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

“Goshen, child? This ain’t Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen’s ten mile farther up. Who told you this was Goshen?”

“Why, a man I met first thing this morning, just as I was going to turn into the trees for my sleep. He told me when the roads separated into two, I must take the right side, and five miles would bring me to Goshen.”

“He was drunk, I’d say. He told you opposite to what's true.”

“Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain’t no different now. I got to be moving along. I’ll be in Goshen before morning.”

“Hold on. I’ll fix you some food to eat. You might need it.”

So she put me up some food, and says: “Say, when a cow’s laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer up quickly now -- don’t stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?”

“The back end, ma’am.”

“Well, then, a horse?”

“The front end, ma’am.”

“If fifteen cows is eating on the side of a hill, how many of

them eats with their heads pointed the same direction?”

“The whole fifteen, mum.”

“Well, I do believe you've lived in the country. I thought maybe you was tricking me again. What’s your real name, now?”

“George Peters, ma’am.”

“Well, try to remember it, George. Don’t forget and tell me it’s Alexander before you go, and then get out by saying it’s George Alexander when I catch you. And don’t go about women in that old dress. You do a poor job as a girl, but you might trick men, maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don’t hold the thread still and bring the needle up to it; hold the needle still and push the thread at it; that’s the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t’other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, stand up on the top of your toes and bring your hand up over your head as rough as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw straight-armed from the shoulder, like a girl; not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, remember, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she don’t squeeze them together, the way you did when you caught that ball of metal. Why, I knew you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I planned the other things just to be sure. Now run along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Alexander Peters, and if you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I’ll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time you go walking take shoes and socks with you. The river road’s a rough one, and your feet’ll be powerful sore when you get to Goshen, I’d say.”

I walked up the river about fifty yards, and then I turned back secretly to get to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up the river far enough to make the head of the island when crossing, and then started across. I took off the sun hat, for I didn’t want anything to keep me from seeing well. When I was about the middle I heard the clock start to sound, so I stops and listens; the sound come softly over the water but clear -- eleven. When I reached the head of the island I never waited to rest, even if I was pretty tired, but I headed right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started a good fire there on a high and dry spot.

Then I jumped in the canoe and raced off to our place, a mile and a half below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and pushed on through the timber and up the hill and into the cave. There Jim was, fast asleep on the ground.

I shouted: “Get up and get moving, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose. They’re after us!”

Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he worked for the next half hour showed how scared he was. By the end of half an hour everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was ready to be pushed out from the hiding place where she was kept. We put out the camp fire at the cave first thing, and didn’t show a candle outside after that.

I pushed the canoe out from the land a little, and took a look. If there was a boat around I couldn’t see it, for stars and darkness ain’t good to see by. Then we got out the raft and moved quietly along down in the darkness under the cliff at the side of the river, past the foot of the island without ever saying a word.

Chapter 12

It must a been close on to one in the morning when we got below the island at last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to come along we was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinois side; and just as well a boat didn’t come, for we hadn’t ever thought to put the rifle in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to eat. We was in too much of a hurry to think of so many things. It weren’t good planning to put everything on the raft.

If the men went to the island they would a found the camp fire I made, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyway, they stayed away from us, and if my building the fire never tricked them it was still a good plan. I played it as low down on them as I could.

When the first sign of day started to show, we tied up to a little spot of sand with thick trees growing on it, in a big bend on the Illinois side. We cut off some branches with the axe, and covered up the raft with them so it just looked like the side of the river had collapsed there.

We had mountains on the Missouri side and thick trees on the Illinois side, and the boats all moved down the Missouri side at that place, so we weren’t afraid of anyone running across us. We stayed there all day, and watched the rafts and big boats fly down the Missouri side, and those going up fight against the big river in the middle. I told Jim all about the time I had talking with that woman; and Jim said she was a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she wouldn’t sit down and watch a camp fire -- no, sir, she’d get a dog. Well, then, I said, why couldn’t she tell her husband to get a dog? Jim said he believed she did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and he believed they must a gone up-town to get a dog and so they lost all that time, or else we wouldn’t be here on a little island sixteen or seventeen miles below the village -- no, truth is, we would be back in that same old town again. So I said I didn’t care what was the reason they didn’t get us as long as they didn’t.

When it was starting to come on dark we put our heads out of the trees, and looked up and down and across; nothing to be seen; so Jim took up some of the top boards of the raft and made a timber tent to get under in rain or in hot weather, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor for the tent, and lifted it a foot or more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of reach of waves from the big river boats. Right in the middle of the tent we made a box of dirt about five or six inches deep; this was to build a fire on in wet or cold weather; the tent would keep it from being seen. We made an extra steering-oar, too, because one of the others might break.

We fixed up a short stick with a fork in it, to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light the lantern when we seen a river boat coming down toward us, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn’t have to light it for boats going up river, apart from if we see we was in what they call a “crossing”; for the river was pretty high yet, so up-going boats didn’t always run the channel, but hunted easy water.

This second night we run between seven and eight hours, making over four miles an hour. We caught fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off feeling too sleepy. It was kind of holy and serious, going slowly down the big, quiet river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it weren’t often that we laughed -- only a little kind of a low quiet laugh. We had pretty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all -- that night, or the next, or the next.

Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hills, nothing but just a big bed of lights; not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world was lighted up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it until I seen that wonderful blanket of lights at two in the morning. There weren’t a sound there; everybody was asleep.

Every night we would land about ten o’clock at some little village, and I'd go and buy ten or fifteen cents worth of meal or meat or other things to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that weren’t sitting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you can, because if you don’t want him yourself you can easy find someone that does, and a good act like that people won’t ever forget. I never see pap when he didn’t want the chicken himself, but that is what he always said, anyway.

Mornings before the sun come up I would go into corn fields and borrow a watermelon, or a pumpkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said there weren’t no wrong to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back sometime; but the widow said it weren’t anything but a soft name for robbing, and no right person would do it. Jim said he thought the widow was partly right and pap was partly right; so the best way would be for us to take out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn’t borrow them any more -- then he said it wouldn’t be no problem to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night, going along down the river, trying to make up our minds if we was to drop the watermelons, or pumpkins or what. But toward morning we got it all fixed up,