Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Page 23

  CHAPTER XX.

  THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what wecovered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead ofrunning--was Jim a runaway nigger? ?Says I:

  "Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run _south_?"

  No, they allowed he wouldn't. ?I had to account for things some way, soI says:

  "My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, andthey all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. ?Pa, he 'lowedhe'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a littleone-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. ?Pa waspretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn'tnothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. ?That warn'tenough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way.?Well, when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketchedthis piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it.?Pa's luck didn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner ofthe raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel;Jim and me come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only fouryears old, so they never come up no more. ?Well, for the next day ortwo we had considerable trouble, because people was always coming out inskiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he wasa runaway nigger. ?We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they don'tbother us."

  The duke says:

  "Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if wewant to. ?I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that'll fix it.We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to go bythat town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy."

  Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heatlightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves wasbeginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to seethat. ?So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to seewhat the beds was like. ?My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's,which was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shucktick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dryshucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; itmakes such a rustling that you wake up. ?Well, the duke allowed he wouldtake my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn't. ?He says:

  "I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you thata corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. ?Your Grace 'lltake the shuck bed yourself."

  Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there wasgoing to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad whenthe duke says:

  "'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel ofoppression. ?Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, Isubmit; 'tis my fate. ?I am alone in the world--let me suffer; can bearit."

  We got away as soon as it was good and dark. ?The king told us to standwell out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till wegot a long ways below the town. ?We come in sight of the little bunch oflights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a halfa mile out, all right. ?When we was three-quarters of a mile below wehoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to rainand blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told usto both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the dukecrawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. ?It was my watchbelow till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed,because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, notby a long sight. ?My souls, how the wind did scream along! ?And everysecond or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a halfa mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain,and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum!bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumblingand grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash andanother sockdolager. ?The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. ?We didn't have no troubleabout snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constantthat we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way orthat and miss them.

  I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was alwaysmighty good that way, Jim was. ?I crawled into the wigwam, but the kingand the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show forme; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, andthe waves warn't running so high now. ?About two they come up again,though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, becausehe reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he wasmistaken about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes aregular ripper and washed me overboard. ?It most killed Jim a-laughing.?He was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.

  I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and bythe storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showedI rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for theday.

  The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and himand the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. ?Then they gottired of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they calledit. The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot oflittle printed bills and read them out loud. ?One bill said, "Thecelebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on theScience of Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day ofblank, at ten cents admission, and "furnish charts of character attwenty-five cents apiece." ?The duke said that was _him_. ?In anotherbill he was the "world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick theYounger, of Drury Lane, London." ?In other bills he had a lot of othernames and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold witha "divining-rod," "dissipating witch spells," and so on. ?By and by hesays:

  "But the histrionic muse is the darling. ?Have you ever trod the boards,Royalty?"

  "No," says the king.

  "You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen Grandeur," saysthe duke. ?"The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do thesword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.How does that strike you?"

  "I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but, yousee, I don't know nothing about play-actin', and hain't ever seen muchof it. ?I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace. ?Do youreckon you can learn me?"

  "Easy!"

  "All right. ?I'm jist a-freezn' for something fresh, anyway. ?Le'scommence right away."

  So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was, andsaid he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.

  "But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my whitewhiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe."

  "No, don't you worry; these country jakes won't ever think of that.Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all thedifference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlightbefore she goes to bed, and she's got on her night-gown and her rufflednightcap. ?Here are the costumes for the parts."

  He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said wasmeedyevil armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long whitecotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. ?The king wassatisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in themost splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the sametime, to show how it had got to be done; then he give the book to theking and told him to get his part by heart.

  There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, andafter dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to runin daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he wouldgo down to the town and fix that thing. ?The king allowed he would go,too, and see if he couldn't strike something. ?We was out of coffee, soJim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some.

  When we got there there warn't nobody stirring;
streets empty, andperfectly dead and still, like Sunday. ?We found a sick nigger sunninghimself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young ortoo sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in thewoods. ?The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work thatcamp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.

  The duke said what he was after was a printing-office. ?We found it;a little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop--carpenters andprinters all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. ?It was a dirty,littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures ofhorses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. ?The duke shedhis coat and said he was all right now. ?So me and the king lit out forthe camp-meeting.

  We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a mostawful hot day. ?There was as much as a thousand people there fromtwenty mile around. ?The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitchedeverywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keepoff the flies. ?There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over withbranches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles ofwatermelons and green corn and such-like truck.

  The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they wasbigger and held crowds of people. ?The benches was made out of outsideslabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks intofor legs. They didn't have no backs. ?The preachers had high platformsto stand on at one end of the sheds. ?The women had on sun-bonnets;and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of theyoung ones had on calico. ?Some of the young men was barefooted, andsome of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linenshirt. ?Some of the old women was knitting, and some of the young folkswas courting on the sly.

  The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. ?He linedout two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; thenhe lined out two more for them to sing--and so on. ?The people woke upmore and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end somebegun to groan, and some begun to shout. ?Then the preacher begun topreach, and begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side ofthe platform and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the frontof it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting hiswords out with all his might; and every now and then he would hold uphis Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way andthat, shouting, "It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness! ?Look uponit and live!" ?And people would shout out, "Glory!--A-a-_men_!" ?And sohe went on, and the people groaning and crying and saying amen:

  "Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (_Amen_!) come,sick and sore! (_Amen_!) come, lame and halt and blind! (_Amen_!) come,pore and needy, sunk in shame! (_A-A-Men_!) come, all that's worn andsoiled and suffering!--come with a broken spirit! come with a contriteheart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanseis free, the door of heaven stands open--oh, enter in and be at rest!"(_A-A-Men_! ?_Glory, Glory Hallelujah!_)

  And so on. ?You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, onaccount of the shouting and crying. ?Folks got up everywheres in thecrowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners'bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all themourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung andshouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.

  Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear himover everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, andthe preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. ?Hetold them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in theIndian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring ina fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks togoodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboatwithout a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing thatever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy forthe first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to startright off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the restof his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he coulddo it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crewsin that ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get therewithout money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinceda pirate he would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me nocredit; it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting,natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacherthere, the truest friend a pirate ever had!"

  And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. ?Then somebodysings out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" ?Well,a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let _him_pass the hat around!" ?Then everybody said it, the preacher too.

  So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes,and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for beingso good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while theprettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, wouldup and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and healways done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five orsix times--and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him tolive in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he saidas this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, andbesides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go towork on the pirates.

  When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he hadcollected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. ?And then he hadfetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under awagon when he was starting home through the woods. ?The king said,take it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in themissionarying line. ?He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don'tamount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.

  The duke was thinking _he'd_ been doing pretty well till the king cometo show up, but after that he didn't think so so much. ?He had setup and printed off two little jobs for farmers in thatprinting-office--horse bills--and took the money, four dollars. ?And hehad got in ten dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which hesaid he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance--sothey done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he tookin three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of thempaying him in advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions asusual, but he said he had just bought the concern and knocked down theprice as low as he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash.?He set up a little piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out ofhis own head--three verses--kind of sweet and saddish--the name of it was,"Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heart"--and he left that all setup and ready to print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it.?Well, he took in nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a prettysquare day's work for it.

  Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't chargedfor, because it was for us. ?It had a picture of a runaway nigger witha bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it. ?Thereading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. ?It saidhe run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans,last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and sendhim back he could have the reward and expenses.

  "Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if wewant to. ?Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and footwith a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say wecaptured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat,so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going downto get the reward. ?Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim,but it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor. ?Too muchlike jewelry. ?Ropes are the correct thing--we must preserve the unities,as we say on the boards."

  We all said the duke was
pretty smart, and there couldn't be no troubleabout running daytimes. ?We judged we could make miles enough that nightto get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work inthe printing office was going to make in that little town; then we couldboom right along if we wanted to.

  We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly teno'clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn'thoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.

  When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:

  "Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on distrip?"

  "No," I says, "I reckon not."

  "Well," says he, "dat's all right, den. ?I doan' mine one er two kings,but dat's enough. ?Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' muchbetter."

  I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hearwhat it was like; but he said he had been in this country so long, andhad so much trouble, he'd forgot it.