The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete


We could see pretty well now. Tom he looked at the nigger, steady and
kind of wondering, and says:

"Does WHO know us?"

"Why, dis-yer runaway nigger."

"I don't reckon he does; but what put that into your head?"

"What PUT it dar? Didn' he jis' dis minute sing out like he knowed you?"

Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way:

"Well, that's mighty curious. WHO sung out? WHEN did he sing out? WHAT
did he sing out?" And turns to me, perfectly ca'm, and says, "Did YOU
hear anybody sing out?"

Of course there warn't nothing to be said but the one thing; so I says:

"No; I ain't heard nobody say nothing."

Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him before,
and says:

"Did you sing out?"

"No, sah," says Jim; "I hain't said nothing, sah."

"Not a word?"

"No, sah, I hain't said a word."

"Did you ever see us before?"

"No, sah; not as I knows on."

So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and
says, kind of severe:

"What do you reckon's the matter with you, anyway? What made you think
somebody sung out?"

"Oh, it's de dad-blame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do. Dey's
awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey sk'yers me so. Please to
don't tell nobody 'bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he'll scole me; 'kase
he say dey AIN'T no witches. I jis' wish to goodness he was heah now
--DEN what would he say! I jis' bet he couldn' fine no way to git aroun'
it DIS time. But it's awluz jis' so; people dat's SOT, stays sot; dey
won't look into noth'n'en fine it out f'r deyselves, en when YOU fine it
out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan' b'lieve you."

Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody; and told him to
buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then looks at Jim, and
says:

"I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to catch
a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give him up,
I'd hang him." And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to look at the
dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to Jim and says:

"Don't ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging going on
nights, it's us; we're going to set you free."

Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it; then the nigger
come back, and we said we'd come again some time if the nigger wanted us
to; and he said he would, more particular if it was dark, because the
witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it was good to have folks
around then.




CHAPTER XXXV.

IT would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down
into the woods; because Tom said we got to have SOME light to see how to
dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble; what
we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called fox-fire, and
just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a dark place. We
fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom
says, kind of dissatisfied:

"Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be.
And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan. There
ain't no watchman to be drugged--now there OUGHT to be a watchman. There
ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. And there's Jim chained
by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of his bed: why, all you
got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain. And Uncle
Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the punkin-headed nigger, and
don't send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim could a got out of that
window-hole before this, only there wouldn't be no use trying to travel
with a ten-foot chain on his leg. Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest
arrangement I ever see. You got to invent ALL the difficulties. Well, we
can't help it; we got to do the best we can with the materials we've got.
Anyhow, there's one thing--there's more honor in getting him out
through a lot of difficulties and dangers, where there warn't one of them
furnished to you by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and
you had to contrive them all out of your own head. Now look at just that
one thing of the lantern. When you come down to the cold facts, we
simply got to LET ON that a lantern's resky. Why, we could work with a
torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe. Now, whilst I think of
it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the first chance we
get."

"What do we want of a saw?"

"What do we WANT of a saw? Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed
off, so as to get the chain loose?"

"Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain
off."

"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You CAN get up the
infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever read
any books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny,
nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of getting a
prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; the way all the
best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just so,
and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put some dirt and
grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see no
sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound.
Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip
off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope
ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moat
--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know--and there's
your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you
across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or
wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat to this cabin.
If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one."

I says:

"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under
the cabin?"

But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had his
chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head;
then sighs again, and says:

"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it."

"For what?" I says.

"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.

"Good land!" I says; "why, there ain't NO necessity for it. And what
would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"

"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the
chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would
be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity
enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't
understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so
we'll let it go. But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we
can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we
can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way. And I've et
worse pies."

"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a rope
ladder."

"He HAS got use for it. How YOU talk, you better say; you don't know
nothing about it. He's GOT to have a rope ladder; they all do."

"What in the nation can he DO with it?"

"DO with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what they all
do; and HE'S got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do
anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the
time. S'pose he DON'T do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, for
a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews? Of
course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That would be a
PRETTY howdy-do, WOULDN'T it! I never heard of such a thing."

"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it, all
right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no
regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing up
our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble
with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at it,
a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing, and is
just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag
ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no experience, and so
he don't care what kind of a--"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep still
--that's what I'D do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a
hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."

"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my advice,
you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline."

He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:

"Borrow a shirt, too."

"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"

"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."

"Journal your granny--JIM can't write."

"S'pose he CAN'T write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if we
make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron
barrel-hoop?"

"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better
one; and quicker, too."

"PRISONERS don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens
out of, you muggins. They ALWAYS make their pens out of the hardest,
toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like
that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks and
months and months to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by
rubbing it on the wall. THEY wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had it.
It ain't regular."

"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?"

"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort and
women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; and
when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to
let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom
of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask
always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too."

"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."

"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."

"Can't nobody READ his plates."

"That ain't got anything to DO with it, Huck Finn. All HE'S got to do is
to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't HAVE to be able to
read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on
a tin plate, or anywhere else."

"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"

"Why, blame it all, it ain't the PRISONER'S plates."

"But it's SOMEBODY'S plates, ain't it?"

"Well, spos'n it is? What does the PRISONER care whose--"

He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we
cleared out for the house.

Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the
clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went
down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing,
because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn't
borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners; and
prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody
don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in a prisoner to
steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's his right; and
so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to
steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves
out of prison with. He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very
different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he
warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was
that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that,
when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made
me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for.
Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we NEEDED. Well,
I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn't need it to get out
of prison with; there's where the difference was. He said if I'd a
wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal
with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I
couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set
down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I
see a chance to hog a watermelon.

Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled
down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he
carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep
watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile
to talk. He says:

"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed."

"Tools?" I says.

"Yes."

"Tools for what?"

"Why, to dig with. We ain't a-going to GNAW him out, are we?"

"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a
nigger out with?" I says.

He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:

"Huck Finn, did you EVER hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and
all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now
I want to ask you--if you got any reasonableness in you at all--what kind
of a show would THAT give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend
him the key and done with it. Picks and shovels--why, they wouldn't
furnish 'em to a king."

"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do we
want?"

"A couple of case-knives."

"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?"

"Yes."

"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."

"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the RIGHT way--and
it's the regular way. And there ain't no OTHER way, that ever I heard
of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these
things. They always dig out with a case-knife--and not through dirt, mind
you; generly it's through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks
and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in
the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that
dug himself out that way; how long was HE at it, you reckon?"

"I don't know."

"Well, guess."

"I don't know. A month and a half."

"THIRTY-SEVEN YEAR--and he come out in China. THAT'S the kind. I wish
the bottom of THIS fortress was solid rock."

"JIM don't know nobody in China."

"What's THAT got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But
you're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to
the main point?"

"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he COMES out; and Jim
don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too old to
be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last."

"Yes he will LAST, too. You don't reckon it's going to take thirty-seven
years to dig out through a DIRT foundation, do you?"

"How long will it take, Tom?"

"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't take
very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. He'll
hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to advertise Jim,
or something like that. So we can't resk being as long digging him out
as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years; but
we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this: that we
really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can LET ON,
to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch
him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon
that 'll be the best way."

"Now, there's SENSE in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost nothing;
letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind letting
on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain me none,
after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of
case-knives."

"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."

"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says,
"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the
weather-boarding behind the smoke-house."

He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:

"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and smouch
the knives--three of them." So I done it.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the
lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile
of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the way,
about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom said we
was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and when we got
through there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole
there, because Jim's counter-pin hung down most to the ground, and you'd
have to raise it up and look under to see the hole. So we dug and dug
with the case-knives till most midnight; and then we was dog-tired, and
our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn't see we'd done anything
hardly. At last I says:

"This ain't no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year job,
Tom Sawyer."

He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped
digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking.
Then he says:

"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work. If we was prisoners it
would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry;
and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was
changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could
keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the
way it ought to be done. But WE can't fool along; we got to rush; we
ain't got no time to spare. If we was to put in another night this way
we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get well--couldn't
touch a case-knife with them sooner."

"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"

"I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like
it to get out; but there ain't only just the one way: we got to dig him
out with the picks, and LET ON it's case-knives."

"NOW you're TALKING!" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler all
the time, Tom Sawyer," I says. "Picks is the thing, moral or no moral;
and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I
start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school book, I
ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's done. What I want is my
nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my
Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing
I'm a-going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school
book out with; and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks
about it nuther."

"Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like
this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by
and see the rules broke--because right is right, and wrong is wrong, and
a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows
better. It might answer for YOU to dig Jim out with a pick, WITHOUT any
letting on, because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for me,
because I do know better. Gimme a case-knife."

He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and
says:

"Gimme a CASE-KNIFE."

I didn't know just what to do--but then I thought. I scratched around
amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took
it and went to work, and never said a word.

He was always just that particular. Full of principle.

So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about, and
made the fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as long
as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for it.
When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing his
level best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his hands was
so sore. At last he says:

"It ain't no use, it can't be done. What you reckon I better do? Can't
you think of no way?"

"Yes," I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs, and
let on it's a lightning-rod."

So he done it.

Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house,
for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I hung
around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin
plates. Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever see
the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel
and jimpson weeds under the window-hole--then we could tote them back and
he could use them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then he says:

"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."

"Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."

He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard
of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By and by he said
he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide
on any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first.

That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took
one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard
Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we
whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half
the job was done. We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and
pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile,
and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle
and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried; and called us
honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was for having us
hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with right away,
and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he showed him how
unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our plans, and
how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an alarm; and not
to be the least afraid, because we would see he got away, SURE. So Jim
he said it was all right, and we set there and talked over old times
awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim told him
Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally
come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of
them was kind as they could be, Tom says:

"NOW I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things by them."

I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass ideas
I ever struck;" but he never paid no attention to me; went right on. It
was his way when he'd got his plans set.

So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and other
large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the
lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and we
would put small things in uncle's coat-pockets and he must steal them
out; and we would tie things to aunt's apron-strings or put them in her
apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and told him what they would be and
what they was for. And told him how to keep a journal on the shirt with
his blood, and all that. He told him everything. Jim he couldn't see no
sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed
better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just as
Tom said.

Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good
sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to bed,
with hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high spirits.
He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most
intellectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we would keep
it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out;
for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the more he
got used to it. He said that in that way it could be strung out to as
much as eighty year, and would be the best time on record. And he said
it would make us all celebrated that had a hand in it.

In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass
candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in
his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's
notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a
corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how it
would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most mashed
all his teeth out; and there warn't ever anything could a worked better.
Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it was only just a
piece of rock or something like that that's always getting into bread,
you know; but after that he never bit into nothing but what he jabbed his
fork into it in three or four places first.

And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on
piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room in
there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to
door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches" once, and keeled
over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was
dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and
the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back
again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other door too.
Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and
asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again. He raised up,
and blinked his eyes around, and says: