 17. In about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his head out and says, be done boys, who's there? I says, it's me, who's me? George Jackson sir, what do you want? I don't want nothing sir, I only want to go along by, but the dogs won't let me. What are you prowling around here this time of night for, eh? I weren't prowling around sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat. Oh, you did did you? Strike a light there somebody, what did you say your name was? George Jackson sir, I'm only a boy. Look here, if you're telling the truth you needn't be afraid, nobody'll hurt you. But don't try to budge, stand right where you are. Rouse out Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is there anybody with you? No sir, nobody. I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light. The men sung out, snatch that light away Betsy, you old fool, ain't you got any sense? Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and Tom are ready, take your places. Already. Now George Jackson, do you know the Shepardsons? No sir, I never heard of them. Well that may be so, and it mayn't. Now already, step forward George Jackson, and mind don't you hurry, come mighty slow. If there's anybody with you, let him keep back. If he shows himself he'll be shot. Come along now, come slow, push the door open yourself, just enough to squeeze in, do you hear? I didn't hurry, I couldn't, if I'd wanted to. I took one slow step at a time, and there weren't a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart. The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind me. When I got to the three log doorsteps, I heard them unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door, and pushed it a little, and a little more, till somebody said, there, that's enough, put your head in. I'd done it, but I judged they would take it off. The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute. Three big men with guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you. The oldest, gray, and about sixty, the other two thirty or more, all of them fine and handsome, and the sweetest, old, gray-headed lady, and back of her, two young women, which I couldn't see right well. The old gentleman says, there, I reckon it's all right, come in. As soon as I was in, the old gentleman, he locked the door, and barred it, and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and they all went in a big parlor, that had a new rag carpet on the floor, one got together in a corner, that was out of the range of the front windows. There weren't none on the side. They held the candle, and took a good look at me, and all said, why, he ain't a shepherd's son, no, there ain't any shepherd's son about him. Then the old man said, he hoped I wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by it, it was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to make myself easy, and at home, and tell all about myself, but the old lady says, why, bless you, Saul, the poor things as wet as he can be, and don't you reckon it may be he's hungry? True for you, Rachel, I forgot. So the old lady says, Betsy, this was a nigger woman, you fly around and get him something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing, and one of you girls, go and wake up Buck, and tell him, oh, here he is himself. Buck, take this little stranger, and get the wet clothes off from him, and dress him up in some of yours, that's dry. Buck looked about as old as me, thirteen or fourteen, or along there, though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but a shirt, and he was very frowsy-headed. He came in, gaping and digging one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one. He says, ain't they no shepherdsons around? They say, no, it was a false alarm. Well, he says, if they'd have been some, I reckon I'd have got one. They all laughed, and Bob says, why, Buck, they might have scalped us all. You've been so slow in coming. Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right, I'm always kept down. I don't get no show. Never mind, Buck, my boy, says the old man, you'll have show enough, all in good time. Don't you fret about that. Go along with you now, and do as your mother told you. When we got upstairs to his room, he got me a course shirt and a roundabout, and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it, he asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him, he started to tell me about a blue jay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods, day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle went out. I said, I didn't know. I hadn't heard about it before, no way. Well, guess, he says, how am I going to guess, says I, when I never heard tell of it before. But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy. Which candle, I says, why any candle, he says, I don't know where he was, says I, where was he? Why, he was in the dark. That's where he was. Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for? Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are you going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming times. They don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've got a dog, and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up Sundays? And all that kind of foolishness? You bet I don't. But ma, she makes me. Confound these old britches. I reckon I'd better put them on. But I'd rather not. It's so warm. Are you all ready? All right, come along, old Haas. Cold cornpone, cold corned beef, butter and buttermilk. That is what they had for me down there. And there ain't nothing better that ever I've come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They all smoked and talked, and I ate and talked. The young women had quilts around them and their hair down their backs. They all asked me questions. And I told them how Pap and me and all the family was living on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansas. And my sister Marianne ran off and got married and never was heard of no more. And Bill went to hunt them. And he weren't heard of no more. And Tom and Mort died. And then there weren't nobody but just me and Pap left. And he was just trimmed down to nothing on account of his troubles. So when he died, I took what there was left, because the farm didn't belong to us, and started up the river, deck passage, and fell overboard. And that was how I come to be here. So they said I could have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it was most daylight, and everybody went to bed. And I went to bed with Buck. And when I waked up in the morning, dread it all, I had forgot what my name was. So I laid there about an hour, trying to think. And when Buck waked up, I says, Can you spell Buck? Yes, he says, I bet you can't spell my name, says I. I bet you what you dare I can says he. All right, says I go ahead. G E O R G E J A X O N there now he says, Well, says I you done it. But I didn't think you could. It ain't no slouch of a name to spell right off without studying. I set it down private because somebody might want me to spell it next. And so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was used to it. It was a mighty nice family and a mighty nice house too. I hadn't seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much style. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn the same as houses in town. There weren't no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed, but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept clean and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another brick. Sometimes they washed them over with red water paint that they call Spanish Brown, same as they do in town. They had big brass dog irons that could hold up a saw log. There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece with a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front and a round place in the middle of it for the sun. And you could see the pendulum swinging behind it. It was beautiful to hear that clock tick. And sometimes when one of these peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her in good shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she got tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for her. Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock made out of something like chalk and painted up gaudy. By one of the parrots was a cat made of crockery and a crockery dog by the other. And when you pressed down on them they squeaked but didn't open their mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked through underneath. There was a couple of big wild turkey wing fans spread out behind those things on the table in the middle of the room was a kind of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is. But they weren't real because you could see where pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk or whatever it was underneath. This table had a cover made out of beautiful oil cloth with a red and blue spread eagle painted on it and a painted border all around. It come all the way from Philadelphia they said there was some books too piled up perfectly exact on each corner of the table. One was a big family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim's Progress about a man that left his family. It didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting but tough. Another was Friendship's Offering full of beautiful stuff and poetry. But I didn't read the poetry. Another was Henry Clay's speeches and another was Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine which told you all about what to do if a body was sick or dead. There was a hymn book and a lot of other books and there was nice split-bottom chairs and perfectly sound too not bagged down in the middle and busted like an old basket. They had pictures hung on the walls mainly Washington's and Lafayette's and Battles and Highland Mary's and one called Signing the Declaration. There was some that they called Crayons which one of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only 15 years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see before. Blacker mostly than is common. One was a woman in a slim black dress belted small under the armpits with bulges like a cabbage in the middle of the sleeves and a large black scoop shovel bonnet with a black veil and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape and very wee black slippers like a chisel and she was leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow under a weeping willow and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule and underneath the picture it said shall I never see thee more alas. Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight to the top of her head and knotted there in front of a comb like a chair back and she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up and underneath the picture it said I shall never hear thy sweet chirrup more alas. There was one where a young lady was at a window looking up at the moon and tears running down her cheeks and she had an open letter in one hand with black ceiling wax showing on one edge of it and she was mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth and underneath the picture it said and art thou gone yes thou art gone alas these was all nice pictures I reckon but I didn't somehow seem to take to them because if ever I was down a little they always give me the fantods everybody was sorry she died because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do and a body could see by what she had done what they had lost but I reckoned that with her disposition she was having a better time in the graveyard she was at work on what they said was her greatest picture when she took sick and every day and every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it done but she never got the chance it was a picture of a young woman in a long white gown standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off with her hair all down her back and looking up to the moon with the tears running down her face and she had two arms folded across her breast and two arms stretched out in front and two more reaching up towards the moon and the idea was to see which pair would look best and then scratch out all the other arms but as I was saying she died before she got her mind made up and now they kept this picture over the head of the bed in her room and every time her birthday come they hung flowers on it other times it was hid with a little curtain the young woman in the picture had a kind of a nice sweet face but there was so many arms it made her look too spidery seemed to me this young girl kept a scrapbook when she was alive and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the Presbyterian observer and write poetry after them out of her own head it was very good poetry this is what she wrote about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Botts that fell down a well and was grounded owed to Stephen Dowling Botts deceased and did young Stephen sicken and did young Stephen die and did the sad hearts thicken and did the mourners cry no such was not the fate of young Stephen Dowling Botts though sad hearts round him thickened was not from sicknesses shots no hooping cough did rack his frame nor measles drear with spots not these impaired the sacred name of Stephen Dowling Botts despised love struck not with woe that head of curly knots nor stomach troubles laid him low young Stephen Dowling Botts oh no then list with tearful eye whilst I his fate to tell his soul did from this cold world fly by falling down a well they got him out and emptied him alas it was too late his spirit was gone for to sport aloft in the realms of the good and great if Emma Lyne Granger Ford could make poetry like that before she was 14 there ain't no telling what she could have done by and by Botts said she could rattle off poetry like nothing she didn't ever have to stop to think he said she would slap down a line and if she couldn't find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down another one and go ahead she weren't particular she could write about anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sad full every time a man died or a woman died or a child died she would be on hand with her tribute before he was cold she called them tributes the neighbors said it was the doctor first then emeline then the undertaker the undertaker never got in ahead of emeline but once and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name which was whistler she weren't ever the same after that she never complained but she kinder pined away and did not live long poor thing many's the time i made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrapbook and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and i had soured on her a little i liked all that family dead ones and all and weren't going to let anything come between us poor emeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive and it didn't seem right that there weren't nobody to make some about her now she was gone so i tried to sweat out a verse or two myself but i couldn't seem to make it go somehow they kept emeline's room trim and nice and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was alive and nobody ever slept there the old lady took care of the room herself though there was plenty of niggers and she sewed there a good deal and read her bible there mostly well as i was saying about the parlor there was beautiful curtains on the windows white with pictures painted on them of castles with vines all down the walls and cattle coming down to drink there was a little old piano too that had tin pans in it i reckon and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies saying the last link is broken and play the battle of prog on it the walls of all the rooms was plastered and most had carpets on the floors and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside it was a double house and the big open place betwixt them was roofed and floored and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the day and it was a cool comfortable place nothing couldn't be better and weren't the cooking good and just bushels of it too end of chapter 17 chapter 18 of the adventures of huckleberry fin this is a libravox recording a libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by deon jine's celic city utah the adventures of huckleberry fin by mark twain chapter 18 colonel granger ferd was a gentleman you see he was a gentleman all over and so was his family he was well-born as the saying is and that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse so the widow douglas said and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our town and pap he always said it too though he weren't no more quality than a mudcat himself colonel granger ferd was very tall and very slim and had a darkish pale complexion not a sign of red in it anywhere he was clean shaved every morning all over his thin face and he had the thinnest kind of lips and the thinnest kind of nostrils and a high nose and heavy eyebrows and the blackest kind of eyes sunk so deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you as you may say his forehead was high and his hair was black and straight and hung to his shoulders his hands was long and thin and every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to toe made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it and on sundays he wore a blue tailcoat with brass buttons on it he carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it there weren't no frivolousness about him not a bit and he weren't ever loud he was as kind as he could be you could feel that you know and so you had confidence sometimes he smiled and it was good to see but when he straightened himself up like a liberty pole and the lightning began to flicker out from under his eyebrows you wanted to climb a tree first and find out what the matter was afterwards he didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners everybody was always good-mannered where he was everybody loved to have him around too he was sunshine most always I mean he made it seem like good weather when he turned into a cloud bank it was awful dark for half a minute and that was enough there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week when him and the old lady came down in the morning all the family got up out of their chairs and gave them good day and didn't sit down again till they had set down then tom and bob went to the sideboard where the decounter was and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him and he held it in his hand and waited till toms and bobs was mixed and then they bowed and said our duty to you sir and madame and they bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you and so they drank all three and bob and tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and the might of whiskey or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers and give it to me and buck and we drank to the old people too bob was the oldest and tom next tall beautiful men with very broad shoulders and brown faces and long black hair and black eyes they dressed in white linen from head to foot like the old gentleman and wore broad panama hats then there was miss charlotte she was 25 and tall and proud and grand but as good as she could be when she weren't stirred up but when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks like her father she was beautiful so was her sister miss sophia but it was a different kind she was gentle and sweet like a dove and she was only 20 each person had their own nigger to wait on them buck too my nigger had a monstrous easy time because i weren't used to having anybody do anything for me but bucks was on the jump most of the time this was all there was of the family now but there used to be more three sons they got killed and emeline that died the old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers sometimes a stack of people would come there horseback from 10 or 15 mile around and stay five or six days and have such junketings round about and on the river and dances and picnics in the woods day times and balls at the house nights these people was mostly kin folks of the family the men brought their guns with them it was a handsome lot of quality i tell you there was another clan of aristocracy around their five or six families mostly of the name of shepherdson they was as high toned and well-born and rich and grand as the tribe of granger ferds the shepherdsons and granger ferds used the same steamboat landing which was about two mile above our house so sometimes when i went up there with a lot of our folks i used to see a lot of the shepherdsons there on their fine horses one day buck and me was away out in the woods hunting and heard a horse coming we was crossing the road buck says quick jump for the woods we done it and then peeped down the woods through the leaves pretty soon a splendid young man come galloping down the road setting his horse easy and looking like a soldier he had his gun across his pommel i had seen him before it was young harney shepherdson i heard bucks gun go off at my ear and harney's hat tumbled off from his head he grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was hid but we didn't wait we started through the woods on a run the woods weren't thick so i looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet and twice i seen harney cover buck with his gun and then he rode away the way he come to get his hat i reckon but i couldn't see we never stopped running till we got home the old gentleman's eyes blazed a minute it was pleasure mainly i judged then his face sort of smoothed down and he says kind of gentle i don't like that shooting from behind a bush why didn't you step into the road my boy the shepherdsons don't father they always take advantage miss charlotte she held her head up like a queen while buck was telling his tail and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped the two young men looked dark but never said nothing miss sophia she turned pale but the color come back when she found the man weren't hurt soon as i could get buck down by the corn cribs under the trees by ourselves i says did you want to kill him buck well i bet i did what did he do to you him he never done nothing to me well then what did you want to kill him for why nothing only it's on account of the feud what's the feud why where was you raised don't you know what a feud is never heard of it before tell me about it well says buck a feud is this way a man has a quarrel with another man and kills him then that other man's brother kills him then the other brothers on both sides goes for one another then the cousins chip in and by and by everybody's killed off and there ain't no more feud but it's kind of slow and takes a long time has this one been going on long buck well i should reckon it started 30 years ago or summers along there there was trouble about something and then a lawsuit to settle it and the suit went again one of the men and so he up and shot the man that won the suit which he would naturally do of course anybody would what was the trouble about buck land i reckon maybe i don't know well who done the shooting was it a granger furt or a shepherd's son laws how do i know it was so long ago don't anybody know oh yes pa knows i reckon and some of the other old people but they don't know now what the row was about in the first place has there been many killed buck yes right smart chance of funerals but they don't always kill pa's got a few buck shot in him but he don't mind it because he don't weigh much anyway bob's been carved up some with a bowie and tom's been hurt once or twice has anybody been killed this year buck yes we got one and they got one about three months ago my cousin bud 14 year old was riding through the woods on the other side of the river and didn't have no weapon with him which was blame foolishness and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a comment behind him and sees old baldy shepherd's son a Lincoln after him with his gun in his hand and his white hair flying in the wind and instead of jumping off and taking to the brush bud loud he could outrun him so they had it nip and tuck for five mile or more the old man again and all the time so at last bud seen it weren't any use so he stopped and faced around so as to have the bullet holes in front you know and the old man he rode up and shot him down but he didn't get much chance to enjoy his luck for inside of a week our folks laid him out I reckon that old man was a coward buck I reckon he weren't a coward not by a blame sight there ain't a coward amongst them shepherdsons not a one and there ain't no cowards amongst the granger ferds either why that old man kept up his end in a fight one day for half an hour against three granger ferds and come out winner they was all a horseback he let off of his horse and got behind a little wood pile and kept his horse before him to stop the bullets but the granger ferds stayed on their horses and capered around the old man and peppered away at him and he peppered away at them him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled but the granger ferds had to be fetched home and one of them was dead and another died the next day no sir if a body's out hunting for cowards he don't want to fool away anytime amongst them shepherdsons because they don't breed any of that kind next Sunday we all went to church about three mile everybody a horseback the man took their guns along so did buck and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall the shepherdsons done the same it was pretty ornery preaching all about brotherly love and such like tiresomeness but everybody said it was a good sermon and they all talked it over going home and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and pre-for or destination and I don't know what all that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet about an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around some in their chairs and some in their rooms and it got to be pretty dull buck and a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep I went up to our room and judged I would take a nap myself I found that sweet miss Sophia standing in her door which was next to ours and she took me in her room and shut the door very soft and asked me if I liked her and I said I did and she asked me if I would do something for her and not tell anybody and I said I would then she said she'd forgot her testament and left it in the seat at church between two other books and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her and not say nothing to nobody I said I would so I slid out and slipped off up the road and there weren't anybody at the church except maybe a hog or two for there weren't any lock on the door and hogs likes a punchy and floor in summertime because it's cool if you notice most folks don't go to church only when they've got to but a hog is different says I to myself something's up it ain't natural for a girl to be in such a sweat about a testament so I give it a shake and out drops a little piece of paper with half past two wrote on it with a pencil I ransacked it but couldn't find anything else I couldn't make anything out of that so I put the paper in the book again and when I got home and upstairs there was miss Sophia in her door waiting for me she pulled me in and shut the door then she looked in the testament till she found the paper and as soon as she read it she looked glad and before a body could think she grabbed me and gave me a squeeze and said I was the best boy in the world and not to tell anybody she was mighty read in the face for a minute and her eyes lighted up and it made her powerful pretty I was a good deal astonished but when I got my breath I asked her what the paper was about and she asked me if I had read it and I said no and she asked me if I could read writing and I told her no only coarse hand and then she said the paper weren't anything but a bookmark to keep her place and I might go and play now I went off down to the river studying over this thing and pretty soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind when we was out of sight of the house he looked back and around a second and then comes a running and says Mars charge if you'll come down into the swamp I'll show you a whole stack of water moccasins thinks I that's mighty curious he said that yesterday he ought or no a body don't love water moccasins enough to go around hunting for them what is he up to anyway so I says all right trot ahead I followed a half a mile then he struck out over the swamp and waited ankle deep as much as another half mile we come to a little flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines and he says you shove right in there just a few steps Mars charge that's where day is I see them before I don't care to see them no more then he slopped right along and went away and pretty soon the trees hit him I poked into the place a ways and come to a little open patch as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines and found a man lying there asleep and by jinx it was my old gem I waked him up and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to him to see me again but it weren't he nearly cried he was so glad but he weren't surprised said he swam along behind me that night and heard me yell every time but that's an answer because he didn't want nobody to pick him up and take him into slavery again says he I got hurt a little and couldn't swim fast so I was a considerable ways behind you towards the last when you landed I reckoned I could catch up with you on the land doubt having to shout at you but when I see that house I begin to go slow I was off to fur to hear what they say to you I was afraid of the dogs but when it was all quiet again I knowed you's in the house so I struck out for the woods to wait for day early in the mornin some other niggers come along went to the fields and they took me and showed me this place where the dogs can't track me on accounts of the water and they brings me truck to eat every night and tells me how yous are getting along why didn't you tell my jack to fetch me here sooner gem well tornt no use to stirb you huck till we could do something but we's all right now I bent a bayon pots and pans and vitals and I got a chance and a patch and up to raft nights when what raft gem our old raft you mean to say our old raft weren't smashed all to flinders no she weren't she was tore up a good deal one end of her was but they weren't no great harm done only our traps was most a loss if we hadn't dived so deep and swum so far under water and a night hadn't been so dark and we weren't so scarred and then such pumpkin heads as to say it is we deceived the raft but it's just as well we didn't because now she's all fixed up again most as good as new and we's got a new lot of stuff in the place of what was lost why how did you get hold of the raft again gem did you catch her how I went to catch her and I out into woods no some other knickers found her catched on a snag along here in the bend and they hid her in a crick amongst the willows and they was so much john about which I know she belonged to the most that I come to hear about it pretty soon so I've ups and settles to trouble by telling them she don't belong to none of them but to you and me and I asked them if they went to grab a young white gentleman's property and get a hidden for it then I get them ten cents apiece and they was mighty well satisfied and wished some more rafts had come along and make them rich again day's mighty good to me these niggers is and whatever I want some to do for me I don't have to ask them twice honey that jack's a good nigger and poody smart yes he is he ain't ever told me you was here told me to come and he'd show me a lot of water moccasins if anything happens he ain't mixed up in it he can say he never seen us together and it'll be the truth I don't want to talk much about the next day I reckon I'll cut it pretty short I waked up about dawn and was a going to turn over and go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was didn't seem to be anybody's stirring that weren't usual next I noticed that buck was up and gone well I gets up a wondering and goes downstairs nobody around everything as still as a mouse just the same outside thinks I what does it mean down by the wood pile I comes across my jack and says what's it all about says he don't you know Mars George no says I I don't well then miss Sophia's runoff deed she has she's runoff in tonight sometime nobody don't know just when runoff to get married to that young Harney Shepardson you know least wise so they's back the family found it out about half an hour ago maybe a little moe and I tell you they weren't no time loss such another hurrying up guns and horses you never see the woman folks has gone for to stir up the relations and old Mars Saul and the boys tucked a guns and rode up the river road for to try to catch that young man and kill him for he can get across the river with miss Sophia I reckon days Gwyn to be mighty rough times buck went off without waking me up well I reckon he did they weren't Gwyn to mix you up in it Mars Buck he loaded up his gun and loud he's Gwyn to fetch home a Shepardson or bust well they'll be plenty of them da I reckon and you bet you he'll fetch one if he gets a chance I took up the river road as hard as I could put by and by I begin to hear guns a good ways off when I come in sight of the log store and the wood pile where the steam boats lands I worked along under the trees and brush till I got to a good place and then I clump up into the forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach and watched there was a wood rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree and first I was going to hide behind that but maybe it was luckier I didn't there was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open place before the log store cussing and yelling and trying to get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood rank alongside of the steamboat landing but they couldn't come it every time one of them showed himself on the river side of the wood pile he got shot at the two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile so they could watch both ways by and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling they started riding towards the store then up gets one of the boys draws a steady bead over the wood rank and drops one of them out of his saddle all the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started to carry him to the store and that minute the two boys started on the run they got halfway to the tree I was in before the men noticed then the men see them and jumped on their horses and took out after them they gained on the boys but it didn't do no good the boys had too good start they got to the wood pile that was in front of my tree and slipped in behind it and so they had the bulge on the men again one of the boys was buck and the other was a slim young chap about nineteen years old the men ripped around a while and then rode away as soon as they was out of sight I sung out to buck and told him he didn't know what to make of my voice coming out of the tree at first he was awful surprised he told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men come in sight again said they was up to some devilment or other wouldn't be gone long I wished I was out of that tree but I doesn't come down buck begun to cry and rip and loud that him and his cousin Joe that was the other young chap would make up for this day yet he said his father and his two brothers was killed and two or three of the enemy said the shepherds since laid for them in ambush buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their relations the shepherds since was too strong for I asked him what was become of young Harney and Ms. Sophia he said they got across the river and was safe I was glad of that but the way buck did take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him I ain't ever heard anything like it all of a sudden bang bang bang goes three or four guns the men had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their horses the boys jumped for the river both of them hurt and as they swam down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and singing out kill them kill them it made me so sick I almost fell out of the tree I ain't a going to tell all that happened it would make me sick again if I was to do that I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night to see such things I ain't ever going to get shut of them lots of times I dream about them I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark afraid to come down sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods and twice I seen little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns so I reckoned the trouble was still a going on I was mighty downhearted so I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go and near that house again because I reckoned I was to blame somehow I judged that that piece of paper meant that miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewhere's at half past two and run off and I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way she acted and then maybe he would a locked her up and this awful mess wouldn't ever happened when I got down out of the tree I crept along down the riverbank apiece and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water and tugged at them till I got them ashore then I covered up their faces and got away as quick as I could I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face for he was mighty good to me it was just dark now I never went near the house but struck through the woods and made for the swamp Jim weren't on his island so I tramped off in a hurry for the crick and crowded through the willows red hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country the raft was gone my souls but I was scared I couldn't get my breath for most a minute then I raised a yell a voice not 25 foot from me says good land is that you honey don't make no noise it was Jim's voice nothing ever sounded so good before I run along the bank apiece and got aboard and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me he was so glad to see me he says laws bless you child I was right down shore you's dad again Jack's been here he says he reckoned you's been shot because you didn't come home no more so I just this minute a starting giraffe down towards the mouth of the creek so as to be all ready for to shove out and leave soon as Jack comes again and tells me for certain you is dead Lassie I's mighty glad to get you back again honey I says all right that's mighty good they won't find me and they'll think I've been killed and floated down the river there's something up there that'll help them think so so don't you lose no time Jim just shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi then we hung up our signal lantern and judged that we was free and safe once more I hadn't had a bite to eat since yesterday so Jim he got out some corn dodgers and buttermilk and pork and cabbage and greens there ain't nothing in the world so good when it's cooked right and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a good time I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds and so was Jim to get away from the swamp we sat there weren't no home like a raft after all other places do seem so cramped up and smothery but a raft don't you feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft end of chapter 18 chapter 19 of the adventures of Huckleberry Finn this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Florence Short The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter 19 two or three days and nights went by I reckon I might say they swam by they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely here is the way we put in the time it was a monstrous big river down there sometimes a mile and a half wide we run nights and laid up and hid daytimes soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up nearly always in the dead water under a towhead and then cut young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them then we set out the lines next we slid into the river and had a swim so as to freshen up and cool off then we sat down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep and watched the daylight come not a sound any weirs perfectly still just like the whole world was asleep only sometimes the bullfrogs are cluttering maybe the first thing to see looking away over the water was a kind of dull line that was the woods on tether side you couldn't make nothing else out then a pale place in the sky then more paleness spreading around then the river softened up away off and weren't black anymore but gray you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away trading scouts and such things and long black streaks rafts sometimes you could hear a sweep screeching or jumbled up voices it was so still and sounds come so far and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's a snag there in the swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way and you see the mist curl up off of the water and the east reddens up in the river and you make out a log cabin on the edge of the woods away on the bank on tether side of the river being a woodyard likely and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywhere then the nice breeze brings up and comes fanning you from over there so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers but sometimes not that way because they've left dead fish laying around cars and search and they do get pretty rank and next you've got the full day and everything's smiling in the sun and the song birds just going it a little smoke couldn't be noticed now so we would take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast and afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river and kind of lazy along and by and by lazy off to sleep wake up by and by and look to see what done it and maybe see a steamboat coughing along upstream so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern wheel or side wheel then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see just solid lonesomeness next you'd see a raft sliding by away off yonder and maybe a galoot on a chopping because they're most always doing it on a raft you'd see the axe flash and come down you don't hear nothing you see that axe go up again and by the time it's above the man's head then you hear that cawchunk it had took all that time to come over the water so we would put in the day lazing around listening to the stillness once there was a thick fog and the rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn't run over them a scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and laughing heard them playing but we couldn't see no sign of them it made you feel crawly it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air jinn said he believed it was spirits but i says no spirits wouldn't say turn the turn fog soon as it was night out we shrugged when we got her out to about the middle we let her alone and let her float wherever the current watered her to then we lit the pipes and dangled our legs in the water and talked about all kinds of things we was always naked day and night whenever the mosquitoes would let us the new clothes bucks folks made for me was too good to be comfortable and besides i didn't go much on clothes know how sometimes we'd have the whole river all to ourselves for the longest time yonder was the banks and the islands across the water and maybe a spark which was a candle in a cabin window and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two on a raft or a scow you know and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts it's lovely to live on a raft we had the sky up there all speckled with stars and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened jim he allowed they was made but i allowed they happened i judged it would have took too long to make so many jim said the moon could have laid them well that looked kind of reasonable so i didn't say nothing against it because i've seen a frog lay most as many so of course it could be done we used to watch the stars that fell too and we'd see them streak down jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hoof out of the nest once or twice of a night we would see a steam boat slipping along in the dark and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimblies and they would rain down in the river and look awful pretty then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and her powwow shut off and leave the river still again and by and by her waves would get to us a long time after she was gone and juggle the raft a bit and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how long except maybe frogs or something after midnight the people on shore went to bed and then for two or three hours the shores was black no more sparks in the cabin windows these sparks was our clock the first one that showed again meant morning was coming so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away one morning about daybreak i found a canoe and crossed over a chute to the main shore it was only 200 yards and paddled about a mile up a creek amongst the cypress woods to see if i couldn't get some berries just as i was passing a place where a kind of a cow path crossed the creek here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it i thought i was a corner for whenever anybody was after anybody i judged it was me or maybe jim i was about to dig out from there in a hurry but they was pretty close to me then and sung out and begged me to save their lives said they hadn't been doing nothing and was being chased for it said there was men and dogs are coming they wanted to jump right in but i says don't you do it i don't hear the dogs and horses yet you've got time to crowd through the brush and get up the creek a little ways then you take to the water and wade down to me and get in paddle through the dogs off the scent they done it and soon as they was aboard i lit out for our toe head and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off shouting we heard them come along towards the creek but couldn't see them they seemed to stop and fool around a while then as we got further and further away all the time we couldn't hardly hear them at all by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the river everything was quiet and we paddled over to the toe head and hid in the cotton woods and was safe one of these fellas was about 70 or upwards and had a bald head and very gray whiskers he had an old battered up slouch hat on in a greasy blue woolen shirt and ragged old blue jeans britch stuffed into his boot tops and home knit glasses no he only had one he had an old long tail blue jeans coat with slick nice buttons flung over his arm and both of them had big fat ratty looking carpet bags the other fella was about 30 and dressed about as ornery after breakfast we all laid off and talked and the first thing that come out was that these chaps didn't know one another what got you into trouble says the bald head to other chap well i've been selling an article to take the tart off the teeth and it does take it off too and generally the enamel went along with it but i stayed about one night longer than i ought to and was just in the act of sliding out when i ran across you on the trail this side of town and you told me they were coming and begged me to help you to get off so i told you i was expecting trouble myself and would scatter out with you that's the whole yarn what's yours well i've been running a little temperance revival there about a week it was the pet of the women folks big and little for i was making it mighty warm for the rummies i tell you and taken as much as five or six dollars a night ten cents ahead children and niggers free and business is growing all the time when somehow or other a little report got around last night that i had a way of putting in my time with a private jug on the slide i nigger rousted me out this morning and told me the people was gathering on the quiet with their dogs and horses and they'd be along pretty soon and give me about half an hour start and then run me down if they could and if they got me their tire and feather me and ride me on a rail sure i didn't wait for no breakfast i weren't hungry oh man set the young one i reckon we might double team it together what do you think i ain't undisposed what's your line mainly chore printer by trade do a little in patent medicines theater actor tragedy you know take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when there's a chance teach singing geography school for a change sling a lecture sometimes oh i do lots of things most anything that comes handy so it ain't work what's your lay i've done considerable in the doctrine way in my time laying on a hands is my best hope for cancer and paralysis and such things and i can tell a fortune pretty good when i've got somebody along to find out the facts for me preaches my line too and work and camp meetings and missionary around nobody never said anything for a while then the young man hove aside says alas what are you a lesson about says the ball had to think i should have lived to be leading such a life and to be degraded down into such company and he began to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag turn your skin ain't the company good enough for you says the baldhead pretty pert and upish yes it is good enough for me it's as good as i deserve for who fetched me so low and i was so high i did myself i don't blame you gentlemen far from it i don't blame anybody i deserve it all let the cold world do its worst one thing i know there's a grave somewhere for me the world may go on just as it's always done and take everything from me loved ones property everything but it can't take that someday i'll lie down and then forget it all and my poor broken heart will be at rest he went on a wiping dropped your poor broken heart says the baldhead what are you even your poor broken heart at us for we ain't done nothing no i know you haven't i ain't blaming you gentlemen i brought myself down yes i did it myself it's right i should suffer perfectly right i don't make any moan brought you down from work where was your brought down from ah you would not believe me the world never believes let it pass just no matter the secret of my birth the secret of your birth that you mean to say gentlemen says the young man very solemn i will reveal it to you for i feel i may have confidence in you by rights i am a duke jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that and i recommended to then the baldhead says no you can't mean it yes my great grandfather eldest son of the duke of bridgewater fled to this country about the end of the last century to breathe a pure era of freedom married here and died leaving a son his own father dying about the same time the second son of the late duke seized the titles and estates the infant real duke was ignored i am the linear descendant of that infant i am the rightful duke of bridgewater and here i am forlorn torn from my highest state hunted of men despised by the cold world ragged worn heartbroken and degraded to the companionship of felons on a raft jim pitted him ever so much and so did i we tried to comfort him but he said it weren't much use he couldn't be much comforted said if we was a mind to acknowledge him that would do him more good than most anything else so we said we would if he would tell us how he said we ought to bow when we spoke to him and say your grace or my lord or your lordship and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain bridgewater which he said was a title anyway and not a name and one of us ought to wait on him at dinner and do any little thing for him he wanted done well that was all easy so we done it all through dinner jim stood around and waited on him and says will you grace have some of this or some of that and so on and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to him but the old man got pretty silent by and by didn't have much to say and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that patent that was going on around the duke he seemed to have something on his mind so along in the afternoon he says look here bilgewater he says i'm nation sorry for you but you ain't the only person that's had troubles like that no no you ain't you ain't the only person that's been snaked down wrongly out in a high place alas no you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth and by jinx he begins to cry hold what do you mean bilgewater can i trust you says the old man still sort of sobbing to the bitter death he took the old man by the hand and squeezed it and says that's secret of your being speak bilgewater i am the late dofen you bet you jim and me steered this time then the duke says you are what yes my friend it is too true your eyes is looking at this very moment on the poor disappeared dofen louis the 17 son of louis the 16 and mary antinette you at your age no you mean you're the late charlamagne you must be six or seven hundred years old at the very least trouble has done it bilgewater trouble has bunged these gray hairs in this premature bolditude yes gentlemen you see before you in blue jeans and misery the wandering exile trampled on and suffering rightful king of france well he cried and took on so that me and jim didn't know hardly what to do we was so sorry and so glad and proud we got him with us too so we sat in likely done before with the duke and tried to comfort him but he said it weren't no use nothing but to be dead and done with it all could do him any good though he said it often made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his rights and got down on one knee to speak to him and always called him your majesty and waited on him first at meals and didn't sit down in his presence till he asked them so jim and me set to majestying him and doing this and that and tell her for him and standing up till he told us we might sit down this done him heaps of good and so he got cheerful and comfortable but the duke kind of soured on him and didn't look a bit satisfied with the way things was going still the king acted real friendly towards him and said the duke's great grandfather and all the other dukes of bilgewater was a good deal thought of by his father and was allowed to come to the palace considerable but the duke stayed huffy a good while till by and by the king says i guess not we got to be together a bit long time on this here wrap bilgewater and so what's the use of your being sour it'll only make things uncomfortable it ain't my fault i weren't born a duke it ain't your fault you weren't born a king so what's the use to worry make the best of things the way you find them says i that's my motto this ain't no bad thing that we've struck here plenty grub and an easy life come give us your hand duke and let's all be friends the duke done it and jim and me was pretty glad to see it it took away all the uncomfortableness and we felt my good over it because it would have been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft for what you want above all things on a raft is for everybody to be satisfied and feel right and kind towards the others it didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars weren't no kings nor dukes at all but just low down humbugs and frauds but i never said nothing never let on kept it to myself it's the best way then you don't have no quarrels and don't get into no trouble if they wanted us to call them kings and dukes i had no objections long as it would keep peace in the family and it weren't no use to tell jim so i didn't tell him if i never learnt nothing else out of pipe i learned that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way end of chapter 19 chapter 20 of adventures of huckleberry thin this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by florence short the adventures of huckleberry thin by mark twain chapter 20 they asked us considerable many questions wanted to know what we covered up the raft that way for and laid up in the daytime instead of running was jim and runaway nigger says i goodness six would run away nigger run south no they allowed he wouldn't i had to account for things some way so i says my folks was living in pipe country in missouri where i was born and they all died off at me and pa and my brother ike pa he loud he'd break up and go down and live with uncle ben who's got a little one horse place on the river 44 a mile below orleans pa was pretty poor and had some debts so when he squared up there weren't nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger jim that weren't enough to take us 1400 mile deck passage nor no other way well when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day he catch this piece of a raft so we reckon we go down to orleans on it pa's luck didn't hold out a steamboat run over the forward corner of the raft one night and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel jim and me come up all right but pa was drunk and ike was only four years old so they never come up no more well for the next day or two we had considerable trouble because people was always coming out in skiffs and trying to take jim away from me saying they believed he was a runaway nigger we don't run day times no more now nights they don't bother us the duke says leave me alone to cypher out away so we can run in the daytime if we want to i'll think the thing over i'll invent a plan that'll fix it we'll let it alone for today because of course we don't want to go by that town yonder in daylight it might be healthy towards night it began to darken up and looked like rain the heat lightning was squirting around low down in the sky and the leaves was beginning to shiver it was going to be pretty ugly it was easy to see that so the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam to see what the beds was like my bed was a straw tick better than jim's which was a corn shuck tick there's always cobs around in a shuck tick and they poke into you and hurt and when you roll over the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves it makes such a rustling that you wake up well the duke allowed he would take my bed but the king allowed he wouldn't he says i should have reckoned the difference in rank would have suggested to you that a corn shuck bed weren't just fitting for me to sleep on your grace will take the shuck bed yourself jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute being afraid there was going to be some more trouble amongst them so we was pretty glad when the duke says tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron hill of oppression misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit i yield i submit tis my fate i am alone in the world let me suffer can bear it we got away as soon as it was good and dark the king told us to stand well out towards the middle of the river and not to show a light till we got a long ways below the town we come in sight of the little bunch of lights by and by that was the town you know and slid by about half a mile out all right when we was three quarters of a mile below we hoisted up our signal lantern and about ten o'clock it come on to rain and blow and thunder and lightning like everything so the king told us to both stay on watch till the weather got better than him and the duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night it was my watch below till twelve but i wouldn't have turned in anyway if i'd had a bed because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week not by a long sight my souls how the wind did scream along and every second or two they'd come a glare that lit up the whitecaps for a half a mile around and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain and the trees thrashing round in the wind then comes a whack bum bum bumble bumble bum bum bum bum bum bum and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away and quit and then rip comes another flash and another sock doledger the waves most wash me off the raft sometimes but i hadn't any clothes on and didn't mind we didn't have no trouble about snags the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or that and miss them i had the middle watch you know but i was pretty sleepy by that time so jim he said he would stand first half of it for me he was always mighty good that way jim was i crawled into the wigwam but the king and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there weren't no show for me so i laid outside i didn't mind the rain because it was warm and the waves weren't running so high now about two they come up again though and jim was going to call me but he changed his mind because he reckoned they weren't high enough yet to do any harm but he was mistaken about that for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripper and wash me overboard it most killed jim a laughing he was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever was anyway i took the watch and jim he laid down and snored away and by and by the storm led up for good and all and the first cabin light that showed i rife stood him out and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day the king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast and him and the duke played seven up a while five cents a game then they got tired of it and allowed they would lay out a campaign as they called it the duke went down into his carpet bag and fetched up a lot of little printed bills and read them out loud one bill said the celebrated dr armand de montaban of paris would lecture on the science of phrenology had such in such a place on the blank day of blank at 10 cents admission and furnished charts of character at 25 cents apiece the duke said that was him in another bill he was the world-renowned shakes birian tragedy and garic the younger of dreary lane london in other bills he had a lot of other names and done other wonderful things like finding water and gold with a divining rod dissipating witch spells and so on by and by he says but the histrionic moves is the darling have you ever trod the board's royalty no says the king you shall then before your three days older fallen grandeur says the duke the first good tell we come to we'll hire a hall and do the sword fight in richard three and the balcony scene in romeo and juliette how does that strike you i'm in up to the hub for anything that will pay bill joyer but you see i don't know nothing about play acting and ain't ever seen much of it i was too small when pap used to have him at the palace do you reckon you can learn me easy all right i'm just a freezing for something fresh anyway let's commence right away so the duke he told him all about who romeo was and who juliette was and said he was used to being romeo so the king could be juliette but if juliette search a young girl duke my peeled head and my white whiskers is going to look uncommon odd on her maybe no don't you worry these country jakes won't ever think of that besides you know you'll be in costume and that makes all the difference in the world juliette's in a balcony enjoying the moonlight before she goes to bed and she's got on her nightgown and her ruffle nightcap here are the costumes for the parts he got out two or three curtain calico suits which he said was medieval armor for richard three and tether chap in a long white cotton night shirt and a ruffle nightcap to match the king was satisfied so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the most splendid spread eagle way prancing around and acting at the same time to show how it had got to be done then he give the book to the king and told him to get his part by part there was a little one horse town about three miles down the bend and after dinner the duke said he had cycled out his idea about how to run in daylight without it being dangerous something for jim so he allowed he would go down to the town and fix that thing the king allowed he would go to and see if he couldn't strike something we was out of coffee so jim said i better go along with them in the canoe and get some when we got there there weren't nobody stirring streets empty and perfectly dead and still like sunday we found a sick nigger sunning himself in the backyard and he said everybody that weren't too young or too sick or too old was going to camp meeting about two miles back in the woods the king got the directions and allowed he go and work that camp meeting for all it was worth and i might go too the duke said what he was after was a printing office we found it a little bit of a concern up over a carpenter shop carpenters and printers all going to the meeting and no doors locked it was a dirty littered up place and had ink marks and hand bills with pictures of horses and runaway niggers on them all over the walls the duke shed his coat and said he was all right now so me and the king lit out for the camp meeting we got there in about half an hour fairly dripping for it was a most awful hot day there was as much as a thousand people there from 20 miles around the woods was full of teams and wagons hitched everywhere feeding out of the wagon troughs and stomping to keep off the flies there were sheds made out of poles and roofed over with branches where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell and piles of watermelons and green corn and such like truck the preaching was going on under the same kind of sheds only they was bigger and held crowds of people the benches was made out of outside slabs of logs with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into fur legs they didn't have no bags the preachers had high platforms to stand on at one end of the sheds the women had on sunbots and some had Lindsey Woolsey frocks some gingham ones and a few of the young ones had on calico some of the young men was barefooted and some of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a tall linen shirt some of the old women was knitting and some of the young folk was courting on the sly the first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn he lined out two lines everybody sung it and it was kind of grand to hear it there was so many of them and they'd done it in such a rousing way then he lined out two more for them to sing and so on the people woke up more and more and sung louder and louder and towards the end some began to groan and some begun to shout then the preacher begun to preach and begun in earnest too and went weaving first to one side of the platform and then the other and then a leaning down over the front of it with his arms and his body going all the time and shouting his words out with all his might and every now and then he would hold up his bible and spread it open and kind of pass it around this way and that shouting it's the brazen serpent in the wilderness look upon it and live and people would shout out glory amen and so he went on and the people groaning and crying and saying amen oh come to the mourners bench come black with sin amen come sick and sore amen come lame and halt and blind amen come poor and needy sunk in shame amen come all that's worn and soiled and suffering come with a broken spirit come with a contrite heart come in your rags and sin and dirt the waters that cleanses free the door of heaven stands open oh enter in and be at rest amen glory glory hallelujah and so on you couldn't make out what the preacher said anymore on account of the shouting and crying folks got up everywhere's in the crowd and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners bench with the tears running down their faces and when all the mourners they got up there to the front benches in a crowd they sung and shouted and flung themselves down on the straw just crazy and wild well the first thing i know the king got a going and you could hear him over everybody and next he went a charging up to the platform and the preacher he begged him to speak to the people and he done it he told them he was a pirate been a pirate for 30 years out in the indian ocean and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in a fight and he was home now to take out some fresh men and thanks to goodness he'd been robbed last night and put a shore off of a steamboat without a scent and he was glad of it it was the blessedest thing that ever happened to him because he was a changed man now and happy for the first time in his life and poor as he was he was going to start right off and work his way back to the indian ocean and put in the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path for he could do it better than anybody else being acquainted with all pirate crews in that ocean and though it would take him a long time to get there without money he would get there anyway and every time he convinced a pirate he would say to him don't you thank me don't you give me no credit it all belongs to them dear people in popeville camp meeting natural brothers and benefactors of the race and that dear preacher there that truest friend a pirate ever had and then he busted into tears and so did everybody then somebody sings out take up a collection for him take up a collection well a half a dozen made a jump to do it but somebody sings out let him pass the hat around then everybody said it the preacher too so the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being so good to the poor pirates away off there and every little while the prettiest kind of girls with the tears running down their cheeks would up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by and he always done it and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or six times and he was invited to stay a week and everybody wanted him to live in their houses and said they think it was an honor but he said as this was the last day of the camp meeting he couldn't do no good and besides he was in a sweat to get to the indian ocean right off and go to work on the pirates when he got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had collected 87 dollars and 75 cents and then he had fetched away a three gallon jug of whiskey too that he found under a wagon when he was starting home through the woods the king said take it all around it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the missionary in line he said it weren't no use talking heathens don't amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp meeting with the duke was thinking he'd been doing pretty well till the king come to show up but after that he didn't think so so much he had set up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that printing office horse bills and took the money four dollars and he had gotten ten dollars worth of advertisements for the paper which he said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance so they done it the price of the paper was two dollars a year but he took in three subscriptions for half a dollar a piece unconditioned of them paying him in advance they were going to pay in cord wood and onions as usual but he said he had just bought the concern and knocked down the price as low as he could afford it and was going to run it for cash he set up a little piece of poetry which he made himself out of his own head three verses kind of sweet and saddish the name of it was yes crush cold world this breaking heart and he left that all set up and ready to print the paper and didn't charge nothing for it well he took in nine dollars and a half and said he'd done a pretty square day's work for it then he showed us another little job he printed and hadn't charged for because it was for us it had a picture of a runaway nigger with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder and two hundred dollar reward under it the reading was all about jim and just describe him to a dot it said he run away from saint jock's plantation forty mile below new Orleans last winter and likely went north and whoever would catch him and send him back he could have the reward and expenses now says the duke after tonight we can run in the daytime if we want to whenever we see anybody coming we can tie jim and in foot with a rope and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we captured him up the river and we're too poor to travel on a steam boat so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to get the reward and cussing chains would look still better on jim but it wouldn't go so well with the story of us being so poor too much like jewelry ropes are the correct thing we must preserve the unities as we say on the boards we all said the duke was pretty smart and there wouldn't be no trouble about running day times we judged we could make miles enough that night to get out of the reach of the pow wow we reckon the duke's work in the printing office was going to make in that little town then we could boom right along if we wanted to we laid low and kept still and never shoved out till nearly 10 o'clock then we slid by pretty wide away from the town and didn't hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it when jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning he says huck did you reckon we want to run across any more kings on this trip no i says i reckon not well says he that's all right i don't know i don't want to do kings but that's enough this one's powerful drunken did duke ain't much better i found jim had been trying to get him to talk french so he could hear what it was like but he said he had been in this country so long and had so much trouble he'd forgotten it end of chapter 20