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

“Oh, my!” says Aunt Sally; “is he changed so? Why, that ain’t Tom, it’s Sid; Tom’s -- Tom’s -- why, where is Tom? He was here a minute ago.”

“You mean where’s Huck Finn -- that’s what you mean! I think I ain’t brought up such a devil as my Tom all these years not to know him when I see him. That would be a pretty big mix-up. Come out from under that bed, Huck Finn.”

So I done it. But not feeling very brave.

Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever seen -- all but one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told it all to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn’t know nothing at all for the whole day, and preached things that night that the oldest man in the world couldn’t a understood. 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 cut in and says, “Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally, I’m used to it now, and it ain’t 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 knowed he wouldn’t mind, because it would be nuts for him, and he’d make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly happy (and so it turned out,) and he let 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 setting Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took all that trouble and work to set a free black man free! I couldn’t ever understood before, until that minute and that talk, how he could help a body set a black man free with his bringing-up, but now I knew.

Aunt Polly she said when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and Sid had come safely, she says to herself: “Look at that, now! I should have known it, letting him go off that way without anyone to watch him. So now I got to go and travel all the way down the river, eleven hundred miles, and find out what that boy 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, that’s strange! Because I wrote you two times to ask what you could mean by Sid being here.”

“Well, I never got ‘em, Polly.”

Aunt Polly she turns around slow and serious, and says: “You, Tom!”

“Well -- what?” he says, kind of innocent like.

“Don’t you what me, you rude thing -- hand out them letters.”

“What letters?”

“Them letters. Be tied, if I have to take a-hold of you I’ll -- “

“They’re in the suitcase. And they’re just the same as they was when I got 'em out of the post office in town. I ain’t looked into them, I ain’t touched them. But I knowed they’d make trouble, and I thought if you weren’t in no hurry, I’d -- “

“Well, you do need skinning, there’s truth in that. And I wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I should think he got -- “

“No, it come in yesterday; I ain’t read it yet, but it’s all right, I’ve got that one.”

I wanted to lay two dollars to say she hadn’t, but I thought maybe it was just as safe not to. So I never said nothing.

Chapter 43

The first time I caught Tom away from the others I asked him what his plan had been if it had all worked out right, and if we had been able to set a black man free that was already free before? And he said, what he had planned in his head from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river on the raft, and have adventures clear to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back up home on a river boat, in the best way, and pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and get out all the slaves around, and have them dance him into town with a torch-light parade and lots of musical instruments, and then he would be known all over, and so would we. But I thought it worked out just 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 well he helped the doctor nurse Tom, they said a lot of nice things over him, and fixed him up nicely, and give 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 give Jim forty dollars for being prisoner for us so patiently, and doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased almost to death, and broke out, and says:

“Dere, now, Huck, what I tell you? -- what I tell you up dere on Jackson island? I told you I got hair on my chest, and what’s de sign of it; and I told you I been rich once, and gwyne to be rich again and it’s come true; and here she is! Dere, now! don’t talk to me -- signs is signs, mind I told you; and I knowed just as well that I was gwyne to be rich again as I’s a-standing here dis minute!”

And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, let’s all three get out of here secretly one of these nights and get the right clothes, and go for great adventures with the Indians, over in their part of the country, for a week or two; and I says, all right, but I ain’t got no money to buy the clothes, and I think I couldn’t get none from home, because pap’s probably 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 -- six thousand dollars and more; and your pap ain’t ever been back since. Hadn’t when I come away, at least.”

Jim says, kind of serious: “He ain’t a-coming back no more, Huck.”

I says: “Why, Jim?”

“Never you 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 de house dat was going down de river, and dey was a man in dere, covered up, and I went in and uncovered him and didn’t let you come in? Well, den, you can get your money when you wants it, because dat was him -- your pap.”

***

Tom’s almost well now, and he has his bullet around his neck on a cover for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is. So there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am dirty well glad of it too, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a started it, and ain’t a-going to no more. But I think I got to head out for the Indian country ahead of the others, because Aunt Sally says she’s going to make me part of her family and teach me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.

Publication Date: 11-28-2015

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