Chapter I
YOU
don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was
made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was
things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is
nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without
it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly — Tom’s
Aunt Polly, she is — and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told
about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some
stretchers, as I said before.
Now
the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money
that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six
thousand dollars apiece — all gold. It was an awful sight of money
when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out
at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year
round — more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow
Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me;
but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how
dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when
I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and
my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer
he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and
I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I
went back.
The
widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by
it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing
but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old
thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had
to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to
eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and
grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really
anything the matter with them, — that is, nothing only everything
was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different;
things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the
things go better.
After
supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by
and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long
time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t
take no stock in dead people.
Pretty
soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I
must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some
people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about
it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her,
and no use to any- body, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of
fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she
took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it
herself.
Her
sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had
just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a
spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and
then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer.
Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson
would say, ‘Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;’ and
‘Don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry — set up straight;’
and pretty soon she would say, ‘Don’t gap and stretch like that,
Huckleberry — why don’t you try to be- have?’ Then she told me
all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad
then, but I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres;
all I wanted was a change, I warn’t particular. She said it was
wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn’t say it for the whole
world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I
couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made
up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it
would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.
Now
she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good
place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around
all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t
think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned
Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight.
I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
Miss
Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By
and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then
everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of
candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the
window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no
use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were
shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I
heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about some- body that was dead,
and a whippowill and a dog cry- ing about somebody that was going to
die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I
couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run
over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that
a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that’s on its
mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in
its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got
so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon
a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it
lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up.
I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign
and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the
clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three
times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little
lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn’t no
confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve
found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever
heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d
killed a spider.
I
set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke;
for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow
wouldn’t know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off
in the town go boom — boom — boom — twelve licks; and all still
again — stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in
the dark amongst the trees — something was a stirring. I set still
and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a ‘me-yow! me-
yow!’ down there. That was good! Says I, ‘me- yow! me-yow!’ as
soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out of
the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and
crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer
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