by Mark Twain
CHAPTER XXXI
We dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right alongdown the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and amighty long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanishmoss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. Itwas the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemnand dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, andthey begun to work the villages again.
First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enoughfor them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started adancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than akangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumpedin and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go atyellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got upand give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. Theytackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and tellingfortunes, and a little of everything; but they couldn't seem to haveno luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid aroundthe raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never sayingnothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads togetherin the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at atime. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judgedthey was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turnedit over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going tobreak into somebody's house or store, or was going into thecounterfeit-money business, or something. So then we was prettyscared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in theworld to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show wewould give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind.Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good, safe place abouttwo mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville, andthe king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went upto town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the"Royal Nonesuch" there yet. ("House to rob, you _mean_," says I tomyself; "and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here andwonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft--and you'll have totake it out in wondering.") And he said if he warn't back by middaythe duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along.
So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, andwas in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and wecouldn't seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every littlething. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when middaycome and no king; we could have a change, anyway--and maybe a chancefor _the_ chance on top of it. So me and the duke went up to thevillage, and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we foundhim in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot ofloafers bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threateningwith all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't donothing to them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, andthe king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it Ilit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down theriver road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mindthat it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again. Igot down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:
"Set her loose, Jim; we're all right now!"
But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim wasgone! I set up a shout--and then another--and then another one; andrun this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but itwarn't no use--old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn'thelp it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on theroad, trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boywalking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so andso, and he says:
"Yes."
"Whereabouts?" says I.
"Down to Silas Phelps's place, two mile below here. He's a runawaynigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?"
"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or twoago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out--and told me tolay down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since;afeard to come out."
"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've gothim. He run off f'm down South som'ers."
"It's a good job they got him."
"Well, I _reckon!_ There's two hundred dollars dollars' reward on him.It's like picking up money out'n the road."
"Yes, it is--and I could 'a' had it if I'd been big enough; I see him_first_. Who nailed him?"
"It was an old fellow--a stranger--and he sold out his chance in himfor forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait.Think o' that, now! You bet _I'd_ wait, if it was seven year."
"That's me, every time," says I. "But maybe his chance ain't worth nomore than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's somethingain't straight about it."
"But it _is_, though--straight as a string. I see the handbill myself.It tells all about him, to a dot--paints him like a picture, and tellsthe plantation he's frum, below Newr_leans_. No-sirree-_bob_, theyain't no trouble 'bout _that_ speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme achaw tobacker, won't ye?"
I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down inthe wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till Iwore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. Afterall this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels,here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined,because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that,and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too,for forty dirty dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim tobe a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd _got_ to be aslave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him totell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for twothings: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulnessfor leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again;and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger,and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery anddisgraced. And then think of _me!_ It would get all around that HuckFinn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to seeanybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick hisboots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing,and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as longas he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. Themore I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me,and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And atlast, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand ofProvidence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickednesswas being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I wasstealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm,and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, andain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so furand no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, Itried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself bysaying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; butsomething inside of me kept saying, "There was the Sunday-school, youcould 'a' gone to it; and if you'd 'a' done it they'd 'a' learnt youthere that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goesto everlasting fire."
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if Icouldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So Ikneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? Itwarn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from _me_, neither. Iknowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heartwarn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I wasplaying double. I was letting _on_ to give up sin, but away inside ofme I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make mymouth _say_ I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go andwrite to tha
t nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down inme I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--Ifound that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what todo. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write theletter--and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way Ifelt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles allgone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited,and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile belowPikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for thereward if you send. HUCK FINN.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had everfelt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do itstraight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinkinghow good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to beinglost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking overour trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in theday and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, andwe a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow Icouldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but onlythe other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'steadof calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he waswhen I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in theswamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and wouldalways call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think offor me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time Isaved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was sograteful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in theworld, and the _only_ one he's got now; and then I happened to lookaround and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I wasa-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things,and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, andthen says to myself:
"All right, then, I'll _go_ to hell"--and tore it up. It was awfulthoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said;and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thingout of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which wasin my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for astarter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and ifI could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as longas I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over someconsiderable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan thatsuited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was downthe river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out withmy raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I sleptthe night through, and got up before it was light, and had mybreakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others andone thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared forshore. I landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid mybundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, andloaded rocks into her and sunk her where I could find her again when Iwanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a little steam-sawmillthat was on the bank.
Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign onit, "Phelps's Sawmill," and when I come to the farm-houses, two orthree hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn'tsee nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind,because I didn't want to see nobody just yet--I only wanted to get thelay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up therefrom the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shovedalong, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I gotthere was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the "RoyalNonesuch--three-night performance--like that other time. They had thecheek, them frauds! I was right on him before I could shirk. He lookedastonished, and says:
"Hel-_lo!_ Where'd _you_ come from?" Then he says, kind of glad andeager, "Where's the raft?--got her in a good place?"
I says:
"Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace."
Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:
"What was your idea for asking _me?_" he says.
"Well," I says, "when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I saysto myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so Iwent a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up andoffered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and backto fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him tothe boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind himto shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run,and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase himall over the country till we tired him out. We never got him tilldark; then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. WhenI got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got intotrouble and had to leave; and they've took my nigger, which is theonly nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange country,and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make myliving'; so I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. Butwhat _did_ become of the raft, then?--and Jim--poor Jim!"
"Blamed if I know--that is, what's become of the raft. That old foolhad made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in thedoggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got everycent but what he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late lastnight and found the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stoleour raft and shook us, and run off down the river.'"
"I wouldn't shake my _nigger_, would I?--the only nigger I had in theworld, and the only property."
"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him_our_ nigger; yes, we did consider him so--goodness knows we hadtrouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flatbroke, there warn't anything for it but to try the 'Royal Nonesuch'another shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn.Where's that ten cents? Give it here."
I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him tospend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was allthe money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. Henever said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:
"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he donethat!"
"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"
"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and themoney's gone."
"_Sold_ him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he was _my_ nigger, andthat was my money. Where is he?--I want my nigger."
"Well, you can't _get_ your nigger, that's all--so dry up yourblubbering. Looky here--do you think _you'd_ venture to blow on us?Blamed if I think I'd trust you. Why, if you _was_ to blow on us--"
He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyesbefore. I went on a-whimpering, and says:
"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow,nohow; I got to turn out and find my nigger."
He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills flutteringon his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:
"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'llpromise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell youwhere to find him."
So I promised, and he says:
"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph--" and then he stopped. You see, hestarted to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begunto study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And sohe was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me outof the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:
"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--andhe lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road toLafayette."
"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start thisvery afternoon."
"No you won't, you'll start _now_; and don't you los
e any time aboutit, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tonguein your head and move right along, and then you won't get into troublewith _us_, d'ye hear?"
That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. Iwanted to be left free to work my plans.
"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever youwant to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim _is_ yournigger--some idiots don't require documents--leastways I've heardthere's such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill andthe reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you when you explain to himwhat the idea was for getting 'em out. Go 'long now, and tell himanything you want to; but mind you don't work your jaw any _between_here and there."
So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, butI kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire himout at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a milebefore I stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towardsPhelps's. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off withoutfooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till thesefellows could get away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'dseen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.