 22 They swarmed up toward Sherburn's house, a whooping and raging like engines, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and trumped to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was healing at a head of the mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way, and every window along the road was full of women's heads, and there were nigger boys in every tree, and bucks and winches looking over every fence, and as soon as the mob would get nearly to them, they would break and scattle back out of reach. Lots of women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most to death. They swarmed up in front of Sherburn's palings as thick as they could jam together, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the noise. It was a little twenty-foot yard, some sung out, tear down the fence, tear down the fence, then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to roll in like a wave. Just then Sherburn steps out onto the roof of his little front porch, with a double barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly calm and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave sucked back. Sherburn never said a word, just stood there, looking down. The stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eyes slow along the crowd, and wherever it struck, the people tried a little to outgaze him, but they couldn't. They dropped their eyes and looked sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed. Not the pleasant kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you're eating bread that's got sand in it. Then he says, slow and scornful, the idea of you lynching anybody, it's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man. Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man safe in the hands of 10,000 of your kind, as long as it's daytime and you're not behind him. Do I know you? I know you clear through, was born and raised in the south, and I've lived in the north, so I know the average all around. The average man's a coward. In the north, he lets anybody walk over once to and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the south, one man all by himself stopped the stage full of men in the daytime and robbed a lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you a braver than any other people, whereas you're just as brave and no braver. Why don't your juries hang murders? Because they're afraid the man's friends will shoot them in the back in the dark, and it's just what they would do. So they always acquit, and then a man goes in the night with a hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is that you didn't bring a man with you. That's one mistake, and the other is that you didn't come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought part of a man, Buck Harkness, there, and if you hadn't had him to start you, you'd have taken it out and blow it. You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. You don't like trouble and danger. But if only half a man, like Buck Harkness, there, shouts, Lynch him, Lynch him, you're afraid to back down, afraid you'll be found out to be what you are, cowards. And so you raise a yell and hang yourselves onto that half a man's coat tail and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob. That's what an army is, a mob. They don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their masks and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness. Now, the thing for you to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching is going to be done, it will be done in the dark, southern fashion. And when they come, they'll bring their masks and fetch a man along. Now leave and take your half a man with you, tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this. The crowd washed back sudden and then broke all apart and went tearing off every which way. And Buck Harkness, he healed it after them, looking tolerable cheap. I could have stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. I went to the circus and loafed around the backside till the watchman went by and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it because there ain't no telling how soon you're going to need it away from home in amongst strangers that way. You can't be too careful. I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them. It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever was when they all come riding in, two and two, a gentleman and lady, side by side, the men just in their drawers and under shirts and no shoes nor stirrups and resting their hands on their thighs easy and comfortable. There must have been twenty of them and every lady with a lovely complexion and perfectly beautiful and looking just like a gang of real sure enough queens and dressed in clothes that cost millions of dollars and just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful fine sight. I'd never see anything so lovely. And then one by one they got up and stood and went a weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy and straight with their heads bobbing and skimming along a way up there under the tent roof and every lady's rose leafy dress flapping soft and silky around her hips and she looking like the most loveliest parasol. And then faster and faster they went all of them dancing first one foot out in the air and then the other the horses leaning more and more and the ringmaster going around and round the center pole, cracking his whip and shouting high high and the clown cracking jokes behind him and by and by all hands dropped the reins and every lady put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms and then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves. And so one after the other they all skipped off into the ring and made the sweetest bow I ever see and then scampered out and everybody clapped their hands and went just about wild. Well all through the circus they'd done the most astonishing things and all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people. The ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him but he was back at him quick as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said and how he ever could think of so many of them and so sudden and so pat was what I couldn't no way understand why I couldn't have thought of them in a year and by and by a drunk man tried to get into the ring said he wanted to ride said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued and tried to keep him out but he wouldn't listen and the whole show come to a standstill. Then the people begin to holler at him and make fun of him and that made him mad he begun to rip and tear so that stirred up the people and a lot of men begin to pile down off of the benches and swarm towards the ring saying knock him down throw him out and one or two women begin to scream so then the ringmaster he made a little speech and said he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance and if the man would promise he wouldn't make no more trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on the horse so everybody laughed and said all right and the man got on the minute he was on a horse began to rip and tear and jump and covered around with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him and the drunk man hanging on to his neck and his heels flying in the air every jump and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing till tears rolled down and it lasts sure enough all the circus men could do the horse broke loose and away he went like the very nation round and round the ring with that sock laying down on him and hanging to his neck with first one leg hanging most of the ground on one side and then two there on one on the other side and the people just crazy it weren't funny to me though I was all of a tremble to see his danger but pretty soon he struggled up a straddle and grabbed the bridle a reeling this way and that and the next minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood and the horse are going like a house of fire too he just stood up there sailing around as easy and comfortable as if he weren't ever drunk in his life and then he began to pull off his clothes and sling them he shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air and altogether he shed 17 suits and then there he was slim and handsome and dressed the goddess and prettiest you ever saw and he lit into that horse with his whip and made him fairly hum and finally skipped off and made his bow and danced off to the dressing room and everybody just a howling with pleasure and astonishment then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled and he was the sickest ringmaster you ever see I reckon why it was one of his own men he had got up that joke all out of his own head and never let on to nobody well I felt sheepish enough to be took in so but I wouldn't have been in the ringmasters place not for a thousand dollars I don't know there may be fuller circuses than what that one was but I never struck them yet anyways it was plenty good enough for me and wherever I run across it it can have all of my custom every time well that night we had our show but there weren't only about 12 people there just enough to pay expenses and they laughed all the time and that made the Duke mad and everybody left anyway before the show was over but one boy which was asleep so the Duke said these Arkansas Lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare what they wanted was low comedy and maybe something rather worse than low comedy he reckoned he said he could size their style so next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint and draw it off some handbills and stuck them up all over the village the bill said at the courthouse for three nights only the world-renowned tragedians David Garrick the younger and Edmund Keene the elder of the London and Continental theaters in their thrilling tragedy of the King's Chamelea part or the Royal none such admission fifty cents then at the bottom was the biggest line of all which said ladies and children not admitted there says he if that line don't fetch him I don't know Arkansas end of chapter 22 recording by Ken Tischler of Hammond Louisiana chapter 23 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 this reading by Ken Tischler of Hammond Louisiana the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter 23 well all day him and the King was hard at it rigging up a stage and a curtain and a row of candles for footlights and that night the house was jam full of men in no time when the place couldn't hold no more the Duke he quit tending door and went around the back way and came on to the stage and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech and praised up this tragedy and said it was the most thrillingest one that ever was and so he went on a bragging about the tragedy and about Edmund Keen the elder which was to play the main principal part in it and at last when he got everybody's expectations up high enough he rolled up the curtain and the next minute the King come a prancing out on all fours necking and he was painted all over ring streaked and striped all sorts of colors as splendid as a rainbow and but never mind the rest of his outfit it was just wild but it was awful funny the people most killed themselves laughing and when the King got done capering and capered off behind the scenes they roared and clapped and stormed and ha ha tell he come back and done it over again and after that they made him do it another time well it would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut then the Duke he lets the curtain down and bows to the people and says the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more on accounts of pressing London engagements where the seats is all sold already for it and jury lane and then he makes him another bow and says if he has succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them he will be deeply obliged if they will mention it to their friends and get them to come and see it 20 people sings out what is it over is that all the Duke says yes then there was a fine time everybody sings out sold and rose up mad it was a going for the stage in them tragedies but a big fine looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts hold on just a word gentlemen they stopped to listen we are sold mighty badly sold but we don't want to be the laughing stock of this whole town I reckon and never hear the last of this thing as long as we live no what we want is to go out of here quiet and talk to show up and sell the rest of the town then we'll all be in the same boat ain't that sensible you bet it is the judge is right everybody sings out all right then not a word about any cell go along home and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid that show was house was jammed again that night and we sold this crowd the same way when me and the king and Duke got home to the raft we all had a supper and by and by about midnight they made Jim and me back her out and float her down the middle of the river and fetch her in and hide her by two mile below town the third night the house was crammed again and there weren't newcomers this time but people that was at the show the other two nights I stood by the Duke at the door and I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging or something muffled up under his coat and I see it weren't no perfumer either not by long sight I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel and rotten cabbages and such things and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around and I bet I do there was 64 them went in I shoved in there for a minute but it was too various for me I couldn't stand it well when the place couldn't hold no more people the dude he gave a fellow quarter and told him the ten door for him a minute and then he started around for the stage door I after him but the minute we turn the corner and was in the dark he says walk fast now till you get away from the houses and then shin for the raft like the dickens was after you I done it and he done the same we struck the raft at the same time and in less than two seconds we was gliding downstream all dark and still and edging towards the middle of the river nobody saying a word I reckon the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the audience but nothing of the sort pretty soon he crawls out from under the wigwam and says well how'd the old thing pad out this time Duke he hadn't been up town at all we never showed a light till he was about ten mile below the village then we lit up and had a supper and the king and the Duke fairly laughed their bones loose over the way they served them people the Duke says green horns flat heads I knew the first house would keep mum and let the rest of the town get roped in and I knew they'd lay for us the third night consider it was their turn now well it is their turn and I'd give something to know how much they take for it I would just like to know how they're putting in their opportunity they can turn it into a picnic if they want to they brought plenty provisions them rap scallions took in four hundred and sixty five dollars in that three nights I never seen money hauled in by the wagon load like that before by and by when they was asleep and storing Jim said don't surprise you the way them king carries on hook no I says it don't why don't it hook well it don't because it's in the breed I reckon they're all alike but huh these kings aren't as regular rap scallions that's just what they is they's regular rap scallions well that's what I'm a saying all kings is mostly rap scallions as far as I can make out is that so you read about them once you'll see look at Henry the eight this is a Sunday school superintendent to him and look at Charles second and Louis 14 and Louis 15 and James second and Edward second and Richard third and 40 more besides all them Saxon heptark is that used to rip around so in old times and raise came my you ought to seen old Henry the eight when he was in bloom he was a blossom he used to marry a new wife every day and chop off her head next morning and he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs fetch up Nell Gwen he says they fetch her up next morning chop off her head and they chop it off fetch up Jane Shore he says and up she comes next morning chop off her head and they chop it off bring up fair Rosamond fair Rosamond answers the bell next morning chop off her head and he made every one of them tell him a tale every night and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tails that way and then he put them all in a book and called it the domes day book which was a good name and stated the case you don't know King's Jim but I know them and this old rip of iron is one of the cleanest I've struck in history well Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country how does he go at it give notice give the country a show no all of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard and wax out a declaration of independence and dares them to come on that was his style he never give anybody a chance he had suspicions of his father the Duke of Wellington well what did he do ask him to show up no drowned at him in a Buddha Mamsey like a cat suppose people left money laying around where he was what did he do he collared it suppose he contracted to do a thing and you paid him and didn't sit down there and see that he done it what did he do he always done the other thing suppose he opened his mouth what then if he didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time that's the kind of bug Henry was and if we'd have had him a long stood of our Kings he'd a fool that town a heap worse than earned done I don't say that I earn his lambs because they ain't when you come right down to the cold facts but they ain't nothing to that old Ram anyway all I say is Kings is Kings and you got to make allowances take them all around their mighty ornery lot it's the way they're raised but this one do smell so like the nation hook well they all do Jim we can't help the way a king smells history don't tell no way now to do he's a tolerable like the man in some ways yes a duke's different but not very different this one's a middle and hard lock for a Duke when he's drunk there ain't no near-sighted man could tell him from a king well anyways I don't hanker for no more on them hook Jesus all I can stand it's the way I feel to Jim but we've got them on our hands and we got to remember what they are and make allowances sometimes I wish we could hear of a country that's out of Kings what was the use to tell Jim these weren't real Kings and Dukes it wouldn't have done no good and besides it was just as I said you couldn't tell them from the real kind I went to sleep and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn he often done that when I wake up just a daybreak he was sitting there with his head down betwixt his knees morning and morning to himself I didn't take notice nor let on I'd know what it was about he was thinking about his wife and his children a way up yonder and he was low and homesick because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their and don't seem natural but I reckon it so he was often moaning and mourning that way nice when he judged I was asleep and saying polly Elizabeth polly Johnny mighty hard I spec I ain't ever going to see you no mo no mo he was a mighty good nigger Jim was but this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young ones and by and by he says what makes me feel so bad this time is because I hear something over yonder on the bank like a whack or a slam while ago and it mind me there at the time I treat my little Elizabeth so ornery she weren't only about four-year-old and she took the scarlet fever and had a powerful rough spell but she got well and one day she was a standing around and I says to her I says shut the door she never done it just stood there kind of smiling up at me it make me mad and I says again mighty loud I says don't you hear me shut the door she just stood the same way kind of smiling up I was a violin I says I lay I make you mine and with that I fetch her a slap side the head that son her a sprawling then I went into other room and was gone about ten minutes and when I come back there was that door standing open yet and that child standing most right in it looking down in mourning and the tears running down my but I was mad I was a good for the child just then it was a dode that open energy just then long come to win and slam it to behind the child curve blam and my land the child never moved my breath most hop out of me and I feel so so I don't know how I feel I crop out all the trembling and crope around and open the dough easy and slow and poke my head in behind the child soft and still and all of a sudden I says pow just as loud as I could yell she never budged oh hook I bust out a crying and grab her up in my arms and say oh the poor little thing the Lord God Almighty to give poor Jim because he'd never go in to forgive his self as long as he lived oh she was plumb deep and dumb hook plumb deep and dumb and I'd been a treating her so end of chapter 23 recording by Ken Tischler of Hammond Louisiana chapter 24 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 this reading by Ken Tischler of Hammond Louisiana the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter 24 next day towards night we laid up under a little willow tow head out in the middle where there was a village on each side of the river and the Duke and the King begun to lay out a plan for working them towns Jim he spoke to the Duke and said he hoped it wouldn't take but a few hours because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope you see when we left him all alone we had to tie him because if anybody happened on to him all by himself and not tied it would look much like he was a runaway nigger you know so the Duke said he was kind of hard to have to lay roped all day and he'd cipher out some way to get around it he was uncommon bright Duke was and he soon struck it he dressed Jim up in King Lear's outfit it was a long curtain calico gown and a white horse hair wig and whiskers and then he took his theater paint and painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck all over a dead dull solid blue like a man that's been drowned in nine days blamed if he weren't the harmless looking outrage I ever see then the Duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so sick a rat but harmless when not out of his head and he nailed that shingle to a lathe and stood the lathe up four or five foot in front of the wigwam Jim was satisfied he said it was a sight better than lying tied a couple of years every day and trembling all over every time there was a sound the Duke told him to make himself free and easy and if anybody ever come meddling around he must hop out of the wigwam and carry on a little and fetch a howler to like a wild beast and he reckoned they would light out and leave him alone which was sound enough judgment but you take the average man and he wouldn't wait for him to how why he didn't only look like he was dead he looked considerable more than that these rapscallions wanted to try the none such again because there was so much money in it but they judged it wouldn't be safe because maybe the news might have worked along down by this time they couldn't hit no project that suited exactly so at last the Duke said he reckoned he lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put up something on the Arkansas village and the king he allowed he would drop over to other village without any plan but just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable way meaning the devil I reckon we had all bought store clothes where we stopped last and now the king put his an on and told me to put mine on I'd done it of course the king's duds was all black and he did look real swell and starchy I never know how clothes could change your body before why before he looked like the ornerist old rip that every was but now when he take off his new white beaver and make a bow and do a smile he looked that grand and good and pious that you'd say he had walked right out of the arc and maybe was old Leviticus himself Jim cleaned up the canoe and I got my paddle ready there was a big steamboat laying up that the shore way up under the point about three mile above the town been there a couple of hours taking on freight says the king seeing how I'm dressed I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St. Louis or Cincinnati or some other big place go for the steamboat Huckleberry will come down to the village on her I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride I fetched the shore about a half mile above the village and then went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water pretty soon we came to a nice innocent looking young country Jake sitting on a log swabbing the sweat off of his face for it was powerful warm weather and he had a couple of big carpet bags by him runner knows inch or says the king I done it where are you bound for young man for the steamboat going to Orleans get aboard says the king hold on a minute my servant will help you with them bags jump out and help the gentleman Adolphus meaning me I see I've done so and then we all three started on again the young chap was mighty thankful said it was tough work toting his baggage such weather he asked the king where he was going and the king told him he'd come down the river and landed at the other village this morning and now he was going up a few mile to find an old friend on a farm up there the young fellow says when I first see you I says to myself it's Mr. Wilkes sure and he come mighty near getting here in time but then I says again no I reckon it ain't him or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river you ain't him are you no my name is Blodgett Alexander Blodgett Reverend Alexander Blodgett I suppose I must say is I'm one of God's poor servants but still I'm just as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilkes for not arriving in time all the same if he's missed anything by it which I hope he hasn't well he don't miss any property by it because he'll get that all right but he's missed seeing his brother Peter die which he may mind nobody can tell us that but his brother would have give anything in his world to see him before he died never talked about nothing else all these three weeks hadn't seen him since they was boys together and hadn't ever seen his brother William at all that's the deep and dumb one William ain't more than 30 or 35 Peter and George were the only ones that come out here George was the married brother him and his wife both died last year Harvey and Williams the only ones that's left now and as I was saying they haven't got here in time did anybody send him word oh yes a month or two ago when Peter first took because Peter said then that he sort of fell like he weren't going to get well this time you see he was pretty old and George's girls was too young to be much company for him except Mary Jane the redheaded one and so he was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died and didn't seem to care much to live he most desperately wanted to see Harvey and William too for that matter because he was one of them kind that can't bear to make a will he left a letter behind for Harvey and said he told in it where his money was hid and how he wanted the rest of the property divided up so George's girls would be all right for George didn't leave nothing and that letter was all they could get him to put a pen to why do you reckon Harvey didn't come where does he live oh he lives in England Sheffield preaches there hasn't ever been in this country he hasn't had any too much time and besides he might not got the letter at all you know too bad too bad he couldn't have lived to see his brothers poor soul you going to Orleans you say yes but that ain't only a part of it I'm going in a ship next Wednesday for Rio de Janeiro where my uncle is it's a pretty long journey but it'll be lovely wished I was a going is Mary Jane the oldest how old is the others Mary Jane's 19 Susan's 15 and Joanne is about 14 that's the one that gives herself to good works and has a hair lift poor things to be left alone in the cold world so well they could be worse off old Peter had friends and they ain't going to let them come to no harm there's Hobson the Baptist preacher and Deacon lot Hovey and Ben Rucker and Adner Shackleford and Levi Bell the lawyer and Dr. Robinson and their wives and the widow Bartley and well there's a lot of them but these are the ones that Peter was thickest with and used to write about sometimes when he wrote home so Harvey will know where to look for friends when he gets here well the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied that young fellow blamed if he didn't acquire about everybody and everything in that blessed town and all about the Wilks and about Peter's business which was a Tanner and about George's which was a carpenter and about Harvey's which was a dissentering minister and so on and so on then he says what did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for because she's a big queen's boat and I was a feared she mightn't stop there when they're deep they won't stop for a hail a Cincinnati boat will but this is a St. Louis one was Peter Wilks well off oh yes pretty well off he had houses and land and it's reckoned he left three or four thousand in cash hit up some airs when did you say he died I didn't but it was last night funeral tomorrow are likely yes about middle of the day well it's all terrible sad but we've all got to go one time or another so what we want to do is be prepared then we're all right yes sir it's the best way Ma used to always say that when we struck the boat she was about done loading and pretty soon she got off the king never said nothing about going aboard so I lost my ride after all when the boat was gone the king made me paddle up another mile to a lonesome place and then he got ashore and says now hustle back right off and fetch the Duke up here and the new carpet bags and if he's gone over to other side go over there and get him and tell him to get himself up regardless shove along now I see what he was up to but I never said nothing of course when I got back with the Duke we hid the canoe and then they sat down on the log and the king told him everything just like the young fella had said it every last word of it and all the time he was doing it he tried to talk like an Englishman and he done it pretty well too for a slouch I can't imitate him and so I ain't a going to try but he really done it pretty good then he says how are you on the deep and dumb bilgewater the Duke said leave him alone for that said he played a deep and dumb person in the histronic boards so then they waited for a steamboat about the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along but they didn't come from high enough up the river but at last there was a big one and they held her she sent out her y'all and we went aboard and she was from Cincinnati and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile they was booming mad and gave us a cussing and said they wouldn't land us but the king was calm he says if gentlemen can afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and put off in a y'all a steamboat can afford to carry him can it so they softened down and said it was all right and when we got to the village they yelled us ashore about two dozen men flocked down when they seen the y'all coming and when the king says can any of you gentlemen tell me where mr. Peter Wilkes lives they give a glance at one another and nod at their heads as much as to say would they tell you then one of them says kind of soft and gentle I'm sorry sir but the best we can do is tell you where he did live yesterday evening sudden as winking the ordinary old creature went in to smash and fell up against the man and put his chin on his shoulder and cried down his back and says alas alas I poor brother gone and we never got to see him oh it's too too hard then he turns around blubbering and makes a lot of idiotic signs to the Duke on his hands and blamed if he didn't drop a carpet bag and bust out of crime if they weren't the beat in his lot them two frauds that ever I struck well the men gathered around and sympathized with them and said all sorts of kind things to him and carried their carpet bags up the hill for them and let them lean on him and cry and told the king all about his brother's last moments and the king he told it all over again on his hands to the Duke and both of them took on about that dead tanner like they'd lost the twelve disciples well if I ever struck anything like it I'm a nigger it was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race end of chapter 24 recording by Kent Tishler of Hammond Louisiana chapter 25 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 Bob Sage the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter 25 the news was all over town in two minutes and you could see the people tearing down on the run from every witch way some of them putting on their coats as they come pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march the windows and the door yards was full and every minute somebody would say over a fence is it them and somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say you bet it is when we got to the house the front of it was packed and the three girls was standing in the door Mary Jane was redheaded but that don't make no difference she was most awful beautiful and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory she was so glad her uncles was come the king he spread his arms and Mary Jane she jumped for them and the hair lip jumped for the Duke and there they had it everybody most least wise women cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have such good times the king he hunched the Duke private I see him do it and then he looked around and see the coffin over in the corner on two chairs so then him and the Duke with a hand across each other's shoulder and to other to their eyes walked slow and saw them over there everybody dropped back to give him room and all the talk and noise stopped people saying shh and all the men taking their hats off and drooping their heads so you could hardly heard a pinfall and when they got there they bent over and looked in the coffin and took one sight and then they bust out of crying so you could have heard them to Orleans most and then they put their arms around each other's necks and hung their chins over each other's shoulders and then after three minutes or maybe four I never see two men leak the way they done and mind you everybody was doing the same and the place was that damp I never see anything like it then one of them got on one side of the coffin and to other on to other side and then kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the coffin and laid on to pray all to themselves well when it come to that it worked the crowd like I never see anything like it and everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud the poor girls to and every woman nearly went to the girls without saying word and kissed them saw on the forehead and then they put their hand on their head and looked up towards the sky with the tears running down and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing and give the next woman a show I never see anything so disgusting well behind by the king he gets up and comes forward a little and works himself up and slobbers out of speech all full of tears and flap doodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the diseased and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long journey of four thousand miles but it's a trial that sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's heart because out of their mouths they can't words being too weak and cold and all that kind of rotten slush till it was just sickening and then he blubbers out of pious goody goody ah man and turns himself loose and goes to cry and fit to bust and the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the crowd struck up the doxologer and everybody joined in with all their might and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting out music is a good thing and after all that soul butter and hogwash I never see it freshen up things so and sound so honest and bully then the king begins to work his jaw again and says how him and his nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the family would take supper here with them this evening and help set up the ashes of the deceased and says his poor brother land yonder could speak he knows who he would name for there was names that was very dear to him and mentioned often in his letters and so he will name the same to it as Reverend Mr. Hobson and Deacon Lott Hovey and Mr. Ben Rucker and Abner Shackleford and Levi Bell and Dr. Robinson and their wives and the widow Bartley Reverend Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town of hunting together that is I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to the other world and the preacher was pitting them right lawyer in Louisville on business but the rest was on hand and so they all come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him and then they shook hands with the Duke and didn't say nothing but just kept smiling and bobbing their heads like a pestle of sap heads whilst he made all sorts of signs with his hands and says goo goo goo goo goo goo goo all the time like a baby that can't talk blattered along and managed to inquire about pretty much everybody and dog in town by his name and mentioned all sorts of little things that happened one time or another in the town or to the George's family or to Peter and he always let on that Peter wrote them things but that was a lie he got every blessed one of them out of that young flathead that we canoeed up to the steamboat Ben Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind and the king he read it out loud and cried over it it give the dwelling house and three thousand dollars gold to the girls and it give the tanyard which was doing a good business along with some other house and land worth about seven thousand and three thousand dollars in gold to Harvey and William and told where the six thousand cash was hid down the cellar so these two frauds say they go and fetch it up and have everything square and above board and told me to come with the candle we shut the cellar door behind us and when they found the bag they spilt it out on the floor and it was a lovely sight all them yalla boys by the way the king's eyes did shine he slaps the Duke on the shoulder and says oh this ain't bullying or nothing no I reckon not why Billy it beats the none such don't it the Duke allowed it dead they pawed the yalla boys and sifted them through their fingers and let them jingle on the floor and the king says it ain't no use talking being brothers to a rich dead man and representatives of fur and as that's got left as the line for you and me bilge this year comes a trusting it's the best way in the long run I've tried them all and there ain't no better way most everybody would have been satisfied with the pile and it took on trust but no they must count it so they counts it and it comes out $415 short says the king Durham I wonder what he done with that $415 they worried over that a while and ransacked all around for it then the Duke says well he was a pretty sick man and likely he made a mistake I reckon that's the way of it the best way is to let it go and keep still about it we can spare it oh shucks yes we can spare it and don't care nothing about it it's the count I'm thinking about we want to be awful square and open and above board here you know we want to lug this year money upstairs and count it before everybody then there ain't nothing suspicious but when the dead man says there's $6000 you know we don't want to hold on says the Duke let me make up the deficit and he begun to yall out yalla boys out of his pocket it's a most amazing Duke you have got a rattling clever head on you says the king blessed of the old none such ain't a heppin us out again and he begun to haul out yalla jackets and stack them up it most busted them but they made up the $6000 clean and clear say says the Duke I got another idea let's go upstairs and count this money and then take and give it good land Duke let me hug you it's the most dazzling idea at ever a man struck you have certainly got the most astonishing head I ever see oh this is the boss dodge there ain't no mistake about it let them fetch along their suspicions now if they want to this lay them out when we got upstairs everybody gathered round the table and the king he counted it and stacked it up $300 in a pile 20 elegant little piles everybody looked hungry at it licked their chops then they raked it into the bag again and I see the king begin to swell himself up for another speech he says friends all my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them that's left behind in the veil of sorters he has done generous by these poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered and that's left fatherless and motherless yes and we that know him knows that he would have done more generous by him if he hadn't been afraid of wounding his dear will in me now wouldn't he there ain't no question about it in my mind well then what kind of brothers would it be to stand in the way at such time and what kind of uncles would it be that Rob yes Rob such poor sweet lambs as these that he loved so it's such a time if I know William and I think I do he well I just ask him he turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his hands and the duke he looks at him stupid and leather-headed a while and all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning and jumps for the king goo-gooing with all his might for joy and hugs him about 15 times before he lets up then the king says I know it I reckon that'll convince anybody the way he feels about it here Mary Jane Susan Jonah take the money take it all it's the gift of him that lays yonder cold but joyful Mary Jane she went for him and Susan and the hell it went for the duke and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet and everybody crowded up with tears in their eyes and most shook the hands off of them frauds saying all the time you dear good souls how lovely how could you well then pretty soon the hands got to talking about the disease again and how good he was and what a loss he was and all that before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside and stood a listening and looking and not saying anything and nobody saying anything to him either because the king was talking and they was all busy listening the king was saying in the middle of something he'd started in on they being particular friends of the disease that's why they're invited here this evening but tomorrow we want all to come everybody but he respected everybody he liked everybody and so it's fitting that his funeral orgies should be public and so he went a moon and on and on lacking to hear himself talk and every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again till the Duke he couldn't stand it no more so he writes on a little scrap of paper obsequies y'all fool and folds it up and goes to goo-gooing and reaching over people's heads to him the king he reads it and puts it in his pocket and says poor William afflicted as he is his heart's always right asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeral and to make them all welcome but he needed to worry it was just what I was at then he weaves along again perfectly calm and goes to dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then just like he'd done before and when he'd done it the third time he says I say orgies not because it's the common term because it ain't obsequies being the common term but because orgies are the right term obsequies ain't used in England no more now it's gone out we say orgies now in England orgies is better because it means the thing you're after more exact it's a word that's made up out in the Greek org-go outside open abroad and the Hebrew jeezum to plant cover up hence inter so you see funeral orgies is an open public funeral he was the worst I ever struck well the iron-jord man he laughed right in his face everybody was shocked everybody says why doctor and Abner Shackleford says why Robinson ain't you heard the news this is Harvey Wilkes the king he smiled eager and shoved out his flopper his dear good friend and physician I keep your hands off of me says the doctor you talk like an Englishman don't you so worst imitation I ever heard you Peter Wilkes brother your fraud that's what you are well how they all took on they cried around the doctor and tried to quiet him down and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey showed it 40 ways that he was Harvey and knowed everybody by name and the names of the very dogs and begged and begged him not to hurt Harvey's feelings and the poor girls feelings and all that but were no use he stormed right on all and said any man that pretended to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what he did was a fraud and a liar the poor girls was hanging to the king and crying and all of a sudden the doctor up on them he says I was your father's friend and I'm your friend and I warn you as a friend and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of harm and trouble to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing to do with him that ignorant tramp with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew as he calls it he is the thinnest kind of an imposter has come here with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewhere and you take them for proofs and I help to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here who ought to know better Mary Jane Wilkes you know me for your friend and for your unselfish friend too now listen to me turn this pitiful rascal out I beg you to do it will you Mary Jane straightened herself up but she was handsome she say here is my answer she hove up the bag of money and put it in the king's hands and says take this $6,000 and invest for me and my sisters in it the way you want to and don't give us no receipt for it then she put her arm around the king on one side and Susan and the headlip done the same on the other everybody clapped their hands and stomped on the floor and the storm the king held up his head and smiled proud the doctor says all right I wash my hands of the matter but I warn you all that are times coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of this day and the way he went all right doctor says the king kind of mocking him we'll try and get him to sin for you which made them all laugh but it was a private good hit Well when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off for spare rooms and she said she had one spare room which would do for Uncle William and she'd give her own room to Uncle Harvey which was a little bigger and she would turn into the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot and Garret was a little cubby with a pallet in it the king said the cubby would do for his valley meaning me so Mary Jane took us up and she showed them their rooms which was plain but nice she said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way but he said they weren't the frocks was hung along the wall and before them was a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor there was an old hair trunk in one corner and another and all sorts of little knick-knacks and Jim cracks around like girls brisking up a room with the king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings and so don't disturb them the duke's room was pretty small but plenty good enough and so was my cubby that night they had a big supper and all them men and women was there I stood behind the king and the negroes waited on the rest Mary Jane, she sat at the head of the table with Susan alongside of her and said how bad the biscuits was and how mean the preserves was and how onery and tough the fried chickens was and all that kind of rot the way women always do for to force out compliments and the people all know that everything was tip-top and said so said how do you get biscuits to brown so nice and where for the land sakes did you get these amazing pickles and all that kind of humbug talky talk just the way people always does at a supper, you know and when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen off of the leavings whilst the others was helping the negroes clean up things the hare-lip she got to pumping me about England and blessed if I didn't think the rice was getting mighty thin sometimes she says did you ever see the king who, William 4th well I bet I have he goes to our church I know he was dead years ago but I never let on so when I says he goes to our church she says what, regular yes, regular his pews right over opposite the barn on the other side of the pulpit I thought he lived in London well he does where would he live but I thought you lived in Sheffield I see I was up a stump I had to let on to get choked with a chicken bone so as to get time to think how to get down again then I says I mean he goes to our church regular when he is in Sheffield that's only in the summertime when he comes there to take the sea baths why, how you talk Sheffield ain't on the sea well who said it was why you did I didn't another I didn't I never said nothing of the kind well what did you say then said he come to take the sea baths that's what I said well then how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the sea looky here I says did you ever see any Congress water yes well did you have to go to Congress to get it I know well neither does William Fauth have to go to the sea to get a sea bath how does he get it then gets it the way people down here gets Congress water in barrels there in the palace at Sheffield he got furnaces and he wants his water hot they can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea they haven't got no conveniences for it oh I see you might have said that in the first place and saved time when she said that I see I was out of the woods again and so I was comfortable and glad next she says do you go to church too yes regular where do you sit why an art pew who's pew why on your uncle Harvey's hizan what does he want with a pew wants to setting it what do you reckon he wants with it why I thought he'd be in the pulpit Rotem I forget it was a preacher I see I was up a stump again so I played another chicken bone and got another think then I says do you suppose that ain't but one preacher to a church why what do they want with more what to preach before a king I never did see such a girl as you they don't have no less than 17 17 my land why I wouldn't set out such a string as that now if I never got the glory it must take them a week shucks they don't all of them preach the same day only one of them well then what does the rest of them do ah nothing much lull around pass the plate and one thing or another but mainly they don't do nothing well then what are they for well they're for style don't you know nothing well I don't want to know such foolishness as that how is servants treated in England do they treat them better than we treat our negroes no a servant ain't nobody there they treat them worse than dogs don't they give them holidays the way we do Christmas and New Year's we can fall for July oh just listen a body could tell you ain't never been to England by that why Harrah, why Joanna they never see a holiday from year's end to year's end never go to the circus nor theater nor negro shows nor no wares nor church nor church but you always went to church well I was gone up again I forgot I was the old man's servant but next minute I whirled in on a kind of explanation how a valley was different from a common servant and had to go to church whether he wanted to or not and set with the family on a kind of it's being the law to do it pretty good and when I got done I see she weren't satisfied she says on a stinging now ain't you been telling me a lot of lies on a stinging I says none of it at all none of it at all not a lie in it says I lay your hand on this book and say it I see it want nothing but a dictionary so I laid my hand on it so then she looked a little bit satisfied and says well then I believe some of it but I hope to gracious if I believe the rest what is it you won't believe Joe says Mary Jane stepping in with Susan behind her it ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him and him a stranger and so far from his people how would you like to be treated so that's always your way ma'am always sailing in to help somebody before they're hurt I ain't done nothing to him he's told some stretches I reckon and I said I wouldn't allowed at all and that's every bit and grain I did say I reckon he can stand a little thing like that can't he I don't care whether it was little or whether it was big he's here in our house and a stranger and it wasn't good to say it if you was in his place it would make you feel ashamed and so you're often to say a thing to another person that will make them feel ashamed why ma'am he said it don't make no difference what he said that ain't the thing the thing is for you to treat him kind and not be saying things to make him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks he says to myself this is a girl that I'm letting that old reptile rob her money then Susan she was then and if y'all believe me she did give hell at Park from the tomb says out of myself and this is another one that I'm letting them rob of her money then Mary Jane she took another in it and went in sweet and lovely again but when she got done there weren't hardly anything left a poor hairlip so she hollered all right then says the girl you just ask us pardon she done it too and she done it beautiful she done it so beautiful it was good to hear and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies so she could do it again I says to myself this is another one I'm letting them rob her of her money and when she got through they all just laid themselves out to make me feel at home and I know I was amongst friends I felt so ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself my mind's made up I'll have that money for them or bust so then I lit out for bed I said meaning some time or another looking the thing over I says to myself shall I go to the doctor private and blow on these frauds no that won't do he might tell who told them then the king and the duke would make it warm for me shall I go private and tell Mary Jane no I dastard do it her face would give them a hint sure they've got the money and they'd slide right out she was to fetch in help I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done with I judge nope there ain't no good way but one I gotta steal that money somehow and I gotta steal it some way that they won't suspicion that I done it they got a good thing here and they ain't gonna leave till they've played this family and this town for all their worth so I'll find a chance time enough to hide it and by and by when I'm away down the river I'll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it's hit but I better hide it tonight if I can because the doctor maybe hasn't lit up as much as he lets on he has he might scare them out of here yet so thinks I I'll go and search their rooms upstairs the hall was dark but I found the duke's room and I found it with my hands but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let anybody else take care of that money but his own self so then I went to his room and begun to paw around there but I see I couldn't do nothing without a candle and I dacent light won a cost so I judged I'd got to do the other thing lay for them and eavesdropped about that time I hear their footsteps and I was going to skip under the bed I reached for it but it wasn't where I thought it would be but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane's frocks so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in amongst the gowns and stood there perfectly still they come in and shut the door and the first thing the duke done was to get down and look under the bed then I was glad I hadn't found the bed when I wanted it and yet you know it's kind of natural to hide under the bed when you're up to anything private they sits down then and the king says well what is it and cut it midland short because it's better for us to be down there or whooping up the morning and up here giving them a chance to talk us over well this is it Capit I ain't easy I ain't comfortable that doctor lays on my mind I wanted to know your plans I've got a notion and I think it's a sound one what is it Duke that we better glide out of this before three in the morning and clip it down the river with what we've got especially seeing we got it so easy given back to us flung at our heads as you might say when of course we allowed to have to steal it back I'm for knocking off and lighting out that made me feel pretty bad about an hour or two ago it would have been a little different but now it made me feel bad and disappointed the king rips out and says what and not sell out the rest of the property march off like a parcel of fools and leave eight or nine thousand dollars worth of property laying around just suffering to be scooped in and all good saleable stuff too the Duke he grumbled said the bag of gold was enough and he didn't want to go no deeper didn't want to rob a lot of offence of everything they had wow how you talk says the king we shan't rob them of nothing at all but just this money the people that buys the property is the sufferers because as soon as it's found out that we didn't own it which won't be long after we've slid the sale won't be valid and it's all go back to the estate these here offence will get their house back and that's enough for them they're young and spry and can easy earn a living they ain't gonna suffer well I just think there's thousands and thousands they ain't nice so well off bless you they ain't got nothing to complain of well the king he talked them blind so at last he give in he said alright but said he believed it was blame foolishness to stay and the doctor hanging over him but the king says cuss the doctor what do we care for him ain't we got all the fools in town on our side and ain't that a big enough majority in any town so they got ready to go downstairs again the duke says I don't think we put the money in a good place that cheered me up I don't think I want to get a hint of no kind to help me the king says why because Mary Jane will be in mourning from this out and at first you know the negro that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put them away and do you reckon a negro can run across money and not borrow some of it your heads level again duke says the king and he comes a fumbling under the curtain two or three foot from where I was I stuck tight to the wall and kept mighty still no quivery and I wonder what them fellas would say to me if they catch me and I tried to think what I'd better do if they did catch me but the king he got the bag before I could think more than about a half thought and he never suspicion I was around they took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick that was under the feather bed and crammed it in about a foot or two amongst the straw and said it was all right now because a negro only makes up the feather bed and don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a year and so it weren't in no danger getting stole now but I know better I had it out of there before they was half way downstairs I groped along up to my cubby and hid it there till I could get to do better I judged I better hide it outside the house somewhere else because if they missed it they'd give the house a good ransacking I know that very well then I turned in with my clothes all on but I couldn't have gone to sleep if I don't want it to I was in such a sweat to get through with the business by and by I heard the king and the do come up so I rolled off my pallet and left my chin at the top of my ladder and waited to see if anything was going to happen but nothing did so I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't begun yet and then I slipped down the ladder End of Chapter 26 Recording by Bob Sage Chapter 27 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 Bob Sage The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 27 I crept to their doors and listened they were snoring so I tiptoed along and got downstairs all right there weren't a sound anywheres I peeped through a crack in the dining room door and see the men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs the door was open into the parlor where the corpse was laying and there was a candle in both rooms I passed along and the parlor door was open but I see there weren't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter so I shoved on by but the front door was locked and the key wasn't there just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs back behind me I ran in the parlor and took a swift look around and the only place I see to hide the bag was in the coffin the lid was shoved along about a foot showing a dead man's face down in there with a wet cloth over it and his shroud on I tucked the money bag in under the lid just down beyond where his hands was crossed which made me creep they were so cold then I ran back across the room and in behind the door the person coming was Mary Jane she went to the coffin very soft and kneeled down and looked in she put up her handkerchief and I see she begun to cry though I couldn't hear and her back was to me I slid out and as I passed the dining room I thought I'd make sure them watchers hadn't seen me so I looked through the crack and everything was all right I slipped up to bed feeling rather blue on accounts of the thing playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much risk about it says I if it could stay where it is all right because when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to Mary Jane and she could dig them up again and get it but that ain't the thing that's going to happen the thing that's going to happen is the money will be found when they come to screw on the lid then the king will get it again and it'll be a long day before he gives anybody another chance to smash it from him of course I wanted to slide down and get it out of there but I didn't try it every minute it was getting earlier now and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin to stir and I might get catched catched with six thousand dollars in my hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take care of I don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as that says I to myself when I got downstairs in the morning the parlor was shut up and the watchers was gone there weren't nobody around but the family and the widow Bartley and our tribe I watched their faces to see if anything been happening but I couldn't tell towards the middle of the day the man to take a come with his man and they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs and then they set all our chairs in rows and borrowed more from the neighbors to the hall and the parlor and the dining room was filled I see the coffin lid was the way it was before but I dassen go to look in under it with folks around then the people began to flock in and the beats and the girls took seats in the front row at the head of the coffin and for a half an hour the people filed around slow in single rank and looked down at the dead man's face a minute and some dropped in a tear and it was all very still and solemn only the girls and the beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent and sobbing a little there weren't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the floor and blowing noses because the people always blows them all then they do it other places except church when the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his black gloves with his soft his soothering ways putting on the last touches and getting people and things all ship shape and comfortable and making no more sound the cat he never spoke he moved people around he squeezed in late ones he opened up passageways with his hands then he took his place over against the wall he was the softest stealthiest man I ever see and there weren't no more smile to him than there is to a hand they had borrowed a melodium a sick one and when everything was ready a young woman sat down and worked it and it was pretty squeaky and callicky and everybody joined in and sung and Peter was the only one that had a good thing according to my notion then the river in Hobson opened up slow and solemn and begun to talk and straight off the most outrageous role busted out in the cellar a body ever heard it was only one dog but he made a most powerful racket and he kept it up right along the parson had to stand there over the coffin and wait you couldn't hear yourself think it was right down awkward and nobody didn't seem to know what to do but pretty soon they see that long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say, don't you worry just depend on me then he stooped down and begun to glide along the wall just to show the showing above the people's heads so he glided along and the pow wow and racket getting more and more outrageous all the time and at last he had gone around two sides of the room he disappears down the cellar then in about two seconds we heard a whack and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two and then everything was dead still and the parson begun his solemn talk where he left off in a minute or two here comes this undertaker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall again and so he glided around three sides of the room and then rose up and shaded his mouth with his hands and stretched his neck out towards the preacher over the people's heads and says in a kind of course whisper he had a rat then he drooped down and gliding along the wall again to his place you could see it was a great satisfaction to the people because naturally they wanted to know there was nothing and it's just the little things that makes a man to be looked up to and like there were no more popular man in town than that undertaker was well the funeral sermon was very good but pies and long and tiresome and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbish and at last the job was through and the undertaker began to sneak up I was in a sweat then and watched him pretty keen but he never meddled at all just slid the lid along as soft as mush and screwed it down tired and fast so there I was I didn't know whether money was in there or not so says I suppose somebody has hogged that bag on the slide now how do I know whether to write to Mary Jane or not oh she dug him up and didn't find nothing what would she think of me blame it I says I may get hunted up and jailed I'd better lay low and keep dark and not write at all the things awful mixed up now trying to better it I've worsened it a hundred times and I wished to goodness I'd just let it alone dead fetch the whole business they buried him and we come back home and I went to watching faces again I couldn't help it and I couldn't rest easy but nothing come of it the faces didn't tell me nothing the king he visited round in the evening and sweetened everybody up and made himself ever so friendly and to give out the idea that his congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him so he must hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home he was very sorry he was so pushed and so was everybody they wished he could stay longer but they said they could see it couldn't be done and he said of course him and William would take the girls home with them and that pleased everybody too because then the girls would be well fixed and amongst their own relations and it pleased the girls too tickled them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world and told them to sell out as quickly as he wanted to they'd be ready then poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and change the general tune well blamed as the king didn't build the house and the negroes and all the property for auction straight off sell two days after the funeral but nobody could buy private before if they wanted to so the next day after the funeral along about noon time the girls joy got the first joked a couple of negro traders come along and the king sold them the negroes reasonable for three day drafts as they called it and away they went the two sons up the river to Memphis and their mother down the river to Alleen they thought them poor girls and them negroes would break their hearts for grief they cried around each other and took on so it most made me down sick to see it the girls said they had never dreamed of seeing the families separated or sold away from the town I can't ever get it out of my memory the sight of them poor miserable girls and the negroes hanging around each other's necks and crying and I reckoned I couldn't have stood it all but would have had to bust it out of telling our gang if I hadn't know the sale wanted no account and the negroes would be back home in a week or two the thing made a big stir in the town too and the good men came out flat footed and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way it injured the fraud son but the old fool he booed right along the Duke could say a duke and I tell you the duke was powerful and easy next day was auction day about broad day in the morning the king and the duke come up in the garden woke me up and I see by their look that there was trouble the king says was you in my room night before last know your majesty which was the way I always called him when nobody but our gang went around was you in there yesterday last night know your majesty on a bright now no lies on a bright your majesty I'm telling you the truth I ain't been near your rooms and Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it to you the duke says have you seen anybody else go in there know your grace not as I remember I believe stop and think I studied a while and I see my chance then I says well I see the negroes go in there several times both of them gave a little jump and look like they had never expected it and then like they had then the duke says what all of them no at least why it's not all at once that is I don't think I ever see them all come out at once but just one time hell when was that it was the day we had the funeral in the morning it weren't early because I overslept I was just starting down the ladder and I see them well go on go on what did they do how did they act they didn't do nothing and they didn't act anyway much as far as I could see their tiptoed away so I seen easy enough that they'd shoved in there to do up in majesty's room or something supposing you was up and found you warring up and so they was hoping to slide out the way of trouble without waking you up if they hadn't already waked you up great guns this is a goal says the king and both of them look pretty sick and tolerable silly they stood there thinking and a scratch in their heads a minute and the duke he bust into a kind of little raspy chuckle it does be all how neat the negroes played their hand they let on to be sorry that they was going out of this region and I believe they were sorry and so did you and so did everybody don't ever tell me anymore that a negro ain't got histrionic talent why the way they played that thing it fooled anybody in my opinion there's a fortune in them if I had capital I wouldn't want a better layout than that and here we've gone and sold them for a song yes and ain't privileged to sing the song yet say well is that song that draft in the bank for to be collected where would it be well that's all right then thank goodness says I kind of timid like is there something wrong the king world's army rips out none of your business you keep your head shut and your mind your own affairs if you got any long as you're in this town don't you forget that you hear then he says to the Duke we gotta just swallow it and say nothing mom's the word for us as they started down the ladder the Duke chuckles again and says quick sales and small profits it's a good business yes the king snarls around on it and says I was trying to do for the best and selling them out so quick if the profits has turned out to be none lacking considerable and none to carry is it my fault anymore in your own well they being this house yet and we wouldn't if I could have got my advice listened to the king says back as much as it was safe for him and then swapped around and lived into me again he give me down the banks for not coming and telling them I see the Negroes come out of his room acting that way said any fool would anode something was up and then and custom self a while and said it all come at him not laying late and taking his natural rest that morning and he'd be blamed if he'd ever do it again so they went off to John and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it off on to the Negroes and yet hadn't done the Negroes no harm by it end of chapter seven recording by Bob Sage chapter twenty-eight 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 the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter twenty-eight by and by it was getting uptime so I come down the ladder but as I come to the girls room the door was open and I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk which was open and she'd been packing things in it getting ready to go to England but she had stopped now with a folded gown in her lap and had her face in her hands crying I felt awful bad to see it of course anybody would I went in there and says Miss Mary Jane you can't to bear to see people in trouble and I can't most always tell me about it so she done it it was the niggers I just expected it she said the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her she didn't know how she was ever going to be happy there knowing the mother and the children weren't ever going to see each other no more and then busted out bitterer than ever and flung up her hands and says oh dear dear to think they ain't ever going to see each other any more but they will and inside of two weeks and I know it says I laws if it was out before I could think and before I could budge she throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it again say it again say it again I see I had spoke to sudden and said too much and was in a close place I asked her to let me think a minute and she set me there very impatient and excited and handsome but looking kind of happy and eased up like a person that's had a tooth pulled out so I went to studying it out I says to myself I reckon a body that ups and tells the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable many rests though I ain't had no experience and can't say for certain but it looks so to me anyway and yet here's a case where I'm blessed if it don't look to me like the truth is better and actually safer than a lie I must lay it by in my mind and think it over some time or other it's so kind of strange and unregular I never see nothing like it well I says to myself at last I'm going to chance it I'll up and tell the truth this time though it does seem most like setting down on a keg of powder and touching it off just to see where you'll go to then I says Miss Mary Jane is there any place out of town a little ways where you could go and stay three or four days yes Mr. Lothrop's why never mind why yet how I know the niggers will see each other again inside of two weeks here in this house and prove how I know it will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days four days she says I'll stay a year alright I says but I don't want nothing more out of you than just your word I'd rather have it than another man's kiss the Bible she smiled and reddened up very sweet and I says if you don't mind it I'll shut the door then I came back and set down again and says don't you holler just set still and take it like a man I got to tell the truth and you want to brace up Miss Mary because it's a bad kind and going to be hard to take but there ain't no help for it these uncles of yorn ain't no uncles at all they're a couple of frauds regular deadbeats there now we're over the worst of it you can stand the rest middling easy it jolted her up like everything of course but I was over the shoal water now so I went right along her eyes ablazing higher and higher all the time and told her every blame thing from where we first struck that young fool going up to the steamboat clear through to where she flung herself onto the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her sixteen or seventeen times and then up she jumps with her face a fire like sunset and says the brute come don't waste a minute not a second we'll have them tarred and feathered and flung in the river says I certainly but do you mean before you go to Mr. Lothrop's or oh she says what am I thinking about she says and set right down again don't mind what I said please don't you won't now will you laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I said I would die first I never thought I was so stirred up she says now go on I won't do so anymore you tell me what to do and whatever you say I'll do it well I says it's a rough gang them two frauds and I'm fixed so I got to travel with them a while longer whether I want to or not I'd rather not 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 of course well then we won't blow on them saying them words put a good idea in my head I see how maybe I could get me and Jim rid of the frauds get them jailed here and then leave but I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard to answer questions but me so I didn't want the plan to begin working till pretty late tonight I says Miss Mary Jane I'll tell you what we'll do and you won't have to stay at Mr. Lothrop so long another how far is it a little short of four miles right out in the country back here well that'll answer now you go along out there and lay low till nine or half past tonight I'll then get them to fetch 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 wait till eleven and then if I don't turn up it means I'm gone and out of the way and save then you come out and spread the news around and get these beats jailed 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 up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand and you must stand by me all you can stand by you indeed I will they shan't touch a hair of your head she says and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said it too if I get away I shan't be here I says to prove these rapscallions ain't your uncles and I couldn't do it if I was here I could swear they was beats and bummers that's all though that's worth something well there's others can do that better than I can and they're people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be I'll tell you how to find them give me a pencil and a piece of paper there royal none such 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 royal none such and ask for some witnesses why you'll have that you can tell your town down here before you can hardly wink Miss Mary and they'll come a-biling too I judged we had got everything fixed right about now so I says just let the auction go right along and don't worry nobody don't have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on accounts of the short notice and they ain't going out of this till they get that money and the way we fixed it the sale ain't going to count and they ain't going to get no money just like the way it was with the niggers it weren't no sale and the niggers will be back before long why they can't collect the money for the niggers yet they're in the worst kind of a fix Miss Mary well she says I'll run down to breakfast now and then I'll start straight for Mr. Lothrop's deed that ain't the ticket Miss Mary Jane I says by no manner of means go before breakfast why what did you reckon 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 coarse print do you reckon 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 never mind about them they've got to stand it yet a while they might suspicion something if all of you was to go I don't want you to see them nor your sisters nor nobody in this town if a neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something 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 in the morning gone to see a friend is all right but I won't have my love given to them well then it shan't be it was well enough to tell her so no harm in it 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 and it makes feel pretty silly 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 stole it from them and I stole it to give to you and I know where I hid it 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 now getting caught and I had to shove it into the first you and run and it weren't a good place oh stop blaming yourself it's too bad to do it and I won't allow it you couldn't help it it wasn't your fault where did you hide it I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again and I couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that corpse lying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach so for a minute I didn't say nothing then I says I'd rather not tell you where I put it if you don't mind letting me off 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 reckon that'll do oh yes so I wrote I put it in the coffin it was there when you was crying there away in the night I was behind the door and I was mighty sorry for you Miss Mary Jane it made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there I'll buy herself in the night and them devils lying there right under her own roof shaming her and robbing her and when I folded it up and gave it to her I see 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 shan't ever forget you and I'll think of you many and many a time and I'll pray for you too and she was gone pray for me I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more nearer her size but I bet she done it just the same she was just that kind she had the grit to pray for Judas if she took the notion there weren't no back down to her I judge you may say what you want to but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see in my opinion she was just full of sand it sounds like flattery but it ain't no flattery and when it comes to beauty and goodness too she lays over them all I ain't never seen her since that time but I see her go out of that door no I ain't never seen her since but I reckon I've thought of her many and many a million times and of her saying she would pray for me and if ever I'd have thought it would do any good for me to pray for her blamed if I wouldn't have done it or bust well Mary Jane she lit out the back way I reckon because nobody see her go when I struck Susan in the hair-lip I says what's the name of them people over on the other side of the river she goes to see sometimes they says there's several but it's the proctors mainly that's the name I says I most forgot it well Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry one of them sick which one? I don't know least ways I kind of forget but I think it's sakes alive I hope it ain't Hannah I'm sorry to say it I says last week is she took bad it ain't no name for it they set 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 the matter with her I couldn't think of anything reasonable right off that way so I says mumps mumps your granny they don't set up with people that's got the mumps they don't don't they you better bet they do with these mumps you're kind Mary Jane said how is it a new kind because it's mixed up with other things what other things well measles and whooping cough and urosyplis and consumption and yellow janders and brain fever 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 nation do they call it the mumps for why because it is the mumps that's what it starts with there ain't no sense in it a body might stump his toe and take pison and fall down the well and break his neck and bust his brains out and somebody come along and ask what killed him and some numbskull up and say why he stumped his toe would there be any sense in that no and there ain't no sense in this another is it catching is it catching why how you talk is a hero catching in the dark if you don't hitch onto one tooth there ain't you and you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the whole hero along can you well these kind of mumps is a kind of a hero as you may say and it ain't no slouch of a hero another you come to get it hitched on good well it's awful I think says the hair lip I'll go to Uncle Harvey and oh yes I says I would of course I would I wouldn't lose no time well why wouldn't you just look at it a minute and maybe paint your uncle's a bleach to get along home to England as fast as they can and do you reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that journey by yourselves you know they'll wait for you so first so good your uncle Harvey's a preacher ain't he very well then is a preacher going to deceive a steamboat clerk is he going to deceive a ship clerk so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard now you know he ain't what will he do then why he'll say it's a great pity but my church matters has got to get along the best way they can for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus unum mumps and so it's my bound in duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it but never mind if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey shock and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got it or not like a muggins well anyway maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors listen at that now you do beat all for natural stupidness can't you see that they'd go and tell there ain't no way but just to tell nobody at all well maybe you're right yes I judge you are right but I reckon we have to tell uncle Harvey she's gone out a while anyway so he won't be uneasy about her yes Miss Mary Jane she 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 to 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 mean the Apthorps ain't it of course bother them kind of names a body can't ever seem to remember them half the time somehow yes she said say she has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure to come to the auction house because she allowed her uncle Peter would rather they had it than anybody else and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come and then if she ain't too tired she's coming home and if she is she'll be home in the morning anyway she said don't say nothing about the proctors but only about the Apthorps which will be perfectly true because she's going over there to speak about their buying the house I know it because she told me so herself all right they said and cleared out to lay for their uncles and give them the love and the kisses and tell them the message 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 rather Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Dr. Robinson I felt very good I judged I had done it pretty neat I reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't have done it no neater himself of course he would have thrown more style very handy not being brung up to it well they held the auction in the public square along towards the end of the afternoon and it strung along and strung along and the old man he was on hand and looking his level poisonous up there alongside of the auctioneer and chipping in a little scripture now and then or a little goody goody saying of some kind and the Duke he was around goo-gooing for sympathy all he knowed how and just spreading himself generally by and by the thing dragged through and everything was sold everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard so they'd got to work that off I never see such a giraffe as the king was for wanting to swallow everything well whilst they was added a steamboat landed and in about two minutes up comes a crowd of whooping and yelling and laughing and carrying on and singing out here's your opposition line here's your two sets of heirs to old Peter Wilts here's your money and you takes your choice end of chapter 28