IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. He'll help you--if you say you're sorry.


IRA: Who will you go to then? (pause) Who will help you then? (again he waits) You come before this United States Commissioner with no one behind you, he'll hold you for the grand jury. Judge Watkins told Felix there's not a doubt of it. You know what that means? It means you're on your way to a cell. Nice thing for a Morton, people who've had their own land since we got it from the Indians. What's the matter with your uncle? Ain't he always been good to you? I'd like to know what things would 'a' been for you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends. You want to think a little. You like good times too well to throw all that away.


MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good times. (smooths the wrinkled paper) I don't know anybody--unless it is myself--loves to be out, as he does. (she tries to look out, but cannot; sits very still, seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to that corner closet, the same one from which SILAS MORTON took the deed to the hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of chalk. On the floor she marks off FRED JORDAN'S cell. Slowly, at the end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her hand goes up as against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is out too far, brings it in, giving herself the width of the cell. Walks its length, halts, looks up.) And one window--too high up to see out.


(In the moment she stands there, she is in that cell; she is all the people who are in those cells. EMIL JOHNSON appears from outside; he is the young man brought up on a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede.)


MADELINE: (stepping out of the cell door, and around it) Hello, Emil.


EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA barely nods and does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up the corn he has taken from the sack. EMIL turns back to MADELINE) Well, I'm just from the courthouse. Looks like you and I might take a ride together, Madeline. You come before the Commissioner at four.


IRA: What have you got to do with it?


MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part of the law.


IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody else--not Emil Johnson!


MADELINE: (astonished--and gently, to make up for his rudeness) Why--father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I think it's nice to go in with someone I know--with a neighbour like Emil.


IRA: If this is what he lived for! If this is why--


(He twists the ear of corn until some of the kernels drip off. MADELINE and EMIL look at one another in bewilderment.)


EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should think your uncle could fix it up. (low) And with your father taking it like this--(to help IRA) That's fine corn, Mr Morton. My corn's getting better all the time, but I'd like to get some of this for seed.


IRA: (rising and turning on him) You get my corn? I raise this corn for you? (not to them--his mind now going where it is shut off from any other mind) If I could make the wind stand still! I want to turn the wind around.


MADELINE: (going to him) Why--father. I don't understand at all.


IRA: Don't understand. Nobody understands. (a curse with a sob in it) God damn the wind!


(Sits down, his back to them.)


EMIL: (after a silence) Well, I'll go. (but he continues to look at IRA, who is holding the sack of com shut, as if someone may take it) Too bad--(stopped by a sign from MADELINE, not to speak of it) Well, I was saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my way back. (confidentially) Couldn't you telephone your uncle? He could do something. You don't know what you're going up against. You heard what the Hindus got, I suppose.


MADELINE: No. I haven't seen anyone to-day.


EMIL: They're held for the grand jury. They're locked up now. No bail for them. I've got the inside dope about them. They're going to get what this country can hand 'em; then after we've given them a nice little taste of prison life in America, they're going to be sent back home--to see what India can treat them to.


MADELINE: Why are you so pleased about this, Emil?


EMIL: Pleased? It's nothin' to me--I'm just telling you. Guess you don't know much about the Espionage Act or you'd go and make a little friendly call on your uncle. When your case comes to trial--and Judge Lenon may be on the bench--(whistles) He's one fiend for Americanism. But if your uncle was to tell the right parties that you're just a girl, and didn't realize what you were saying--


MADELINE: I did realize what I was saying, and every word you've just said makes me know I meant what I said. I said if this was what our country has come to, then I'm not for our country. I said that--and a-plenty more--and I'll say it again!


EMIL: Well--gee, you don't know what it means.


MADELINE: I do know what it means, but it means not being a coward.


EMIL: Oh, well--Lord, you can't say everything you think. If everybody did that, things'd be worse off than they are now.


MADELINE: Once in a while you have to say what you think--or hate yourself.


EMIL: (with a grin) Then hate yourself.


MADELINE: (smiling too) No thank you; it spoils my fun.


EMIL: Well, look-a-here, Madeline, aren't you spoiling your fun now? You're a girl who liked to be out. Ain't I seen you from our place, with this one and that one, sometimes all by yourself, strikin' out over the country as if you was crazy about it? How'd you like to be where you couldn't even see out?


MADELINE: (a step nearer the cell) There oughtn't to be such places.


EMIL: Oh, well--Jesus, if you're going to talk about that--! You can't change the way things are.


MADELINE: (quietly) Why can't I?


EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are?


MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I have something to say about America.


EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains.


MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a locked-up American than a free American.


EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not much tennis played there. Jesus--what's Hindus?


MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? (smiles) You mightn't like his answer.


EMIL: (from the door) Take a tip. Telephone your uncle.


IRA: (not looking at her) There might be a fine, and they'd come down on me and take my land.


MADELINE: Oh, no, father, I think not. Anyway, I have a little money of my own. Grandfather Morton left me something. Have you forgotten that?


IRA: No. No, I know he left you something. (the words seem to bother him) I know he left you something.


MADELINE: I get it to-day. (wistfully) This is my birthday, father. I'm twenty-one.


IRA: Your birthday? Twenty-one? (in pain) Was that twenty-one years ago? (it is not to his daughter this has turned him)


MADELINE: It's the first birthday I can remember that I haven't had a party.


IRA: It was your Aunt Isabel gave you your parties.


IRA: Well, you see now.


MADELINE: (stoutly) Oh, well, I don't need a party. I'm grown up now.


(She reaches out for the old Hungarian dish on the table; holding it, she looks to her father, whose back is still turned. Her face tender, she is about to speak when he speaks.)


IRA: Grown up now--and going off and leaving me alone. You too--the last one. And--what for? (turning, looking around the room as for those long gone) There used to be so many in this house. My grandmother. She sat there. (pointing to the place near the open door) Fine days like this--in that chair (points to the rocker) she'd sit there--tell me stories of the Indians. Father. It wasn't ever lonely where father was. Then Madeline Fejevary--my Madeline came to this house. Lived with me in this house. Then one day she--walked out of this house. Through that door--through the field--out of this house. (bitter silence) Then Fred--out of this house. Now you. With Emil Johnson! (insanely, and almost with relief at leaving things more sane) Don't let him touch my corn. If he touches one kernel of this corn! (with the suspicion of the tormented mind) I wonder where he went? How do I know he went where he said he was going? (getting up) I dunno as that south bin's locked.


MADELINE: Oh--father!


IRA: I'll find out. How do I know what he's doing?


(He goes out, turning left. MADELINE goes to the window and looks after him. A moment later, hearing someone at the door, she turns and finds her AUNT ISABEL, who has appeared from right. Goes swiftly to her, hands out.)


MADELINE: Oh, auntie--I'm glad you came! It's my birthday, and I'm--lonely.


AUNT ISABEL: You dear little girl! (again giving her a hug, which MADELINE returns, lovingly) Don't I know it's your birthday? Don't think that day will ever get by while your Aunt Isabel's around. Just see what's here for your birthday. (hands her the package she is carrying)


MADELINE: (with a gasp--suspecting from its shape) Oh! (her face aglow) Why--is it?


AUNT ISABEL: (laughing affectionately) Foolish child, open it and see.


(MADELINE loosens the paper and pulls out a tennis racket.)


MADELINE: (excited, and moved) Oh, aunt Isabel! that was dear of you. I shouldn't have thought you'd--quite do that.


AUNT ISABEL: I couldn't imagine Madeline without a racket. (gathering up the paper, lightly reproachful) But be a little careful of it, Madeline. It's meant for tennis balls. (they laugh together)


MADELINE: (making a return with it) It's a peach. (changing) Wonder where I'll play now.


AUNT ISABEL: Why, you'll play on the courts at Morton College. Who has a better right?


MADELINE: Oh, I don't know. It's pretty much balled up, isn't it?


AUNT ISABEL: Yes; we'll have to get it straightened out. (gently) It was really dreadful of you, Madeline, to rush out a second time. It isn't as if they were people who were anything to you.


MADELINE: But, auntie, they are something to me.


AUNT ISABEL: Oh, dear, that's what Horace said.


MADELINE: What's what Horace said?


AUNT ISABEL: That you must have a case on one of them.


MADELINE: That's what Horace would say. That makes me sore!


AUNT ISABEL: I'm sorry I spoke of it. Horace is absurd in some ways.


MADELINE: He's a--


AUNT ISABEL: (stopping it with her hand) No, he isn't. He's a headstrong boy, but a very loving one. He's dear with me, Madeline.


MADELINE: Yes. You are good to each other. (her eyes are drawn to the cell)


AUNT ISABEL: Of course we are. We'd be a pretty poor sort if we weren't. And these are days when we have to stand together--all of us who are the same kind of people must stand together because the thing that makes us the same kind of people is threatened.


MADELINE: Don't you think we're rather threatening it ourselves, auntie?


AUNT ISABEL: Why, no, we're fighting for it.


MADELINE: Fighting for what?


AUNT ISABEL: For Americanism; for--democracy.


MADELINE: Horace is fighting for it?


AUNT ISABEL: Well, Horace does go at it as if it were a football game, but his heart's in the right place.


MADELINE: Somehow, I don't seem to see my heart in that place.


AUNT ISABEL: In what place?


MADELINE: Where Horace's heart is.


AUNT ISABEL: It's too bad you and Horace quarrel. But you and I don't quarrel, Madeline.


MADELINE: (again drawn to the cell) No. You and I don't quarrel. (she is troubled)


AUNT ISABEL: Funny child! Do you want us to?


(MADELINE turns, laughing a little, takes the dish from the table, holds it out to her aunt.)


AUNT ISABEL: (taking the dish) Do you use them?--the old Hungarian dishes? (laughingly) I'm not allowed to--your uncle is so choice of the few pieces we have. And here are you with fudge in one of them.


MADELINE: I made the fudge because--oh, I don't know, I had to do something to celebrate my birthday.


MADELINE: And then that didn't seem to--make a birthday, so I happened to see this, way up on a top shelf, and I remembered that it was my mother's. It was nice to get it down and use it--almost as if mother was giving me a birthday present.


AUNT ISABEL: And how she would love to give you a birthday present.


MADELINE: It was her mother's, I suppose, and they brought it from Hungary.


AUNT ISABEL: Yes. They brought only a very few things with them, and left--oh, so many beautiful ones behind.


MADELINE: (quietly) Rather nice of them, wasn't it? (her aunt waits inquiringly) To leave their own beautiful things--their own beautiful life behind--simply because they believed life should be more beautiful for more people.


AUNT ISABEL: (with constraint) Yes. (gayly turning it) Well, now, as to the birthday. What do you suppose Sarah is doing this instant? Putting red frosting on white frosting, (writing it with her finger) Madeline. And what do you suppose Horace is doing? (this a little reproachfully) Running around buying twenty-one red candles. Twenty-two--one to grow on. Big birthday cake. Party to-night.


MADELINE: But, auntie, I don't see how I can be there.


AUNT ISABEL: Listen, dear. Now, we've got to use our wits and all pull together. Of course we'd do anything in the world rather than see you--left to outsiders. I've never seen your uncle as worried, and--truly, Madeline, as sad. Oh, my dear, it's these human things that count! What would life be without the love we have for each other?


MADELINE: The love we have for each other?


AUNT ISABEL: Why, yes, dearest. Don't turn away from me Madeline. Don't--don't be strange. I wonder if you realize how your uncle has worked to have life a happy thing for all of us? Be a little generous to him. He's had this great burden of bringing something from another day on into this day. It is not as simple as it may seem. He's done it as best he could. It will hurt him as nothing has ever hurt him if you now undo that work of his life. Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough about it to do that? Another thing: people are a little absurd out of their own places. We need to be held in our relationships--against our background--or we are--I don't know--grotesque. Come now, Madeline, where's your sense of humour? Isn't it a little absurd for you to leave home over India's form of government?


MADELINE: It's not India. It's America. A sense of humour is nothing to hide behind!


AUNT ISABEL: (with a laugh) I knew I wouldn't be a success at world affairs--better leave that to Professor Holden. (a quick keen look from MADELINE) They've driven on to the river--they'll be back for me, and then he wants to stop in for a visit with you while I take Mrs Holden for a further ride. I'm worried about her. She doesn't gain strength at all since her operation. I'm going to try keeping her out in the air all I can.


MADELINE: It's dreadful about families!


AUNT ISABEL: Dreadful? Professor Holden's devotion to his wife is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.


MADELINE: And is that all you see it in?


AUNT ISABEL: You mean the--responsibility it brings? Oh, well--that's what life is. Doing for one another. Sacrificing for one another.


MADELINE: I hope I never have a family.


AUNT ISABEL: Well, I hope you do. You'll miss the best of life if you don't. Anyway, you have a family. Where is your father?


MADELINE: I don't know.


MADELINE: There's no use seeing him today.


AUNT ISABEL: He's--?


MADELINE: Strange--shut in--afraid something's going to be taken from him.


AUNT ISABEL: Poor Ira. So much has been taken from him. And now you. Don't hurt him again, Madeline. He can't bear it. You see what it does to him.


MADELINE: He has--the wrong idea about things.


AUNT ISABEL: 'The wrong idea!' Oh, my child--that's awfully young and hard. It's so much deeper than that. Life has made him into something--something he can't escape.


MADELINE: (with what seems sullenness) Well, I don't want to be made into that thing.


AUNT ISABEL: Of course not. But you want to help him, don't you? Now, dear--about your birthday party--


MADELINE: The United States Commissioner is giving me my birthday party.


AUNT ISABEL: Well, he'll have to put his party off. Your uncle has been thinking it all out. We're to go to his office and you'll have a talk with him and with Judge Watkins. He's off the state supreme bench now--practising again, and as a favour to your uncle he will be your lawyer. You don't know how relieved we are at this, for Judge Watkins can do--anything he wants to do, practically. Then you and I will go on home and call up some of the crowd to come in and dance to-night. We have some beautiful new records. There's a Hungarian waltz--


MADELINE: And what's the price of all this, auntie?


AUNT ISABEL: The--Oh, you mean--Why, simply say you felt sorry for the Hindu students because they seemed rather alone; that you hadn't realized--what they were, hadn't thought out what you were saying--


MADELINE: And that I'm sorry and will never do it again.


AUNT ISABEL: I don't know that you need say that. It would be gracious, I think, to indicate it.


MADELINE: I'm sorry you--had the cake made. I suppose you can eat it, anyway. I (turning away)--can't eat it.


AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline.


(Seeing how she has hurt her, MADELINE goes out to her aunt.)


MADELINE: Auntie, dear! I'm sorry--if I hurt your feelings.


AUNT ISABEL: (quick to hold out a loving hand, laughing a little) They've been good birthday cakes, haven't they, Madeline?


MADELINE: (she now trying not to cry) I don't know--what I'd have done without them. Don't know--what I will do without them. I don't--see it.


AUNT ISABEL: Don't try to. Please don't see it! Just let me go on helping you. That's all I ask. (she draws MADELINE to her) Ah, dearie, I held you when you were a little baby without your mother. All those years count for something, Madeline. There's just nothing to life if years of love don't count for something. (listening) I think I hear them. And here are we, weeping like two idiots. (MADELINE brushes away tears, AUNT ISABEL arranges her veil, regaining her usual poise) Professor Holden was hoping you'd take a tramp with him. Wouldn't that do you good? Anyway, a talk with him will be nice. I know he admires you immensely, and really--perhaps I shouldn't let you know this--sympathizes with your feeling. So I think his maturer way of looking at things will show you just the adjustment you need to become a really big and useful person. There's so much to be done in the world, Madeline. Of course we ought to make it a better world. (in a manner of agreement with MADELINE) I feel very strongly about all that. Perhaps we can do some things together. I'd love that. Don't think I'm hopeless! Way down deep we have the same feeling. Yes, here's Professor Holden.


(HOLDEN comes in. He seems older.)


HOLDEN: And how are you, Madeline? (holding out his hand)


MADELINE: I'm--all right.


HOLDEN: Many happy returns of the day. (embarrassed by her half laugh) The birthday.


AUNT ISABEL: And did you have a nice look up the river?


HOLDEN: I never saw this country as lovely as it is to-day. Mary is just drinking it in.


AUNT ISABEL: You don't think the further ride will be too much?


HOLDEN: Oh, no--not in that car.


AUNT ISABEL: Then we'll go on--perhaps as far as Laughing Creek. If you two decide on a tramp--take that road and we'll pick you up. (smiling warmly, she goes out)


HOLDEN: How good she is.


MADELINE: Yes. That's just the trouble.


HOLDEN: (with difficulty getting past this) How about a little tramp? There'll never be another such day.


MADELINE: I used to tramp with Fred Jordan. This is where he is now. (stepping inside the cell) He doesn't even see out.


HOLDEN: It's all wrong that he should be where he is. But for you to stay indoors won't help him, Madeline.


MADELINE: It won't help him, but--today--I can't go out.


HOLDEN: I'm sorry, my child. When this sense of wrongs done first comes down upon one, it does crush.


MADELINE: And later you get used to it and don't care.


HOLDEN: You care. You try not to destroy yourself needlessly. (he turns from her look)


MADELINE: Play safe.


HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than yourself be safe. It would be a luxury to--destroy one's self.


MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (seeing she has hurt him, she goes over and sits across from him at the table) I'm sorry. I say the wrong things today.


HOLDEN: I don't know that you do.


MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what his right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of sentiment--idealism, and--quite a job, at times. Clever--how he gets away with it. The war must have been a godsend to people who were in danger of getting on to themselves. But I should think you could fool all of yourself all the time.


HOLDEN: You don't. (he is rubbing his hand on the table)


MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk--they were great old pals. (slowly HOLDEN turns and looks out at the hill) Yes. How beautiful the hill must have been--before there was a college there. (he looks away from the hill) Did you know Grandfather Morton?


HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (speaking of it against his will) I had a wonderful talk with him once; about Greece--and the cornfields, and life.


MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it fierce, but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! A big new life to begin! (her hands closing in from wideness to a smaller thing) Why did so much get shut out? Just a little way back--anything might have been. What happened?


HOLDEN: (speaking with difficulty) It got--set too soon.


MADELINE: (all of her mind open, trying to know) And why did it? Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things--set them in fear. Silas Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the Hungarian revolutionist. He laid this country at that refugee's feet! That's what Uncle Felix says himself--with the left half of his mind. Now--the Hindu revolutionists--! (pause) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon. Night came, and for some reason I thought of how many nights have come--nights the earth has known long before we knew the earth. The moon came up and I thought of how moonlight made this country beautiful before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. It gave me a feeling of coming from something a long way back. Moving toward--what will be here when I'm not here. Moving. We seem here, now, in America, to have forgotten we're moving. Think it's just us--just now. Of course, that would make us afraid, and--ridiculous.


(Her father comes in.)


IRA: Your Aunt Isabel--did she go away--and leave you?


MADELINE: She's coming back.


IRA: For you?


MADELINE: She--wants me to go with her. This is Professor Holden, father.


IRA: (nods, not noticing HOLDEN's offered hand) How'do. When is she coming back?


IRA: And then you're going with her?


MADELINE: I--don't know.


IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on us? (to HOLDEN) What are you here for?


MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father.


IRA: Oh. Then you--you tell her what to do. You make her do it. (he goes into the room at left)


MADELINE: (sadly, after a silence) Father's like something touched by an early frost.


HOLDEN: Yes. (seeing his opening and forcing himself to take it) But do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that happening--'touched by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to people I know--people of fine and daring mind. They do a thing that puts them apart--it may be the big, brave thing--but the apartness does something to them. I've seen it many times--so many times--so many times, I fear for you. You do this thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways you don't care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in most ways are your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. (moves her tennis racket) I don't know about it's all going to one side. I hate to see you, so young, close a door on so much life. I'm being just as honest with you as I know how. I myself am making compromises to stay within. I don't like it, but there are--reasons for doing it. I can't see you leave that main body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's not a clean-cut case--the side of the world or the side of the angels. I hate to see you lose the--fullness of life.


MADELINE: (a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one recalled from far) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were saying--but all the time--something else was happening. Grandfather Morton, big and--oh, terrible. He was here. And we went to that walled-up hole in the ground--(rising and pointing down at the chalked cell)--where they keep Fred Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of nations of men killing each other--and Silas Morton--only he was all that is back of us, tore open that cell--it was his voice tore it open--his voice as he cried, 'God damn you, this is America!' (sitting down, as if rallying from a tremendous experience) I'm sorry--it should have happened, while you were speaking. Won't you--go on?


HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (after a moment) I can't go on.


MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and then--decided to stay? (he nods) And you feel there's more--fullness of life for you inside the college than outside?


HOLDEN: No--not exactly. (again a pause) It's very hard for me to talk to you.


HOLDEN: (something in him forcing him to say it) I'm staying for financial reasons.


MADELINE: (kind, but not going to let the truth get away) You don't think that--having to stay within--or deciding to, rather, makes you think these things of the--blight of being without?


HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in--so young, becoming alien to society.


MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within--and becoming like the thing I'm within?


HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it.


MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of you. I don't see it--this fullness of life business. I don't see that Uncle Felix has got it--or even Aunt Isabel, and you--I think that in buying it you're losing it.


HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are saying.


MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton College if you have to sell your soul to stay in it!


MADELINE: (unable to look at him, as if feeling shame) You have had a talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside for me to pass.


HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your soul--it's to love you sell it.


MADELINE: (low) That's strange. It's love that--brings life along, and then it's love--holds life back.


HOLDEN: (and all the time with this effort against hopelessness) Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give yourself a little more chance for detachment. You need a better intellectual equipment if you're going to fight the world you find yourself in. I think you will count for more if you wait, and when you strike, strike more maturely.


MADELINE: Detachment. (pause) This is one thing they do at this place. (she moves to the open door) Chain them up to the bars--just like this. (in the doorway where her two grandfathers once pledged faith with the dreams of a million years, she raises clasped hands as high as they will go) Eight hours a day--day after day. Just hold your arms up like this one hour then sit down and think about--(as if tortured by all who have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms drop, the last word is a sob) detachment.


HOLDEN is standing helplessly by when her father comes in.


IRA: (wildly) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I can't--Your aunt and uncle will fix it up. The law won't take you this time--and you won't do it again.


MADELINE: Oh, what does that matter--what they do to me?


IRA: What are you crying about then?


MADELINE: It's--the world. It's--


IRA: The world? If that's all you've got to cry about! (to HOLDEN) Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the matter with you. Mad'line? That's crazy--cryin' about the world! What good has ever come to this house through carin' about the world? What good's that college? Better we had that hill. Why is there no one in this house to-day but me and you? Where's your mother? Where's your brother? The world.


HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go outside--walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. You must let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear the things it would bring you to. I see that now. (as he passes her in the doorway his hand rests an instant on her bent head) You're worth too much to break.


IRA: (turning away) I don't want to talk to you. What good comes of talking? (In moving, he has stepped near the sack of corn. Takes hold of it.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's not--what your mother died for.


MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die for? No one has ever told me about her--except that she was beautiful--not like other people here. I got a feeling of--something from far away. Something from long ago. Rare. Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why can't you? Wouldn't she want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my birthday and I need my mother.


IRA: (as if afraid he is going to do it) How can you touch--what you've not touched in nineteen years? Just once--in nineteen years--and that did no good.


MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to her? Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with Emil Johnson?


IRA: (the pent-up thing loosed) What has she to do with him? She died so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (in anguish) And what is he alongside her? Yes. Something from far away. Something from long ago. Rare. How'd you know that? Finding in me--what I didn't know was there. Then she came--that ignorant Swede--Emil Johnson's mother--running through the cornfield like a crazy woman--'Miss Morton! Miss Morton! Come help me! My children are choking!' Diphtheria they had--the whole of 'em--but out of this house she ran--my Madeline, leaving you--her own baby--running as fast as she could through the cornfield after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough field--fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She choked to death in that Swede's house. They lived.


MADELINE: (going to him) Oh--father, (voice rich) But how lovely of her.


IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them.


MADELINE: (proudly) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped to think how much she was worth.


IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(snaps his fingers) like that. I told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I hope they buried him--I hope they didn't just--(tormented)


MADELINE: Oh, father--of course not. I know they did.


IRA: How do you know? What do you care--once they got him? He talked about the world--better world--end war. Now he's in his grave--I hope he is--and look at the front page of the paper! No such thing--war to end war!


MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed that--so what else could he do?


IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business.


MADELINE: No--oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life to what he believed should be.


IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now--eyes gone--and the world he died for all hate and war. Waste. Waste. Nothin' but waste--the life of this house. Why, folks to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He gave his best land for ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a better people. What was his word? (waits) Aspiration. (says it as if it is a far-off thing) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. (laughs) His 'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and water! So--mind your own business, that's all that's so in this country. (constantly tormented anew) Oh, I told your brother all that--the night I tried to keep him. Told him about his mother--to show what come of running to other folks. And he said--standing right there--(pointing) eyes all bright, he said, 'Golly, I think that's great!' And then he--walked out of this house. (fear takes him) Madeline! (she stoops over him, her arm around him) Don't you leave me--all alone in this house--where so many was once. What's Hindus--alongside your own father--and him needing you? It won't be long. After a little I'll be dead--or crazy--or something. But not here alone where so many was once.


MADELINE: Oh--father. I don't know what to do.


IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If only the wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? Why can't I keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make it better. I wanted it to be--the most that it could be. My father used to talk about the Indians--how our land was their land, and how we must be more than them. He had his own ideas of bein' more--well, what's that come to? The Indians lived happier than we--wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows corn--I'd like to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to see them side by side!--their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd I get it? Ah, by thinkin'--always tryin', changin', carin'. Plant this corn by that corn, and the pollen blows from corn to corn--the golden dust it blows, in the sunshine and of nights--blows from corn to corn like a--(the word hurts) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (proudly) corn don't stay what it is! You can make it anything--according to what you do, 'cording to the corn it's alongside. (changing) But that's it. I want it to stay in my field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to the Johnsons--them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, nights when I can't help myself--and in the sunshine I can see it--pollen--soft golden dust to make new life--goin' on to them,--and them too ignorant to know what's makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself. What'd I work all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what I lost--is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand still! I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I--I'll think it out. Let me alone, I say.


(A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he shuts himself in the room at left. MADELINE has been standing there as if mist is parting and letting her see. And as the vision grows power grows in her. She is thus flooded with richer life when her AUNT and Professor HOLDEN come back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not speak.)


AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now.


MADELINE: (with the quiet of plentitude) I'm going in with Emil Johnson.


AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. (falteringly) We thought you'd go with us.


MADELINE: No. I have to be--the most I can be. I want the wind to have something to carry.


AUNT ISABEL: (after a look at Professor HOLDEN, who is looking intensely at MADELINE) I don't understand.


MADELINE: The world is all a--moving field. (her hands move, voice too is of a moving field) Nothing is to itself. If America thinks so--America is like father. I don't feel alone any more. The wind has come through--wind rich from lives now gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift from a field far off. Silas Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid? I'm not even afraid of being absurd!


AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline--you're leaving your father?


MADELINE: (after thinking it out) I'm not leaving--what's greater in him than he knows.


AUNT ISABEL: You're leaving Morton College?


MADELINE: That runt on a high hill? Yes, I'm leaving grandfather's college--then maybe I can one day lie under the same sod with him, and not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (a little laugh) under the sod is my idea of no place to be. I want to be a long time--where the wind blows.


AUNT ISABEL: (who is trying not to cry) I'm afraid it won't blow in prison, dear.


MADELINE: I don't know. Might be the only place it would blow. (EMIL passes the window, hesitates at the door) I'll be ready in just a moment, Emil.


(He waits outside.)


AUNT ISABEL: Madeline, I didn't tell you--I hoped it wouldn't be necessary, but your uncle said--if you refused to do it his way, he could do absolutely nothing for you, not even--bail.


MADELINE: Of course not. I wouldn't expect him to.


AUNT ISABEL: He feels so deeply about these things--America--loyalty, he said if you didn't come with us it would be final, Madeline. Even--(breaks) between you and me.


MADELINE: I'm sorry, auntie. You know how I love you. (and her voice tells it) But father has been telling me about the corn. It gives itself away all the time--the best corn a gift to other corn. What you are--that doesn't stay with you. Then--(not with assurance, but feeling her way) be the most you can be, so life will be more because you were. (freed by the truth she has found) Oh--do that! Why do we three go apart? Professor Holden, his beautiful trained mind; Aunt Isabel--her beautiful love, love that could save the world if only you'd--throw it to the winds. (moving nearer HOLDEN, hands out to him) Why do--(seeing it is not to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that great beauty lost) Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up to this place--only to turn them against mind and heart?


HOLDEN: (unable to bear more) I think we--must go. (going to MADELINE, holding out his hand and speaking from his sterile life to her fullness of life) Good-bye, Madeline. Good luck.


MADELINE: Good-bye, Professor Holden. (hesitates) Luck to you.


(Shaking his head, stooped, he hurries out.)


MADELINE: (after a moment when neither can speak) Good-bye--auntie dearest. Thank you--for the birthday present--the cake--everything. Everything--all the years.


(There is something AUNT ISABEL would say, but she can only hold tight to MADELINE's hands. At last, with a smile that speaks for love, a little nod, she goes. EMIL comes in.)


EMIL: You better go with them, Madeline. It'd make it better for you.


MADELINE: Oh no, it wouldn't. I'll be with you in an instant, Emil. I want to--say good-bye to my father.


(But she waits before that door, a door hard to go through. Alone, EMIL looks around the room. Sees the bag of corn, takes a couple of ears and is looking at them as MADELINE returns. She remains by the door, shaken with sobs, turns, as if pulled back to the pain she has left.)


EMIL: Gee. This is great corn.


MADELINE: (turning now to him) It is, isn't it, Emil?


MADELINE: And you say--your corn is getting better?


EMIL: Oh, yes--I raise better corn every year now.


MADELINE: (low) That's nice. I'll be right out, Emil.


(He puts the corn back, goes out. From the closet MADELINE takes her hat and wrap. Putting them on, she sees the tennis racket on the table. She goes to it, takes it up, holds it a moment, then takes it to the closet, puts it carefully away, closes the door behind it. A moment she stands there in the room, as if listening to something. Then she leaves that house.)


Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn


Illustrator: E. W. Kemble


Release date: June 29, 2004 [eBook #76] Most recently updated: March 30, 2025


(Tom Sawyer's Comrade)


CHAPTER I. Civilizing Huck.—Miss Watson.—Tom Sawyer Waits.


CHAPTER II. The Boys Escape Jim.—Torn Sawyer's Gang.—Deep-laid Plans.


CHAPTER III. A Good Going-over.—Grace Triumphant.—"One of Tom Sawyers's Lies".


CHAPTER IV. Huck and the Judge.—Superstition.


CHAPTER V. Huck's Father.—The Fond Parent.—Reform.


CHAPTER VI. He Went for Judge Thatcher.—Huck Decided to Leave.—Political Economy.—Thrashing Around.


CHAPTER VII. Laying for Him.—Locked in the Cabin.—Sinking the Body.—Resting.


CHAPTER VIII. Sleeping in the Woods.—Raising the Dead.—Exploring the Island.—Finding Jim.—Jim's Escape.—Signs.—Balum.


CHAPTER IX. The Cave.—The Floating House.


CHAPTER XI. Huck and the Woman.—The Search.—Prevarication.—Going to Goshen.


CHAPTER XII. Slow Navigation.—Borrowing Things.—Boarding the Wreck.—The Plotters.—Hunting for the Boat.


CHAPTER XIII. Escaping from the Wreck.—The Watchman.—Sinking.


CHAPTER XIV. A General Good Time.—The Harem.—French.


CHAPTER XV. Huck Loses the Raft.—In the Fog.—Huck Finds the Raft.—Trash.


CHAPTER XVI. Expectation.—A White Lie.—Floating Currency.—Running by Cairo.—Swimming Ashore.


CHAPTER XVII. An Evening Call.—The Farm in Arkansaw.—Interior Decorations.—Stephen Dowling Bots.—Poetical Effusions.


CHAPTER XVIII. Col. Grangerford.—Aristocracy.—Feuds.—The Testament.—Recovering the Raft.—The Wood—pile.—Pork and Cabbage.


CHAPTER XIX. Tying Up Day—times.—An Astronomical Theory.—Running a Temperance Revival.—The Duke of Bridgewater.—The Troubles of Royalty.


CHAPTER XX. Huck Explains.—Laying Out a Campaign.—Working the Camp—meeting.—A Pirate at the Camp—meeting.—The Duke as a Printer.


CHAPTER XXI. Sword Exercise.—Hamlet's Soliloquy.—They Loafed Around Town.—A Lazy Town.—Old Boggs.—Dead.


CHAPTER XXII. Sherburn.—Attending the Circus.—Intoxication in the Ring.—The Thrilling Tragedy.


CHAPTER XXIII. Sold.—Royal Comparisons.—Jim Gets Home-sick.


CHAPTER XXIV. Jim in Royal Robes.—They Take a Passenger.—Getting Information.—Family Grief.


CHAPTER XXV. Is It Them?—Singing the "Doxologer."—Awful Square—Funeral Orgies.—A Bad Investment .


CHAPTER XXVI. A Pious King.—The King's Clergy.—She Asked His Pardon.—Hiding in the Room.—Huck Takes the Money.


CHAPTER XXVII. The Funeral.—Satisfying Curiosity.—Suspicious of Huck,—Quick Sales and Small.


CHAPTER XXVIII. The Trip to England.—"The Brute!"—Mary Jane Decides to Leave.—Huck Parting with Mary Jane.—Mumps.—The Opposition Line.


CHAPTER XXIX. Contested Relationship.—The King Explains the Loss.—A Question of Handwriting.—Digging up the Corpse.—Huck Escapes.


CHAPTER XXX. The King Went for Him.—A Royal Row.—Powerful Mellow.


CHAPTER XXXI. Ominous Plans.—News from Jim.—Old Recollections.—A Sheep Story.—Valuable Information.


CHAPTER XXXII. Still and Sunday—like.—Mistaken Identity.—Up a Stump.—In a Dilemma.


CHAPTER XXXIII. A Nigger Stealer.—Southern Hospitality.—A Pretty Long Blessing.—Tar and Feathers.


CHAPTER XXXIV. The Hut by the Ash Hopper.—Outrageous.—Climbing the Lightning Rod.—Troubled with Witches.


CHAPTER XXXV. Escaping Properly.—Dark Schemes.—Discrimination in Stealing.—A Deep Hole.


CHAPTER XXXVI. The Lightning Rod.—His Level Best.—A Bequest to Posterity.—A High Figure.


CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last Shirt.—Mooning Around.—Sailing Orders.—The Witch Pie.


CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Coat of Arms.—A Skilled Superintendent.—Unpleasant Glory.—A Tearful Subject.


CHAPTER XXXIX. Rats.—Lively Bed—fellows.—The Straw Dummy.


CHAPTER XL. Fishing.—The Vigilance Committee.—A Lively Run.—Jim Advises a Doctor.


CHAPTER XLI. The Doctor.—Uncle Silas.—Sister Hotchkiss.—Aunt Sally in Trouble.


CHAPTER XLII. Tom Sawyer Wounded.—The Doctor's Story.—Tom Confesses.—Aunt Polly Arrives.—Hand Out Them Letters.


CHAPTER THE LAST. Out of Bondage.—Paying the Captive.—Yours Truly, Huck Finn.


The Widows Moses and the "Bulrushers" Miss Watson Huck Stealing Away They Tip-toed Along Jim Tom Sawyer's Band of Robbers Huck Creeps into his Window Miss Watson's Lecture The Robbers Dispersed Rubbing the Lamp ! ! ! ! Judge Thatcher surprised Jim Listening "Pap" Huck and his Father Reforming the Drunkard Falling from Grace Getting out of the Way Solid Comfort Thinking it Over Raising a Howl "Git Up" The Shanty Shooting the Pig Taking a Rest In the Woods Watching the Boat Discovering the Camp Fire Jim and the Ghost Misto Bradish's Nigger Exploring the Cave In the Cave Jim sees a Dead Man They Found Eight Dollars Jim and the Snake Old Hank Bunker "A Fair Fit" "Come In" "Him and another Man" She puts up a Snack "Hump Yourself" On the Raft He sometimes Lifted a Chicken "Please don't, Bill" "It ain't Good Morals" "Oh! Lordy, Lordy!" In a Fix "Hello, What's Up?" The Wreck We turned in and Slept Turning over the Truck Solomon and his Million Wives The story of "Sollermun" "We Would Sell the Raft" Among the Snags Asleep on the Raft "Something being Raftsman" "Boy, that's a Lie" "Here I is, Huck" Climbing up the Bank "Who's There?" "Buck" "It made Her look Spidery" "They got him out and emptied Him" The House Col. Grangerford Young Harney Shepherdson Miss Charlotte "And asked me if I Liked Her" "Behind the Wood-pile" Hiding Day-times "And Dogs a-Coming" "By rights I am a Duke!" "I am the Late Dauphin" Tail Piece On the Raft The King as Juliet "Courting on the Sly" "A Pirate for Thirty Years" Another little Job Practizing Hamlet's Soliloquy "Gimme a Chaw" A Little Monthly Drunk The Death of Boggs Sherburn steps out A Dead Head He shed Seventeen Suits Tragedy Their Pockets Bulged Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor Harmless Adolphus He fairly emptied that Young Fellow "Alas, our Poor Brother" "You Bet it is" Leaking Making up the "Deffisit" Going for him The Doctor The Bag of Money The Cubby Supper with the Hare-Lip Honest Injun The Duke looks under the Bed Huck takes the Money A Crack in the Dining-room Door The Undertaker "He had a Rat!" "Was you in my Room?" Jawing In Trouble Indignation How to Find Them He Wrote Hannah with the Mumps The Auction The True Brothers The Doctor leads Huck The Duke Wrote "Gentlemen, Gentlemen!" "Jim Lit Out" The King shakes Huck The Duke went for Him Spanish Moss "Who Nailed Him?" Thinking He gave him Ten Cents Striking for the Back Country Still and Sunday-like She hugged him tight "Who do you reckon it is?" "It was Tom Sawyer" "Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?" A pretty long Blessing Traveling By Rail Vittles A Simple Job Witches Getting Wood One of the Best Authorities The Breakfast-Horn Smouching the Knives Going down the Lightning-Rod Stealing spoons Tom advises a Witch Pie The Rubbage-Pile "Missus, dey's a Sheet Gone" In a Tearing Way One of his Ancestors Jim's Coat of Arms A Tough Job Buttons on their Tails Irrigation Keeping off Dull Times Sawdust Diet Trouble is Brewing Fishing Every one had a Gun Tom caught on a Splinter Jim advises a Doctor The Doctor Uncle Silas in Danger Old Mrs. Hotchkiss Aunt Sally talks to Huck Tom Sawyer wounded The Doctor speaks for Jim Tom rose square up in Bed "Hand out them Letters" Out of Bondage Tom's Liberality Yours Truly


Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.


In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.


I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.


Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago


You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom's Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.


Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.


The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.


After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by-and-by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.


Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.


Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don't you try to behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.


Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.


Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By-and-by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.


I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom—boom—boom—twelve licks; and all still again—stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees—something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That was good! Says I, "me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.


We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:


He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy—if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:


"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin."


So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore—and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.


Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.


As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by-and-by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.


Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.


We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:


"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood."


Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.


Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.


Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:


"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout him?"


"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer.


"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or more."


They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to do—everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson—they could kill her. Everybody said:


"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in."


Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.


"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?"


"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said.


"But who are we going to rob?—houses, or cattle, or—"


"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary," says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money."


"Must we always kill the people?"


"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them—except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed."


"Ransomed? What's that?"


"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so of course that's what we've got to do."


"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?"


"Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?"


"Oh, that's all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them?—that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?"


"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead."


"Now, that's something like. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot they'll be, too—eating up everything, and always trying to get loose."


"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"


"A guard! Well, that is good. So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?"


"Because it ain't in the books so—that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or don't you?—that's the idea. Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do? Do you reckon you can learn 'em anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."


"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too?"


"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by-and-by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more."


"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."


Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber any more.


So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.


Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.


I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dog-tired.


Well, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave a while if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By-and-by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way.


I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant—I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it—except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.


Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by-and-by, though I wished he wouldn't.


We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," and he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter" mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our swords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. It warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut.


I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.


"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church."


"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help us—can't we lick the other crowd then?"


"How you going to get them?"


"I don't know. How do they get them?"


"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it—or any other man."


"Who makes them tear around so?"


"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it—and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand."


"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's more—if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp."


"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not."


"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then; I would come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country."


"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to know anything, somehow—perfect saphead."


I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks of a Sunday-school.


Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway.


At first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me.


One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.


I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.


I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:


"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?"


"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"


"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in, last night—over a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."


"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all—nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you—the six thousand and all."


He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:


"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"


"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"


"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing—then I won't have to tell no lies."


He studied a while, and then he says:


"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to sell all your property to me—not give it. That's the correct idea."


Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:


"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign it."


So I signed it, and left.


Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.


Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:


"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."


When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his own self!


I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken—that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothring about.


He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes—just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor—an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.


I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By-and-by he says:


"Starchy clothes—very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, don't you?"


"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say—can read and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?"


"The widow. She told me."


"The widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business?"


"Nobody never told her."


"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't before they died. I can't; and here you're a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it—you hear? Say, lemme hear you read."


I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:


"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son."


He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says:


"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."


He tore it up, and says:


"I'll give you something better—I'll give you a cowhide."


He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:


"Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs—they say you're rich. Hey?—how's that?"


"They lie—that's how."


"Looky here—mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can stand now—so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money to-morrow—I want it."


"I hain't got no money."


"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."


"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell you the same."


"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."


"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to—"


"It don't make no difference what you want it for—you just shell it out."


He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that.


Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him.


The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.


That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him.


When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:


"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it. There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more; it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die before he'll go back. You mark them words—don't forget I said them. It's a clean hand now; shake it—don't be afeard."


So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge—made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.


The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.


Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That law trial was a slow business—appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on it; so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited—this kind of thing was right in his line.


He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so she told him at last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasn't he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was.


He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where I was by-and-by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it—all but the cowhide part.


It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing, because the widow didn't like it; but now I took to it again because pap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around.


But by-and-by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't ever going to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I couldn't find no way. There warn't a window to it big enough for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly; it was too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away; I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time. But this time I found something at last; I found an old rusty wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out—big enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard pap's gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in.


Pap warn't in a good humor—so he was his natural self. He said he was down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went right along with his cussing.


He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that chance.


The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got. There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon, ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.


I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adam—he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says:


"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him—a man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for him and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call that govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I told 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat—if you call it a hat—but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o' stove-pipe. Look at it, says I—such a hat for me to wear—one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights.