Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 01 to 05

  CHAPTER III.

  WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson onaccount of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleanedoff the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I wouldbehave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet andprayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, andwhatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it.Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me withouthooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn'tmake it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, butshe said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it outno way.

  I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. Isays to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don'tDeacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow getback her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up?No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told thewidow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for itwas "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me whatshe meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for otherpeople, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself.This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woodsand turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see noadvantage about it--except for the other people; so at last I reckoned Iwouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes thewidow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make abody's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold andknock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was twoProvidences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with thewidow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help forhim any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to thewidow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going tobe any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant,and so kind of low-down and ornery.

  Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortablefor me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale mewhen he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take tothe woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time hewas found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so peoplesaid. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was justhis size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all likepap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had beenin the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he wasfloating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on thebank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think ofsomething. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on hisback, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but awoman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. Ijudged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished hewouldn't.

  We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. Allthe boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, butonly just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go chargingdown on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, butwe never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," and hecalled the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the cave andpowwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed andmarked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy torun about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which wasthe sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he had gotsecret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanishmerchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with twohundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter"mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guardof four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he calledit, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up ourswords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even aturnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it,though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at themtill you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more thanwhat they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd ofSpaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so Iwas on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got theword we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn't noSpaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. Itwarn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class atthat. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but wenever got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got arag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teachercharged in, and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see nodi'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of themthere, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants andthings. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't soignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know withoutasking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there washundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but wehad enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the wholething into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, allright; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. TomSawyer said I was a numskull.

  "Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they wouldhash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are astall as a tree and as big around as a church."

  "Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help US--can't we lick theother crowd then?"

  "How you going to get them?"

  "I don't know. How do THEY get them?"

  "Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies cometearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the smokea-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it. Theydon't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and beltinga Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it--or any other man."

  "Who makes them tear around so?"

  "Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs thelamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tellsthem to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it fullof chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughterfrom China for you to marry, they've got to do it--and they've got to doit before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they've got to waltz thatpalace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand."

  "Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keepingthe palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what'smore--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I woulddrop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp."

  "How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd HAVE to come when he rubbed it,whether you wanted to or not."

  "What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then;I WOULD come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree therewas in the country."

  "Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem toknow anything, somehow--perfect saphead."

  I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned Iwould see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an ironring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat likean Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't nouse, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff wasonly just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabsand the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marksof a Sunday-school.