Huckleberry finn by Mark Twain

undertaker was.
Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome; and

then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and at

last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the

coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him

pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along as soft

as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I didn't

know whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s'pose somebody

has hogged that bag on the sly?--now how do I know whether to write to

Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't find nothing, what

would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and

jailed; I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all; the

thing's awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred

times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole

business!

again--I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come

of it; the faces didn't tell me nothing.
The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up,

and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his

congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must

hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He was

very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could

stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be done. And he

said of course him and William would take the girls home with them; and

that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed

and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too--tickled

them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and told

him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor

things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting

fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and

change the general tune.

the property for auction straight off--sale two days after the funeral;

but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.
So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy

got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king

sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called it,

and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their

mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them

niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other,

and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they

hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the

town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor

miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying;

and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and

tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the

niggers would be back home in a week or two.
The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out

flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the

children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he

bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you

the duke was powerful uneasy.
Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and

the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look

that there was trouble. The king says:
"Was you in my room night before last?"
"No, your majesty"--which was the way I always called him when nobody but

our gang warn't around.

a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it

to you."
The duke says:
"Have you seen anybody else go in there?"
"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."
"Stop and think."
I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:
"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."
Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever

expected it, and then like they HAD. Then the duke says:

all come OUT at once but just one time."

because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see

them."
"Well, go on, GO on! What did they do? How'd they act?"
"They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I

see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in

there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up;

and found you WARN'T up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the way

of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you up."
"Great guns, THIS is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked pretty

sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and scratching

their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspy

chuckle, and says:

be SORRY they was going out of this region! And I believed they WAS

sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell ME any more

that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why, the way they played

that thing it would fool ANYBODY. In my opinion, there's a fortune in

'em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better lay-out

than that--and here we've gone and sold 'em for a song. Yes, and ain't

privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where IS that song--that draft?"

affairs--if you got any. Long as you're in this town don't you forgit

THAT--you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swaller it

and say noth'n': mum's the word for US."

says:
"Quick sales AND small profits! It's a good business--yes."

profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to carry,

is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?"
"Well, THEY'D be in this house yet and we WOULDN'T if I could a got my

advice listened to."

and lit into ME again. He give me down the banks for not coming and

TELLING him I see the niggers come out of his room acting that way--said

any fool would a KNOWED something was up. And then waltzed in and cussed

HIMSELF awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late and taking

his natural rest that morning, and he'd be blamed if he'd ever do it

again. So they went off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it

all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder and started

for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls' room the door was open, and

I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and she'd

been packing things in it--getting ready to go to England. But she had

stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her hands,

crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I went in

there and says:
"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people in trouble, and I can't

--most always. Tell me about it."

the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she didn't

know HOW she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and the

children warn't ever going to see each other no more--and then busted out

bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says:
"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't EVER going to see each other any

more!"
"But they WILL--and inside of two weeks--and I KNOW it!" says I.

throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it AGAIN, say it AGAIN,

say it AGAIN!
I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close place.

I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very impatient

and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and eased-up, like a

person that's had a tooth pulled out. So I went to studying it out. I

says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is

in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, though I ain't had no

experience, and can't say for certain; but it looks so to me, anyway; and

yet here's a case where I'm blest if it don't look to me like the truth

is better and actuly SAFER than a lie. I must lay it by in my mind, and

think it over some time or other, it's so kind of strange and unregular.

I never see nothing like it. Well, I says to myself at last, I'm a-going

to chance it; I'll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem

most like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see

where you'll go to. Then I says:

could go and stay three or four days?"

each other again inside of two weeks--here in this house--and PROVE how I

know it--will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?"
"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"
"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of YOU than just your

word--I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She smiled

and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it, I'll shut

the door--and bolt it."

the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind,

and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These

uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of frauds

--regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand

the rest middling easy."

water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher

all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck

that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she

flung herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her

sixteen or seventeen times--and then up she jumps, with her face afire

like sunset, and says:
"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute--not a SECOND--we'll have them

tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!"

again. "Don't mind what I said--please don't--you WON'T, now, WILL you?"

Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I said I would

die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now go on,

and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, and whatever you say

I'll do it."

got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not--I

druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would

get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another

person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we got

to save HIM, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them."

get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave.

But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard

to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working

till pretty late to-night. I says:
"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay

at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"

nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again

--tell them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put

a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait TILL eleven, and

THEN if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe.

Then you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats

jailed."
"Good," she says, "I'll do it."
"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along

with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and

you must stand by me all you can."
"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!"

she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said

it, too.
"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions

ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear

they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something.

Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're

people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you

how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There--'Royal

Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court

wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to

Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch,

and ask for some witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here

before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too."
I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:
"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't have

to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on

accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they

get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count,

and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was with

the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before

long. Why, they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet--they're in

the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary."

straight for Mr. Lothrop's."

means; go BEFORE breakfast."

want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read

it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles

when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never--"

And leave my sisters with them?"

might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to

see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to

ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. No,

you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them.

I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went

away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a

friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning."

them."
"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell HER so--no harm

in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's the

little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below; it

would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then I

says: "There's one more thing--that bag of money."

they got it."

and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid

it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as

sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I come

nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I come

to, and run--and it warn't a good place."

--you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it?"

couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that

corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So

for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:

mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and

you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you

reckon that 'll do?"

crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty

sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."
It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by

herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own

roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to

her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the

hand, hard, and says:
"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I

don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of

you a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!"--and she was

gone.
Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more

nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that

kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there

warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but

in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my

opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't

no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she lays

over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go

out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've

thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she

would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me

to pray for HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.
Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see

her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

you all goes to see sometimes?"

told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of

them's sick."
"Which one?"
"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--"
"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"
"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."
"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"
"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane

said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."

pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains

out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull

up and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.' Would ther' be any sense in that?

NO. And ther' ain't no sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?"
"Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW catching--in the dark?

If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't

you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole

harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow,

as you may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to

get it hitched on good."

and--"
"Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would. I wouldn't lose no

time."
"Well, why wouldn't you?"
"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles

obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you

reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that

journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good.