Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
around me for about a half a minute longer you’ll get something you
won’t want.”
I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never
mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.
We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but
it was high ground, so I didn’t go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim
said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a tow-head tolerable
close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something. So did
Jim. I says:
“Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night.”
He says:
“Doan’ le’s talk about it, Huck. Po’ niggers can’t have no luck. I
awluz ’spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn’t done wid its work.”
“I wish I’d never seen that snake-skin, Jim—I do wish I’d never laid
eyes on it.”
“It ain’t yo’ fault, Huck; you didn’ know. Don’t you blame yo’self
’bout it.”
When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure
enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with
Cairo.
We talked it all over. It wouldn’t do to take to the shore; we couldn’t
take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn’t no way but to wait
for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the chances. So we slept
all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as to be fresh for the work,
and when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone!
We didn’t say a word for a good while. There warn’t anything to say. We
both knowed well enough it was some more work of the rattlesnake-skin;
so what was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we was
finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more bad luck—and keep
on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep still.
By-and-by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn’t no
way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to buy
a canoe to go back in. We warn’t going to borrow it when there warn’t
anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set people after
us.
So we shoved out after dark on the raft.
Anybody that don’t believe yet that it’s foolishness to handle a
snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe it
now if they read on and see what more it done for us.
The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we
didn’t see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and
more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You can’t tell the shape of the river, and you
can’t see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then along
comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she
would see it. Up-stream boats didn’t generly come close to us; they go
out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the reefs; but
nights like this they bull right up the channel against the whole
river.
We could hear her pounding along, but we didn’t see her good till she
was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see
how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off
a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and thinks
he’s mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to
try and shave us; but she didn’t seem to be sheering off a bit. She was
a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black
cloud with rows of glow-worms around it; but all of a sudden she bulged
out, big and scary, with a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining
like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right
over us. There was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the
engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of steam—and as Jim went
overboard on one side and I on the other, she come smashing straight
through the raft.
I dived—and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel
had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I could
always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under a
minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was
nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out of
my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current; and
of course that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she
stopped them, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she was
churning along up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though
I could hear her.
I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn’t get any answer; so
I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was “treading water,” and
struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see
that the drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which
meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.
It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a good
long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb up the
bank. I couldn’t see but a little ways, but I went poking along over
rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across a
big old-fashioned double log-house before I noticed it. I was going to
rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howling
and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another peg.
CHAPTER XVII.
In about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his
head out, and says:
“Be done, boys! Who’s there?”
I says:
“It’s me.”
“Who’s me?”
“George Jackson, sir.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs
won’t let me.”
“What are you prowling around here this time of night for—hey?”
“I warn’t prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat.”
“Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did you say
your name was?”
“George Jackson, sir. I’m only a boy.”
“Look here, if you’re telling the truth you needn’t be afraid—nobody’ll
hurt you. But don’t try to budge; stand right where you are. Rouse out
Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is there
anybody with you?”
“No, sir, nobody.”
I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light.
The man sung out:
“Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool—ain’t you got any sense?
Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and Tom are
ready, take your places.”
“All ready.”
“Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?”
“No, sir; I never heard of them.”
“Well, that may be so, and it mayn’t. Now, all ready. Step forward,
George Jackson. And mind, don’t you hurry—come mighty slow. If there’s
anybody with you, let him keep back—if he shows himself he’ll be shot.
Come along now. Come slow; push the door open yourself—just enough to
squeeze in, d’ you hear?”
I didn’t hurry; I couldn’t if I’d a wanted to. I took one slow step at
a time and there warn’t a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart.
The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind
me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them unlocking and
unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door and pushed it a
little and a little more till somebody said, “There, that’s enough—put
your head in.” I done it, but I judged they would take it off.
The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and
me at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big men with guns
pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray and
about sixty, the other two thirty or more—all of them fine and
handsome—and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and back of her two
young women which I couldn’t see right well. The old gentleman says:
“There; I reckon it’s all right. Come in.”
As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it
and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and
they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor,
and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front
windows—there warn’t none on the side. They held the candle, and took a
good look at me, and all said, “Why, _he_ ain’t a Shepherdson—no, there
ain’t any Shepherdson about him.” Then the old man said he hoped I
wouldn’t mind being searched for arms, because he didn’t mean no harm
by it—it was only to make sure. So he didn’t pry into my pockets, but
only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me
to make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but the old
lady says:
“Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing’s as wet as he can be; and don’t
you reckon it may be he’s hungry?”
“True for you, Rachel—I forgot.”
So the old lady says:
“Betsy” (this was a nigger woman), “you fly around and get him
something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls
go and wake up Buck and tell him—oh, here he is himself. Buck, take
this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him
up in some of yours that’s dry.”
Buck looked about as old as me—thirteen or fourteen or along there,
though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn’t on anything but a
shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging one
fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one.
He says:
“Ain’t they no Shepherdsons around?”
They said, no, ’twas a false alarm.
“Well,” he says, “if they’d a ben some, I reckon I’d a got one.”
They all laughed, and Bob says:
“Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you’ve been so slow in
coming.”
“Well, nobody come after me, and it ain’t right I’m always kept down; I
don’t get no show.”
“Never mind, Buck, my boy,” says the old man, “you’ll have show enough,
all in good time, don’t you fret about that. Go ’long with you now, and
do as your mother told you.”
When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a
roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he
asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to
tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods
day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle
went out. I said I didn’t know; I hadn’t heard about it before, no way.
“Well, guess,” he says.
“How’m I going to guess,” says I, “when I never heard tell of it
before?”
“But you can guess, can’t you? It’s just as easy.”
“_Which_ candle?” I says.
“Why, any candle,” he says.
“I don’t know where he was,” says I; “where was he?”
“Why, he was in the _dark!_ That’s where he was!”
“Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?”
“Why, blame it, it’s a riddle, don’t you see? Say, how long are you
going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming
times—they don’t have no school now. Do you own a dog? I’ve got a
dog—and he’ll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do
you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet
I don’t, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I reckon I’d
better put ’em on, but I’d ruther not, it’s so warm. Are you all ready?
All right. Come along, old hoss.”
Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk—that is what they
had for me down there, and there ain’t nothing better that ever I’ve
come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes,
except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They
all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The young women had quilts
around them, and their hair down their backs. They all asked me
questions, and I told them how pap and me and all the family was living
on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann
run off and got married and never was heard of no more, and Bill went