Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts of
little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to
George’s family, or to Peter. And he always let on that Peter wrote him
the things; but that was a lie: he got every blessed one of them out of
that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.
Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the
king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-house
and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard
(which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and
land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold
to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid
down cellar. So these two frauds said they’d go and fetch it up, and
have everything square and above-board; and told me to come with a
candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag
they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them
yaller-boys. My, the way the king’s eyes did shine! He slaps the duke
on the shoulder and says:
“Oh, _this_ ain’t bully nor noth’n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Bilji,
it beats the Nonesuch, _don’t_ it?”
The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them
through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the
king says:
“It ain’t no use talkin’; bein’ brothers to a rich dead man and
representatives of furrin heirs that’s got left is the line for you and
me, Bilge. Thish yer comes of trust’n to Providence. It’s the best way,
in the long run. I’ve tried ’em all, and ther’ ain’t no better way.”
Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on
trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out
four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king:
“Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen
dollars?”
They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it. Then
the duke says:
“Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake—I reckon
that’s the way of it. The best way’s to let it go, and keep still about
it. We can spare it.”
“Oh, shucks, yes, we can _spare_ it. I don’t k’yer noth’n ’bout
that—it’s the _count_ I’m thinkin’ about. We want to be awful square
and open and above-board here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer
money up stairs and count it before everybody—then ther’ ain’t noth’n
suspicious. But when the dead man says ther’s six thous’n dollars, you
know, we don’t want to—”
“Hold on,” says the duke. “Le’s make up the deffisit,” and he begun to
haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.
“It’s a most amaz’n’ good idea, duke—you _have_ got a rattlin’ clever
head on you,” says the king. “Blest if the old Nonesuch ain’t a heppin’
us out agin,” and _he_ begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them
up.
It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear.
“Say,” says the duke, “I got another idea. Le’s go up stairs and count
this money, and then take and _give it to the girls_.”
“Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It’s the most dazzling idea ’at ever a
man struck. You have cert’nly got the most astonishin’ head I ever see.
Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther’ ain’t no mistake ’bout it. Let ’em
fetch along their suspicions now if they want to—this’ll lay ’em out.”
When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king
he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pile—twenty
elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their
chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin
to swell himself up for another speech. He says:
“Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by
them that’s left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by
these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that’s
left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that
he would a done _more_ generous by ’em if he hadn’t ben afeard o’
woundin’ his dear William and me. Now, _wouldn’t_ he? Ther’ ain’t no
question ’bout it in _my_ mind. Well, then, what kind o’ brothers would
it be that ’d stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o’ uncles
would it be that ’d rob—yes, _rob_—sech poor sweet lambs as these ’at
he loved so at sech a time? If I know William—and I _think_ I
do—he—well, I’ll jest ask him.” He turns around and begins to make a
lot of signs to the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him
stupid and leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to
catch his meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his
might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then
the king says, “I knowed it; I reckon _that_’ll convince anybody the
way _he_ feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the
money—take it _all_. It’s the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but
joyful.”
Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the duke,
and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And
everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the
hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:
“You _dear_ good souls!—how _lovely!_—how _could_ you!”
Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased
again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and
before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside,
and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody
saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they
was all busy listening. The king was saying—in the middle of something
he’d started in on—
“—they bein’ partickler friends o’ the diseased. That’s why they’re
invited here this evenin’; but tomorrow we want _all_ to
come—everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so
it’s fitten that his funeral orgies sh’d be public.”
And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and
every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the
duke he couldn’t stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of
paper, “_obsequies_, you old fool,” and folds it up, and goes to
goo-gooing and reaching it over people’s heads to him. The king he
reads it and puts it in his pocket, and says:
“Poor William, afflicted as he is, his _heart’s_ aluz right. Asks me to
invite everybody to come to the funeral—wants me to make ’em all
welcome. But he needn’t a worried—it was jest what I was at.”
Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca’m, and goes to dropping in his
funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And
when he done it the third time he says:
“I say orgies, not because it’s the common term, because it
ain’t—obsequies bein’ the common term—but because orgies is the right
term. Obsequies ain’t used in England no more now—it’s gone out. We say
orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing
you’re after more exact. It’s a word that’s made up out’n the Greek
_orgo_, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew _jeesum_, to plant, cover
up; hence in_ter._ So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public
funeral.”
He was the _worst_ I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed
right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, “Why,
_doctor!_” and Abner Shackleford says:
“Why, Robinson, hain’t you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks.”
The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:
“_Is_ it my poor brother’s dear good friend and physician? I—”
“Keep your hands off of me!” says the doctor. “_You_ talk like an
Englishman, _don’t_ you? It’s the worst imitation I ever heard. _You_
Peter Wilks’s brother! You’re a fraud, that’s what you are!”
Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to
quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey ’d
showed in forty ways that he _was_ Harvey, and knowed everybody by
name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and _begged_ him not
to hurt Harvey’s feelings and the poor girl’s feelings, and all that.
But it warn’t no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that
pretended to be an Englishman and couldn’t imitate the lingo no better
than what he did was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to
the king and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on
_them_. He says:
“I was your father’s friend, and I’m your friend; and I warn you _as_ a
friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of
harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing
to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew,
as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an impostor—has come here
with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and
you take them for _proofs_, and are helped to fool yourselves by these
foolish friends here, who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you
know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen
to me; turn this pitiful rascal out—I _beg_ you to do it. Will you?”
Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She
says:
“_Here_ is my answer.” She hove up the bag of money and put it in the
king’s hands, and says, “Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for
me and my sisters any way you want to, and don’t give us no receipt for
it.”
Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the
hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands and
stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his
head and smiled proud. The doctor says:
“All right; I wash _my_ hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a
time ’s coming when you’re going to feel sick whenever you think of
this day.” And away he went.
“All right, doctor,” says the king, kinder mocking him; “we’ll try and
get ’em to send for you;” which made them all laugh, and they said it
was a prime good hit.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Well, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was
off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would
do for Uncle William, and she’d give her own room to Uncle Harvey,
which was a little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her
sisters and sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a
pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his valley—meaning
me.
So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was
plain but nice. She said she’d have her frocks and a lot of other traps
took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey’s way, but he said
they warn’t. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was a
curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There was an
old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all
sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up
a room with. The king said it was all the more homely and more
pleasanter for these fixings, and so don’t disturb them. The duke’s
room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby.
That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there,
and I stood behind the king and the duke’s chairs and waited on them,
and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of
the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits
was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried
chickens was—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to
force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop,
and said so—said “How _do_ you get biscuits to brown so nice?” and