Huckleberry Finn - Dave Mckay, Mark Twain (reading books for 7 year olds TXT) 📗

mud and walked the horse over it, and pretty soon away he went a-shouting down the street again, with his grey hair a-flying. Everyone that could get to him tried their best to get him to come off of his horse so they could lock him up away from the drink; but it weren’t no use -- up the street he would ride again, and give Sherburn another round. By and by someone says: “Go for his daughter! -- hurry, go for his daughter; sometimes he’ll listen to her. If anyone can stop him, she can.”

 

So someone started on a run. I walked down the street a ways and stopped. In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his horse. He was coming across the street toward me, no hat on, with a friend on both sides of him holding his arms and hurrying him along. He was quiet, and looked scared; and he weren’t hanging back any, but was doing some of the hurrying himself. Someone sings out: “Boggs!”

 

I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Sherburn. He was standing in one place in the street, and was holding a gun in his right hand -- not pointing it at Boggs, but holding it out with it pointing up toward the sky. The same second I see a young girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Boggs and the men turned around to see who called him, and when they see the gun the men jumped to one side, and the gun come down slowly, to where it was horizontal. Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, “Oh Lord, don’t shoot!” Bang! goes the gun and he falls back, reaching at the air -- bang! it goes again, and he falls backward onto the ground, heavy and solid, with his arms out.

 

 

That young girl shouts out and comes running, and down she throws herself on her father, crying, and saying, “Oh, he’s killed him, he’s killed him!”

 

The crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and pushed one another, with their necks sticking out, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to push them back and shouting, “Back, back! give him air, give him air!”

 

Sherburn he dropped his gun onto the ground, and turned around on his heels and walked off.

 

They took Boggs to a little medicine shop, the crowd pushing around just the same, and the whole town followed, and I hurried and got a good place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They put him on the floor and put one big Bible under his head, and opened another one and put it on his breast; but they pulled open his shirt first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He breathed a few time, his breast lifting the Bible up when he breathed in, and letting it down again when he breathed out -- and after that he didn’t move at all; he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from him, shouting and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, and very sweet and kind looking, but awful white and scared.

 

Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, pushing to get at the window and have a look, but people that had the places wouldn’t give them up, and people behind them was saying all the time, “Say, now, you’ve looked enough; it ain’t right for you to stay there all the time, and never give nobody a look; other people has their rights as well as you, you know.”

 

There was a lot of talking back, so I left, thinking maybe there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everyone was interested. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened, and there was a big crowd around each one of these people, sticking their necks out and listening. One long, thin man, with long hair and a big white animal skin hat on the back of his head, and a walking stick, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people followed him around from one place to t’other and watched everything he done, and moved their heads to show they understood, and leaned over a little, resting their hands on their legs to watch him mark the places on the ground with his walking stick; and then he stood up straight where Sherburn had stood, with the border of his hat down over his eyes, and shouted out, “Boggs!” and then brought his walking stick down slow to where it was pointing straight out, and says “Bang!” falls backward, says “Bang!” again, and falls down flat on his back. The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect; said it was just the way it all happened. Then about ten people got out their bottles and give him a drink.

 

Well, by and by someone said Sherburn should be hanged. In about a minute everyone was saying it; so away they went, angry and shouting, and pulling down every clothes line they come to do the hanging with.

 

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

They moved up toward Sherburn’s house, a-shouting and carrying on like Indians, and everything had to clear out or get run over and stepped into the mud, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the crowd, crying and trying to get out of the way; and every window along the road was full of women’s heads, and there was black boys in every tree, and young men and women looking over every fence; and as soon as the crowd would get nearly to them they would break and run back out of reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to death.

 

They crowded up in front of Sherburn’s house as thick as they could squeeze together, and you couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise. It was a little twenty-foot yard. Some shouted out “Break down the fence! destroy it!” Then there was the sound of breaking, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd starts to push in like a wave.

 

Just then Sherburn steps out onto the roof of his little front porch, with a rifle in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly relaxed and confident, not saying a word. The noise stopped, and the wave moved back.

 

 

Sherburn never said a word -- just stood there, looking down. The quiet was awful strange. Sherburn run his eye along the crowd; and wherever it landed the people tried to look back, but they couldn’t; they dropped their eyes and looked guilty. Then pretty soon Sherburn kind of laughed; not the nice kind, but the kind that makes you feel like you're eating bread that’s got sand in it.

 

Then he says, slow and proud: “The thought of you hanging anyone is a laugh. You think you're strong enough to hang a man! Because you’re brave enough to tar and feather poor women without anyone to help them, did that make you think you were brave enough to put your hands on a man? Why, a man’s safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind -- as long as he can see you and you’re not behind him.

 

“Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and grew up in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know most people all around. Most people are too afraid to do anything. In the North they let anyone walk over them that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a coach full of men in the light of day, and robbed them all. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people. Truth is, you’re just as brave, but no braver. Why don’t your courts hang killers? Because they’re afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark -- and it’s just what they would do too.

 

“So they always let a killer off; and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred people who are so scared that they wear masks, and hangs the awful man. Your problem is you didn’t bring a man with you; that’s one thing you did wrong, and the other is you didn’t come in the dark and bring masks. You brought part of a man -- Buck Harkness, there -- and if you hadn’t had him to start you, you would a just talked.

 

“You didn’t want to come. Most don’t like trouble and danger. But if only half a man -- like Buck Harkness, there -- shouts ‘Hang him! hang him!’ you’re afraid to back down -- afraid you’ll be found out to be what you are -- too scared to act -- and so you start shouting, and hang yourselves onto that half-a-man’s coat-tail, and come racing up here, saying what big things you’re going to do. The saddest thing out is a crowd come for a hanging; that’s what an army is -- a crowd coming for a hanging; they don’t fight because they’re brave, no, they borrow their strength from those around them, and from their leaders. But a crowd without any man at the head of it is worse than sad. Now the thing for you to do is to let your tails hang down and go home and climb into a hole. If any real hanging’s going to be done it will be done in the dark, the way they do it down here; and when they come they’ll bring their masks, and bring a man along. Now leave -- and take your half-a-man with you!” He threw his rifle up across his left arm when he said this.

 

The crowd moved back quickly, and then broke all apart, and went running off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking pretty cheap. I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to.

 

*****

 

I went to the circus instead and was hanging around the back until the watchman went by, and then climbed in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I thought it was better to save it, because there ain’t no telling how soon you're going to need it, away from home like that. I ain’t against spending money on circuses when there ain’t no other way, but there ain’t no use in wasting it on them.

 

 

It was a real good circus. It was the best thing in the world to see them all come riding in, two by two, a man and a woman, side by side, the men just in their underpants and undershirts, and no shoes, and resting their hands on the top of their legs easy and comfortable -- there must a been twenty of them - - and every woman with a nice skin, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of dollars, and just covered with diamonds. It was more than beautiful; I never seen anything so nice. And then one by one they got up and stood on the back of a horse, and went a-riding around the circle so soft and smooth, the men looking ever so tall and straight, with their heads moving along, away up there under the tent-roof, and every woman’s beautiful dress moving softly around her hips, and she looking like the most beautiful umbrella.

 

And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one foot in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and the man with the whip going round and round the centre, hitting his whip and shouting “Hi! -- hi!” and the clown making jokes behind him; and by and by all hands dropped the ropes controlling the horses, and every