Huckleberry finn by Mark Twain

his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when it's

likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?" Jim couldn't

say nothing to that, so he didn't try. "And besides," I says, "we might

borrow something worth having out of the captain's stateroom. Seegars, I

bet you--and cost five cents apiece, solid cash. Steamboat captains is

always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and THEY don't care a cent

what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it. Stick a candle in

your pocket; I can't rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you

reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't.

He'd call it an adventure--that's what he'd call it; and he'd land on

that wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn't he throw style into it?

--wouldn't he spread himself, nor nothing? Why, you'd think it was

Christopher C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come. I wish Tom Sawyer WAS

here."
Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any more

than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning showed us

the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard derrick, and

made fast there.
The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope of it to

labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with our

feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was so

dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the forward

end of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next step fetched us in

front of the captain's door, which was open, and by Jimminy, away down

through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in the same second we seem

to hear low voices in yonder!

along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft; but just

then I heard a voice wail out and say:
"Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!"
Another voice said, pretty loud:
"It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always want

more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, because

you've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've said it

jest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest hound in this

country."
By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with

curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and so

I won't either; I'm a-going to see what's going on here. So I dropped on

my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in the dark till

there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and the cross-hall of the

texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the floor and tied hand

and foot, and two men standing over him, and one of them had a dim

lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol. This one kept

pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, and saying:
"I'd LIKE to! And I orter, too--a mean skunk!"
The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, "Oh, please don't, Bill; I

hain't ever goin' to tell."

And once he said: "Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the best of

him and tied him he'd a killed us both. And what FOR? Jist for noth'n.

Jist because we stood on our RIGHTS--that's what for. But I lay you

ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put UP that

pistol, Bill."

old Hatfield jist the same way--and don't he deserve it?"

long's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.

and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to

come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat

slanted so that I couldn't make very good time; so to keep from getting

run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The

man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to my

stateroom, he says:
"Here--come in here."
And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in

the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there, with

their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see them,

but I could tell where they was by the whisky they'd been having. I was

glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much difference anyway,

because most of the time they couldn't a treed me because I didn't

breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body COULDN'T breathe and

hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill

Turner. He says:
"He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares to

him NOW it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way we've

served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's evidence; now you

hear ME. I'm for putting him out of his troubles."

right. Le's go and do it."

Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's GOT to be done.

But what I say is this: it ain't good sense to go court'n around after a

halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way that's jist as

good and at the same time don't bring you into no resks. Ain't that so?"
"You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this time?"
"Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gather up whatever

pickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide

the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n two

hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See?

He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own

self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better 'n killin' of him. I'm

unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git aroun' it; it ain't

good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?"

forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse

whisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a

moan, and I says:

gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set

her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the

wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their

boat we can put ALL of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'll get 'em.

Quick--hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard.

You start at the raft, and--"
"Oh, my lordy, lordy! RAF'? Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke

loose en gone I--en here we is!"

a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd GOT to

find that boat now--had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking

and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too--seemed a

week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't

believe he could go any further--so scared he hadn't hardly any strength

left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are

in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the

texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight,

hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in

the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was the

skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so

thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then

the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple

of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, and

says:
"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!"

set down. It was Packard. Then Bill HE come out and got in. Packard

says, in a low voice:
"All ready--shove off!"
I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:
"Hold on--'d you go through him?"
"No. Didn't you?"
"No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet."
"Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money."
"Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?"
"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along."
So they got out and went in.
The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half

second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my

knife and cut the rope, and away we went!
We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly even

breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the

paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a

hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last

sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.
When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern

show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed by

that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to

understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.

first time that I begun to worry about the men--I reckon I hadn't had

time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for

murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no telling

but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like

it? So says I to Jim:

in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then

I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that

gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their

time comes."
But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and

this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light

showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river,

watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the

rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering,

and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we

made for it.
It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We

seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go

for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole

there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told

Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone

about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars

and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it three or four more

showed--up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore

light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by I see it was a

lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. I skimmed

around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by and by

I found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down between his

knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.
He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only

me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:

this 'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?"

the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; and

sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old Jim

Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good to Tom, Dick, and

Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I've told

him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, a

sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'D live two mile out

o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all his

spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I--"
I broke in and says:
"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and--"
"WHO is?"
"Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your

ferryboat and go up there--"

if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever

git into such a scrape?"
"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town--"
"Yes, Booth's Landing--go on."
"She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of the

evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stay

all night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disremember

her name--and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went

a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the

wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost,

but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an

hour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so

dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so WE

saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple--and oh, he WAS

the best cretur!--I most wish 't it had been me, I do."
"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And THEN what did

you all do?"

nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help

somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and

Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and hunt

up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about a mile

below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do

something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current?

There ain't no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.' Now if you'll go

and--"
"By Jackson, I'd LIKE to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will; but who

in the dingnation's a-going' to PAY for it? Do you reckon your pap--"

uncle Hornback--"

yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of

a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you out to Jim

Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And don't you fool around any,

because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all

safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm a-going up

around the corner here to roust out my engineer."
I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back

and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the

easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some

woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat start.

But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of

taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I

wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for

helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the

kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.
Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along

down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for

her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance

for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a

little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit

heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could

stand it I could.
Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the river on

a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach I laid

on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for

Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle

Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up

and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down

the river.
It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and when

it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got

there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we

struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in

and slept like dead people.
CHAPTER XIV.
BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole

off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all

sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three

boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of our

lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the

woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time.

I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferryboat,

and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn't

want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he

crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone he nearly died,

because he judged it was all up with HIM anyway it could be fixed; for if

he didn't get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved,

whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and

then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was

most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger.
I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and

how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each

other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead

of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says:

skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a

pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?"
"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want

it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them."

war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or

go hawking--just hawking and sp--Sh!--d' you hear a noise?"
We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a

steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.

parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off.

But mostly they hang round the harem."
"Roun' de which?"
"Harem."
"What's de harem?"
"The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem?

Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."

reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de

wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say

Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in dat.

Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a

blim-blammin' all de time? No--'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take

en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet DOWN de biler-factry when

he want to res'."

so, her own self."

some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile

dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"
"Yes, the widow told me all about it."
"WELL, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' take en

look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women; heah's

you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's de

chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun'

mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b'long to, en

han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat

had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half

un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way

Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what's

de use er dat half a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a

half a chile? I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um."
"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point--blame it, you've missed

it a thousand mile."

knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat.

De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile;

en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half

a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk to me

'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."