Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow towhead out
in the middle, where there was a village on each side of the river,
and the duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for working them
towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn’t take
but a few hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when
he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when
we left him all alone we had to tie him, because if anybody happened
on to him all by himself and not tied it wouldn’t look much like he
was a runaway nigger, you know. So the duke said it _was_ kind of hard
to have to lay roped all day, and he’d cipher out some way to get
around it.
He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He
dressed Jim up in King Lear’s outfit—it was a long curtain-calico
gown, and a white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his
theater paint and painted Jim’s face and hands and ears and neck all
over a dead, dull solid blue, like a man that’s been drownded nine
days. Blamed if he warn’t the horriblest-looking outrage I ever see.
Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so:
_Sick Arab—but harmless when not out of his head._
And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or
five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a
sight better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and
trembling all over every time there was a sound. The duke told him to
make himself free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling around,
he must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl
or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out and
leave him alone. Which was sound enough judgment; but you take the
average man, and he wouldn’t wait for him to howl. Why, he didn’t only
look like he was dead, he looked considerable more than that.
These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there was
so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn’t be safe, because
maybe the news might ’a’ worked along down by this time. They couldn’t
hit no project that suited exactly; so at last the duke said he
reckoned he’d lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he
couldn’t put up something on the Arkansaw village; and the king he
allowed he would drop over to t’other village without any plan, but
just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable way—meaning the
devil, I reckon. We had all bought store clothes where we stopped
last; and now the king put his’n on, and he told me to put mine on. I
done it, of course. The king’s duds was all black, and he did look
real swell and starchy. I never knowed how clothes could change a body
before. Why, before, he looked like the orneriest old rip that ever
was; but now, when he’d take off his new white beaver and make a bow
and do a smile, he looked that grand and good and pious that you’d say
he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old Leviticus
himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my paddle ready. There
was a big steamboat laying at the shore away up under the point, about
three mile above the town—been there a couple of hours, taking on
freight. Says the king:
“Seein’ how I’m dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St.
Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the steamboat,
Huckleberry; we’ll come down to the village on her.”
I didn’t have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride. I
fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went
scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come
to a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on a log
swabbing the sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm weather;
and he had a couple of big carpet-bags by him.
“Run her nose inshore,” says the king. I done it. “Wher’ you bound
for, young man?”
“For the steamboat; going to Orleans.”
“Git aboard,” says the king. “Hold on a minute, my servant ’ll
he’p you with them bags. Jump out and he’p the gentleman,
Adolphus”—meaning me, I see.
I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap was
mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage such
weather. He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him
he’d come down the river and landed at the other village this morning,
and now he was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up
there. The young fellow says:
“When I first see you I says to myself, ’It’s Mr. Wilks, sure, and he
come mighty near getting here in time.’ But then I says again, ’No, I
reckon it ain’t him, or else he wouldn’t be paddling up the river.’
You _ain’t_ him, are you?”
“No, my name’s Blodgett—Elexander Blodgett—_Reverend_ Elexander
Blodgett, I s’pose I must say, as I’m one o’ the Lord’s poor servants.
But still I’m jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving
in time, all the same, if he’s missed anything by it—which I hope he
hasn’t.”
“Well, he don’t miss any property by it, because he’ll get that all
right; but he’s missed seeing his brother Peter die—which he mayn’t
mind, nobody can tell as to that—but his brother would ’a’ give
anything in this world to see _him_ before he died; never talked about
nothing else all these three weeks; hadn’t seen him since they was
boys together—and hadn’t ever seen his brother William at all—that’s
the deef and dumb one—William ain’t more than thirty or thirty-five.
Peter and George were the only ones that come out here; George was the
married brother; him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and
William’s the only ones that’s left now; and, as I was saying, they
haven’t got here in time.”
“Did anybody send ’em word?”
“Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter
said then that he sorter felt like he warn’t going to get well this
time. You see, he was pretty old, and George’s g’yirls was too young
to be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and
so he was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn’t
seem to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see
Harvey—and William, too, for that matter—because he was one of them
kind that can’t bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for
Harvey, and said he’d told in it where his money was hid, and how he
wanted the rest of the property divided up so George’s g’yirls would
be all right—for George didn’t leave nothing. And that letter was all
they could get him to put a pen to.”
“Why do you reckon Harvey don’t come? Wher’ does he live?”
“Oh, he lives in England—Sheffield—preaches there—hasn’t ever been
in this country. He hasn’t had any too much time—and besides he
mightn’t ’a’ got the letter at all, you know.”
“Too bad, too bad he couldn’t ’a’ lived to see his brothers, poor
soul. You going to Orleans, you say?”
“Yes, but that ain’t only a part of it. I’m going in a ship, next
Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives.”
“It’s a pretty long journey. But it’ll be lovely; I wisht I was
a-going. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?”
“Mary Jane’s nineteen, Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s about
fourteen—that’s the one that gives herself to good works and has a
hare-lip.”
“Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so.”
“Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they ain’t
going to let them come to no harm. There’s Hobson, the Babtis’
preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford,
and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the
widow Bartley, and—well, there’s a lot of them; but these are the
ones that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes,
when he wrote home; so Harvey ’ll know where to look for friends when
he gets here.”
Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied
that young fellow. Blamed if he didn’t inquire about everybody and
everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about
Peter’s business—which was a tanner; and about George’s—which was a
carpenter; and about Harvey’s—which was a dissentering minister; and
so on, and so on. Then he says:
“What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?”
“Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn’t stop
there. When they’re deep they won’t stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat
will, but this is a St. Louis one.”
“Was Peter Wilks well off?”
“Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it’s reckoned
he left three or four thousand in cash hid up som’ers.”
“When did you say he died?”
“I didn’t say, but it was last night.”
“Funeral to-morrow, likely?”
“Yes, ’bout the middle of the day.”
“Well, it’s all terrible sad; but we’ve all got to go, one time or
another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we’re all
right.”
“Yes, sir, it’s the best way. Ma used to always say that.”
When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon
she got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost
my ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up
another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says:
“Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new
carpet-bags. And if he’s gone over to t’other side, go over there and
git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now.”
I see what _he_ was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I
got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a
log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had
said it—every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he
tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for
a slouch. I can’t imitate him, and so I ain’t a-going to try to; but
he really done it pretty good. Then he says:
“How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?”
The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and
dumb person on the histrionic boards. So then they waited for a
steamboat.
About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along,
but they didn’t come from high enough up the river; but at last there
was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went
aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only
wanted to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a
cussing, and said they wouldn’t land us. But the king was ca’m. He
says:
“If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on
and put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry ’em, can’t it?”
So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to
the village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down
when they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says:
“Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they
give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to
say, “What ’d I tell you?” Then one of them says, kind of soft and
gentle:
“I’m sorry, sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he _did_
live yesterday evening.”
Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went all to smash, and fell up
against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his
back, and says:
“Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see him; oh,
it’s too, _too_ hard!”
Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to
the duke on his hands, and blamed if _he_ didn’t drop a carpet-bag and
bust out a-crying. If they warn’t the beatenest lot, them two frauds,
that ever I struck.
Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all
sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the
hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king
all about his brother’s last moments, and the king he told it all over
again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that
dead tanner like they’d lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I
struck anything like it, I’m a nigger. It was enough to make a body
ashamed of the human race.