Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (free children's ebooks pdf .txt) đ
- Author: Mark Twain
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âNo, Jim; you couldnât understand a word they saidânot a single word.â
âWell, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?â
âI donât know; but itâs so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. Sâpose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzyâwhat would you think?â
âI wouldnâ think nuffân; Iâd take en bust him over de headâdat is, if he warnât white. I wouldnât âlow no nigger to call me dat.â
âShucks, it ainât calling you anything. Itâs only saying, do you know how to talk French?â
âWell, den, why couldnât he say it?â
âWhy, he is a-saying it. Thatâs a Frenchmanâs way of saying it.â
âWell, itâs a blame ridicklous way, en I doanâ want to hear no moâ âbout it. Dey ainâ no sense in it.â
âLooky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?â
âNo, a cat donât.â
âWell, does a cow?â
âNo, a cow donât, nuther.â
âDoes a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?â
âNo, dey donât.â
âItâs natural and right for âem to talk different from each other, ainât it?â
âCourse.â
âAnd ainât it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?â
âWhy, mosâ sholy it is.â
âWell, then, why ainât it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that.â
âIs a cat a man, Huck?â
âNo.â
âWell, den, dey ainât no sense in a cat talkinâ like a man. Is a cow a man?âer is a cow a cat?â
âNo, she ainât either of them.â
âWell, den, she ainât got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of âem. Is a Frenchman a man?â
âYes.â
âWell, den! Dad blame it, why doanâ he talk like a man? You answer me dat!â
I see it warnât no use wasting wordsâyou canât learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.
CHAPTER XV.
WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead to tie to, for it wouldnât do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warnât anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I couldnât budge for most a half a minute it seemed to meâand then there warnât no raft in sight; you couldnât see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didnât come. I was in such a hurry I hadnât untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldnât hardly do anything with them.
As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead warnât sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadnât no more idea which way I was going than a dead man.
Thinks I, it wonât do to paddle; first I know Iâll run into the bank or a towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet itâs mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come I see I warnât heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away to the left of itâand not gaining on it much either, for I was flying around, this way and that and tâother, but it was going straight ahead all the time.
I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good now. That was somebody elseâs whoop, or else I was turned around.
I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again, and I knowed the current had swung the canoeâs head down-stream, and I was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. I couldnât tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing donât look natural nor sound natural in a fog.
The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared, the currrent was tearing by them so swift.
In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didnât draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.
I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an island, and Jim had gone down tâother side of it. It warnât no towhead that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half a mile wide.
I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you donât ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying dead still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you donât think to yourself how fast youâre going, but you catch your breath and think, my! how that snagâs tearing along. If you think it ainât dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it onceâyouâll see.
Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldnât do it, and directly I judged Iâd got into a nest of towheads, for I had little dim glimpses of them on both sides of meâsometimes just a narrow channel between, and some that I couldnât see I knowed was there because Iâd hear the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warnât long loosing the whoops down amongst the towheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack-oâ-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.
I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would get further ahead and clear out of hearingâit was floating a little faster than what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldnât hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldnât bother no more. I didnât want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldnât help it; so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.
But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big bend stern first. First I didnât know where I was; I thought I was dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come up dim out of last week.
It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warnât nothing but a couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.
When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and branches and dirt. So sheâd had a rough time.
I made fast and laid down under Jimâs nose on the raft, and began to gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:
âHello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didnât you stir me up?â
âGoodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ainâ deadâyou ainâ drowndedâyouâs back agin? Itâs too good for true, honey, itâs too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel oâ you. No, you ainâ dead! youâs back agin, âlive en sounâ, jis de same ole Huckâde same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!â
âWhatâs the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?â
âDrinkinâ? Has I ben a-drinkinâ? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkinâ?â
âWell, then, what makes you talk so wild?â
âHow does I talk wild?â
âHow? Why, hainât you been talking about my coming back, and all that stuff, as if Iâd been gone away?â
âHuckâHuck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. Hainât you ben gone away?â
âGone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hainât been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?â
âWell, looky here, boss, deyâs sumfân wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now datâs what I wants to know.â
âWell, I think youâre here, plain enough, but I think youâre a tangle-headed old fool, Jim.â
âI is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didnât you tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fasâ to de tow-head?â
âNo, I didnât. What tow-head? I hainât see no tow-head.â
âYou hainât seen no towhead? Looky here, didnât de line pull loose en de rafâ go a-humminâ down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in de fog?â
âWhat fog?â
âWhy, de fog!âde fog datâs been arounâ all night. En didnât you whoop, en didnât I whoop, tell we got mixâ up in de islands en one un us got losâ en tâother one was jisâ as good as losâ, âkase he didnâ know whah he wuz? En didnât I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible time en mosâ git drownded? Now ainâ dat so, bossâainât it so? You answer me dat.â
âWell, this is too many for
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