“We goin’ inter counterfeitin’, Huck?” says Jim, and got laughed at again.
“No we ain’t. We’re going to rob the judge’s house and take all the cash he keeps in the safe!”
The music crashed and thundered awhile and the people booed some, then Huck and Jim talked on about how they aim to do it that night, then Huck finishes by standing up and saying:
“Nothing will stop me getting my own back on the man that has spoke harsh words to me. He’s the most respected man in town for being decent and honest, and that is reason enough to hate him, for these things do not come natural to me and I just can’t abide to see them in others. If I had my way all decent, honest folk would get throwed in jail so’s people like you and me could run things, Jim.”
“I ain’t incline’ to do no runnin’, Huck. You knows I’se jest de lazies’ nigger on de ribber.”
When the crowd quit laughing Huck says:
“You leave it to me, Jim. This time tomorrow we’ll both be rich and we’ll travel away from here to be with our own kind in some thieves’ kitchen in New Orleans. Judge Thatcher, beware!”
The orchestra blatted and blared and down come the buzzard, then up again and we’re back in the judge’s place. He’s still scribbling away and in comes Becky with a lamp in her hand. The violins got so high and zinging it sounds like there’s about a million moskeeters in there, but Becky and the judge ain’t slapping theirselfs so it’s just angel music again.
“Papa,” she says, “you must not work so late into the night hours. You will tire yourself, and your health has already suffered over the worries Huck Finn has heaped upon you.”
“I must finish my work, Daughter dear. You go along to bed and don’t bother your pretty head about me.”
“I cannot help but worry, Papa. After all, you have all that money in the safe which robbers may try to steal.”
“The money was being held in trust for a businessman, my dear, and has this very day been taken off my hands by the gentleman concerned and deposited safely in the bank. You need have no fear on that account.”
“That is indeed a relief to hear, and I shall certainly sleep easier for it. Goodnight, darling Papa.”
She goes and kisses him and after she’s gone out the door he says:
“She is the light of my life. What man could ask for a more loving and dutiful daughter? She is unblemished by evil thought or deed, as pure and pristine as the driven snow. How it gladdens my heart that she will no longer be obliged to endure the company of Huck Finn, who has been such a thorn in my side. Yet she is right, I dwell too hard upon my work, but only that she may someday have a worthwhile dowry to bring to her wedding day. She has not told me so, but I have heard rumor of a heart that beats in unison with hers, the noble heart of a noble youth, Tom Sawyer. It would please me if such a match were to come about, for he, not Finn, is the kind of son I would be proud to have. I pray the romance blossoms without hindrance. Ahhh, me … but I am tired at this late hour. I will complete this final task and retire to my bed.”
But he never finished the task and fell asleep with his head on the desk, and soon as it happened in comes Huck and Jim with the music tippy-toeing along secretive and sly. I ain’t about to give you the whole story, just parts. After Jim and me has threatened to slice the judge’s nose off if he don’t open the safe he still won’t do it so Huck says he’ll send Jim upstairs to wake Becky none too gentle if he don’t, which gets the crowd practickly tearing their seats off the floor they’re so mad, and the music thunders and rolls real alarming. The judge agrees to open the safe but when he does it’s empty, and Huck gets so mad he stabs the judge in the chest then Jim cuts his throat to make sure he’s dead. Huck tells Jim to go fetch the horses while he looks behind all the books on the shelfs just in case the cash is stashed away secret there, hard to do on account of the books is painted on the wall, but he tries anyway and while he’s doing it in comes Becky. She throws up her hands and screams when she sees the judge laid out on the floor and Huck tussles with her to keep her quiet, but by the time he’s knocked her to the floor alongside the judge in comes the sheriff and I’m took away to jail. While I’m there Becky gets paid a call by Tom Sawyer who’s come to comfort her, which happens in a garden full of flowers even if it all happened in winter. Tom’s dressed real neat with a hat on, something he never liked as a rule, and he says:
“Becky, my heart goes out to you on this saddest of days.”
“Oh, Tom,” she whimpers, and the violins join in. “I knew you would stand by me in my hour of need. You are the sturdy tree upon which this fragile blossom may bloom.”
Then they sung a song about hearts and flowers, and done it again so’s everyone can sing along with it, which plenty done, then we’re down at the jailhouse where Huck is snarling behind bars and foaming at the mouth while the sheriff feeds him off the end of a long pole. Jim comes crashing through the door with a club and lays the sheriff out and they get away, then it’s back to the judge’s place and along comes a man in a Panama hat and the orchestra puffed and blowed real loud so we knowed he’s the hero, namely Bulldog Barrett. Becky says to him:
“I have summoned you here for one reason only, Mr. Barrett, and that is to find and capture the evil wrongdoer that has slain my dear Papa. He has gone to ground no one knows where, for he is cunning as a fox. With all my heart I urge you to seek him out and bring him forth into the light of day that my darling parent shall be avenged.”
“Little Miss,” says Bulldog, “the moment I laid eyes upon you I knew you to be a maiden of spotless purity, the very last person who should be hurt so cruelly. For that reason, and because you have the most becoming eyes I have ever beheld, I will accept the challenge and pursue Huckleberry Finn though he may run to the ends of the earth. This I swear: that I will not cease in my appointed task till he that has caused you such grievous unhappiness is swinging at the end of a rope.”
“Oh, Mr. Barrett,” she says, gone all coy and simpering. “I am overpowered by your strength of purpose.… It has all been such a strain these last few days … I feel faint.…”
And she swoons into Bulldog’s arms so she don’t bang her head on the floor and he looks down at her and says:
“Would that I were swine enough to kiss these chaste, undefended lips while their owner knows not, but no, I am not such a one that would take advantage of a maiden’s momentary helplessness.”
He dumps her on the sofa, but what he don’t know is that Tom Sawyer seen the whole thing through the window, but we seen him see it and knowed from now on Becky’s heart is half and halfed over Tom and Bulldog. Now the real excitation begins, with Huck and Jim riding on wooden horses that never budged an inch, but the scenery with trees and mountains painted on it goes sliding past behind them, mounted on rollers I reckon, because the same trees and mountains keep sliding past five times a minute so it looks like we’re riding in circles, and the piano gallops along like hoofbeats. Huck says:
“We must ride danged hard, Jim, for the noblest detective of them all is on our trail.”
“Reckon dat be him comin’ up behin’,” says Jim, and the bulldog comes on stage on another wooden horse and creeps up on us gradual, firing his pistol. Huck and Jim fire back but no one gets hit, then later on Bulldog captures us both when we’re sat around a campfire and takes us to Fort Kearney. We get throwed in the guardhouse, then along comes Becky to visit Huck, not Grace like it really was, and he don’t repent of his sins in front of her like she wants and knocks her over the head instead. When he takes off her dress to make the switch everyone screamed and howled and one woman a few seats off fainted dead away with shock. Then Huck lets Jim free and decoys a guard while Jim sneaks up behind and smashes his head and they’re free again. Becky’s out west following the bulldog, see, and Tom Sawyer’s out there too following Becky on account of what he seen through the window.
There’s a whole heap of lies like that and it just made me disgusted, specially the part wh
ere Bulldog captures us both at last and we get walked up to the gallows together and Bulldog says:
“Since you have seen fit to live your life with a nigger it is only fitting that you share the same scaffold. Do you have any last words, Finn?”
“I surely do,” says Huck. “I’m glad I done it all and I’d do it all over again!”
He got booed and the bulldog pulls a lever and down goes Huck. Then Jim gets asked the same thing and says:
“Lawdy Lawd! If’n only I nebber hadder listen’ter dat boy wid his ebil ways an’ bin a good hardworkin’ darkie dis nebber woulder happen’. I’se jest de mistakenes’ nigger in de worl’, an’ now I gots to pay for de ebil I done. Lawdy Lawd hab mercy on a sinnin’ darkie’s soul!”
The lever gets pulled again and down he goes. Everyone cheers, then along comes Becky and Tom, and Becky tells Bulldog she made up her mind; it’s really Tom she’s in love with and Bulldog takes the terrible news like a man and says he’s too busy catching outlaws to get married anyhow, and Tom and Becky sing another song about how grand love is and the buzzard come done with a crash. The music played right lively and the crowd hooted and hollered and stamped to show they loved every minute.
Up goes the buzzard again and all the actors lined up and done a bow, only Becky Thatcher’s curls fell off when she done it and underneath all that yeller she’s dark haired, and I seen who she truly is. The billboard outside says she’s Grace Gentle, but it ain’t. It’s Grace McSween! She give the wig a wave in the air and got a special cheering, then down come the buzzard for the last time and folks started leaving. Me and Jim kept our heads down and walked a little ways apart so we don’t get seen together, but nobody suspicioned us and we got out on the street again without no trouble. Jim says:
“Warn’t dat jest de limit, Huck? Ain’t one part dat warn’t stretch’ nine diff’rent ways. It ain’t nothin’ like what happen.”
“I’m mighty sore about it too, Jim, but did you see who was acting Becky?”
“I seen her, an’ I reckon she could of put dem others straight on how it truly happen. Dadblame it, Huck, how come she be lettin’ folks figure it were Becky dat got de dress switch’ on her when Becky ain’t even lef’ Missouri? An’ how come Tom Sawyer gallivantin’ aroun’ out on de plains? Dat boy back home doin’ his schoolin’, not figurin’ on no marriage wid Becky. Ain’t neither of ’em old enough for it.”
“They took a power of liberties, Jim, only back home’s a long way and I guess they ain’t expecting no complaints. But I’m sure surprised at Grace. I reckon I’ll ask her why she ain’t fixed the story none.”
“How you goin’ to do dat?”
“Why, I’ll go backstage like gentlemen does to give flowers to the ladies that’s in the show.”
“You ain’t got no flowers.”
“I reckon she’ll see me anyway, but you better not come along, not after all these people been watching you and me cutting up judges on stage. I’ll see you back at the crate later on.”
We went off separate and I walked around back of the theater. There’s a bunch of men with bunches of flowers like I figured there’d be, mostly dressed in new clothes and sporting big rings on their fingers and diamond stickpins and such to let you know they struck it rich. Grace is the only female in the show so they ain’t here to pay court to no one else, and they all knowed it too, eyeing each other up and down and sneering and matching up rings and stickpins and flower bunches to see who’s got the biggest. Then the stage door opens. It’s a little woman that ain’t Grace, and she says real sharpish:
“She will not be coming out, gentlemen. I’ve told all of you and a hundred others besides that Miss Gentle is not in the market for matrimony, or for anything else.”
And she slammed the door on them. They cussed considerable and one of them says she proberly ain’t worth it anyhow, and after the rest finished stomping him they all went away. That’s when I went up to the door and knocked, and after a heap more knocking it got opened by the same woman.
“Well?” she says, wrinkling her nose like I’m a skunk or something.
“Evening, ma’am. Would you kindly tell Grace it’s Jeff Trueblood wanting to see her, please.”
“I will not,” she says.
“It won’t cost you nothing to tell her, ma’am. Ain’t you curious to see the way she acts when you give her the name?”
“Wait here,” she says, and the door slams. She had a long nose, and long-nosed types is generally the curious kind, which is what I counted on and it looks like it worked. A few minutes later the door got flung open again and there’s Grace with a robe around her and a big smile on her face.
“Huckleberry!…” she says. “Where in the world did you spring from?”
“Please, Grace, call me Jeff if you aim to shout it out loud.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks. Come inside out of the cold.”
I followed her along a stretch of corridor and into a little room with lots of lights and a nice hot stove in the corner and mirrors and costumes. The long-nosed woman was there too and looked real shook up when I marched in, and real offended when Grace says:
“That will be all for tonight, Rosemary, thank you.”
“If you’re quite sure?…” she says, doubtful.
“I am. Goodnight.”
She went out scowling fierce, so I figure I ain’t won a friend, then Grace looks at me long and hard in all that bright light and I seen her face fall.
“Huckleberry … you’re a tramp! Oh, what has happened to you?”
“Nothing special in particular, just a heap of traveling and escaping and mining and other stuff. You look a real picture, Grace.”
“You have a tooth missing! Oh, my, I never would of known it’s you, you poor lamb. Why, you’re skin and bone all the way through. How long is it since you had a meal?”
“Just a few hours, Grace,” says I, peeking in a mirror to see what the fuss is all about. A raggedy scarecrow peeked back at me, the sorriest looking thing I ever seen besides Pap. It come as a shock and made me kind of ashamed stood next to Grace, who’s just as clean as clean. It was real mortifying. Says I:
“Jim and me seen the show and reckernized you when your hair come off.”
“Jim is safe too?”
“That he is. Him and me come to town a few days back.”
She starts to sniff and I say:
“Don’t cry, Grace. It’s real nice to meet up like this but …”
“I am not crying, Huckleberry Finn, I’m smelling you. Don’t you know you smell like a trash heap?”
“Well … uh … it ain’t been easy finding a bath just recent.…”
“We must clean you and feed you,” she says, “and afterwards you’ll tell me all.”
She got a stagehand to rustle up a real live coach with a coachman and horses and everything and poked me inside of it with a little umbrella she’s got and made me sit over in the other corner while we bounced and squelched along the streets.
“Is this coach yours, Grace? It’s mighty fine.”
“It belongs to a friend of mine, but he allows me the regular use of it to get to the theater and home again. San Francisco is not safe for a young girl at night, or even in daylight. Why, as soon as men lay eyes on a female they take her for a whore. Decent respectable women have got to travel by coach.”
I seen she wants to forget about the McSween Traveling Church and Whorehouse of Christ the Lamb, so I never mentioned it. Grace kept a handkerchief over her nose most of the time which made it hard to talk anyway. Pretty soon we come to a halt outside one of them big fancy brick hotels which is called the St. James. The coachman hollered to the doorman, who come over and carried Grace across the mud to the front doors and set her down. I figured he ain’t going to do the same for me so I clumb down and done the trip under my own steam. Soon as he seen me stood there the doorman yells at me to go find a drain to play in, but Grace says:
“He’s with me, George. I feel it is my charita
ble duty to feed the beggars of town once in awhile.”
“That’s a noble sentiment, Miss Gentle,” says George, but he looks at me like I just got scraped off his boot. I followed Grace inside and up a stack of wide stairs all covered in carpet then along a hall. She opened a door and in we went, and it’s like a magic room inside, with carpets thick as spring grass and satin on the walls and mirrors and pictures and velvet curtains big as a ship’s sails hung over the windows. Grace went and yanked on a rope that’s joined to the ceiling and a door opens and in comes a Spaniard girl.
“Consuela, a bath,” says Grace. “A very deep, very hot bath with bath salts.”
“Si, señorita,” says Consuela, and out she goes again.
“Don’t sit down,” says Grace.
“Are we going somewhere else?”
“The furniture must not be soiled,” she says.
So I stood there while she went off and changed her outfit for another robe that’s made of silk with a mixture of colors in it. She seen me looking and kind of twirled around so it flew out and I seen her legs all the way up from ankles to knees, which is where her frilly pantyloons is tied with little pink ribbons to match up with the ones on her slippers.
“This came all the way from China,” she says, and flopped onto a real elegant sofa and looks at me with her head on one side and says:
“Time and fate have been unkind to you, Huckleberry. You look like an old man.”
“I’ve had considerable worries, Grace. The bulldog’s still hard on my heels and … and how come he catches me and hangs me in that danged show? And how come there’s Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher in it? There ain’t a single true fact in the whole story.”
“I am an actress, not a writer,” she says. “Auberon is the one to complain to, but you can hardly do that, now can you?”
“I reckon not, but it’s a danged shame the way he stretched things.”
There’s a knock on the door and in comes Consuela again with a little smile that’s hid behind her hand whenever she looks at me.