The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was

out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what to

make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful

surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men

come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or other

--wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn't

come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and his cousin

Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day yet. He

said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or three of the

enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said his

father and brothers ought to waited for their relations--the Shepherdsons

was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young Harney and

Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across the river and was safe. I was

glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he didn't manage to

kill Harney that day he shot at him--I hain't ever heard anything like

it.

All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men had

slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their

horses! The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as they

swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and

singing out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most fell out

of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell ALL that happened--it would make me

sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that

night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of them--lots

of times I dream about them.

I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.

Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little

gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the

trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my

mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was

to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss

Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and I

judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way

she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess

wouldn't ever happened.

When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a

piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and

tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, and

got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up

Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.

It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck through

the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so I tramped

off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows, red-hot to

jump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was gone! My

souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath for most a minute.

Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot from me says:

"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise."

It was Jim's voice--nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the

bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was

so glad to see me. He says:

"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin. Jack's

been heah; he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home no

mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er de

crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack comes

agin en tells me for certain you IS dead. Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git

you back again, honey."

I says:

"All right--that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll think

I've been killed, and floated down the river--there's something up there

that 'll help them think so--so don't you lose no time, Jim, but just

shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can."

I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the

middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and

judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat

since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and

pork and cabbage and greens--there ain't nothing in the world so good

when it's cooked right--and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a

good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was

Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a

raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a

raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

CHAPTER XIX.

TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by,

they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put

in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a mile

and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as

night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always in

the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and

willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we

slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off;

then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep,

and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still

--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs

a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water,

was a kind of dull line--that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn't

make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness

spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't black

any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever

so far away--trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks

--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices,

it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a

streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's

a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak

look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the

east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge

of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the river, being a

woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through

it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from

over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods

and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they've left dead

fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next

you've got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the

song-birds just going it!

A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of

the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the

lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off

to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see

a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side

you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or

side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor

nothing to see--just solid lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft sliding

by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're

most always doing it on a raft; you'd see the axe flash and come down

--you don't hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time

it's above the man's head then you hear the K'CHUNK!--it had took all

that time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying

around, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and the

rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats

wouldn't run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear

them talking and cussing and laughing--heard them plain; but we couldn't

see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits

carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits;

but I says:

"No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'"

Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the

middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted

her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and

talked about all kinds of things--we was always naked, day and night,

whenever the mosquitoes would let us--the new clothes Buck's folks made

for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on

clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest

time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a

spark--which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water

you could see a spark or two--on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe

you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts.

It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled

with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and

discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he

allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would

have took too long to MAKE so many. Jim said the moon could a LAID them;

well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it,

because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.

We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim

allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.

Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the

dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of

her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful

pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and

her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her

waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the

raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't

tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.

After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or three

hours the shores was black--no more sparks in the cabin windows. These

sparks was our clock--the first one that showed again meant morning was

coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.

One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to

the main shore--it was only two hundred yards--and paddled about a mile

up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get some

berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed

the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as

they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was

after anybody I judged it was ME--or maybe Jim. I was about to dig out

from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung out

and begged me to save their lives--said they hadn't been doing nothing,

and was being chased for it--said there was men and dogs a-coming. They

wanted to jump right in, but I says:

"Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got time

to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you

take to the water and wade down to me and get in--that'll throw the dogs

off the scent."

They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, and

in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off,

shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't see

them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got

further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at

all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the

river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid

in the cottonwoods and was safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head

and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a

greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed

into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses--no, he only had one. He had

an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over

his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After

breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out

was that these chaps didn't know one another.

"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.

"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth--and

it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it--but I

stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of

sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you

told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So I

told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out WITH you.

That's the whole yarn--what's yourn?

"Well, I'd ben a-running' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a week,

and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makin' it

mighty warm for the rummies, I TELL you, and takin' as much as five or

six dollars a night--ten cents a head, children and niggers free--and

business a-growin' all the time, when somehow or another a little report

got around last night that I had a way of puttin' in my time with a

private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and told

me the people was getherin' on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and

they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, and

then run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and feather

me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast--I warn't

hungry."

"Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it

together; what do you think?"

"I ain't undisposed. What's your line--mainly?"

"Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theater-actor

--tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when there's a

chance; teach singing-geography school for a change; sling a lecture

sometimes--oh, I do lots of things--most anything that comes handy, so it

ain't work. What's your lay?"

"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o'

hands is my best holt--for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I

k'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out

the facts for me. Preachin's my line, too, and workin' camp-meetin's,

and missionaryin' around."

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh

and says:

"Alas!"

"What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head.

"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded

down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with

a rag.

"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the

baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

"Yes, it IS good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who

fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame YOU,

gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let

the cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave somewhere

for me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take everything

from me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take that.

Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart

will be at rest." He went on a-wiping.

"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heaving

your pore broken heart at US f'r? WE hain't done nothing."

"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought

myself down--yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer--perfectly

right--I don't make any moan."

"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"

"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass

--'tis no matter. The secret of my birth--"

"The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say--"

"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to you,

for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"

Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.

Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?"

"Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled

to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure

air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father

dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the

titles and estates--the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal

descendant of that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and

here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by

the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the

companionship of felons on a raft!"

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but

he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we was

a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything

else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to

bow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your

Lordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain

"Bridgewater," which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and

one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him

he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood

around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or

some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to

him.

But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say, and

didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on

around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along in

the afternoon, he says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you

ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."

"No?"

"No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down

wrongfully out'n a high place."

"Alas!"

"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And,

by jings, HE begins to cry.

"Hold! What do you mean?"

"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of sobbing.

"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,

and says, "That secret of your being: speak!"

"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:

"You are what?"

"Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very moment

on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the

Sixteen and Marry Antonette."

"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must

be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."

"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung

these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see

before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampled-on,

and sufferin' rightful King of France."

Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to

do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. So

we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort HIM.

But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all

could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier and

better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got

down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"

and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence

till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this

and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might

set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and

comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit

satisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted real

friendly towards him, and said the duke's great-grandfather and all the

other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by HIS father, and

was allowed to come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy

a good while, till by and by the king says:

"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer raft,

Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only make

things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it ain't

your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry? Make the

best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto. This ain't

no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy life--come,

give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away

all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it

would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft;

for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be

satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no

kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I

never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way;

then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they

wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as

it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I

didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt

that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them

have their own way.

CHAPTER XX.

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; 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 sockdolager. 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 a while, 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-freezn' 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 night-gown 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 on to 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' 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.

CHAPTER XXI.

IT was after sun-up now, but we went right on and didn't tie up. The

king and the duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty; but after

they'd jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a good deal.

After breakfast the king he took a seat on the corner of the raft, and

pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let his legs dangle

in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went to

getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart. When he had got it pretty good

him and the duke begun to practice it together. The duke had to learn

him over and over again how to say every speech; and he made him sigh,

and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done it

pretty well; "only," he says, "you mustn't bellow out ROMEO! that way,

like a bull--you must say it soft and sick and languishy, so--R-o-o-meo!

that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you

know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass."

Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out of

oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight--the duke called himself

Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around the raft was

grand to see. But by and by the king tripped and fell overboard, and

after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all kinds of adventures

they'd had in other times along the river.

After dinner the duke says:

"Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so I

guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to

answer encores with, anyway."

"What's onkores, Bilgewater?"

The duke told him, and then says:

"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and

you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy."

"Hamlet's which?"

"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare.

Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I haven't got it

in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can piece it out

from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call

it back from recollection's vaults."

So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible every

now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would squeeze

his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan; next he would

sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was beautiful to see him.

By and by he got it. He told us to give attention. Then he strikes a

most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms stretched

away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky; and then he

begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that, all through

his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his chest, and

just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before. This is the

speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the king:

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so

long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to

Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the

innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling

the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of.

There's the respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I

would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The

oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The law's delay, and the

quietus which his pangs might take, In the dead waste and middle of the

night, when churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But that

the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, Breathes

forth contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of resolution, like

the poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er with care, And all the clouds

that lowered o'er our housetops, With this regard their currents turn

awry, And lose the name of action. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be

wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble

jaws, But get thee to a nunnery--go!

Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he

could do it first-rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and when

he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he

would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it off.

The first chance we got the duke he had some showbills printed; and after

that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft was a most

uncommon lively place, for there warn't nothing but sword fighting and

rehearsing--as the duke called it--going on all the time. One morning,

when we was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw, we come in sight of a

little one-horse town in a big bend; so we tied up about three-quarters

of a mile above it, in the mouth of a crick which was shut in like a

tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took the canoe and

went down there to see if there was any chance in that place for our

show.

We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there that

afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in

all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave

before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he

hired the courthouse, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They

read like this:

Shaksperean Revival ! ! !

Wonderful Attraction!

For One Night Only!

The world renowned tragedians, David Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane

Theatre London, and Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket

Theatre, Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the Royal

Continental Theatres, in their sublime Shaksperean Spectacle entitled

TheBalcony Scene in Romeo and Juliet ! ! !

Romeo...................Mr. Garrick

Juliet..................Mr. Kean

Assisted by the whole strength of the company!

New costumes, new scenes, new appointments!

Also: The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling

Broad-sword conflict In Richard III. ! ! !

Richard III.............Mr. Garrick

Richmond................Mr. Kean

Also: (by special request) Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy ! !

By The Illustrious Kean! Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!

For One Night Only, On account of imperative European engagements!

Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.

Then we went loafing around town. The stores and houses was most all

old, shackly, dried up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they

was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of

reach of the water when the river was over-flowed. The houses had little

gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in

them but jimpson-weeds, and sunflowers, and ash piles, and old curled-up

boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out tinware.

The fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed on at different

times; and they leaned every which way, and had gates that didn't generly

have but one hinge--a leather one. Some of the fences had been

white-washed some time or another, but the duke said it was in Clumbus'

time, like enough. There was generly hogs in the garden, and people

driving them out.

All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in

front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awning-posts.

There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on

them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and chawing

tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretching--a mighty ornery lot.

They generly had on yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella, but

didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats, they called one another Bill, and

Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and used

considerable many cuss words. There was as many as one loafer leaning up

against every awning-post, and he most always had his hands in his

britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw of

tobacco or scratch. What a body was hearing amongst them all the time

was:

"Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank."

"Cain't; I hain't got but one chaw left. Ask Bill."

Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain't got none.

Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a chaw

of tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by borrowing; they

say to a fellow, "I wisht you'd len' me a chaw, Jack, I jist this minute

give Ben Thompson the last chaw I had"--which is a lie pretty much

everytime; it don't fool nobody but a stranger; but Jack ain't no

stranger, so he says:

"YOU give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's grandmother.

You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner,

then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back

intrust, nuther."

"Well, I DID pay you back some of it wunst."

"Yes, you did--'bout six chaws. You borry'd store tobacker and paid back

nigger-head."

Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the

natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw they don't generly cut it

off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with

their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in two;

then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when

it's handed back, and says, sarcastic:

"Here, gimme the CHAW, and you take the PLUG."

All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn't nothing else BUT mud

--mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and two

or three inches deep in ALL the places. The hogs loafed and grunted

around everywheres. You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come

lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in the way, where

folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch out and shut her eyes and

wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as happy as if

she was on salary. And pretty soon you'd hear a loafer sing out, "Hi! SO

boy! sick him, Tige!" and away the sow would go, squealing most horrible,

with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and three or four dozen more

a-coming; and then you would see all the loafers get up and watch the thing

out of sight, and laugh at the fun and look grateful for the noise. Then

they'd settle back again till there was a dog fight. There couldn't

anything wake them up all over, and make them happy all over, like a dog

fight--unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting

fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to

death.

On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank, and

they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in, The people had

moved out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of some

others, and that corner was hanging over. People lived in them yet, but

it was dangersome, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house

caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep

will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the

river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back,

and back, and back, because the river's always gnawing at it.

The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the wagons

and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time. Families

fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them in the

wagons. There was considerable whisky drinking going on, and I seen

three fights. By and by somebody sings out:

"Here comes old Boggs!--in from the country for his little old monthly

drunk; here he comes, boys!"

All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having fun out

of Boggs. One of them says:

"Wonder who he's a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If he'd a-chawed up all

the men he's ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have

considerable ruputation now."

Another one says, "I wisht old Boggs 'd threaten me, 'cuz then I'd know I

warn't gwyne to die for a thousan' year."

Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an

Injun, and singing out:

"Cler the track, thar. I'm on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins is

a-gwyne to raise."

He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year

old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him

and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and lay

them out in their regular turns, but he couldn't wait now because he'd

come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, "Meat

first, and spoon vittles to top off on."

He see me, and rode up and says:

"Whar'd you come f'm, boy? You prepared to die?"

Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says:

"He don't mean nothing; he's always a-carryin' on like that when he's

drunk. He's the best naturedest old fool in Arkansaw--never hurt nobody,

drunk nor sober."

Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down so

he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells:

"Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you've swindled.

You're the houn' I'm after, and I'm a-gwyne to have you, too!"

And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue

to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and

going on. By and by a proud-looking man about fifty-five--and he was a

heap the best dressed man in that town, too--steps out of the store, and

the crowd drops back on each side to let him come. He says to Boggs,

mighty ca'm and slow--he says:

"I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till one o'clock. Till one

o'clock, mind--no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once

after that time you can't travel so far but I will find you."

Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody

stirred, and there warn't no more laughing. Boggs rode off blackguarding

Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street; and pretty soon

back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping it up. Some men

crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't; they

told him it would be one o'clock in about fifteen minutes, and so he MUST

go home--he must go right away. But it didn't do no good. He cussed

away with all his might, and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode

over it, and pretty soon away he went a-raging down the street again,

with his gray hair a-flying. Everybody that could get a chance at him

tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they could lock him up

and get him sober; but it warn't no use--up the street he would tear

again, and give Sherburn another cussing. By and by somebody says:

"Go for his daughter!--quick, go for his daughter; sometimes he'll listen

to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can."

So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a ways and stopped.

In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his

horse. He was a-reeling across the street towards me, bare-headed, with

a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him along.

He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn't hanging back any, but was

doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody sings out:

"Boggs!"

I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel Sherburn.

He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a pistol raised in

his right hand--not aiming it, but holding it out with the barrel tilted

up towards the sky. The same second I see a young girl coming on the

run, and two men with her. Boggs and the men turned round to see who

called him, and when they see the pistol the men jumped to one side, and

the pistol-barrel come down slow and steady to a level--both barrels

cocked. Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, "O Lord, don't

shoot!" Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back, clawing at the

air--bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards on to the

ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out. That young girl

screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on her

father, crying, and saying, "Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him!" The

crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with

their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to

shove them back and shouting, "Back, back! give him air, give him air!"

Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the ground, and turned around

on his heels and walked off.

They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just

the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good place

at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They laid him

on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened another

one and spread it on his breast; but they tore open his shirt first, and

I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made about a dozen long

gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and

letting it down again when he breathed it out--and after that he laid

still; he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from him,

screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, and very

sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared.

Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and

pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people that

had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them was saying

all the time, "Say, now, you've looked enough, you fellows; 'tain't right

and 'tain't fair for you to stay thar all the time, and never give nobody

a chance; other folks has their rights as well as you."

There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there

was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was

excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened,

and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows,

stretching their necks and listening. One long, lanky man, with long

hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a

crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs

stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from

one place to t'other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their

heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their

hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with his

cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn had stood,

frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes, and sung out,

"Boggs!" and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says "Bang!"

staggered backwards, says "Bang!" again, and fell down flat on his back.

The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect; said it was

just exactly the way it all happened. Then as much as a dozen people got

out their bottles and treated him.

Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a

minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and

snatching down every clothes-line they come to to do the hanging with.

CHAPTER XXII.

THEY swarmed up towards Sherburn's house, a-whooping and raging like

Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromped

to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the

mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way; and every window along

the road was full of women's heads, and there was nigger boys in every

tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as the

mob would get nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out of

reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared most

to death.

They swarmed up in front of Sherburn's palings as thick as they could jam

together, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the noise. It was a

little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out "Tear down the fence! tear down

the fence!" Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and smashing,

and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to roll in like

a wave.

Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front porch,

with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly ca'm

and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave

sucked back.

Sherburn never said a word--just stood there, looking down. The

stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eye slow

along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people tried a little to

out-gaze him, but they couldn't; they dropped their eyes and looked sneaky.

Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not the pleasant kind, but the

kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread that's got sand

in it.

Then he says, slow and scornful:

"The idea of YOU lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you

thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a MAN! Because you're brave

enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along

here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a

MAN? Why, a MAN'S safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind--as

long as it's daytime and you're not behind him.

"Do I know you? I know you clear through was born and raised in the

South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around.

The average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him

that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it.

In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in

the daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people

so much that you think you are braver than any other people--whereas

you're just AS brave, and no braver. Why don't your juries hang

murderers? Because they're afraid the man's friends will shoot them in

the back, in the dark--and it's just what they WOULD do.

"So they always acquit; and then a MAN goes in the night, with a hundred

masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that

you didn't bring a man with you; that's one mistake, and the other is

that you didn't come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought PART

of a man--Buck Harkness, there--and if you hadn't had him to start you,

you'd a taken it out in blowing.

"You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger.

YOU don't like trouble and danger. But if only HALF a man--like Buck

Harkness, there--shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back

down--afraid you'll be found out to be what you are--COWARDS--and so

you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat-tail,

and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do.

The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is--a mob; they

don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's

borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any

MAN at the head of it is BENEATH pitifulness. Now the thing for YOU to

do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real

lynching's going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern

fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a MAN

along. Now LEAVE--and take your half-a-man with you"--tossing his gun up

across his left arm and cocking it when he says this.

The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went tearing

off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking

tolerable cheap. I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to.

I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchman

went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold

piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because

there ain't no telling how soon you are going to need it, away from home

and amongst strangers that way. You can't be too careful. I ain't

opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but

there ain't no use in WASTING it on them.

It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever was

when they all come riding in, two and two, a gentleman and lady, side by

side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes nor

stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and comfortable

--there must a been twenty of them--and every lady with a lovely

complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang of real

sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of dollars,

and just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful fine sight; I never

see anything so lovely. And then one by one they got up and stood, and

went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and graceful, the men

looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with their heads bobbing and

skimming along, away up there under the tent-roof, and every lady's

rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky around her hips, and she looking

like the most loveliest parasol.

And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one foot

out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and more, and

the ringmaster going round and round the center-pole, cracking his whip

and shouting "Hi!--hi!" and the clown cracking jokes behind him; and by

and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her knuckles on

her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how the horses did

lean over and hump themselves! And so one after the other they all

skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then

scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and went just about

wild.

Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing things; and

all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people. The

ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him but he was back at him quick

as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said; and how he ever

COULD think of so many of them, and so sudden and so pat, was what I

couldn't noway understand. Why, I couldn't a thought of them in a year.

And by and by a drunk man tried to get into the ring--said he wanted to

ride; said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued

and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't listen, and the whole show

come to a standstill. Then the people begun to holler at him and make

fun of him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip and tear; so that

stirred up the people, and a lot of men begun to pile down off of the

benches and swarm towards the ring, saying, "Knock him down! throw him

out!" and one or two women begun to scream. So, then, the ringmaster he

made a little speech, and said he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance,

and if the man would promise he wouldn't make no more trouble he would

let him ride if he thought he could stay on the horse. So everybody

laughed and said all right, and the man got on. The minute he was on, the

horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, with two circus

men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and the drunk man

hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air every jump, and

the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing till tears

rolled down. And at last, sure enough, all the circus men could do, the

horse broke loose, and away he went like the very nation, round and round

the ring, with that sot laying down on him and hanging to his neck, with

first one leg hanging most to the ground on one side, and then t'other

one on t'other side, and the people just crazy. It warn't funny to me,

though; I was all of a tremble to see his danger. But pretty soon he

struggled up astraddle and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling this way and

that; and the next minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle and stood!

and the horse a-going like a house afire too. He just stood up there,

a-sailing around as easy and comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his

life--and then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. He shed

them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, and altogether he shed

seventeen suits. And, then, there he was, slim and handsome, and dressed

the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that horse with

his whip and made him fairly hum--and finally skipped off, and made his

bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody just a-howling

with pleasure and astonishment.

Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he WAS the sickest

ringmaster you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his own men! He

had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on to nobody.

Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I wouldn't a been in

that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand dollars. I don't know; there

may be bullier circuses than what that one was, but I never struck them

yet. Anyways, it was plenty good enough for ME; and wherever I run across

it, it can have all of MY custom every time.

Well, that night we had OUR show; but there warn't only about twelve

people there--just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the

time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before the

show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these

Arkansaw lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was

low comedy--and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he

reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got

some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off

some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said:

AT THE COURT HOUSE! FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!

The World-Renowned Tragedians

DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!

AND EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!

Of the London and

Continental Theatres,

In their Thrilling Tragedy of

THE KING'S CAMELEOPARD,

OR THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !

Admission 50 cents.

Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said:

LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.

"There," says he, "if that line don't fetch them, I don't know Arkansaw!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

WELL, all day him and the king was hard at it, rigging up a stage and a

curtain and a row of candles for footlights; and that night the house was

jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn't hold no more, the

duke he quit tending door and went around the back way and come on to the

stage and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech, and

praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most thrillingest one that

ever was; and so he went on a-bragging about the tragedy, and about

Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main principal part in it;

and at last when he'd got everybody's expectations up high enough, he

rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the king come a-prancing out

on all fours, naked; and he was painted all over, ring-streaked-and-

striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a rainbow. And--but never

mind the rest of his outfit; it was just wild, but it was awful funny.

The people most killed themselves laughing; and when the king got done

capering and capered off behind the scenes, they roared and clapped and

stormed and haw-hawed till he come back and done it over again, and after

that they made him do it another time. Well, it would make a cow laugh to

see the shines that old idiot cut.

Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says

the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on accounts of

pressing London engagements, where the seats is all sold already for it

in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has

succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them, he will be deeply

obleeged if they will mention it to their friends and get them to come

and see it.

Twenty people sings out:

"What, is it over? Is that ALL?"

The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody sings out,

"Sold!" and rose up mad, and was a-going for that stage and them

tragedians. But a big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts:

"Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen." They stopped to listen. "We are

sold--mighty badly sold. But we don't want to be the laughing stock of

this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as long

as we live. NO. What we want is to go out of here quiet, and talk this

show up, and sell the REST of the town! Then we'll all be in the same

boat. Ain't that sensible?" ("You bet it is!--the jedge is right!"

everybody sings out.) "All right, then--not a word about any sell. Go

along home, and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy."

Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid that

show was. House was jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the

same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the raft we all

had a supper; and by and by, about midnight, they made Jim and me back

her out and float her down the middle of the river, and fetch her in and

hide her about two mile below town.

The third night the house was crammed again--and they warn't new-comers

this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood

by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his

pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat--and I see it

warn't no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs

by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the

signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of

them went in. I shoved in there for a minute, but it was too various for

me; I couldn't stand it. Well, when the place couldn't hold no more

people the duke he give a fellow a quarter and told him to tend door for

him a minute, and then he started around for the stage door, I after him;

but the minute we turned the corner and was in the dark he says:

"Walk fast now till you get away from the houses, and then shin for the

raft like the dickens was after you!"

I done it, and he done the same. We struck the raft at the same time,

and in less than two seconds we was gliding down stream, all dark and

still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a word.

I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the audience,

but nothing of the sort; pretty soon he crawls out from under the wigwam,

and says:

"Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, duke?" He hadn't been

up-town at all.

We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the village.

Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke fairly laughed

their bones loose over the way they'd served them people. The duke says:

"Greenhorns, flatheads! I knew the first house would keep mum and let

the rest of the town get roped in; and I knew they'd lay for us the third

night, and consider it was THEIR turn now. Well, it IS their turn, and

I'd give something to know how much they'd take for it. I WOULD just

like to know how they're putting in their opportunity. They can turn it

into a picnic if they want to--they brought plenty provisions."

Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in that

three nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagon-load like that

before. By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says:

"Don't it s'prise you de way dem kings carries on, Huck?"

"No," I says, "it don't."

"Why don't it, Huck?"

"Well, it don't, because it's in the breed. I reckon they're all alike,"

"But, Huck, dese kings o' ourn is reglar rapscallions; dat's jist what

dey is; dey's reglar rapscallions."

"Well, that's what I'm a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur

as I can make out."

"Is dat so?"

"You read about them once--you'll see. Look at Henry the Eight; this 'n

's a Sunday-school Superintendent to HIM. And look at Charles Second,

and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward

Second, and Richard Third, and forty more; besides all them Saxon

heptarchies that used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain. My,

you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He WAS a

blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head

next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was

ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They fetch her up.

Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane

Shore,' he says; and up she comes, Next morning, 'Chop off her head'--and

they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun answers the

bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made every one of them

tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had hogged a

thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and

called it Domesday Book--which was a good name and stated the case. You

don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one

of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he

wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it

--give notice?--give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves

all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of

independence, and dares them to come on. That was HIS style--he never

give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of

Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? No--drownded

him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying

around where he was--what did he do? He collared it. S'pose he

contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down there and

see that he done it--what did he do? He always done the other thing.

S'pose he opened his mouth--what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful

quick he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was;

and if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled that town a

heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs, because they

ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain't nothing

to THAT old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to

make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot.

It's the way they're raised."

"But dis one do SMELL so like de nation, Huck."

"Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a king smells; history

don't tell no way."

"Now de duke, he's a tolerble likely man in some ways."

"Yes, a duke's different. But not very different. This one's a middling

hard lot for a duke. When he's drunk there ain't no near-sighted man

could tell him from a king."

"Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um, Huck. Dese is all I kin

stan'."

"It's the way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them on our hands, and we

got to remember what they are, and make allowances. Sometimes I wish we

could hear of a country that's out of kings."

What was the use to tell Jim these warn't real kings and dukes? It

wouldn't a done no good; and, besides, it was just as I said: you

couldn't tell them from the real kind.

I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn. He often

done that. When I waked up just at daybreak he was sitting there with

his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I

didn't take notice nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was

thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low

and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his

life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white

folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. He

was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I was

asleep, and saying, "Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! it's mighty

hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'!" He was a

mighty good nigger, Jim was.

But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young

ones; and by and by he says:

"What makes me feel so bad dis time 'uz bekase I hear sumpn over yonder

on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time I

treat my little 'Lizabeth so ornery. She warn't on'y 'bout fo' year ole,

en she tuck de sk'yarlet fever, en had a powful rough spell; but she got

well, en one day she was a-stannin' aroun', en I says to her, I says:

"'Shet de do'.'

"She never done it; jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up at me. It make me

mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says:

"'Doan' you hear me? Shet de do'!'

"She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin' up. I was a-bilin'! I says:

"'I lay I MAKE you mine!'

"En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat sont her a-sprawlin'.

Den I went into de yuther room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten minutes; en when I

come back dah was dat do' a-stannin' open YIT, en dat chile stannin' mos'

right in it, a-lookin' down and mournin', en de tears runnin' down. My,

but I WUZ mad! I was a-gwyne for de chile, but jis' den--it was a do'

dat open innerds--jis' den, 'long come de wind en slam it to, behine de

chile, ker-BLAM!--en my lan', de chile never move'! My breff mos' hop

outer me; en I feel so--so--I doan' know HOW I feel. I crope out, all

a-tremblin', en crope aroun' en open de do' easy en slow, en poke my head

in behine de chile, sof' en still, en all uv a sudden I says POW! jis' as

loud as I could yell. SHE NEVER BUDGE! Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin' en

grab her up in my arms, en say, 'Oh, de po' little thing! De Lord God

Amighty fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as

long's he live!' Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en

dumb--en I'd ben a-treat'n her so!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

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 in shore," 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; 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 histronic 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 an 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.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people

tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on

their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd,

and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and

dooryards was full; and every minute somebody would say, over a fence:

"Is it THEM?"

And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say:

"You bet it is."

When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the

three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane WAS red-headed, but that

don't make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her face and

her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles was come.

The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the

hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they HAD it! Everybody most,

leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have

such good times.

Then the king he hunched the duke private--I see him do it--and then he

looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so

then him and the duke, with a hand across each other's shoulder, and

t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody

dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise stopping,

people saying "Sh!" and all the men taking their hats off and drooping

their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall. And when they got there

they bent over and looked in the coffin, and took one sight, and then

they bust out a-crying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most; and

then they put their arms around each other's necks, and hung their chins

over each other's shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I

never see two men leak the way they done. And, mind you, everybody was

doing the same; and the place was that damp I never see anything like it.

Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and t'other on t'other

side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the coffin, and

let on to pray all to themselves. Well, when it come to that it worked

the crowd like you never see anything like it, and everybody broke down

and went to sobbing right out loud--the poor girls, too; and every woman,

nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a word, and kissed them,

solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand on their head, and

looked up towards the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted

out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I

never see anything so disgusting.

Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and works

himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle

about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the

diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long journey of

four thousand mile, but it's a trial that's sweetened and sanctified to

us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he thanks them out

of his heart and out of his brother's heart, because out of their mouths

they can't, words being too weak and cold, and all that kind of rot and

slush, till it was just sickening; and then he blubbers out a pious

goody-goody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes to crying fit to bust.

And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the crowd

struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their might,

and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting

out. Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and hogwash I

never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and bully.

Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his

nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the family

would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up with the

ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying yonder could

speak he knows who he would name, for they was names that was very dear

to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and so he will name the same,

to wit, as follows, vizz.:--Rev. Mr. Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and

Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robinson,

and their wives, and the widow Bartley.

Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town a-hunting

together--that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t'other

world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell was away up

to Louisville on business. But the rest was on hand, and so they all

come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him; and

then they shook hands with the duke and didn't say nothing, but just kept

a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads whilst he

made all sorts of signs with his hands and said "Goo-goo--goo-goo-goo"

all the time, like a baby that can't talk.

So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty much

everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts of little

things that happened one time or another in the town, or to George's

family, or to Peter. And he always let on that Peter wrote him the

things; but that was a lie: he got every blessed one of them out of that

young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.

Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the

king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-house

and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard

(which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and land

(worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold to

Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid down

cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and fetch it up, and have

everything square and above-board; and told me to come with a candle. We

shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag they spilt it

out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them yaller-boys. My,

the way the king's eyes did shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder and

says:

"Oh, THIS ain't bully nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, Billy, it

beats the Nonesuch, DON'T it?"

The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them

through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the king

says:

"It ain't no use talkin'; bein' brothers to a rich dead man and

representatives of furrin heirs that's got left is the line for you and

me, Bilge. Thish yer comes of trust'n to Providence. It's the best way,

in the long run. I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no better way."

Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on

trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out

four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king:

"Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen

dollars?"

They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it. Then the

duke says:

"Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake--I reckon

that's the way of it. The best way's to let it go, and keep still about

it. We can spare it."

"Oh, shucks, yes, we can SPARE it. I don't k'yer noth'n 'bout that--it's

the COUNT I'm thinkin' about. We want to be awful square and open and

above-board here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer money up stairs

and count it before everybody--then ther' ain't noth'n suspicious. But

when the dead man says ther's six thous'n dollars, you know, we don't

want to--"

"Hold on," says the duke. "Le's make up the deffisit," and he begun to

haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket.

"It's a most amaz'n' good idea, duke--you HAVE got a rattlin' clever head

on you," says the king. "Blest if the old Nonesuch ain't a heppin' us

out agin," and HE begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them up.

It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear.

"Say," says the duke, "I got another idea. Le's go up stairs and count

this money, and then take and GIVE IT TO THE GIRLS."

"Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It's the most dazzling idea 'at ever a

man struck. You have cert'nly got the most astonishin' head I ever see.

Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it. Let 'em

fetch along their suspicions now if they want to--this 'll lay 'em out."

When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king

he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pile--twenty

elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their

chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin

to swell himself up for another speech. He says:

"Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them

that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by these

yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left

fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he

would a done MORE generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin' his

dear William and me. Now, WOULDN'T he? Ther' ain't no question 'bout it

in MY mind. Well, then, what kind o' brothers would it be that 'd stand

in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles would it be that 'd

rob--yes, ROB--sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved so at sech a

time? If I know William--and I THINK I do--he--well, I'll jest ask him."

He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his

hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and leather-headed a while;

then all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning, and jumps for the

king, goo-gooing with all his might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen

times before he lets up. Then the king says, "I knowed it; I reckon THAT

'll convince anybody the way HE feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan,

Joanner, take the money--take it ALL. It's the gift of him that lays

yonder, cold but joyful."

Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the duke, and

then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And everybody

crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the hands off of

them frauds, saying all the time:

"You DEAR good souls!--how LOVELY!--how COULD you!"

Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased

again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and

before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside,

and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody

saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they was

all busy listening. The king was saying--in the middle of something he'd

started in on--

"--they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased. That's why they're

invited here this evenin'; but tomorrow we want ALL to come--everybody;

for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fitten that

his funeral orgies sh'd be public."

And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and

every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke

he couldn't stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper,

"OBSEQUIES, you old fool," and folds it up, and goes to goo-gooing and

reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he reads it and puts it

in his pocket, and says:

"Poor William, afflicted as he is, his HEART'S aluz right. Asks me to

invite everybody to come to the funeral--wants me to make 'em all

welcome. But he needn't a worried--it was jest what I was at."

Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping in his

funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And

when he done it the third time he says:

"I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it ain't

--obsequies bein' the common term--but because orgies is the right term.

Obsequies ain't used in England no more now--it's gone out. We say

orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing

you're after more exact. It's a word that's made up out'n the Greek

ORGO, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew JEESUM, to plant, cover up;

hence inTER. So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public funeral."

He was the WORST I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed

right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, "Why,

DOCTOR!" and Abner Shackleford says:

"Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks."

The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:

"Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I--"

"Keep your hands off of me!" says the doctor. "YOU talk like an

Englishman, DON'T you? It's the worst imitation I ever heard. YOU Peter

Wilks's brother! You're a fraud, that's what you are!"

Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to

quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey 'd

showed in forty ways that he WAS Harvey, and knowed everybody by name,

and the names of the very dogs, and begged and BEGGED him not to hurt

Harvey's feelings and the poor girl's feelings, and all that. But it

warn't no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended to

be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what he

did was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king and

crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on THEM. He says:

"I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend; and I warn you as a

friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of

harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing

to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as

he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an impostor--has come here with

a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and you

take them for PROOFS, and are helped to fool yourselves by these foolish

friends here, who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you know me for

your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen to me; turn

this pitiful rascal out--I BEG you to do it. Will you?"

Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She

says:

"HERE is my answer." She hove up the bag of money and put it in the

king's hands, and says, "Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for

me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us no receipt for

it."

Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the

hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands and

stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his

head and smiled proud. The doctor says:

"All right; I wash MY hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a

time 's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of this

day." And away he went.

"All right, doctor," says the king, kinder mocking him; "we'll try and

get 'em to send for you;" which made them all laugh, and they said it was

a prime good hit.

CHAPTER XXVI.

WELL, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off

for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would do for

Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle Harvey, which was a

little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her sisters and

sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it.

The king said the cubby would do for his valley--meaning me.

So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was plain

but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps took

out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he said they

warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was a

curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There was an old

hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all sorts of

little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room

with. The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for

these fixings, and so don't disturb them. The duke's room was pretty

small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby.

That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there,

and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on them, and

the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of the

table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was,

and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried

chickens was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to

force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop,

and said so--said "How DO you get biscuits to brown so nice?" and "Where,

for the land's sake, DID you get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind

of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you

know.

And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen

off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up

the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest

if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says:

"Did you ever see the king?"

"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church." I

knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes

to our church, she says:

"What--regular?"

"Yes--regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the

pulpit."

"I thought he lived in London?"

"Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?"

"But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?"

I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken

bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:

"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's

only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths."

"Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea."

"Well, who said it was?"

"Why, you did."

"I DIDN'T nuther."

"You did!"

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I never said nothing of the kind."

"Well, what DID you say, then?"

"Said he come to take the sea BATHS--that's what I said."

"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the

sea?"

"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?"

"Yes."

"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"

"Why, no."

"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea

bath."

"How does he get it, then?"

"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels. There

in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his water

hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea.

They haven't got no conveniences for it."

"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved

time."

When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was

comfortable and glad. Next, she says:

"Do you go to church, too?"

"Yes--regular."

"Where do you set?"

"Why, in our pew."

"WHOSE pew?"

"Why, OURN--your Uncle Harvey's."

"His'n? What does HE want with a pew?"

"Wants it to set in. What did you RECKON he wanted with it?"

"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."

Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I

played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says:

"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?"

"Why, what do they want with more?"

"What!--to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you.

They don't have no less than seventeen."

"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that, not

if I NEVER got to glory. It must take 'em a week."

"Shucks, they don't ALL of 'em preach the same day--only ONE of 'em."

"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"

"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate--and one thing or

another. But mainly they don't do nothing."

"Well, then, what are they FOR?"

"Why, they're for STYLE. Don't you know nothing?"

"Well, I don't WANT to know no such foolishness as that. How is servants

treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our niggers?"

"NO! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs."

"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's

week, and Fourth of July?"

"Oh, just listen! A body could tell YOU hain't ever been to England by

that. Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year's end

to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger shows, nor

nowheres."

"Nor church?"

"Nor church."

"But YOU always went to church."

Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But

next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was

different from a common servant and HAD to go to church whether he wanted

to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the law. But

I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she warn't

satisfied. She says:

"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?"

"Honest injun," says I.

"None of it at all?"

"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.

"Lay your hand on this book and say it."

I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and

said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:

"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll

believe the rest."

"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in with

Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him,

and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be

treated so?"

"That's always your way, Maim--always sailing in to help somebody before

they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some stretchers,

I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's every bit and

grain I DID say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like that, can't

he?"

"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's here in our

house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you was in

his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't to say a

thing to another person that will make THEM feel ashamed."

"Why, Maim, he said--"

"It don't make no difference what he SAID--that ain't the thing. The

thing is for you to treat him KIND, and not be saying things to make him

remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks."

I says to myself, THIS is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle rob her

of her money!

Then Susan SHE waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give

Hare-lip hark from the tomb!

Says I to myself, and this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her of

her money!

Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely

again--which was her way; but when she got done there warn't hardly

anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.

"All right, then," says the other girls; "you just ask his pardon."

She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful it

was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so she

could do it again.

I says to myself, this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her of her

money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves out to

make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so ornery

and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up; I'll hive

that money for them or bust.

So then I lit out--for bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When I

got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself, shall

I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds? No--that won't

do. He might tell who told him; then the king and the duke would make it

warm for me. Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? No--I dasn't do

it. Her face would give them a hint, sure; they've got the money, and

they'd slide right out and get away with it. If she was to fetch in help

I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done with, I judge. No;

there ain't no good way but one. I got to steal that money, somehow; and

I got to steal it some way that they won't suspicion that I done it.

They've got a good thing here, and they ain't a-going to leave till

they've played this family and this town for all they're worth, so I'll

find a chance time enough. I'll steal it and hide it; and by and by, when

I'm away down the river, I'll write a letter and tell Mary Jane where

it's hid. But I better hive it tonight if I can, because the doctor

maybe hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has; he might scare them out

of here yet.

So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the hall was dark,

but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it with my hands;

but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let anybody else

take care of that money but his own self; so then I went to his room and

begun to paw around there. But I see I couldn't do nothing without a

candle, and I dasn't light one, of course. So I judged I'd got to do the

other thing--lay for them and eavesdrop. About that time I hears their

footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed; I reached for it,

but it wasn't where I thought it would be; but I touched the curtain that

hid Mary Jane's frocks, so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in

amongst the gowns, and stood there perfectly still.

They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done was to

get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found the bed

when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to hide under

the bed when you are up to anything private. They sets down then, and

the king says:

"Well, what is it? And cut it middlin' short, because it's better for us

to be down there a-whoopin' up the mournin' than up here givin' 'em a

chance to talk us over."

"Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable. That

doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've got a notion,

and I think it's a sound one."

"What is it, duke?"

"That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, and clip

it down the river with what we've got. Specially, seeing we got it so

easy--GIVEN back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of

course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for knocking off and

lighting out."

That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it would a been a

little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed, The king

rips out and says:

"What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off like a

passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o'

property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?--and all good,

salable stuff, too."

The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't want

to go no deeper--didn't want to rob a lot of orphans of EVERYTHING they

had.

"Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We sha'n't rob 'em of nothing at

all but jest this money. The people that BUYS the property is the

suff'rers; because as soon 's it's found out 'at we didn't own it--which

won't be long after we've slid--the sale won't be valid, and it 'll all

go back to the estate. These yer orphans 'll git their house back agin,

and that's enough for THEM; they're young and spry, and k'n easy earn a

livin'. THEY ain't a-goin to suffer. Why, jest think--there's thous'n's

and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off. Bless you, THEY ain't got

noth'n' to complain of."

Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said all

right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and that

doctor hanging over them. But the king says:

"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for HIM? Hain't we got all the fools

in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"

So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says:

"I don't think we put that money in a good place."

That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a hint of

no kind to help me. The king says:

"Why?"

"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know

the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up

and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and not

borrow some of it?"

"Your head's level agin, duke," says the king; and he comes a-fumbling

under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck tight to

the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what them

fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I tried to think what I'd

better do if they did catch me. But the king he got the bag before I

could think more than about a half a thought, and he never suspicioned I

was around. They took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick

that was under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst

the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only makes up

the feather-bed, and don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a

year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting stole now.

But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-way down

stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I could get

a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of the house

somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the house a good

ransacking: I knowed that very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes

all on; but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in such

a sweat to get through with the business. By and by I heard the king and

the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the

top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was going to happen. But

nothing did.

So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't

begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.

CHAPTER XXVII.

I CREPT to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed

along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I

peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that was

watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door was open

into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in

both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but I see there

warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by;

but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. Just then I

heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the

parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the

bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing

the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his

shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond

where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and

then I run back across the room and in behind the door.