The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - 12

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, bully, 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