Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (free children's ebooks pdf .txt) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
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âStrawberries and such truck,â I says. "Is that what you live on?â
âI couldnâ git nuffn else,â he says.
âWhy, how long you been on the island, Jim?â
âI come heah de night arter youâs killed.â
âWhat, all that time?â
âYesâindeedy.â
âAnd ainât you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?â
âNo, sahânuffn else.â
âWell, you must be most starved, ainât you?â
âI reckân I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on de islanâ?â
âSince the night I got killed.â
âNo! Wây, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a gun. Datâs good. Now you kill sumfn en Iâll make up de fire.â
So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him with his knife, and fried him.
When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By and by Jim says:
âBut looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat âuz killed in dat shanty ef it warnât you?â
Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom Sawyer couldnât get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says:
âHow do you come to be here, Jim, and howâd you get here?â
He looked pretty uneasy, and didnât say nothing for a minute. Then he says:
âMaybe I better not tell.â
âWhy, Jim?â
âWell, deyâs reasons. But you wouldnâ tell on me ef I uz to tell you, would you, Huck?â
âBlamed if I would, Jim.â
âWell, I bâlieve you, Huck. IâI run off.â
âJim!â
âBut mind, you said you wouldnâ tellâyou know you said you wouldnâ tell, Huck.â
âWell, I did. I said I wouldnât, and Iâll stick to it. Honest injun, I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mumâbut that donât make no difference. I ainât a-going to tell, and I ainât a-going back there, anyways. So, now, leâs know all about it.â
âWell, you see, it âuz dis way. Ole missusâdatâs Miss Watsonâshe pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldnâ sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader rounâ de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de doâ pooty late, en de doâ warnât quite shet, en I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didnâ want to, but she could git eight hundâd dollars for me, en it âuz sich a big stack oâ money she couldnâ resisâ. De widder she try to git her to say she wouldnâ do it, but I never waited to hear de resâ. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.
âI tuck out en shin down de hill, en âspec to steal a skift âlong de shoâ somâers âbove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid in de ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go âway. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody rounâ all de time. 'Long âbout six in de mawninâ skifts begin to go by, en âbout eight er nine every skift dat went âlong wuz talkinâ âbout how yoâ pap come over to de town en say youâs killed. Dese lasâ skifts wuz full oâ ladies en genlmen a-goinâ over for to see de place. Sometimes deyâd pull up at de shoâ en take a resâ bâfoâ dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to know all âbout de killinâ. I âuz powerful sorry youâs killed, Huck, but I ainât no moâ now.
âI laid dah under de shavinâs all day. I âuz hungry, but I warnât afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goinâ to start to de camp-meetânâ right arter breakfasâ en be gone all day, en dey knows I goes off wid de cattle âbout daylight, so dey wouldnâ âspec to see me rounâ de place, en so dey wouldnâ miss me tell arter dark in de eveninâ. De yuther servants wouldnâ miss me, kase deyâd shin out en take holiday soon as de ole folks âuz outân de way.
âWell, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went âbout two mile er more to whah dey warnât no houses. Iâd made up my mine âbout what Iâs agwyne to do. You see, ef I kepâ on tryinâ to git away afoot, de dogs âud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, deyâd miss dat skift, you see, en deyâd know âbout whah Iâd lanâ on de yuther side, en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what Iâs arter; it doanâ make no track.
âI see a light a-cominâ rounâ de pâint bymeby, so I wadeâ in en shoveâ a log ahead oâ me en swum moreân half way acrost de river, en got in âmongst de drift-wood, en kepâ my head down low, en kinder swum agin de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck a-holt. It clouded up en âuz pooty dark for a little while. So I clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men âuz all âway yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz a-risinâ, en dey wuz a good current; so I reckânâd âat by foâ in de mawninâ Iâd be twenty-five mile down de river, en den Iâd slip in jis bâfoâ daylight en swim ashoâ, en take to de woods on de Illinois side.
âBut I didnâ have no luck. When we âuz mosâ down to de head er de islanâ a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warnât no use fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islanâ. Well, I had a notion I could lanâ mosâ anywhers, but I couldnâtâbank too bluff. I âuz mosâ to de foot er de islanâ bâfoâ I foundâ a good place. I went into de woods en jedged I wouldnâ fool wid raffs no moâ, long as dey move de lantern rounâ so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some matches in my cap, en dey warnât wet, so I âuz all right.â
âAnd so you ainât had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why didnât you get mud-turkles?â
âHow you gwyne to git âm? You canât slip up on um en grab um; en howâs a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in de night? En I warnât gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime.â
âWell, thatâs so. Youâve had to keep in the woods all the time, of course. Did you hear âem shooting the cannon?â
âOh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heahâwatched um thoo de bushes.â
Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldnât let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and he did.
And Jim said you mustnât count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. Jim said bees wouldnât sting idiots; but I didnât believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldnât sting me.
I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them. Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him if there warnât any good-luck signs. He says:
âMighty fewâanâ dey ainât no use to a body. What you want to know when good luckâs a-cominâ for? Want to keep it off?â And he said: "Ef youâs got hairy arms en a hairy breasâ, itâs a sign dat youâs agwyne to be rich. Well, deyâs some use in a sign like dat, âkase itâs so fur ahead. You see, maybe youâs got to be poâ a long time fust, en so you might git discourageâ en kill yoâsef âf you didnâ know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby.â
âHave you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?â
âWhatâs de use to ax dat question? Donât you see I has?â
âWell, are you rich?â
âNo, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin. Wunst I had foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalatânâ, en got busted out.â
âWhat did you speculate in, Jim?â
âWell, fust I tackled stock.â
âWhat kind of stock?â
âWhy, live stockâcattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I ainâ gwyne to resk no moâ money in stock. De cow up ânâ died on my hanâs.â
âSo you lost the ten dollars.â
âNo, I didnât lose it all. I onây losâ âbout nine of it. I sole de hide en taller for a dollar en ten cents.â
âYou had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more?â
âYes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat bâlongs to old Misto Bradish? Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar would git foâ dollars moâ at de enâ er de year. Well, all de niggers went in, but dey didnât have much. I wuz de onây one dat had much. So I stuck out for moâ dan foâ dollars, en I said âf I didnâ git it Iâd start a bank mysef. Well, oâ course dat nigger wantâ to keep me out er de business, bekase he says dey warnât business ânough for two banks, so he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de enâ er de year.
âSo I done it. Den I reckânâd Iâd invesâ de thirty-five dollars right off en keep things a-movinâ. Dey wuz a nigger nameâ Bob, dat had ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didnâ know it; en I bought it offân him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de enâ er de year come; but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex day de one-laigged nigger say de bankâs busted. So dey didnâ none uv us git no money.â
âWhat did you do with the ten cents, Jim?â
âWell, I âuz gwyne to spenâ it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me to give it to a nigger nameâ BalumâBalumâs Ass dey call him for short; heâs one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But heâs lucky, dey say, en I see I warnât lucky. De dream say let Balum invesâ de ten cents en heâd make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de poâ
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