on he stopped
digging,  and  then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking.
Then he says:
   "It  ain't  no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work. If we was prisoners
it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry;
and  we  wouldn't  get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was
changing  watches,  and  so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could
keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the way
it ought to be done. But WE can't fool along; we got to rush; we ain't got
no  time to spare. If we was to put in another night this way we'd have to
knock off for a week to let our hands get well-couldn't touch a case-knife
with them sooner."
   "Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"
   "I'll  tell  you.  It ain't right, and it ain't moral, . and I wouldn't
like  it  to get out; but there ain't only just the one way: we got to dig
him out with the picks, and LET ON it's case-knives."
   "NOW  you're  TALKING!" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler all
the time, Tom Sawyer," I says. "Picks is the thing, moral or no moral; and
as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I start
in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school book, I ain't no
ways  particular  how it's done so it's done. What I want is my nigger; or
what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my Sunday-school book; and
if  a  pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing I'm a-going to dig that
nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with; and I don't
give a dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther."
   "Well,"  he  says,  "there's  excuse for picks and letting-on in a case
like this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand
by and see the rules broke-because right is right, and wrong is wrong, and
a  body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows
better.  It  might  answer for YOU to dig Jim out with a pick, WITHOUT any
letting  on,  because  you  don't  know no better; but it wouldn't for me,
because I do know better. Gimme a case-knife."
   He  had  his  own  by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and
says:
   "Gimme a CASE-KNIFE."
   I  didn't  know  just what to do-but then I thought. I scratched around
amongst  the  old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took
it and went to work, and never said a word.
   He was always just that particular. Full of principle.
   So  then  I  got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about,
and  made  the  fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as
long  as  we  could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for
it.  When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing his
level  best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his hands was
so sore. At last he says:
   "It  ain't no use, it can't be done. What you reckon I better do? Can't
you think of no way?"
   "Yes,"  I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs, and
let on it's a lightning-rod."
   So he done it.
   Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house,
for  to  make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I hung
around  the  nigger  cabins  and  laid  for  a chance, and stole three tin
plates. Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever see the
plates  that  Jim  throwed  out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel and
jimpson  weeds  under  the window-hole-then we could tote them back and he
could use them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then he says:
   "Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."
   "Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."
   He  only  just  looked  scornful,  and said something about nobody ever
heard  of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By and by he
said  he  had  ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to
decide on any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first.
   That  night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took
one  of  the  candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard
Jim  snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we whirled
in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half the job was
done. We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and pawed around and
found  the  candle  and  lit  it, and stood over Jim awhile, and found him
looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle and gradual. He
was  so glad to see us he most cried; and called us honey, and all the pet
names  he  could  think of; and was for having us hunt up a cold-chisel to
cut  the  chain  off  of his leg with right away, and clearing out without
losing  any time. But Tom he showed him how unregular it would be, and set
down  and  told  him all about our plans, and how we could alter them in a
minute  any  time  there  was  an  alarm;  and not to be the least afraid,
because  we  would see he got away, SURE. So Jim he said it was all right,
and  we  set  there and talked over old times awhile, and then Tom asked a
lot  of  questions, and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or
two  to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was comfortable
and  had  plenty  to  eat, and both of them was kind as they could be, Tom
says:
   "NOW I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things by them."
   I  said,  "Don't  do  nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass
ideas I ever struck;" but he never paid no attention to me; went right on.
It was his way when he'd got his plans set.
   So  he  told  Jim  how  we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and
other  large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the
lookout,  and  not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and we
would  put small things in uncle's coatpockets and he must steal them out;
and  we  would  tie  things  to  aunt's  apron-strings  or put them in her
apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and told him what they would be and what
they  was  for.  And  told him how to keep a journal on the shirt with his
blood,  and all that. He told him everything. Jim he couldn't see no sense
in  the  most  of  it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed better
than  him;  so  he  was satisfied, and said he would do it all just as Tom
said.
   Jim  had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good
sociable  time;  then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to bed,
with  hands  that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high spirits.
He  said  it  was  the  best  fun  he  ever  had in his life, and the most
intellectural;  and  said if he only could see his way to it we would keep
it  up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out;
for  he  believed  Jim would come to like it better and better the more he
got used to it. He said that in that way it could be strung out to as much
as eighty year, and would be the best time on record. And he said it would
make us all celebrated that had a hand in it.
   In  the  morning  we  went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass
candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in his
pocket.  Then  we  went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's notice
off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a corn-pone that
was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how it would work, and
it  just  worked  noble; when Jim bit into it it most mashed all his teeth
out;  and  there  warn't  ever anything could a worked better. Tom said so
himself.  Jim he never let on but what it was only just a piece of rock or
something  like that that's always getting into bread, you know; but after
that  he  never  bit  into  nothing but what he jabbed his fork into it in
three or four places first.
   And  whilst  we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
couple  of  the  hounds  bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on
piling  in  till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room in
there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to door!
The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches" once, and keeled over on to
the  floor  amongst  the  dogs,  and begun to groan like he was dying. Tom
jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and the dogs went
for  it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back again and shut the
door,  and I knowed he'd fixed the other door too. Then he went to work on
the  nigger,  coaxing  him  and  petting  him, and asking him if he'd been
imagining  he  saw  something  again.  He  raised up, and blinked his eyes
around, and says:
   "Mars  Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a
million  dogs,  er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in dese
tracks. I did, mos' sholy. Mars Sid, I FELT um-I FELT um, sah; dey was all
over  me.  Dad  fetch  it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's on one er dem
witches  jis'  wunst-on'y  jis' wunst-it's all I'd ast. But mos'ly I wisht
dey'd lemme 'lone, I does."
   Tom says:
   "Well,  I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just at this
runaway  nigger's  breakfast-time? It's because they're hungry; that's the
reason. You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for YOU to do."
   "But  my  lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie? I doan'
know how to make it. I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."
   "Well,   then,  I'll  have  to  make  it  myself."  "Will  you  do  it,
honey?-Qwill you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo' foot, I will!"
   "All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and
showed  us  the  runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful. When we
come  around,  you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the pan,
don't  you  let  on you see it at all. And don't you look when Jim unloads
the  pan-something  might  happen, I don't know what. And above all, don't
you HANDLE the witch-things."
   "HANNEL  'm,  Mars  Sid?  What IS you a-talkin' 'bout? I wouldn' lay de
weight  er  my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion dollars, I
wouldn't."


        Chapter XXXVII.

   THAT  was  all fixed. So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pile
in  the  back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces of
bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched around
and  found  an  old  tin  washpan,  and stopped up the holes as well as we
could,  to  bake  the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it full of
flour  and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nails that
Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and sorrows on
the  dungeon  walls  with,  and  dropped  one  of  them  in  Aunt  Sally's
apron-pocket  which  was  hanging  on a chair, and t'other we stuck in the
band  of  Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because we heard the
children  say their pa and ma was going to the runaway nigger's house this
morning,  and  then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in
Uncle  Silas's  coat-pocket,  and Aunt Sally wasn't come yet, so we had to
wait a little while.
   And  when  she  come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly
wait  for  the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one
hand  and  cracking  the  handiest  child's head with her thimble with the
other, and says:
   "I've  hunted  high  and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what HAS
become of your other shirt."
   My  heart  fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard
piece  of  corn-crust  started  down my throat after it and got met on the
road  with  a  cough,  and  was shot across the table, and took one of the
children  in  the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cry
out  of  him  the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around
the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for about
a  quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold out for half
price  if there was a bidder. But after that we was all right again-it was
the  sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas he
says:
   "It's  most  uncommon  curious, I can't understand it. I know perfectly
well I took it OFF, because-"
   "Because  you hain't got but one ON. Just LISTEN at the man! I know you
took  it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gethering memory,
too, because it was on the clo's-line yesterday-I see it there myself. But
it's  gone,  that's  the long and the short of it, and you'll just have to
change  to a red flann'l one till I can get time to make a new one. And it
'll  be the third I've made in two years. It just keeps a body on the jump
to  keep  you  in  shirts; and whatever you do manage to DO with 'm all is
more'n  I  can make out. A body 'd think you WOULD learn to take some sort
of care of 'em at your time of life."
   "I  know  it,  Sally,  and  I  do  try all I can. But it oughtn't to be
altogether  my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have nothing
to  do  with them except when they're on me; and I don't believe I've ever
lost one of them OFF of me."
   "Well,  it  ain't  YOUR fault if you haven't, Silas; you'd a done it if
you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther. Ther's a
spoon  gone;  and THAT ain't all. There was ten, and now ther's only nine.
The  calf  got  the  shirt,  I  reckon, but the calf never took the spoon,
THAT'S certain."
   "Why, what else is gone, Sally?"
   "Ther's six CANDLES gone-that's what. The rats could a got the candles,
and  I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with the whole place,
the  way  you're  always going to stop their holes and don't do it; and if
they  warn't  fools  they'd  sleep in your hair, Silas-YOU'D never find it
out; but you can't lay the SPOON on the rats, and that I know."
   "Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been remiss; but
I won't let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes."
   "Oh,  I  wouldn't  hurry;  next  year 'll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta
PHELPS!"
   Whack  comes  the  thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the
sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps on
to the passage, and says:
   "Missus, dey's a sheet gone."
   "A SHEET gone! Well, for the land's sake!"
   "I'll stop up them holes to-day," says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.
   "Oh, DO shet up!-s'pose the rats took the SHEET? WHERE'S it gone, Lize?"
   "Clah  to  goodness  I  hain't  no  notion,  Miss' Sally. She wuz on de
clo'sline yistiddy, but she done gone: she ain' dah no mo' now."
   "I  reckon the world IS coming to an end. I NEVER see the beat of it in
all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can-"
   "Missus," comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstick miss'n."
   "Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!"
   Well,  she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned I
would  sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She kept
a-raging  right  along,  running  her  insurrection  all  by  herself, and
everybody  else  mighty  meek  and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking
kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She stopped, with
her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was in Jeruslem
or somewheres. But not long, because she says:
   "It's  JUST  as  I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time;
and  like  as  not  you've  got  the other things there, too. How'd it get
there?"
   "I reely don't know, Sally," he says, kind of apologizing, "or you know
I  would  tell.  I  was  astudying  over  my text in Acts Seventeen before
breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put my
Testament  in,  and it must be so, because my Testament ain't in; but I'll
go and see; and if the Testament is where I had it, I'll know I didn't put
it  in,  and that will show that I laid the Testament down and took up the
spoon, and-"
   "Oh,  for  the land's sake! Give a body a rest! Go 'long now, the whole
kit  and  biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got back my
peace of mind."
   I'D  a  heard  her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it
out; and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead. As we was passing
through  the  setting-room  the  old  man  he  took  up  his  hat, and the
shingle-nail  fell  out  on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and
laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out. Tom see
him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says:
   "Well,  it  ain't  no  use  to  send  things  by  HIM no more, he ain't
reliable."  Then  he  says:  "But  he  done us a good turn with the spoon,
anyway,  without  knowing  it,  and so we'll go and do him one without HIM
knowing it-stop up his rat-holes."
   There  was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole
hour,  but  we  done  the  job tight and good and shipshape. Then we heard
steps  on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes the
old  man,  with  a  candle  in  one hand and a bundle of stuff in t'other,
looking  as  absent-minded  as year before last. He went a mooning around,
first  to  one rat-hole and then another, till he'd been to them all. Then
he  stood  about  five  minutes,  picking tallowdrip off of his candle and
thinking. Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs, saying:
   "Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it. I could show
her  now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats. But never mind-let
it go. I reckon it wouldn't do no good."
   And  so  he  went  on  a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a
mighty nice old man. And always is.
   Tom  was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said
we'd  got  to  have it; so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out he
told  me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the spoon-basket
till  we  see  Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to counting the spoons
and  laying them out to one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve, and
Tom says:
   "Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons YET."
   She says:
   "Go  'long  to your play, and don't bother me. I know better, I counted
'm myself."
   "Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine."
   She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count-anybody
would.
   "I  declare  to gracious ther' AIN'T but nine!" she says. "Why, what in
the world-plague TAKE the things, I'll count 'm again."
   So  I  slipped  back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she
says:
   "Hang  the  troublesome  rubbage, ther's TEN now!" and she looked huffy
and bothered both. But Tom says:
   "Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten."
   "You numskull, didn't you see me COUNT 'm?"
   "I know, but-"
   "Well, I'll count 'm AGAIN."
   So  I  smouched  one,  and  they come out nine, same as the other time.
Well,  she WAS in a tearing way-just a-trembling all over, she was so mad.
But  she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd start to count
in  the  basket  for  a spoon sometimes; and so, three times they come out
right, and three times they come out wrong. Then she grabbed up the basket
and  slammed  it across the house and knocked the cat galley-west; and she
said  cle'r  out  and  let  her  have some peace, and if we come bothering
around  her again betwixt that and dinner she'd skin us. So we had the odd
spoon,  and  dropped it in her apron-pocket whilst she was a-giving us our
sailing  orders,  and  Jim  got it all right, along with her shingle nail,
before  noon.  We  was  very  well  satisfied  with this business, and Tom
allowed  it  was  worth twice the trouble it took, because he said NOW she
couldn't  ever  count  them spoons twice alike again to save her life; and
wouldn't  believe she'd counted them right if she DID; and said that after
she'd  about  counted her head off for the next three days he judged she'd
give  it  up  and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them
any more.
   So  we  put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of
her closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a couple
of  days  till  she  didn't know how many sheets she had any more, and she
didn't CARE, and warn't a-going to bullyrag the rest of her soul out about
it,  and  wouldn't  count them again not to save her life; she druther die
first.
   So  we  was  all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon
and  the  candles,  by  the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up
counting;  and  as  to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it would
blow over by and by.
   But  that  pie  was  a  job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. We
fixed  it  up  away  down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it
done  at  last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and we
had  to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through, and we
got  burnt  pretty  much  all  over,  in places, and eyes put out with the
smoke;  because,  you  see,  we  didn't  want  nothing but a crust, and we
couldn't  prop it up right, and she would always cave in. But of course we
thought of the right way at last-which was to cook the ladder, too, in the
pie.  So  then we laid in with Jim the second night, and tore up the sheet
all  in little strings and twisted them together, and long before daylight
we  had  a  lovely  rope that you could a hung a person with. We let on it
took nine months to make it.
   And  in  the  forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go
into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope enough
for  forty  pies  if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left over for soup, or
sausage, or anything you choose. We could a had a whole dinner.
   But  we  didn't need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie, and
so  we  throwed  the  rest  away.  We  didn't cook none of the pies in the
wash-pan-afraid  the  solder  would  melt;  but Uncle Silas he had a noble
brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged to
one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over from England
with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early ships and
was  hid  away  up garret with a lot of other old pots and things that was
valuable, not on account of being any account, because they warn't, but on
account  of  them being relicts, you know, and we snaked her out, private,
and  took  her  down  there,  but she failed on the first pies, because we
didn't  know  how,  but  she  come up smiling on the last one. We took and
lined her with dough, and set her in the coals, and loaded her up with rag
rope,  and  put on a dough roof, and shut down the lid, and put hot embers
on  top,  and  stood  off  five  foot,  with  the  long  handle,  cool and
comfortable,  and  in  fifteen  minutes  she  turned  out a pie that was a
satisfaction  to  look at. But the person that et it would want to fetch a
couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that rope ladder wouldn't cramp
him  down to business I don't know nothing what I'm talking about, and lay
him in enough stomach-ache to last him till next time, too.
   Nat  didn't look when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan; and we put the
three  tin  plates  in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jim
got  everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted into
the  pie  and  hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick, and scratched
some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the window-hole.


        Chapter XXXVIII.

   MAKING  them  pens  was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and
Jim  allowed  the  inscription was going to be the toughest of all. That's
the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to have
it;  Tom  said  he'd  GOT to; there warn't no case of a state prisoner not
scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms.
   "Look at Lady Jane Grey," he says; "look at Gilford Dudley; look at old
Northumberland!  Why,  Huck,  s'pose  it  IS considerble trouble?-what you
going  to  do?-how  you  going  to  get  around  it?  Jim's  GOT to do his
inscription and coat of arms. They all do."
   Jim says:
   "Why,  Mars  Tom,  I  hain't got no coat o' arm; I hain't got nuffn but
dish yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat."
   "Oh, you don't understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different."
   "Well," I says, "Jim's right, anyway, when he says he ain't got no coat
of arms, because he hain't."
   "I  reckon I knowed that," Tom says, "but you bet he'll have one before
he goes out of this-because he's going out RIGHT, and there ain't going to
be no flaws in his record."
   So  whilst  me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim
a-making  his'n  out  of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon, Tom
set  to  work to think out the coat of arms. By and by he said he'd struck
so  many  good ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but there was one
which he reckoned he'd decide on. He says:
   "On  the  scutcheon  we'll have a bend OR in the dexter base, a saltire
MURREY in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under his
foot  a  chain  embattled,  for  slavery,  with  a chevron VERT in a chief
engrailed,  and  three  invected  lines on a field AZURE, with the nombril
points  rampant  on  a  dancette indented; crest, a runaway nigger, SABLE,
with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister; and a couple of gules
for  supporters, which is you and me; motto, MAGGIORE FRETTA, MINORE OTTO.
Got it out of a book-means the more haste the less speed."
   "Geewhillikins," I says, "but what does the rest of it mean?"
   "We  ain't got no time to bother over that," he says; "we got to dig in
like all git-out."
   "Well, anyway," I says, "what's SOME of it? What's a fess?"
   "A  fess-a fess is-YOU don't need to know what a fess is. I'll show him
how to make it when he gets to it."
   "Shucks,  Tom,"  I says, "I think you might tell a person. What's a bar
sinister?"
   "Oh, I don't know. But he's got to have it. All the nobility does."
   That was just his way. If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to you,
he  wouldn't  do  it.  You  might  pump at him a week, it wouldn't make no
difference.
   He'd  got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to
finish  up  the  rest  of  that  part of the work, which was to plan out a
mournful inscription-said Jim got to have one, like they all done. He made
up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so:
   1. Here a captive heart busted. 2. Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the
world
   and  friends, fretted his sorrowful life. 3. Here a lonely heart broke,
and a worn spirit
   went to its rest, after thirty-seven years
   of solitary captivity. 4. Here, homeless and friendless, after
   thirty-seven years of bitter captivity,
   perished a noble stranger, natural son of
   Louis XIV.
   Tom's  voice  trembled  whilst  he  was reading them, and he most broke
down.  When  he got done he couldn't no way make up his mind which one for
Jim  to  scrabble  on  to  the  wall, they was all so good; but at last he
allowed  he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said it would take him
a  year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a nail, and he
didn't know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he would block them
out  for  him, and then he wouldn't have nothing to do but just follow the
lines. Then pretty soon he says:
   "Come to think, the logs ain't a-going to do; they don't have log walls
in  a  dungeon:  we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We'll fetch a
rock."
   Jim  said  the  rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him
such  a  pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn't ever get out.
But  Tom  said  he would let me help him do it. Then he took a look to see
how  me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was most pesky tedious
hard  work  and  slow, and didn't give my hands no show to get well of the
sores, and we didn't seem to make no headway, hardly; so Tom says:
   "I  know  how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and
mournful  inscriptions,  and  we  can  kill two birds with that same rock.
There's  a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it, and
carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, too."
   It warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a grindstone
nuther; but we allowed we'd tackle it. It warn't quite midnight yet, so we
cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smouched the grindstone,
and  set  out  to  roll  her  home,  but  it  was a most nation tough job.
Sometimes,  do  what we could, we couldn't keep her from falling over, and
she  come mighty near mashing us every time. Tom said she was going to get
one  of  us, sure, before we got through. We got her half way; and then we
was  plumb  played  out, and most drownded with sweat. We see it warn't no
use; we got to go and fetch Jim So he raised up his bed and slid the chain
off  of the bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled
out  through  our  hole  and  down  there,  and  Jim and me laid into that
grindstone  and  walked  her along like nothing; and Tom superintended. He
could out-superintend any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything.
   Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the grindstone
through;  but  Jim  he took the pick and soon made it big enough. Then Tom
marked  out  them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them,
with  the  nail  for  a  chisel  and  an iron bolt from the rubbage in the
lean-to  for  a  hammer,  and told him to work till the rest of his candle
quit  on  him,  and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone under
his  straw  tick and sleep on it. Then we helped him fix his chain back on
the  bed-leg,  and  was  ready  for  bed  ourselves.  But  Tom  thought of
something, and says:
   "You got any spiders in here, Jim?"
   "No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom."
   "All right, we'll get you some."
   "But  bless  you, honey, I doan' WANT none. I's afeard un um. I jis' 's
soon have rattlesnakes aroun'."
   Tom thought a minute or two, and says:
   "It's a good idea. And I reckon it's been done. It MUST a been done; it
stands to reason. Yes, it's a prime good idea. Where could you keep it?"
   "Keep what, Mars Tom?"
   "Why, a rattlesnake."
   "De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to
come in heah I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid my
head."
   Why,  Jim,  you wouldn't  be  afraid  of  it  after a little. You could
tame it."
   "TAME it!"
   "Yes-easy  enough.  Every  animal is grateful for kindness and petting,
and  they wouldn't THINK of hurting a person that pets them. Any book will
tell  you  that. You try-that's all I ask; just try for two or three days.
Why,  you  can get him so in a little while that he'll love you; and sleep
with you; and won't stay away from you a minute; and will let you wrap him
round your neck and put his head in your mouth."
   "PLEASE,  Mars  Tom-DOAN'  talk so! I can't STAN' it! He'd LET me shove
his head in my mouf-fer a favor, hain't it? I lay he'd wait a pow'ful long
time 'fo' I AST him. En mo' en dat, I doan' WANT him to sleep wid me."
   "Jim,  don't  act  so  foolish. A prisoner's GOT to have some kind of a
dumb  pet,  and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's more
glory  to  be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other
way you could ever think of to save your life."
   "Why,  Mars  Tom,  I doan' WANT no sich glory. Snake take 'n bite Jim's
chin off, den WHAH is de glory? No, sah, I doan' want no sich doin's."
   "Blame it, can't you TRY? I only WANT you to try-you needn't keep it up
if it don't work."
   "But  de  trouble  all DONE ef de snake bite me while I's a tryin' him.
Mars  Tom, I's willin' to tackle mos' anything 'at ain't onreasonable, but
ef  you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I's gwyne to
LEAVE, dat's SHORE."
   "Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bullheaded about it. We
can  get  you  some  garter-snakes,  and you can tie some buttons on their
tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll have to do."
   "I  k'n  stan'  DEM, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout
um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b'fo' 't was so much bother and trouble
to be a prisoner."
   "Well, it ALWAYS is when it's done right. You got any rats around here?"
   "No, sah, I hain't seed none."
   "Well, we'll get you some rats."
   "Why,  Mars Tom, I doan' WANT no rats. Dey's de dadblamedest creturs to
'sturb  a  body,  en  rustle  roun'  over 'im, en bite his feet, when he's
tryin' to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g'yarter-snakes, 'f I's got to
have 'm, but doan' gimme no rats; I hain' got no use f'r um, skasely."
   "But,  Jim, you GOT to have 'em-they all do. So don't make no more fuss
about  it.  Prisoners  ain't ever without rats. There ain't no instance of
it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them tricks, and they get
to  be  as  sociable  as flies. But you got to play music to them. You got
anything to play music on?"
   "I  ain'  got  nuffn  but  a  coase  comb  en  a  piece  o' paper, en a
juice-harp; but I reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juice-harp."
   "Yes they would. THEY don't care what kind of music 'tis. A jews-harp's
plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music-in a prison they dote
on  it. Specially, painful music; and you can't get no other kind out of a
jews-harp.  It  always  interests  them;  they  come out to see what's the
matter  with  you. Yes, you're all right; you're fixed very well. You want
to  set  on  your  bed  nights  before  you  go to sleep, and early in the
mornings,  and  play  your jewsharp; play 'The Last Link is Broken'-that's
the  thing  that 'll scoop a rat quicker 'n anything else; and when you've
played  about  two  minutes  you'll  see all the rats, and the snakes, and
spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you, and come. And they'll
just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good time."
   "Yes,  DEY  will,  I  reck'n,  Mars  Tom,  but what kine er time is JIM
havin'? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I'll do it ef I got to. I reck'n I
better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de house."
   Tom  waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else; and
pretty soon he says:
   "Oh,  there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you
reckon?"
   "I  doan  know  but  maybe  I could, Mars Tom; but it's tolable dark in
heah,  en  I  ain'  got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a pow'ful
sight o' trouble."
   "Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it."
   "One er dem big cat-tail-lookin' mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars
Tom, I reck'n, but she wouldn't be wuth half de trouble she'd coss."
   "Don't you believe it. We'll fetch you a little one and you plant it in
the  corner  over  there,  and raise it. And don't call it mullen, call it
Pitchiola-that's  its  right  name  when it's in a prison. And you want to
water it with your tears."
   "Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom."
   "You  don't  WANT  spring  water; you want to water it with your tears.
It's the way they always do."
   "Why,  Mars  Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid
spring water whiles another man's a START'N one wid tears."
   "That ain't the idea. You GOT to do it with tears."
   "She'll die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan' skasely
ever cry."
   So  Tom  was  stumped.  But he studied it over, and then said Jim would
have  to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he would
go  to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's coffeepot, in the
morning. Jim said he would "jis' 's soon have tobacker in his coffee;" and
found  so  much fault with it, and with the work and bother of raising the
mullen,  and  jews-harping  the  rats,  and  petting and flattering up the
snakes  and  spiders and things, on top of all the other work he had to do
on  pens,  and  inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more
trouble  and  worry  and  responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he
ever  undertook, that Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was
just  loadened  down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in
the  world  to  make  a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to
appreciate  them,  and  they  was  just about wasted on him. So Jim he was
sorry,  and said he wouldn't behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved
for bed.


        Chapter XXXIX.

   IN the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and
fetched  it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we
had  fifteen  of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put it
in  a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders
little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there,
and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did;
and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was a-standing on top
of  the  bed  raising Cain, and the rats was doing what they could to keep
off  the  dull  times  for  her.  So  she took and dusted us both with the
hickry,  and  we  was  as  much  as  two hours catching another fifteen or
sixteen,  drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn't the likeliest, nuther,
because  the  first haul was the pick of the flock. I never see a likelier
lot of rats than what that first haul was.
   We  got  a  splendid  stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and
caterpillars,  and  one  thing  or  another; and we like to got a hornet's
nest,  but  we didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give it right up,
but  stayed  with  them  as long as we could; because we allowed we'd tire
them  out  or  they'd  got  to  tire us out, and they done it. Then we got
allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right again,
but  couldn't  set  down  convenient.  And  so we went for the snakes, and
grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in a bag,
and put it in our room, and by that time it was suppertime, and a rattling
good honest day's work: and hungry?-oh, no, I reckon not! And there warn't
a  blessed  snake  up there when we went back-we didn't half tie the sack,
and  they worked out somehow, and left. But it didn't matter much, because
they  was still on the premises somewheres. So we judged we could get some
of them again. No, there warn't no real scarcity of snakes about the house
for  a  considerable  spell.  You'd see them dripping from the rafters and
places  every now and then; and they generly landed in your plate, or down
the  back  of  your neck, and most of the time where you didn't want them.
Well, they was handsome and striped, and there warn't no harm in a million
of  them;  but  that  never made no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised
snakes,  be  the breed what they might, and she couldn't stand them no way
you  could  fix  it;  and  every  time one of them flopped down on her, it
didn't make no difference what she was doing, she would just lay that work
down and light out. I never see such a woman. And you could hear her whoop
to  Jericho.  You  couldn't get her to take a-holt of one of them with the
tongs.  And if she turned over and found one in bed she would scramble out
and  lift  a  howl that you would think the house was afire. She disturbed
the  old  man so that he said he could most wish there hadn't ever been no
snakes created. Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the
house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn't over it yet; she warn't near
over it; when she was setting thinking about something you could touch her
on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump right out of her
stockings.  It  was  very  curious. But Tom said all women was just so. He
said they was made that way for some reason or other.
   We  got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she
allowed  these  lickings  warn't  nothing  to what she would do if we ever
loaded  up  the place again with them. I didn't mind the lickings, because
they  didn't  amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had to lay in
another  lot.  But  we got them laid in, and all the other things; and you
never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd all swarm out for
music  and