CHAPTER XL
We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and wentover the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and tooka look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late tosupper, and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't knowwhich end they was standing on, and made us go right off to bed theminute we was done supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was,and never let on a word about the new letter, but didn't need to,because we knowed as much about it as anybody did, and as soon as wewas half up-stairs and her back was turned we slid for the cellarcubboard and loaded up a good lunch and took it up to our room andwent to bed, and got up about half past eleven, and Tom put on AuntSally's dress that he stole and was going to start with the lunch, butsays:
"Where's the butter?"
"I laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone."
"Well, you _left_ it laid out, then--it ain't here."
"We can get along without it," I says.
"We can get along _with_ it, too," he says; "just you slide downcellar and fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod andcome along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes torepresent his mother in disguise, and be ready to _ba_ like a sheepand shove soon as you get there."
So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as aperson's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab ofcorn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up-stairsvery stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comesAunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, andclapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and shesays:
"You been down cellar?"
"Yes'm."
"What you been doing down there?"
"Noth'n."
"_Noth'n!_"
"No'm."
"Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?"
"I don't know 'm."
"You don't _know?_ Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know whatyou been _doing_ down there."
"I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious ifI have."
I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but Is'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in asweat about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so shesays, very decided:
"You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. Youbeen up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out whatit is before _I'm_ done with you."
So she went away as I opened the door and walked into thesetting-room. My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, andevery one of them had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to achair and set down. They was setting around, some of them talking alittle, in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but tryingto look like they warn't; but I knowed they was, because they wasalways taking off their hats, and putting them on, and scratchingtheir heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling with theirbuttons. I warn't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off, all thesame.
I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me,if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdonethis thing, and what a thundering hornet's nest we'd got ourselvesinto, so we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out withJim before these rips got out of patience and come for us.
At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I _couldn't_answer them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; becausethese men was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to startright _now_ and lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but afew minutes to midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold onand wait for the sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at thequestions, and me a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in mytracks I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, andthe butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears;and pretty soon, when one of them says, "_I'm_ for going and gettingin the cabin _first_ and right _now_, and catching them when theycome," I most dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down myforehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, andsays:
"For the land's sake, what _is_ the matter with the child? He's gotthe brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"
And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comesthe bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, andhugged me, and says:
"Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am itain't no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but itpours, and when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowedby the color and all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear,dear, whyd'nt you _tell_ me that was what you'd been down there for,_I_ wouldn't 'a' cared. Now cler out to bed, and don't lemme see nomore of you till morning!"
I was up-stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in anotherone, and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardlyget my words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I couldwe must jump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full ofmen, yonder, with guns!
His eyes just blazed; and he says:
"No!--is that so? _Ain't_ it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do overagain, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till--"
"Hurry! _hurry!_" I says. "Where's Jim?"
"Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him.He's dressed, and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give thesheep-signal."
But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard thembegin to fumble with the padlock, and heard a man say:
"I _told_ you we'd be too soon; they haven't come--the door is locked.Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in thedark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece,and listen if you can hear 'em coming."
So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on uswhilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under allright, and out through the hole, swift but soft--Jim first, me next,and Tom last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in thelean-to, and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to thedoor, and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, butcouldn't make out nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said hewould listen for the steps to get further, and when he nudged us Jimmust glide out first, and him last. So he set his ear to the crack andlistened, and listened, and listened, and the steps a-scraping aroundout there all the time; and at last he nudged us, and we slid out, andstooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise, andslipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it allright, and me and Jim over it; but Tom's britches catched fast on asplinter on the top rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he hadto pull loose, which snapped the splinter and made a noise; and as hedropped in our tracks and started somebody sings out:
"Who's that? Answer, or I'll shoot!"
But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Thenthere was a rush, and a _bang,_ _bang,_ _bang!_ and the bullets fairlywhizzed around us! We heard them sing out:
"Here they are! They've broke for the river! After 'em, boys, and turnloose the dogs!"
So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they woreboots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We wasin the path to the mill; and when they got pretty close onto us wedodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behindthem. They'd had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off therobbers; but by this time somebody had let them loose, and here theycome, making powwow enough for a million; but they was our dogs; so westopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when they see itwarn't nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only justsaid howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering;and then we up-steam again, and whizzed along after them till we wasnearly to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where m
ycanoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards themiddle of the river, but didn't make no more noise than we wasobleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable, for the islandwhere my raft was; and we could hear them yelling and barking at eachother all up and down the bank, till we was so far away the sounds gotdim and died out. And when we stepped onto the raft I says:
"Now, old Jim, you're a free man _again_, and I bet you won't ever bea slave no more."
"En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, enit 'uz _done_ beautiful; en dey ain't _nobody_ kin git up a plan dat'smo' mixed up en splendid den what dat one wuz."
We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of allbecause he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.
When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel as brash as what we didbefore. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid himin the wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him,but he says:
"Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don't stop now; don't fool aroundhere, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, andset her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!--'deed we did. I wish _we'd_'a' had the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't 'a' been no 'Son ofSaint Louis, ascend to heaven!' wrote down in _his_ biography; no,sir, we'd 'a' whooped him over the _border_--that's what we'd 'a' donewith _him_--and done it just as slick as nothing at all, too. Man thesweeps--man the sweeps!"
But me and Jim was consulting--and thinking. And after we'd thought aminute, I says:
"Say it, Jim."
So he says:
"Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz _him_ dat 'uzbein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Goon en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one'? Is datlike Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You _bet_ he wouldn't! _Well_,den, is _Jim_ gywne to say it? No, sah--I doan' budge a step out'n displace 'dout a _doctor_; not if it's forty year!"
I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he didsay--so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for adoctor. He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck toit and wouldn't budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raftloose himself; but we wouldn't let him. Then he give us a piece of hismind, but it didn't do no good.
So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:
"Well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do whenyou get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tightand fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put apurse full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all aroundthe back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him herein the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search himand take his chalk away from him, and don't give it back to him tillyou get him back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so hecan find it again. It's the way they all do."
So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when hesee the doctor coming till he was gone again.