- 4:09:06Speaker 1: and mowing that I don't want him to sleep with me. Jim,
- 4:09:10Speaker 1: don't act so foolish. A prisoner's got to have some
- 4:09:13Speaker 1: kind of a dumb pet. And if a rattlesnake hain't
- 4:09:16Speaker 1: ever been tried, why there's more glory to be gained
- 4:09:19Speaker 1: in your being the first to ever try it than
- 4:09:22Speaker 1: any other way you could ever think of to save
- 4:09:24Speaker 1: your life. Why, morst time, I don't want no such
- 4:09:28Speaker 1: glory snake taking bite Jim's chin off than what is
- 4:09:32Speaker 1: the glory? No, sir, I don't want no such doings.
- 4:09:37Speaker 1: Blame it. Can't you try? I only want you to try.
- 4:09:41Speaker 1: You needn't keep it up if it don't work, but
- 4:09:44Speaker 1: to trouble all done. If the snake bite me while
- 4:09:46Speaker 1: I s a trying him, mars Tom, I was willing
- 4:09:49Speaker 1: to tackle most anything. It ain't unreasonable. But if you
- 4:09:53Speaker 1: and Huck fetch the rattlesnake in here for me to tame,
- 4:09:56Speaker 1: I's going to leave. That's sure, well, Dan, let it go,
- 4:10:02Speaker 1: Let it go. If you're so bullheaded about it, we
- 4:10:04Speaker 1: can get you some garter snakes, and you can tie
- 4:10:07Speaker 1: some buttons on their tails and let on the rattlesnakes,
- 4:10:10Speaker 1: and I reckon they'll have to do. I can stand
- 4:10:13Speaker 1: them mars, Tom, but blam if I couldn't get along
- 4:10:16Speaker 1: without him, I tell you d I never know before
- 4:10:19Speaker 1: twas so much botherin trouble to be a prisoner. Well
- 4:10:23Speaker 1: it always is when it's done right. You got any
- 4:10:26Speaker 1: rats around here? No, suh, I ain't see none. Well
- 4:10:31Speaker 1: we'll get you some rats. Why most Tom, I don't
- 4:10:34Speaker 1: want no rats. They's to dab blamit. His creatures disturb
- 4:10:38Speaker 1: ay body and rustle round over him and bite his
- 4:10:40Speaker 1: feet when he's tryin to sleep. I ever see no, suh,
- 4:10:44Speaker 1: gimme garter snakes if I've got to have him, But
- 4:10:47Speaker 1: don't gimme no rats. I ain't got no use for 'em, scarcely,
- 4:10:51Speaker 1: But Jim, you got to have 'em. They all do,
- 4:10:54Speaker 1: so don't make no more fuss about it. Prisoners ain't
- 4:10:57Speaker 1: ever without rats. There ain't no instance of it. And
- 4:11:01Speaker 1: they train them and pet them and learn them tricks,
- 4:11:04Speaker 1: and they get to be as sociable as flies. But
- 4:11:07Speaker 1: you got to play music to them. You got anything
- 4:11:09Speaker 1: to play music on. I ain't got nothin but a
- 4:11:12Speaker 1: coastcomb and a piece of paper and a juice harp.
- 4:11:15Speaker 1: But I reckon they wouldn't take no such stock in
- 4:11:17Speaker 1: a juice harp, Yes they would. They don't care. What
- 4:11:21Speaker 1: kind of music tis. A jew's Harp's plenty good enough
- 4:11:24Speaker 1: for a rat. All animals like music and a prison
- 4:11:28Speaker 1: they dote on it, specially painful music. And you can't
- 4:11:32Speaker 1: get no other kind out of a jew's harp, and
- 4:11:35Speaker 1: always interests them. They come out to see what's the
- 4:11:37Speaker 1: matter with you? Yes, you're all right, you're fixed very well.
- 4:11:41Speaker 1: You want to sit on your bed nights before you
- 4:11:43Speaker 1: go to sleep, and early in the morning's and play
- 4:11:46Speaker 1: your jews harp. Play the last link is broken. That's
- 4:11:50Speaker 1: the thing that'll scoop a rat quicker in anything else.
- 4:11:53Speaker 1: When you've played about two minutes, you'll see all the
- 4:11:55Speaker 1: rats and the snakes and spiders and things begin to
- 4:11:58Speaker 1: feel worried about you, and come an. They'll jest fairly
- 4:12:01Speaker 1: swarm over you, an have a noble good time. Yes
- 4:12:06Speaker 1: they will. I reckon, Mars Tom A, what kinder time is?
- 4:12:09Speaker 1: Jim havin bless if I can see the point. But
- 4:12:13Speaker 1: I'll do it if I got to, I reckon. I
- 4:12:16Speaker 1: better keep the animal satisfied, an not have no trouble
- 4:12:19Speaker 1: in the house. Tom waited to think it over an
- 4:12:23Speaker 1: see if there warn't nothin else an. Pretty soon he says, Oh,
- 4:12:27Speaker 1: there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here?
- 4:12:31Speaker 1: Do you reckon? I dunno, but maybe I couldn't, Mars Tom,
- 4:12:36Speaker 1: But it's tolerable dark in here, an, I ain't got
- 4:12:39Speaker 1: no use for no flour, nohow an, she'd be a
- 4:12:42Speaker 1: powerful sight o trouble. Well, you've tried it anyway. Some
- 4:12:46Speaker 1: other prisoners has done it. One of them, big cat
- 4:12:50Speaker 1: tail lookin' mullin stocks would growin here, Mars Tom, I reckon,
- 4:12:54Speaker 1: but she wouldn't be worth half the trouble she'd costs.
- 4:12:57Speaker 1: Don't you believe it? We'll fetch you a little one,
- 4:13:00Speaker 1: and you plant it in the corner over there, and
- 4:13:02Speaker 1: raise it. And don't call it mullin. Call it pitchiola.
- 4:13:06Speaker 1: That's its right name when it's in a prison an.
- 4:13:08Speaker 1: You went to water it with your tears? Why I
- 4:13:12Speaker 1: got plenty of spring water, Moss Tom, you don't want
- 4:13:16Speaker 1: spring water. You want to water it with your tears.
- 4:13:19Speaker 1: It's the way they always do. Why, Moss Tom, I
- 4:13:23Speaker 1: lay I can raise one or dum mullin stocks twice
- 4:13:26Speaker 1: with spring water, whilst another man's a startin one with tears.
- 4:13:31Speaker 1: That ain't the idea. You got to do it with tears.
- 4:13:35Speaker 1: She'll die on my hands, mars Tom. She surely will,
- 4:13:39Speaker 1: cause I don't scarcely ever cry. So Tom was stumped,
- 4:13:45Speaker 1: but he studied it over and then said Jim would
- 4:13:48Speaker 1: have to worry along the best he could. With an onion,
- 4:13:51Speaker 1: he promised he would go to the nigger cabins and
- 4:13:53Speaker 1: drop one private and Jim's coffee pot in the mornin'.
- 4:13:57Speaker 1: Jim said he would jest as soon have tobacker in
- 4:13:59Speaker 1: his coffe and found so much fault with it, and
- 4:14:02Speaker 1: with the work and bother of raising the mullin and jews,
- 4:14:06Speaker 1: harping the rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes
- 4:14:08Speaker 1: and spiders and things, on top of all the other
- 4:14:11Speaker 1: work he had to do on pens and inscriptions and
- 4:14:13Speaker 1: journals and things, which made it more trouble and worry
- 4:14:17Speaker 1: and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook.
- 4:14:21Speaker 1: That Tom most lost all patience with him, and said
- 4:14:25Speaker 1: he was just loading down with more gaudier chances than
- 4:14:28Speaker 1: a prisoner ever had in the world to make a
- 4:14:30Speaker 1: name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to
- 4:14:32Speaker 1: appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him.
- 4:14:37Speaker 1: So Jim he was sorry and said he wouldn't behave
- 4:14:40Speaker 1: so no more. And then me and Tom shoved for bed.
- 4:14:47Speaker 1: End of chapter thirty eight, Chapter thirty nine. In the
- 4:14:54Speaker 1: morning we went up to the village and bought a
- 4:14:56Speaker 1: wire rat trap and fetched it down and unstopped the
- 4:15:00Speaker 1: rat hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen
- 4:15:03Speaker 1: of the bulliest kind of ones. And then we took
- 4:15:06Speaker 1: it and put it in a safe place under Aunt
- 4:15:08Speaker 1: Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders, Little
- 4:15:12Speaker 1: Thomas Franklin, Benjamin Jefferson, Alexander Phelps found it there and
- 4:15:16Speaker 1: opened the door of it to see if the rats
- 4:15:18Speaker 1: would come out, and they did, and Aunt Sally she'd
- 4:15:21Speaker 1: come in, And when we got back she was as
- 4:15:24Speaker 1: standing on top of the bed raising cane, and the
- 4:15:27Speaker 1: rats was doing what they could to keep off the
- 4:15:29Speaker 1: dull times for her. So she took in dust to
- 4:15:33Speaker 1: dust both with the hickory, and we was as much
- 4:15:35Speaker 1: as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen drapped that
- 4:15:39Speaker 1: metlesome cub, and they weren't the likeliest. Another because the
- 4:15:43Speaker 1: first hall was the pick of the flock. I never
- 4:15:46Speaker 1: see a likelier lot of rats. And what that first
- 4:15:48Speaker 1: hall was, we got a splendid stock of sordid spiders
- 4:15:53Speaker 1: and bugs and frogs and caterpillars and one thing or another,
- 4:15:57Speaker 1: And we'd like to guide a hornet's nest, but we didn't.
- 4:16:01Speaker 1: The family was at home. We didn't give it right up,
- 4:16:05Speaker 1: but stayed with them as long as we could, because
- 4:16:07Speaker 1: we allowed we'd tire them out, or they'd got to
- 4:16:10Speaker 1: tire us out, and they'd done it. Then we got
- 4:16:13Speaker 1: ali campaign and rubbed on the places and was pretty
- 4:16:16Speaker 1: near all right again, but couldn't set down convenient, and
- 4:16:21Speaker 1: so we went for the snakes and grabbed a couple
- 4:16:23Speaker 1: of dozen garters and house snakes and put them in
- 4:16:26Speaker 1: a bag and put it in our room. And by
- 4:16:28Speaker 1: that time it was supper time and a rattling good
- 4:16:31Speaker 1: honesty's work, and hungry. Oh no, I reckon not, And
- 4:16:36Speaker 1: there warn't a blessed snake up there. When we went back,
- 4:16:39Speaker 1: we didn't have to tie the sack, and they worked
- 4:16:41Speaker 1: out somehow and left, but it didn't matter much because
- 4:16:45Speaker 1: they were still on the premises somewheres. So we judged
- 4:16:48Speaker 1: we could get some of them again. No, there weren't
- 4:16:51Speaker 1: no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a
- 4:16:53Speaker 1: considerable spell. You'd see them dripping from the rafters and
- 4:16:57Speaker 1: places every now and then, and they generally landed in
- 4:17:00Speaker 1: your plate or down the back of your neck, and
- 4:17:02Speaker 1: most of the time where you didn't want them. Well,
- 4:17:05Speaker 1: they was handsome and striped, and there warn't no harm,
- 4:17:07Speaker 1: and a million of them, but that never made no
- 4:17:09Speaker 1: difference to Aunt Sally. She despised snakes, be the breed
- 4:17:13Speaker 1: what they might, and she couldn't stand them, no way
- 4:17:16Speaker 1: you could fix it. And every time one of them
- 4:17:18Speaker 1: flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference what
- 4:17:21Speaker 1: she was doing. She would just lay that work down
- 4:17:24Speaker 1: an light out. I never see such a woman, and
- 4:17:27Speaker 1: you could hear her whooped, Jericho. You couldn't get her
- 4:17:31Speaker 1: to take a hold of one of them with the tongs,
- 4:17:33Speaker 1: And if she turned over and found one in bed,
- 4:17:36Speaker 1: she would scramble out and lift a howl that you
- 4:17:38Speaker 1: would think the house was a fire. She disturbed the
- 4:17:40Speaker 1: old man so that he said he could most wish
- 4:17:43Speaker 1: there hadn't ever been no snakes created. Why after every
- 4:17:47Speaker 1: last Nack had been gone clear out of the house
- 4:17:49Speaker 1: for as much as a week. Aunt Sally warn't over it. Yet,
- 4:17:53Speaker 1: she warn't near over it. When she was settin thinking
- 4:17:56Speaker 1: about something, you could touch her on the back of
- 4:17:58Speaker 1: her neck with a feather and she would jump right
- 4:18:01Speaker 1: out of her stockings. It was very curious, But Tom
- 4:18:05Speaker 1: said all women was just so. He said they was
- 4:18:08Speaker 1: made that way for some reason or other. We got
- 4:18:11Speaker 1: a lickin every time one of our snakes come in
- 4:18:13Speaker 1: her way, and she allowed these lickins. Warn't nothin to
- 4:18:16Speaker 1: what she would do if we ever loaded up the
- 4:18:18Speaker 1: place again with them. I didn't mind the lickin's because
- 4:18:21Speaker 1: they didn't amount to nothin', but I minded the trouble
- 4:18:24Speaker 1: we had to lay in another lot, but we got
- 4:18:27Speaker 1: them laid in and all the other things. An you
- 4:18:30Speaker 1: never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when
- 4:18:33Speaker 1: they'd all swarm out for music and go for him.
- 4:18:36Speaker 1: Jim didn't like the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim,
- 4:18:39Speaker 1: and so they'd lay for him an make it mighty
- 4:18:42Speaker 1: warm for him. An he said that between the rats
- 4:18:44Speaker 1: and the snakes and the grindstone there warn't no room
- 4:18:47Speaker 1: in bed for him. Scarcely when there was, the body
- 4:18:50Speaker 1: couldn't sleep. It was so lively, And it was always lively,
- 4:18:53Speaker 1: he said, because they never all slept at one time,
- 4:18:57Speaker 1: but took turn about. So when the snakes was asleep,
- 4:19:00Speaker 1: the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in,
- 4:19:03Speaker 1: the snakes come on watch. So we always had one
- 4:19:05Speaker 1: gang under him in his way, and the other gang
- 4:19:08Speaker 1: havin' a circus over him. And if he got up
- 4:19:10Speaker 1: to hunt a new place, the spiders would take a
- 4:19:13Speaker 1: chance at him as he crossed over. He said, if
- 4:19:16Speaker 1: he ever got out this time, he wouldn't ever be
- 4:19:18Speaker 1: a prisoner again, not for a salary. Well, by the
- 4:19:23Speaker 1: end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape.
- 4:19:26Speaker 1: The shirt was sent in early in a pie, and
- 4:19:29Speaker 1: every time a rat bit Jim, he would get up
- 4:19:31Speaker 1: and write a little in his journal whilst the ink
- 4:19:34Speaker 1: was fresh. The pens was made, the inscriptions and so
- 4:19:38Speaker 1: on was all carved on the grindstone. The bed leg
- 4:19:41Speaker 1: was sawed in two when we had ed up to
- 4:19:42Speaker 1: saw dust, and it give us a most amazing stomach ache.
- 4:19:46Speaker 1: We reckoned we was all goin to die, but didn't.
- 4:19:50Speaker 1: It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever see. And
- 4:19:53Speaker 1: Tom said the same. But as I was saying, we'd
- 4:19:57Speaker 1: got all the work done now at last, and we
- 4:19:59Speaker 1: was all pretty much fagged out too. But mainly Jim,
- 4:20:03Speaker 1: the old man, had wrote a couple of times to
- 4:20:05Speaker 1: the plantation below Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger,
- 4:20:09Speaker 1: but hadn't got no answer because there warn't no such plantation.
- 4:20:13Speaker 1: So he allowed he would advertise Jim in the Saint
- 4:20:16Speaker 1: Louis and New Orleans papers. And when he mentioned the
- 4:20:19Speaker 1: Saint Louis ones, it give me the cold shivers. And
- 4:20:22Speaker 1: I see, we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said,
- 4:20:26Speaker 1: Now for the anonymous letters, what's them? I says, warnings
- 4:20:32Speaker 1: to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done
- 4:20:35Speaker 1: one way, sometimes another, but there's always somebody spying around
- 4:20:39Speaker 1: that gives notice to the governor of the castle. When
- 4:20:42Speaker 1: Louis sixteen was going to light out of the toooleries,
- 4:20:45Speaker 1: a servant girl done it. It's a very good way,
- 4:20:48Speaker 1: and so is the anonymous letters. We'll use them both.
- 4:20:51Speaker 1: And it's usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes
- 4:20:54Speaker 1: with him, and she stays in and he slides out
- 4:20:57Speaker 1: in her clothes. We'll do that too, But look at here, Tom,
- 4:21:02Speaker 1: what do we want to warn anybody for that something's up.
- 4:21:05Speaker 1: Let them find it out for themselves. It's their lookout, Yes,
- 4:21:09Speaker 1: I know, but you can't depend on them. It's the
- 4:21:12Speaker 1: way they've acted from the very start, left us to
- 4:21:14Speaker 1: do everything. They're so confiding and mullet headed. They don't
- 4:21:19Speaker 1: take notice and nothing at all. So if we don't
- 4:21:21Speaker 1: give them notice, there won't be nobody nor nothing to
- 4:21:24Speaker 1: interfere with us. And so after all our hard work
- 4:21:27Speaker 1: and trouble, this escape will go off perfectly flat, won't
- 4:21:30Speaker 1: amount to nothing, won't be nothing to it. Well as
- 4:21:35Speaker 1: for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like shucks, he says,
- 4:21:39Speaker 1: and look disgusted. So I says, but I ain't gonna
- 4:21:43Speaker 1: make no complaint anyway that suits you suits me. What
- 4:21:48Speaker 1: you're going to do about the servant girl, you'll be her.
- 4:21:52Speaker 1: You slide in in the middle of the night and
- 4:21:54Speaker 1: hook that yaller girl's frock. Why Tom, that'll make trouble
- 4:21:58Speaker 1: next morning, Because of course you probably ain't got any
- 4:22:01Speaker 1: but that one, I know, but you don't want it.
- 4:22:04Speaker 1: But fifteen minutes to carry the nonmous letter and shove
- 4:22:07Speaker 1: it under the front door. All right, then I'll do it.
- 4:22:11Speaker 1: But I could carry it just as handy an my
- 4:22:13Speaker 1: own dogs. You wouldn't look like a servant girl, then,
- 4:22:16Speaker 1: would you. No, But there won't be nobody to see
- 4:22:20Speaker 1: what I look like anyway. That ain't got nothin to
- 4:22:23Speaker 1: do with it. The thing for us to do is
- 4:22:26Speaker 1: just to do our duty and not worry about whether
- 4:22:28Speaker 1: anybody sees us do it or not. Hain't you got
- 4:22:31Speaker 1: no principle at all? All right, I ain't sayin nothin.
- 4:22:36Speaker 1: I'm the servant girl who's Jim's mother. I'm his mother.
- 4:22:41Speaker 1: I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally. Well, then you'll
- 4:22:44Speaker 1: have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves,
- 4:22:48Speaker 1: not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and
- 4:22:51Speaker 1: lay it on his bed, represent his mother in disguise,
- 4:22:54Speaker 1: and Jim will take the nigger woman's gown off of
- 4:22:56Speaker 1: me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When
- 4:23:00Speaker 1: a prisoner of style escapes, it's called an evasion. It's
- 4:23:04Speaker 1: always called so when a king scapes, for instance, and
- 4:23:08Speaker 1: the same with a king's son. It told me no
- 4:23:10Speaker 1: difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one.
- 4:23:14Speaker 1: So Tom he wrote the anonymous letter, And I smouched
- 4:23:17Speaker 1: the yaller Wench's frock that night and put it on
- 4:23:20Speaker 1: and shoved it under the front door the way Tom
- 4:23:22Speaker 1: told me to. It said, beware, trouble is brewin'. Keep
- 4:23:27Speaker 1: a sharp lookout, unknown friend. Next night we stuck a
- 4:23:33Speaker 1: picture which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and
- 4:23:36Speaker 1: crossbones on the front door, and next night another one
- 4:23:40Speaker 1: of a coffin on the back door. I'd never see
- 4:23:43Speaker 1: a family in such a sweat. They couldn't have been
- 4:23:46Speaker 1: worse scared if the place had been full of ghosts
- 4:23:48Speaker 1: laying for them behind everything and under the beds and
- 4:23:50Speaker 1: shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally,
- 4:23:54Speaker 1: she jumped and said out. If anything fell, she jumped
- 4:23:57Speaker 1: and said out if you happen to touch her. When
- 4:23:59Speaker 1: she warn'tin she'd done the same. She couldn't face snow
- 4:24:02Speaker 1: way and be satisfied because she allowed there was something
- 4:24:05Speaker 1: behind her every time. So she was always a whirling
- 4:24:08Speaker 1: around sudden and say an ouch, And before she'd got
- 4:24:11Speaker 1: two thirds around, she'd whirl back again and say it
- 4:24:14Speaker 1: again and she was afraid to go to bed, but
- 4:24:17Speaker 1: she doesn't set up. So the thing was working very well.
- 4:24:20Speaker 1: Tom said. He said he never seen anything worth more satisfactory.
- 4:24:25Speaker 1: He said, it showed it was done right. So he said,
- 4:24:29Speaker 1: now for the grand bulge. So the very next morning,
- 4:24:33Speaker 1: at the streak of dawn, we got another letter ready
- 4:24:36Speaker 1: and was wondering what we better do with it, because
- 4:24:38Speaker 1: we heard them say at supper they was goin to
- 4:24:40Speaker 1: have a nigger on watch at both doors all night.
- 4:24:43Speaker 1: Tom he went down the lightning and ride to spy around,
- 4:24:46Speaker 1: and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and
- 4:24:49Speaker 1: he stuck it in the back of his neck and
- 4:24:50Speaker 1: come back. This letter said, don't betray me. I wish
- 4:24:55Speaker 1: to be your friend. There's a desperate gang of cutthroats
- 4:24:59Speaker 1: from over for in the Indian Territory going to steal
- 4:25:02Speaker 1: your runaway nigger to night, and they have been trying
- 4:25:05Speaker 1: to scare you so as you will stay in the
- 4:25:07Speaker 1: house and not bother them. I am one of the gang,
- 4:25:11Speaker 1: but have got religion and wish to quit it and
- 4:25:13Speaker 1: lead an honest life again, and will betray the hellish design.
- 4:25:18Speaker 1: They will sneak down from northwards along the fence at midnight,
- 4:25:22Speaker 1: exact with a false key, and go in the nigger's
- 4:25:25Speaker 1: cabin to get him. I am to be off a
- 4:25:28Speaker 1: piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger,
- 4:25:31Speaker 1: but stead of that, I will bae like a sheep
- 4:25:34Speaker 1: as soon as they get in, and not blow at all. Then,
- 4:25:38Speaker 1: whilst they are gettin his chains loose, you slip there
- 4:25:41Speaker 1: and lock them in and can kill them at your leisure.
- 4:25:45Speaker 1: Don't do anything but just the way I am telling you.
- 4:25:48Speaker 1: If you do, they will suspicion something' and raise whoop
- 4:25:52Speaker 1: jamboree who I do not wish any reward but to
- 4:25:56Speaker 1: know I have done the right thing, unknown friend. End
- 4:26:04Speaker 1: of chapter thirty nine, Chapter forty. We was feeling pretty
- 4:26:11Speaker 1: good after breakfast, and took the canoe and went over
- 4:26:14Speaker 1: the river a fishing with a lunch, and had a
- 4:26:17Speaker 1: good time, and took a look at the raft and
- 4:26:18Speaker 1: found her all right, and got home late supper, and
- 4:26:22Speaker 1: found them in such a sweat and worry. They didn't
- 4:26:24Speaker 1: know which end they was standing on, and made us
- 4:26:27Speaker 1: go right off to bed the minute we was done supper,
- 4:26:29Speaker 1: and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never
- 4:26:32Speaker 1: let on a word about the new letter, but didn't
- 4:26:34Speaker 1: need to, because we know as much about it as
- 4:26:36Speaker 1: anybody did. And as soon as we was half upstairs
- 4:26:39Speaker 1: and her back was turned, we slid for the cellar
- 4:26:42Speaker 1: cupboard and loaded up a good lunch and took it
- 4:26:45Speaker 1: up to our room and went to bed, and got
- 4:26:47Speaker 1: up about half past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt
- 4:26:50Speaker 1: Sally's dress that he stole, and was going to start
- 4:26:52Speaker 1: with the lunch. But says, where's the butter? I laid
- 4:26:56Speaker 1: out a hunk of it, I says, on a piece
- 4:26:59Speaker 1: of a corn pone. Well you left laid out, then
- 4:27:02Speaker 1: it ain't here. We can get along without it. I says,
- 4:27:07Speaker 1: we can get along with it too. He says, jes,
- 4:27:10Speaker 1: you slide down cellar and fetch it. An, then mosey
- 4:27:13Speaker 1: right down the lightnin ride an come along. I'll go
- 4:27:16Speaker 1: an stuffed straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother
- 4:27:18Speaker 1: in disguise. An be ready to buy like a sheep,
- 4:27:22Speaker 1: an shove as soon as you get there. So out
- 4:27:25Speaker 1: he went an down cellar went Aye. The hunk of butter,
- 4:27:29Speaker 1: big as a person's fist, was where I had left it.
- 4:27:32Speaker 1: So I took up the slab of corn pone with
- 4:27:34Speaker 1: it on. An blowed out my light and started up
- 4:27:37Speaker 1: stairs very stealthy and got up to the main floor.
- 4:27:40Speaker 1: All right, But here comes Aunt Sally with a candle,
- 4:27:43Speaker 1: and I clapped the truck in my hat, An clapped
- 4:27:46Speaker 1: my hat on my head. An the next second she's
- 4:27:49Speaker 1: seen me an, she says, you been down cellar? Yisum
- 4:27:54Speaker 1: what you been doin down there? Nothin', nothin n um. Well,
- 4:28:00Speaker 1: then what possessed you to go down there this time
- 4:28:02Speaker 1: O night? I don't know em. You don't know. Don't
- 4:28:06Speaker 1: answer me that way, Tom, I wanna know what you
- 4:28:08Speaker 1: been doin down there. I ain't been doin a single thing,
- 4:28:11Speaker 1: Aunt Sally, I hoped, gracious, if I have I reckon,
- 4:28:15Speaker 1: she'd let me go now. An as a general thing,
- 4:28:18Speaker 1: she would, But I suppose there were so many strange
- 4:28:21Speaker 1: things goin on. She was just in a sweat about
- 4:28:23Speaker 1: every little thing that warn't yard stick straight. So she says,
- 4:28:26Speaker 1: very decided, you jest march into that settin' room, an
- 4:28:30Speaker 1: stay there till I come. You've been up to somethin
- 4:28:32Speaker 1: you know, business to an, I lay off find out
- 4:28:35Speaker 1: what it is before I'm done with you, So she
- 4:28:38Speaker 1: went away. As I opened the door, an walked into
- 4:28:40Speaker 1: the settin' room. My but there was a crowd there,
- 4:28:45Speaker 1: fifteen farmers, an every one of them had a gun.
- 4:28:48Speaker 1: I was most powerful, sick An slunk to a chair,
- 4:28:52Speaker 1: an set down. They was sittin around, Some of them
- 4:28:55Speaker 1: talkin a little in a low voice. An all them fidgety,
- 4:28:58Speaker 1: an uneasy, but tryin to look like they warn't. But
- 4:29:02Speaker 1: I knowed they was, cause they was always taking off
- 4:29:04Speaker 1: their hats and putting them on a scratching their heads
- 4:29:07Speaker 1: and changing their seats and fumbling with their buttons. I
- 4:29:11Speaker 1: warn't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off
- 4:29:14Speaker 1: all the same. I did wish Aunt Sally would come
- 4:29:17Speaker 1: an get done with me, an lick me if she
- 4:29:19Speaker 1: wanted to, an let me get away, an tell Tom
- 4:29:21Speaker 1: how we'd overdone this thing, what a thunderin hornsn's we'd
- 4:29:25Speaker 1: got ourselves into. So we could stop fooling around, straight
- 4:29:28Speaker 1: off an clear out with Jim before these rips got
- 4:29:31Speaker 1: out O patience and come for us. At last, she
- 4:29:34Speaker 1: come an begun to ask me questions, but I couldn't
- 4:29:37Speaker 1: answer them straight. I didn't know which end Tom me
- 4:29:40Speaker 1: was up because these men was in such a fidget
- 4:29:42Speaker 1: now that some of them was wantin to start right now,
- 4:29:44Speaker 1: an lay for them desperadoes, an sayin it warn't but
- 4:29:47Speaker 1: a few minutes to midnight. An others was tryin to
- 4:29:50Speaker 1: get them to hold on an wait for the sheep's signal.
- 4:29:53Speaker 1: An here was Auntie peggin away at the questions. An
- 4:29:56Speaker 1: me is shakin all over an ready to sink down
- 4:29:58Speaker 1: in my tracks. I was scared, and the police getting
- 4:30:02Speaker 1: hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning to melt and
- 4:30:05Speaker 1: run down my neck and behind my ears. And pretty
- 4:30:08Speaker 1: soon when one of them says, I'm for going and
- 4:30:11Speaker 1: getting in the cabin first and right now and catching
- 4:30:14Speaker 1: them when they come, I'm most dropped. And a streak
- 4:30:18Speaker 1: of butter come a tricklin down my forehead, and Aunt's
- 4:30:21Speaker 1: alas she sees it, and turns white as a sheet
- 4:30:24Speaker 1: and says, for the land's sake, what is the matter
- 4:30:27Speaker 1: with a child? He's got the brain fever as sure
- 4:30:30Speaker 1: as you're born. And there oozin out and everybody runs
- 4:30:34Speaker 1: to see. And she snatches off my hat and out
- 4:30:37Speaker 1: comes the bread and what was left of the butter,
- 4:30:40Speaker 1: and she grabbed me and hugged me and says, oh,
- 4:30:43Speaker 1: what a turn you did give me, And how glad
- 4:30:45Speaker 1: and grateful I am, And ain't no worse for lucks
- 4:30:48Speaker 1: against us. And it never rains, but it pours. And
- 4:30:51Speaker 1: when I see that truck, I thought we'd lost you,
- 4:30:54Speaker 1: for I knowed by the color and all it was
- 4:30:56Speaker 1: just like your brains would be if dear dear white,
- 4:30:59Speaker 1: did you tell me that was what you've been down
- 4:31:01Speaker 1: there for? I wouldn't a cared. Now, clear up the
- 4:31:04Speaker 1: bed and don't let me see no more you till mornin'.
- 4:31:07Speaker 1: I was upstairs in a second, an down the lightnin'
- 4:31:10Speaker 1: ridin' another one, an chinnin through the dark for the
- 4:31:13Speaker 1: lean to. I couldn't hardly get my words out. I
- 4:31:16Speaker 1: was so anxious, but I told Tom as quick as
- 4:31:19Speaker 1: I could, we must jump for it now, and not
- 4:31:22Speaker 1: a minute to lose the house full of men yonder
- 4:31:25Speaker 1: with guns. His eyes just blazed, and he says, no,
- 4:31:31Speaker 1: is that so? Ain't it? Bully? Why huck? If I
- 4:31:36Speaker 1: was to do it over again, I'd bet I could
- 4:31:37Speaker 1: fetch two hundred if we could put it off till hurry, hurry,
- 4:31:42Speaker 1: I says, where's Jim right at your elbow. If you
- 4:31:46Speaker 1: reach out your arm you can touch him. He's dressed
- 4:31:49Speaker 1: and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out an give the
- 4:31:52Speaker 1: sheep signal. But then we heard the tramp of men
- 4:31:56Speaker 1: comin to the door, and heard them begin to fumble
- 4:31:58Speaker 1: with the padlock, and heard a man say, I told
- 4:32:02Speaker 1: you we'd be too soon. They haven't come. The door's
- 4:32:04Speaker 1: locked here all like some of you into the cabin,
- 4:32:07Speaker 1: and you lay for him in the dark and killing
- 4:32:10Speaker 1: when they come, and the rest scatter around a piece
- 4:32:12Speaker 1: and listen if you can hear him coming. So in
- 4:32:15Speaker 1: they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and
- 4:32:18Speaker 1: most tried on us whilst we was hustling to get
- 4:32:20Speaker 1: under the bed. But we got under all right, and
- 4:32:23Speaker 1: out through the hole swift but soft, Jim first, Me next,
- 4:32:28Speaker 1: and Tom last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now
- 4:32:32Speaker 1: we was in the lean to and heard trampets close
- 4:32:34Speaker 1: by outside, so we crept to the door, and Tom
- 4:32:37Speaker 1: stopped us there and put his eye to the crack,
- 4:32:40Speaker 1: but couldn't make out nothing it was so dark, and
- 4:32:43Speaker 1: whispered and said he would listen for the steps to
- 4:32:45Speaker 1: get further. And when he nudged us. Jim must slide
- 4:32:48Speaker 1: out first and him last. So he set his ear
- 4:32:52Speaker 1: to the crack and listened and listened and listened, and
- 4:32:55Speaker 1: the steps of scraping around out there all the time,
- 4:32:58Speaker 1: And at last he nudged us, and we slid out
- 4:33:02Speaker 1: and stooped down, not breathing and not making the least noise,
- 4:33:06Speaker 1: and slipped stealthy towards the fence in injun file and
- 4:33:09Speaker 1: got to it all right, and me and Jim over it.
- 4:33:12Speaker 1: But Tom's breeches catched fast on a splinter on the
- 4:33:15Speaker 1: top rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so
- 4:33:17Speaker 1: he had to pull loose, which snapped the splinter and
- 4:33:20Speaker 1: made a noise. And as he dropped in our tracks
- 4:33:23Speaker 1: and started, somebody sings out, who's that answer? Or I'll shoot,
- 4:33:29Speaker 1: But we didn't answer. We just unfurled our heels and shoved.
- 4:33:33Speaker 1: Then there was a rush and a bang, bang, bang,
- 4:33:37Speaker 1: and the bullets fairly whizzed around us. We heard them
- 4:33:40Speaker 1: sing out, here they are. They broke for the river
- 4:33:43Speaker 1: after him, boys, and turned loose the dogs. So here
- 4:33:46Speaker 1: they come full tilt. We could hear them because they
- 4:33:50Speaker 1: wore boots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots
- 4:33:53Speaker 1: and didn't yell. We was in the path to the mill.
- 4:33:56Speaker 1: When they got pretty close on to us. We dodged
- 4:33:58Speaker 1: into the bush and let them go by, and then
- 4:34:01Speaker 1: dropped in behind them. They'd had all the dogs shut
- 4:34:04Speaker 1: up so they wouldn't scare off the robbers by this time.
- 4:34:07Speaker 1: Somebody had let them loose, and here they come, makin
- 4:34:10Speaker 1: pile wow enough for a million, But they was our dogs,
- 4:34:13Speaker 1: so we stopped in our tracks till they catched up.
- 4:34:16Speaker 1: And when they see it, warn't nobody but us an
- 4:34:18Speaker 1: no excitement to offer them. They only just said howdie
- 4:34:21Speaker 1: and tore right ahead towards the shoutin and clatterin' an
- 4:34:24Speaker 1: then we up steam again an whizzed along after them
- 4:34:27Speaker 1: till we was nearly to the mill, and then struck
- 4:34:29Speaker 1: up through the bush to where my canoe was tied,
- 4:34:32Speaker 1: and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the
- 4:34:34Speaker 1: middle of the river, but didn't make no more noise
- 4:34:37Speaker 1: than we was obleedged to. Then we struck out easy
- 4:34:41Speaker 1: and comfortable for the island where my raft was, and
- 4:34:44Speaker 1: we could hear them yelling and barking at each other
- 4:34:46Speaker 1: all up and down the bank till we was so
- 4:34:49Speaker 1: far away the sounds got dim and died out. And
- 4:34:53Speaker 1: when we stepped on to the raft, I says, now,
- 4:34:56Speaker 1: old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet
- 4:34:59Speaker 1: you won't ever be a slave no more. An a
- 4:35:03Speaker 1: mighty good job. It was, too huck. It is plain beautiful,
- 4:35:07Speaker 1: an it is dumb beautiful, an dey. Ain't nobody kin
- 4:35:10Speaker 1: git up a plane. It's more mixed up an splendid
- 4:35:13Speaker 1: an what that one was. We was all glad as
- 4:35:16Speaker 1: we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all
- 4:35:20Speaker 1: because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.
- 4:35:24Speaker 1: When me an Jim heard that, we didn't feel so
- 4:35:26Speaker 1: brash as what we did before. It was hurtin him
- 4:35:29Speaker 1: considerable an bleedin'. So we laid him in the wigwam
- 4:35:32Speaker 1: and tore up one of the Duke's shirts ford to
- 4:35:34Speaker 1: bandage him, But he says, gimme the rags, I can
- 4:35:38Speaker 1: do it myself. Don't stop now, don't fool around here.
- 4:35:41Speaker 1: An the evasion boomin along, so handsome man the sweeps
- 4:35:45Speaker 1: an set her loose. Boys, We done it elegant, indeed
- 4:35:48Speaker 1: we did. I wish we'd a had the handlin of
- 4:35:51Speaker 1: Louis sixteen, there wouldn't been a No son of Saint
- 4:35:53Speaker 1: Louis ascend to heaven, wrote down in his biography. No, sir,
- 4:35:58Speaker 1: we'd a whooped him over the border. That's what we'd
- 4:36:00Speaker 1: a done with him. An done it jest as slick
- 4:36:03Speaker 1: as nothin at all, too, man. The sweeps mean the sweeps.
- 4:36:08Speaker 1: But me an Jim was consultin' an thinkin an after
- 4:36:11Speaker 1: we'd thought a minute, I says, say it, Jim. So
- 4:36:15Speaker 1: he says, well, den this is the way he look
- 4:36:18Speaker 1: to me, Huck, if it was him that is beIN
- 4:36:21Speaker 1: set free one of the boys was to get shot,
- 4:36:23Speaker 1: would he say, go on an save me na mind
- 4:36:26Speaker 1: by a doctor for to save this one? Is that
- 4:36:29Speaker 1: like Mars Tom Sawyer, would he say dat? You bet
- 4:36:32Speaker 1: he wouldn't. Well, den is Jim gwine to say it? No, suh,
- 4:36:38Speaker 1: I don't bud j step out and displaced doubt a doctor,
- 4:36:40Speaker 1: not if it's forty year. I knowed he was white inside,
- 4:36:45Speaker 1: an I reckoned he'd say what he did say, So
- 4:36:48Speaker 1: it was all right now. An I told Tom I
- 4:36:50Speaker 1: was a goin for a doctor. He raised considerable row
- 4:36:54Speaker 1: about it. But me and Jim stuck to it and
- 4:36:56Speaker 1: wouldn't budge. So he was for crawlin out an settin'
- 4:36:59Speaker 1: raftless himself, but we wouldn't let him. Then he gives
- 4:37:02Speaker 1: us a piece of his mind, but it didn't do
- 4:37:04Speaker 1: no good. So when he sees me getting the canoe ready,
- 4:37:08Speaker 1: he says, well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll
- 4:37:11Speaker 1: tell you the way to do. When you get to
- 4:37:13Speaker 1: the village, shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight
- 4:37:16Speaker 1: and fast, and make him swear to be silent as
- 4:37:19Speaker 1: the grave, and put a purse full of gold in
- 4:37:21Speaker 1: his hand, and then take and lead him all around
- 4:37:24Speaker 1: the back alleys and everywhere's in the dark. And then
- 4:37:27Speaker 1: fetch him here in the canoe and a roundabout way
- 4:37:30Speaker 1: amongst the islands, and search him, and take his chalk
- 4:37:33Speaker 1: away from him, and don't give it back to him
- 4:37:35Speaker 1: until you get him back to the village, or else
- 4:37:37Speaker 1: he will chalk this raft so he can find it again.
- 4:37:40Speaker 1: It's the way they all do. So I said I would,
- 4:37:45Speaker 1: and left, And Jim was to hide in the woods
- 4:37:48Speaker 1: when he sees the doctor coming, till he was gone again.
- 4:37:54Speaker 1: End of chapter forty Chapter forty one. The doctor was
- 4:38:00Speaker 1: an old man, a very nice, kind lookin' old man.
- 4:38:02Speaker 1: When I got him up, I told him me and
- 4:38:05Speaker 1: my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon.
- 4:38:09Speaker 1: An camped on a piece of raft. We found an
- 4:38:11Speaker 1: bout midnight. He must have kicked his gun in his dreams,
- 4:38:14Speaker 1: for it went off an shot him in the leg.
- 4:38:17Speaker 1: And we wanted him to go over there and fix it.
- 4:38:19Speaker 1: An not say nothin about it, nor let nobody know,
- 4:38:22Speaker 1: because we wanted to come home this evenin and surprise
- 4:38:24Speaker 1: the folks. Who is your folks, he says, The phelpses
- 4:38:29Speaker 1: down yonder. Oh, he says. And after a minute he says,
- 4:38:35Speaker 1: how'd you say he got shot? He had a dream,
- 4:38:39Speaker 1: I says, An, it's shot him singular dream, he says.
- 4:38:45Speaker 1: So he lit up his lantern and got his saddle
- 4:38:47Speaker 1: bags and we started. But when he seized the canoe,
- 4:38:49Speaker 1: he didn't like the look of her. Said she was
- 4:38:52Speaker 1: big enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two.
- 4:38:55Speaker 1: I says, Oh, you needn't be afeared, sir. She carried
- 4:38:58Speaker 1: the three of us easy enough. What three? Why me
- 4:39:02Speaker 1: an sid an an an the guns? That's what I mean? Oh,
- 4:39:09Speaker 1: he says, but he put his foot on the gunnel
- 4:39:12Speaker 1: and rocked her and shook his head and said he reckoned.
- 4:39:14Speaker 1: He'd look round for a bigger one, but they was
- 4:39:16Speaker 1: all locked an chained. So he took my canoe and
- 4:39:19Speaker 1: said for me to wait till he come back, or
- 4:39:22Speaker 1: I could hunt around further. Or maybe I better go
- 4:39:24Speaker 1: down home and get them ready for the surprise if
- 4:39:26Speaker 1: I wanted to. But I said I didn't, so I
- 4:39:29Speaker 1: told him just how to find the raft an then
- 4:39:31Speaker 1: he started. I struck an idea. Pretty soon, I says
- 4:39:36Speaker 1: to myself, s'posin. He can't fix that leg just in
- 4:39:39Speaker 1: three shakes of a sheep's tail, as a sayin' is s'posin.
- 4:39:43Speaker 1: It takes him three or four days? What are we
- 4:39:45Speaker 1: goin to do? Lay around there till he lets a
- 4:39:47Speaker 1: cat out of the bag, No, sir, I know what
- 4:39:50Speaker 1: I'll do. I'll wait when he comes back. If he
- 4:39:54Speaker 1: says he's got to go any more, I'll get down
- 4:39:56Speaker 1: there too. If I swim an, we'll take and tie
- 4:39:59Speaker 1: him and ca keep him and shove out down the river.
- 4:40:02Speaker 1: And when Tom's done with him, we'll give him what
- 4:40:04Speaker 1: it's worth, or all we got. And then let him
- 4:40:07Speaker 1: get ashore. So then I crept into a lumber pile
- 4:40:10Speaker 1: to get some sleep, and next time I waked up,
- 4:40:13Speaker 1: the sun was away up over my head. I shot
- 4:40:16Speaker 1: out an went for the doctor's house, but they told
- 4:40:18Speaker 1: me he'd gone away in the night sometime or other
- 4:40:21Speaker 1: and warn't back yet. Well, thinks I that looks powerful
- 4:40:25Speaker 1: mad for Tom, and I'll dig out for the island
- 4:40:28Speaker 1: right off. So away I shoved and turned the corner
- 4:40:32Speaker 1: and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's stomach. He says,
- 4:40:38Speaker 1: why Tom, where you been all this time, you rascal?
- 4:40:41Speaker 1: I ain't been nowheres, I says, only just hunting for
- 4:40:45Speaker 1: the runaway nigger means said, why wherever did you go?
- 4:40:50Speaker 1: He says, Your aunty's been mighty uneasy. She needn't, I says,
- 4:40:56Speaker 1: because we was all right. We followed the man and
- 4:40:58Speaker 1: the dogs, but they out run us and we lost them.
- 4:41:01Speaker 1: But we thought we heard them on the water, so
- 4:41:03Speaker 1: we got a canoe and took out after them and
- 4:41:05Speaker 1: crossed over, but couldn't find nothing of them. So we
- 4:41:08Speaker 1: cruised along up shore till we got kind of tired
- 4:41:10Speaker 1: an beat out, and tied up the canoe and went
- 4:41:12Speaker 1: to sleep and never waked up till about an hour ago.
- 4:41:15Speaker 1: Then we paddled over here to hear the news, and
- 4:41:18Speaker 1: Sid at the post office to see what he can hear.
- 4:41:20Speaker 1: And I'm a branching out to get something to eat
- 4:41:22Speaker 1: for us, an then we're goin home. So then we
- 4:41:26Speaker 1: went to the post office to get Sid. But just
- 4:41:28Speaker 1: as I suspicioned, he warn't there. So the old man
- 4:41:32Speaker 1: he got a letter out of the office, and we
- 4:41:33Speaker 1: waited a while longer, but Sid didn't come. So the
- 4:41:37Speaker 1: old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home
- 4:41:40Speaker 1: or canoe it when he got done fooling around, but
- 4:41:43Speaker 1: we would ride. I couldn't get him to let me
- 4:41:46Speaker 1: stay and wait for Sid, and he said there warn't
- 4:41:48Speaker 1: no use in it, and I must come along and
- 4:41:51Speaker 1: let Aunt Sally see we was all right. When we
- 4:41:54Speaker 1: got home. Aunt Sally was that glad to see me.
- 4:41:56Speaker 1: She laughed and cried both and hugged me and give
- 4:41:59Speaker 1: me one of them lickin' hern that don't amount shucks,
- 4:42:02Speaker 1: and said she'd serve Sid the same one he come. Now.
- 4:42:05Speaker 1: The place was plum full of farmers and farmers wives
- 4:42:08Speaker 1: to dinner, and such another clack of bidy never heard
- 4:42:12Speaker 1: old missus Hotchkiss was the worst. Her tongue was a
- 4:42:16Speaker 1: goin all the time. She says, Well, Sister Phelps, I've
- 4:42:20Speaker 1: ransacked that air cappin' over and I believe an nigger
- 4:42:23Speaker 1: is crazy, I says to Sister Damrel, didn't I, Sister
- 4:42:26Speaker 1: Damrel says I. He's crazy, says I, Them's the very
- 4:42:29Speaker 1: words I said. You all hearin me. He's crazy, says I.
- 4:42:33Speaker 1: Everything shows us, says I. Look at that air Grindstone
- 4:42:36Speaker 1: says I want to tell me to anty creating his
- 4:42:38Speaker 1: right mind's going to scrabble all them crazy things on
- 4:42:40Speaker 1: to a grindstone, says I. Here's such and such in
- 4:42:43Speaker 1: person busted his heart, and here and so and so
- 4:42:45Speaker 1: pegged along for thirty seven years and all that natural
- 4:42:48Speaker 1: son of louis somebody and such everlasting rubbish. He's plumb crazy,
- 4:42:52Speaker 1: says I. That's what I says in the first place,
- 4:42:54Speaker 1: it's what I says in the middle, and it's what
- 4:42:56Speaker 1: I says last and all the time. The nigger's crazy.
- 4:42:58Speaker 1: Crazy's nippokin' easy, ter, says I. An look at that
- 4:43:02Speaker 1: air ladder, meet out an rags. Sister Hatchkiss said old
- 4:43:06Speaker 1: missus Damrell wouldn't the name of goodness? Could he ever won?
- 4:43:09Speaker 1: Of the very words? I was a sayin no longer
- 4:43:12Speaker 1: in this minute to sister Utterback. And she'll tell you
- 4:43:14Speaker 1: so herself. Should she look at that air rag letter?
- 4:43:17Speaker 1: Should she? An says I? Yes, look at it? Says I?
- 4:43:20Speaker 1: What could o you wanted of it? Says I, she's
- 4:43:23Speaker 1: sister hatchkiss She but I win the nation? They'd ever
- 4:43:26Speaker 1: get that grindstone in there? Anyway? An who dug that
- 4:43:30Speaker 1: air hole? An who my very words, bra up hadn't ride.
- 4:43:34Speaker 1: I was a sayin pass that her sasserin molasses won't ye.
- 4:43:37Speaker 1: I was a sayin to sister Dunlap just this minute.
- 4:43:40Speaker 1: How did they get that grindstone in there? Says I?
- 4:43:43Speaker 1: Without help? Mind you without help? That's where tis don't
- 4:43:47Speaker 1: tell me? Says I. There was help, says I. An
- 4:43:50Speaker 1: there was a plenty help too, says I. There's been
- 4:43:52Speaker 1: a dozen o helpin that nigger. An I laid id
- 4:43:54Speaker 1: skin ever last nigger on this place. But i'd find
- 4:43:57Speaker 1: out who done it, says I. An more rovers as
- 4:43:59Speaker 1: I a dozen says you forty couldn't a done everything
- 4:44:03Speaker 1: that's been done. Look at them Kate's knife saws an things,
- 4:44:07Speaker 1: how tedious they've been made. Look at that bed leg
- 4:44:10Speaker 1: sawed off with em a week's work for six men.
- 4:44:13Speaker 1: Look at that nigger made out an straw on the
- 4:44:15Speaker 1: bed an look at you may well see Brear High Tower.
- 4:44:19Speaker 1: It's es as I was sayin to bre Phelps's own self,
- 4:44:21Speaker 1: says EVE, what ye've think of it? Sister Hatkins's E
- 4:44:24Speaker 1: think o what Berear Phelps is? I think o that
- 4:44:26Speaker 1: bed leg sawed off? That a way, says he think
- 4:44:29Speaker 1: of it? Says I, I lay I never sawed itself off,
- 4:44:32Speaker 1: says I. Somebody saw it, it, says I. That's my opinion.
- 4:44:34Speaker 1: Take er leave it. It main't be no counts as I,
- 4:44:37Speaker 1: but such as it is, it's my opinion, says I.
- 4:44:39Speaker 1: An If anybody can start a better one, says I,
- 4:44:41Speaker 1: let him do it, it, says I. That's all I
- 4:44:44Speaker 1: says to Sister Dunlap says I, well, dog my cats,
- 4:44:48Speaker 1: they must have been a house full of niggers in
- 4:44:50Speaker 1: there every night for four weeks to have done all
- 4:44:52Speaker 1: that works. Sister Phelps. Look at that shirt, every last
- 4:44:56Speaker 1: inch of it covered over with secretin African writin done
- 4:44:59Speaker 1: with blood. Must have been a raft of em at
- 4:45:01Speaker 1: it right along all the time. Amost why i'd give
- 4:45:05Speaker 1: two dollars to have it read to me? An as
- 4:45:07Speaker 1: for the niggers it rode it, I allow, I'd taken
- 4:45:10Speaker 1: lash em till people to help him. Brother Marples, Well
- 4:45:14Speaker 1: I reckon you'd think so if you'd been in this
- 4:45:16Speaker 1: house for a while back. Why they've stole everything they
- 4:45:19Speaker 1: could lay their hands on. An we are watching all
- 4:45:21Speaker 1: the time, mind you. They stole that shirt right off
- 4:45:24Speaker 1: of the line. An as for that sheet they made
- 4:45:26Speaker 1: the rag ladder out of'ar, ain't no tellin how many
- 4:45:29Speaker 1: times they didn't steal that and flour, an candles and
- 4:45:33Speaker 1: candlesticks and spoons, an the old warmin' pan, an most
- 4:45:36Speaker 1: a thousand things that I disremember now, An my new
- 4:45:39Speaker 1: calico dress, an me an silas an my sittin' time
- 4:45:43Speaker 1: on the constant watch day an night. As I was
- 4:45:46Speaker 1: a tellin you, an not a one of us could
- 4:45:48Speaker 1: catch hide nor hair, nor sight nor sound o them.
- 4:45:51Speaker 1: An hear the last minute, loun behold you, they slides
- 4:45:55Speaker 1: right in under our noses. An fools us, not only
- 4:45:58Speaker 1: fools us but the in territory bribers too naturally gets
- 4:46:02Speaker 1: away with that nigger safe and sound, and with that
- 4:46:05Speaker 1: sixteen men and twenty two dogs right on their very
- 4:46:08Speaker 1: heels at that very time. I tell you, it just
- 4:46:11Speaker 1: bangs anything I ever heard of. Why spirits couldn't have
- 4:46:15Speaker 1: done it better and been no smarter? And I reckon
- 4:46:19Speaker 1: they must have been spirits, because you know our dogs,
- 4:46:22Speaker 1: and there ain't no better well them dogs never even
- 4:46:25Speaker 1: got on the track of them. Once you explain that
- 4:46:28Speaker 1: to me, if you can, any of you, well, it
- 4:46:33Speaker 1: does beat lost alive. I never so help me. I
- 4:46:38Speaker 1: wouldn't a beat house thieves as well as couldn't as
- 4:46:42Speaker 1: gracious sikes i'd have been. If you're to live in
- 4:46:44Speaker 1: such afraid to live? Why I was that scared? I
- 4:46:49Speaker 1: doesn't hardly go to bed or get up or lay
- 4:46:52Speaker 1: down or set down, Sister rich Way, Why they'd steal
- 4:46:56Speaker 1: the very Why couldn't it six You can guess what
- 4:46:58Speaker 1: kind of a fluster I was. Then by the time
- 4:47:00Speaker 1: midnight come last night, I hoped to gracious, if I
- 4:47:04Speaker 1: weren't afraid they'd steal some of the family, I was
- 4:47:07Speaker 1: just to that pass. I didn't have no reasoning faculties
- 4:47:10Speaker 1: no more. It looks foolish enough now in the daytime.
- 4:47:14Speaker 1: But I says to myself, there's my two poor boys
- 4:47:17Speaker 1: asleep way upstairs in that lonesome room. An, I declared
- 4:47:21Speaker 1: to goodness, I was that uneasy that I crept up
- 4:47:24Speaker 1: there and locked em in. I did an anybody would,
- 4:47:27Speaker 1: because you know, when you get scared that way, and
- 4:47:30Speaker 1: it keeps running on, a gettin worse and worse all
- 4:47:33Speaker 1: the time, and your wits get to adlin' and you
- 4:47:36Speaker 1: get to doing all sorts of wild things. An by
- 4:47:38Speaker 1: and bye, you think to yourself, supposin, I was a boy,
- 4:47:42Speaker 1: an was away up here, an the door ain't locked,
- 4:47:44Speaker 1: and you She stopped looking kind of wondering, and then
- 4:47:48Speaker 1: she turned her head around slow when her eye lit
- 4:47:52Speaker 1: on me. I got up and took a walk, says
- 4:47:55Speaker 1: I to myself. I can explain better how we come
- 4:47:59Speaker 1: to not be in that room this mornin' if I
- 4:48:01Speaker 1: go out to one side and study over it a little.
- 4:48:04Speaker 1: So I done it. But I doesn't go fur or
- 4:48:07Speaker 1: she'd as sent for me. And when it was late
- 4:48:09Speaker 1: in the day, the people all went. And then I
- 4:48:12Speaker 1: come in and told her the noise, and Shootin waked
- 4:48:15Speaker 1: up me and said, and the door was locked, and
- 4:48:18Speaker 1: we wanted to see the fun. So we went down
- 4:48:20Speaker 1: the lightnin and ride, and both of us got hurt
- 4:48:22Speaker 1: a little, and we didn't never want to try that
- 4:48:25Speaker 1: no more. And then I went on and told her
- 4:48:27Speaker 1: all what I told Uncle Silas before, and then she
- 4:48:31Speaker 1: said she'd forgive us an maybe it was all right
- 4:48:33Speaker 1: enough anyway, and about what a body might expect A
- 4:48:36Speaker 1: boy's for all boys was a pretty harem scarum lot
- 4:48:39Speaker 1: as far as she could see, And so as long
- 4:48:42Speaker 1: as no harm hadn't come of it, she judged she'd
- 4:48:44Speaker 1: better put in her time beIN grateful we was alive
- 4:48:47Speaker 1: an well, and she had us still stood of frettin
- 4:48:50Speaker 1: over what was pasted an done. So then she kissed
- 4:48:54Speaker 1: me and patted me on the head, and dropped into
- 4:48:56Speaker 1: a kind of a brown study, And pretty soon jumps
- 4:48:59Speaker 1: up and says, why laws a mercy? It's most night
- 4:49:03Speaker 1: and sin's not come yet. What has become of that boy?
- 4:49:08Speaker 1: I see my chance? So I skips up and says
- 4:49:11Speaker 1: I'll run right up to town an get him. I says, no,
- 4:49:15Speaker 1: you won't. She says, you'll stay right where you are.
- 4:49:18Speaker 1: One's enough to be lost at a time. If he
- 4:49:21Speaker 1: ain't here to supper, your uncle will go. Well, he
- 4:49:25Speaker 1: warn't there to supper. So right after supper Uncle went.
- 4:49:30Speaker 1: He come back about ten a little bit uneasy, had
- 4:49:33Speaker 1: it run across Tom's tracks. Aunt Sally was a good
- 4:49:36Speaker 1: deal uneasy. But Uncle Silas, he said, there warn't no
- 4:49:40Speaker 1: occasion to be boys. Will be boys, he said, An,
- 4:49:43Speaker 1: you'll see this one turn up in the mornin' all
- 4:49:45Speaker 1: sound an rite. So she had to be satisfied. But
- 4:49:49Speaker 1: she said she'd set up for him awhile anyway, and
- 4:49:51Speaker 1: keep a light burnin so he could see it. An
- 4:49:54Speaker 1: then when I went to bed, she come up with
- 4:49:56Speaker 1: me and fetched her candle. An tucked me in a
- 4:49:59Speaker 1: mothered me so good, I felt mean an like I
- 4:50:02Speaker 1: couldn't look her in the face. And she sat down
- 4:50:05Speaker 1: on the bed. An talked with me a long time
- 4:50:07Speaker 1: and said what a splendid boy said was An didn't
- 4:50:10Speaker 1: seem to want to ever stop talkin' about him. An
- 4:50:13Speaker 1: kept askin me every now, An then if I reckoned,
- 4:50:16Speaker 1: he could a got lost or hurt or maybe drowned.
- 4:50:19Speaker 1: An might be layin at this minute somewhere sufferin' or dead.
- 4:50:22Speaker 1: An she not by him to help him, And so
- 4:50:25Speaker 1: the tears would drip down silent, and I would tell
- 4:50:28Speaker 1: her that Sid was all right, An would be home
- 4:50:31Speaker 1: in the mornin' shore. An she would squeeze my hand
- 4:50:34Speaker 1: or maybe kiss me, An tell me to say it again,
- 4:50:36Speaker 1: An keep on sayin' it, because it done her good. An.
- 4:50:39Speaker 1: She was in so much trouble. And when she was
- 4:50:43Speaker 1: going away, she looked down in my eyes, so steady
- 4:50:46Speaker 1: and gentle, and says, the door ain't goin to be locked, Tom, An,
- 4:50:51Speaker 1: there's the window in the rod. But she'll be good,
- 4:50:54Speaker 1: won't you? An, you won't go for my sake, laws Nos,
- 4:51:01Speaker 1: I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom,
- 4:51:04Speaker 1: and was all intending to go, But after that I
- 4:51:07Speaker 1: wouldn't have went, not for kingdoms. But she was on
- 4:51:10Speaker 1: my mind, and Tom was on my mind. So I
- 4:51:13Speaker 1: slept very restless, And twice I went down the ride
- 4:51:17Speaker 1: away in the night and slipped around front and see
- 4:51:20Speaker 1: her settin there by her candle in the window, with
- 4:51:23Speaker 1: her eyes towards the road, and the tears in them,
- 4:51:26Speaker 1: And I wished I could do something for her, But
- 4:51:28Speaker 1: I couldn't only to swear that I wouldn't never do
- 4:51:31Speaker 1: nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time
- 4:51:35Speaker 1: I waked up at dawn and slid down, and she
- 4:51:37Speaker 1: was there yet, and her candle was most out, and
- 4:51:40Speaker 1: her old gray head was resting on her hand, and
- 4:51:45Speaker 1: she was asleep. End of chapter forty one. Chapter forty two.
- 4:51:55Speaker 1: The old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't
- 4:51:58Speaker 1: get no track of tom An both of them sat
- 4:52:01Speaker 1: at the table, thinkin' an not sayin nothin and lookin
- 4:52:04Speaker 1: mournful an their coffee gettin cold, and not eatin anything.
- 4:52:08Speaker 1: An By and by, the old man says, did I
- 4:52:11Speaker 1: give you the letter? What letter? The one I got
- 4:52:15Speaker 1: yesterday out of the post office? No, you didn't give
- 4:52:19Speaker 1: me no letter. Well I must a forgot it. So
- 4:52:23Speaker 1: he rummaged his pockets and then went off somewhares where
- 4:52:26Speaker 1: he had laid it down, an fetched it and give
- 4:52:28Speaker 1: it to her. She says, why it's from Saint Petersburg,
- 4:52:33Speaker 1: it's from Ciss. I allowed another walk would do me good,
- 4:52:38Speaker 1: but I couldn't stir. But before she could break it open,
- 4:52:41Speaker 1: she dropped it and brun for she sees something and
- 4:52:45Speaker 1: so do I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress,
- 4:52:49Speaker 1: an that old doctor, and Jim in her calico dress
- 4:52:54Speaker 1: with his hands tied behind him, an a lot o people.
- 4:52:58Speaker 1: I hid the letter behind the front, first thing to
- 4:53:00Speaker 1: come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying
- 4:53:05Speaker 1: and says, oh, he's dead, he's dead. I know he's dead.
- 4:53:11Speaker 1: And Tom he turned his head a little and muttered
- 4:53:14Speaker 1: something or other, which showed he warn't in his right mind.
- 4:53:17Speaker 1: Then she flung up her hands and says he's alive,
- 4:53:20Speaker 1: thank God, and that's enough. And she snatched a kiss
- 4:53:24Speaker 1: to him and flew for the house to get the
- 4:53:26Speaker 1: bed ready and scattering orders right, and left it the
- 4:53:30Speaker 1: niggers and everybody else as fast as her tongue can
- 4:53:33Speaker 1: go every jump of the way. I followed the men
- 4:53:37Speaker 1: to see what they was goin to do with Jim,
- 4:53:39Speaker 1: and the old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom
- 4:53:41Speaker 1: into the house. The man was very huffy, and some
- 4:53:45Speaker 1: of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to
- 4:53:47Speaker 1: all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn't be
- 4:53:50Speaker 1: trying to run away like Jim done and making such
- 4:53:52Speaker 1: a raft of trouble and keeping a whole family scared
- 4:53:55Speaker 1: most to death for days and nights. But the other said,
- 4:53:59Speaker 1: don't do it. It wouldn't answer at all. He ain't
- 4:54:02Speaker 1: our nigger, and his owner would turn up and make
- 4:54:04Speaker 1: us pay for him. Sure, So that cooled them down
- 4:54:07Speaker 1: a little, because the people that's always the most anxious
- 4:54:10Speaker 1: for to hang a nigger that hain't done just right
- 4:54:13Speaker 1: is always the very ones that ain't the most anxious
- 4:54:15Speaker 1: to pay for him when they've got their satisfaction out him.
- 4:54:19Speaker 1: They cussed Jim considerable, though, and give him a cuff
- 4:54:22Speaker 1: or two side of the head once in a while.
- 4:54:25Speaker 1: But Jim, he never said nothing, and he never let
- 4:54:28Speaker 1: on to know me. And they took him to the
- 4:54:31Speaker 1: same cabin and put his own clothes on him, and
- 4:54:34Speaker 1: chained him again, and not to no bed leg this time,
- 4:54:38Speaker 1: but to a big staple drove into the bottom log
- 4:54:42Speaker 1: and chained his hands too, and both legs, and said
- 4:54:46Speaker 1: he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to
- 4:54:48Speaker 1: eat after this till his owner come or he was
- 4:54:51Speaker 1: sold at auction because he didn't come in a certain
- 4:54:53Speaker 1: length of time. And filled up our hole, and said
- 4:54:57Speaker 1: a couple of farmers with guns, must stand and watch
- 4:55:00Speaker 1: around about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied
- 4:55:04Speaker 1: to the door in the daytime. And about this time
- 4:55:07Speaker 1: they was through with a job and was tapering off
- 4:55:10Speaker 1: with a kind of a general goodbye cussin'. And then
- 4:55:14Speaker 1: the old doctor comes and takes a look and says,
- 4:55:18Speaker 1: don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to,
- 4:55:20Speaker 1: because he ain't a bad nigger. When I got to
- 4:55:23Speaker 1: where I found the boy, I see I couldn't cut
- 4:55:25Speaker 1: the bullet out without some help. And he warn't in
- 4:55:28Speaker 1: no condition for me to leave to go and get help.
- 4:55:31Speaker 1: And he got a little worse and a little worse,
- 4:55:34Speaker 1: and after a long time he went out of his
- 4:55:36Speaker 1: head and wouldn't let me come an eye him anymore,
- 4:55:39Speaker 1: and said if I chalked his raf he'd kill me,
- 4:55:41Speaker 1: and no end of wild foolishness like that. And I
- 4:55:45Speaker 1: see I can do anything out all with him, So
- 4:55:47Speaker 1: I says I got to have help somehow. And the
- 4:55:51Speaker 1: minute I says it, out crawls this nigger from somewheres
- 4:55:54Speaker 1: and says he'll help. And he done it too, and
- 4:55:57Speaker 1: done it very well. Of course, I judge he must
- 4:56:00Speaker 1: be a runaway nigger, and there I was, and there
- 4:56:04Speaker 1: I had to stick right straight along all the rest
- 4:56:06Speaker 1: of the day and all night. It was a fix.
- 4:56:09Speaker 1: I tell you, I had a couple of patients with
- 4:56:12Speaker 1: the chills, and of course i'd a liked to run
- 4:56:14Speaker 1: up to town and see them, but I doesn't because
- 4:56:17Speaker 1: a nigger might get away, an then I'd be to blame.
- 4:56:20Speaker 1: And yet never a skiff come close enough for me
- 4:56:23Speaker 1: to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until
- 4:56:27Speaker 1: daylight this mornin'. An I never see a nigger that
- 4:56:30Speaker 1: was a better nurse or more faithfuller, And yet he
- 4:56:33Speaker 1: was risking his freedom to do it, and was all
- 4:56:36Speaker 1: tired out too nice plain enough, he'd been worked main
- 4:56:39Speaker 1: hard lately. I liked the nigger for that, I tell you, gentlemen,
- 4:56:44Speaker 1: a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars and
- 4:56:46Speaker 1: kind treatment too. I had everything I needed, and the
- 4:56:50Speaker 1: boy was doing as well there as he would have done,
- 4:56:53Speaker 1: and home better, maybe because it was so quiet. But
- 4:56:57Speaker 1: there I was, with both of 'em on my hands.
- 4:57:00Speaker 1: An there I had to stick till about dawn this mornin'.
- 4:57:04Speaker 1: Then some men an a skiff come by, an as
- 4:57:06Speaker 1: good luck would have it. The nigger was settin by
- 4:57:09Speaker 1: the pallet with his head propped on his knees, sound asleep.
- 4:57:12Speaker 1: So I motioned them in quiet An. They slipped up
- 4:57:15Speaker 1: on him, An grabbed him, an tied him before he
- 4:57:18Speaker 1: knowed what he was about. An we never had no trouble. An.
- 4:57:21Speaker 1: The boy beIN in a kind of a flighty sleep too.
- 4:57:24Speaker 1: We muffled the oars, an hitched the raft on, an
- 4:57:27Speaker 1: towed her over, real nice and quiet. An. The nigger
- 4:57:30Speaker 1: never made the least row nor said a word from
- 4:57:32Speaker 1: the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen, That's what
- 4:57:36Speaker 1: I think about him. Somebody says, well, it sounds very good. Doctor,
- 4:57:43Speaker 1: I'm obleached to say. Then the other softened up a
- 4:57:46Speaker 1: little too, and I was mighty thankful to that old
- 4:57:49Speaker 1: doctor for doin Jim that good turn. An. I was
- 4:57:51Speaker 1: glad it was, according to my judgment, him too, because
- 4:57:55Speaker 1: I thought he had a good heart in him. An
- 4:57:57Speaker 1: was a good man the first time I see him.
- 4:58:00Speaker 1: Then they all agreed that Jim had acted very well
- 4:58:02Speaker 1: and was deserving to have some notice took of it
- 4:58:04Speaker 1: and reward. So every one of them promised right out
- 4:58:08Speaker 1: and hearty that they wouldn't cuss him no more. Then
- 4:58:11Speaker 1: they come out and locked him up. I hoped they
- 4:58:14Speaker 1: was going to say he could have one or two
- 4:58:16Speaker 1: of the chains took off because they was rotting heavy,
- 4:58:19Speaker 1: or could have meat and greens with his bread and water,
- 4:58:21Speaker 1: But they didn't think of it, and I reckoned it
- 4:58:24Speaker 1: warn't best for me to mix in, But I judged
- 4:58:26Speaker 1: i'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or
- 4:58:29Speaker 1: other as soon as I got through the breakers that
- 4:58:31Speaker 1: was laying just ahead of me explanations. I mean of
- 4:58:35Speaker 1: how I forgot to mention about Syd being shot when
- 4:58:39Speaker 1: I was telling how him and me put in that
- 4:58:41Speaker 1: dratted night paddling around hunting the runaway nigger. But I
- 4:58:45Speaker 1: had plenty of time Aunt Sally, she'd stuck to the
- 4:58:48Speaker 1: sickroom all day and all night, and every time I
- 4:58:51Speaker 1: see Uncle Silas mooning around, I dodged him. Next morning,
- 4:58:56Speaker 1: I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they
- 4:58:58Speaker 1: said Aunt Sally was going to get a nap. So
- 4:59:01Speaker 1: I slips to the sick room and if I found
- 4:59:03Speaker 1: him awake, I reckon we could put up a yarn
- 4:59:05Speaker 1: for the family that would wash. But he was sleeping,
- 4:59:08Speaker 1: and sleeping very peaceful too, and pale, not fireface the
- 4:59:13Speaker 1: way he was when he come. So I sat down
- 4:59:16Speaker 1: and laid for him to wake and about half an
- 4:59:19Speaker 1: hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there I was
- 4:59:22Speaker 1: up a stump again. She motioned me to be still
- 4:59:26Speaker 1: and sat down by me and begun to whisper and
- 4:59:29Speaker 1: said we could all be joyful now because all the
- 4:59:32Speaker 1: symptoms was first straight and he'd been sleeping like that
- 4:59:35Speaker 1: for ever so long and looking better and peacefuller all
- 4:59:38Speaker 1: the time, and ten to one he'd wake up in
- 4:59:40Speaker 1: his right mind. So we sat there watching, and by
- 4:59:45Speaker 1: and by he stirs a bit and opened his eyes,
- 4:59:48Speaker 1: very natural, and takes a look and says, hello, why
- 4:59:53Speaker 1: I'm at home? How's that? Where's the raft? It's all right,
- 4:59:57Speaker 1: I says, And Jim this I says, but couldn't say
- 5:00:02Speaker 1: it pretty brash, but he never noticed, but says, good splendid.
- 5:00:07Speaker 1: Now we're all right and safe. Did you tell Auntie?
- 5:00:11Speaker 1: I was going to say yes, but she chipped in
- 5:00:14Speaker 1: and says, about what's it? Why about the way the
- 5:00:18Speaker 1: whole thing was done? What whole thing? Why the whole thing?
- 5:00:23Speaker 1: There ain't But one. How we set the runaway nigger free.
- 5:00:26Speaker 1: Me and Tom good Land set the run What is
- 5:00:31Speaker 1: the child talking about, dear, dear, out of his head again? No,
- 5:00:36Speaker 1: I ain't out of my head. I know all what
- 5:00:39Speaker 1: I'm talking about. We did set him free, me and Tom.
- 5:00:42Speaker 1: We laid out to do it, and we done it,
- 5:00:44Speaker 1: and we done it elegant too. He'd got a start
- 5:00:48Speaker 1: and she never checked him up, just sat and stared
- 5:00:51Speaker 1: and stared and let him clip along. And I see
- 5:00:54Speaker 1: it warn't no use for me to put in. Why, Auntie,
- 5:00:58Speaker 1: It cost us a power of work, weeks of it,
- 5:01:01Speaker 1: hours and hours every night whilst you was all asleep,
- 5:01:04Speaker 1: and we had to steal candles and the sheet and
- 5:01:06Speaker 1: the shirt and your dress, and spoons and tin plates
- 5:01:09Speaker 1: and case knives in the warming pan and the grindstone
- 5:01:12Speaker 1: and flour and just no end of things. And you
- 5:01:16Speaker 1: can't think what work it was to make the saws
- 5:01:18Speaker 1: and pens and inscriptions and one thing or another. And
- 5:01:22Speaker 1: you can't think half the fun it was. And we
- 5:01:25Speaker 1: had to make up the pictures of coffins and things,
- 5:01:28Speaker 1: anonymous letters from the robbers, and get up and down
- 5:01:31Speaker 1: the lightning rod and dig the hole into the cabin
- 5:01:33Speaker 1: and made the rope ladder and send it in and
- 5:01:36Speaker 1: cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and
- 5:01:38Speaker 1: things to work with in your apron pocket, mercy sakes,
- 5:01:43Speaker 1: and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and
- 5:01:45Speaker 1: some on for company for Jim. And then you kept
- 5:01:48Speaker 1: Tom here so long with the butter in his hat,
- 5:01:50Speaker 1: that you come near spial in the whole business. Because
- 5:01:53Speaker 1: the men come before we was out of the cabin,
- 5:01:55Speaker 1: and we had to rush, and they hurt us and
- 5:01:58Speaker 1: let drive at us. And I got my I share
- 5:02:00Speaker 1: and we dodged out of the path and let them
- 5:02:02Speaker 1: go by. And when the dogs come, they weren't interested
- 5:02:05Speaker 1: in us, but went for the most noise. And we
- 5:02:08Speaker 1: got our canoe and made for the raft and was
- 5:02:11Speaker 1: all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we
- 5:02:15Speaker 1: done it all by ourselves. And wasn't it bully, Auntie? Well?
- 5:02:21Speaker 1: I never heard the likes of it in all my
- 5:02:23Speaker 1: born days. So it was you, you little rapscallions, that's been
- 5:02:26Speaker 1: making all this trouble and turned everybody's wits clean inside
- 5:02:29Speaker 1: out and scared us almost to death. I've as good
- 5:02:32Speaker 1: a notion as ever I had in my life. To
- 5:02:34Speaker 1: take it out of you this very minute, to think
- 5:02:37Speaker 1: here I've been night after night. A you just get
- 5:02:41Speaker 1: well once, you young scamp, and I lay all ten
- 5:02:43Speaker 1: the old harry out of both of ee. But Tom,
- 5:02:47Speaker 1: he was so proud and joyful he just couldn't hold in,
- 5:02:51Speaker 1: and his tongue just went it. She had chippin in
- 5:02:54Speaker 1: and spitting fire all along, and both of them goin
- 5:02:57Speaker 1: it at once, like a cat convention. And she says, well,
- 5:03:02Speaker 1: you get all the enjoyment you can out of it now.
- 5:03:05Speaker 1: For mind, I tell you if I catch ye a
- 5:03:07Speaker 1: Meddlin with him again? Meddlin with who, Tom says, dropping
- 5:03:12Speaker 1: his smile and looking surprised, with who? Why? The runaway nigger?
- 5:03:17Speaker 1: Of course, who'd you reckon? Tom looks at me very
- 5:03:21Speaker 1: grave and says, Tom, didn't you just tell me he
- 5:03:25Speaker 1: was all right? Hasn't he got away? Him? Says Aunt Sallie,
- 5:03:30Speaker 1: the runaway nigger? Indeed he hasn't. They've got him back,
- 5:03:34Speaker 1: safe and sound. An he's in that cabin again, on
- 5:03:36Speaker 1: bread and water and loaded down with chains till he's
- 5:03:38Speaker 1: claimed her. Souled. Tom rows square up in bed with
- 5:03:43Speaker 1: his eye hot an, his nostrils opening and shutting like gills.
- 5:03:47Speaker 1: An sings out to me. They ain't no right to
- 5:03:50Speaker 1: shut him up. Shove an, don't you lose minute, turn
- 5:03:53Speaker 1: him loose. He ain't no slave, He's freeze any creature
- 5:03:56Speaker 1: the walks of earth. What does the child? I mean
- 5:04:01Speaker 1: every word I say, Aunt Sally, And if somebody don't go,
- 5:04:04Speaker 1: I'll go. I've known him all his life, and so
- 5:04:06Speaker 1: has Tom. There Ole miss Watson died two months ago,
- 5:04:09Speaker 1: and she was ashamed. She ever was going to sell
- 5:04:11Speaker 1: him down the river, and said so, and she set
- 5:04:14Speaker 1: him free in her will. And what on earth did
- 5:04:17Speaker 1: you want to set him free for, seeing he was
- 5:04:19Speaker 1: already free? Well, that is a question, I must say.
- 5:04:24Speaker 1: And just like women, why I wanted the adventure of it?
- 5:04:28Speaker 1: And I had awaited, neck deep in blood, suit, goodness, life,
- 5:04:32Speaker 1: Aunt Polly. If she weren't standing right there, just inside
- 5:04:37Speaker 1: the door, looking as sweet and contented as an angel
- 5:04:39Speaker 1: half full of pie, I wish I may never Aunt
- 5:04:44Speaker 1: Sally jumped for her and most hugged the head off
- 5:04:46Speaker 1: of her and cried over her. And I found a
- 5:04:49Speaker 1: good enough place for me under the bed, for it
- 5:04:51Speaker 1: was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me and
- 5:04:54Speaker 1: I peeped out, and in a little while Tom's aunt
- 5:04:57Speaker 1: Polly shook herself loose and stood there looking across a
- 5:05:01Speaker 1: Tom over her spectacles, kind of grinding him into the earth,
- 5:05:05Speaker 1: you know. And then she says, yes, you better turn
- 5:05:09Speaker 1: your head away. I would if I was you. Tom. Oh,
- 5:05:13Speaker 1: dear me, says Aunt Sally. Is he changed? So why
- 5:05:17Speaker 1: that ain't Tom? It's sid Tom's Tom's Why where is Tom?
- 5:05:22Speaker 1: He was here a minute ago. You mean where's huck Finn?
- 5:05:26Speaker 1: That's what you mean? I reckon, I hain't raised such
- 5:05:29Speaker 1: a scamp as my Tom all these years, not to
- 5:05:31Speaker 1: know him when I see him? That would be a
- 5:05:34Speaker 1: pretty heigy do come out from under that bat, huck Finn?
- 5:05:38Speaker 1: So I done it, but not feeling brash. Aunt Sally
- 5:05:43Speaker 1: she was one of the mixed uppest looking persons I
- 5:05:47Speaker 1: ever see, except one, and that was Uncle Silas. When
- 5:05:50Speaker 1: he come in and they told it all to him,
- 5:05:53Speaker 1: it kind of made him drunk, as you may say,
- 5:05:55Speaker 1: and he didn't know nothing at all the rest of
- 5:05:57Speaker 1: the day and preached a prayer meeting so that night.
- 5:06:00Speaker 1: That gave him a rattling reputation because the oldest man
- 5:06:04Speaker 1: in the world couldn't understood it. So Tom's Aunt Polly,
- 5:06:08Speaker 1: she told all about who I was and what and
- 5:06:11Speaker 1: I had to up and tell how I was in
- 5:06:13Speaker 1: such a tight place that when missus Phelps took me
- 5:06:15Speaker 1: for Tom Sawyer, she chipped in and says, oh, go
- 5:06:19Speaker 1: on and call me Aunt Sally. I'm used to it
- 5:06:21Speaker 1: now and t ain't no need to change. And when
- 5:06:24Speaker 1: Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer, I had to
- 5:06:27Speaker 1: stand it. There weren't no other way. And I knowed
- 5:06:29Speaker 1: he wouldn't mind, because it would be nuts for him,
- 5:06:32Speaker 1: being a mystery, and he'd make an adventure out of
- 5:06:34Speaker 1: him be perfectly satisfied. And so it turned out, and
- 5:06:38Speaker 1: he let on to be said, and made things as
- 5:06:40Speaker 1: soft as he could for me and his Aunt Polly.
- 5:06:43Speaker 1: She said, Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting
- 5:06:46Speaker 1: Jim free in her will. And so sure enough Tom
- 5:06:50Speaker 1: Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and bother
- 5:06:53Speaker 1: to set a free nigger free. And I couldn't ever
- 5:06:56Speaker 1: understand before until that minute, in that talk, how he
- 5:07:00Speaker 1: could help a body sett a nigger free with his
- 5:07:02Speaker 1: bringing up. Well Aunt Polly, she said that when Aunt
- 5:07:06Speaker 1: Sally wrote to her that Tom and Sid had come
- 5:07:08Speaker 1: all right and safe. She says to herself, look at that, now,
- 5:07:12Speaker 1: I might have expected it, letting him go off that
- 5:07:14Speaker 1: way without anybody to watch him. So now I got
- 5:07:17Speaker 1: to go and traps all the way down the river
- 5:07:19Speaker 1: eleven hundred mile and find out what that creature's up to.
- 5:07:21Speaker 1: This time, as long as I couldn't seem to get
- 5:07:23Speaker 1: any answer to you about it, why I never heard
- 5:07:27Speaker 1: nothing from you, says Aunt Sally. Well, I wonder why
- 5:07:32Speaker 1: I wrote to you twice. Ask you what you can
- 5:07:34Speaker 1: mean by Sid being here? Well, I never got him, sis,
- 5:07:38Speaker 1: Aunt Polly. She turns around, slow and severe and says,
- 5:07:42Speaker 1: you Tom, Well, what he says kind of pettish. Don't
- 5:07:49Speaker 1: you want me, you impudent thing? Hand out them letters?
- 5:07:53Speaker 1: What letters? Them letters? I be bound if I have
- 5:07:56Speaker 1: to take hold of you out. They're in the trunk
- 5:07:59Speaker 1: there now, and they're just the same as they was
- 5:08:01Speaker 1: when I got them out of the office. I hain't
- 5:08:03Speaker 1: looked into them, I ain't touched them, but I knowed
- 5:08:06Speaker 1: they'd make trouble. And I thought, if you aren't in
- 5:08:08Speaker 1: no hurry, i'd well, you do need skinnin there? Ain't
- 5:08:12Speaker 1: no mistake about it. And I wrote another one to
- 5:08:14Speaker 1: tell you I was comin'. I suppose he no it
- 5:08:17Speaker 1: come yesterday. I ain't read it yet, but it's all right.
- 5:08:20Speaker 1: I've got that one. I wanted Doller to bet two dollars.
- 5:08:24Speaker 1: She hadn't, but I reckon maybe it was just a
- 5:08:27Speaker 1: safe to not to, so I never said nothing. And
- 5:08:33Speaker 1: of chapter forty two, chapter the last. The first time
- 5:08:40Speaker 1: I catched Tom private, I asked him what was his
- 5:08:43Speaker 1: idea time of the evasion, what it was he'd planned
- 5:08:46Speaker 1: to do if the evasion worked all right and he
- 5:08:48Speaker 1: managed to set a nigger free that was already free before.
- 5:08:52Speaker 1: And he said what he planned in his head from
- 5:08:54Speaker 1: the start, if we got Jim out all safe was
- 5:08:58Speaker 1: for us to run him down the river on the
- 5:08:59Speaker 1: road and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river,
- 5:09:03Speaker 1: and then tell him about his being free, and take
- 5:09:06Speaker 1: him back up home on a steamboat in style, and
- 5:09:09Speaker 1: pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead
- 5:09:12Speaker 1: and get out all the niggers round and have them
- 5:09:14Speaker 1: waltz him into town with a torchlike procession and a
- 5:09:17Speaker 1: brass band, and then he would be a hero, and
- 5:09:20Speaker 1: so would we but I reckoned it was about as
- 5:09:23Speaker 1: well the way it was. We had Jim out of
- 5:09:27Speaker 1: the chains in no time. And when Aunt Polly and
- 5:09:29Speaker 1: Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he
- 5:09:32Speaker 1: helped the doctor nurse Tom, they made a heap of
- 5:09:35Speaker 1: fuss over him and fixed him up prime and give
- 5:09:38Speaker 1: him all he wanted to eat and a good time,
- 5:09:41Speaker 1: had nothing to do. And we had him up to
- 5:09:44Speaker 1: the sick room and had a high talk, and Tom
- 5:09:47Speaker 1: give Jim forty dollars for being prisoner for us so
- 5:09:50Speaker 1: patient and doing it up so good. And Jim was
- 5:09:53Speaker 1: placed most to death and busted out and says, there now, huk,
- 5:09:59Speaker 1: what I tell you? What I tell you up there
- 5:10:01Speaker 1: on Jackson Island. I told you I got a hairy breast.
- 5:10:05Speaker 1: And what's to signing it? An? I told you I've
- 5:10:07Speaker 1: been rich once, an goin to be rich again, and
- 5:10:11Speaker 1: it's come true. And here she is there now, don't
- 5:10:15Speaker 1: talk to me. Signs and signs mine, I tell you,
- 5:10:19Speaker 1: And I know just as well as I is gwine
- 5:10:21Speaker 1: to be rich again, as I a standing here this minute.
- 5:10:26Speaker 1: And then Tom, he talked along and talked along and says,
- 5:10:30Speaker 1: let's all three slide out o here one of these
- 5:10:33Speaker 1: nights and get an outfit and go for howling adventures
- 5:10:36Speaker 1: amongst the injuns over in the territory for a couple
- 5:10:38Speaker 1: of weeks or two. And I says, all right, that
- 5:10:42Speaker 1: suits me, but I ain't got no money for to
- 5:10:44Speaker 1: buy the outfit. And I reckon I couldn't get none
- 5:10:46Speaker 1: from home, because it's likely PAP's been back before now
- 5:10:49Speaker 1: and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk
- 5:10:52Speaker 1: it up. No he hain't. Tom says, it's all there
- 5:10:56Speaker 1: yet six thousand dollars a more. And your pap hain't
- 5:10:59Speaker 1: ever been back, sin hadn't when I come away anyhow,
- 5:11:03Speaker 1: Jim says, kind of solemn. He ain't a comin back
- 5:11:07Speaker 1: no mole. Hook. I says, why Jim, Never mind why hook?
- 5:11:12Speaker 1: But he ain't comin back no mole. But I kept
- 5:11:16Speaker 1: at him, so at last he says, don't you remember
- 5:11:20Speaker 1: the house that was floating down the river and there
- 5:11:22Speaker 1: was a man in there covered up, and when I
- 5:11:24Speaker 1: went in and uncovered him and didn't let you come in. Well, Dan,
- 5:11:29Speaker 1: you can get your money when you wants it, because
- 5:11:31Speaker 1: that was him. Tom's most well now an got his
- 5:11:36Speaker 1: bullet around his neck on a WatchGuard for a watch,
- 5:11:39Speaker 1: and as always seeing what time it is. And so
- 5:11:42Speaker 1: there ain't nothing more to write about. And I am
- 5:11:45Speaker 1: right an glad of it, because if i'd a knowed
- 5:11:47Speaker 1: what a trouble it was to make a book, I
- 5:11:48Speaker 1: wouldn't have tackled it. And ain't a goin to no more.
- 5:11:52Speaker 1: But I reckon, I got to light out for the
- 5:11:54Speaker 1: territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally, she's going
- 5:11:57Speaker 1: to adopt me and ciphlize me, and I can't stand it.
- 5:12:02Speaker 1: I've been there before thee and yours truly huck Finn.
- 5:12:12Speaker 1: End of chapter The Last and End of the Adventures
- 5:12:15Speaker 1: of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain