Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 36 to the Last

  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 took alook at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper,and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end theywas standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was donesupper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on aword about the new letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as muchabout it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and herback was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a goodlunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up abouthalf-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole andwas going to start with the lunch, but says:

  "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 down cellar andfetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along.I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother indisguise, and be ready to BA like a sheep and shove soon as you getthere."

  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 stairs verystealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes AuntSally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped myhat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she says:

  "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 what youbeen DOING down there."

  "I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if Ihave."

  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 a sweatabout every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says,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 what itis before I'M done with you."

  So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room.My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of themhad a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down.They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice,and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't;but I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their hats, andputting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their seats,and fumbling with their buttons. I warn't easy myself, but I didn't takemy hat off, all the same.

  I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, ifshe wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone thisthing, and what a thundering hornet's-nest we'd got ourselves into, so wecould stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim beforethese rips got out of patience and come for us.

  At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I COULDN'T answerthem straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because these menwas in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right NOW and layfor them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to midnight;and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for thesheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and mea-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that scared;and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning to meltand run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty soon, when one ofthem says, "I'M for going and getting in the cabin FIRST and right NOW,and catching them when they come," I most dropped; and a streak of buttercome a-trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turnswhite as a sheet, and says:

  "For the land's sake, what IS the matter with the child? He's got thebrain-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 comes thebread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and hugged me,and says:

  "Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it ain'tno worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, andwhen I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by the colorand all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear, dear, whyd'nt youTELL me that was what you'd been down there for, I wouldn't a cared. Nowcler out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of you till morning!"

  I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one,and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get mywords out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we mustjump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full of men, 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'sdressed, 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 pad-lock, 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 all right,and out through the hole, swift but soft--Jim first, me next, and Tomlast, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the lean-to,and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to the door, and Tomstopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make outnothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he would listen for thesteps to get further, and when he nudged us Jim must glide out first, andhim last. So he set his ear to the crack and listened, and listened, andlistened, and the steps a-scraping around out there all the time; and atlast he nudged us, and we slid out, and stooped down, not breathing, andnot making the least noise, and slipped stealthy towards the fence inInjun file, and got to it all right, and me and Jim over it; but Tom'sbritches catched fast on a splinter on the top rail, and then he hear thesteps coming, so he had to pull loose, which snapped the splinter andmade a noise; and as he dropped in our tracks and started somebody singsout:

  "Who's that? Answer, or I'll shoot!"

  But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then therewas a rush, and a BANG, BANG, BANG! and the bullets fairly whizzed aroundus! 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 wore bootsand yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We was in thepath to the mill; and when they got pretty close on to us we dodged intothe bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind them. They'd hadall the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the robbers; but by thistime somebody had let them loose, and here they come, making powwowenough for a million; but they was our dogs; so we stopped in our trackstill they catched up; and when they see it warn't nobody but us, and noexcitement to offer them, they only just said howdy, and tore right aheadtowards the shouting and clattering; and then we up-steam again, andwhizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill, and then struckup through the bush to where my canoe
was tied, and hopped in and pulledfor dear life towards the middle of the river, but didn't make no morenoise than we was obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable,for the island where my raft was; and we could hear them yelling andbarking at each other all up and down the bank, till we was so far awaythe sounds got dim and died out. And when we stepped on to the raft Isays:

  "NOW, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be aslave no more."

  "En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en it'uz done beautiful; en dey ain't NOBODY kin git up a plan dat's mo'mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz."

  We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all becausehe had a bullet in the calf of his leg.

  When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did before.It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in thewigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but hesays:

  "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, and sether loose! Boys, we done it elegant!--'deed we did. I wish WE'D a hadthe handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint Louis,ascend to heaven!' wrote down in HIS biography; no, sir, we'd a whoopedhim over the BORDER--that's what we'd a done with HIM--and done it justas slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps--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, 'Go onen save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat likeMars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You BET he wouldn't! WELL, den, isJIM gywne to say it? No, sah--I doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'douta DOCTOR, not if it's forty year!"

  I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say--soit was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. Heraised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn'tbudge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose himself; butwe wouldn't let him. Then he give us a piece of his mind, but it didn'tdo 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 when youget to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight andfast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse fullof gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the backalleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the canoe,in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him and take hischalk away from him, and don't give it back to him till you get him backto the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can 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 he seethe doctor coming till he was gone again.