Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (free children's ebooks pdf .txt) š
- Author: Mark Twain
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CHAPTER XIX.
TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down thereāsometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied upānearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheresāperfectly stillājust like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull lineāthat was the woods on tāother side; you couldnāt make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warnāt black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far awayātrading scows, and such things; and long black streaksārafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that thereās a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on tāother side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because theyāve left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next youāve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!
A little smoke couldnāt be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side you couldnāt tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldnāt be nothing to hear nor nothing to seeājust solid lonesomeness. Next youād see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because theyāre most always doing it on a raft; youād see the axe flash and come downāyou donāt hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time itās above the manās head then you hear the kāchunk!āit had took all that time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldnāt run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and laughingāheard them plain; but we couldnāt see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says:
āNo; spirits wouldnāt say, āDern the dern fog.āā
Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds of thingsāwe was always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let usāthe new clothes Buckās folks made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didnāt go much on clothes, nohow.
Sometimes weād have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a sparkāwhich was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or twoāon a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. Itās lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didnāt say nothing against it, because Iāve seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed theyād got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.
Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you wouldnāt hear nothing for you couldnāt tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.
After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or three hours the shores was blackāno more sparks in the cabin windows. These sparks was our clockāthe first one that showed again meant morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.
One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to the main shoreāit was only two hundred yardsāand paddled about a mile up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldnāt get some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was after anybody I judged it was meāor maybe Jim. I was about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung out and begged me to save their livesāsaid they hadnāt been doing nothing, and was being chased for itāsaid there was men and dogs a-coming. They wanted to jump right in, but I says:
āDonāt you do it. I donāt hear the dogs and horses yet; youāve got time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you take to the water and wade down to me and get ināthatāll throw the dogs off the scent.ā
They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldnāt see them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got further and further away all the time, we couldnāt hardly hear them at all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid in the cottonwoods and was safe.
One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit gallusesāno, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.
The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these chaps didnāt know one another.
āWhat got you into trouble?ā says the baldhead to tāother chap.
āWell, Iād been selling an article to take the tartar off the teethāand it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with itābut I stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out with you. Thatās the whole yarnāwhatās yourn?
āWell, Iād ben a-runningā a little temperance revival thar ābout a week, and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makinā it mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takinā as much as five or six dollars a nightāten cents a head, children and niggers freeāand business a-growinā all the time, when somehow or another a little report got around last night that I had a way of puttinā in my time with a private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this morninā, and told me the people was getherinā on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and theyād be along pretty soon and give me ābout half an hourās start, and then run me down if they could; and if they got me theyād tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didnāt wait for no breakfastāI warnāt hungry.ā
āOld man,ā said the young one, āI reckon we might double-team it together; what do you think?ā
āI aināt undisposed. Whatās your lineāmainly?ā
āJour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theater-actorātragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when thereās a chance; teach singing-geography school for a change; sling a lecture sometimesāoh, I do lots of thingsāmost anything that comes handy, so it aināt work. Whatās your lay?ā
āIāve done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layinā on oā hands is my best holtāfor cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I kān tell a fortune pretty good when Iāve got somebody along to find out the facts for me. Preachinās my line, too, and workinā camp-meetinās, and missionaryinā around.ā
Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh and says:
āAlas!ā
āWhat āre you alassinā about?ā says the bald-head.
āTo think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded down into such company.ā And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag.
āDern your skin, aināt the company good enough for you?ā says the baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.
āYes, it is good enough for me; itās as good as
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