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

and feathered, and thrown in the river!”

 

Says I: “Sure. But do you mean before you go to Mr. Lothrop’s, or -- “

 

“Oh,” she says, “What am I thinking about!” and sat down again. “Don’t listen to what I said -- please don’t -- you won’t now, will you?” putting her soft hand on mine in that kind of way that I said I would die first.

 

“I never thought, I was so worked up,” she says; “now go on, and I won’t do so any more. You tell me what to do, and what you say I’ll do it.”

 

“Well,” I says, “it’s a rough gang, them two snakes, and I’m fixed so I have to travel with them a while longer, if I want to or not -- Don’t ask me to tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would get me out of their claws, and I’d be all right; but there’d be another person that you don’t know about who’d be in big trouble. Well, we got to save him ain’t we? I see you agree. Well, then, we won’t blow on them.”

 

Saying them words put a plan in my head. I see how maybe I could get me and Jim away from the two of them and get them put in prison. But I didn’t want to run the raft in the light without anyone on it to answer questions but me; so I didn’t want the plan to start working until pretty late that night.

 

I says: “Miss Mary Jane, I’ll tell you what to do, and you won’t have to stay at Mr. Lothrop’s so long, either. How far is it?”

 

“A little short of four miles -- right out in the country.”

 

“Well, that’ll do. Now you go there, and keep low until nine or half-past tonight, and then get them to take you home again -- tell them you’ve thought of something. If you get here before eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don’t turn up until eleven, then it means I’m gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then you come out and pass the news around, and get these men locked up.”

 

“Good,” she says, “I’ll do it.”

 

“And if it just happens so that I don’t get away, but get took up along with them, you must say I told you the whole thing before it happened, and you must stand by me all you can.”

 

“Stand by you! Oh I will. They shall not touch a hair of your head!” she says, and I seen her nose go wide and her eyes light up when she said it, too.

 

“If I get away I shall not be here,” I says, “to prove these snakes ain’t your uncles, and I couldn’t do it if I was here. I could say they was counterfeits, that’s all, and that’s worth something. But there’s others can do that better than me, and they’re people that will be trusted more than I’d be. I’ll tell you how to find them. Give me a pencil and a piece of paper. There -- ‘The King’s Foolishness, Bricksville.’

 

 

“Put it away, and don’t lose it. When the court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say they’ve got the men that played The King’s Foolishness, and ask for some witnesses -- You’ll have that whole town down here before you can even wink, Miss Mary. And they’ll come red-hot, too.”

 

I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says: “Just let the sale go right along, and don’t worry. Nobody don’t have to pay for the things they buy until a whole day after the sale because it is happening so soon after the funeral, and they ain’t going to leave until they get that money; and the way we’ve fixed it the sale ain’t going to count, and they ain’t going to get no money. It’s just like the way it was with the slaves -- it weren’t no sale, and your servants will be back before long. Why, they can’t even get the money for the slaves yet -- they’re in the worst kind of a place, Miss Mary.”

 

“Well,” she says, “I’ll run down to breakfast now, and then I’ll start straight for Mr. Lothrop’s.”

 

“I’m afraid that ain’t the ticket, Miss Mary Jane,” I says, “not by a long ways; go before breakfast.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Why'd you think I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?”

 

“Well, I never thought -- and come to think, I don’t know. What was it?”

 

“Why, it’s because you ain’t one of these leather-face people. I don’t want no better book than what your face is. A body can sit down and read it off like big print. Do you think you can go and face your uncles when they come to kiss you good morning, and never -- “

 

“There, there, don’t! Yes, I’ll go before breakfast -- I’ll be glad to. And leave my sisters with them?”

 

“Yes; don’t worry about them. They’ve got to put up with it yet a while. They might think something was up if all of you was to go. I don’t want you to see them, or your sisters, or nobody in this town; if a neighbour was to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell it all. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I’ll fix it with all of them. I’ll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you’ve went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a friend, and you’ll be back tonight or early in the morning.”

 

“Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won’t have my love given to them.”

 

“Well, then, it shall not be.” It was well enough to tell her so -- that wouldn’t hurt no one. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it’s the little things that smooths people’s roads the most, down here below; it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn’t cost nothing. Then I says: “There’s one more thing -- that bag of money.”

 

“Well, they’ve got that,” says Mary Jane, “and it makes me feel pretty stupid to think how they got it.”

 

“No, you’re out, there. They ain’t got it.”

 

“Why, who’s got it?”

 

“I wish I knowed, but I don’t. I had it, because I robbed it from them; and I robbed it to give to you; and I know where it’s hiding, but I’m afraid it ain’t there no more. I’m awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I’m just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I come close to getting caught, and I had to put it into the first place I come to, and run -- and it weren’t a good place.”

 

“Oh, stop blaming yourself -- it’s too bad to do that, and I won’t let you -- you couldn’t help it; you’re not to blame. Where did you hide it?”

 

I didn’t want to start her thinking about her troubles again; and I couldn’t seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that dead body lying in the box with that bag of money on its stomach. So for a minute I didn’t say nothing; then I says: “I don’t want to tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you can let me off on that one; but I’ll write it for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop’s, if you want to. Do you think that’ll do?”

 

“Oh, yes.”

So I wrote: “I put it in the box with your uncle’s body. It was in there when you was crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was very sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane.”

 

 

It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by herself in the night, and them devils sleeping there right under her own roof, tricking her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her I seen the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says: “Goodbye. I’m going to do everything just as you’ve told me; and if I don’t ever see you again, I shall not ever forget you. and I’ll think of you many a time, and I’ll pray for you, too!” -- and she was gone.

 

Pray for me! I thought if she knowed me she’d a taken a job that was more nearer her size. But I believe she done it, just the same -- she was just that kind. She had the ability to pray for Judas if she believed it was the right thing -- there weren’t no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but to my way of thinking she had more spiritual strength in her than any girl I ever seen; as I see it, she was just full of it. It sounds like I’m just flattering her, but I ain't. And when it comes to good looks -- and a good spirit, too -- she has ‘em over them all. I ain’t ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I ain’t ever seen her since, but I think I’ve thought of her a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I’d a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or died trying.

 

Well, Mary Jane she ran out the back way, I think; because nobody seen her go. When I met Susan and Joanna, I says: “What’s the name of them people over on t’other side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?”

 

They says: “There’s a few; but it’s the Proctors, mostly.”

 

“That’s the name,” I says; “I couldn’t remember it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she’s gone over there in a big hurry -- one of them’s sick.”

 

“Which one?”

 

“I don’t know; at least I can’t remember; but I thinks it’s -- “

 

“Lord help us, I hope it ain’t Hanner?”

 

“I’m sorry to say it,” I says, “but Hanner’s the very one.”

 

“Oh my, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?”

 

“Bad is only the start of it. They sat up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane said, and they don’t think she’ll last many hours.”

 

“Only think of that, now! What’s wrong with her?”

 

I couldn’t think of anything good, right off that way, so I says: “Mumps.”

 

“Mumps your grandmother! They don’t sit up with people that’s got the mumps.”

 

“They don’t, don’t they? You better know they do with these mumps. These mumps is different. It’s a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said.”

 

“How’s it a new kind?”

 

“Because it’s mixed up with other things.”

 

“What other things?”

 

“Well, skin spots, and water in the lungs, and vomiting, and yellow eyes, and brain-heat, and I don’t know what all.”

 

“My land! And they call it the mumps? “

 

“That’s what Miss Mary Jane said.”

 

“Well, what in the world do they call it the mumps for?”

 

“Why, because it is the mumps. That’s what it starts with.”

 

“Well, there ain’t no good reason for it. A body might hit his toe, and take poison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and knock his brains out, and someone come along and ask what killed him, and some stupid person would up and say, ‘Well, he hit his toe.’ Would there be any good reason for saying that? No. And there ain’t no good reason in this, either. Is it catching?”

 

“Is it catching? Why, how you talk. Is a rake catching -- in the dark? If you don’t catch on one tooth, you will on another, won’t you? And you can’t get away with that tooth without bringing the whole rake along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a rake, as you may say -- and it ain’t no little rake either.”

 

“Well, it’s awful, I think,” says the young one. “I’ll go to Uncle Harvey and -- “

 

“Oh, yes,” I says like she was stupid, “I would. For sure I would. I wouldn’t lose no time.”

 

“Well, why wouldn’t you?”

 

“Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Ain’t your uncles needed in England as fast as they can? And do you think they’d be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that way by yourselves? You know they’ll wait for you. So far, so good. Your uncle Harvey’s a preacher, ain’t he? Very well, then; is a preacher going to lie to a river boat ticket seller? -- so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go on the boat? Now you know he ain’t. What will he do, then? Why,