Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn’t notice the wreck till we was
right on it; and so _we_ saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but
Bill Whipple—and oh, he _was_ the best cretur!—I most wish’t it had
been me, I do.”
“My George! It’s the beatenest thing I ever struck. And _then_ what did
you all do?”
“Well, we hollered and took on, but it’s so wide there we couldn’t make
nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help
somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it,
and Miss Hooker she said if I didn’t strike help sooner, come here and
hunt up her uncle, and he’d fix the thing. I made the land about a mile
below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do
something, but they said, ‘What, in such a night and such a current?
There ain’t no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.’ Now if you’ll go
and—”
“By Jackson, I’d _like_ to, and, blame it, I don’t know but I will; but
who in the dingnation’s a-going’ to _pay_ for it? Do you reckon your
pap—”
“Why _that’s_ all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, _particular_, that
her uncle Hornback—”
“Great guns! is _he_ her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light
over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a
quarter of a mile out you’ll come to the tavern; tell ’em to dart you
out to Jim Hornback’s, and he’ll foot the bill. And don’t you fool
around any, because he’ll want to know the news. Tell him I’ll have his
niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I’m
a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer.”
I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back
and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in
the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some
woodboats; for I couldn’t rest easy till I could see the ferry-boat
start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on
accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a
done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be
proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and
dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most
interest in.
Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along
down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for
her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn’t much chance
for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a
little, but there wasn’t any answer; all dead still. I felt a little
bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they
could stand it, I could.
Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of the river
on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach, I
laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the
wreck for Miss Hooker’s remainders, because the captain would know her
uncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferry-boat give
it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went
a-booming down the river.
It did seem a powerful long time before Jim’s light showed up; and when
it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I
got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we
struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned
in and slept like dead people.
CHAPTER XIV.
By-and-by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole
off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all
sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three
boxes of seegars. We hadn’t ever been this rich before in neither of
our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the
woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good
time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the
ferry-boat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said
he didn’t want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the
texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone, he
nearly died; because he judged it was all up with _him_, anyway it could
be fixed; for if he didn’t get saved he would get drownded; and if he
did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get
the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he
was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head, for
a nigger.
I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such,
and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called
each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on,
’stead of mister; and Jim’s eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He
says:
“I didn’ know dey was so many un um. I hain’t hearn ’bout none un um,
skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat’s in a
pack er k’yards. How much do a king git?”
“Get?” I says; “why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want
it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to
them.”
“_Ain’_ dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?”
“_They_ don’t do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around.”
“No; is dat so?”
“Of course it is. They just set around—except, maybe, when there’s a
war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or
go hawking—just hawking and sp— Sh!—d’ you hear a noise?”
We skipped out and looked; but it warn’t nothing but the flutter of a
steamboat’s wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.
“Yes,” says I, “and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with
the parlyment; and if everybody don’t go just so he whacks their heads
off. But mostly they hang round the harem.”
“Roun’ de which?”
“Harem.”
“What’s de harem?”
“The place where he keeps his wives. Don’t you know about the harem?
Solomon had one; he had about a million wives.”
“Why, yes, dat’s so; I—I’d done forgot it. A harem’s a bo’d’n-house, I
reck’n. Mos’ likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck’n de
wives quarrels considable; en dat ’crease de racket. Yit dey say
Sollermun de wises’ man dat ever live’. I doan’ take no stock in dat.
Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids’ er sich a
blim-blammin’ all de time? No—’deed he wouldn’t. A wise man ’ud take en
buil’ a biler-factry; en den he could shet _down_ de biler-factry when
he want to res’.”
“Well, but he _was_ the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told
me so, her own self.”
“I doan k’yer what de widder say, he _warn’t_ no wise man nuther. He
had some er de dad-fetchedes’ ways I ever see. Does you know ’bout dat
chile dat he ’uz gwyne to chop in two?”
“Yes, the widow told me all about it.”
“_Well_, den! Warn’ dat de beatenes’ notion in de worl’? You jes’ take
en look at it a minute. Dah’s de stump, dah—dat’s one er de women;
heah’s you—dat’s de yuther one; I’s Sollermun; en dish yer dollar
bill’s de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin
aroun’ mongs’ de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill _do_ b’long
to, en han’ it over to de right one, all safe en soun’, de way dat
anybody dat had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in
_two_, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman.
Dat’s de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast
you: what’s de use er dat half a bill?—can’t buy noth’n wid it. En what
use is a half a chile? I wouldn’ give a dern for a million un um.”
“But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point—blame it, you’ve
missed it a thousand mile.”
“Who? Me? Go ’long. Doan’ talk to _me_ ’bout yo’ pints. I reck’n I
knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as dat.
De ’spute warn’t ’bout a half a chile, de ’spute was ’bout a whole
chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a ’spute ’bout a whole chile
wid a half a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain. Doan’
talk to me ’bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”
“But I tell you you don’t get the point.”
“Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de _real_
pint is down furder—it’s down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was
raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two chillen; is dat man
gwyne to be waseful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; he can’t ’ford it. _He_
know how to value ’em. But you take a man dat’s got ’bout five million
chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s diffunt. _He_ as soon chop a
chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. A chile er two, mo’ er less,
warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!”
I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there
warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any
nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let
Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off
in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that
would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some
say he died there.
“Po’ little chap.”
“But some says he got out and got away, and come to America.”
“Dat’s good! But he’ll be pooty lonesome—dey ain’ no kings here, is
dey, Huck?”
“No.”
“Den he cain’t git no situation. What he gwyne to do?”
“Well, I don’t know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them
learns people how to talk French.”
“Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we does?”
“_No_, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said—not a single
word.”
“Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?”
“_I_ don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.
S’pose a man was to come to you and say _Polly-voo-franzy_—what would
you think?”
“I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head—dat is, if
he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ’low no nigger to call me dat.”
“Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know
how to talk French?”
“Well, den, why couldn’t he _say_ it?”
“Why, he _is_ a-saying it. That’s a Frenchman’s _way_ of saying it.”
“Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’
’bout it. Dey ain’ no sense in it.”
“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”
“No, a cat don’t.”
“Well, does a cow?”
“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”
“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”
“No, dey don’t.”
“It’s natural and right for ’em to talk different from each other,
ain’t it?”
“’Course.”
“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different
from _us?_”
“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”
“Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a _Frenchman_ to talk
different from us? You answer me that.”
“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
“No.”
“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a
man?—er is a cow a cat?”
“No, she ain’t either of them.”
“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the
yuther of ’em. Is a Frenchman a man?”
“Yes.”
“_Well_, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he _talk_ like a man? You answer
me _dat!_”
I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue.
So I quit.
CHAPTER XV.
We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom
of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was
after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the
Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a
tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in a fog; but when
I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn’t
anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of