The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - 11

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
court house, 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 The Balcony Scene in
Romeo and Juliet!!!
Romeo...................................... Mr. Garrick.
Juliet..................................... Mr. Kean.
Assisted by the whole strength of the company!
New costumes, new scenery, 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 the 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 overflowed. 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
tin-ware. 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 whitewashed, some time or another, but the duke said it was in
Clumbus’s 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. I 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:

---

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