 CHAPTER 40 WE WAS FEELING PRETTY GOOD AFTER BREAKFAST I took my canoe and went over the river efficient, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a look at the raft and found her alright, and got home late to supper, and found them in such a sweat and worry, they didn't know which end they were standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a word about the new letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as much about it as anybody did. And as soon as we was half upstairs, and her back was turned, we slid for the cellar cupboard, and loaded up a good lunch, and took it up to our room, and went to bed, and got up about half past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole, and was going to start with the lunch, but says, where's the butter? I laid out a hunk of it, I says, on a piece of corn-pone. Well you left it laid out then, it ain't here, we can get along without it, I says, we can get along with it too, he says, just you slide down cellar and fetch it, and then Mosey right down the lightning rod, and come along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in disguise, and be ready to buy like a sheep, and shove as soon as you get there. So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started upstairs very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me, and she says, you been down cellar, yes, what you been doing down there? Nothing, nothing, gnome, well then what possessed you to go down there this time of night? I don't gnome, you don't know, don't answer me that way, Tom, I want to know what you been doing down there. I ain't been doing a single thing Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I have. I reckon she'd let me go now, and as a general thing she would, but I suppose there was so many strange things going on, she was just in a sweat about every little thing that weren't yardstick straight. So she says, very decided, you just march into that setting room, and stay there till I come. You been up to something you know business to, and I'll lay I'll find out what it is before I'm done with you. So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting room. My but there was a crowd there, fifteen farmers, and every one of them had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and sat down. They were setting around, some of them talking a little in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they weren't, but I know they was because they was always taking off their hats and putting them on and scratching their heads and changing their seats and fumbling with their buttons. I weren't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off all the same. I did wish Aunt Sally would come and get done with me and let me if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this thing, and what a thunder and hornet's nest we got ourselves into so we could stop fooling around straight off and clear out with Jim before these rips got out of patience and come for us. At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I couldn't answer them straight. I didn't know which end of me was up because these men was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right now and lay for them desperados and saying it weren't but a few minutes till midnight and others were trying to get them to hold on and wait for the sheep signal. And here was Auntie pegging away at the questions and me shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that scared. And the play's getting hotter and hotter and the butter begin to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears and pretty soon when one of them says, I'm forgoing and getting in the cabin first and right now and catching them when they come, I'm most dropped and a streak of butter come a trickling down my forehead and Aunt Sally she see it and turns white as a sheet and says, for the land's sake what is the matter with the child he's got the brain fever as sure as you're born and they're oozing out and everybody runs to see and she snatches off my hat and out comes the bread and what was left of the butter and she grabbed me and hugged me and says oh what a turn you did give me and how glad and grateful I am it ain't no worse for lux against us and it never rains but pours and when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you for I knowed by the color and all it was just like your brains would be if dear dear why don't you tell me that's what you'd been down there for. I wouldn't have cared. Now clear out the bed and don't let me see no more you tell morning. I was upstairs in a second and down the lightning rod in another one and shining through the dark for the lean to I couldn't hardly get my words out I was so anxious but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump for it now and not a minute to lose the house full of men yonder with guns. His eyes just blazed and he says no is that so ain't that bully why huck if it was to do over again I bet I could fetch 200 if we could put it off till hurry hurry I says where's Jim right at your elbow if you reach out your arm you can touch him he's dressed and everything's ready now we'll slide out and give the sheep signal but then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door and heard them begin to fumble with the padlock and heard a man say I told you we'd be too soon they haven't come the door is locked here I'll lock some of you into the cabin and you lay for them in the dark and kill them when they come and the rest scatter around a piece and listen if you can hear them coming so in they come but couldn't see us in the dark and most tried on us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed but we got under all right and out through the hole swift but soft Jim first me next and Tom last which was according to Tom's orders now we was in the lean to and heard tramping's close by outside so we crept to the door and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack but couldn't make out nothing it was so dark and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get further and when he nudged us Jim must glide out first and him last so he said his ear to the crack and listened and listened and listened and the steps a scraping around out there all the time and at last he nudged us and we slid out and stooped down not breathing and not making the least noise and slipped stealthy towards the fence in engine file and got to it all right and me and Jim over it but Tom's bridges catch fast on a splinter on the top rail and then he hear the steps coming so he had to pull loose which snapped the splinter and made a noise and as he dropped in our tracks and started somebody sings out who's that answer or I'll shoot but we didn't answer we just unfurled our heels and shoved then there was a rush and a bang bang bang and the bullets fairly whizzed round us we heard them sing out here they are they've broke for the river after them boys and turn loose the dogs so here they come full tilt we could hear them because they wore boots and yelled but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell we was in the path to the mill and when they got pretty close on to us we dodged into the bush and let them go by and then dropped in behind them they'd had all the dogs shut up so they wouldn't scare off the robbers but by this time somebody had let them loose and here they come making pow wow enough for a million but they was our dogs so we stopped in our tracks till they catched up and when they see it weren't nobody but us and no excitement to offer them they only just said howdy and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering and then we up steam again and whizzed along after them till we was nearly to the mill and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was tied and hopped in and pulled for a dear life toward the middle of the river but didn't make no more noise than we was a bleach to then we struck out easy and comfortable for the island where my raft was and we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down the bank till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out and when we stepped on to the raft I says now old Jim you're a free man again and I bet you won't ever be a slave no more and a mighty good job it was to hook it is planned beautiful and it is done beautiful and they ain't nobody can get up a plan that's more mixed up and splendid than what that one was we was all glad as we could be but Tom was the gladdest of all because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg when me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did before it was hurting him considerable and bleeding so we laid him in the wigwam and tore up one of the Duke's shirts for to bandage him but he says give me the rags I can do it myself don't stop now don't fool around here and the evasion booming along so handsome man the sweeps and set her loose boys we done it elegant did we did I wish we'd had the handling of Louis 16 there wouldn't have been no son of Saint Louis ascend to heaven wrote down in his biography no sir we'd have whooped him over the border that's what we'd have done with him and done it just as slick as nothing at all man the sweeps man the sweeps but me and Jim was consulting and thinking and after we've thought a minute I says say it Jim so he says well then this is the way it looked to me up if it was him that is being sought free and wondered the boys was to get shot would he say go on and say me never mind about a doctor for to save this one is that like Mars Tom Sawyer would he say that you bet he wouldn't well then is Jim Guine say it no sir I don't budge a step out in this place doubt a doctor not if it's 40 year I know he was white inside and I reckon he'd say what he did say so it was all right now and I told Tom I was a going for a doctor he raised considerable row about it but me and Jim stuck to it and wouldn't budge so he was for crawling out and setting the rat loose himself but we wouldn't let him then he give us a piece of his mind but it didn't do no good so when he sees me getting the canoe ready he says well then if you're bound to go I'll tell you the way to do it when you get to the village shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and fast and make him swear to be silent as the grave and put a purse full of gold in his hand and then take and lead him all around the back alleys and everywhere's in the dark and then fetch him here in the canoe in a roundabout way amongst the islands and search him and take his chalk away from him and don't give it back to him till you get him back to the village or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it again it's the way they all do so I said I would and left and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see the doctor coming till he was gone again end of chapter 40 recording by Perry Lettson chapter 41 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 Perry Lettson the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter 41 the doctor was an old man a very nice kind looking old man when I got him up I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon and camped on a piece of raft we found and about midnight he must have kicked his gun in his dreams for it went off and shot him in the leg and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it nor let anybody know because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the folks who's your folks he says the Phelps is down yonder oh he says and after a minute he says how'd you say he got shot he had a dream I says and it shot him singular dream he says so he lit up his lantern and got his saddlebags and we started but when he sees the canoe he didn't like the look of her said she was big enough for one but didn't look pretty safe for two I says oh you needn't be a feared sir she carried the three of us easy enough what three why me and Sid and and and the guns that's what I mean oh he says but he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her and shook his head and said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one but they was all locked and chained so he took my canoe and said for me to wait till he come back or I could hunt around further or maybe I better go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to but I said I didn't so I told him just how to find the raft and then he started I struck an idea pretty soon I says to myself supposing he can't fix that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail as the saying is supposing it takes him three or four days what are we going to do lay around there till he lets the cat out of the bag no sir I know what I'll do I'll wait and when he comes back if he says he's got to go anymore I'll get down there too if I swim and we'll take and tie him and keep him and shove out down the river and when Tom's done with him we'll give him what it's worth or all we got and then let him get ashore so then I crept into a lumber pile to get some sleep and next time I waked up the sun was way up over my head I shot out and went for the doctor's house but they told me he'd gone away in the night sometime or other and weren't back yet well thinks I that looks powerful bad for Tom and I'll dig out for the island right off so away I shoved and turned the corner and nearly ran my head into uncle Silas' stomach he says what Tom where you been all this time you rascal I ain't been no where as I says only just hunting for the runaway nigger me and Sid why wherever did you go he says your aunt's been mighty uneasy she needn't I says because we was all right we followed the men and the dogs but they outrun us and we lost them but we thought we heard them on the water so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over but couldn't find nothing of them so we cruised along up shore till we got kind of tired and beat out and tied up the canoe and went to sleep and never waked up till about an hour ago then we paddled over here to hear the news and Sid's at the post office to see what he can hear and I'm a branching out to get something to eat for us and then we're going home so then we went to the post office to get Sid but just as I suspicion he weren't there so the old man he got a letter out of the office and we waited a while longer but Sid didn't come so the old man said come along let Sid foot it home or canoe it when he got done fooling around but we would ride I couldn't get him to let me stay and wait for Sid and he said there weren't no use in it and I must come along and let Aunt Sally see we was all right when we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and cried both and hugged me and give me one of them lichens of her that don't amount to shucks and said she'd serve Sid the same when he come and the place was plumb full of farmers and farmers wives to dinner and such another clack a body never heard Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the worst her tongue was a going all the time she says well sister Phelps I've ransacked that air cabin over and I believe the nigger was crazy I says to sister damn real didn't I sister damn real sigh he's crazy sigh them's the very words I said you all heard me he's crazy sigh everything shows it sigh look at that air grindstone sigh won't tell me any creatures in his right minds are going to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone says I here's such and such a person busted his heart and here so and so pegged along for 37 year and all that natural son of Louis somebody in such everlasting rubbish he's plumb crazy sigh it's what I says in the first place it's what I says in the middle and it's what I says last and all the time the niggers crazy crazy's Nebel Kudneser says I and look at that air ladder made out and rag sister hotchkiss says old mrs. damn real what in the name of goodness could he ever want of the very words I was saying no longer go in this minute to sister utter back and she'll tell you so herself she look at that air rag ladder she and said I yes look at it sigh what could he have wanted of it sigh she she sister hotchkiss she she but how in the nation they ever get that grindstone in there anyway and who dug that hole and who my very words Brear Penrod I was saying pass out there sassar and molasses won't you I was a saying to sister Dunlap just this minute how did they get that grindstone in there sigh without help mind you without help that's where it is don't tell me sigh there was help sigh and there was a plenty help too sigh there's been a dozen a help in that nigger and I lay I'd skin everlast nigger on this place but I'd find out who done it sigh moreover sigh a dozen says you 40 couldn't have done everything that's been done look at them case knife saws and things how tedious they've been made look at that bed leg saw it off with them a week's work for six men look at that nigger made out of straw on the bed and look at you may well say it Brear High Tower is just as I was saying to Brear Phelps his own self see what do you think of it sister hotchkiss see think of what Brear Phelps sigh think of that bed leg saw it off that away see think of it sigh I let it never saw it itself off sigh somebody sawed it sigh that's my opinion take it or leave it it may be no count sigh but sit as it is it's my opinion sigh and if anybody can start a better one sigh let him do it sigh that's all I says to sister Dunlap sigh why dog my cats they must have been a house full of niggers in there every night for four weeks to have done all that work sister Phelps look at that shirt every last inch of it covered over with secret african writing done with blood must have been a raft of them at it right along all the time I most why I'd give two dollars to have it read to me and as for the niggers that wrote it I'll allow I'd take and lash them till people to help him brother marbles well I reckon you'd think so if you'd have been in this house for a while back why they've stole everything they could lay their hands on and we are watching all the time mind you they stole that shirt right off of the line and as for that sheet they made the rag ladder out of there ain't no telling how many times they didn't steal that and flour and candles and candlesticks and spoons and the old warming pan and most of thousand things that I just remember now and my new calico dress and me and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day and night as I was telling you and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight nor sound of them and here at the last minute low and behold you they slide right in under our noses and fools us and not only fools us but the engine territory rovers too and actually gets away with that nigger safe and sound and that was 16 men and 22 dogs right on their very heels at that very time I tell you it just bangs anything I ever heard of why spirits couldn't have done better and been no smarter and I reckon they must have been spirits because you know our dogs and there ain't no better well them dogs never even got on the track of them once you explain that to me if you can any of you well it does be laws alive I so help me I wouldn't have been house thieves as well as goodness gracious sakes I've been a fear to live in such afraid to live why was that scared I doesn't hardly go to bed or get up or lay down or sat down sister ridgeway why they'd steal the very why goodness sakes you can guess what kind of fluster I was in by the time midnight come last night I hope to gracious if I weren't afraid they'd steal some of the family I was just to that pass I didn't have no reason in faculties no more it looks foolish enough now in the daytime but I says to myself there's my two poor boys asleep way upstairs in that lonesome room and I declared a goodness I was that uneasy till I crept up there and locked them in I did and anybody would because you know when you get scared that way and it keeps running on and getting worse and worse all the time and your wits gets to Adlin and you get to doing all sorts of wild things and by and by you think to yourself suppose and I was a boy and was way up there and the door ain't locked and you she stopped looking kind of wondering and then she turned her head around slow and when her eyelid on me I got up and took a walk says I to myself I can explain better how we come to not be in that room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little so I done it but I dashing go fur or she descent for me and when it was late in the day the people all went and then I come in and told her the noise and shooting wake up me and Sid and the door was locked and we wanted to see the fun so we went down the lightning rod and both of us got hurt a little and we didn't never want to try that no more and then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before and then she said she'd forgive us and maybe it was all right enough anyway and about what a body might expect of boys for all boys was a pretty harem scare them lot as fur as she could see and so as long as no harm hadn't come of it she judged she better put in her time being grateful we was alive and well and she had a still instead of fretting over what was past and done so then she kissed me and patted me on the head and dropped into a kind of brown study and pretty soon jumps up and says why laws of mercy is most night and Sid not come yet what has become of that boy I see my chance so I skips up and says I'll run right up to town and get him I says no you won't she says you'll stay right where you are one's enough to be lost at a time if he ain't here to supper your uncle will go well he weren't there to supper so right after supper uncle went he come back about ten a little bit uneasy hadn't run across Tom's track Aunt Sally was a good deal uneasy but Uncle Silas he said there weren't no occasion to be boys will be boys he said and you'll see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right so she had to be satisfied but she said she'd set up for him a while anyway and keep a light burning so he could see it and then when I went up to bed she'd come up with me and fetched her candle and tucked me in and mothered me so good I felt mean and like I couldn't look her in the face and she sat down on the bed and talked with me a long time I said what a splendid boy Sid was and didn't seem to want to ever stop talking about him and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned he could have got lost or hurt or maybe drowned in it might be laying at this minute somewhere's suffering or dead and she not by him to help him and so the tears would drip down silent and I would tell her Sid was all right and would be home in the morning sure and she would squeeze my hand or maybe kiss me and tell me to say it again and keep on saying it because it done her good and she was in so much trouble and when she was going away she looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle and says the door ain't going to be locked Tom and there's the window in the ride but you'll be good won't you and you won't go for my sake laws and knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom and was all intending to go but after that I wouldn't have went not for kingdoms but she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind so I slept very restless and twice I went down the ride away in the night and slipped around front and see her sitting there by her candle in the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them and I wished I could do something for her but I couldn't only to swear that I would never do nothing to grieve her anymore and the third time I waked up at dawn and slid down and she was there yet and her candle was most out and her old gray head was resting on her hand and she was asleep end of chapter 41 recording by Perry Lettson chapter 42 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 Perry Lettson the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter 42 the old man was up town again before breakfast but couldn't get no track of Tom and both of them sat at the table thinking and not saying nothing and looking mournful and their coffee getting cold and not eating anything and by and by the old man says did I give you the letter what letter the one I got yesterday out of the post office no you didn't give me no letter well I must have forgot it so he rummaged his pockets and then went off somewhere's where he had laid it down and fetched it and give it to her she says why it's from st. Petersburg it's from sis I allowed another walk would do me good but I couldn't stir but before she could break it open she dropped it and run for she see something and so did I it was Tom Sawyer on a mattress and that old doctor and Jim in her calico dress with his hands tied behind him and a lot of people I hid the letter behind the first thing that come handy and rushed she flung herself at Tom crying and says oh he's dead he's dead I know he's dead and Tom he turned his head a little and muttered something or other which showed he weren't in his right mind then she flung up her hands and says he's alive thank god and that's enough and she snapped a kiss of him and flew for the house to get the bed ready and scattering orders right and left at the niggers and everybody else as fast as her tone could go every jump of the way I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim and the old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house the men was very huffy and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to all the other niggers around there so they wouldn't be trying to run away like Jim done and making such a raft of trouble and keeping a whole family scared most to death for days and nights but the other said don't do it it wouldn't answer at all he ain't our nigger and his owner would turn up and make us pay for him sure so that cooled him down a little because the people that's always the most anxious for to hang a nigger that ain't done just right is always the very ones that ain't the most anxious to pay for him when they've got their satisfaction out of him they cussed Jim considerable though and give him a cuff or two side the head once in a while but Jim never said nothing and he never let on to know me and they took him to the same cabin and put his own clothes on him and chained him again and not to know bedleg this time but to a big staple drove into the bottom log and chained his hands too and both legs and said he weren't to have nothing but bread and water to eat after this till his owner come or he was sold at auction because he didn't come in a certain length of time and filled up our hole and set a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around the cabin every night and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime and about this time they was through with the job and was tapering off with a kind of general goodbye cussing and then the old doctor comes and takes a look and says don't be no rougher on him than you're obliged to because he ain't a bad nigger when I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut the bullet out without some help and he weren't in no condition for me to leave to go and get help and he got a little worse and a little worse and after a long time he went out of his head and wouldn't let me come an eye him anymore and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill me and no end of wild foolishness like that and I see I couldn't do anything at all with him so I says I've got to have help somehow and the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewhere and says he'll help and he'd done it too and done it very well of course I judged he must be a runaway nigger and there I was and there I had to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night it was a fix I tell you I had a couple of patients with the chills and of course I'd have liked to run up to town and see them but I dassen because the nigger might get away and then I'd be to blame and yet never a skiff come close enough for me to hail so there I had to stick plum until day like this morning and I never see a nigger that was a better nurse or faith fuller and yet he was risking his freedom to do it and was all tired out too and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately I like the nigger for that I'll tell you gentlemen a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars and kind treatment too I had everything I needed and the boy was doing as well there as he would have done at home better maybe because it was so quiet but there I was with both of them on my hands and there I had to stick until about dawn this morning then some men in a skiff come by and as good luck would have it the nigger was sitting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep so I motioned them in quiet and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about and we never had no trouble and the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep too we muffled the oars and hitched the rath on and towed her over very nice and quiet and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start he ain't no bad nigger gentlemen that's what I think about him somebody says well it sounds very good doctor I'm obliged to say then the others softened up a little too and I was mighty thankful to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn and I was glad it was according to my judgment of him too because I thought he had a good heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him then they all agreed that Jim had acted very well and was deserving to have some notice took of it and reward so every one of them promised right out and hearty that they wouldn't cuss him no more then they come out and locked him up I hope they was going to say he could have one or two of the chains took off because they was rotten heavy or could have meat and greens with his bread and water but they didn't think of it and I reckoned it weren't best for me to mix in but I judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soon as I got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of me explanations I mean of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night paddling around hunting the runaway nigger but I had plenty of time Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick room all day and all night and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged him next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better and they said Aunt Sally was gone to get a nap so I slipped to the sick room and if I found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that would wash but he was sleeping and sleeping very peaceful too and pale not fire faced the way he was when he come so I sat down and laid for him to wake and about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in and there I was up a stump again she motioned me to be still and sat down by me and begun to whisper and said we could all be joyful now because all the symptoms was first rate and he'd been sleeping like that forever so long and looking better and peacefuler all the time and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind so we sat there watching and by and by he stirs a bit and opened his eyes very natural and takes a look and says hello what I'm at home how's that where's the raft it's all right I says and Jim the same I says but couldn't say it pretty brash but he never noticed but says good splendid now we're all right and safe did you tell auntie I was going to say yes but she chipped in and says about what Sid why about the the way the whole thing was done what whole thing why the whole thing there ain't but one how we set the runaway nigger free me and Tom good land set the run what is this child talking about dear dear out of his head again no I ain't out of my head I know all what I'm talking about we did set him free me and Tom we laid out to do it and we'd done it and we'd done it elegant too he'd got to start and she never checked him up just set and stared and stared and let him clip along and I see it weren't no use for me to put in why auntie it cost us a power of work weeks of it hours and hours every night whilst you was all asleep and we had to steal candles and the sheet and the shirt and your dress and spoons and tin plates and case knives and the warming pan and the grindstone and flour and just no into things and you can't think what work it was to make the saws and pens and inscriptions and one thing or another and you can't think half the fun it was and we had to make up the pictures of coffins and things anonymous letters from the robbers and get up and down the lightning rod and dig the hole into the cabin and make the rope ladder and send it in cooked up in a pie and send in spoons and things to work with in your apron pocket mercy sakes and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on for company for Jim and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that you come near spiling the whole business because the men come before we was out of the cabin and we had to rush and they heard us and let drive at us and I got my share and we dodged out of the path and let them go by and when the dogs come they weren't interested in us but went for the most noise and we got our canoe and made for the raft and was all safe and Jim was a free man and we'd done it all by ourselves and wasn't it bully any well I never heard the likes of it in all my born days so it was you you little rap scallions that's been making all this trouble and turned everybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to death I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out of you this very minute to think here I've been night after night you just get well once you young scamp and I lay out tan the old Harry out of both of ye but Tom he was so proud and joyful he just couldn't hold in and his tongue just went it she a chipping in and spitting fire all along and both of them go in it at once like a cat convention and she says well you get all the enjoyment you can out of it now for mind I tell you if I catch you meddling with him again meddling with who Tom says dropping his smile and looking surprised with who while the runaway nigger of course who do you reckon Tom looks at me very grave and says Tom didn't you just tell me he was all right hasn't he got away him says Aunt Sally the runaway nigger deed he hasn't they've got him back safe and sound and he's in that cabin again on bread and water and loaded down with chains till he's claimed or sold Tom rose square up in bed with his eye hot and his nostrils opening and shutting like gills and sings out to me they ain't no right to shut him up shove and don't you lose a minute turn him loose he ain't no slave he's as free as any creature that walks this earth what does the child mean I mean every word I say Aunt Sally and if somebody don't go I'll go I've known him all his life and so has Tom there old miss Watson died two months ago and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river and said so and she set him free in her will then what on earth did you want to set him free for seeing he was already free well that is a question I must say and just like women why I wanted the adventure of it and I'd awaited neck deep in blood to goodness alive Aunt Polly if she weren't standing right there just inside the door looking as sweet and contended as an angel half full of pie I wish I may never and Sally jumped for her and most hugged the head off of her and cried over her and I found a good enough place for me under the bed for it was getting pretty sultry for us seemed to me and I peeped out and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles kind of grinding him into the earth you know and then she says yes you better turn your head away I would if I was you Tom oh dearie me says Aunt Sally is he changed so why that ain't Tom it's Sid Tom's Tom's where is Tom he was here a minute ago you mean where's Huck Finn that's what you mean I reckon I ain't raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I see him that would be a pretty howdy do come out from under that bed Huck Finn so I done it but not feeling brash Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed upest looking persons I ever see except one and that was Uncle Silas when he come in and they told it all to him he kind of made him drunk as you may say and he didn't know nothing at all the rest of the day and preached a prayer meeting sermon that night that gave him a rattling reputation because the oldest man in the world couldn't have understood it so Tom's Aunt Polly she told all about who I was and what and I had to up and tell how I was in such a tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom Sawyer she chipped in and says oh go on and call me Aunt Sally I'm used to it now and take no need to change that when Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand it there weren't no other way and I know he wouldn't mind because it would be nuts for him being a mystery and he'd make an adventure out of it and be perfectly satisfied and so it turned out and he led on to be Sid and made things as soft as he could for me and his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson sitting Jim Free and her will and so sure enough Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free and I couldn't ever understand before until that minute and that talk how he could help a body set a nigger free with his bringing up well Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and Sid had come all right and safe she says to herself look at that now I might have expected it letting him go off that way without anybody to watch him so now I got to go and traipse all the way down the river 1100 mile and find out what that creature is up to this time as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of you about it why I never heard nothing from you says Aunt Sally well I wonder why I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean by Sid being here well I never got him sis Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe and says you Tom well what he says kind of pettish don't you what me you impudent thing hand out them letters what letters them letters I'd be bound if I have to take a hold to you out there in the trunk there now and they're just the same as they was when I got them out of the office I ain't looked into them I ain't touched them but I know they'd make trouble and I thought if you weren't in no hurry I'd well you do need skinning there ain't no mistake about it and I wrote another one to tell you I was coming and I suppose he know it come yesterday I ain't read it yet but it's all right I've got that one I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't but I reckon maybe it was just as safe to not to so I never said nothing end of chapter 42 read by Perry Lettson chapter 43 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 Rachel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter the last the first time I catch Tom private I asked him what was his idea time of the evasion what it was he planned to do if the evasion worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before and he said what he had planned in his head from the start if we got Jim all out safe was for us to run him down the river on the raft and have adventures plum to the mouth of the river and then tell him about his being free and take him back up home on a steamboat in style and pay him for his lost time and write word ahead and get out all the niggers around and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brass band and then he would be a hero and so would we but I reckoned it was about as well the way it was we had Jim out of the chains in no time and when Aunt Polly and Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom they made a heap of fuss over him and fixed him up prime and gave him all he wanted to eat and a good time and nothing to do and we had him up to the sick room and had a high talk and Tom gave Jim $40 for being prisoner for us so patient and doing it up so good and Jim was pleased most to death and busted out and says dad now huck what I tell you what I tell you up down Jackson Island I told you I got a hairy breast and what's the sign in it and I told you I've been rich once and wide to be rich again and it's come true and here she is die now don't talk to me signs is signs mine I tell you and I know just well as I is going to be rich again as I have standing here this minute and then Tom he talked along and talked along and says let's all three slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit and go for howling adventures amongst the engines or over in the territory for a couple of weeks or two and I says all right that suits me but I ain't got no money for to buy the outfit and I reckon I couldn't get none from home because it's likely pop's been back before now and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up no he ain't Tom says it's all there yet $6,000 and more and your pap ain't ever been back since hadn't when I come away anyhow Jim says kind of solemn he ain't coming back no more huck I says why Jim? never mind why huck but he ain't coming back no more but I kept at him so at last he says don't you remember the house that was floating down the river and there was a man in there covered up and I went in and uncovered him and didn't let you come in well then you can get your money when you want it because that was him Tom's most well now and got his bullet around his neck on a watch guard for a watch and has always seen what time it is and so there ain't nothing more to write about and I am rotten glad of it because if I had to know what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't have tackled it and I ain't a going to know more but I reckon I got to light up for the territory ahead of the rest because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and civilize me and I can't stand it I've been there before the end yours truly huck fin end of chapter 43 end of the adventures of huckleberry fin by Mark Twain