Have YOU been SAVED?
Where will YOU spend ETERNITY?
GOD loveth ALL men
Even them that hath SINNED
For whoever shall wash in
THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB
Shall be SAVED from the
FLAMES OF HELL
And be MADE PURE again
COME to the MEETING
And ye SHALL be SAVED!!
Rev. MORDECAI McSWEEN officiating
Music and hymns rendered by
THE McSWEEN HEAVENLY ANGELS CHOIR
People was talking about them posters while the nails is still warm from hammering. There’s only a couple or three left when I seen a wall that already had paper stuck on it so over I go to give it some more. Then I seen what they are and my blood run cold: wanted posters.
$500 REWARD
for information leading to
the arrest of
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
murderer & forger
escapee & horsethief
description
hair: dark
eyes: brown
height: 5 feet
age: 14 yrs
approach with caution
THIS MAN IS DANGEROUS
also
a nigger by name of JIM
description
6 foot nigger
Send all information to
Sheriff Wade Bottoms
St. Petersburg, Missouri
There it is, in black and white. They proberly papered the whole state with them. I tried tearing them down when there warn’t no one looking, but they’re pasted on, so no luck. What I done was nail the McSween posters over them; it’s all I can do. I collected my mule and rode out of town just on dusk, back along the road. There was fires all along it where the California-bounders was camped for the night, and I met up with the wagons still plodding along about two miles out of town.
“Well, my boy,” says McSween, “did you accomplish the Lord’s work?”
“Yessir, I done all of it the way you wanted. Mr. Trask says it’s the same place again.”
“Fine, fine. You go on back with the nigger. We’ll keep going till we reach Trask’s place.”
“Yessir.”
I hitched the mule behind the tent wagon and clumb up on the seat with Jim.
“Ever’thin’ go easy, Huck?”
“No, it never.”
I told about losing the money and then the wanted posters, and he looked grim.
“Dey takin’ you serious, Huck. We mus’ be a hunnerd mile away by now. How far you reckon dey goin’ to chase you befo’ dey gives up?”
“Far as St. Joe, that’s for sure. After that it’s like I told you, free and clear till we get to California.”
“Dey got sheriffs an’ such out dere?”
“They got a big town called San Francisco so there’s bound to be laws. We got to make sure and leave a cold trail across the country between here and there. It’s a heap of territory so we got a chance. St. Joe’s where we can start breathing easy I reckon, but we still got another hundred mile to go.”
“We’s mighty lucky to be wid dese McSweens.”
Maybe we was, but I never shook the notion Reverend Mordecai has already suspicioned us.
McSween knowed the way even in the dark and we skirted around the north side of Slocombe and fetched up at the Trask place sometime before midnight. The wagons went through a gate that’s been left open ready and we pulled up over by a stand of trees next to a creek, then the girls and Ma got food ready while Jim and me tended the horses. Trask come over from the house to pay his compliments and him and McSween went off together jawing about I don’t know what, only I hope it ain’t about me and that money.
He come back just before everyone turned in and never looked at me so I figure we’re safe for the moment, then he’s heading my way and my knees knocked hard enough to break. He come up to me and says:
“Tom, you and Samson had better get a good night’s rest. First thing tomorrow we’ll put the tent up, and it’s powerful hard work even for Christian souls.”
“Yessir, Mr. McSween. We’ll both of us pray for extra strength before we turn in.”
“That’s sensible thinking, my boy. I believe I did the right thing hiring you.”
“I’m glad you done it too, sir. It’s real exciting and it’s all for Jesus.”
“Your attitude is commendable and well worth a dollar a week. Why, it occurs to me you might just have the makings of a preacher yourself. Did you ever pause and reflect upon that blessed prospect, Tom?”
“I been praying for guidance some considerable time now, sir. It always seemed like too grand a dream for just a small unimportant person like me to have.”
“Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow,” he says, solemn and wise.
“Deuteronomy?” I ask, and he frowns.
“You have much to learn, Tom, but your heart is true. Goodnight.”
Away he goes, and there’s just the littlest whiff of whiskey left in the air, but maybe I’m wrong about that. I’m all set to join Jim in the wagon when along come one of the virtues and it’s Grace, who was last born but for Chastity. I reckon Ma and Pa give up childbearing after that. Grace is just seventeen and the prettiest of them all. She looks around to see if there’s anyone watching us and there ain’t, but she grabbed my arm tight and pulled me away into the shadows anyway.
“Tom,” she says, “how old are you?”
There was two big questions on the lips of the nation that year; how much gold is there in California and how old is Huck Finn. I told her what I told Mrs. Trask and she got that same worried look. I never knowed a body’s age is so important to women but there it is, twice in one day. She says:
“Did you ever have any sisters?”
“No, ma’am, just five brothers.”
“There’s no need to call me ma’am. I’m just a few years older than you. Call me Grace.”
I would of called her anything she wanted if she’d only let the blood back in my arm. Says I:
“Was there something you wanted, Miss Grace?”
“Just plain Grace will do fine,” she says.
“You ain’t plain. You’re right pretty I reckon.”
Tom Sawyer says if you pay a female a compliment she’ll appreciate it even if it’s a lie, but I warn’t lying. She’s a real looker, as they say.
“Thank you,” she says, and never simpered or nothing like Becky Thatcher would of done, then there’s silence. Finally she says:
“So you never had the experience of sisters?”
“No, ma’am … Grace. Just a heap of brothers. Ma always wanted a little girl to balance things out but one never come along. The last boy, Cecil, he had a hard time of it. She kept him in pinafores and never let no one cut his hair. He looked mighty cute but Pap put a stop to it when he turned four years old. He reckoned it warn’t manly and cut them curls off Cecil himself, and Ma cried and cried when he flung them in the stove. You could smell it for hours, the hair I mean.”
“Do you know about … the facts of life?”
“I reckon I do. Ma told me it’s all a vale of tears but we get our reward in heaven.”
“No, I mean about men and women.”
“Well, there’s maybe a million people in the world and half’s men and half’s women, or thereabouts.”
“And why did God make it so, do you think?”
I pondered over that one awhile then say:
“Variety.”
“But what’s the reason for it?” she says.
“Question not the ways of the Lord,” says I, quick as a flash, but it ain’t what she wants to hear.
“Tom,” she says, “do you know where babies come from?”
“I sure do. They come in black bags the doctor brings. That’s why they’re small I guess, so’s all them doctors don’t have to go out and buy bigger bags.”
“That’s not the way of it at all. I always thought country folk knew
about the natural order of things.”
“Well I do. There’s the four seasons, day and night, low water and high …”
“Bulls and cows,” she says.
“Pardon me?”
“Stallions and mares,” she says.
Now, you can’t call me backwards or slow. I seen right away what she’s harping on. Says I:
“You mean … roosters and hens?”
“That’s it exactly. People do it too, and pretty much the same way.”
It warn’t news to me. Tom Sawyer explained all of it one day when we never had nothing better to talk about. When it’s done right it’s called fornicatering, and when it’s done wrong it’s cornholing. He give me a long description on how he’d go about it, with Becky Thatcher say, and it was the most ridickerless thing I ever heard, but he swore it’s all natural. I made up my mind then and there I’d never do nothing so undignificated, but Tom reckoned I’ll change my mind someday. So now I say to Grace:
“Everyone knows that. I don’t see why you bothered with asking.”
“It’s just …” and she got all flustered. “It’s just … well, so long as you know,” she says, and flounces off directly, and I’m left with another mystery and a tingling arm. There’s something about females that’s entirely different to men I reckon.
I went on back to the tent wagon and the last thing I seen before I clumb inside was Mordecai over by the fire, just staring at me long and hard.
7
The Role of Religion—Messing with Jesus—Saving Souls—A Sad Discovery—Reflections on Friendship—A Handy Theory
We started work on getting the tent up at first light. McSween and Trask give a hand hauling it out and spreading it across the ground. The field was grassy so there warn’t no mud to dirty the canvas, which has got a fair amount dried on it already. It’s a considerable size and the virtues and Ma got called in to help with joining the poles together and poking them up through little holes ringed with iron to support the weight. Them first few poles was the hardest part, but after they was up it all got simplified. The guy ropes was stretched and pegged and more poles went up inside to lift the roof some and by noon it’s done. Reverend Mordecai never lifted a finger, just studied his Bible, learning his lines. There was last-minute fiddling with the ropes to get them just so, and there she stands looking mighty impressive. I seen circus tents that was bigger but this’n can cram maybe two hundred people inside her, long as they stay stood. There ain’t no chairs anyway, just a pulpit for the Reverend and a wood platform for the virtues to stand on.
There’s a section at the back that lifts up and the calliope had its walls and roof took off and was rolled inside with just the smokestack poking free. Then it’s all set. The pinhead got all excited and run about like a chicken with its head off till Ma got her calmed with a biscuit. Grace tells me there’s a special tin of them biscuits that Chastity’s partial to and nobody can have any except the pinhead, and they’re called Ma’s Helpers. I reckon if Chastity was religious like the rest she’d figure God is a giant biscuit on a throne with little winged oatcakes fluttering around.
Ma herded the girls into the wagons and says they got to rest through the afternoon so’s they’ll be in prime shape for the meeting tonight. Soon they’re snoring and Mordecai’s nose is still buried in the Book and McSween’s off somewhere with Trask, which leaves Jim and me free. We lazied around and smoked our pipes, taking things easy after all the strain this morning. Jim says:
“Huck, I bin thinkin’ on dis here travelin’ church. Why you reckon dey does it?”
“Humans got a basic need for religion, Jim. It fills in all the holes that can’t get filled in with just thinking and pondering. There’s questions that’s just too big for understanding, so folks put it all down to God and His workings. That way they can sleep at night and not have to worry about not finding the answers to the questions.”
“What kinder questions, Huck?”
“I reckon the biggest is why we got to die. Philosophers has been asking it for hundreds of years and they ain’t got the answer yet.”
“Why you reckon we has to die?”
“It’s obvious, Jim. If we never died the whole country would get cluttered with people just getting older and older, and you know how cussed and cranky old folks is. They’d be three or four deep everywhere, just complaining and snapping their gums and getting in the way of everyone, so they got to die to make room for them that’s young. We get our parcel of years and when they’re done we wing it up to heaven. That’s the theory of it.”
“How ’bout Methuselah, Huck? He done live nine hunnerd years. How come he got de extra portion?”
“It must of been his holiness. If you’re real holy God gives out another hundred years or two as a reward. But there’s another of them old Jews that lasted even longer than Methuselah.”
“Who dat be?”
“He’s called the Wandering Jew and he don’t ever die. He’s near two thousand years old already.”
“He mus’ be de holies’ man alive, Huck.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jim. He got that way through getting Jesus riled.”
“How it happen?”
“Well, he’s called Cartaphilus, and he lived in the Holy Land around the time Jesus was preaching thereabouts, and one day Jesus come up to Cartaphilus who’s stood at a crossroads and asks the way to the Mount of Olives. Cartaphilus points down the road and says, ‘Follow that and you’ll reach her,’ and Jesus done it, only it’s the road to the wrong place, Damascus proberly, and he goes back to Cartaphilus and says, ‘You give me the wrong road,’ and Cartaphilus says, ‘Pardon me,’ and points down another road and says, ‘That there’s the positive route.’ Jesus follows it and finds himself in Baghdad, which is miles from where he wants, so back he goes to Cartaphilus and says, ‘You done it again. Ain’t there a map or something?’ Cartaphilus says he don’t have one, but he points along another road and says, ‘Just you follow that’n and you’ll get there for sure.’ Jesus says he’ll do it, only he’s getting mighty footsore by now, but there he goes down the road again, and danged if he don’t find himself in Sodom and Gomorrah, which decent folks don’t ever go near. He’s mad as all creation about it and drags himself back to the crossroads where Cartaphilus is still waiting and says, ‘That’s the third time you done it. Are you the village idiot or what?’ Cartaphilus apologizes all over again and points down the last road and says, ‘I reckon we got her this time, friend. There ain’t but four roads all told,’ and Jesus says, ‘You just better be right about this’n. I got a speech to give the assembled multitudes and I’m behind schedule,’ and off he staggers down the fourth road, and so help me, he fetches up at Nineveh or Tyre, one or the other, and that just finishes it for him. He crawls back to Cartaphilus and croaks, ‘How can a body be so danged hare-brained? I never met a stupider fool than you,’ and Cartaphilus says, ‘Where was it you wanted again?’ Jesus says in a whisper, ‘Mount of Olives,’ and Cartaphilus says, ‘That place? Why, it’s just over yonder, about two minutes’ walk,’ then he cackles and slaps his belly and pulls out a calendar and yells, ‘April Fool!’ Don’t Jesus get mad then! He points a finger at Cartaphilus and works up his wrath and says, ‘It’s people like you that give country folk a bad name. Seeing as you played such a mean trick on me I reckon I’ll do the same. You can wander around the way I just done and see how you like it, and I ain’t about to let you off till I come back for the Puckerlips!’ And off he goes, and Cartaphilus had the curse that’s kept him alive all this time, and he has to wander and wander, never spending two days running in the same place, and I just bet he kicks himself every April Fool’s day.”
“It don’ pay to mess wid Jesus, Huck,” says Jim.
McSween come back later on and give us orders to polish up the calliope, so that’s what we done the rest of the day, rubbing them little angels till they shone.
Then it’s evening and we hung lamps in the tent and started a
fire under the calliope’s boiler and filled her tank with water. About that time people from town started to show, just a small handful to begin, then they come by the wagonload and the place livelied up. Ma stood by the flap where you go into the tent next to a sign that says: ADMISSION 50¢ and took the money. McSween give the calliope a quick blast to make sure she’s working then told me to go hurry up the virtues.
By now the whole field is packed with wagons and rigs and there’s fires lit here and there to keep the cold off, and bottles passed to and fro between the men for the same reason. The women was jawing together and showing each other babies and young folks was sneaking off down by the creek to spark on the sly. It’s a clear night with all the stars winking far away and sharp, and there ain’t enough wind to stir the breath that hangs in front of your face.
The McSween wagons was behind the tent and I heard the virtues all talking and singing and laughing together before I knocked on the door. The top half opened and Mercy put her head out.
“Is it time?” she says.
“Yes, ma’am, he’s asking for you.”
Faith pokes her head out and asks:
“Is it a big crowd?”
“I reckon so.”
“Is everybody ready?” asks Constance from inside, and they all say yes. “Then forward march,” she says, and the bottom half of the door opened and out they trooped, all in long white gowns that go down to the ground with a big red cross stitched on the fronts. They walked in line across to where the calliope is sticking out of the tent, lifting their gowns out of the wet grass so’s I can see their little white slippers. I lifted the flap and they filed inside and stepped up onto the platform so everyone can see them, and there’s a kind of sigh from the congregation; they look so pretty and pure and sweet in their gowns with their hair let down and brushed long and free over their shoulders, just like angels.
McSween run his gloves along the keyboard and started into a slow and dreamy piece of music, just passing time till the tent gets filled, and soon as them that’s still outside heard it they quit chin-wagging and paid Ma their money and hurried on in. Pretty soon the tent’s packed to splitting except for a space down the center that’s roped off, and I knowed it’s for the part at the end when them that wants to be saved will come flooding forward to the pulpit. I seen this kind of thing before, but that don’t stop me being excited as all the rest. Jim’s outside feeding more wood into the firebox to keep up a head of steam in the calliope.