They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we
covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead
of running—was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I:
“Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run _south_?”
No, they allowed he wouldn’t. I had to account for things some way, so
I says:
“My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born,
and they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he ’lowed
he’d break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who’s got a little
one-horse place on the river forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was
pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he’d squared up there warn’t
nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn’t
enough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other
way. Well, when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he
ketched this piece of a raft; so we reckoned we’d go down to Orleans
on it. Pa’s luck didn’t hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard
corner of the raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under
the wheel; Jim and me come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was
only four years old, so they never come up no more. Well, for the next
day or two we had considerable trouble, because people was always
coming out in skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they
believed he was a runaway nigger. We don’t run daytimes no more now;
nights they don’t bother us.”
The duke says:
“Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we
want to. I’ll think the thing over—I’ll invent a plan that ’ll fix
it. We’ll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don’t want to
go by that town yonder in daylight—it mightn’t be healthy.”
Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the
heat-lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the
leaves was beginning to shiver—it was going to be pretty ugly, it was
easy to see that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our
wigwam, to see what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick—better
than Jim’s, which was a corn-shuck tick; there’s always cobs around
about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you
roll over the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of
dead leaves; it makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke
allowed he would take my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn’t. He
says:
“I should ’a’ reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you
that a corn-shuck bed warn’t just fitten for me to sleep on. Your
Grace ’ll take the shuck bed yourself.”
Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was
going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when
the duke says:
“’Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of
oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I
submit; ’tis my fate. I am alone in the world—let me suffer; I can
bear it.”
We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand
well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we
got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch
of lights by and by—that was the town, you know—and slid by, about a
half a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below
we hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o’clock it come on to
rain and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king
told us to both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him
and the duke crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It
was my watch below till twelve, but I wouldn’t ’a’ turned in anyway if
I’d had a bed, because a body don’t see such a storm as that every day
in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream
along! And every second or two there’d come a glare that lit up the
white-caps for a half a mile around, and you’d see the islands looking
dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind;
then comes a _h-whack!_—bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum—and
the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit—and then
_rip_ comes another flash and another sock-dolager. The waves most
washed me off the raft sometimes, but I hadn’t any clothes on, and
didn’t mind. We didn’t have no trouble about snags; the lightning
was glaring and flittering around so constant that we could see them
plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or that and miss them.
I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that
time, so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he
was always mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam,
but the king and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there
warn’t no show for me; so I laid outside—I didn’t mind the rain,
because it was warm, and the waves warn’t running so high now. About
two they come up again, though, and Jim was going to call me; but he
changed his mind, because he reckoned they warn’t high enough yet to
do any harm; but he was mistaken about that, for pretty soon all of a
sudden along comes a regular ripper and washed me overboard. It most
killed Jim a-laughing. He was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever
was, anyway.
I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by
the storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that
showed I rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding-quarters
for the day.
The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him
and the duke played seven-up awhile, five cents a game. Then they got
tired of it, and allowed they would “lay out a campaign,” as they
called it. The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a
lot of little printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said,
“The celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris,” would “lecture on
the Science of Phrenology” at such and such a place, on the blank day
of blank, at ten cents admission, and “furnish charts of character at
twenty-five cents apiece.” The duke said that was _him._ In another
bill he was the “world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the
Younger, of Drury Lane, London.” In other bills he had a lot of other
names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold
with a “divining-rod,” “dissipating witch spells,” and so on. By and
by he says:
“But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the
boards, Royalty?”
“No,” says the king.
“You shall, then, before you’re three days older, Fallen Grandeur,”
says the duke. “The first good town we come to we’ll hire a hall and
do the sword-fight in ’Richard III.’ and the balcony scene in ’Romeo
and Juliet.’ How does that strike you?”
“I’m in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but,
you see, I don’t know nothing about play-actin’, and hain’t ever seen
much of it. I was too small when pap used to have ’em at the palace.
Do you reckon you can learn me?”
“Easy!”
“All right. I’m jist a-freezin’ for something fresh, anyway. Le’s
commence right away.”
So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was,
and said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.
“But if Juliet’s such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my white
whiskers is goin’ to look oncommon odd on her, maybe.”
“No, don’t you worry; these country jakes won’t ever think of that.
Besides, you know, you’ll be in costume, and that makes all the
difference in the world; Juliet’s in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight
before she goes to bed, and she’s got on her nightgown and her ruffled
nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts.”
He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was
meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t’other chap, and a long white
cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was
satisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the
most splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same
time, to show how it had got to be done; then he give the book to the
king and told him to get his part by heart.
There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and
after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to
run in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he
would go down to the town and fix that thing. The king allowed he
would go, too, and see if he couldn’t strike something. We was out of
coffee, so Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get
some.
When we got there there warn’t nobody stirring; streets empty, and
perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger sunning
himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn’t too young or
too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in
the woods. The king got the directions, and allowed he’d go and work
that camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.
The duke said what he was after was a printing-office. We found it; a
little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter-shop—carpenters and
printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty,
littered-up place, and had ink-marks, and handbills with pictures of
horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. The duke shed
his coat and said he was all right now. So me and the king lit out for
the camp-meeting.
We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a
most awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there from
twenty mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched
everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep off
the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with
branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles
of watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.
The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they
was bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of
outside slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive
sticks into for legs. They didn’t have no backs. The preachers had
high platforms to stand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on
sun-bonnets; and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones,
and a few of the young ones had on calico. Some of the young men was
barefooted, and some of the children didn’t have on any clothes but
just a tow-linen shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and some
of the young folks was courting on the sly.
The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined
out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,
there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then
he lined out two more for them to sing—and so on. The people woke up
more and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some
begun to groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to
preach, and begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side
of the platform and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the
front of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and
shouting his words out with all his might; and every now and then he
would hold up his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around
this way and that, shouting, “It’s the brazen serpent in the
wilderness! Look upon it and live!” And people would shout out,
“Glory!—A-a-_men_!” And so he went on, and the people groaning and
crying and saying amen:
“Oh, come to the mourners’ bench! come, black with sin! (_amen!_)
come, sick and sore! (_amen!_) come, lame and halt and blind!
(_amen!_) come, pore and needy, sunk in shame! (_a-a-men!_) come, all
that’s worn and soiled and suffering!—come with a broken spirit! come
with a contrite heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters
that cleanse is free, the door of heaven stands open—oh, enter in and
be at rest!” (_a-a-men! glory, glory hallelujah!_)
And so on. You couldn’t make out what the preacher said any more, on
account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in the
crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners’
bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all the
mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung
and shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and
wild.
Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him
over everybody; and next he went a-charging up onto the platform, and
the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He
told them he was a pirate—been a pirate for thirty years out in the
Indian Ocean—and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in
a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to
goodness he’d been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat
without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing
that ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy
for the first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to
start right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in
the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path;
for he could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all
pirate crews in that ocean; and though it would take him a long time
to get there without money, he would get there anyway, and every time
he convinced a pirate he would say to him, “Don’t you thank me, don’t
you give me no credit; it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville
camp-meeting, natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that
dear preacher there, the truest friend a pirate ever had!”
And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody
sings out, “Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!” Well,
a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, “Let
_him_ pass the hat around!” Then everybody said it, the preacher too.
So the king went all through the crowd with his hat, swabbing his
eyes, and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for
being so good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little
while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their
cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to
remember him by; and he always done it; and some of them he hugged and
kissed as many as five or six times—and he was invited to stay a
week; and everybody wanted him to live in their houses, and said
they’d think it was an honor; but he said as this was the last day of
the camp-meeting he couldn’t do no good, and besides he was in a sweat
to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to work on the pirates.
When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had
collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he had
fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a
wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, take
it all around, it laid over any day he’d ever put in in the
missionarying line. He said it warn’t no use talking, heathens don’t
amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.
The duke was thinking _he’d_ been doing pretty well till the king
come to show up, but after that he didn’t think so so much. He
had set up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that
printing-office—horse bills—and took the money, four dollars. And he
had got in ten dollars’ worth of advertisements for the paper, which
he said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in
advance—so they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a
year, but he took in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on
condition of them paying him in advance; they were going to pay in
cordwood and onions as usual, but he said he had just bought the
concern and knocked down the price as low as he could afford it, and
was going to run it for cash. He set up a little piece of poetry,
which he made, himself, out of his own head—three verses—kind of
sweet and saddish—the name of it was, “Yes, crush, cold world, this
breaking heart”—and he left that all set up and ready to print in the
paper, and didn’t charge nothing for it. Well, he took in nine dollars
and a half, and said he’d done a pretty square day’s work for it.
Then he showed us another little job he’d printed and hadn’t charged
for, because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with
a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and “$200 reward” under it. The
reading was all about Jim and just described him to a dot. It said he
run away from St. Jacques’s plantation, forty mile below New Orleans,
last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and
send him back he could have the reward and expenses.
“Now,” says the duke, “after to-night we can run in the daytime if we
want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot
with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say
we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a
steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and
are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look
still better on Jim, but it wouldn’t go well with the story of us
being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing—we
must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards.”
We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn’t be no
trouble about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough
that night to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the
duke’s work in the printing-office was going to make in that little
town; then we could boom right along if we wanted to.
We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten
o’clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn’t
hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.
When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:
“Huck, does you reck’n we gwyne to run acrost any mo’ kings on dis
trip?”
“No,” I says, “I reckon not.”
“Well,” says he, “dat’s all right, den. I doan’ mine one er two kings,
but dat’s enough. Dis one’s powerful drunk, en de duke ain’ much
better.”
I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could
hear what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so
long, and had so much trouble, he’d forgot it.