ey got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then
such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to scrouge
in  and  get  a  sight,  you  never see; and in the dark, that way, it was
awful.  Hines  he  hurt  my  wrist  dreadful pulling and tugging so, and I
reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and panting.
   All  of  a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare,
and somebody sings out:
   "By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his breast!"
   Hines  let  out  a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and
give  a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit out
and shinned for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell.
   I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew-leastways, I had it all
to  myself  except  the  solid  dark, and the now-and-then glares, and the
buzzing  of  the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting of
the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it along!
   When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody out in the storm, so I
never  hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight through the main
one;  and when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my eye and set it.
No  light  there;  the  house  all  dark-which  made  me  feel  sorry  and
disappointed,  I  didn't  know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by,
FLASH  comes  the  light  in  Mary  Jane's window! and my heart swelled up
sudden,  like to bust; and the same second the house and all was behind me
in  the dark, and wasn't ever going to be before me no more in this world.
She WAS the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand.
   The  minute  I  was  far  enough above the town to see I could make the
towhead,  I  begun  to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first time
the  lightning showed me one that wasn't chained I snatched it and shoved.
It  was  a canoe, and warn't fastened with nothing but a rope. The towhead
was  a  rattling  big  distance  off,  away out there in the middle of the
river, but I didn't lose no time; and when I struck the raft at last I was
so  fagged  I  would a just laid down to blow and gasp if I could afforded
it. But I didn't. As I sprung aboard I sung out:
   "Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, we're shut
of them!"
   Jim  lit  out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he was so
full  of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot up in
my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he was old King Lear
and  a drownded A-rab all in one, and it most scared the livers and lights
out  of  me.  But Jim fished me out, and was going to hug me and bless me,
and  so  on, he was so glad I was back and we was shut of the king and the
duke, but I says:
   "Not  now;  have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose and
let her slide!"
   So  in  two  seconds  away we went a-sliding down the river, and it DID
seem  so  good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and
nobody  to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and crack my
heels  a few times-I couldn't help it; but about the third crack I noticed
a  sound  that  I  knowed mighty well, and held my breath and listened and
waited;  and  sure  enough, when the next flash busted out over the water,
here they come!-and just alaying to their oars and making their skiff hum!
It was the king and the duke.
   So  I  wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and it was
all I could do to keep from crying.


        Chapter XXX.

   WHEN  they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar,
and says:
   "Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company, hey?"
   I says:
   "No, your majesty, we warn't-PLEASE don't, your majesty!"
   "Quick, then, and tell us what WAS your idea, or I'll shake the insides
out o' you!"
   "Honest,  I'll  tell  you everything just as it happened, your majesty.
The  man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he had
a  boy  about  as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to see a
boy  in  such  a  dangerous fix; and when they was all took by surprise by
finding  the  gold,  and  made a rush for the coffin, he lets go of me and
whispers,  'Heel  it  now,  or  they'll  hang ye, sure!' and I lit out. It
didn't  seem  no  good  for ME to stay-I couldn't do nothing, and I didn't
want  to  be  hung  if I could get away. So I never stopped running till I
found  the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to hurry, or they'd catch
me  and  hang  me yet, and said I was afeard you and the duke wasn't alive
now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful glad when we see
you coming; you may ask Jim if I didn't."
   Jim  said  it  was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said, "Oh,
yes, it's MIGHTY likely!" and shook me up again, and said he reckoned he'd
drownd me. But the duke says:
   "Leggo  the boy, you old idiot! Would YOU a done any different? Did you
inquire around for HIM when you got loose? I don't remember it."
   So  the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in
it. But the duke says:
   "You better a blame' sight give YOURSELF a good cussing, for you're the
one  that's  entitled  to  it most. You hain't done a thing from the start
that  had  any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky with that
imaginary blue-arrow mark. That WAS bright-it was right down bully; and it
was  the  thing  that  saved  us.  For if it hadn't been for that they'd a
jailed  us  till them Englishmen's baggage come-and then-the penitentiary,
you  bet! But that trick took 'em to the graveyard, and the gold done us a
still  bigger  kindness;  for if the excited fools hadn't let go all holts
and   made  that  rush  to  get  a  look  we'd  a  slept  in  our  cravats
to-night-cravats warranted to WEAR, too-longer than WE'D need 'em."
   They  was  still  a  minute-thinking;  then  the  king  says,  kind  of
absent-minded like:
   "Mf! And we reckoned the NIGGERS stole it!"
   That made me squirm!
   "Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, "WE did."
   After about a half a minute the king drawls out:
   "Leastways, I did."
   The duke says, the same way:
   "On the contrary, I did."
   The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
   "Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?"
   The duke says, pretty brisk:
   "When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was YOU referring
to?"
   "Shucks!"  says  the  king, very sarcastic; "but I don't know-maybe you
was asleep, and didn't know what you was about."
   The duke bristles up now, and says:
   "Oh,  let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame' fool?
Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?"
   "YES, sir! I know you DO know, because you done it yourself!"
   "It's a lie!"-and the duke went for him. The king sings out:
   "Take y'r hands off!-leggo my throat!-I take it all back!"
   The duke says:
   "Well,  you  just  own  up,  first, that you DID hide that money there,
intending  to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig it
up, and have it all to yourself."
   "Wait jest a minute, duke-answer me this one question, honest and fair;
if  you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take
back everything I said."
   "You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now!"
   "Well,  then,  I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more-now
DON'T  git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide
it?" The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:
   "Well,  I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it, anyway. But you not only
had it in mind to do it, but you DONE it."
   "I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I won't say
I  warn't  goin'  to  do it, because I WAS; but you-I mean somebody-got in
ahead o' me."
   "It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you done it, or-"
   The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
   "'Nough!-I OWN UP!"
   I  was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier
than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and says:
   "If  you  ever  deny  it again I'll drown you. It's WELL for you to set
there  and  blubber  like a baby-it's fitten for you, after the way you've
acted.   I   never   see  such  an  old  ostrich  for  wanting  to  gobble
everything-and  I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father.
You  ought  to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on
to  a  lot  of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me
feel  ridiculous  to think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage. Cuss
you,  I  can  see  now  why you was so anxious to make up the deffisit-you
wanted  to  get  what  money  I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or
another, and scoop it ALL!"
   The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:
   "Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me."
   "Dry  up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!" says the duke. "And
NOW  you see what you GOT by it. They've got all their own money back, and
all  of  OURN  but  a  shekel or two BESIDES. G'long to bed, and don't you
deffersit ME no more deffersits, long 's YOU live!"
   So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort,
and  before  long  the  duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an
hour  they  was  as  thick  as thieves again, and the tighter they got the
lovinger  they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms. They both
got  powerful  mellow,  but I noticed the king didn't get mellow enough to
forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag again. That made
me  feel  easy  and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we had a
long gabble, and I told Jim everything.


        Chapter XXXI.

   WE  dasn't  stop  again at any town for days and days; kept right along
down  the  river.  We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty
long  ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them,
hanging  down  from  the  limbs like long, gray beards. It was the first I
ever  see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal. So now
the  frauds  reckoned  they  was out of danger, and they begun to work the
villages again.
   First  they  done  a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough
for  them  both  to  get  drunk on. Then in another village they started a
dancing-school;  but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo
does;  so  the  first  prance  they  made the general public jumped in and
pranced  them  out  of town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution;
but  they  didn't  yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a
solid  good  cussing,  and made them skip out. They tackled missionarying,
and  mesmerizing,  and  doctoring,  and  telling fortunes, and a little of
everything;  but  they  couldn't seem to have no luck. So at last they got
just  about  dead  broke,  and  laid around the raft as she floated along,
thinking  and  thinking,  and never saying nothing, by the half a day at a
time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
   And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in
the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time. Jim
and  me  got  uneasy.  We  didn't  like the look of it. We judged they was
studying  up  some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it over and
over,  and  at  last  we  made  up  our minds they was going to break into
somebody's  house  or  store,  or  was  going  into  the  counterfeitmoney
business,  or  something.  So  then  we  was pretty scared, and made up an
agreement  that  we  wouldn't  have  nothing  in the world to do with such
actions,  and  if  we  ever got the least show we would give them the cold
shake  and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we hid
the  raft  in  a  good,  safe place about two mile below a little bit of a
shabby  village  named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told us
all  to  stay  hid  whilst  he  went up to town and smelt around to see if
anybody  had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ("House to rob,
you  MEAN,"  says I to myself; "and when you get through robbing it you'll
come  back  here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft-and
you'll  have  to take it out in wondering.") And he said if he warn't back
by  midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come
along.
   So  we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and
was  in  a  mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't
seem  to  do  nothing  right;  he  found  fault  with  every little thing.
Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come and no
king;  we could have a change, anyway-and maybe a chance for THE chance on
top  of  it.  So me and the duke went up to the village, and hunted around
there  for  the  king,  and  by  and by we found him in the back room of a
little  low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for
sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all his might, and so tight
he  couldn't  walk,  and couldn't do nothing to them. The duke he begun to
abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and the minute
they  was  fairly at it I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs,
and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made
up  my  mind  that  it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim
again. I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung
out:
   "Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!"
   But  there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was
gone! I set up a shout-and then another-and then another one; and run this
way  and  that  in  the  woods,  whooping and screeching; but it warn't no
use-old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help it. But I
couldn't  set  still  long.  Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to
think  what  I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and asked him if
he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:
   "Yes."
   "Whereabouts?" says I.
   "Down  to  Silas  Phelps'  place,  two  mile below here. He's a runaway
nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?"
   "You  bet  I  ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two
ago,  and  he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out-and told me to lay
down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard to
come out."
   "Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him.
He run off f'm down South, som'ers."
   "It's  a  good  job they got him." "Well, I RECKON! There's two hunderd
dollars reward on him. It's like picking up money out'n the road."
   "Yes,  it  is-and  I  could  a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him
FIRST. Who nailed him?"
   "It  was an old fellow-a stranger-and he sold out his chance in him for
forty  dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think o'
that, now! You bet I'D wait, if it was seven year."
   "That's  me,  every time," says I. "But maybe his chance ain't worth no
more  than  that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something ain't
straight about it."
   "But  it IS, though-straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. It
tells  all  about  him,  to a dot-paints him like a picture, and tells the
plantation  he's  frum,  below  NewrLEANS.  No-sirree-BOB,  they  ain't no
trouble  'bout  THAT speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a chaw tobacker,
won't ye?"
   I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the
wigwam  to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my
head  sore,  but  I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this
long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all
come  to  nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could
have  the  heart  to  serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave
again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.
   Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be
a  slave  at home where his family was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave,
and  so  I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss
Watson  where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd
be  mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her,
and  so  she'd  sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn't,
everybody  naturally  despises  an  ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim
feel  it  all  the  time,  and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then
think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get
his  freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be
ready  to  get  down  and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a
person  does  a  low-down  thing,  and  then  he  don't  want  to  take no
consequences  of  it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace.
That  was  my  fix  exactly.  The  more  I  studied about this the more my
conscience  went  to  grinding  me,  and  the more wicked and low-down and
ornery  I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that
here  was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting
me  know  my  wickedness  was  being watched all the time from up there in
heaven,whilst  I  was  stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever
done  me  no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the
lookout,  and  ain't  agoing  to allow no such miserable doings to go only
just  so  fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared.
Well,  I  tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself
by  saying  I  was  brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but
something  inside  of  me  kept  saying, "There was the Sunday-school, you
could  a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that
people  that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting
fire."
   It  made  me  shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I
couldn't  try  to  quit  being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I
kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no
use  to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well
why  they  wouldn't  come.  It  was  because my heart warn't right; it was
because  I  warn't  square;  it  was  because  I was playing double. I was
letting  ON  to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the
biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right
thing  and  the  clean  thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and
tell  where  he  was;  but  deep  down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He
knowed it. You can't pray a lie-I found that out.
   So  I  was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to
do.  At  last  I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter-and
then  see  if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light
as  a  feather  right  straight  off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a
piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
   Miss  Watson,  your  runaway  nigger  Jim  is  down here two mile below
Pikesville,  and  Mr.  Phelps  has got him and he will give him up for the
reward if you send.
   HUCK FINN.
   I  felt  good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever
felt  so  in  my  life,  and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it
straight  off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking-thinking how
good  it  was  all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and
going  to  hell.  And  went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip
down  the  river;  and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in
the  night-time,  sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating
along,  talking  and  singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to
strike  no  places  to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd
see  him  standing  my  watch  on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I
could  go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of
the  fog;  and  when  I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the
feud  was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me
and  do  everything  he could think of for me, and how good he always was;
and  at  last  I  struck  the  time  I saved him by telling the men we had
small-pox  aboard,  and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend
old  Jim  ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I
happened to look around and see that paper.
   It  was  a  close  place.  I  took it up, and held it in my hand. I was
a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I
knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to
myself:
   "All right, then, I'll GO to hell"-and tore it up.
   It  was  awful  thoughts  and awful words, but they was said. And I let
them  stay  said;  and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the
whole  thing  out  of  my head, and said I would take up wickedness again,
which  was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for
a  starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I
could  think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I
was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
   Then  I  set  to  thinking  over how to get at it, and turned over some
considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that suited
me.  So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river
a  piece,  and  as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my raft and
went  for  it,  and  hid  it  there, and then turned in. I slept the night
through,  and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on
my  store  clothes,  and tied up some others and one thing or another in a
bundle,  and  took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed below where I
judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled
up  the  canoe  with water, and loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I
could  find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a
little steam sawmill that was on the bank.
   Then  I  struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on
it,  "Phelps's  Sawmill," and when I come to the farm-houses, two or three
hundred  yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody
around,  though  it  was  good  daylight now. But I didn't mind, because I
didn't  want  to  see  nobody just yet-I only wanted to get the lay of the
land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from the village,
not  from  below.  So  I  just took a look, and shoved along, straight for
town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was the duke. He was
sticking  up  a  bill  for the Royal Nonesuch-three-night performance-like
that  other  time.  They  had  the  cheek, them frauds! I was right on him
before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says:
   "Hel-LO!  Where'd YOU come from?" Then he says, kind of glad and eager,
"Where's the raft?-got her in a good place?"
   I says:
   "Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace."
   Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:
   "What was your idea for asking ME?" he says.
   "Well,"  I  says, "when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says
to  myself,  we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went
a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered me
ten  cents  to  help  him  pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a
sheep,  and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, and
the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him along,
he  was  too  strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after him. We
didn't  have  no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the country till
we  tired  him  out. We never got him till dark; then we fetched him over,
and  I  started down for the raft. When I got there and see it was gone, I
says  to  myself,  'They've got into trouble and had to leave; and they've
took  my  nigger,  which is the only nigger I've got in the world, and now
I'm  in a strange country, and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing,
and  no  way  to  make my living;' so I set down and cried. I slept in the
woods all night. But what DID become of the raft, then?-and Jim-poor Jim!"
   "Blamed if I know-that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had
made  a  trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery
the  loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but what
he'd  spent  for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and found
the  raft  gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and shook
us, and run off down the river.'"
   "I  wouldn't  shake  my  NIGGER,  would I?-the only nigger I had in the
world, and the only property."
   "We  never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him
OUR  nigger;  yes,  we  did  consider him so-goodness knows we had trouble
enough  for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there
warn't  anything  for  it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another shake. And
I've  pegged  along  ever  since,  dry  as a powder-horn. Where's that ten
cents? Give it here."
   I  had  considerable  money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to
spend  it  for  something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the
money  I  had,  and  I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never
said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:
   "Do  you  reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done
that!"
   "How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"
   "No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's
gone."
   "SOLD  him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he was MY nigger, and that
was my money. Where is he?-I want my nigger."
   "Well, you can't GET your nigger, that's all-so dry up your blubbering.
Looky here-do you think YOU'D venture to blow on us? Blamed if I think I'd
trust you. Why, if you WAS to blow on us-"
   He  stopped,  but  I  never  see  the duke look so ugly out of his eyes
before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
   "I  don't  want  to  blow  on  nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow,
nohow. I got to turn out and find my nigger."
   He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on
his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:
   "I'll  tell  you  something.  We  got  to be here three days. If you'll
promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you where
to find him."
   So I promised, and he says:
   "A  farmer  by the name of Silas Ph--" and then he stopped. You see, he
started  to  tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to
study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he was.
He  wouldn't  trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of the way
the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:
   "The  man  that bought him is named Abram Foster-Abram G. Foster-and he
lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette."
   "All  right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this
very afternoon."
   "No  you  wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you lose any time about it,
neither,  nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your
head  and  move  right along, and then you won't get into trouble with US,
d'ye hear?"
   That  was  the  order  I  wanted,  and that was the one I played for. I
wanted to be left free to work my plans.
   "So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want
to.  Maybe  you can get him to believe that Jim IS your nigger-some idiots
don't require documents-leastways I've heard there's such down South here.
And  when  you  tell  him the handbill and the reward's bogus, maybe he'll
believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting 'em out.
Go  'long  now, and tell him anything you want to; but mind you don't work
your jaw any BETWEEN here and there."
   So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I
kinder  felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out at
that.  I  went  straight  out  in  the  country as much as a mile before I
stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. I reckoned
I  better start in on my plan straight off without fooling around, because
I  wanted  to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away. I didn't
want  no  trouble  with  their kind. I'd seen all I wanted to of them, and
wanted to get entirely shut of them.


        Chapter XXXII.

   WHEN  I  got  there  it  was  all  still  and  Sunday-like, and hot and
sunshiny;  the  hands  was  gone to the fields; and there was them kind of
faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome
and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers
the  leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits
whispering-spirits  that's  been  dead  ever  so many years-and you always
think  they're  talking about YOU. As a general thing it makes a body wish
HE was dead, too, and done with it all.
   Phelps'  was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they
all  look  alike.  A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out of
logs  sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different length,
to  climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are
going  to  jump  on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard,
but  mostly  it  was  bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed
off;  big double log-house for the white folks-hewed logs, with the chinks
stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been whitewashed some
time  or  another;  round-log  kitchen,  with a big broad, open but roofed
passage joining it to the house; log smokehouse back of the kitchen; three
little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the smoke-house; one little
hut  all by itself away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings
down  a  piece the other side; ashhopper and big kettle to bile soap in by
the  little  hut;  bench  by  the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a
gourd;  hound  asleep  there  in  the sun; more hounds asleep round about;
about  three  shade  trees  away  off in a corner; some currant bushes and
gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden
and  a  watermelon  patch;  then  the  cotton fields begins, and after the
fields the woods.
   I  went  around  and  clumb  over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and
started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of a
spinning-wheel  wailing  along up and sinking along down again; and then I
knowed for certain I wished I was dead-for that IS the lonesomest sound in
the whole world.
   I  went  right  along,  not  fixing  up  any  particular plan, but just
trusting  to  Providence  to put the right words in my mouth when the time
come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my
mouth if I left it alone.
   When  I  got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went
for  me,  and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such
another  powwow  as  they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a
hub  of  a wheel, as you may say-spokes made out of dogs-circle of fifteen
of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses stretched up
towards  me,  a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you could see them
sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.
   A  nigger  woman  come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in
her  hand,  singing  out, "Begone YOU Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and she
fetched  first  one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling,
and  then  the  rest followed; and the next second half of them come back,
wagging  their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't no
harm in a hound, nohow.
   And  behind  the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger
boys  without  anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their
mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way they
always  do.  And  here comes the white woman running from the house, about
forty-five  or  fifty  year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her
hand;  and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way
the little niggers was going. She was smiling all over so she could hardly
stand-and says:
   "It's YOU, at last!-AIN'T it?"
   I out with a "Yes'm" before I thought.
   She  grabbed  me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands
and  shook  and  shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over;
and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, "You don't
look  as  much  like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I
don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like
I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!-tell him howdy."
   But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and
hid behind her. So she run on:
   "Lize,  hurry  up and get him a hot breakfast right away-or did you get
your breakfast on the boat?"
   I  said  I  had  got it on the boat. So then she started for the house,
leading  me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there
she  set  me  down  in  a  split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a
little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:
   "Now I can have a GOOD look at you; and, laws-ame, I've been hungry for
it  a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come at last!
We  been  expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep' you?-boat get
aground?"
   "Yes'm-she-"
   "Don't say yes'm-say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?"
   I  didn't  rightly  know what to say, because I didn't know whether the
boat  would  be  coming  up  the  river  or  down. But I go a good deal on
instinct;  and  my  instinct said she would be coming up-from down towards
Orleans.  That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names of
bars  down  that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the name of
the one we got aground on-or-Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
   "It  warn't  the  grounding-that  didn't  keep us back but a little. We
blowed out a cylinder-head."
   "Good gracious! anybody hurt?"
   "No'm. Killed a nigger."
   "Well,  it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago
last  Christmas  your  uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old
Lally  Rook,  and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I
think  he  died  afterwards.  He  was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a
family  in  Baton  Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember
now,  he  DID die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But
it  didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification-that was it. He turned blue
all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was
a  sight  to  look at. Your uncle's been up to the town every day to fetch
you. And he's gone again, not more'n an hour ago; he'll be back any minute
now. You must a met him on the road, didn't you?-oldish man, with a-"
   "No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight,
and  I  left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town
and  out  a  piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too
soon; and so I come down the back way."
   "Who'd you give the baggage to?"
   "Nobody."
   "Why, child, it 'll be stole!"
   "Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says.
   "How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?"
   It was kinder thin ice, but I says:
   "The  captain  see  me  standing  around,  and  told  me  I better have
something  to  eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the
officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted."
   I  was  getting  so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the
children  all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump them
a  little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs. Phelps
kept  it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak all
down my back, because she says:
   "But  here  we're  a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word
about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you start
up  yourn;  just  tell me EVERYTHING-tell me all about 'm all every one of
'm;  and  how  they are, and what they're doing, and what they told you to
tell me; and every last thing you can think of."
   Well, I see I was up a stump-and up it good. Providence had stood by me
this  fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it warn't
a  bit of use to try to go ahead-I'd got to throw up my hand. So I says to
myself,  here's  another  place where I got to resk the truth. I opened my
mouth  to  begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed, and
says:
   "Here he comes! Stick your head down lower-there, that'll do; you can't
be  seen  now.  Don't  you  let  on  you're here. I'll play a joke on him.
Children, don't you say a word."
   I  see  I was in a fix now. But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't
nothing  to  do  but  just  hold still, and try and be ready to stand from
under when the lightning struck.
   I  had  just  one  little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in;
then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:
   "Has he come?"
   "No," says her husband.
   "Good-NESS  gracious!"  she says, "what in the warld can have become of
him?"
   "I  can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say it makes me
dreadful uneasy."
   "Uneasy!"  she  says;  "I'm ready to go distracted! He MUST a come; and
you've missed him along the road. I KNOW it's so-something tells me so."
   "Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the road-YOU know that."
   "But  oh,  dear,  dear,  what  WILL Sis say! He must a come! You must a
missed him. He-"
   "Oh,  don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know
what  in  the  world  to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind
acknowledging  't  I'm  right  down  scared. But there's no hope that he's
come;  for  he  COULDN'T  come  and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible-just
terrible-something's happened to the boat, sure!"
   "Why, Silas! Look yonder!-up the road!-ain't that somebody coming?"
   He  sprung  to  the  window  at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs.
Phelps  the  chance  she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the
bed  and  give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the
window  there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and I
standing  pretty  meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and
says:
   "Why, who's that?"
   "Who do you reckon 't is?"
   "I hain't no idea. Who IS it?"
   "It's TOM SAWYER!"
   By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time to
swap  knives;  the  old  man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on
shaking;  and  all  the  time how the woman did dance around and laugh and
cry;  and  then  how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary,
and the rest of the tribe.
   But  if  they  was  joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was
like  being  born  again,  I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they
froze  to  me  for  two  hours;  and at last, when my chin was so tired it
couldn't  hardly  go any more, I had told them more about my family-I mean
the  Sawyer  family-than  ever  happened to any six Sawyer families. And I
explained  all  about  how  we  blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of
White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right, and
worked  first-rate;  because THEY didn't know but what it would take three
days  to  fix  it.  If  I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done just as
well.
   Now  I  was  feeling  pretty  comfortable all down one side, and pretty
uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and comfortable,
and  it  stayed  easy  and  comfortable  till by and by I hear a steamboat
coughing  along  down  the river. Then I says to myself, s'pose Tom Sawyer
comes down on that boat? And s'pose he steps in here any minute, and sings
out my name