The old man was up-town again before breakfast, but couldn’t get no
track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not
saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold,
and not eating anything. And by and by the old man says:
“Did I give you the letter?”
“What letter?”
“The one I got yesterday out of the post-office.”
“No, you didn’t give me no letter.”
“Well, I must ’a’ forgot it.”
So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had
laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:
“Why, it’s from St. Petersburg—it’s from Sis.”
I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn’t stir. But
before she could break it open she dropped it and run—for she see
something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old
doctor; and Jim, in _her_ calico dress, with his hands tied behind
him; and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that
come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:
“Oh, he’s dead, he’s dead, I know he’s dead!”
And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other,
which showed he warn’t in his right mind; then she flung up her hands,
and says:
“He’s alive, thank God! And that’s enough!” and she snatched a kiss of
him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering
orders right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as
her tongue could go, every jump of the way.
I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the
old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men
was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to
all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn’t be trying to run
away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a
whole family scared most to death for days and nights. But the others
said, don’t do it, it wouldn’t answer at all; he ain’t our nigger, and
his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled
them down a little, because the people that’s always the most anxious
for to hang a nigger that hain’t done just right is always the very
ones that ain’t the most anxious to pay for him when they’ve got their
satisfaction out of him.
They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side
the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let
on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own
clothes on him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this
time, but to a big staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his
hands, too, and both legs, and said he warn’t to have nothing but
bread and water to eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold
at auction because he didn’t come in a certain length of time, and
filled up our hole, and said a couple of farmers with guns must stand
watch around about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the
door in the daytime; and about this time they was through with the job
and was tapering off with a kind of generl good-by cussing, and then
the old doctor comes and takes a look, and says:
“Don’t be no rougher on him than you’re obleeged to, because he ain’t
a bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn’t cut
the bullet out without some help, and he warn’t in no condition for me
to leave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little
worse, and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn’t let
me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he’d kill
me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn’t do
anything at all with him; so I says, I got to have _help_ somehow; and
the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says
he’ll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I
judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I _was!_ and there I had
to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night.
It was a fix, I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills,
and of course I’d of liked to run up to town and see them, but I
dasn’t, because the nigger might get away, and then I’d be to blame;
and yet never a skiff come close enough for me to hail. So there I had
to stick plumb until daylight this morning; and I never see a nigger
that was a better nuss or faithfuler, and yet he was risking his
freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough
he’d been worked main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell
you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars—and
kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing
as well there as he would ’a’ done at home—better, maybe, because it
was so quiet; but there I _was_, with both of ’m on my hands, and
there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then some men in a
skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting
by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so I
motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and
tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no
trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we
muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice
and quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word
from the start. He ain’t no bad nigger, gentlemen; that’s what I think
about him.”
Somebody says:
“Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I’m obleeged to say.”
Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful
to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was
according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good
heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they
all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have
some notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised,
right out and hearty, that they wouldn’t cuss him no more.
Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he
could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten
heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but
they didn’t think of it, and I reckoned it warn’t best for me to mix
in, but I judged I’d get the doctor’s yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or
other as soon as I’d got through the breakers that was laying just
ahead of me—explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about
Sid being shot when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted
night paddling around hunting the runaway nigger.
But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day
and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I
dodged him.
Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt
Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I
found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that
would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and
pale, not fire-faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and
laid for him to wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding
in, and there I was, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still,
and set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be
joyful now, because all the symptoms was first-rate, and he’d been
sleeping like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuler
all the time, and ten to one he’d wake up in his right mind.
So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his
eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says:
“Hello!—why, I’m at _home!_ How’s that? Where’s the raft?”
“It’s all right,” I says.
“And _Jim?_”
“The same,” I says, but couldn’t say it pretty brash. But he never
noticed, but says:
“Good! Splendid! _Now_ we’re all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?”
I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says:
“About what, Sid?”
“Why, about the way the whole thing was done.”
“What whole thing?”
“Why, _the_ whole thing. There ain’t but one; how we set the runaway
nigger free—me and Tom.”
“Good land! Set the run—What _is_ the child talking about! Dear,
dear, out of his head again!”
“_No_, I ain’t out of my HEAD; I know all what I’m talking about. We
_did_ set him free—me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we _done_
it. And we done it elegant, too.” He’d got a start, and she never
checked him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip
along, and I see it warn’t no use for _me_ to put in. “Why, Aunty, it
cost us a power of work—weeks of it—hours and hours, every night,
whilst you was all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet,
and the shirt, and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and
case-knives, and the warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and
just no end of things, and you can’t think what work it was to make
the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or another, and
you can’t think _half_ the fun it was. And we had to make up the
pictures of coffins and things, and nonnamous letters from the
robbers, and get up and down the lightning-rod, and dig the hole into
the cabin, and make the rope ladder and send it in cooked up in a pie,
and send in spoons and things to work with in your apron pocket—”
“Mercy sakes!”
“—and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company
for Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat
that you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come
before we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us
and let drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path
and let them go by, and when the dogs come they warn’t interested in
us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for
the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all
by ourselves, and _wasn’t_ it bully, Aunty!”
“Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was
_you_, you little rapscallions, that’s been making all this trouble,
and turned everybody’s wits clean inside out and scared us all most to
death. I’ve as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out
o’ you this very minute. To think, here I’ve been, night after night,
a—_you_ just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I’ll tan the
Old Harry out o’ both o’ ye!”
But Tom, he _was_ so proud and joyful, he just _couldn’t_ hold in, and
his tongue just _went_ it—she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all
along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and
she says:
“_Well_, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it _now_, for mind I
tell you if I catch you meddling with him again—”
“Meddling with _who?_” Tom says, dropping his smile and looking
surprised.
“With _who?_ Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who’d you reckon?”
Tom looks at me very grave, and says:
“Tom, didn’t you just tell me he was all right? Hasn’t he got away?”
“_Him?_” says Aunt Sally; “the runaway nigger? ’Deed he hasn’t.
They’ve got him back, safe and sound, and he’s in that cabin again, on
bread and water, and loaded down with chains, till he’s claimed or
sold!”
Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening
and shutting like gills, and sings out to me:
“They hain’t no _right_ to shut him up! _Shove!_—and don’t you lose a
minute. Turn him loose! he ain’t no slave; he’s as free as any cretur
that walks this earth!”
“What _does_ the child mean?”
“I mean every word I _say_, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don’t go,
_I’ll_ go. I’ve knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old
Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was
going to sell him down the river, and _said_ so; and she set him free
in her will.”
“Then what on earth did _you_ want to set him free for, seeing he was
already free?”
“Well, that _is_ a question, I must say; and _just_ like women! Why, I
wanted the _adventure_ of it; and I’d ’a’ waded neck-deep in blood
to—goodness alive, _Aunt Polly!_”
If she warn’t standing right there, just inside the door, looking as
sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!
Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and
cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed,
for it was getting pretty sultry for _us_, seemed to me. And I peeped
out, and in a little while Tom’s Aunt Polly shook herself loose and
stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles—kind of
grinding him into the earth, you know. And then she says:
“Yes, you _better_ turn y’r head away—I would if I was you, Tom.”
“Oh, deary me!” 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 reckon I hain’t
raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I
_see_ him. That _would_ be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that
bed, Huck Finn.”
So I done it. But not feeling brash.
Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever
see—except 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 the rest of the day, and preached a
prayer-meeting sermon that night that gave him a rattling ruputation,
because the oldest man in the world couldn’t ’a’ understood it. 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 chipped in and says, “Oh, go on and call me
Aunt Sally, I’m used to it now, and ’taint no need to change”—that
when Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand it—there warn’t
no other way, and I knowed he wouldn’t mind, because it would be nuts
for him, being a mystery, and he’d make an adventure out of it, and be
perfectly satisfied. 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 bother to set a free nigger free! and I
couldn’t ever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how
he _could_ help a body set a nigger free with his bringing-up.
Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom
and _Sid_ had come all right and safe, she says to herself:
“Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off that
way without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all
the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that
creetur’s 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, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean
by Sid being here.”
“Well, I never got ’em. Sis.”
Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:
“You, Tom!”
“Well—_what?_” he says, kind of pettish.
“Don’t you what _me_, you impudent thing—hand out them letters.”
“What letters?”
“_Them_ letters. I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I’ll—”
“They’re in the trunk. There, now. And they’re just the same as they
was when I got them out of the office. I hain’t looked into them, I
hain’t touched them. But I knowed they’d make trouble, and I thought
if you warn’t in no hurry, I’d—”
“Well, you _do_ need skinning, there ain’t no mistake about it. And I
wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s’pose he—”
“No, it come yesterday; I hain’t read it yet, but _it’s_ all right,
I’ve got that one.”
I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn’t, but I reckoned maybe
it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.
CHAPTER THE LAST
The first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea,
time of the evasion?—what it was he’d planned to do if the evasion
worked all right and he managed to set a nigger 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 plumb to the mouth of the
river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back up
home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and
write word ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them
waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brass-band, and
then he would be a hero, and so would we. But I reckoned it was about
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 good he helped the doctor nurse
Tom, they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, 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 patient, and doing it up so
good, and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted out, and says:
“_Dah_, now, Huck, what I tell you?—what I tell you up dah on Jackson
Islan’? I _tole_ you I got a hairy breas’, en what’s de sign un it; en I
_tole_ you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich _ag’in;_ en it’s
come true; en heah she _is! Dah_, now! doan’ talk to _me_—signs is
_signs_, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis’ ’s well ’at I ’uz gwineter
be rich ag’in as I’s a-stannin’ heah dis minute!”
And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le’s all
three slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go
for howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the territory, for
a couple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I
ain’t got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn’t get
none from home, because it’s likely pap’s been back before now, and
got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.
“No, he hain’t,” Tom says; “it’s all there yet—six thousand dollars
and more; and your pap hain’t ever been back since. Hadn’t when I come
away, anyhow.”
Jim says, kind of solemn:
“He ain’t a-comin’ back no mo’, Huck.”
I says:
“Why, Jim?”
“Nemmine why, Huck—but he ain’t comin’ back no mo’.”
But I kept at him; so at last he says:
“Doan’ you ’member de house dat was float’n down de river, en dey wuz
a man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn’ let
you come in? Well, den, you kin git yo’ money when you wants it, kase
dat wuz him.”
Tom’s most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a
watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so
there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it,
because if I’d ’a’ knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I
wouldn’t ’a’ tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more. But I reckon I
got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt
Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I
been there before.
THE END