Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (free children's ebooks pdf .txt) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
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âWhat wreck?â
âWhy, there ainât but one.â
âWhat, you donât mean the Walter Scott?â
âYes.â
âGood land! what are they doinâ there, for gracious sakes?â
âWell, they didnât go there a-purpose.â
âI bet they didnât! Why, great goodness, there ainât no chance for âem if they donât git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever git into such a scrape?â
âEasy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the townââ
âYes, Boothâs Landingâgo on.â
âShe was a-visiting there at Boothâs 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 friendâs house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disremember her nameâand 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 didnât notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so we saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill Whippleâand oh, he was the best cretur!âI most wish ât it had been me, I do.â
âMy George! Itâs the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what did you all do?â
âWell, we hollered and took on, but itâs so wide there we couldnât make 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 didnât strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and heâd 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, âWhat, in such a night and such a current? There ainât no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.â Now if youâll go andââ
âBy Jackson, Iâd like to, and, blame it, I donât know but I will; but who in the dingnationâs a-goingâ to pay for it? Do you reckon your papââ
âWhy thatâs all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, particular, that her uncle Hornbackââ
âGreat guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of a mile out youâll come to the tavern; tell âem to dart you out to Jim Hornbackâs, and heâll foot the bill. And donât you fool around any, because heâll want to know the news. Tell him Iâll have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; Iâm a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer.â
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 couldnât 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 warnât much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a little, but there wasnât 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 Hookerâs 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 Jimâs 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 hadnât 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 didnât 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 didnât 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, âstead of mister; and Jimâs eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says:
âI didnâ know dey was so many un um. I hainât hearn âbout none un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings datâs in a pack er kâyards. How much do a king git?â
âGet?â I says; âwhy, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them.â
âAinââ dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?â
âThey donât do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around.â
âNo; is dat so?â
âOf course it is. They just set aroundâexcept, maybe, when thereâs a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or go hawkingâjust hawking and spâSh!âdâ you hear a noise?â
We skipped out and looked; but it warnât nothing but the flutter of a steamboatâs wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.
âYes,â says I, âand other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody donât go just so he whacks their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem.â
âRounâ de which?â
âHarem.â
âWhatâs de harem?â
âThe place where he keeps his wives. Donât you know about the harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives.â
âWhy, yes, datâs so; IâIâd done forgot it. A haremâs a boâdân-house, I reckân. Mosâ likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reckân de wives quarrels considable; en dat âcrease de racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wisesâ man dat ever liveâ. I doanâ take no stock in dat. Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de midsâ er sich a blim-blamminâ all de time? Noââdeed he wouldnât. A wise man âud take en builâ a biler-factry; en den he could shet down de biler-factry when he want to resâ.â
âWell, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me so, her own self.â
âI doan kâyer what de widder say, he warnât no wise man nuther. He had some er de dad-fetchedesâ ways I ever see. Does you know âbout dat chile dat he âuz gwyne to chop in two?â
âYes, the widow told me all about it.â
âWell, den! Warnâ dat de beatenesâ notion in de worlâ? You jesâ take en look at it a minute. Dahâs de stump, dahâdatâs one er de women; heahâs youâdatâs de yuther one; Iâs Sollermun; en dish yer dollar billâs de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin arounâ mongsâ de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill do bâlong to, en hanâ it over to de right one, all safe en sounâ, 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. Datâs de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: whatâs de use er dat half a bill?âcanât buy nothân wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I wouldnâ give a dern for a million un um.â
âBut hang it, Jim, youâve clean missed the pointâblame it, youâve missed it a thousand mile.â
âWho? Me? Go âlong. Doanâ talk to me âbout yoâ pints. I reckân I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ainâ no sense in sich doinâs as dat. De âspute warnât âbout a half a chile, de âspute was âbout a whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a âspute âbout a whole chile wid a half a chile doanâ know enough to come in outân de rain. Doanâ talk to me âbout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.â
âBut I tell you you donât get the point.â
âBlame de point! I reckân I knows what I knows. En mine you, de real pint is down furderâitâs down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man datâs got onây one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful oâ chillen? No, he ainât; he canât âford it. He know how to value âem. But you take a man datâs got âbout five million chillen runninâ rounâ de house, en itâs diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Deyâs plenty moâ. A chile er two, moâ er less, warnât no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!â
I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warnât no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there.
âPoâ little chap.â
âBut some says he got out and got away, and come to America.â
âDatâs good! But heâll be pooty lonesomeâdey ainâ no kings here, is dey, Huck?â
âNo.â
âDen he cainât git no situation. What he gwyne to do?â
âWell, I donât know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French.â
âWhy, Huck, doanâ de
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