 Notice an explanatory 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 JKD76. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Notice an explanatory. Persons who are attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted. Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished. Persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By order of the author, per GG, Chief of Ordinance. Explanatory. In this book, a number of dialects are used to wit. The Missouri Nigra dialect, the extremist form of the backwards Southwestern dialect, the Ordinary Pike County dialect, and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion or by guesswork, but painstakingly and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with the several forms of speech. I make these explanations for the reason that without it, many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. The author. End of Notice an Explanatory. Recording by JKD76. Chapter 1 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This is a LibraBox recording. All LibraBox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraBox.org. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 1. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly, Tom's Aunt Polly, she is at Mary, and the widow Douglas is all told in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before. Now, the way that the book winds up is this. Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got $6,000 a piece, all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day a piece all the year round, more than a body could tell what to do with. The widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would civilize me. But it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal, regular, and decent the widow was in her ways. And so, when I couldn't stand it no longer, I let out. I got into my old rags and my sugar hog-shed again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. The widow she cried over me and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and then you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals. Though there weren't really anything that mattered with them. That is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different. Things get mixed up, and the Jews kind of swaps around and the other things go better. After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the bull rushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him, but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time. So then I didn't care no matter about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke and ask the widow to let me, but she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try not to do it anymore. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know anything about it. After she was a bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody but being gone, you see yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff too. Of course that was all right because she'd done it herself. Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid with goggles on, just come to live with her, and took a set at me, now with a spelling book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry. And don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry. Sit up straight. And pretty soon she would say, Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry. Why don't you try to behave? Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres. All I wanted was a change. I weren't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said, and she wouldn't say it for the whole world. She was going to live, so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good. Now she had a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it, but I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together. Miss Watson cheeked pecking at me, and I got tiresome and lonesome. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I sat down in a chair by the window, and tried to think of something cheerful, but it weren't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods, never so mournful. And I heard an owl away off, who wounding about somebody that was dead, and a whip-powel, and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die, and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was. Then so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then, away out in the woods, I heard that kind of sound the ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind, and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and is to go about that way every night, grieving. I got so downhearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up on my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle, and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck. So I was scared, and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time. And then I tried to hide up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I had no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you found instead of nailing it up over the door. But I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you killed a spider. I sat down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke, for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away, and often the town go boom, boom, boom, twelve licks, and all still again, stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap in the dark amongst the trees. Something was astaring. I sat still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a meow, meow, down there. That was good. Says I meow, meow, as soft as I could. And then I put in the light and scrambled out of the widow onto the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and sure enough there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me. End of Chapter 1 Read by Elijah Fisher Chapter 2 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 Mark Desonzo The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 2 We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen, I fell over a root and made a noise. We scratched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was sitting in the kitchen door. We could see him pretty clear because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says, Huda! He listened some more. Then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us. We could have touched him nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there weren't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itch in, but I doesn't scratch it, and then my ear begun to itch, and next my back right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty of time since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy, if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over and upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says, Say, who is you? Why is you? Dog-mocked cats if I didn't hear something. Well, I know what I was going to do. I was going to sit down here and listen till I hear it again. So he sat down on the ground but twixed me and Tom. He leaned his back up against the tree and stretched his legs out to one of the most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes, but I doesn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itch on underneath. I didn't know how I was going to sit still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes, but it seemed to sit longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckon I couldn't stand it more in a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy. Next he begun to snore and then I was pretty soon comfortable again. Tom, he made a sign to me, kind of a little noise with his mouth and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no, he might wake and make a disturbance and then they'd find out I warn in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to risk it so we slid in there and got three candles and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out and I was in a sweat to get away but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was on his hands and knees and place something on him. Awaited and it seemed a good while. Everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path around the garden fence and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him and Jim stirred a little but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance and rode him all over the state and then set him under the trees again and hung his hat on the limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it said they rode him down into Orleans and that every time he told it he spread it more and more till by and by he said they rode him all over the world and tired him most to death and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches dark by the kitchen fire but when everyone was talking and letting on to know all about such things Jim would happen in and say hmm what you know about witches and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five centerpiece round his neck with a string said it was a charm the devil gave him with his own hands told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had just for a sight of that five centerpiece but they wouldn't touch it because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant because he got stuck up on a counter having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling where there were sick folks maybe and the stars over us were sparkling ever so fine and down by the village was the river a whole mile broad and awful still in grand. We went down the hill and found Joe Harper and Ben Rogers and two or three more of the boys hid in the old tanyard so we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half to the big scar on the hillside and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret and then showed them a hole in the hill right in the thickest part of the bushes then we lit the candles and crawled in on our hands and knees we went about two hundred yards and then the cave opened up Tom poked about amongst the passages and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't have noticed there was a hole we went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room all damp and sweaty and cold and there we stopped Tom says, now we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's gang everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath write his name in blood everybody was willing so Tom got out a sheet of paper put the oath on and read it it swore every boy to stick to the band and never tell any of the secrets and if anybody had done anything to any boy in the band whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked across in their breasts which was the sign of the band and nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark and if he did he must be sued and if he'd done it again he must be killed and if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets he must have his throat cut and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around and his name blotted off the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever everybody said it was a real beautiful oath and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head he said some of it but the rest was out of pirate books and robber books and every gang that was high toned had it some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets it was a good idea so he took a pencil and wrote it in then Ben Rogers says here's Huck Finn he ain't got no family what you gonna do about him well Haney got a father says Tom Sawyer yes he's got a father but you can't never find him these days he used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard but he ain't been seen in these parts for a year or more they talked it over and they was gonna rule me out because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others well nobody could think of anything to do everybody was stumped and set still I was most ready to cry but all at once I thought of a way and so I offered them Miss Watson they could kill her everybody said oh she'll do that's all right Huck can come in then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with and I made my mark on the paper now says Ben Rogers what's the line of business of this gang nothing only robbery and murder Tom said but who are we gonna rob houses or cattle or stuff stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery it's burglary says Tom Sawyer we ain't burglars that ain't no sort of style we're highway men we stop stages and carriages on the road with masks on and kill people and take their watches and money must we always kill the people oh certainly it's best some authorities think different but mostly it's considered best to kill them except some that you bring to the cave here and keep them till they're ransomed ransomed what's that I don't know well that's what they do I've seen it in books and so of course that's what we've got to do but how can we do it if we don't know what it is why blame it all we've got to do it don't I tell you it's in the books do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books and get things all muddled up oh that's all very fine to say Tom Sawyer but how in the nation are these fellas gonna be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them that's the thing I want to get at now what do you reckon it is well I don't know but perhaps if we keep them till they're ransomed it means we keep them till they're dead now that's something like that'll answer why couldn't you said that before we'll keep them till they're ransomed to death and a bothersome lot they'll be too eating up everything and always trying to get loose how you talk Ben Rogers how can they get loose when there's a guard over them ready to shoot them down if they move a peg a guard well that is good so somebody's got to set up all night and never get in asleep just so as to watch them I think that's foolishness why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here because it ain't in the books so that's why now Ben Rogers do you want to do things regular or don't you that's the idea don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do do you reckon you can learn them anything not by a good deal no sir we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way alright I don't mind but I say it's a full way anyhow say do we kill the women too well Ben Rogers if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on kill the women no nobody ever saw anything in the books like that you fetch them to the cave and you're always polite as pie to them and by and by they fall in love with you and never want to go home anymore well if that's the way I'm agreed but I don't take no stock in it might as soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women and fellows waiting to be ransom that there won't be no place for the robbers but go ahead I ain't got nothing to say little Tom at Barnes was asleep now and when they wake him up he was scared and cried and said he wanted to go home to his ma and he didn't want to be a robber anymore so they all made fun of him called him cry baby and that made him mad and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets but Tom gave him five cents to keep quiet and said we would all go home and meet next week and rob somebody and kill some people Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much only Sundays and so he wanted to begin next Sunday but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday and that settled the thing they agreed to get together and fix a day as soon as they could and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Joe Harper second captain of the gang and so started home I clumped up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking my new clothes was all greased up and clayy and I was dog tired so I was going to go home and then I literally went to the end of chapter 2 chapter 3 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 Nikalia Schwartz The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain going over in the morning from old Miss Watson, on account of my clothes. But the widow, she didn't scold, but only cleaned off the grease and clay and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave a while if I could. Then, Miss Watson, she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for, I would get it. But it weren't so. I tried it, once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It weren't any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way. I sat down one time, back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't deacon win get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fad up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was spiritual gifts. This was too many for me. But she told me what she meant. I must help other people and do everything I could for other people and look out for them all the time and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it, except for the other people. So at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it anymore, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about providence in a way to make a body's mouth water. But maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's providence. But if Miss Watson's got him, there weren't no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and I reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better off than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant and so kind of low down in ornery. Pop! he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me. I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always wail me when he was sober and could get his hands on me, though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river Drounded, about twelve miles above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway, said this Drounded man was just his size and was ragged and had uncommon long hair, which was all like Pop. But they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it weren't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I weren't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a Drounded man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I know, then, that this weren't Pop, but a woman dressed up in man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wish he wouldn't. We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog-drivers and women and carts, taking garden stuff to market. But we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs ingots, and he called the turn-ups and stuff jewelry. And we would go to the cave and pow-wow over what we had done and how many people we had killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan, which was the sign for the gang to get together. And then he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-Rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants and six hundred camels and over a thousand sumpter mules, all loaded down with diamonds and they didn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our swords and guns and get ready. He never could go after even a turnip cart, but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it, though there was only laugh and broomsticks. And you might scour at them till you rotted. And then they weren't worth the mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-Rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants. So I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade. And when we got the word, we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there weren't no Spaniards and A-Rabs, and there weren't no camels nor no elephants. It weren't anything but a Sunday school picnic, and only a primer class at that. We busted it up and chased the children up the Hollow. But we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam. Though Ben Rogers got a ragdoll, and Joe Harper got a hymnbook and a tract. And then the teacher charged in and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no diamonds. And I told Tom Saw your so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway. And he said there was A-Rabs too, and elephants and things. I said, Why couldn't we see them then? He said if I weren't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure and so on. But we had enemies which he called magicians. And they had turned the whole thing into infant Sunday school just out of spite. I said, All right, then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numbskull. Why, said he, a magician could call up a lot of genies. And they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church. Well, I says, Suppose we got some genies to help us. Can't we lick the other crowd then? How are you going to get them? I don't know. How do they get them? Why they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring. And then the genies come tearing in with the thunder and lightning a ripping around and the smoke a rolling and everything they're told to do they up and do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot tower up by the roots and belting a Sunday school superintendent over the head with it or any other man. What makes them tear around so why whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace 40 miles long out of diamonds and fill it full of chewing gum or whatever you want and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you Mary they've got to do it and they've got to do it before sun up next morning to and more they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it you understand. Well says I I think they're a pack of flat heads for not keeping the palace themselves instead of fooling them away like that. And what's more if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp. How you talk Huck Finn why you'd have to come when he rubbed it whether you wanted to or not. What an eye as high as a tree and as big as a church. All right then I would come but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country. Shucks it ain't no use talking to you Huck Finn. You don't seem to know anything somehow. Perfect sap head. I thought all this over for two or three days. And then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an engine calculating to build a palace and sell it but it weren't no use. None of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-Rabs in the elephants but as for me I think different. It had all the marks of a Sunday school. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 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 Elizabeth Holland. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter 4 Well, three or four months run along and it was well into the winter now. I'd been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics anyway. At first I hated the school but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hooky and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheer me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the wood as ways too and they weren't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly. Before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the wood sometimes and so that was a rest to me. I like the old ways best but I was getting so I like the new ones too a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure and doing very satisfactory. She said she weren't ashamed of me. One morning I happened to turn over the salt cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck but Miss Watson was in ahead of me and crossed me off. She says take your hands away Huckleberry. What a mess you're always making. The widow put in a good word for me but that weren't going to keep off the bad luck. I know that well enough. I started out after breakfast feeling worried and shaky and wondering where it was going to fall on me and what it was going to be. There was ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck but this wasn't one of them kind so I never tried to do anything but just poked along low spirited and on the watch out. I went down to the front garden and clump over the style where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the style a while and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny that hadn't come in after standing around so I couldn't make it out. It was very curious somehow. I was going to follow around but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first but next I did. There was a cross and the left boot hill made with big nails to keep off the devil. I was up in a second and shining down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said, Why my boy, you're all out of breath. Did you come for your interest? No sir, I says. Is there some for me? Oh yes, a half yearly is in last night. Over a hundred fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You would better let me invest it along with your six thousand because if you take it you'll spend it. No sir, I says. I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all nor the six thousand another. I want you to take it. I want to give it to you. The six thousand and all. He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says, Why, what can you mean my boy? I says, Don't you ask me no questions about it please. You'll take it, won't you? He says, Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter? Please take it, says I and don't ask me nothing. Then I won't have to tell no lies. He studied awhile and then he says, Oh, Oh, I think I see. You want to sell all your property to me. Not give it. That's the correct idea. Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over and says, There you see it says for a consideration. That means I have bought it off of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign it. So I signed it and left. Miss Watson's nigger Jim had a hairball as big as your fist which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it and it note everything. So I went to him that night and told him Pap was here again for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was what was he going to do and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hairball and said something over it and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It felt pretty solid and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again and then another time and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees and put his ear against it and listened but it weren't no use. He said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that weren't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little and it wouldn't pass know how even if the brass didn't show because it was so slick it felt greasy and so that would tell on it every time. I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge. I said it was pretty bad money but maybe the hairball would take it because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it and said he would manage so the hairball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night and next morning you couldn't see no brass and it wouldn't feel greasy no more and so anybody in town would take it in a minute let alone a hairball. Well I know the potato would do that before but I had forgot it. Jim put the quarter under the hairball and got down and listened again. This time he said the hairball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says go on. So the hairball talked to Jim and Jim told it to me. He says your father don't know yet what he's gonna do. Sometimes he spec he'll go away and then again he spec he'll stay. The best way is to rest easy and let the old man take his own way. There's two angels hovering around about him. One of them is white and shiny and the other one is black. The white one gets him to go right a little while then the black one's sailing and busted all up. A body can't tell yet which one is gonna fetch him at the last but you is all right. You're gonna have considerable trouble in your life and considerable joy. Sometimes you're gonna get hurt and sometimes you're gonna get sick but every time you's gonna get well again. There's two cows flying about you in your life. One of them's light and the other one's dark. One is rich and others poor. He's gonna marry the Poe one first and the rich one by and by. You want to keep away from the water as much as you can and don't run no risk cases down in the bills that she's gonna get hung. When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there set Pap his own self. End of chapter four. Chapter five 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 Elizabeth Holland. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Chapter five. I had shut the door, too. Then I turned around and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time. He tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too. But in a minute I see I was mistaken. That is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched. He being so unexpected. But right away after I see I weren't scared of him worth bothering about. He was most fifty and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy and hung down and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray. So was his long mixed up whiskers. There weren't no color in his face where his face showed. It was white, not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick. A white to make a body's flesh crawl. A treetode white. A fish belly white. As for his clothes, just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on to other knee. The boot on that foot was busted and two of his toes stuck through and he worked them down then. His hat was laying on the floor. An old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid. I stood a-looking at him. He sat there looking at me with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up so he had clumped in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By and by he says, start your clothes. Very. You think you're a good deal of a big bug, don't you? Maybe I am, maybe I ain't, I says. Don't you give me none of your lips, says he. You've put on considerable many frills since I've been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated too, they say. Can read and write. You think you're better than your father now, don't you? Because he can't. I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such highfalutin' foolishness? Hey, who told you you could? The widow, she told me. The widow, hey. And who told the widow she could put her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business? Nobody never told her. Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here, you dropped that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better than what he is. You let me catch you foolin' around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read and she couldn't write another before she died. None of the family couldn't before they died. I can't and here you're a swell in yourself up like this. I had the man to stand it, you hear? Say, let me hear you read. I took up a book and begun something about General Washington in the wars. When I'd read about half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says, it's so you can do it. I had my doubts when you told me, now looky here, you stopped that puttin' on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you my smarty and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion too. I never see such a son. He took up a little blue and yellow picture of some cows and a boy and he says, what's this? It's something they give me for learning my lessons good. He tore it up and says, I'll give you something better. I'll give you a cow hide. He sat there mumbling and a growl in a minute and then he says, ain't you a sweet-sinnid dandy though? A bed and bed clothes and a looking glass and a piece of carpet on the floor and your own father got asleep with the hogs and the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet I'll take some of these frills out of you before I'm done with you. Why there ain't no end to your heirs. They say you're rich. Hey, how's that? They lie. That's how. Looky here. Mind how you talk to me. I'm a standing about all I can stand now so don't give me no sass. I've been in town two days and I ain't heard nothing about you being rich. I heard about it way down the river too. That's why I come. You get me that money tomorrow. I want it. I ain't got no money. It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You get it. I want it. I ain't got no money. I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher. He'll tell you the same. All right. I'll ask him and I'll make him pungle too or I'll know the reason why. Say how much you got in your pocket. I want it. I ain't got only a dollar and I want that too. It don't make no difference what you want it for. You just shell it out. He took it and bit it to see if it was good and then he said he was going downtown to get some whiskey. Said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him. And when I reckoned he was gone he came back and put his head in again and told me to mind about that school because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that. Next day he was drunk and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bully ragged him and tried to make him give up the money. But he couldn't. Then he swore he'd make the law forcing. The judge in the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian. But it was a new judge that had just come and he didn't know the old man. So he said courts must interfere and separate families if they could help it. Said he'd rather not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher in the widow had to quit on the business. That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cow hide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher and Pap took it and got drunk and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on. And he kept it up all over town with a tin pan till most midnight. Then they jailed him. And next day they had him before court and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was satisfied. Said he was boss of his son and he'd make it warm for him. When he got out the new judge said he was going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house and dressed him up clean and nice and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperates and such things till the old man cried and said he'd been a fool and fooled away his life. But now he was going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of. And he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug him for them words. So he cried and his wife she cried again. Pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before. And the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down with sympathy. And the judge said it was so. So they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand and said look at it gentlemen and ladies and all. Take a hold of it. Shake it. There's a hand that was a hand of a hog but it ain't so no more. It's the hand of a man that started in on a new life and I'll die before he'll go back. You marked them words. Don't forget I said them. It's a clean hand now. Shake it. Don't be feared. So they shook it one after the other all around and cried. The judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record for something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room which was the spare room. And in the night sometime he got powerful thirsty and clumped out onto the porch roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty rod and clumped back again and had a good old time. And towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sunup. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it. The judge, he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 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 6 Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now despite PAP. That law trial was a slow business. It appeared like they weren't ever going to get started on it, so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the Judge for him to keep from getting a cow hiding. Every time he got money he got drunk, and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town, and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited. This kind of thing was right in his line. He got to hanging around the widows too much, and so she told him at last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasn't he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss, so he watched out for me one day in the spring and catched me, and took me up the river about three miles in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody, and there weren't no houses, but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was. He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store three miles to the ferry and traded fish and game for a whiskey, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time and licked me. The widow she found out where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me, but pat drove him off with the gun, and it wore it long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it all but the Kyle Hyde Park. It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widows, where you had to wash and eat on a plate and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing because the widow didn't like it, but now I take to it again because Pap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods there. Take it all around. But by and by, Pap got too handy with his hickory, and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days, it was dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drowned, and I wasn't ever going to get out anymore. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I couldn't find no way. There weren't a window to it big enough for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the chimney. It was too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away. I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times. Well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time. But this time I found something at last. I found an old rusty wood saw without any handle. It was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work. There was an old horse blanket nailed against the logs of the far end of the cabin behind the table to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the blanket and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out, big enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard Pap's gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work and dropped the blanket and hid my saw. And pretty soon Pap came in. Pap warranted in a good humor, so he was his natural self. He said he was downtown and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial. But then there was ways to put it off a long time and Judge Thatcher knows how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian. And they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up considerable because I didn't want to go back to the widows anymore and be so cramped up and civilized as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing and cussed everything and everybody he could think of and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any. And after that he polished off with a kind of general cuss all around including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names of and so called them what's his name when he got to them and went right along with his cussing. He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch out. And if they tried to come any such game on him he'd know would have a place six or seven mile off to Stoneman where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me uneasy again but only for a minute. I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that chance. The old man made me go to the skiff and fetched the things he had got. There was a 50 pounds hack of cornmeal and a side of bacon ammunition and a four gallon jug of whiskey and an old book and two newspapers for watching beside some tow. I towed it up a load and went back and sat down on the bow of this gift to rest. I thought it all over and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines and take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place but just tramp right across the country mostly night times and hunt and fish to keep alive and so get so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me anymore. I judged I would sell out and leave that night if Pap got drunk enough and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or grounded. I got the things all up to the cabin and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up and went to ripping again. He had got drunk over in town and laid in the gutter all night and he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adam. He was just all mud. Whenever his liquor began to work he most always went for the government. This time he says call this a government. Why just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law of standing ready to take a man's son away from him. A man's own son which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expanse of raising. Yes just as that man has got that son raised at last and ready to go to work and begin to do something for him and give him a rest. The law up and goes for him and they call that government that ain't all. Another the law backs that old judge thatcher up and helps him to keep me out of my property. Here's what the law does. The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and upwards and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this and lets him go round and close that ain't fit for a hog. They call that government. A man can't get his rights in a government like this. Sometimes I have a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes and I told him so. I told old thatcher so to his face. Lots of them heard me and can tell what I said. Says I. For two cents I leave the blamed country and never come a near it again. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat if you call it a hat. But the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin and that it ain't rightly a hat at all. But more like my head was shoved up through a jenta stove pipe. Look at it says I such a hat for me to wear. One of the wealthiest men in this town if I can get my rights. Oh yes this is a wonderful government. Wonderful. Why looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio. I'm a lotter most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on. You ever see two and the shiniest hat and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had and he had a gold watch and chain and a silver headed cane. The awfulest old gray headed nabob in the state and what do you think they said he was a professor in a college and could talk all kinds of languages and knowed everything and that ain't the was they said he could vote when he was at home. Well that let me out thinks I what is the country coming to it was election day and I was just about to go and vote myself if I weren't too drunk to get there but when they told me there was a state in this country where they'd let that nigger vote I drawed out I says I'll never vote again them's the very words I said they all heard me and the country may rot for all me I'll never vote again as long as I live and to see the cool way of that nigger why he wouldn't give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out of the way I says to the people why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold that's what I want to know and what do you reckon they said why they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the state six months and he hadn't been there that long yet there now that's a specimen they call that a government that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in the state six months here's a government that calls itself a government and lets on to be a government and thinks it is a government and yet Scott to set stock still for six whole months before it can take hold of a prowling thieving infernal white shirted free nigger and half was going on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taking him to so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and bark both shins and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of language mostly hope at the nigger and the government though he give the tub some to all along here and there he hopped around the cabin considerable first on one leg and then on the other holding first one shin and then the other one and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick but it warrant good judgment because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it so now he raised a haul that fairly made a body's hair raise and down he went in the dirt and rolled there and held his toes and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous he said so his own self afterwards he had heard old so Barry Hagen in his best days and he said it laid over him too but i reckon that was sort of piling it on maybe after supper pap took the jug and said he had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one delirium tremens that was always his word i judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour and then i would steal the key or saw myself out one or two other he drank and drank and tumbled down on his blankets by and by but luck didn't run my way he didn't go sound asleep but was uneasy he groaned and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for a long time at last i got so sleepy i couldn't keep my eyes open all i could do and so before i knowed what i was about i was sound asleep and the candle burning i don't know how long i was asleep but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and i was up there was pap looking wild and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes he said they was crawling up his legs and then he would give a jump and scream and say one bit him on the cheek but i couldn't see no snakes he started and run round and round the cabin hollering take him off take him off he's biting me on the neck i never see a man look so wild in the eyes pretty soon he was all fagged out and fell down panting then he rolled over and over wonderful fast kicking things every which way and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands and screaming and saying there was devils a hold of him he wore out by and by and laid still a while moaning then he laid stiller and didn't make a sound i could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods and it seemed terrible still he was laying over by the corner by and by he raised up partway and listened with his head to one side he says very low tramp tramp tramp that's the dead tramp tramp tramp they're coming after me but i won't go oh they're here don't touch me don't hands off they're cold let go oh let a poor devil alone then he went down on all fours and called off begging them to let him alone and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table still a begging and then he went to crying i could hear him through the blanket by and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking mild and he see me and went for me he chased me round and round the place with a clasp knife calling me the angel of death and saying he would kill me and then i couldn't come for him no more i begged and told him i was only hook but he laughed such a screechy laugh and roared and cussed and kept on chasing me up once when i turned short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders and i thought i was gone but i slid out of the jacket quick as lightning and saved myself pretty soon he was all tired out and dropped down with his back against the door and said he would rest a minute and then kill me he put his knife under him and said he would sleep and get strong and then he would see who was who so he dozed off pretty soon by and by i got the old split bottom chair and clump up as easy as i could not to make any noise and got down the gun i slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded then i laid it across the turn up barrel pointing towards pap and sat down behind it to wait for him to stir and how slow and still the time did drag along end of chapter six chapter seven of the adventures of huckleberry fin this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by mark tassanzo the adventures of huckleberry fin by mark twain chapter seven get up what you bout i opened my eyes and looked around trying to make out where i was it was after sun up and i had been sound asleep pap was standing over me looking sour and sick too he says what you doing with this gun i judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing so i says somebody tried to get in so i was laying for him why didn't you rouse me out well i tried to but i couldn't i couldn't budge you well all right don't stand there pilavering all day but out with you see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast i'll be along in a minute he unlocked the door and i cleared out up the riverbank i noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down and a sprinkling a bark so i know the river had begun to rise i reckoned i would have great times now if i was over at the town the june rise used to be always luck for me because as soon as that rise begins here comes cordwood floating down and pieces of log rafts sometimes a dozen logs together so all you have to do is catch them and sell them to the wood yards and the sawmill i went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and another one out for what the rise might fetch along well all at once here comes the canoe just a beauty too about 13 or 14 foot long right at high like a duck i shot head first off the bank like a frog closing all on and struck out for the canoe i just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it because people often done that to fool folks and when a chap had pulled up a skiff out most to it they'd raise up and laugh at him but it weren't so this time it was a drift canoe for sure and i clump up in and paddle the shore thinks i the old man will be glad when he sees this she's worth ten dollars but when i got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet and as i was running her into a little creek like a gully all hung over with vines and willows i struck another idea i judged i'd hide her good and then instead of taking to the woods when i run off i'd go down to the river about 50 mile and camp in one place for good and not have such a rough time tramping on foot it was pretty close to the shanty and i thought i heard the old man coming all the time but i got her hid and then i out and looked around a bunch of willows and there was the old man down the path of peace just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun so he hadn't seen anything when he got along i was hard at it taking up a trot line he abused me a little for being so slow but i told him i fell in the river and that was what made me so long i knowed he would see i was wet and then he would be asking questions we got five catfish off the lines and went home while we laid off after breakfast to sleep up both of us being about war out i got to thinking that if i could fix up some way to keep papping the widow from trying to follow me it would be a certain to thing then trusting the look to get far enough off before they missed me you see all kinds of things might happen well i didn't see no way for a while but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water and he says another time a man comes prowling around here you roused me out you hear that man weren't here for no good i just shot him next time you roused me out you hear then he dropped down and went to sleep again but what he had been saying gave me the very idea i wanted i says to myself i can fix it now so nobody won't think of following me about 12 o'clock we turned and went along up the bank the river was coming up pretty fast lots of driftwood going by on the rise by and by along comes part of a log raft nine logs fast together we went out with the skiff and towed it ashore then we had dinner anybody but pap would have waited and seen the day through so as to catch more stuff but that weren't pop style nine logs was enough for one time he must shove right over to town and sell so he locked me in and took the skiff and started off towing the raft about half past three i judged he wouldn't come back that night i waited till i reckoned he had got a good start then i out with my saw and went to work on that log again before he was to the side of the river i was out of the hole him and his raft was just a speck on the water a way off yonder i took the sac of corn mail and took it to where the canoe was hidden shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in then i done the same with the side of bacon then the whiskey jug i took all the coffee and sugar there was and all the ammunition i took the wadding i took the bucket and gourd i took a dipper and a tin cup and my old saw and two blankets and the skillet and the coffee pot i took fish lines and matches and other things everything that was worth a cent i cleaned out the place i wanted an axe but there wasn't any only the one out of the wood pile and i knowed why i was going to leave that i fetched out the gun and now i was done i had worn the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things so i fixed that as good as i could from the outside by scattering dust on the place which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust then i fixed the piece of log back into its place and put two rocks under it and went against it to hold it there for it was bent up at that place that didn't quite touch ground if you stood four or five foot away and didn't know what was sawd you wouldn't never notice it and besides this was the back of the cabin and it weren't likely anybody would go fooling around there it was all grass clear to the canoe so i hadn't left the track i followed around to see i stood on the bank and looked out over the river all safe so i took the gun and went up a piece into the woods and was hunting around for some birds when i see a wild pig hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prayer of farms i shot this fellow and took him into camp i took the axe and smashed in the door i beat it and hacked it considerably doing it i fetched the pig in and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe and laid him down on the ground to bleed i say ground because it was ground hod packed and no boards well next i took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it all i could drag and i started it from the pig and dragged it to the door and threw the woods down to the river and dumped it in and down it sunk out of sight you could see easy that something had been dragged over the ground i did wish tom soyer was there i knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business and throw in the fancy touches nobody could spread himself like tom soyer and such a thing as that well last i pulled out some of my hair and blooded the axe good and stuck it on the backside and slung the axe in the corner then i took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket so he couldn't drip till i got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river now i thought of something else so i went and got the bag of meal in my old saw out of the canoe and fetched them to the house i took the bag to where it used to stand and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw for there weren't no knives and forks on the place papped on everything with his clasp knife about the cooking then i carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes and ducks too you might say in the season there was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away i don't know where but it didn't go to the river the meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake i dropped paps whetstone there too so as to look like it had been done by accident then i tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string so it wouldn't leak no more and took it and my saw to the canoe again it was about dark now so i dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank and waited for the moon to rise i made it fast to a willow then i took a bite to eat and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan i says to myself they'll follow the track of that sack full of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me and they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things they won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass they'll soon get tired of that and won't bother no more about me all right i can stop anywhere i want to jackson's island is good enough for me i know that island pretty well and nobody ever comes there and then i can paddle over to town nights and slink around and pick up things i want jackson's island's the place i was pretty tired and the first thing i knowed i was asleep when i woke up i didn't know where i was for a minute i sat up and looked around a little scared then i remembered the river looked miles and miles across the moon was so bright i could have counted the drift logs that went asleep and alone black and still hundreds of yards out from shore everything was dead quiet and it looked late and smelt late you know what i mean i don't know the words to put it in i took a good gap in a stretch and was just going to unhitch and start when i heard a sound away over the water i listened pretty soon i made it out it was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in roll-locks when it's a still night i peeped out through the willow branches and there it was a skiff way across the water i couldn't tell how many was in it it kept a coming and when it was abreast of me i see there weren't but one man in it thinks i maybe it's pap though i weren't expecting him he dropped below me with the current and by and by he came a swinging up shore in the easy water and he went by so close i could have reached out the gun and touched him well it was pap sure enough and sober too by the way he laid his oars i didn't lose no time the next minute i was a spinning downstream soft but quick in the shade of the bank i made two mile and a half and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river because pretty soon i would be passing the ferry landing and people might see me and hail me i got out amongst the driftwood and then laid down on the bottom of the canoe and let her float i laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pot looking away into the sky not a cloud in it the sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine i never noted before and how far a body can hear on the water such nights i heard people talking at the ferry landing i heard what they said to every word of it one man said it was getting towards the long days in the short nights now the other one said this weren't one of the short ones he reckoned and then they laughed and he said it over again and they laughed again then they waked up another fellow and told him and laughed but he didn't laugh he ripped out something brisk and said let him alone first fellow said he'd allowed to tell it to his old woman she would think was pretty good but he said that weren't nothing to some things he had said in his time i heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than about a week longer after that the talk got further and further away and i couldn't make out the words anymore but i could hear the mumble and now and then a laugh too but it seemed a long ways off i was away below the ferry now i rose up and there was jackson's island about two mile and a half downstream heavy timbered and standing up out of the middle of the river big and dark and solid like a steam boat without any lights there weren't any signs of the bar at the head it was all under water now it didn't take me long to get there i shot past the head at a ripping rate the current was so swift and then i got into the dead water and landed on the side toward the illinois shore i run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that i knowed about i had to part the willow branches to get in and when i made fast nobody could have seen the canoe from the outside i went up and sat down on a log at the head of the island and looked out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town three mile away where there was three or four lights twinkling a monstrous big lumber raft was about a mile upstream coming along down with a lantern in the middle of it i watched it come creeping down and when it was most abreast of where i stood i heard a man say stern's ore there heaver head to stabber i heard that just as plain as if the man was by my side there was a little gray in the sky now so i stepped into the woods and laid down for a nap before breakfast end of chapter seven i laid there in the grass in the cold shade thinking about things and feeling rested and rather comfortable and satisfied i could see the sun out at one or two holes but mostly it was big trees all about and gluey in there amongst them there was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves and the freckled places swapped about a little show and there was a breeze up there a couple of squirrels set out on a limb jabbered at me very friendly i was powerful lazy and comfortable didn't want to get up and cook breakfast while i was dozing off again when i thinks i hear a deep sound of boom way up the river i rouses up and rests on my elbow and listens pretty soon i hears it again i hopped up and went and looked out a hole in the leaves and i see a bunch of smoke laying on the water long ways up about a breast at the ferry and there was the ferry boat full of people floating along down i knowed what was the matter now boom i see a white smoke squirt out of the ferry boat side you see there was firing a cannon over the water trying to make my carcass come to the top i was pretty hungry but it weren't going to do for me to start a fire because they might see the smoke so i sat there and watched the cannon smoke and listened to the boom the river was a mile wide there and it always looked pretty on a summer morning so i was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if i only had a bite to eat well then i happened to think how they always put quick silver and loaves of bread and float them off because they always go right to the drowned at carcass and stopped there so says i i'll keep a lookout and if any of them's floating around after me i'll give them a show i changed to the illinois edge of the island to see what luck i could have and i weren't disappointed a big double loaf came along and i most caught it with a long stick but my foot slipped and she floated out further of course i was where the courage set in the closest to the shore i knowed enough for that but by and by along comes another one and this time i won i took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver and set my teeth in it was baker's bread but the quality eat none of your low down cornpone i got a good place amongst the leaves and sat there on a log munching the bread and watching the ferry boat and very well satisfied then something struck me i says now i reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me and here it has gone and done it so there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing that is there's something in it when the body like the widow or the parson prays but it won't work for me and i reckon it won't work for only just the right kind i lit a pipe and had a good long smoke and went on watching the ferry boat was floating with the current and i allowed i'd have a chance to see who was aboard when she'd come along because she would come in close where the bread did when she'd got pretty well along down toward me i put out my pipe and went out where it fished the bread and laid down behind the log on the bank in a little open place where the log forked i could peep through by and by she come along and she drifted in so close that they could have run a plank and walked ashore most everybody was on the boat pap and judge thatcher and besie thatcher and joe harper and tom sawyer and his old lampolly and syd and mary and plenty more everybody was talking about the murder but the captain broke in and says look sharp now the current sets in the closest ear and maybe he's watched ashore and got tangled up along the brush at the water's edge i hope so anyway i didn't hope so they all crowded up and leaned over the rails nearly in my face and kept still watching with all their might i could see them first right but they couldn't see me then the captain sung out stand away and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deep with the noise pretty near blind with the smoke and i judged i was gone if that had some bullets in i reckon they'd have got a corpse they was after well i see i weren't hurt thanks to goodness the boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island i could hear the boom and now and then further and further off and by and by after an hour i didn't hear it no more the island was three miles long i judged they had got to the foot it was given it up but they didn't yet a while they turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side under steam and boom and once in a while as they went i crossed over to that side and watched them when they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home home to town i know that i was all right now nobody else would come a hunting after me i got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods i made a kind of tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain wouldn't get at them i catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw and towards sundown i started my campfire and had supper then i let out a line to catch some fish for breakfast when it was dark i sat by my campfire smoking and feeling pretty well satisfied but by and by i got sort of lonesome and so i went and sit on the bank and listened to the currents washing along and counted the stars and the drift logs and the rafts that come down and then went to bed there ain't no better way to put in time when you're lonesome you can't stay so so you gotta get over it and so for three days and nights no difference just the same thing but the next day i went exploring around down through the island i was boss of it it all belonged to me so to say and i wanted to know all about it but i mainly wanted to put in time i found plenty of strawberries ripe and prime and green summer grapes and green raspberries and the green blackberries was just beginning to show they would all come in handy by and by i judged well i went full and long in deep woods till i judged i weren't far from the foot of the island i had my gun along but i hadn't shot nothing it was for protection thought i would kill some game night home about this time i might have near stepped on a good sized snake and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers and i after it trying to get a shot at it i clipped along and all of a sudden i bounded right onto the ashes of a campfire it was still smoking my heart jumped up among my lungs i never waited for to look further but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever i could every now and then i stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened but my breath comes so hard i couldn't hear nothing else i slunk along another piece further then listened again and so on and so on if i see a stump i took it for a man if i tried on a stick and broke it it made me feel like a person it cut one of my breasts into and i only got half and the short half too when i got to camp i weren't feeling very brash and there weren't much sand in my crawl but i says this ain't no time to be fooling around so i got all my traps into the canoe so as to have them out of sight and put out the fire and scattered the ashes round to look like an old last year's camp and then climb a tree i reckon i was up in the tree two hours but didn't see nothing didn't hear nothing only thought i heard and seen as much as a thousand things well i couldn't stay up there forever so at last i got down but i kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time all i could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast by the time it was night i was pretty hungry so when it was good and dark i slid out from the shore before moonrise and paddled over to the illinois bank about a quarter of a mile and went out in the woods and cooked a supper and i had about made up my mind i would stay there all night when i heard a plunkety plunk plunkety plunk and says to myself horses coming and next i hear people's voices i got everything into the canoe as quick as i could and then i went creeping through the woods to see what i would find out i hadn't got far when i heard a man say we better camp here if we can find a good place the horses is about beat out let's look around i didn't wait but shoved out and paddled away easy i tied in the old place and reckoned i would sleep in the canoe didn't sleep much i couldn't somehow for thinking and every time i waked up i thought somebody had me by the neck so sleep didn't do me no good by and by i says to myself i can't live this way i'm not going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me i'll find out her bust well i felt better right off so i took my paddle and slid out from the shore just a step or two and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows the moon was shining and outside of the shadows it made it almost as light as day i poked along well onto an hour everything still is rocks and sound asleep well by this time i was most out of the foot of the island little ripply cool breeze began to blow and that was as good as saying the night was about done i give her a turn with the paddle and bring her nose to shore then i got my gun and slipped out onto the edge of the woods i sat down there on a log and looked out through the leaves i see the moon go off watch and the darkness began to blanket the river but in a little while i see a pale streak over the treetops and no the day was coming so i took my gun and slipped off towards where i had run across a campfire stopping every minute or two to listen but i hadn't no luck somehow i couldn't seem to find a place but by and by sure enough i catched a glimpse of a fire away through the trees i went for it cautious and slow by and by i was close enough to have a look and there laid a man on the ground it almost gave me the fantods he had a blanket around his hand and his head was nearly in the fire i sat there behind a clump of bushes in about six feet of him and kept my eyes on him steady i was getting great daylight now pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hoe off the blanket and it was miss watson's jim i bet i was glad to see him i says hello jim and skipped out he bounced up and stared at me wild then he drops down on his knees and puts his hands together and says don't hurt me don't i ain't never done no harm to a ghost i always liked dead people and i've done all i could for him you go on getting the river where you belongs and don't do nothing though jim as always your friend well i weren't long making him understand i weren't dead i was ever so glad to see jim i weren't lonesome now i told him i weren't afraid of him telling people where i was i talked along but he only ever sat there and looked at me never said nothing then i says it's good daylight let's get breakfast make up your campfire good was to use a making up campfire to cook strawberries in such truck but you got a gun ain't ya then we can get something better than strawberries strawberries in such truck i says is that what you live on couldn't get nothing else he says why how long you been on the island jim i come here the night out of you get killed what all that time yes indeed and you ain't add nothing but that kind of rubbish to eat no sir nothing else well you must be most starved ain't you i reckon i could eat a horse i think i could how long you been on the island why since the night i got killed no well what has you lived on but you got a gun oh yes you got a gun that's good now you kill something and i'll make up to fire so we went over to where the canoe was and while he built a fire in a grassy open place amongst the trees i fetched a meal and bacon and coffee and coffee pot and frying pan and sugar and 10 cups and the nigger was set back considerable because he reckoned it was all done with witchcraft i catched a good big catfish too and jim cleaned him with his knife and fried him when breakfast was ready we lulled up on the grass and eat it smoking hot jim laid in with all his might for he was most about starved then we got pretty well stuffed we laid off and lazied by and by jim says but looky here huck who was that is killed in the shanty if it weren't you then i told him the whole thing and he said it was smart he said tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what i had then i says well how do you come to be here jim how'd you get here he looked pretty uneasy and didn't say nothing for a minute then he says maybe i better not tell why jim well days reasons but you wouldn't tell on me if and i was to tell you would you huck blamed if i would jim well i believe you huck uh i run off jim but mind you said you wouldn't tell you know you said you wouldn't tell huck well i did i said i wouldn't and i'll stick to it honest engine i will people will call me a lowdown abolitionist and despise me for keeping mom but that don't make no difference i ain't gonna tell and i ain't going back there's anyway so now let's know all about it well you see it's this way old mrs das miss watson she pecks on me all the time and treats me pretty rough but she always said she wouldn't sell me down to new orleans but i noticed there was a nigger trade around plays considerable lately and i began to get uneasy well one night i creeps to the door pretty late and the door won't quite shut and i hear old mrs tell the widow she's going to sell me down to new orleans but she didn't want to but she could get eight hundred dollars for me and there's such a big stack of money she couldn't resist the widow she tried to get her to say she wouldn't do it but i never waited to hear the rest i lit out mighty quick i tell you i tuck out and shine down the hill inspect to steal a skiff along the show some is above town but there was people stirring it so i hid in the old tumbledown koopa shop on the bank to wait for everybody to go away well i was there all night there was somebody around all the time long about six in the morning skiffs begin to come by in about eight or nine every skiff that went along was talking about how your pap come over to town and say you's killed these last skiffs was full of ladies and gentlemen going over for to see the place sometimes they'd pull up to show and take a rest before they start across so by the talk i got to know all about the killing i was powerful sorry you's killed huck but i ain't no more now i laid there under the shavings all day i was hungry but i weren't feared because i know what old missus in the widow was going to start the camp town meeting right out of breakfast and be gone all day and they knows i go off with the cattle about daylight so they wouldn't expect to see me round the place and they wouldn't miss me till after dark in the evening the other servants wouldn't miss me because they shine out and take holiday soon as old folks is out in the way well will it come dark i took out up the river road and went about two miles more where there weren't no houses i made up my mind about what i was going to do you see if i kept on trying to get away a foot the dogs attract me if i stole a skiff to cross over they'd miss that skiff you see and they know about where i land on the other side and where to pick up my track so i says a raft is what i have to i don't make no track i see the lighter coming around the point by and by so i wait in and shove a log ahead of me and swim more and halfway across the river and i get in amongst driftwood and i keep my head down low and kind of swim again to current till the raft come along then i swam to the stern of it and took a hold it clouded up and is pretty dark for a while so i climb up and lay down on the planks the man that's way old yonder in the middle with the lantern was the river was arising and there was good current so i reckon that be four in a moment for it be 25 miles down the river and then i'd slip off just four daylight and swim ashore and take to the woods on the illinois side but i didn't have no luck when we was most down the head of the island the men began to come aft with the lantern i see it weren't no useful to wait so i slid overboard and stuck out for the island well i had a notion i could land most anyways but i couldn't bank to bluff and i was most to the foot of island for i found a good place i went into the woods and judged i wouldn't fool rafts no more long as they would move the lantern around so i had my pipe and a plug a dog leg and some matches in my cap and they weren't wet so i was all right and you ain't had no meat no bread to eat all this time why didn't you get mud turtles how you're going to get them you can't slip up on them and grab them and how's a buddy going to hit them with a rock how could buddy do that tonight and i weren't going to show myself on a bank in a daytime well that's all you had to keep in the woods all the time of course did you hear him shoot in the cannon oh yes i know days out of you i see him go by here watch him through the bushes some young birds came along flying the yard or two at a time enlightened jim said it was a big sign it was going to rain he said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way so he reckoned it was the same when young birds done it i was going to catch some of them but jim wouldn't let me he said it was death he said his father was laid mighty sick once and one of them catched a bird and his old granny said his father would die and he did and jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner because that would bring bad luck the same if you shook the tablecloth after sundown and he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died the bees must be told about before sunup the next morning or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots but i didn't believe that because i had tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me i had heard about some of these things before but not all of them jim knowed all kinds of signs he said he knowed most everything i said look to me like all the signs was about bad luck and so i asked him if there weren't any good luck signs he says might a few and they ain't no use to a body what you want to know when good looks are coming for want to keep it off and he says if you got hairy arms and a hairy brass it's a sign you're going to be rich well there's some use in a sign like that because so far ahead you see maybe you got be poor a long time first and you might get discouraged and kill yourself or you didn't know the sign by that you was going to be rich by and by have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast jim what's the use to ask that question don't you see i ask well are you rich no but i've been rich once and won't be rich again once i had fourteen dollars but i took to speculate and got busted out what did you speculate in jim well first i tackle stock what kind of stock well i lost stock cattle you know i put ten dollars in a cow but i ain't gonna risk money no more in stock the cow up and died on my hands so you lost the ten dollars no i didn't lose it all only lost about nine of it i sold the hide and teller for a dollar and ten cents you had five dollars and ten cents left did you speculate more yes you know that one naked nigger that belonged to old miss bridge hall well he sought up a bank and say anybody that put in a dollar would get four dollars more at the end of the year well all the niggers went in but they didn't have much i was the only one that had much so i stuck out for more than four dollars and i said if i didn't get it i'd start bank myself well of course that nigger wanted to keep me out of the business because he said they weren't business enough for two banks so he say i could put in my five dollars and he paid me 35 at the end of the year so i'd done it didn't i reckon i'd invest 35 right off and keep things moving there was a nigger named bob that had catched wood flat and his master didn't know it and i bought it off of him and he told me to take the 35 dollars when when the end of the year come but somebody stole that wood flat that night and next day the one naked nigger they bank busted so they didn't none of us get no money what'd you do with the ten cents jim well i was gonna spend it but i had a dream and a dream told me to give it to a nigger named baylam baylam's ass they call him for short he's the one of them chuckleheads you know but he's lucky they say and i weren't lucky the dreams they let baylam invest ten cents and he could make a raise for me well baylam he took the money and when he was in church he heard a preacher say that whoever give to the pole lend to the lord and bound him to get his money back a hundred times so baylam he took and give ten cents to the pole and laid low to see how he was going to come back of it well what did come of it jim nothing ever come of it i couldn't manage to collect money no way and baylam he couldn't i ain't gonna let no money doubt see in the security bound to get your money back a hundred times the preacher says if i could get the ten cents back i'd be square and i'd be glad of the chance well it's all right anyway jim as long as you're gonna be rich again someday or another yes i was rich now i come to look at it i owns myself and i was worth eight hundred dollars wish i had the money wouldn't want no more end of chapter eight chapter nine of the adventures of huckleberry fin this is a liberfox recording all liberfox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberfox.org recording by florins short the adventures of huckleberry fin by mark twain chapter nine i wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that i had found when i was exploring so we started and soon got to it because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide this place was a terrible long steep hill or ridge about 40 foot high we had a rough time getting to the top the sides was so steep and the bushes so thick weak tramp can clumb around all over it and by and by found a good big cavern and the rock most up to the top on the side towards illinois the cavern was as big as two or three rooms bunched together and jim could stand up straight in it it was cool in there jim was for putting our traps in there right away but i said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place and had all the traps in the cavern we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island and they would never find us without dogs and besides he said them little birds had said it was going to rain and did i want the things to get wet so we went back and got the canoe and paddle up abreast the cavern and lugged all the traps up there then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in amongst the thick willows we took some fish off the lines and set them again and begun to get ready for dinner the door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hog's head in and on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit and was flat and a good place to build a fire on so we built it there and cooked dinner we spread the blankets inside for a carpet and eat our dinner in there we put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern pretty soon it darkened up and begun to thunder and lighten so the birds was right about it directly it begun to rain and it rained like all fury too and i never see the wind blow so it was one of these regular summer storms it would get so dark that it looked all blue got outside and lovely and the rain would crash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider webby and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild and next when it was just about the bluest and blackest first it was as bright as glory and you'd have a little glimpse of treetops a plunging about way off yonder in that storm hundreds of yards further than you could see before darkest sin again in a second and now you do the thunder let go with an awful crash and then go rumbling from a tumbling down the sky towards the underside of the world like rolling empty barrels downstairs where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal you know jim this is nice i says i wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn bread well you wouldn't have been here if it hadn't have been for jim you'd have been down down to woods without any dinner and get most grounded too got you would honey chickens know when it's going to rain and so did the birds child the river went on raising and raising for 10 or 12 days till at last it was over the banks the water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the illinois bottom on that side it was a good many miles wide but on the missoura side it was the same old distance across half a mile because the missoura shore was just a wall of high bluffs take times we paddle all over the island in the canoe it was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods even if the sun was blazing outside we went winding in and out amongst the trees and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way well on every old broken down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and some searched things and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame on a count of being hungry that you could power right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to but not the snakes and turtles they would slide off in the water the ridge our cavern was in was full of them we could have had pets enough if we wanted them one night we catch the little section of a lumber raft nice pine planks it was 12 foot wide and about 15 or 16 foot long and the top stood above water six or seven inches a solid level floor we could see saw logs go by in the daytime sometimes but we let them go we didn't show ourselves in daylight another night when we was up at the head of the island just before daylight here comes a frame house down on the west side she was a two-story and tilted over considerable we paddled out and got aboard clumb in at an upstairs window but it was too dark to see yet so we made the canoe fast and sit in her to wait for daylight the light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island then we looked in at the window we could make out a bed and table and two arm chairs and lots of things around about on the floor and there was clothes hanging against the wall there was something laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man so jim says hello you but it didn't budge so i hollered again and then jim says domain and asleep he's dead he'll hold still i'll go and see he went and bent down and looked and says he's a dead man yes indeedy naked too he's been shot in the back i reckon he's been dead two or three days calm and hawk but don't look at his face it's too gashly i didn't look at him at all jim throwed some old rags over him but he didn't done it i didn't want to see him there was heaps of all greasy cards scattered around over the floor and all whiskey bottles and a couple of masks made out of black cloth and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal there was two old dirty calico dresses and a sun bonnet and some women's underclothes hanging against the wall and some men's clothing too we put the lot into the new it might come good there was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor i took that too and there was a bottle that had had milk in it and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck we woulda took the bottle but it was broke there was a seedy old chest in an old hair trunk with the hinges broke they stood open but there weren't nothing left in them that was any account the way things was scattered about we record the people left in a hurry and weren't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff we got an old tin lantern and a butcher knife without any handle and a brand new barlow knife with two bits in any store and a lot of tallow candles and a tin candlestick and a gourd and a tin cup and a ratty old bedquill off the bed and a reticule with needles and pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all search truck in it and hatchet and some nails and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some monster's hooks on it and a roll of buckskin and a leather dog collar and a horseshoe and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on them and just as we was leaving i found a tolerable good curry comb and jim he found a ratty old fiddle bow and a wooden leg the straps was broke off of it but for that it was a good enough leg though it was too long for me and not wrong enough for jim and we couldn't find the other one that we hunted all around and so take it all around we made a good haul when we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island and it was pretty broad day so i made jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with a quilt because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off i paddled over to the illinois shore and drifted down most a half a mile doing it i crept up the dead border under the bag and had no accidents and didn't see nobody we got home all safe end of chapter nine