The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - 07

come. I was in such a hurry I hadn’t untied her. I got
up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn’t
hardly do anything with them.

As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right
down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the
towhead warn’t sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot
of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn’t no more idea
which way I was going than a dead man.

Thinks I, it won’t do to paddle; first I know I’ll run into
the bank or a towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet
it’s mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at
such a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there
somewheres I hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went
tearing after it, listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it
come I see I warn’t heading for it, but heading away to the right of
it. And the next time I was heading away to the left of it—and
not gaining on it much either, for I was flying around, this way and that
and t’other, but it was going straight ahead all the time.

I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the
time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops
that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and
directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good now.
That was somebody else’s whoop, or else I was turned around.

I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me
yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its
place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again,
and I knowed the current had swung the canoe’s head down-stream, and
I was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering.
I couldn’t tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don’t
look natural nor sound natural in a fog.

The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a cut
bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me off
to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared, the
currrent was tearing by them so swift.

In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn’t
draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.

I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut
bank was an island, and Jim had gone down t’other side of it. It
warn’t no towhead that you could float by in ten minutes. It
had the big timber of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long
and more than half a mile wide.

I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I
was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don’t
ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying dead
still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don’t
think to yourself how fast you’re going, but you catch your
breath and think, my! how that snag’s tearing along. If you
think it ain’t dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself
in the night, you try it once—you’ll see.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears the
answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn’t do
it, and directly I judged I’d got into a nest of towheads, for I had
little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me—sometimes just a
narrow channel between, and some that I couldn’t see I knowed was
there because I’d hear the wash of the current against the old dead
brush and trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warn’t long
loosing the whoops down amongst the towheads; and I only tried to chase
them a little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack-o’-lantern.
You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick
and so much.

I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to keep
from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raft must
be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would get further
ahead and clear out of hearing—it was floating a little faster than
what I was.

Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn’t
hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a
snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I
laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t bother no more. I
didn’t want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn’t
help it; so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.

But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars was
shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big bend
stern first. First I didn’t know where I was; I thought I was
dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come up
dim out of last week.

It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind
of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the
stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the
water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn’t nothing but a
couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and
chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the
raft.

When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his
knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The
other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and
branches and dirt. So she’d had a rough time.

I made fast and laid down under Jim’s nose on the raft, and began to
gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:

“Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you stir me
up?”

“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead—you
ain’ drownded—you’s back agin? It’s too good
for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Lemme look at you chile,
lemme feel o’ you. No, you ain’ dead! you’s back
agin, ’live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck—de same ole
Huck, thanks to goodness!”

“What’s the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?”

“Drinkin’? Has I ben a-drinkin’? Has I had a
chance to be a-drinkin’?”

“Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”

“How does I talk wild?”

“How? Why, hain’t you been talking about my
coming back, and all that stuff, as if I’d been gone away?”

“Huck—Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye.
Hain’t you ben gone away?”

“Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain’t
been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?”

“Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is.
Is I me, or who is I? Is I heah, or whah is I?
Now dat’s what I wants to know.”

“Well, I think you’re here, plain enough, but I think you’re
a tangle-headed old fool, Jim.”

“I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn’t you
tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fas’ to de tow-head?”

“No, I didn’t. What tow-head? I hain’t see
no tow-head.”

“You hain’t seen no towhead? Looky here, didn’t de
line pull loose en de raf’ go a-hummin’ down de river, en
leave you en de canoe behine in de fog?”

“What fog?”

“Why, de fog!—de fog dat’s been aroun’ all night.
En didn’t you whoop, en didn’t I whoop, tell we got mix’
up in de islands en one un us got los’ en t’other one was jis’
as good as los’, ’kase he didn’ know whah he wuz? En
didn’t I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible time
en mos’ git drownded? Now ain’ dat so, boss—ain’t
it so? You answer me dat.”

“Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain’t seen no
fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting
here talking with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes
ago, and I reckon I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in
that time, so of course you’ve been dreaming.”

“Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”

“Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’t any
of it happen.”

“But, Huck, it’s all jis’ as plain to me as—”

“It don’t make no difference how plain it is; there ain’t
nothing in it. I know, because I’ve been here all the time.”

Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but set there
studying over it. Then he says:

“Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef
it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t
ever had no dream b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body
like everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me
all about it, Jim.”

So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it
happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must
start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a
warning. He said the first towhead stood for a man that would try to
do us some good, but the current was another man that would get us away
from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now
and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them
they’d just take us into bad luck, ’stead of keeping us out of
it. The lot of towheads was troubles we was going to get into with
quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our
business and didn’t talk back and aggravate them, we would pull
through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the
free States, and wouldn’t have no more trouble.

It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it was
clearing up again now.

“Oh, well, that’s all interpreted well enough as far as it
goes, Jim,” I says; “but what does these things stand
for?”

It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You
could see them first-rate now.

Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash
again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he
couldn’t seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its
place again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened
around he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:

“What do dey stan’ for? I’se gwyne to tell you.
When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin’ for you,
en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’,
en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er me en de
raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en
soun’, de tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo’
foot, I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ’bout wuz
how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash;
en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en
makes ’em ashamed.”

Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without
saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel
so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble
myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it
afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and
I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him
feel that way.

---

CHAPTER XVI.

WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a
monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She
had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as
thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and
an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There
was a power of style about her. It amounted to something
being a raftsman on such a craft as that.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got
hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on
both sides; you couldn’t see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.
We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we
got to it. I said likely we wouldn’t, because I had heard say
there warn’t but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn’t
happen to have them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a
town? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that
would show. But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot
of an island and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim—and
me too. So the question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore
the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming along
with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to
know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we
took a smoke on it and waited.

There warn’t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town,
and not pass it without seeing it. He said he’d be mighty sure
to see it, because he’d be a free man the minute he seen it, but if
he missed it he’d be in a slave country again and no more show for
freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:

“Dah she is?”

But it warn’t. It was Jack-o’-lanterns, or lightning
bugs; so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim
said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.
Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too,
to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was
most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I
couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to
troubling me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay still in one
place. It hadn’t ever come home to me before, what this thing
was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and
scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t
to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but
it warn’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, “But you
knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and
told somebody.” That was so—I couldn’t get around
that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me,
“What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger
go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did
that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why,
she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she
tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That’s
what she done.”

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I
fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was
fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still.
Every time he danced around and says, “Dah’s Cairo!”
it went through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I
reckoned I would die of miserableness.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He
was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he
would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got
enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where
Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children,
and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist
to go and steal them.

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared to
talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it
made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according
to the old saying, “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an
ell.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here
was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right
out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that
belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever
done me no harm.

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My
conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to
it, “Let up on me—it ain’t too late yet—I’ll
paddle ashore at the first light and tell.” I felt easy and
happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone.
I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to
myself. By and by one showed. Jim sings out:

“We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’
heels! Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!”

I says:

“I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t
be, you know.”

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for
me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:

“Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll
say, it’s all on accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I
couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it.
Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’
fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’
ole Jim’s got now.”

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this,
it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along slow
then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started
or whether I warn’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:

“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlman dat
ever kep’ his promise to ole Jim.”

Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it—I
can’t get out of it. Right then along comes a skiff
with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of
them says:

“What’s that yonder?”

“A piece of a raft,” I says.

“Do you belong on it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any men on it?”

“Only one, sir.”

“Well, there’s five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above
the head of the bend. Is your man white or black?”

I didn’t answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t
come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn’t
man enough—hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was
weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says:

“He’s white.”

“I reckon we’ll go and see for ourselves.”

“I wish you would,” says I, “because it’s pap that’s
there, and maybe you’d help me tow the raft ashore where the light
is. He’s sick—and so is mam and Mary Ann.”

“Oh, the devil! we’re in a hurry, boy. But I s’pose
we’ve got to. Come, buckle to your paddle, and let’s get
along.”

I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made
a stroke or two, I says:

“Pap’ll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody
goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can’t
do it by myself.”

“Well, that’s infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy,
what’s the matter with your father?”

“It’s the—a—the—well, it ain’t
anything much.”

They stopped pulling. It warn’t but a mighty little ways to
the raft now. One says:

“Boy, that’s a lie. What is the matter with your
pap? Answer up square now, and it’ll be the better for you.”

“I will, sir, I will, honest—but don’t leave us, please.
It’s the—the—Gentlemen, if you’ll only pull
ahead, and let me heave you the headline, you won’t have to come
a-near the raft—please do.”

“Set her back, John, set her back!” says one. They
backed water. "Keep away, boy—keep to looard. Confound
it, I just expect the wind has blowed it to us. Your pap’s got
the small-pox, and you know it precious well. Why didn’t you
come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all over?”

“Well,” says I, a-blubbering, “I’ve told everybody
before, and they just went away and left us.”

“Poor devil, there’s something in that. We are right
down sorry for you, but we—well, hang it, we don’t want the
small-pox, you see. Look here, I’ll tell you what to do.
Don’t you try to land by yourself, or you’ll smash
everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty miles, and
you’ll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It
will be long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell them
your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don’t be a fool
again, and let people guess what is the matter. Now we’re
trying to do you a kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us, that’s
a good boy. It wouldn’t do any good to land yonder where the
light is—it’s only a wood-yard. Say, I reckon your father’s
poor, and I’m bound to say he’s in pretty hard luck. Here,
I’ll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it
when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my kingdom!
it won’t do to fool with small-pox, don’t you see?”

“Hold on, Parker,” says the other man, “here’s a
twenty to put on the board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr.
Parker told you, and you’ll be all right.”

“That’s so, my boy—good-bye, good-bye. If you see
any runaway niggers you get help and nab them, and you can make some money
by it.”

“Good-bye, sir,” says I; “I won’t let no runaway
niggers get by me if I can help it.”

They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I
knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me
to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get started
right when he’s little ain’t got no show—when the pinch
comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work,
and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself,
hold on; s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up, would you
felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d
feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s
the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right
and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?
I was stuck. I couldn’t answer that. So I reckoned
I wouldn’t bother no more about it, but after this always do
whichever come handiest at the time.

I went into the wigwam; Jim warn’t there. I looked all around;
he warn’t anywhere. I says:

“Jim!”

“Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o’ sight yit? Don’t
talk loud.”

He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I
told him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:

“I was a-listenin’ to all de talk, en I slips into de river en
was gwyne to shove for sho’ if dey come aboard. Den I was
gwyne to swim to de raf’ agin when dey was gone. But lawsy,
how you did fool ’em, Huck! Dat wuz de smartes’
dodge! I tell you, chile, I’spec it save’ ole Jim—ole
Jim ain’t going to forgit you for dat, honey.”

Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise—twenty
dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat
now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free
States. He said twenty mile more warn’t far for the raft to go, but
he wished we was already there.

Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about hiding
the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles, and
getting all ready to quit rafting.

That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away down in
a left-hand bend.

I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man
out in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and
says:

“Mister, is that town Cairo?”

“Cairo? no. You must be a blame’ fool.”

“What town is it, mister?”

“If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here
botherin’ around me for about a half a minute longer you’ll
get something you won’t want.”

I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never
mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.

We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but it
was high ground, so I didn’t go. No high ground about Cairo,
Jim said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a towhead
tolerable close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion
something. So did Jim. I says:

“Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night.”

He says:

“Doan’ le’s talk about it, Huck. Po’ niggers
can’t have no luck. I awluz ’spected dat
rattlesnake-skin warn’t done wid its work.”

“I wish I’d never seen that snake-skin, Jim—I do wish I’d
never laid eyes on it.”

“It ain’t yo’ fault, Huck; you didn’ know. Don’t
you blame yo’self ’bout it.”

When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure enough,
and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with Cairo.

We talked it all over. It wouldn’t do to take to the shore; we
couldn’t take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn’t
no way but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the
chances. So we slept all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as
to be fresh for the work, and when we went back to the raft about dark the
canoe was gone!

We didn’t say a word for a good while. There warn’t
anything to say. We both knowed well enough it was some more work of
the rattlesnake-skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would
only look like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more
bad luck—and keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep
still.

By and by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn’t
no way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to buy
a canoe to go back in. We warn’t going to borrow it when there
warn’t anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set
people after us.

So we shoved out after dark on the raft.

Anybody that don’t believe yet that it’s foolishness to handle
a snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe it
now if they read on and see what more it done for us.

The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we
didn’t see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours
and more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the
next meanest thing to fog. You can’t tell the shape of the
river, and you can’t see no distance. It got to be very late and
still, and then along comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the
lantern, and judged she would see it. Up-stream boats didn’t
generly come close to us; they go out and follow the bars and hunt for
easy water under the reefs; but nights like this they bull right up the
channel against the whole river.

We could hear her pounding along, but we didn’t see her good till
she was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and
try to see how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel
bites off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and
thinks he’s mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said
she was going to try and shave us; but she didn’t seem to be
sheering off a bit. She was a big one, and she was coming in a
hurry, too, looking like a black cloud with rows of glow-worms around it;
but all of a sudden she bulged out, big and scary, with a long row of
wide-open furnace doors shining like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows
and guards hanging right over us. There was a yell at us, and a
jingling of bells to stop the engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling
of steam—and as Jim went overboard on one side and I on the other,
she come smashing straight through the raft.

I dived—and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel
had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I
could always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under
a minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I
was nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water
out of my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming
current; and of course that boat started her engines again ten seconds
after she stopped them, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she