Huckleberry finn by Mark Twain

and sufferin' rightful King of France."

do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. So

we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort HIM.

But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all

could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier and

better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got

down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"

and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence

till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this

and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might

set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and

comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit

satisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted real

friendly towards him, and said the duke's great-grandfather and all the

other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by HIS father, and

was allowed to come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy

a good while, till by and by the king says:
"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer raft,

Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only make

things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it ain't

your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry? Make the

best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto. This ain't

no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy life--come,

give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."
The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away

all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it

would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft;

for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be

satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.
It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no

kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I

never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way;

then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they

wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as

it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I

didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt

that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them

have their own way.
CHAPTER XX.
THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we covered

up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running

--was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:
"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run SOUTH?"
No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so I

says:
"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and

they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed he'd

break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little

one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was

pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't

nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn't enough

to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way. Well,

when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketched this

piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it. Pa's luck

didn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft one

night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and me

come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four years old, so

they never come up no more. Well, for the next day or two we had

considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in skiffs and

trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a runaway

nigger. We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they don't bother us."
The duke says:
"Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we

want to. I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that'll fix it.

We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to go by

that town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy."

lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was

beginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see

that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see

what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, which

was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shuck tick,

and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dry shucks

sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it makes such a

rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke allowed he would take my bed;

but the king allowed he wouldn't. He says:

a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. Your Grace 'll

take the shuck bed yourself."
Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was

going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when

the duke says:
"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of

oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I

submit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world--let me suffer; can bear

it."
We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand

well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we

got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch of

lights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a half

a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below we

hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to rain

and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told us to

both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the duke

crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It was my watch

below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed,

because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not

by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every

second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half

a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain,

and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum!

bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling

and grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash and

another sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,

but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble

about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant

that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or

that and miss them.
I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,

so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was always

mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but the king

and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show for

me; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and

the waves warn't running so high now. About two they come up again,

though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, because he

reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he was mistaken

about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripper

and washed me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. He was the

easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.
I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by the

storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showed I

rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day.
The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him and

the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then they got tired

of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they called it.

The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot of little

printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said, "The celebrated Dr.

Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on the Science of

Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day of blank, at ten

cents admission, and "furnish charts of character at twenty-five cents

apiece." The duke said that was HIM. In another bill he was the

"world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury

Lane, London." In other bills he had a lot of other names and done other

wonderful things, like finding water and gold with a "divining-rod,"

"dissipating witch spells," and so on. By and by he says:
"But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the boards,

Royalty?"

the duke. "The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do the

sword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.

How does that strike you?"

see, I don't know nothing about play-actin', and hain't ever seen much of

it. I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace. Do you

reckon you can learn me?"

commence right away."

said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.

whiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe."

Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all the

difference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight

before she goes to bed, and she's got on her night-gown and her ruffled

nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts."
He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was meedyevil

armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white cotton

nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was satisfied; so

the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the most splendid

spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same time, to show

how it had got to be done; then he give the book to the king and told him

to get his part by heart.
There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and

after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to run

in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he would

go down to the town and fix that thing. The king allowed he would go,

too, and see if he couldn't strike something. We was out of coffee, so

Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some.

perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger sunning

himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young or

too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in the

woods. The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work that

camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.

little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop--carpenters and

printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty,

littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures of

horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. The duke shed

his coat and said he was all right now. So me and the king lit out for

the camp-meeting.
We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a most

awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there from twenty

mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched

everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep off

the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with

branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of

watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.
The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was

bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of outside

slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into

for legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had high platforms to

stand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on sun-bonnets; and some

had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the young ones

had on calico. Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of the

children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen shirt. Some of

the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting on

the sly.
The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined

out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,

there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then he

lined out two more for them to sing--and so on. The people woke up more

and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some begun to

groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to preach, and

begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side of the platform

and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the front of it, with

his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out with

all his might; and every now and then he would hold up his Bible and

spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting,

"It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness! Look upon it and live!" And

people would shout out, "Glory!--A-a-MEN!" And so he went on, and the

people groaning and crying and saying amen:
"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (AMEN!) come,

sick and sore! (AMEN!) come, lame and halt and blind! (AMEN!) come, pore

and needy, sunk in shame! (A-A-MEN!) come, all that's worn and soiled and

suffering!--come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite heart! come

in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is free, the door

of heaven stands open--oh, enter in and be at rest!" (A-A-MEN! GLORY,

GLORY HALLELUJAH!)
And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on

account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in the

crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners' bench,

with the tears running down their faces; and when all the mourners had

got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and shouted and

flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.

over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, and

the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He

told them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in the

Indian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in

a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to

goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat

without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that

ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for the

first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start right

off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of his

life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could do it

better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews in that

ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there without

money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he

would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me no credit; it

all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting, natural

brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher there, the

truest friend a pirate ever had!"
And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody sings

out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well, a half

a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let HIM pass the

hat around!" Then everybody said it, the preacher too.

and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being so

good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while the

prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would

up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and he

always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or

six times--and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to

live in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he said

as this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and

besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to

work on the pirates.
When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had

collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he had

fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a

wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, take

it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the missionarying

line. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't amount to shucks

alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.
The duke was thinking HE'D been doing pretty well till the king come to

show up, but after that he didn't think so so much. He had set up and

printed off two little jobs for farmers in that printing-office--horse

bills--and took the money, four dollars. And he had got in ten

dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he said he would

put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance--so they done it.

The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he took in three

subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of them paying him in

advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions as usual, but he

said he had just bought the concern and knocked down the price as low as

he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash. He set up a little

piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own head--three

verses--kind of sweet and saddish--the name of it was, "Yes, crush, cold

world, this breaking heart"--and he left that all set up and ready to

print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it. Well, he took in

nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty square day's work

for it.
Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged for,

because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with a

bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it. The

reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It said he

run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans, last

winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and send him

back he could have the reward and expenses.
"Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if we

want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot

with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we

captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so

we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to

get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but

it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much like

jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing--we must preserve the unities, as

we say on the boards."
We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no trouble

about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough that night

to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work in the

printing office was going to make in that little town; then we could boom

right along if we wanted to.
We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten o'clock;

then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't hoist our

lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.
When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:
"Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis trip?"
"No," I says, "I reckon not."
"Well," says he, "dat's all right, den. I doan' mine one er two kings,

but dat's enough. Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' much

better."
I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hear

what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so long, and

had so much trouble, he'd forgot it.
CHAPTER XXI.
IT was after sun-up now, but we went right on and didn't tie up. The

king and the duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty; but after

they'd jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a good deal.

After breakfast the king he took a seat on the corner of the raft, and

pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let his legs dangle

in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went to

getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart. When he had got it pretty good

him and the duke begun to practice it together. The duke had to learn

him over and over again how to say every speech; and he made him sigh,

and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done it

pretty well; "only," he says, "you mustn't bellow out ROMEO! that way,

like a bull--you must say it soft and sick and languishy, so--R-o-o-meo!

that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you

know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass."

oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight--the duke called himself