The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - 19

was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. Uncle Silas
he says:

“It’s most uncommon curious, I can’t understand it.
I know perfectly well I took it off, because—”

“Because you hain’t got but one on. Just listen
at the man! I know you took it off, and know it by a better way than
your wool-gethering memory, too, because it was on the clo’s-line
yesterday—I see it there myself. But it’s gone, that’s
the long and the short of it, and you’ll just have to change to a
red flann’l one till I can get time to make a new one. And it
’ll be the third I’ve made in two years. It just keeps a
body on the jump to keep you in shirts; and whatever you do manage to do
with ’m all is more’n I can make out. A body ’d
think you would learn to take some sort of care of ’em at
your time of life.”

“I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn’t
to be altogether my fault, because, you know, I don’t see them nor
have nothing to do with them except when they’re on me; and I don’t
believe I’ve ever lost one of them off of me.”

“Well, it ain’t your fault if you haven’t, Silas;
you’d a done it if you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain’t
all that’s gone, nuther. Ther’s a spoon gone; and that
ain’t all. There was ten, and now ther’s only nine. The
calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never took the spoon, that’s
certain.”

“Why, what else is gone, Sally?”

“Ther’s six candles gone—that’s what.
The rats could a got the candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder
they don’t walk off with the whole place, the way you’re
always going to stop their holes and don’t do it; and if they warn’t
fools they’d sleep in your hair, Silas—you’d
never find it out; but you can’t lay the spoon on the rats,
and that I know.”

“Well, Sally, I’m in fault, and I acknowledge it; I’ve
been remiss; but I won’t let to-morrow go by without stopping up
them holes.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t hurry; next year ’ll do. Matilda
Angelina Araminta Phelps!”

Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the
sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman
steps on to the passage, and says:

“Missus, dey’s a sheet gone.”

“A sheet gone! Well, for the land’s sake!”

“I’ll stop up them holes to-day,” says Uncle Silas,
looking sorrowful.

“Oh, do shet up!—s’pose the rats took the sheet?
where’s it gone, Lize?”

“Clah to goodness I hain’t no notion, Miss’ Sally.
She wuz on de clo’sline yistiddy, but she done gone: she
ain’ dah no mo’ now.”

“I reckon the world is coming to an end. I never
see the beat of it in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a
spoon, and six can—”

“Missus,” comes a young yaller wench, “dey’s a
brass cannelstick miss’n.”

“Cler out from here, you hussy, er I’ll take a skillet to ye!”

Well, she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned
I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She
kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and
everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking
kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She
stopped, with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I
was in Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says:

“It’s just as I expected. So you had it in your
pocket all the time; and like as not you’ve got the other things
there, too. How’d it get there?”

“I reely don’t know, Sally,” he says, kind of
apologizing, “or you know I would tell. I was a-studying over
my text in Acts Seventeen before breakfast, and I reckon I put it in
there, not noticing, meaning to put my Testament in, and it must be so,
because my Testament ain’t in; but I’ll go and see; and if the
Testament is where I had it, I’ll know I didn’t put it in, and
that will show that I laid the Testament down and took up the spoon, and—”

“Oh, for the land’s sake! Give a body a rest! Go
’long now, the whole kit and biling of ye; and don’t come nigh
me again till I’ve got back my peace of mind.”

I’D a heard her if she’d a said it to herself, let alone
speaking it out; and I’d a got up and obeyed her if I’d a been
dead. As we was passing through the setting-room the old man he took
up his hat, and the shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely
picked it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and
went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and
says:

“Well, it ain’t no use to send things by him no more,
he ain’t reliable.” Then he says: "But he done us a good
turn with the spoon, anyway, without knowing it, and so we’ll go and
do him one without him knowing it—stop up his rat-holes.”

There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole
hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape. Then we
heard steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here
comes the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in t’other,
looking as absent-minded as year before last. He went a mooning
around, first to one rat-hole and then another, till he’d been to
them all. Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off
of his candle and thinking. Then he turns off slow and dreamy
towards the stairs, saying:

“Well, for the life of me I can’t remember when I done it.
I could show her now that I warn’t to blame on account of the
rats. But never mind—let it go. I reckon it wouldn’t
do no good.”

And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a
mighty nice old man. And always is.

Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said we’d
got to have it; so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out he
told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the spoon-basket
till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to counting the spoons
and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve, and
Tom says:

“Why, Aunt Sally, there ain’t but nine spoons yet.”

She says:

“Go ’long to your play, and don’t bother me. I
know better, I counted ’m myself.”

“Well, I’ve counted them twice, Aunty, and I can’t make
but nine.”

She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count—anybody
would.

“I declare to gracious ther’ ain’t but nine!”
she says. "Why, what in the world—plague take the
things, I’ll count ’m again.”

So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she says:

“Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther’s ten now!”
and she looked huffy and bothered both. But Tom says:

“Why, Aunty, I don’t think there’s ten.”

“You numskull, didn’t you see me count ’m?”

“I know, but—”

“Well, I’ll count ’m again.”

So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time. Well,
she was in a tearing way—just a-trembling all over, she was
so mad. But she counted and counted till she got that addled she’d
start to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times
they come out right, and three times they come out wrong. Then she
grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the cat
galley-west; and she said cle’r out and let her have some peace, and
if we come bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she’d
skin us. So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apron-pocket
whilst she was a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right,
along with her shingle nail, before noon. We was very well satisfied
with this business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it
took, because he said now she couldn’t ever count them spoons
twice alike again to save her life; and wouldn’t believe she’d
counted them right if she did; and said that after she’d
about counted her head off for the next three days he judged she’d
give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever count them
any more.

So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of her
closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a couple of
days till she didn’t know how many sheets she had any more, and she
didn’t care, and warn’t a-going to bullyrag the rest of
her soul out about it, and wouldn’t count them again not to save her
life; she druther die first.

So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon and
the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up
counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn’t no consequence, it
would blow over by and by.

But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. We
fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it
done at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and we
had to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through, and we
got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out with the
smoke; because, you see, we didn’t want nothing but a crust, and we
couldn’t prop it up right, and she would always cave in. But
of course we thought of the right way at last—which was to cook the
ladder, too, in the pie. So then we laid in with Jim the second
night, and tore up the sheet all in little strings and twisted them
together, and long before daylight we had a lovely rope that you could a
hung a person with. We let on it took nine months to make it.

And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn’t go
into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope
enough for forty pies if we’d a wanted them, and plenty left over
for soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We could a had a whole
dinner.

But we didn’t need it. All we needed was just enough for the
pie, and so we throwed the rest away. We didn’t cook none of
the pies in the wash-pan—afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle
Silas he had a noble brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of,
because it belonged to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that
come over from England with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one
of them early ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old
pots and things that was valuable, not on account of being any account,
because they warn’t, but on account of them being relicts, you know,
and we snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on
the first pies, because we didn’t know how, but she come up smiling
on the last one. We took and lined her with dough, and set her in
the coals, and loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and
shut down the lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot,
with the long handle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she
turned out a pie that was a satisfaction to look at. But the person that
et it would want to fetch a couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if
that rope ladder wouldn’t cramp him down to business I don’t
know nothing what I’m talking about, and lay him in enough
stomach-ache to last him till next time, too.

Nat didn’t look when we put the witch pie in Jim’s pan; and we
put the three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and
so Jim got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he
busted into the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick, and
scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the window-hole.

---

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

MAKING them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and Jim
allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all. That’s
the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had
to have it; Tom said he’d got to; there warn’t no case
of a state prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and
his coat of arms.

“Look at Lady Jane Grey,” he says; “look at Gilford
Dudley; look at old Northumberland! Why, Huck, s’pose it is
considerble trouble?—what you going to do?—how you going to
get around it? Jim’s got to do his inscription and coat
of arms. They all do.”

Jim says:

“Why, Mars Tom, I hain’t got no coat o’ arm; I hain’t
got nuffn but dish yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on
dat.”

“Oh, you don’t understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very
different.”

“Well,” I says, “Jim’s right, anyway, when he says
he ain’t got no coat of arms, because he hain’t.”

“I reckon I knowed that,” Tom says, “but you bet he’ll
have one before he goes out of this—because he’s going out right,
and there ain’t going to be no flaws in his record.”

So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim
a-making his’n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon,
Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms. By and by he said he’d
struck so many good ones he didn’t hardly know which to take, but
there was one which he reckoned he’d decide on. He says:

“On the scutcheon we’ll have a bend or in the dexter
base, a saltire murrey in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for
common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a
chevron vert in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a
field azure, with the nombril points rampant on a dancette
indented; crest, a runaway nigger, sable, with his bundle over his
shoulder on a bar sinister; and a couple of gules for supporters, which is
you and me; motto, Maggiore Fretta, Minore Otto. Got it out
of a book—means the more haste the less speed.”

“Geewhillikins,” I says, “but what does the rest of it
mean?”

“We ain’t got no time to bother over that,” he says;
“we got to dig in like all git-out.”

“Well, anyway,” I says, “what’s some of it?
What’s a fess?”

“A fess—a fess is—you don’t need to know
what a fess is. I’ll show him how to make it when he gets to
it.”

“Shucks, Tom,” I says, “I think you might tell a person.
What’s a bar sinister?”

“Oh, I don’t know. But he’s got to have it. All
the nobility does.”

That was just his way. If it didn’t suit him to explain a
thing to you, he wouldn’t do it. You might pump at him a week,
it wouldn’t make no difference.

He’d got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in
to finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a
mournful inscription—said Jim got to have one, like they all done.
He made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off,
so:

1. Here a captive heart busted. 2. Here a poor prisoner,
forsook by the world and friends, fretted his sorrowful life. 3. Here
a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after
thirty-seven years of solitary captivity. 4. Here, homeless and
friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble
stranger, natural son of Louis XIV.

Tom’s voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke
down. When he got done he couldn’t no way make up his mind which one
for Jim to scrabble on to the wall, they was all so good; but at last he
allowed he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said it would
take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a
nail, and he didn’t know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said
he would block them out for him, and then he wouldn’t have nothing
to do but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says:

“Come to think, the logs ain’t a-going to do; they don’t
have log walls in a dungeon: we got to dig the inscriptions into a
rock. We’ll fetch a rock.”

Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him such
a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn’t ever get out.
But Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he took a
look to see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was
most pesky tedious hard work and slow, and didn’t give my hands no
show to get well of the sores, and we didn’t seem to make no
headway, hardly; so Tom says:

“I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of
arms and mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same
rock. There’s a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we’ll
smouch it, and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw
on it, too.”

It warn’t no slouch of an idea; and it warn’t no slouch of a
grindstone nuther; but we allowed we’d tackle it. It warn’t
quite midnight yet, so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work.
We smouched the grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was
a most nation tough job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn’t
keep her from falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us every
time. Tom said she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got
through. We got her half way; and then we was plumb played out, and
most drownded with sweat. We see it warn’t no use; we got to
go and fetch Jim. So he raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the
bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled out through
our hole and down there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and
walked her along like nothing; and Tom superintended. He could
out-superintend any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything.

Our hole was pretty big, but it warn’t big enough to get the
grindstone through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough.
Then Tom marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to
work on them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage
in the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his
candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone
under his straw tick and sleep on it. Then we helped him fix his
chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom
thought of something, and says:

“You got any spiders in here, Jim?”

“No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain’t, Mars Tom.”

“All right, we’ll get you some.”

“But bless you, honey, I doan’ want none. I’s
afeard un um. I jis’ ’s soon have rattlesnakes aroun’.”

Tom thought a minute or two, and says:

“It’s a good idea. And I reckon it’s been done.
It must a been done; it stands to reason. Yes, it’s
a prime good idea. Where could you keep it?”

“Keep what, Mars Tom?”

“Why, a rattlesnake.”

“De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a
rattlesnake to come in heah I’d take en bust right out thoo dat log
wall, I would, wid my head.”

“Why, Jim, you wouldn’t be afraid of it after a little. You
could tame it.”

“Tame it!”

“Yes—easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness
and petting, and they wouldn’t think of hurting a person that
pets them. Any book will tell you that. You try—that’s
all I ask; just try for two or three days. Why, you can get him so, in a
little while, that he’ll love you; and sleep with you; and won’t
stay away from you a minute; and will let you wrap him round your neck and
put his head in your mouth.”

“Please, Mars Tom—doan’ talk so! I
can’t stan’ it! He’d let me shove
his head in my mouf—fer a favor, hain’t it? I lay he’d
wait a pow’ful long time ’fo’ I ast him. En
mo’ en dat, I doan’ want him to sleep wid me.”

“Jim, don’t act so foolish. A prisoner’s got
to have some kind of a dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain’t ever
been tried, why, there’s more glory to be gained in your being the
first to ever try it than any other way you could ever think of to save
your life.”

“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ want no sich glory. Snake
take ’n bite Jim’s chin off, den whah is de glory?
No, sah, I doan’ want no sich doin’s.”

“Blame it, can’t you try? I only want you
to try—you needn’t keep it up if it don’t work.”

“But de trouble all done ef de snake bite me while I’s
a tryin’ him. Mars Tom, I’s willin’ to tackle mos’
anything ’at ain’t onreasonable, but ef you en Huck fetches a
rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I’s gwyne to leave, dat’s
shore.”

“Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you’re so bull-headed
about it. We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some
buttons on their tails, and let on they’re rattlesnakes, and I
reckon that ’ll have to do.”

“I k’n stan’ dem, Mars Tom, but blame’
’f I couldn’ get along widout um, I tell you dat. I
never knowed b’fo’ ’t was so much bother and trouble to
be a prisoner.”

“Well, it always is when it’s done right. You got
any rats around here?”

“No, sah, I hain’t seed none.”

“Well, we’ll get you some rats.”

“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ want no rats. Dey’s
de dadblamedest creturs to ’sturb a body, en rustle roun’ over
’im, en bite his feet, when he’s tryin’ to sleep, I ever
see. No, sah, gimme g’yarter-snakes, ’f I’s got to
have ’m, but doan’ gimme no rats; I hain’ got no use f’r
um, skasely.”

“But, Jim, you got to have ’em—they all do.
So don’t make no more fuss about it. Prisoners ain’t
ever without rats. There ain’t no instance of it. And
they train them, and pet them, and learn them tricks, and they get to be
as sociable as flies. But you got to play music to them. You
got anything to play music on?”

“I ain’ got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o’ paper,
en a juice-harp; but I reck’n dey wouldn’ take no stock in a
juice-harp.”

“Yes they would they don’t care what kind of music
’tis. A jews-harp’s plenty good enough for a rat. All
animals like music—in a prison they dote on it. Specially,
painful music; and you can’t get no other kind out of a jews-harp.
It always interests them; they come out to see what’s the
matter with you. Yes, you’re all right; you’re fixed
very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to
sleep, and early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp; play ‘The
Last Link is Broken’—that’s the thing that ’ll
scoop a rat quicker ’n anything else; and when you’ve played
about two minutes you’ll see all the rats, and the snakes, and
spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you, and come. And
they’ll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good time.”

“Yes, dey will, I reck’n, Mars Tom, but what kine er
time is Jim havin’? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I’ll
do it ef I got to. I reck’n I better keep de animals
satisfied, en not have no trouble in de house.”

Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn’t nothing else;
and pretty soon he says:

“Oh, there’s one thing I forgot. Could you raise a
flower here, do you reckon?”

“I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it’s tolable
dark in heah, en I ain’ got no use f’r no flower, nohow, en
she’d be a pow’ful sight o’ trouble.”

“Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it.”

“One er dem big cat-tail-lookin’ mullen-stalks would grow in
heah, Mars Tom, I reck’n, but she wouldn’t be wuth half de
trouble she’d coss.”

“Don’t you believe it. We’ll fetch you a little
one and you plant it in the corner over there, and raise it. And don’t
call it mullen, call it Pitchiola—that’s its right name when
it’s in a prison. And you want to water it with your tears.”

“Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom.”

“You don’t want spring water; you want to water it with
your tears. It’s the way they always do.”

“Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste
wid spring water whiles another man’s a start’n one wid
tears.”

“That ain’t the idea. You got to do it with
tears.”

“She’ll die on my han’s, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase
I doan’ skasely ever cry.”

So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would
have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he
would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim’s
coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would “jis’ ’s
soon have tobacker in his coffee;” and found so much fault with it,
and with the work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping the
rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on
top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and
journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and
responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom
most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened down with
more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name
for himself, and yet he didn’t know enough to appreciate them, and
they was just about wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he
wouldn’t behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.

---

CHAPTER XXXIX.

IN the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and
fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we
had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put it
in a safe place under Aunt Sally’s bed. But while we was gone
for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps
found it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come
out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she
was a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what
they could to keep off the dull times for her. So she took and
dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching
another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn’t
the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock.
I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was.

We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and
caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet’s
nest, but we didn’t. The family was at home. We didn’t
give it right up, but stayed with them as long as we could; because we
allowed we’d tire them out or they’d got to tire us out, and
they done it. Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and
was pretty near all right again, but couldn’t set down convenient.
And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen garters
and house-snakes, and put them in a bag, and put it in our room, and by
that time it was supper-time, and a rattling good honest day’s work:
and hungry?—oh, no, I reckon not! And there warn’t
a blessed snake up there when we went back—we didn’t half tie
the sack, and they worked out somehow, and left. But it didn’t
matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres. So
we judged we could get some of them again. No, there warn’t no
real scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell. You’d
see them dripping from the rafters and places every now and then; and they
generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck, and most of
the time where you didn’t want them. Well, they was handsome
and striped, and there warn’t no harm in a million of them; but that
never made no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed
what they might, and she couldn’t stand them no way you could fix
it; and every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn’t make
no difference what she was doing, she would just lay that work down and
light out. I never see such a woman. And you could hear her
whoop to Jericho. You couldn’t get her to take a-holt of one
of them with the tongs. And if she turned over and found one in bed
she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would think the house was
afire. She disturbed the old man so that he said he could most wish
there hadn’t ever been no snakes created. Why, after every