Huckleberry Finn, Dave Mckay, Mark Twain [new books to read TXT] 📗

young one done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands and hit their feet on the floor like a perfect storm, while the king held up his head and smiled proud.

 

The doctor says: “All right; I wash my hands of this. But I warn you all that a time is coming when you’re going to feel sick whenever you think of this day.” And away he went.

 

“All right, doctor,” says the king, kind of making fun of him; “we’ll try and get ‘em to send for you when they do,” which made them all laugh, and they said it was a very good answer.

 

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Well, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off for sleeping rooms, and she said she had one extra room, which would do for Uncle William, and she’d give her own room to Uncle Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would go into the room with her sisters and sleep on a little fold-up bed; and up above the other rooms was a little room with a mattress of dried grass in it to lie on. The king said the little room would do for his servant -- meaning me.

 

 

So Mary Jane took us up, and showed them their rooms, which was simple but nice. She said she’d have her dresses and other things took out if they was in Uncle Harvey’s way, but he said they weren’t. The dresses was hanging along the wall, and before them was a curtain that went down to the floor.

 

There was a big old chest in one corner, and a guitar box in another, and a lot of other pretty little things, like girls use to make a room look nice. The king said it was all the better for having these things, and so don’t move them. The duke’s room was pretty small, but good enough, and so was mine.

 

That night they had a big meal, and all them men and women was there, and I stood behind the king and the duke’s chairs and served them, and the slaves served the others. Mary Jane she sat at the head of the table, with Susan beside her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how off the fruit was, and how hard the chickens was to chew -- and all that kind of foolishness, the way women always do for to force people to say good things about them; and the people all knowed everything was just right, and said so -- said “How do you get biscuits to brown so nice?” and “Where, for the good of the land, did you get these wonderful apples?” and all that kind of crazy talk, just the way people always does at a meal, you know.

 

And when it was all done me and the youngest -- Joanna -- had a meal in the kitchen off of the leavings, while the others was helping the slaves clean up the things. Joanna she got to questioning me about England, and I think the ice was getting mighty thin at times.

 

She says: “Did you ever see the king?”

 

“Who? William Fourth? Well, I’ll say I have -- he goes to our church.” I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on.

 

So when I says he goes to our church, she says: “What -- all the time?”

 

“Yes -- all the time. His bench is right over opposite ours -- on t’other side of where the preacher stands.”

 

“I thought he lived in London?”

 

“Well, he does. Where would he live?”

 

“But I thought you lived in Sheffield?” I see I was in a corner. I let on to have a chicken bone in my throat, so as to get time to think how to get out of it.

 

Then I says: “I mean he goes to our church all the time when he’s in Sheffield. That’s only in the summer.

 

Next, she says: “Do you go to church, too?”

 

“Yes -- all the time.”

 

“Where do you sit?”

 

“Why, on our bench.”

 

“Whose bench?”

 

“Why, ours -- your Uncle Harvey’s.”

 

“His? What does he want with a bench?”

 

“Wants it to sit in. What did you think he wanted with it?”

 

“Why, I thought he’d be up in the front preaching.”

 

Trapped again. I had forgotten he was a preacher. I see I was in a corner again, so I played another chicken bone and got another think.

 

Then I says: “Blame it, do you think there ain’t but one preacher to a church?”

 

“Why, what do they want with more?”

 

“What! -- to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you. They don’t have no less than seventeen.”

 

“Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn’t sit out such a string as that, not if I never got to heaven. It must take ‘em a week.”

 

“No, they don’t all preach the same day -- only one of ‘em.”

 

“Well, then, what does the others do?”

 

“Oh, nothing much. Lie around, pass the plate -- and one thing or another. But mostly they don’t do nothing.”

 

“Well, then, what are they for?”

 

“Why, they’re for looks. Don’t you know nothing?”

 

“I don’t want to know such foolishness as that. How is servants seen in England? Are they nicer to ‘em than we are to our slaves?”

 

“No! A servant ain’t nobody there. They look on ‘em worse than dogs.”

 

“Don’t they give ‘em holidays for special days?”

 

“Oh, just listen! A body could tell you ain’t never been to England by that. Why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year’s end to year’s end; never go to the circus, or the theatre, or servant shows, or nowhere.”

 

“Not to church?”

 

“Not to church.”

 

“But you always went to church.”

 

Well, I was gone again. I had forgotten I was the old man’s servant. But next minute I flew in saying a man’s servant was different from a family servant and had to go to church if he wanted to or not, and sit with his man, because of it being the law. But I didn’t do it well enough, because when I got done I seen she weren’t happy.

 

She says: “Honest Indian, now, ain’t you been telling me lies?”

 

“Honest Indian,” says I.

 

“None of it at all?”

 

“None of it at all. Not a lie in it,” says I. “Put your hand on this book and say it.”

 

 

I see it weren’t nothing but a dictionary, so I put my hand on it and said it. So then she looked a little happier, and says: “Well, then, I’ll believe some of it; but I hope I’m never stupid enough to believe it all.”

 

“What is it you won’t believe, Jo?” says Mary Jane, stepping in with Susan behind her. “It ain’t right and it ain't kind for you to talk so to him, and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be talked to like that?”

 

“That’s always your way, Jane -- always sailing in to help someone before they’re even hurt. I ain’t done nothing to him. He’s told some big ones, I think, and I said I wouldn’t believe it all; and that’s every last piece of what I did say. I think he can take a little thing like that, can’t he?”

 

“I don’t care if it was little or if it was big; he’s here in our house and a stranger, and it wasn’t good of you to say it. If you was in his place it would make you feel bad; and so you shouldn’t say a thing to another person that will make them feel bad.”

 

“Why, Jane, he said -- “

 

“It don’t make no difference what he said -- that ain’t the thing. The thing is for you to be kind to him, and not be saying things to make him remember he ain’t in his own country and with his own people.”

 

I says to myself, this is a girl that I’m letting that old snake rob of her money!

 

Then Susan she joined in; and if you’ll believe me, she did give Joanna word from the dead!

 

Says I to myself, and this is another one that I’m letting him rob of her money!

 

Then Mary Jane she had another go at it, and went in sweet and nice again -- which was her way; but when she got done there weren’t much of anything left of poor Joanna.

 

“All right, then,” says the two older girls; “you just ask him to forgive you.”

 

She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so she could do it again.

 

I says to myself, this is another one that I’m letting him rob of her money. And when she got through they all just put themselves out to make me feel at home and know I was with friends. I felt so bad and low down that I says to myself, I’m going to do it; I’ll get that money for them or die trying.

 

So then I left -- for bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself, shall I go to that doctor, secretly, and tell on these snakes? No -- that won’t do. He might tell who told him; then the king and the duke would make it warm for me. Shall I go, secretly, and tell Mary Jane? No -- I best not do that. Her face would tell them, sure. They’ve got the money, and they’d run off and get away with it. If she was to bring in help I’d get mixed up in the business before it was done with, I judged. No; there weren’t no good way but one. I got to rob that money, one way or another; and I got to rob it some way that they won’t think that I done it. They’ve got a good thing here, and they ain’t a-going to leave until they’ve played this family and this town for all they’re worth, so I’ve time to find a way. I’ll rob it and hide it; and by and by, when I’m away down the river, I’ll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it’s hiding. But I better do it tonight if I can, because the doctor maybe hasn’t let up as much as he lets on he has; he might scare them out of here yet.

 

So, thinks I, I’ll go and look through their rooms. They were up the steps, where it was dark. I found the duke’s room, and started to feel around it with my hands; but I remembered it wouldn’t be much like the king to let anyone else take care of that money but himself; so then I went to his room and started to feel around there. But I see I couldn’t do nothing without a candle, and it was too dangerous to light one. So I judged I’d need to do the other thing -- wait for them and listen in secretly. About that time I hears their steps coming, and was going to hide under the bed; I reached for it, but it weren’t where I thought it would be; but I touched the curtain that covered Mary Jane’s dresses, so I jumped in behind that and crowded in between the dresses, and stood there perfectly still.

 

They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done was to get down and look under the bed to see if anyone was there. I was glad I hadn’t found the bed when I wanted it. Yet, you know, it’s kind of where anyone goes when they want to hide.

 

 

They sat down then, and the king says: “Well, what is it? And cut it short, because it’s better for us to be down there a-crying than up here giving ‘em time to talk us over.”

 

“Well, this is it, King. I ain’t easy; I ain’t comfortable. That doctor worries me. I wanted to know your plans, because I’ve got one, and I think it’s a good one.”

 

“What is it, duke?”

 

“That we better get out of this before morning, and hurry down the river with what we’ve got. Seeing we got it so easy -- given back to us, thrown at our heads, as