It warn’t no good. Them blue devils was back, bottle shaped, and there ain’t a meaner kind than that. Maybe this was how Pap got started on drinking, feeling good at first then bad later on. I tried keeping him out of my head but he kept peering around a tree and laughing at me, his face all fishbelly white and his long hair hanging down in his eyes, then at last he ducks back out of sight and he’s gone. I got out my pipe and smoked awhile to steady my nerves. What right did a nigger have to be happy when a white man was miserable? It never made no kind of sense, but it warn’t Jim’s fault so I never held it against him. He’s my friend after all.
Right about then I decided to lower the level of whiskey inside me and raise the level of the mighty Mississippi, only it was hard work to stand up straight and I had to crawl on hands and knees down the bank, steepish hereabouts so I ended up sliding head first into the drink, which give the bullfrogs something to croak about for days, I bet. It was cool in the water, so I stayed there floating in the shallows and sobering up some. Then I seen the fire, not the flames on account of the trees, but the glow in the sky overhead. Something in St. Petersburg was burning.
I swum ashore and tried to wake Jim, but he’s dead drunk so I left him there and legged it back to town quick as I could, thinking how he’d be sorry in the morning he missed all the excitement. Finding the fire was easy enough; I just followed everyone that was streaming along toward it, but the closer I got the sicker I felt. The fire was in our street, and it was the Widow Douglas’s house. The flames was licking the boards from the ground on up to the gables, crackling and roaring and throwing red light over everything. I looked at the windows but there warn’t nobody there waiting to jump down. The town fire engine come clanging along the street and come to a halt and the brigade whipped out the hose and pumped away, playing the water onto the front porch where it done as much good as a gnat pissing on a stove. I run back and forth like a fretful dog trying to get close but the heat turned me away. Finally the roof give way with a crash and the whole place come down like a house of cards and shot sparks and flame high up in the air, then the walls fell in and it never even looked like a house no more. All the brigade could do was play the hose on the place next door so it won’t catch light too. People around me was saying how no one come out of the house after the fire got started. The widow was dead and Jim’s family too, all of them crisped. I pushed through the crowd and run as hard as I could away into the dark.
Next morning when Jim opens his eyes the first thing he seen was me sitting right by him. He pulled himself up onto his elbows and give me a bleary look.
“Lawdy, Huck, I got all de chillen of Israel trampin’ in my head dis mornin’. Dat whiskey’s mighty fine for celebratin’, but I’d sure hate to do it regular. Reckon I’d get de Philistines too.”
He laughs at his joke, which is middling witty coming from him, then he catches the look on my face.
“Say, Huck, you lookin’ awful troubled ’bout somethin’. You tell your ol’ frien’ Jim. You got a pain in de gut from celebratin’?”
“No,” I say.
“Well, what den?”
“The widow’s house burned down last night, Jim. They’re all dead.”
He looks at me, then across the river, then back at me.
“Mus’ be dem trampin’ Israelites makin’ me hear dat ’bout de wider’s house burnin’ down,” he says, and shook his head and clouted his ears a few times.
“Now you kin tell me it again, Huck, what you tol’ jest now.”
“You heard it right, Jim. I’m real sorry.”
“You ain’t playin’ no joke on ol’ Jim is you, Huck? I mind a couple other times you done that jest for laffs. I don’ mind if’n you wants to play a joke, only this’n ain’t funny. You tell me straight now ’bout what it was you said.”
“It ain’t no joke. I told you already, the house burned down and they’re all dead.”
When it sunk in he got up on his feet and stood there swaying side to side like a tree in a storm, his eyes empty and his jaw all slack, then he got down on his knees and picked up every pebble and stone he could lay hands on and dumped them in his pockets till his clothes was all lumpy and he couldn’t hardly straighten up again. Then he went down to the river and waded in. I figured his mind must of gone so I stayed quiet, waiting to see what he done next. It was real interesting. He went in about chin deep and ducked under and stayed there. Up come some bubbles, then nothing, and it come to me he’s trying to kill himself. I dove in and swum hard for where he’s squatted on the bottom. I couldn’t hardly see him so I had to do it all by touch, pulling the stones out of his pockets and hauling at his jacket to make him come up. He broke the surface real sluggish and started back down again, so I took a breath and followed and pulled out more rocks and hauled him up again. It was pitiful to see. I drug him into the shallows then up onto the bank. He spit some water and moaned and made to go back in the river but I stopped him.
“Whyn’t you let me die, Huck? What I got to live for now?”
“Why, plenty, Jim. There’s lots of things to live for still.”
I can’t think of even one offhand, but talking him out of killing himself seemed like the right thing to do.
“Po’ little ’Lisbeth.… Now she ain’t ever goin’ to talk.”
“Look at it this way, Jim, now she won’t have the bother of learning.”
But he never listened to sense, just went on moaning nigger fashion till he had to stop and puke. After that he calmed down some and sat all glassy-eyed and silent as the grave. I smoked a couple or three pipes meantime, staying close in case he made a break for the water again, and while I smoked I got to thinking about the widow and how she done her best to sivilize me. She was stiff-necked and tiresome in her ways sometimes but she was a good old bird for all that, and I reckoned I’d miss her. That happened with a pet raccoon I had once. The fool animal got snagged in one of Pap’s rabbit snares and I had to kill it. I mourned for that coon a week or more till I got over it. The least I could do for the widow was give her a fortnight’s worth of full-strength mourning, starting right now. So I concentrated real hard and managed to squeeze out a tear or two but pretty soon got drowsy and nodded off.
When I woke up it was noon and my clothes was dried out. I looked around for Jim but he wasn’t there. Then I see a bubble come up in the water a few yards from shore. Quick as a flash I jumped in and thrashed around trying to find him, but no luck. Maybe the current got him this time. Then I see him standing on the bank watching me like he’s wondering what I’m doing, so it must of been a catfish bubble I seen. I come out feeling sheepish and sat in the sun to dry off again. Jim stood around like a lost soul and I figured he needs distraction, so I hauled out my totem stick that I whittled after the snake business I told about and give it to him.
“Here, Jim, what do you make of this?”
He studied it close a minute or two then says:
“Das a stick.”
“Right enough, but I done things to it. See the snake head I carved at the top.”
“Is dat a snake? It look more like a fish.”
“Well, it’s a snake. This here’s a totem like the Injuns have. They pick an animal for their totem and carve it up on a tree trunk and plant it in front of their tepees for good luck. They generally have all kinds of animals carved one on top of the other, but it’s the one on top that counts.”
“Is dat a fac’? Den how come dis totem got a snake on it? A snake ain’t no animal.”
“What is it then if it ain’t an animal?”
“Huck, you knows more’n anyone ’bout most ever’thin’, but even a nigger know better’n to call a snake a animal. Animals got fur an’ claws an’ such.”
“Well all right then, what is it?”
“Why, a insec’, Huck. Ain’t nothin’ else for it to be I reckon.”
“Whatever it is it’s my totem. It come to me in a dream so it has to be right. This little stick’s just a model, see?
What we have to do is make a full-size one, then we’ll have us a genuine totem and our luck’ll pick up.”
“I don’ believe I got no luck nohow. I got no luck an’ no fambly no mo’.”
And he started moaning and crooning all over again. I tried to talk him into coming back to town with me but he says he ain’t going nowhere near the widow’s house on account of his family would be flitting around thereabouts as ghosts waiting for him to show up. He felt terrible guilty about not being there when the fire started and dying with them.
“All right then, Jim, but I’m going to have to tie you up while I’m gone.”
“What you wanter do dat for, Huck?”
“It’s for your own good. You might get the sorrows again and throw yourself in the river.”
“I won’ do dat again, Huck, I promise. I don’ know what come over me befo’.”
“You ain’t in your right mind just now, Jim, so I got to take steps on your behalf.”
I took off my belt and made Jim do the same, then joined them together and made him sit with his back to a tree. I passed the belts across his chest and buckled them around back of the trunk where he warn’t able to reach, then tied his ankles and wrists with his bootlaces. When I finished he was trussed up like a turkey and looking just as miserable.
“You sit tight an hour or so, Jim. I’ll be right back.”
“But looky, Huck, supposin’ you drops dead? Ain’t nobody goin’ to know I’se here.”
“Well if it happens just holler good and loud and I guess someone’s bound to hear you and set you free.”
I left him there and went back into town. The widow’s house was just a pile of hot cinders and the chinaberry tree in the front yard had all the leaves scorched off one side. There’s a fair crowd there still and Jo Harper come up and says everyone’s looking for me, so I went along to Judge Thatcher’s house and knocked on the door. The nigger maid let me in and showed me into the parlor and pretty soon in come Becky Thatcher, kind of hard to reckernize without Tom Sawyer draped all over her, but I picked out the curls and the frilly dress and the smug look easy enough. Soon as she seen me she whips out a handkerchief that never had a speck of snot on it and dabbed away at her eyes trying to make them red.
“Oh, Huckleberry,” she says, looking forlorn. “What a tragedy to befall you. What a grim jest fickle fate has played upon you. You have my deepest sincerest condolences in your hour of ill omen. If I can be of assistance in any way during your ordeal …”
I played up to her real good, turning my mouth down at the corners and snuffling like a bloodhound.
“Can I borrer your handkerchief?” I ask.
“Why surely you may,” she says, and near broke her arm in the rush giving it to me.
“Thank you kindly, Becky. You’re a samaritan, I reckon.”
I blowed my bugle hard into it, bringing down a wad of softies and a fair collection of crusts, then I give it back. Her jaw dropped about three feet like I’m giving her a dead spider or something. Then she gets her wits together and smiles gracious-like and says:
“You may keep it.”
“Thanks. I’m short on wipers momentarily.”
Then the door opens and this time it’s the judge, looking sad and worried. Becky seen her chance to slide out, and the judge come over and put a hand on my shoulder, man-to-man-like.
“Huckleberry, words cannot express my sympathy. I know you held the widow in fond esteem, as did we all. The loss must be a heavy burden for you.”
“Yes, Judge,” says I. “Me and Jim are all broke up about it.”
“Jim also survived?”
“Yessir. Him and me went fishing last night.”
“Well, that is some consolation. I know you are good friends with the nigger.”
“That’s so, Judge. There’s just him and me now.”
The judge took me into his office and offered me the plushest chair and drug another over so’s he could look me in the eye.
“Huckleberry,” he says, “we must have a serious talk. The widow’s untimely death has precipitated events somewhat, but I believe you are mature enough to be given certain confidential information.”
And he goes on to say how the widow made out her will in my favor so now on top of Injun Joe’s five thousand dollars I can add maybe two thousand more, which makes a considerable mountain of money. But here’s the clincher. Except for my dollar-a-day allowance I can’t lay a hand on it till I reach twenty-one, the selfsame arrangement as with the other loot. It was like having an apple tree and being told you could only pick oranges off it. Not only that, the widow’s money was tagged for getting me educated in some fancy eastern school called Harvard. That shook me some I can tell you.
“So then,” he finishes up, “you are an extremely wealthy young fellow. You have prospects, as they say. I have no doubt that the future holds great promise for you. With sound investment your nest egg will make you a man of considerable means by the time you attain your majority. I assume you wish to leave your capital in my hands until then?”
“May as well, Judge. I reckon I can trust you.”
“I appreciate your trust, Huckleberry. Now, what plans do you have for the immediate future?”
“I got none.”
“None at all?”
“Maybe I’ll move into Pap’s old cabin for awhile.”
“My boy, you can’t be serious. What about your schooling?”
“I’d just as soon let it go hang, Judge.”
“But the conditions of the widow’s will state quite clearly that your education must be continued.”
“Well, maybe I’ll go back next year. Right now I don’t feel much like pushing pens and learning history and such.”
So because there warn’t nothing he could do to stop me he hemmed and hawed and said he understands the way things is, and we parted company cordial. Then I went back to untie Jim.
2
The Old Cabin—The Totem—Hibernation—Gold in California!—The Plan—Murder in St. Petersburg
And that’s how it started. Pap’s cabin was about three miles upriver on the Illinois shore, tucked away in a stand of trees so thick you couldn’t spit without hitting one or other of them. Jim and me stocked up with a heap of supplies and rowed up there in a skiff. We never included no whiskey in the supplies. It took a few days to clean the place out but we soon put it to rights and settled in cozy. Living there with Jim was surely a different thing to living there with Pap. We got along fine, just like being back on the raft, easy times with fishing and trapping and lazing around trading yarns. Sometimes Jim got blue when he recollected his family but them times got further apart and he got to be his cheerful self again.
We only went back into town one time early on, and that was for the funerals. I went along to the white folks’ graveyard and Jim went along to the nigger graveyard and we watched everyone get buried. I spied Tom Sawyer in the crowd by the widow’s graveside and we spoke a few words but he warn’t hardly interested in talking over old times and was forever looking around to see where Becky Thatcher is, and so we parted kind of stiff and formal. I never seen anyone change so fast for the bad. After the preacher done his piece about the ashes and dust and it was all done, the judge asked me back to his place for a bite to eat, but I said no thank you and went along to fetch Jim.
The nigger graveyard had but a few people there to see Jim’s family put under but they hollered and moaned enough for ten times the number, so that made up for it. It seemed like a lot of trouble to bury a handful of charred bones, and they was mighty particular about them bones too. Doc Crabb got called in to check all the human remains that got raked out of the ashes so as to tell which was white bones and which was nigger bones. Blamed if I know how he told the difference, but he sorted through them right fast and told which was the widow’s and which was Jim’s wife’s. The children was no problem on account of the size. It seemed like a waste to put them all in full-length coffins when a couple of hatboxes
would of done, but folks is very reverent about them that’s dead, even if they never liked them when they was alive. We went back to the cabin and I kept a close eye on Jim for a few days after that, but he never had no symptoms of the mournfuls so I relaxed.
Then all of a sudden he did start behaving queer, going off into the woods each day with the axe. I heard him hacking away from sunup to sundown but all he ever come back with was a few scraps of kindling. He never breathed a word about what he’s up to, so one morning I made to tag along with him and find out, only he stopped me.
“You cain’t come wid me, Huck. I’se got to go alone.”
“Why, Jim? Are you doing something shameful you don’t want me to see?”
“I’se doin’ somethin’, but it ain’t shameful. I’se sorry, Huck, but you cain’t come.”
“Well, that’s good. That’s a fine way to treat a friend. I figured you and me never kept no secrets.”
“This’n’s a secret jest for now, Huck. When I’se done you kin see all you wants. Meantime you got to promise you won’ go traipsin’ in de trees over yonder an’ spoilin’ de surprise.”
“First it’s secrets, now it’s promises. You’re stretching the friendship, Jim.”
“Please, Huck, do like I say.”
“Well I ain’t all that interested anyway. For all I care you can build a gallows and hang from it.”
“Dat ain’t no way to talk, Huck. We’se friends still, ain’t we?”
“That depends. This surprise better be good.”
“It’s a real dandy, honest.”
So he kept on working and I kept on wondering. Once or twice I got tempted to sneak along and take a peek, but I give him my promise after all, so the secret stayed that way. I had a notion he was building a raft like the one we had before.