Huckleberry Finn by Dave Mckay, Mark Twain (recommended books to read TXT) 📕

“How you gwyne to get dem? You can’t come up on dem and hold dem; and how’s a body gwyne to hit dem wid a rock? How could a body do it in de night? I weren’t gwyne to show myself on de side of de river in de light.”

“Well, that’s so. You’ve had to keep in the trees all the time, for sure. Did you hear them shooting the cannon?”

“Oh, yes. I knowed dey was after you. I see dem go by here -- watched dem through de bushes.”

Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and then landing. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he believed it must be the same way 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 powerful sick once, and some of them caught a bird, and his old grandmother said his father would die, and he did.

And Jim said you must not count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the table cloth after the sun goes down. And he said if a man owned a bee hive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before the sun come up next morning, or else the bees would all become weak and quit work and die. Jim said bees only wouldn’t hurt stupid people; but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they didn't hurt 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 it looked 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: “Very few -- and dey ain’t no use to a body. What you want to know when good luck’s a-coming for? Want to keep it off?” And he said: “If you’s got a lot of hair on your arms and on your chest, it’s a sign dat you’s a-gwyne to be rich. Well, dey’s some good in a sign like dat, if it’s a-gwyne to be far ahead. You see, maybe you’s got to be poor a long time first, and so you could get discouraged and kill yourself if you didn’t know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich by me by.”

“Have you got hair on your arms and on your breast, Jim?”

“What’s de good to ask dat question? Don’t you see I has?”

“Well, are you rich?”

“No, but I been rich once, and gwyne to be rich again. Once I had fourteen dollars, but I took to doing business and got cleaned out.”“What did you do business in, Jim?”

“Well, first I started wid animals. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I won't do it again. De cow up and died on my hands.”

“You lost the ten dollars?”

“No, I didn’t lose it all. I only lost about nine of it. I sold de skin and fat for a dollar and ten cents.”

“Did you do more business with the five dollars ten cents you had left?”

“Yes. You know dat slave wid one leg dat belongs to old Mr. Bradish? He started up a bank, and said anyone put in a dollar would get four dollars more at de end of de year. Well, all de Blacks went in, but dey didn’t have much. I was de only one dat had much. So I held out for more dan four dollars, and I said if I didn’t get it I’d start a bank myself. Dat nigger wanted to keep me out de business for sure because he says dey weren’t business enough for two banks, so he says I could put in my five dollars and he’d pay me thirty-five at de end of de year.

“So I done it. Den I planned to put de thirty-five dollars to work and keep things a-moving. Dey was a slave named Bob, dat had found a boat and his master didn’t know about it; and he sold it to me. I told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de end of de year come; but someone robbed de boat dat night, and next day de one-legged Black say de bank collapsed. So dey didn’t none of us get no money.”

“What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?”

“Well, I was gwyne to spend it, but I had a dream, and de dream told me to give it to a Black named Balum; he’s one of dem stupid people, you know.

But he’s lucky, dey say, and I could see I wasn’t. De dream say let Balum do business wid de ten cents and he’d make a lot of money for me. Well, Balum he took de money, and when he was in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de poor is giving to de Lord, and will get his money back a hundred times over. So Balum he took and give de whole ten cents to de poor, and sit back to see what was gwyne to come of it.”

“Well, what did come of it, Jim?”

“Nuffin never come of it. I couldn’t get back dat money no way; and Balum he couldn’t too. I ain’t gwyne to give no more money without I see what’s coming back of it. Sure to get your money back a hundred times, de preacher says! If I could get de ten cents back, I’d call it square, and be glad of it.”

“Well, it’s all right anyway, Jim, long as you’re going to be rich again some time or other.”

“Yes; and I’s rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, and I’s worth eight hundred dollars. I wished I had de money, I wouldn’t want no more.”

Chapter 9

I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I’d found when I was looking around; so we took off walking and soon got to it, because the island was only three miles long and four hundred yards wide.

This place was a long, steep hill about forty foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and the bushes so thick. We walked and climbed around all over it, and by and by found a good big cave in the rock, almost up to the top on the side toward Illinois. The cave was as big as two or three rooms pushed 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 the canoe was hiding in a good place near the hill, and we had all the traps in the cave, we could hurry there if anyone 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 brought it up opposite the cave, and carried all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, where the willow branches was thick. We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and started to get ready for dinner.

The door of the cave was big enough to wheel a barrel through it, and on one side of the door the floor projected out a little, and was flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we made it there and cooked dinner.

We put the blankets down inside for a rug, and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things at the back of the cave. Pretty soon it turned dark, and started to thunder and lightning; so the birds was right about it. Soon after it started to rain, and it rained like all hell, too, and I never seen the wind blow so.

It was one of these real summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside. It was beautiful; and the rain would come down so thick that the trees off a little ways looked grey and like a spider web; and here would come an explosion of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the white under side of the leaves; and then an even bigger wind would follow along and make the branches throw their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest -- fst! it was as light as heaven, and you’d have a little show of tree tops a-moving about away off in the distance, hundreds of yards farther than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and then you’d hear the thunder let go with an awful noise, and then go groaning and turning down the sky toward the under side of the world, like pushing empty barrels down steps -- where it’s long steps and they jump around a lot, you know.

“Jim, this is nice,” I says. “I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else. Pass me another piece of fish and some hot corn bread.”

"Well, you wouldn’t a been here if it hadn’t a been for Jim. You’d a been down dere in de trees widout any dinner, and getting almost drowned, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it’s gwyne to rain, and so do de birds, child.”

The river went up higher and higher for ten or twelve days, until at last it was over the sides of the river. 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 Missouri side it was the same old distance across -- a half a mile -- because the Missouri side was just a wall of cliffs.

Each day we went all over the island in the canoe. It was pretty cool in under the trees, even if the sun was burning outside. We went bending in and out between the trees, and sometimes the vines were hanging 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 such things; and when the island had been flooded a day or two they got so quiet, because of being hungry, that you could take the canoe right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles -- they would drop off into the water. The line of hills our cave was in was full of them. We could a had animals enough to play with if we had wanted them.

One night we caught a little piece of a timber raft -- nice boards. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen 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 light sometimes, but we let them go; we didn’t show ourselves in the light.

Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before the sun come up, here comes a whole timber house down, on the west side. She was a big one, and leaning over a lot. We took the canoe out and got on it -- climbed in at a window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we tied the canoe to it