by Twain, Mark
“He’s here; I’m the one.”
Me and Jim laughed; but Tom said he had thought it all out, and it would work. So then he told us the plan, and it was a very good one, sure enough. He would black up for a runaway nigger and hide in the hanted house, and I would betray him and sell him to old Bradish, up in Catfish hollow, which was a nigger trader in a little small way, and the orneriest hound in town, and then we would run him off and the music would begin, Tom said. And I reckoned it would.
But of course, just as everything was fixed all ship-shape and satisfactry, Jim’s morals begun to work again. It was always happening to him. He said he belonged to the church, and couldn’t do things that warn’t according to religion. He reckoned the conspiracy was all right, he wasn’t worried about that, but oughtn’t we to take out a licence?
It was natural for him to think that, you know, becuz he knowed that if you wanted to start a saloon, or peddle things, or trade in niggers, or drive a dray, or give a show, or own a dog, or do most any blame thing you could think of, you had to take out a licence, and so he reckoned it would be the same with a conspiracy, and would be sinful to run it without one, becuz it would be cheating the gover’ment. He was troubled about it, and said he had been praying for light. And then he says, in that kind of pitiful way a nigger has that is feeling ignorant and distressed—
“De prar hain’t ben answered straight en squah, but as fur as I can make out fum de symptoms, hit’s agin de conspiracy onless we git de licence.”
Well, I could see Jim’s side, and knowed I oughtn’t to fret at a poor nigger that didn’t mean no harm, but was only going according to his lights the best he could, and yet I couldn’t help being aggeravated to see our new scheme going to pot like the civil war and the revolution and no way to stop it as far as I could see—for Jim was set; you could see it; and of course when he was set, that was the end; arguments couldn’t budge him. I warn’t going to try; breath ain’t given to us for to be wasted. I reckoned Tom would try, becuz the conspiracy was the last thing we had in stock and he would want to save it if he could; and I judged he would flare up and lose his temper right at the start, becuz it had had so much strain on it already—and then the fat would be in the fire of course, and the last chance of a conspiracy along with it.
But Tom never done anything of the kind. No, he come out of it beautiful. I hardly ever seen him rise to such grandure of wisdom as he done that time. I’ve seen him in delicate places often and often, when there warn’t no time to swap horses, and seen him pull through all right when anybody would a said he couldn’t, but I reckon they warn’t any delicater than this one. He was catched sudden—but no matter, he was all there. When I seen him open his mouth I says to myself wherever one of them words hits it’s agoing to raise a blister. But it warn’t so. He says, perfectly cam and gentle—
“Jim, I’ll never forget you for thinking of that, and reminding us. I clean forgot the licence, and if it hadn’t been for you we might never thought of it till it was too late and we’d gone into a conspiracy that warn’t rightly and lawfully sanctified.” Then he speaks out in his official voice, very imposing, and says, “Summons the Council of Three.” So then he mounted his throne in state, which was a nail-kag, and give orders to grant a licence to us to conspire in the State of Missouri and adjacent realms and apinages for a year, about anything we wanted to; and commanded the Grand Secretary to set it down in the minutes and put the great seal to it.
Jim was satisfied, then, and full of thankfulness, and couldn’t find words enough to say it; though I thought then and think yet that the licence warn’t worth a dern. But I didn’t say anything.
There was only one more worry on Jim’s mind, and it didn’t take long to fix that. He was afeared it wouldn’t be honest for me to sell Tom when Tom didn’t belong to me; he was afeared it looked like swindling. So Tom didn’t argue about it. He said wherever there was a doubt, even if it was ever so little a one, but yet had a look of being unmoral, he wanted it removed out of the plan, for he would not be connected with a conspiracy that was not pure. It looked to me like this conspiracy was a-degenerating into a Sunday school. But I never said anything.
So then Tom changed it and said he would get out handbills and offer a reward for himself, and I could find him, and not sell him but betray him over to Bat Bradish for part of the reward. Bat warn’t his name; people called him that becuz he couldn’t more than half see. Jim was satisfied with that, though I couldn’t see where was the difference between selling a boy that don’t belong to you and selling shares in a reward that was a fraud and warn’t ever going to be paid. I said so to Tom, private, but he said I didn’t know as much as a catfish; and said did I reckon we warn’t going to pay the money back to Bat Bradish? Of course we would, he said.
I never said anything; but I reckoned to myself that if I got the money and Tom forgot and didn’t interfere, me and Bat Bradish would settle that somehow amongst ourselves.
Chapter 3
WE PADDLED over to town, and Jim went home and me and Tom went to the carpenter shop and got a lot of smooth pine blocks that Tom wanted, and then to a shop and got an awl and a gouge and a little chisel, and took them to Tom’s aunt Polly’s and hid them up garret, and I stayed for supper and for all night; and in the middle of the night we slipped out and trapsed all over town to see the paterollers; and it was dim and quiet and still, except a dog or two and a cat that warn’t satisfied, and nobody going about, but everybody asleep and the lights out except where there was sickness, then there would be a pale glow on the blinds; and a pate-roller stood on every corner, and said “Who goes there?” and we said “Friends,” and they said “Halt, and give the countersign,” and we said we didn’t have any, and they come and looked, and said, “Oh, it’s you; well, you better get along home, no time for young trash like you to be out of bed.”
And then we watched for a chance and slipped up stairs into the printing office, and put down the blinds and lit a candle, and there was old Mr. Day, the traveling jour. printer, asleep on the floor under a stand, with his old gray head on his carpet-sack for a pillow; but he didn’t stir, and we shaded the light and tip-toed around and got some sheets of printing paper, blue and green and red and white, and some red printing ink and some black, and snipped off a little chunk from the end of a new roller to dab it with, and left a quarter on the table for pay, and was thirsty, and found a bottle of something and drunk it up for lemonade, but it turned out it was consumption medicine, becuz there was a label on it, but it was very good and answered. It was Mr. Day’s; and we left another quarter for it, and blowed out the light, and got the things home all right and was very well satisfied, and hooked a hairbrush from Tom’s aunt Polly to do the printing with and went to sleep.
Tom warn’t willing to do business on Sunday, but Monday morning we went up garret and got out all our old nigger-show things, and Tom tried on his wig and the tow-linen shirt and ragged britches and one suspender, and straw hat with the roof caved in and part of the brim gone, and they was better than ever, becuz the shirt hadn’t been washed since the cows come home and the rats had been sampling the other things.
Then Tom wrote out the handbill, “$100 Reward, Elegant Deef and Dumb Nigger Lad run away from the subscriber,” and so on, and described himself to a dot the way he would look when he was blacked and dressed up for business, and said the nigger could be returned to “Simon Harkness, Lone Pine, Arkansaw;” and there warn’t no such place, and Tom knowed it very well.
Then we hunted out the old chain and padlock and two keys that we used to play the Prisoner of the Basteel with, and some lampblack and some grease, and put them with the other things—“properties,” Tom called them, which was a large name for truck which was not rightly property at all, for you could buy the whole outfit for forty cents and get cheated.
We had to have a basket, and there wasn’t any that was big enough except aunt Polly’s willow one, which she was so proud of and particular about, an
d it wasn’t any use asking her to lend us that, becuz she wouldn’t; so we went down stairs and got it while she was pricing a catfish that a nigger had to sell, and fetched it up and put the outfit in it, and then had to wait nearly an hour before we could get away, becuz Sid and Mary was gone somewheres and there wasn’t anybody but us to help her hunt for the basket. But at last she had suspicions of the nigger that sold her the catfish, and went out to hunt for him, so then we got away. Tom allowed the hand of Providence was plain in it, and I reckoned it was, too, for it did look like it, as far as we was concerned, but I couldn’t see where the nigger’s share come in, but Tom said wait and I would see that the nigger would be took care of in some mysterious inscrutable way and not overlooked; and it turned out just so, for when aunt Polly give the nigger a raking over and then he proved he hadn’t took the basket she was sorry and asked him to forgive her, and bought another catfish. And we found it in the cubberd that night and traded it off for a box of sardines to take over to the island, and the cat got into trouble about it; and when I said, now then the nigger is rectified but the cat is overlooked, Tom said again wait and I would see that the cat would be took care of in some mysterious inscrutable way; and it was so, for while aunt Polly was gone to get her switch to whip her with she got the other fish and et it up. So Tom was right, all the way through, and it shows that every one is watched over, and all you have to do is to be trustful and everything will come out right, and everybody helped.
We hid the outfit up stairs in the hanted house that morning, and come back to town with the basket, and it was very useful to carry provisions to Jim’s big boat in, and cooking utensils. I stayed in the boat to take care of the things, and Tom done the shopping—not buying two basketfuls in one shop, but going to another shop every time, or people would have asked questions. Last of all, Tom fetched the pine blocks and printing ink and stuff from up garret, and then we pulled over to the island and stowed the whole boatload in the cave, and knowed we was well fixed for the conspiracy now.
We got back home before night and hid the basket in the woodshed, and got up in the night and hung it on the front door knob, and aunt Polly found it there in the morning and asked Tom how it come there, and he said he reckoned it was angels, and she said she reckoned so too, and suspicioned she knowed a couple of them and would settle with them after breakfast. She would a done it, too, if we had stayed.
But Tom was in a hurry about the handbills, and we took the first chance and got away and paddled down the river seven miles in the dugout to Hookerville, where there was a little printing office that had a job once in four years, and got a hundred and fifty Reward bills printed, and paddled back in the dead water under the banks, and got home before sundown and hid the bills up garret and had a licking, not much of a one, and then supper and family worship, and off to bed dog tired; but satisfied, becuz we had done every duty.
We went straight to sleep, for it ain’t any trouble to go to sleep when you are tired and have done everything there was time to do, and done it the best you could, and so nothing on your conscience and nothing to trouble about. And we didn’t take any pains about waking up, becuz the weather was good, and if it stayed so we couldn’t do anything more till there was a change; and if a change come it would wake us. And it did.
It come on to storm about one in the morning, and the thunder and lightning woke us up. The rain come down in floods and floods; and ripped and raced along the shingles enough to deefen you, and would come slashing and thrashing against the windows, and make you feel so snug and cosy in the bed, and the wind was a howling around the eaves in a hoarse voice, and then it would die down a little and pretty soon come in a booming gust, and sing, and then wheeze, and then scream, and then shriek, and rock the house and make it shiver, and you would hear the shutters slamming all down the street, and then there’d be a glare like the world afire, and the thunder would crash down, right at your head and seem to tear everything to rags, and it was just good to be alive and tucked up comfortable to enjoy it; but Tom shouts “Turn out, Huck, we can’t ever have it righter than this,” and although he shouted it I could hardly hear him through the rattle and bang and roar and racket.
I wished I could lay a little bit longer, but I knowed I couldn’t, for Tom wouldn’t let me; so I turned out and we put on our clothes by the lightning and took one of the handbills and some tacks and got out of the back window onto the L, and crope along the comb of the roof and down onto the shed, and then onto the high board fence, and then to the ground in the garden the usual way, then down the back lane and out into the street.
It was a-drenching away just the same, and blowing and storming and thundering, a wild night and just the weather for ockult business like ourn, Tom said. I said yes; and said we ought to brought all the bills, becuz we wouldn’t have another such a night soon. But he said—
“What do we want of any more? Where do they stick up bills, Huck?”
“Why, on the board that leans up against the postoffice door, where they stick up strayeds and stolens, and temperance meetings, and taxes, and niggers for sale, and stores to rent, and all them things, and a good place, too, and don’t cost nothing, but an advertisement does, and don’t anybody read it, either.”
“Of course. They don’t put up two bills, do they?”
“No. Only one. You can’t read two at a time, except people that is cross-eyed, and there ain’t enough of them for to make it worth the trouble.”
“Well, then, that’s why I fetched only one.”
“What did you get 150 for, then? Are we going to stick up a new one every night for six months?”
“No, we ain’t ever going to stick up any but the one. One’s a plenty.”
“Why, Tom, what did you spend all that money for, then? Why didn’t you get only one printed?”
“On account of its being the regular number. If I had got only one, the printer would a gone soliloquising around to himself, saying ‘This is curious; he could get 150 for the same money, and he takes only one; there’s something crooked about this, and I better get him arrested.’ ”
Well, that was Tom Sawyer all over; always thought of everything. A long head; the longest I ever see on a boy.
Then come a glare that didn’t leave a thimbleful of darkness betwixt us and heaven, and you could see everything, plumb to the river, the same as day. By gracious, not a pateroller anywheres; the streets was empty. And every gutter was a creek, and nearly washed us off of our feet the water run so deep and strong. We stuck up the bill, and then stood there under the awning a while listening to the storm and watching bunches of packing-straw and old orange boxes and things sailing down the gutter when it lightened, and wanted to stay and see it out, but dasent; becuz we was afraid of Sid. The thunder might wake him up; and he was scared of thunder and might go to the nearest room for comfort, which was ourn, and find out we was gone, and watch and see how long we was out, so he could tell on us in the morning, and give all the facts, and get us into trouble. He was one of them kind that don’t commit no sin themselves, but ain’t satisfied with that, but won’t let anybody else have a good time if they can help it. So we had to get along home. Tom said he was too good for this world, and ought to be translated. I never said anything, but let him enjoy his word, for I think it is mean to take the tuck out of a person just to show how much you know. But many does it, just the same. I knowed all about that word, becuz the Widow told me; I knowed you can translate a book, but you can’t translate a boy, becuz translating means turning a thing out of one language into another, and you can’t do that with a boy. And besides it has to be a foreign one, and Sid warn’t a foreign boy. I am not blaming Tom for using a word he didn’t know the meaning of; becuz he warn’t dishonest about it, he used a many a one that was over his size, but he didn’t do it to deceive, he only done it becuz it tasted good in his mouth.
So we got home hoping Sid hadn’t stirred; and kind of calculating on it, too, seeing how we was being looked out for
in inscrutable ways and how many signs there was that Providence was satisfied with the conspiracy as far as we had got. But there come a little hitch, now. We was on the roof of the L, and clawing along the comb in the dark, and I was in the lead and was half way to our window, and had set down frog-fashion, very gentle and soft, to feel for a nail that was along there, becuz I had set down on it hard, sometimes, when I warn’t wanting to, and it was that kind of a nail which the more you don’t set down on it at all the more comfortable you can set down somewheres else next day, when there come a sudden sharp glare of lightning that showed up everything keen and clear, and there was Sid at his window watching.
We clumb into our window and set down and whispered it over. We had to do something, and we didn’t know what. Tom said, as a general thing he wouldn’t care for this, but it wasn’t a good time, now, to be attracting attention. He said if Sid could have a holiday out on his uncle Fletcher’s farm, thirty miles in the country, for about four weeks, it would clear the decks and be the very thing, and the conspiracy would glide along and be in smooth water and safe, by that time. He didn’t reckon Sid was suspicioning anything yet, but would start in to watch us, and pretty soon he would. I says—
“When are you going to ask your aunt Polly to let him have the holiday, Tom—in the morning?”
“Why, I ain’t going to ask her at all. That’s not the way. She would ask me what was interesting me in Sid’s comfort all of a sudden, and she would suspicion something. No, we must cunjer up some way to make her invent the idea herself and send him away.”
“Well,” I says, “I’ll let you have the job—it ain’t in my line.”
“I’ll study it over,” he says, “I reckon it can be fixed.”
I was going to pull off my clothes, but he says, “Don’t do that, we’ll sleep with them on.”
“What for?”
“It’s nothing but shirt and nankeen pants, and they’ll dry in three hours.”