Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
together—and hadn’t ever seen his brother William at all—that’s the
deef and dumb one—William ain’t more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter
and George were the only ones that come out here; George was the
married brother; him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and
William’s the only ones that’s left now; and, as I was saying, they
haven’t got here in time.”
“Did anybody send ’em word?”
“Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter
said then that he sorter felt like he warn’t going to get well this
time. You see, he was pretty old, and George’s g’yirls was too young to
be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and so
he was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn’t seem
to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see Harvey—and
William, too, for that matter—because he was one of them kind that
can’t bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said
he’d told in it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of
the property divided up so George’s g’yirls would be all right—for
George didn’t leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get him
to put a pen to.”
“Why do you reckon Harvey don’t come? Wher’ does he live?”
“Oh, he lives in England—Sheffield—preaches there—hasn’t ever been in
this country. He hasn’t had any too much time—and besides he mightn’t a
got the letter at all, you know.”
“Too bad, too bad he couldn’t a lived to see his brothers, poor soul.
You going to Orleans, you say?”
“Yes, but that ain’t only a part of it. I’m going in a ship, next
Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives.”
“It’s a pretty long journey. But it’ll be lovely; wisht I was a-going.
Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?”
“Mary Jane’s nineteen, Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s about
fourteen—that’s the one that gives herself to good works and has a
hare-lip.”
“Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so.”
“Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they ain’t
going to let them come to no harm. There’s Hobson, the Babtis’
preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford,
and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the
widow Bartley, and—well, there’s a lot of them; but these are the ones
that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes, when
he wrote home; so Harvey ’ll know where to look for friends when he
gets here.”
Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied
that young fellow. Blamed if he didn’t inquire about everybody and
everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about
Peter’s business—which was a tanner; and about George’s—which was a
carpenter; and about Harvey’s—which was a dissentering minister; and so
on, and so on. Then he says:
“What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?”
“Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn’t stop
there. When they’re deep they won’t stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat
will, but this is a St. Louis one.”
“Was Peter Wilks well off?”
“Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it’s reckoned he
left three or four thousand in cash hid up som’ers.”
“When did you say he died?”
“I didn’t say, but it was last night.”
“Funeral to-morrow, likely?”
“Yes, ’bout the middle of the day.”
“Well, it’s all terrible sad; but we’ve all got to go, one time or
another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we’re all
right.”
“Yes, sir, it’s the best way. Ma used to always say that.”
When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she
got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my
ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up
another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says:
“Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new
carpet-bags. And if he’s gone over to t’other side, go over there and
git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now.”
I see what _he_ was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I
got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a
log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had
said it—every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he
tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for
a slouch. I can’t imitate him, and so I ain’t a-going to try to; but he
really done it pretty good. Then he says:
“How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?”
The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and
dumb person on the histronic boards. So then they waited for a
steamboat.
About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along,
but they didn’t come from high enough up the river; but at last there
was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went
aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted
to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing,
and said they wouldn’t land us. But the king was ca’m. He says:
“If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on
and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry ’em, can’t it?”
So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the
village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when
they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says:
“Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they
give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to
say, “What d’ I tell you?” Then one of them says, kind of soft and
gentle:
“I’m sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he _did_
live yesterday evening.”
Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went all to smash, and fell up
against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his
back, and says:
“Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see him; oh,
it’s too, _too_ hard!”
Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to
the duke on his hands, and blamed if _he_ didn’t drop a carpet-bag and
bust out a-crying. If they warn’t the beatenest lot, them two frauds,
that ever I struck.
Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all
sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill
for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all
about his brother’s last moments, and the king he told it all over
again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that
dead tanner like they’d lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I
struck anything like it, I’m a nigger. It was enough to make a body
ashamed of the human race.
CHAPTER XXV.
The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people
tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on
their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd,
and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and
dooryards was full; and every minute somebody would say, over a fence:
“Is it _them?_”
And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say:
“You bet it is.”
When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the
three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane _was_ red-headed, but
that don’t make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her
face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles
was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for
them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they _had_ it!
Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again
at last and have such good times.
Then the king he hunched the duke private—I see him do it—and then he
looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so
then him and the duke, with a hand across each other’s shoulder, and
t’other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there,
everybody dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise
stopping, people saying “Sh!” and all the men taking their hats off and
drooping their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall. And when they
got there they bent over and looked in the coffin, and took one sight,
and then they bust out a-crying so you could a heard them to Orleans,
most; and then they put their arms around each other’s necks, and hung
their chins over each other’s shoulders; and then for three minutes, or
maybe four, I never see two men leak the way they done. And, mind you,
everybody was doing the same; and the place was that damp I never see
anything like it. Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and
t’other on t’other side, and they kneeled down and rested their
foreheads on the coffin, and let on to pray all to themselves. Well,
when it come to that it worked the crowd like you never see anything
like it, and everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out
loud—the poor girls, too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the
girls, without saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead,
and then put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky,
with the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing
and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so
disgusting.
Well, by-and-by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and
works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and
flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to
lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long
journey of four thousand mile, but it’s a trial that’s sweetened and
sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he
thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother’s heart, because
out of their mouths they can’t, words being too weak and cold, and all
that kind of rot and slush, till it was just sickening; and then he
blubbers out a pious goody-goody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes
to crying fit to bust.
And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the
crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their
might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church
letting out. Music _is_ a good thing; and after all that soul-butter
and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest
and bully.
Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his
nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the
family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up
with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying
yonder could speak he knows who he would name, for they was names that
was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and so he
will name the same, to wit, as follows, vizz.:—Rev. Mr. Hobson, and
Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi
Bell, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley.
Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town a-hunting
together—that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t’other
world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell was away up
to Louisville on business. But the rest was on hand, and so they all
come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him;
and then they shook hands with the duke and didn’t say nothing, but
just kept a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads
whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands and said
“Goo-goo—goo-goo-goo” all the time, like a baby that can’t talk.
So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty