by Mark Twain
CHAPTER IV.
WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winternow. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read andwrite just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to sixtimes seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get anyfurther than that if I was to live forever. ?I don't take no stock inmathematics, anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got nextday done me good and cheered me up. ?So the longer I went to school theeasier it got to be. ?I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways,too, and they warn't so raspy on me. ?Living in a house and sleeping ina bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather Iused to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was arest to me. ?I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked thenew ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow butsure, and doing very satisfactory. ?She said she warn't ashamed of me.
One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast.?I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my leftshoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me,and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; whata mess you are always making!" ?The widow put in a good word for me, butthat warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.?I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, andwondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be.?There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't oneof them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked alonglow-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you gothrough the high board fence. ?There was an inch of new snow on theground, and I seen somebody's tracks. ?They had come up from the quarryand stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the gardenfence. ?It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. ?Icouldn't make it out. ?It was very curious, somehow. ?I was going tofollow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. ?I didn'tnotice anything at first, but next I did. ?There was a cross in the leftboot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. ?I looked over myshoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. ?I was at JudgeThatcher's as quick as I could get there. ?He said:
"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. ?Did you come for yourinterest?"
"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"
"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--over a hundred and fiftydollars. ?Quite a fortune for you. ?You had better let me invest italong with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."
"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. ?I don't want it atall--nor the six thousand, nuther. ?I want you to take it; I want to giveit to you--the six thousand and all."
He looked surprised. ?He couldn't seem to make it out. ?He says:
"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. ?You'll takeit--won't you?"
He says:
"Well, I'm puzzled. ?Is something the matter?"
"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing--then I won't have totell no lies."
He studied a while, and then he says:
"Oho-o! ?I think I see. ?You want to _sell_ all your property to me--notgive it. ?That's the correct idea."
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' ?That means I have boughtit of you and paid you for it. ?Here's a dollar for you. ?Now you signit."
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, whichhad been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to domagic with it. ?He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowedeverything. ?So I went to him that night and told him pap was hereagain, for I found his tracks in the snow. ?What I wanted to know was,what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? ?Jim got out hishair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and droppedit on the floor. ?It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch.?Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same.?Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened.?But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes itwouldn't talk without money. ?I told him I had an old slick counterfeitquarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silvera little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show,because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on itevery time. ?(I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I gotfrom the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ballwould take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. ?Jim smeltit and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ballwould think it was good. ?He said he would split open a raw Irish potatoand stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and nextmorning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more,and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball.?Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listenedagain. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. ?He said itwould tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. ?I says, go on. ?So thehair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. ?He says:
"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. ?Sometimes hespec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. ?De bes' way is tores' easy en let de ole man take his own way. ?Dey's two angels hoverin'roun' 'bout him. ?One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black.De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sailin en bust it all up. ?A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetchhim at de las'. ?But you is all right. ?You gwyne to have considabletrouble in yo' life, en considable joy. ?Sometimes you gwyne to githurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyneto git well agin. ?Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. ?Oneuv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'.?You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. ?Youwants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run noresk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."
When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap hisown self!