The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (the false prince .txt) 📗

both hands and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; and she couldn’t seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, “You don’t look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law sakes, I don’t care for that, I’m so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it’s your cousin Tom!⁠—tell him howdy.”

But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and hid behind her. So she run on:

“Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away⁠—or did you get your breakfast on the boat?”

I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says:

“Now I can have a good look at you; and, laws-a-me, I’ve been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it’s come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep’ you?⁠—boat get aground?”

“Yes’m⁠—she⁠—”

“Don’t say yes’m⁠—say Aunt Sally. Where’d she get aground?”

I didn’t rightly know what to say, because I didn’t know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up⁠—from down towards Orleans. That didn’t help me much, though; for I didn’t know the names of bars down that way. I see I’d got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on⁠—or⁠—Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:

“It warn’t the grounding⁠—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.”

“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”

“No’m. Killed a nigger.”

“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I remember now, he did die. Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But it didn’t save him. Yes, it was mortification⁠—that was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle’s been up to the town every day to fetch you. And he’s gone again, not more’n an hour ago; he’ll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, didn’t you?⁠—oldish man, with a⁠—”

“No, I didn’t see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too soon; and so I come down the back way.”

“Who’d you give the baggage to?”

“Nobody.”

“Why, child, it’ll be stole!”

“Not where I hid it I reckon it won’t,” I says.

“How’d you get your breakfast so early on the boat?”

It was kinder thin ice, but I says:

“The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the officers’ lunch, and give me all I wanted.”

I was getting so uneasy I couldn’t listen good. I had my mind on the children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn’t get no show, Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills streak all down my back, because she says:

“But here we’re a-running on this way, and you hain’t told me a word about Sis, nor any of them. Now I’ll rest my works a little, and you start up yourn; just tell me everything⁠—tell me all about ’m all every one of ’m; and how they are, and what they’re doing, and what they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of.”

Well, I see I was up a stump⁠—and up it good. Providence had stood by me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it warn’t a bit of use to try to go ahead⁠—I’d got to throw up my hand. So I says to myself, here’s another place where I got to resk the truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind the bed, and says:

“Here he comes! Stick your head down lower⁠—there, that’ll do; you can’t be seen now. Don’t you let on you’re here. I’ll play a joke on him. Children, don’t you say a word.”

I see I was in a fix now. But it warn’t no use to worry; there warn’t nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from under when the lightning struck.

I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in; then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says:

“Has he come?”

“No,” says her husband.

“Good-ness gracious!” she says, “what in the warld can have become of him?”

“I can’t imagine,” says the old gentleman; “and I must say it makes me dreadful uneasy.”

“Uneasy!” she says; “I’m ready to go distracted! He must a come; and you’ve missed him along the road. I know it’s so⁠—something tells me so.”

“Why, Sally, I couldn’t miss him along the road⁠—you know that.”

“But oh, dear, dear, what will Sis say! He must a come! You must a missed him. He⁠—”

“Oh, don’t distress me any more’n I’m already