Next night we stuck a picture,which Tom drawed in blood,of a skull and crossbones on the front door;and next night another one of a coffin on the back door.I never see a family in such a sweat.They couldn’t a been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said “ouch!” if anything fell, she jumped and said “ouch!” if you happened to touch her,when she warn’t noticing, she done the same;she couldn’t face noway and be satisfied,because she allowed there was something behind her every time—so she was always a-whirling around sudden, and saying “ouch,” and before she’d got two-thirds around she’d whirl back again, and say it again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but she dasn’t set up. So the thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right.
So he said, now for the grand bulge!So the very next morning at the streak of dawn we got another letter ready,and was wondering what we better do with it,because we heard them say at supper they was going to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This letter said:
Don’t betray me, I wish to be your friend.There is a desprate gang of cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your runaway nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang, but have got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will betray the helish design. They will sneak down from northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the nigger’s cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any danger; but stead of that I will BA like a sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all; then whilst they are getting his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them at your leasure. Don’t do anything but just the way I am telling you, if you do they will suspicion something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.
UNKNOWN FRIEND
CHAPTER XL.
We was feeling pretty good after breakfast,and took my canoe and went over the river a-fishing,with a lunch, and had a good time,and took a look at the raft and found her all right,and got home late to supper,and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn’t know which end they was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done supper, and wouldn’t tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a word about the new letter, but didn’t need to, because we knowed as much about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and her back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally’s dress that he stole and was going to start with the lunch, but says:
“Where’s the butter?”
“I laid out a hunk of it,” I says,“on a piece of a corn-pone.”
“Well, you _left_ it laid out, then—it ain’t here.”
“We can get along without it,” I says.
“We can get along _with_ it, too,” he says;“just you slide down cellar and fetch it.And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along.I’ll go and stuff the straw into Jim’s clothes to represent his mother in disguise, and be ready to _ba_ like a sheep and shove soon as you get there.”
So out he went, and down cellar went I.The hunk of butter, big as a person’s fist,was where I had left it,so I took up the slab of corn-pone with it on,and blowed out my light,and started up stairs very stealthy,and got up to the main floor all right,but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle,and I clapped the truck in my hat,and clapped my hat on my head,and the next second she see me; and she says:
“You been down cellar?”
“Yes’m.”
“What you been doing down there?”
“Noth’n.”
“_Noth’n!_”
“No’m.”
“Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?”
“I don’t know ’m.”
“You don’t _know?_ Don’t answer me that way. Tom,I want to know what you been _doing_ down there.”
“I hain’t been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally,I hope to gracious if I have.”
I reckoned she’d let me go now,and as a generl thing she would;but I s’pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat about every little thing that warn’t yard-stick straight; so she says, very decided:
“You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come.You been up to something you no business to,and I lay I’ll find out what it is before _I’m_ done with you. ”
So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room.My, but there was a crowd there!Fifteen farmers, and every one of them had a gun.I was most powerful sick,and slunk to a chair and set down.They was setting around, some of them talking a little,in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy,but trying to look like they warn’t;but I knowed they was,because they was always taking off their hats,and putting them on, and scratching their heads,and changing their seats,and fumbling with their buttons. I warn’t easy myself,but I didn’t take my hat off, all the same.
I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me,and lick me, if she wanted to,and let me get away and tell Tom how we’d overdone this thing,and what a thundering hornet’s-nest we’d got ourselves into,so we could stop fooling around straight off,and clear out with Jim before these rips got out of patience and come for us.
At last she come and begun to ask me questions,but I _couldn’t_ answer them straight,I didn’t know which end of me was up;because these men was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right _now_ and lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn’t but a few minutes to midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and me a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty soon, when one of them says, “_I’m_ for going and getting in the cabin _first_ and right _now_, and catching them when they come,” I most dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says:
“For the land’s sake,what _is_ the matter with the child?He’s got the brain-fever as shore as you’re born,and they’re oozing out!”
And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat,and out comes the bread and what was left of the butter,and she grabbed me, and hugged me, and says:
“Oh, what a turn you did give me!and how glad and grateful I am it ain’t no worse;for luck’s against us, and it never rains but it pours,and when I see that truck I thought we’d lost you,for I knowed by the color and all it was just like your brains would be if—Dear, dear, whyd’nt you _tell_ me that was what you’d been down there for, _I_ wouldn’t a cared. Now cler out to bed, and don’t lemme see no more of you till morning!”
I was up stairs in a second,and down the lightning-rod in another one,and shinning through the dark for the lean-to.I couldn’t hardly get my words out, I was so anxious;but I told Tom as quick as I could we must jump for it now,and not a minute to lose—the house full of men, yonder, with guns!
His eyes just blazed; and he says:
“No!—is that so?_Ain’t_ it bully!Why, Huck, if it was to do over again,I bet I could fetch two hundred!If we could put it off till—”
“Hurry!_hurry!_” I says. “Where’s Jim?”
“Right at your elbow;if you reach out your arm you can touch him.He’s dressed, and everything’s ready.Now we’ll slide out and give the sheep-signal.”
But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door,and heard them begin to fumble with the pad-lock,and heard a man say: