The Portable Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  “What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?”

  “Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn’t stop there. When they’re deep they won’t stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat will, but this is a St. Louis one.”

  “Was Peter Wilks well off?”

  “Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it’s reckoned he left three or four thousand in cash hid up som’ers.”

  “When did you say he died?”

  “I didn’t say, but it was last night.”

  “Funeral to-morrow, likely?”

  “Yes, ’bout the middle of the day.”

  “Well, it’s all terrible sad; but we’ve all got to go, one time or another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we’re all right.”

  “Yes, sir, it’s the best way. Ma used to always say that.”

  When we struck the boat, she was about done loading, and pretty soon she got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my ride after all. When the boat was gone, the king made me paddle up another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore, and says:

  “Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new carpet-bags. And if he’s gone over to t’other side, go over there and git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now.”

  I see what he was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I got back with the duke, we hid the canoe and then they set down on a log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had said it—every last word of it. And all the time he was a doing it, he tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well too, for a slouch. I can’t imitate him, and so I ain’t agoing to try to; but he really done it pretty good. Then he says:

  “How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?”

  The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and dumb person on the histrionic boards. So then they waited for a steamboat.

  About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along, but they didn’t come from high enough up the river; but at last there was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile, they was booming mad, and give us a cussing, and said they wouldn’t land us. But the king was ca’m. He says:

  “If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece, to be took on and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry ’em, can’t it?”

  So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the village, they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down, when they see the yawl a coming; and when the king says—

  “Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, “What d’ I tell you?” Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle:

  “I’m sorry, sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he did live yesterday evening.”

  Sudden as winking, the ornery old cretur went all to smash, and fell up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and says:

  “Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see him; oh, it’s too, too hard!”

  Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn’t drop a carpet-bag and bust out a-crying. If they warn’t the beatenest lot, them two frauds, that ever I struck.

  Well, the men gathered around, and sympathized with them, and said all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about his brother’s last moments, and the king he told it all over again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead tanner like they’d lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I struck anything like it, I’m a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.

  CHAPTER XXV

  The news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people tearing down on the run, from every which way, some of them putting on their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier-march. The windows and dooryards was full; and every minute somebody would say, over a fence:

  “Is it them?”

  And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say,

  “You bet it is.”

  When we got to the house, the street in front of it was packed, and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane was red-headed, but that don’t make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke and there they had it! Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have such good times.

  Then the king he hunched the duke, private—I see him do it—and then he looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so then, him and the duke, with a hand across each other’s shoulder, and t’other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise stopping, people saying “Sh!” and all the men taking their hats off and drooping their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall. And when they got there, they bent over and looked in the coffin, and took one sight, and then they bust out a crying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most; and then they put their arms around each other’s necks, and hung their chins over each other’s shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I never see two men leak the way they done. And mind you, everybody was doing the same; and the place was that damp I never see anything like it. Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and t’other on t’other side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the coffin, and let on to pray all to theirselves. Well, when it come to that, it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and so everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud—the poor girls, too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so disgusting.

  Well, by-and-by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive, after the long journey of four thousand mile, but its a trial that’s sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother’s heart, because out of their mouths they can’t, words being too weak and cold, and all that kind of rot and slush, till it was just sickening; and then he blubbers out a pious goody-goody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes to crying fit to bust.

  And the minute the words was out of his mouth somebody over in the crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and hogwash, I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and bully.

  Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying yonder could speak, he knows who he would name, for they was names that was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and so he will name the same, to-wit, as follows, vizz:—Rev. Mr. Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and
the widow Bartley.

  Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town, a-hunting together; that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t’other world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell was away up to Louisville on some business. But the rest was on hand, and so they all come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him; and then they shook hands with the duke, and didn’t say nothing but just kept a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands and said “Goo-goo—goo-goo-goo,” all the time, like a baby that can’t talk.

  So the king he blatted along, and managed to inquire about pretty much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to George’s family, or to Peter; and he always let on that Peter wrote him the things, but that was a lie, he got every blessed one of them out of that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.

  Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-house and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard (which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid, down cellar. So these two frauds said they’d go and fetch it up, and have everything square and above-board; and told me to come with a candle. We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them yaller-boys. My, the way the king’s eyes did shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder, and says:

  “Oh, this ain’t bully, nor noth’n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Biljy, it beats the Nonesuch, don’t it!”

  The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the king says:

  “It ain’t no use talkin’; bein’ brothers to a rich dead man, and representatives of furrin heirs that’s got left, is the line for you and me, Bilge. Thish-yer comes of trust’n to Providence. It’s the best way, in the long run. I’ve tried ’em all, and ther’ ain’t no better way.”

  Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king:

  “Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen dollars?”

  They worried over that a while, and ransacked all around for it. Then the duke says:

  “Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake—I reckon that’s the way of it. The best way’s to let it go, and keep still about it. We can spare it.”

  “Oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it. I don’t k’yer noth’n ’bout that—it’s the count I’m thinkin’ about. We want to be awful square and open and aboveboard, here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer money up stairs and count it before everybody—then there’ ain’t noth’n suspicious. But when the dead man says ther’s six thous’n dollars, you know, we don’t want to—”

  “Hold on,” says the duke. “Less make up the deffisit”—and he begun to haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.

  “It’s a most amaz’n’ good idea, duke—you have got a rattlin’ clever head on you,” says the king. “Blest if the old None-such ain’t a heppin’ us out agin”—and he begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them up.

  It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear.

  “Say,” says the duke, “I got another idea. Le’s go up stairs and count this money, and then take and give it to the girls.”

  “Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It’s the most dazzling idea ’at ever a man struck. You have cert’nly got the most astonishin’ head I ever see. Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther’ ain’t no mistake ’bout it. Let ’em fetch along their suspicions now, if they want to—this’ll lay ’em out.”

  When we got up stairs, everybody gethered around the table, and the king he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pile—twenty elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech. He says:

  “Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder, has done generous by them that’s left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by these-yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that’s left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him, knows that he would a done more generous by ’em if he hadn’t ben afeard o’ woundin’ his dear William and me. Now, wouldn’t he? Ther’ ain’t no question ’bout it, in my mind. Well, then—what kind o’ brothers would it be, that’d stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o’ uncles would it be that’d rob—yes, rob—sech poor sweet lambs as these ’at he loved so, at sech a time? If I know William—and I think I do—he—well, I’ll jest ask him.” He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his hands; and the duke he looks at him stupid and leather-headed a while, then all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the king says, “I knowed it; I reckon that ’ll convince anybody the way he feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the money—take it all. It’s the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful.”

  Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the hands off of them frauds, saying all the time:

  “You dear good souls!—how lovely!—how could you!”

  Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside, and stood a listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they was all busy listening. The king was saying—in the middle of something he’d started in on—

  “—they bein’ partickler friends o’ the diseased. That’s why they’re invited here this evenin’; but to-morrow we want all to come—everybody; for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it’s fittin that his funeral orgies h’d be public.”

  And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke he couldn’t stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper, “obsequies, you old fool,” and folds it up and goes too goo-gooing and reaching it over people’s heads to him. The king he reads it, and puts it in his pocket, and says:

  “Poor William, afflicted as he is, his heart’s aluz right. Asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeral—wants me to make ’em all welcome. But he needn’t a worried—it was jest what I was at.”

  Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca’m, and goes to dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And when he done it the third time, he says:

  “I say orgies, not because it’s the common term, because it ain’t—obsequies bein’ the common term—but because orgies is the right term. Obsequies ain’t used in England no more, now—it’s gone out. We say orgies now, in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing you’re after, more exact. It’s a word that’s made up out’n the Greek orgo, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew jeesum, to plant, cover up; hence inter. So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public funeral.”

  He was the worst I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, “Why doctor!” and Abner Shackleford says:

  “Why, Robinson, hain’t you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks.”

  The king he smiled ea
ger, and shoved out his flapper, and says:

  “Is it my poor brother’s dear good friend and physician? I—”

  “Keep your hands off of me!” says the doctor. “You talk like an Englishman—don’t you? It’s the worse imitation I ever heard. You Peter Wilks’s brother. You’re a fraud, that’s what you are!”

  Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor, and tried to quiet him down, and tried to explain to him, and tell him how Harvey’d showed in forty ways that he was Harvey, and knowed everybody by name, and the names of the very dogs, and begged and begged him not to hurt Harvey’s feelings and the poor girls’ feelings, and all that; but it warn’t no use, he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn’t imitate the lingo no better than what he did, was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on them. He says:

  “I was your father’s friend, and I’m your friend; and I warn you as a friend, and an honest one, that wants to protect you and keep you out of harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel, and have nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an impostor—has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he has picked up somewheres, and you take them for proofs, and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here, who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me; turn this pitiful rascal out—I beg you to do it. Will you?”

  Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She says:

  “Here is my answer.” She hove up the bag of money and put it in the king’s hands, and says, “Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for me and my sisters any way you want to, and don’t give us no receipt for it.”