Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and
we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and
an audience—and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them
circumstances it warn’t no trouble to him to throw in an amount of
style that was suitable. He warn’t a boy to meeky along up that yard
like a sheep; no, he come ca’m and important, like the ram. When he got
a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was
the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn’t want
to disturb them, and says:
“Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?”
“No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I’m sorry to say ’t your driver
has deceived you; Nichols’s place is down a matter of three mile more.
Come in, come in.”
Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late—he’s out
of sight.”
“Yes, he’s gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with
us; and then we’ll hitch up and take you down to Nichols’s.”
“Oh, I _can’t_ make you so much trouble; I couldn’t think of it. I’ll
walk—I don’t mind the distance.”
“But we won’t _let_ you walk—it wouldn’t be Southern hospitality to do
it. Come right in.”
“Oh, _do_,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain’t a bit of trouble to us, not a
bit in the world. You _must_ stay. It’s a long, dusty three mile, and
we _can’t_ let you walk. And, besides, I’ve already told ’em to put on
another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn’t disappoint us. Come
right in and make yourself at home.”
So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be
persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger
from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson—and he made
another bow.
Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and
everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and
wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last,
still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the
mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was
going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of
her hand, and says:
“You owdacious puppy!”
He looked kind of hurt, and says:
“I’m surprised at you, m’am.”
“You’re s’rp—Why, what do you reckon I am? I’ve a good notion to take
and—Say, what do you mean by kissing me?”
He looked kind of humble, and says:
“I didn’t mean nothing, m’am. I didn’t mean no harm. I—I—thought you’d
like it.”
“Why, you born fool!” She took up the spinning stick, and it looked
like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it.
“What made you think I’d like it?”
“Well, I don’t know. Only, they—they—told me you would.”
“_They_ told you I would. Whoever told you’s _another_ lunatic. I never
heard the beat of it. Who’s _they?_”
“Why, everybody. They all said so, m’am.”
It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her
fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:
“Who’s ‘everybody’? Out with their names, or ther’ll be an idiot
short.”
He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:
“I’m sorry, and I warn’t expecting it. They told me to. They all told
me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she’d like it. They all said
it—every one of them. But I’m sorry, m’am, and I won’t do it no more—I
won’t, honest.”
“You won’t, won’t you? Well, I sh’d _reckon_ you won’t!”
“No’m, I’m honest about it; I won’t ever do it again—till you ask me.”
“Till I _ask_ you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I
lay you’ll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask
you—or the likes of you.”
“Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so. I can’t make it out, somehow.
They said you would, and I thought you would. But—” He stopped and
looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye
somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman’s, and says, “Didn’t
_you_ think she’d like me to kiss her, sir?”
“Why, no; I—I—well, no, I b’lieve I didn’t.”
Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:
“Tom, didn’t _you_ think Aunt Sally ’d open out her arms and say, ‘Sid
Sawyer—’”
“My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you impudent
young rascal, to fool a body so—” and was going to hug him, but he
fended her off, and says:
“No, not till you’ve asked me first.”
So she didn’t lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed
him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and
he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she
says:
“Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn’t looking for _you_
at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but
him.”
“It’s because it warn’t _intended_ for any of us to come but Tom,” he
says; “but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come,
too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a
first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me
to by-and-by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it
was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain’t no healthy place for a stranger
to come.”
“No—not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I
hain’t been so put out since I don’t know when. But I don’t care, I
don’t mind the terms—I’d be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to
have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don’t deny it, I
was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack.”
We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the
kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven
families—and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that’s laid
in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old
cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long
blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn’t cool it a bit,
neither, the way I’ve seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times.
There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me
and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn’t no use, they
didn’t happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was
afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the
little boys says:
“Pa, mayn’t Tom and Sid and me go to the show?”
“No,” says the old man, “I reckon there ain’t going to be any; and you
couldn’t go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and me
all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the
people; so I reckon they’ve drove the owdacious loafers out of town
before this time.”
So there it was!—but _I_ couldn’t help it. Tom and me was to sleep in
the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night and went up
to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the
lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn’t believe anybody
was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn’t
hurry up and give them one they’d get into trouble sure.
On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was
murdered, and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn’t come back no
more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all
about our Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much of the raft voyage
as I had time to; and as we struck into the town and up through the
middle of it—it was as much as half-after eight, then—here comes a
raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling,
and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to
let them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king and the
duke astraddle of a rail—that is, I knowed it _was_ the king and the
duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn’t look like
nothing in the world that was human—just looked like a couple of
monstrous big soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I
was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn’t ever
feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful
thing to see. Human beings _can_ be awful cruel to one another.
We see we was too late—couldn’t do no good. We asked some stragglers
about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very
innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the
middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody give a signal, and
the house rose up and went for them.
So we poked along back home, and I warn’t feeling so brash as I was
before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow—though
_I_ hadn’t done nothing. But that’s always the way; it don’t make no
difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t
got no sense, and just goes for him _anyway_. If I had a yaller dog
that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison
him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and
yet ain’t no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
We stopped talking, and got to thinking. By-and-by Tom says:
“Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before! I bet I
know where Jim is.”
“No! Where?”
“In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we was at
dinner, didn’t you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think the vittles was for?”
“For a dog.”
“So’d I. Well, it wasn’t for a dog.”
“Why?”
“Because part of it was watermelon.”
“So it was—I noticed it. Well, it does beat all that I never thought
about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see and
don’t see at the same time.”
“Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked
it again when he came out. He fetched uncle a key about the time we got
up from table—same key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock shows
prisoner; and it ain’t likely there’s two prisoners on such a little
plantation, and where the people’s all so kind and good. Jim’s the
prisoner. All right—I’m glad we found it out detective fashion; I
wouldn’t give shucks for any other way. Now you work your mind, and
study out a plan to steal Jim, and I will study out one, too; and we’ll
take the one we like the best.”
What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer’s head I
wouldn’t trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown
in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan,
but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right
plan was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says:
“Ready?”
“Yes,” I says.
“All right—bring it out.”
“My plan is this,” I says. “We can easy find out if it’s Jim in there.
Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the
island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the
old man’s britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river
on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me
and Jim used to do before. Wouldn’t that plan work?”
“_Work?_ Why, cert’nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it’s
too blame’ simple; there ain’t nothing _to_ it. What’s the good of a
plan that ain’t no more trouble than that? It’s as mild as goose-milk.
Why, Huck, it wouldn’t make no more talk than breaking into a soap
factory.”
I never said nothing, because I warn’t expecting nothing different; but
I knowed mighty well that whenever he got _his_ plan ready it wouldn’t
have none of them objections to it.
And it didn’t. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was
worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man
as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied,