Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (free children's ebooks pdf .txt) š
- Author: Mark Twain
- Performer: 0142437174
Book online Ā«Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (free children's ebooks pdf .txt) šĀ». Author Mark Twain
āWhat do we want of a saw?ā
āWhat do we want of it? Haināt we got to saw the leg of Jimās bed off, so as to get the chain loose?ā
āWhy, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain off.ā
āWell, if that aināt just like you, Huck Finn. You can get up the infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, haināt you ever read any books at all?āBaron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of getting a prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; the way all the best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it canāt be found, and put some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal canāt see no sign of itās being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound. Then, the night youāre ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moatābecause a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you knowāand thereās your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. Itās gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, weāll dig one.ā
I says:
āWhat do we want of a moat when weāre going to snake him out from under the cabin?ā
But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head; then sighs again, and says:
āNo, it wouldnāt doāthere aināt necessity enough for it.ā
āFor what?ā I says.
āWhy, to saw Jimās leg off,ā he says.
āGood land!ā I says; āwhy, there aināt no necessity for it. And what would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?ā
āWell, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldnāt get the chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would be better still. But we got to let that go. There aināt necessity enough in this case; and, besides, Jimās a nigger, and wouldnāt understand the reasons for it, and how itās the custom in Europe; so weāll let it go. But thereās one thingāhe can have a rope ladder; we can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we can send it to him in a pie; itās mostly done that way. And Iāve et worse pies.ā
āWhy, Tom Sawyer, how you talk,ā I says; āJim aināt got no use for a rope ladder.ā
āHe has got use for it. How you talk, you better say; you donāt know nothing about it. Heās got to have a rope ladder; they all do.ā
āWhat in the nation can he do with it?ā
āDo with it? He can hide it in his bed, canāt he?ā Thatās what they all do; and heās got to, too. Huck, you donāt ever seem to want to do anything thatās regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the time. Sāpose he donāt do nothing with it? aināt it there in his bed, for a clew, after heās gone? and donāt you reckon theyāll want clews? Of course they will. And you wouldnāt leave them any? That would be a pretty howdy-do, wouldnāt it! I never heard of such a thing.ā
āWell,ā I says, āif itās in the regulations, and heās got to have it, all right, let him have it; because I donāt wish to go back on no regulations; but thereās one thing, Tom Sawyerāif we go to tearing up our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, weāre going to get into trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure as youāre born. Now, the way I look at it, a hickry-bark ladder donāt cost nothing, and donāt waste nothing, and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he aināt had no experience, and so he donāt care what kind of aāā
āOh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you Iād keep stillāthatās what IāD do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a hickry-bark ladder? Why, itās perfectly ridiculous.ā
āWell, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if youāll take my advice, youāll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline.ā
He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:
āBorrow a shirt, too.ā
āWhat do we want of a shirt, Tom?ā
āWant it for Jim to keep a journal on.ā
āJournal your grannyāJim canāt write.ā
āSāpose he canāt writeāhe can make marks on the shirt, canāt he, if we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron barrel-hoop?ā
āWhy, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better one; and quicker, too.ā
āPrisoners donāt have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens out of, you muggins. They always make their pens out of the hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because theyāve got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. They wouldnāt use a goose-quill if they had it. It aināt regular.ā
āWell, then, whatāll we make him the ink out of?ā
āMany makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but thatās the common sort and women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to let the world know where heās captivated, he can write it on the bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask always done that, and itās a blameā good way, too.ā
āJim aināt got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan.ā
āThat aināt nothing; we can get him some.ā
āCanāt nobody read his plates.ā
āThat aināt got anything to do with it, Huck Finn. All heās got to do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You donāt have to be able to read it. Why, half the time you canāt read anything a prisoner writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else.ā
āWell, then, whatās the sense in wasting the plates?ā
āWhy, blame it all, it aināt the prisonerās plates.ā
āBut itās somebodyās plates, aināt it?ā
āWell, sposān it is? What does the prisoner care whoseāā
He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we cleared out for the house.
Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing, because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warnāt borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners; and prisoners donāt care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody donāt blame them for it, either. It aināt no crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; itās his right; and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we warnāt prisoners it would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he warnāt a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we needed. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didnāt need it to get out of prison with; thereās where the difference was. He said if Iād a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldnāt see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon.
Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile to talk. He says:
āEverythingās all right now except tools; and thatās easy fixed.ā
āTools?ā I says.
āYes.ā
āTools for what?ā
āWhy, to dig with. We aināt a-going to gnaw him out, are we?ā
āAināt them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a nigger out with?ā I says.
He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:
āHuck Finn, did you ever hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now I want to ask youāif you got any reasonableness in you at allāwhat kind of a show would that give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and done with it. Picks and shovelsāwhy, they wouldnāt furnish āem to a king.ā
āWell, then,ā I says, āif we donāt want the picks and shovels, what do we want?ā
āA couple of case-knives.ā
āTo dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?ā
āYes.ā
āConfound it, itās foolish, Tom.ā
āIt donāt make no difference how foolish it is, itās the right wayāand itās the regular way. And there aināt no other way, that ever I heard of, and Iāve read all the books that gives any information about these things. They always dig out with a case-knifeāand not through dirt, mind you; generly itās through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug
Comments (0)