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 a mightylong ways from home. ?We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss onthem, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. ?It was thefirst I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn anddismal. ?So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and theybegun 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 starteda dancing-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 up andgive them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. ?They tackledmissionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, anda little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck. ?So atlast they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as shefloated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by thehalf a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.
And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together inthe wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time.Jim and me got uneasy. ?We didn't like the look of it. ?We judged theywas studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. ?We turned itover and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to breakinto somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-moneybusiness, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up anagreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with suchactions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the coldshake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning wehid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit ofa shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and toldus all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to seeif anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ("House torob, you _mean_," says I to myself; "and when you get through robbing ityou'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and theraft--and you'll have to take it out in wondering.") And he said if hewarn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, andwe 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 we couldn'tseem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing.Something was a-brewing, sure. ?I was good and glad when midday comeand no king; we could have a change, anyway--and maybe a chance for _the_change on top of it. ?So me and the duke went up to the village, andhunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in theback room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafersbullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with allhis might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing tothem. ?The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the kingbegun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out andshook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road likea deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be along day before they ever see me and Jim again. ?I got down there allout 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; and runthis way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn'tno use--old Jim was gone. ?Then I set down and cried; I couldn't helpit. But I couldn't set still long. ?Pretty soon I went out on the road,trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, andasked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says:
"Yes."
"Whereabouts?" says I.
"Down to Silas Phelps' 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 to laydown and stay where I was; and I done it. ?Been there ever since; afeardto come out."
"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him.He run off f'm down South, som'ers."
"It's a good job they got him."
"Well, I _reckon_! ?There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. ?It'slike 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 him forforty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. ?Thinko' 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 worthno more 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 in thewigwam to think. ?But I couldn't come to nothing. ?I thought till I woremy head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. ?After allthis long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here itwas all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, becausethey could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and makehim a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for fortydirty 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 his bootsfor shame. ?That's just the way: ?a person does a low-down thing, andthen he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as hecan hide it, it ain't no disgrace. ?That was my fix exactly. The more Istudied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and themore wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, whenit hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providenceslapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was beingwatched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing apoor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now wasshowing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-goingto allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further,I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. ?Well, I tried the best Icould to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brungup wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of mekept saying, "There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; andif you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts asI'd been acting about that nigger goes to 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. ?SoI kneeled 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 heart warn'tright; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playingdouble. ?I was letting _on_ to give up sin, but away inside of me I washolding on to the biggest one of all. ?I was trying to make my mouth_say_ I would do the right thing an
d the clean thing, and go and writeto that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me Iknowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. ?You can't pray a lie--I foundthat 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 the letter--andthen see if I can pray. ?Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt aslight as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. ?So Igot a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set downand 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 being lostand going to hell. ?And went on thinking. ?And got to thinking over ourtrip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: ?in the dayand in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and wea-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. ?But somehow Icouldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only theother kind. ?I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead ofcalling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was whenI come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp,up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always callme honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and howgood he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by tellingthe men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I wasthe best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the _only_ one he'sgot now; and then I happened to look around 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, andI knowed it. ?I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and thensays to myself:
"All right, then, I'll _go_ to hell"--and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. ?And I letthem stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. ?I shoved thewhole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again,which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. ?Andfor a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again;and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because aslong as 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 with myraft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. ?I slept thenight through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast,and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing oranother in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. ?I landedbelow where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods,and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her andsunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarterof a mile below a little steam sawmill that 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 there fromthe village, not from below. ?So I just took a look, and shoved along,straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there wasthe duke. ?He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch--three-nightperformance--like that other time. ?They had the cheek, them frauds! ?Iwas right on him before I could shirk. ?He looked astonished, 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 I wenta-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. ?A man up and offeredme ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetcha sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat,and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove himalong, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we afterhim. ?We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over thecountry till we tired him out. ?We never got him till dark; then wefetched him over, and I started down for the raft. ?When I got there andsee it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had toleave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got inthe world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no propertyno more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down andcried. ?I slept in the woods all night. ?But what _did_ become of theraft, then?--and Jim--poor Jim!"
"Blamed if I know--that is, what's become of the raft. ?That old fool hadmade a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggerythe loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent butwhat he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night andfound the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft andshook 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 had troubleenough for him. ?So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke,there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch anothershake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. ?Where'sthat 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 all themoney I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. ?He neversaid 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 the money'sgone."
"_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 fluttering onhis 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 begun tostudy and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. ?And so hewas. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out ofthe way the whole three days. ?So pretty soon he says:
"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--and helives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette."
"All right," I says, "I
can walk it in three days. ?And I'll start thisvery afternoon."
"No you wont, you'll start _now_; and don't you lose any time about it,neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. ?Just keep a tight tongue inyour head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with_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 you wantto. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim _is_ your nigger--someidiots don't require documents--leastways I've heard there's such downSouth here. ?And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus,maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was forgetting 'em out. ?Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to; butmind 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, but Ikinder felt like he was watching me. ?But I knowed I could tire him outat that. ?I went straight out in the country as much as a mile beforeI stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. ?Ireckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without foolingaround, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows couldget away. ?I didn't want no trouble with their kind. ?I'd seen all Iwanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.