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

touch him. He’s dressed, and everything’s ready. Now we’ll get out and give the sheep sign.”

But then we heard men coming to the door, and starting to work with the lock. A man said: “I told you we’d be too soon; they haven’t come -- the door's locked. Here, I’ll lock some of you inside, and you wait for ‘em in the dark and kill ‘em when they come. The others of you move around a piece, and listen to hear ‘em coming.”

So in they come, but couldn’t see us in the dark, and almost stepped on us as we was squeezing under the bed. We got under all right, and out through the hole, quickly but softly -- Jim first, me next, and Tom last, which was the way Tom said to do it. Now we was in the lean-to, and heard steps close by outside. So we moved to the door, and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the opening, but couldn’t make out nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he would listen for the steps to get farther, and when he touched us Jim must go out first, and him last. So he put his ear to the opening and listened, and listened, with the steps a-moving around out there all the time; and at last he touched us, and we went out, and got down low, not breathing, and not making the least noise, and moved quietly toward the fence in a line, and got to it all right, and me and Jim over it; but Tom’s pants caught hard on a sharp piece sticking out of the fence, and then he heard the steps coming, so he pulled loose, which made a noise.

As he dropped in behind us, someone sings out: “Who’s that? Answer, or I’ll shoot!”

We didn’t answer; we just opened up and ran. Then there was a movement, and bang, bang, bang! the bullets were flying around us! We heard them sing out: “Here they are! They’re running for the river! After ‘em, boys; turn loose the dogs!”

So here they come. We could hear them because they was wearing heavy shoes and shouting. We was on the footpath to the timber yard; and when they got close we jumped into the bushes and let them go by, 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 someone had let them out. Here they come, making noise enough for a million; but they was our dogs, so we stopped where we was until they caught up; and when they seen it was us, and no fight to give them, they only just said hello, and ran ahead toward the shouting and running feet. Then we raced along after them until we was nearly to the timber yard, and then went up through the bushes to where my canoe was tied, and jumped in and pulled for our lives toward the middle of the river, but didn’t make no more noise than we was forced to. Then we headed out, easy and comfortable, for the island where my raft was. We could hear them shouting and barking at each other all up and down the side of the river, until we was so far away the sounds got quiet and then died out. When we stepped onto the raft I says: “Now, Jim, you’re a free man again, and I believe you won’t ever be a slave no more.”

“And a mighty good job it was, Huck. It was planned beautiful, and it was done beautiful; and dey ain’t nobody can get up a plan dat’s more mixed-up and wonderful dan what dat one was.”

We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the most glad of all because he had a bullet in the back of his leg.

When me and Jim heard that, we didn’t feel so good as we did before. It was hurting him a lot, and bleeding; so we laid him in the tent and cut up one of the duke’s shirts to bandage him, but he says: “Give me the shirt; I can do it myself. Don’t stop now; don’t play around here, with the adventure going so beautifully; man the oars, and cut her loose! We done it beautifully! -- true we did. I wish we’d a had the job of getting Louis XVI out, there wouldn’t a been no ‘Son of St. Louis gone up to heaven!’ wrote down in his life story; no, sir, we’d a carried him over the border -- that’s what we’d a done with him -- and done it easy as nothing, too. Man the oars -- man the oars!”

But me and Jim was talking -- and thinking. And after we’d thought a minute, I says: “Say it, Jim.”

So he says: “Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. If it was Tom dat was being set free, and one of us was to get hurt, would he say, ‘Go on and save me, never mind about a doctor for to save dis one?’ Is dat like Master Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You know he wouldn’t! Well, den, is Jim gywne to say it? No, sir -- I don’t move a step out of dis place widout a doctor, not if it’s forty years!”

I knowed he was white inside, and I knowed he’d say what he said -- so I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. He disagreed strongly about it, but me and Jim stayed with it and wouldn’t move; so he was for going out on his hands and knees and cutting the raft 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 going to go, I’ll tell you what to do when you get to the village. Shut the door and cover the doctor’s eyes tight and fast, and make him promise to be quiet as the dead, and put a bag full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the back streets and everywhere in the dark, and then bring him here in the canoe, in a round about way through the islands, and look through his pockets and take his chalk away from him, and don’t give it back to him until 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 seen the doctor coming until he was gone again.

Chapter 41

The doctor was a very nice, kind-looking man. I told him me and my brother was over on the Island hunting yesterday, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and hit him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, and not let anybody know, because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise our parents.

“Who are your parents?” he says.

“The Phelpses.”

“Oh,” he says.

After a minute, he says: “How'd you say the shooting happened?”

“He had a dream,” I says, “and it put a bullet in his leg.”

“Strange dream,” he says.

So he got his lantern and his saddle-bags, and we started.

But when he saw the canoe he didn’t like the look of her -- said she was big enough for one, but didn’t look safe for two.

I says: “Oh, you needn’t be afraid, sir, she carried the three of us easy enough yesterday.”

“What three?”

“Why, me and Sid, and -- and the guns; that’s what I mean.”

“Oh,” he says. But he put his foot on the side of it and gave it a push. He shook his head, and said 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 until he come back, or I could go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted. But I said I didn’t; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he started.

Pretty soon I says to myself, what if he can’t fix that leg in three shakes of a lamb's tail, as the saying is? What if it takes three or four days? What're we going to do? We can’t wait until 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 out there again I’ll get down there, too, if I have to swim; and we’ll take and tie him up, and keep him on the raft, and head 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 back to land.

So then I found a good hiding place and got some sleep. Next I knew the sun was away up over my head! I raced out of my hiding place and went for the doctor’s house, but they said he’d gone away in the night some time, 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 ran, and turned the corner, and nearly banged my head into Uncle Silas’s stomach! He says: “Why, Tom! Where you been all this time, you little rabbit?”

“I ain’t been nowhere,” I says, “only just hunting for the runaway slave -- me and Sid.”

“Why, where ever did you go?” he says. “Your aunt’s been mighty worried.”

“She needn’t,” I says, “because we was all right. We followed the men and the dogs, but they was too fast for us, and we lost them; but we heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over, but couldn’t find nothing; we was too tired to make the crossing a second time, so we tied up the canoe and went to sleep, and never waked up until an hour ago; then we come over to hear the news. Sid’s down the road to see what he can hear, and I’m a-looking for something to eat, and then we’re going home.”

So then we went down the street to get “Sid”; but as I knew it would be, he weren’t there; so we waited a little longer, but Sid didn’t come; so the old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, when he's finished playing around -- but we would ride. I couldn’t get him to let me stay and wait for Sid; 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 hits of hers that don’t mean anything, and said she’d serve Sid the same when he come.

The place was full of farmers and farmers’ wives, come to dinner; and so much talk 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 gone over that shack and I believe that slave was crazy. I says to Sister Damrell -- didn’t I, Sister Damrell? -- I says he’s crazy -- them’s the very words I said. You all heard me: he’s crazy, I says, everything shows it. Look at that big old stone, says I; want to tell me’that anyone that’s in his right mind is a going to scratch all them crazy things onto a stone, says I? Here such and such a person broke