The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)

  CHAPTER II

  We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back toward the endof the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn'tscrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over aroot and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson'sbig nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could seehim pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up andstretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

  "Who dah?"

  He listened some more; then he came tiptoeing down and stood rightbetween us; we could 'a' touched him, nearly. Well, likely it wasminutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there soclose together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, butI dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back,right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch.Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with thequality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain'tsleepy--if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, whyyou will itch all over in upward of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jimsays:

  "Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n.Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here andlisten tell I hears it ag'in."

  So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back upagainst a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them mosttouched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tearscome into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on theinside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I wasgoing to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or sevenminutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching ineleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n aminute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just thenJim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I waspretty soon comfortable again.

  Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--andwe went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot offTom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But Isaid no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd findout I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and hewould slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try.I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so weslid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on thetable for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; butnothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his handsand knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a goodwhile, everything was so still and lonesome.

  As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the gardenfence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the otherside of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head andhung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but hedidn't wake. Afterward Jim said the witches bewitched him and put himin a trance, and rode him all over the state, and then set him underthe trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. Andnext time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and,after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till byand by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most todeath, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proudabout it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers.Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was morelooked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers wouldstand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he wasa wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by thekitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know allabout such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a backseat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with astring, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his ownhands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witcheswhenever he wanted to just by saying something to it; but he nevertold what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all aroundthere and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of thatfive-center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil hadhad his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he gotstuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.

  Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked awaydown into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling,where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparklingever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole milebroad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found JoeHarper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in theold tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river twomile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.

  We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep thesecret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickestpart of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on ourhands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the caveopened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soonducked under a wall where you wouldn't 'a' noticed that there was ahole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, alldamp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:

  "Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write hisname in blood." Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paperthat he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy tostick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybodydone anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered tokill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and hemustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in theirbreasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belongto the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and ifhe done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged tothe band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then havehis carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his nameblotted off the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang,but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.

  Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he gotit out of his own head. He said some of it, but the rest was out ofpirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned hadit.

  Some thought it would be good to kill the _families_ of boys that toldthe secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil andwrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:

  "Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bouthim?"

  "Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.

  "Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. Heused to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't beenseen in these parts for a year or more."

  They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because theysaid every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else itwouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could thinkof anything to do--everybody was stumped, and set still. I was mostready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offeredthem Miss Watson--they could kill her. Everybody said:

  "Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."

  Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with,and I made my mark on the paper.

  "Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"

  "Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.

  "But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--"

  "Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary,"says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. Weare highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with maskson, and kill the people and take their watches and money."

  "Must we always kill the people?"

  "Oh, certainly. It's best.
Some authorities think different, butmostly it's considered best to kill them--except some that you bringto the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed."

  "Ransomed? What's that?"

  "I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and soof course that's what we've got to do."

  "But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"

  "Why, blame it all, we've _got_ to do it. Don't I tell you it's in thebooks? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books,and get things all muddled up?"

  "Oh, that's all very fine to _say,_ Tom Sawyer, but how in the nationare these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do itto them?--that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckonit is?"

  "Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they'reransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead."

  "Now, that's something _like._ That'll answer. Why couldn't you saidthat before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and abothersome lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and alwaystrying to get loose."

  "How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guardover them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"

  "A guard! Well, that _is_ good. So somebody's got to set up all nightand never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that'sfoolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon asthey get here?"

  "Because it ain't in the books so--that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do youwant to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea. Don't youreckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correctthing to do? Do you reckon _you_ can learn 'em anything? Not by a gooddeal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."

  "All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, dowe kill the women, too?"

  "Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Killthe women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. Youfetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them;and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go homeany more."

  "Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, andfellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for therobbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."

  Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he wasscared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn'twant to be a robber any more.

  So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that madehim mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets.But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all gohome and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.

  Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so hewanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wickedto do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to gettogether and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected TomSawyer first captain and Joe Harper second captain of the Gang, and sostarted home.

  I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day wasbreaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I wasdog-tired.