Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps
in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to
school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could
go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it
suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he
pleased; he was always the first that went barefoot in the spring and
the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor put on
clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything that
goes to make life precious, that boy had. So thought every harassed,
hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg.