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boxed; I hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't
care, I don't mind the terms- I'd be willing to stand a thousand such
jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't
deny it, I was most putrified with astonishment when you give me
that smack."
We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house
and the kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for
seven families- and all hot, too; none of your flabby tough meat
that's laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a
hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a
pretty long blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn't cool it
a bit, neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do, lots
of times.
There was a considerable good deal of talk, all the afternoon,
and me and Tom was on the lookout all the time, but it warn't no
use, they didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger,
and we was afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night,
one of the little boys says:
"Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?"
"No," says the old man, "I reckon there ain't going to be any;
and you couldn't go if there was; because the runaway nigger told
Burton and me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he
would tell the people; so I reckon they've drove the owdacious
loafers out of town before this time."
So there it was!- but I couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep
in the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid goodnight and
went up to bed, right after supper, and clumb out of the window
219
and down the lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn't
believe anybody was going to give the king and the duke a hint,
and so, if I didn't hurry up and give them one they'd get into
trouble sure.
On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was
murdered, and how pap disappeared, pretty soon, and didn't come
back no more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I
told Tom all about our Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much
of the raft-voyage as I had time to; and as we struck into the town
and up through the middle of it- it was as much as half-after eight,
then- here comes a raging rush of people, with torches, and an
awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing
horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by; and as they
went by, I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a rail-
that is, I knowed it was the king and the duke, though they was all
over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the world that
was human- just looked like a couple of monstrous big
soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for
them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any
hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful
thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.
We see we was too late- couldn't do no good. We asked some
stragglers about it, and they said everybody went to the show
looking very innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old
king was in the middle of his cavortings on the stage; then
somebody give a signal, and the house rose up and went for them.
So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I
was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame,
somehow- though I hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way;
it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a
person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him
anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a
person's conscience does, I would pison him. It takes up more
room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good,
nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.
220
Chapter Thirty-Four
We stopped talking, and got to thinking. By-and-by Tom says:
"Looky here, Huck, what fools we are, to not think of it before! I
bet I know where Jim is."
"No! Where?"
"In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we
was at dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some
vittles?"
"What did you think the vittles was for?"
"For a dog."
"So'd I. Well, it wasn't for a dog."
"Because part of it was watermelon."
"So it was- I noticed it. Well, it does beat all, that I never
thought about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body
can see and don't see at the same time."
"Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]