Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  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 closetand prayed, 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 Icouldn't make it work. ?By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson totry for me, but she said I was a fool. ?She never told me why, and Icouldn't make it out no way.

  I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it.?I says 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 forit was "spiritual gifts." ?This was too many for me, but she told mewhat she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could forother people, and look out for them all the time, and never think aboutmyself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. ?I went out in thewoods and 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 reckonedI wouldn'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 makea body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take holdand knock 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 helpfor him any more. ?I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belongto the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he wasa-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I wasso 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 taketo the woods most of the time when he was around. ?Well, about this timehe was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, sopeople said. ?They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man wasjust his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was alllike pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it hadbeen in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. ?They saidhe was floating on his back in the water. ?They took him and buried himon the bank. ?But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to thinkof something. ?I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float onhis back, but on his face. ?So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, buta woman dressed up in a man's clothes. ?So I was uncomfortable again.?I judged 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,but we never hived any of them. ?Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots,"and he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to thecave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killedand marked. ?But I couldn't see no profit in it. ?One time Tom sent aboy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan(which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said hehad got secret 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 upour swords 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 morethan what they was before. ?I didn't believe we could lick such a crowdof Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants,so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we gotthe word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. ?But there warn'tno Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants.?It warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-classat that. ?We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but wenever got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers gota rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then theteacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut.

  ?I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. ?He said there wasloads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too,and elephants and things. ?I said, why couldn't we see them, then? ?Hesaid if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, Iwould know without asking. ?He said it was all done by enchantment. ?Hesaid there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure,and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they hadturned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite.?I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for themagicians. ?Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.

  "Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and theywould hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. ?Theyare as tall 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 lickthe other 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 geniescome tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and thesmoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it.?They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, andbelting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it--or anyother man."

  "Who makes them tear around so?"

  "Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. ?They belong to whoever rubsthe lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. ?If hetells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fillit full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor'sdaughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it--and they'vegot to do it before sun-up next morning, too. ?And more: ?they've gotto waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, youunderstand."

  "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 aniron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweatlike an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn'tno use, none of the genies come. ?So then I judged that all that stuffwas only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. ?I reckoned he believed in theA-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. ?It had allthe marks of a Sunday-school.