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

he’ll say, ‘It’s too bad, but my church business has got to get along the best way it can without me; for my brother’s daughter has been near to someone with the awful this-and-that mumps, and so it’s only right for me to sit down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she’s got it.’ But go ahead, if you think it’s best to tell your uncle Harvey -- “

 

“And stay wasting time around here waiting to find out if Mary Jane’s got it or not, when we could all be having good times in England instead? Why, don’t be so foolish.”

 

“Well, maybe you’d better tell some of the neighbours.”

 

“Listen at that, now. You do come in first for being stupid. Can’t you see that they’d go and tell? There ain’t no way but just to not tell anyone at all.”

 

“Well,” I says, “maybe you’re right -- yes, I judge you are.”

 

“But I think we should tell Uncle Harvey she’s gone out a while, anyway, so he won’t be worried about her?”

 

“Yes, Miss Mary Jane wanted you to do that. She says, ‘Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I’ve run over the river to see Mr.’ -- Mr. -- what is the name of that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much of? -- I mean the one that -- “

 

“Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain’t it?”

 

“That’s it; I hate them kind of names, a body can’t ever seem to remember them, half the time. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the sale and buy this house, because she believed her uncle Peter would want them to have it more than anyone else; and she’s going to stick to them until they say they’ll come, and then, if she ain’t too tired, she’s coming home; and if she is tired, she’ll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don’t say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps -- which’ll be perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know it, because she told me so herself.”

 

“All right,” they said, and left to look for their uncles, and give them love and kisses, and tell them what we had agreed on.

 

Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn’t say nothing because they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would be happier to know Mary Jane was off working for the sale than around in reach of Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat -- I think Tom Sawyer couldn’t a done it no neater himself. He would a throwed more quality into it, but I can’t do that very well, not being brought up to it.

 

 

Well, they held the sale in the centre of town, along toward the end of the afternoon, and it went on and on, and the old man he was on hand and looking as evil as I ever seen him, up there beside the man who was doing the selling, and putting in a Bible verse now and then, or a little goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing, for he knowed how to get people to feel sorry for him.

 

But by and by the thing finished, and everything was sold -- everything but a little old piece of land for burying a body. So they’d got to work that off too -- I never did see anyone as greedy as the king for wanting to take everything. Well, while they was at it a river boat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-shouting and laughing and carrying on, and singing out: “Here’s something to choose from! Here’s another two brothers to old Peter Wilks. Bring your money and take your choice over who you’ll give it to!”

 

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

They was bringing a very nice-looking old man along, and a nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my souls, how the people shouted and laughed, and kept it up.

 

 

But I didn’t see no joke about it, and I judged it would be difficult for the duke and the king to see any either. I believed they’d turn white with fear. But no, they didn’t. The duke he never let on that he knew what was up, but just went a goo-gooing around, sounding like a bottle that’s pouring out milk; and as for the king, he just looked down sadly on them new-comers like it give him a pain in his heart to think there could be such false men and robbers in the world. Oh, he done it well. Lots of the most important people crowded around the king, to let him see they was on his side. That old man that had just come looked all confused to death. Pretty soon he started to speak, and I see straight off he said his words like a real English man -- not the king’s way, even if the king’s was pretty good for a counterfeit.

 

I can’t use the new man’s words, and I can’t say it like him; but he turned around to the crowd, and says, about like this: “This is a surprise to me which I wasn’t looking for; and I’ll be honest with you, I ain’t well fixed to meet it; for my brother and me has had some troubles; he’s broke his arm, and our suitcases got put off at a town above here last night in the night by accident. I am Peter Wilks’ brother Harvey, and this is his brother William, which can’t hear or speak -- and can’t even make signs much, now that he’s only got one hand to work them with. We are who we say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the bags, I can prove it. But until then I won’t say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait.”

 

So him and the new deaf man started off; and the king he laughs, and shouts out: “Broke his arm -- very nice, ain’t it? -- and just what you needed, too, for someone who’s got to make signs, and ain’t learned how. Lost their bags! That’s mighty good! -- and mighty smart -- the way things are!

 

So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, apart from three or four, or maybe five or six. One of these was that doctor; another one was a sharp-looking man, with a bag of the old kind made out of real rug material, that had just come off of the river boat and was talking to him in a low voice, and looking toward the king now and then as they were moving their heads -- it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville; and another one was a big rough man that come along and listened to all the old man from England said, and was listening to the king now. And when the king got done this big man up and says: “Say, look here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when did you come to this town?”

 

“The day before the funeral, friend,” says the king.

 

“But what time of day?”

 

“In the evening -- about an hour or two before the sun went down.”

 

“How’d you come?”

 

“I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati.”

 

“Well, then, how did you come to be up at the point in the morning -- in a canoe?”

 

“I weren’t up at the point in the morning.”

 

“It’s a lie.”

 

A few of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an old man and a preacher at that.

 

“Preacher be hanged, he’s tricking you with lies. He was up at the point that morning. I live up there, don’t I? Well, I was up there, and he was up there. I seen him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and a boy.”

 

The doctor he up and says: “Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?”

 

“I think I would, but I don’t know. Why, there he is, now. I know him perfectly easy.”

 

It was me he pointed at.

 

The doctor says: “Neighbours, I don’t know if the new ones is counterfeits or not; but if these two ain’t counterfeits, I am crazy, that’s all. I think it’s our job to see that they don’t get away from here until we’ve looked into this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, others of you. We’ll take these men to the hotel and talk to them with t’other two, and I think we’ll find out something before we get through.”

 

 

The crowd was happy with that, but maybe not the king’s friends; so we all started. The sun was just going down. The doctor he led me along by the hand, and was kind enough, but he never let go my hand.

 

We all got in a big room in the hotel, and put up some candles, and brought in the other two men.

 

First, the doctor says: “I don’t wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they’re not what they say they are, and they may have others helping them that we don’t know about.

"If they have, won’t their helpers get away with that bag of gold Peter Wilks left? It’s not impossible. If these men ain’t tricking us, they won’t have a problem with sending for that money and letting us keep it until they prove they’re all right.”

 

Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a pretty tight place right from the start. But the king he only looked sad, and says: “Friends, I wish the money was there, for I ain’t got no interest in throwing anything in the way of a good, open, out-and-out study of this awful business; but, sadly, the money ain’t there; you can send and see, if you want to.”

 

“Where is it, then?”

 

“Well, when my brother’s daughter give it to me to keep for her I took and put it inside the grass mattress on my bed, not wishing to bank it for the few days we’d be here, and thinking the bed a safe place, we not being used to black people, and thinking they was honest, like servants in England. The slaves robbed it the next morning, after I had went down the steps; and when I sold ‘em I hadn’t missed the money yet, so they got clean away with it. My servant here can tell you about it, friends.”

 

The doctor and a few others said “Foolishness!” and I could see nobody didn’t fully believe him. One man asked if I seen the servants rob it. I said no, but I seen them secretly coming out of the room and running off, and I never thought nothing, as I thought they was afraid they had waked up my master and was trying to get away before he got angry with them. That was all they asked me. Then the doctor turns on me and says: “Are you English, too?”

 

I says yes. Him and some others laughed, and said, “No way!”

 

Well, then they sailed in on the general questioning, and there we had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about eating, or ever seemed to think about it -- and so they kept it up, and kept it up; and it was the worst mixed-up thing you ever seen. They made the king tell his story, and they made the other old man tell his; and anybody but a lot of confused empty heads would a seen that the old man from England was telling the truth and t’other one lies. And by and by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right side. I started to tell about Sheffield, and how we