Nat didn’t look when we put the witch pie in Jim’s pan;and we put the three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles;and so Jim got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted into the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick,and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the window-hole.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Making them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw;and Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all.That’s the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to have it;Tom said he’d _got_ to; there warn’t no case of a state prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms.
“Look at Lady Jane Grey,” he says; “look at Gilford Dudley; look at old Northumberland!Why, Huck, s’pose it _is_ considerble trouble?—what you going to do?—how you going to get around it?Jim’s _got_ to do his inscription and coat of arms. They all do.”
Jim says:
“Why, Mars Tom, I hain’t got no coat o’ arm; I hain’t got nuffn but dish yer ole shirt,en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat.”
“Oh, you don’t understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different.”
“Well,” I says, “Jim’s right, anyway, when he says he ain’t got no coat of arms, because he hain’t.”
“I reckon _I_ knowed that,” Tom says, “but you bet he’ll have one before he goes out of this—because he’s going out _right_,and there ain’t going to be no flaws in his record.”
So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece,Jim a-making his’n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon,Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms.By-and-by he said he’d struck so many good ones he didn’t hardly know which to take,but there was one which he reckoned he’d decide on. He says:
“On the scutcheon we’ll have a bend _or_ in the dexter base, a saltire _murrey_ in the fess,with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery,with a chevron _vert_ in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field _azure_,with the nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway nigger, _sable_,with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister; and a couple of gules for supporters,which is you and me; motto, _Maggiore fretta,minore atto._ Got it out of a book—means the more haste, the less speed.”
“Geewhillikins,” I says, “but what does the rest of it mean?”
“We ain’t got no time to bother over that,” he says; “we got to dig in like all git-out.”
“Well, anyway,” I says, “what’s _some_ of it?What’s a fess?”
“A fess—a fess is—_you_ don’t need to know what a fess is.I’ll show him how to make it when he gets to it.”
“Shucks, Tom,” I says, “I think you might tell a person. What’s a bar sinister?”
“Oh, _I_ don’t know. But he’s got to have it. All the nobility does.”
That was just his way. If it didn’t suit him to explain a thing to you, he wouldn’t do it.You might pump at him a week, it wouldn’t make no difference.
He’d got all that coat of arms business fixed,so now he started in to finish up the rest of that part of the work,which was to plan out a mournful inscription—said Jim got to have one, like they all done.He made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so:
1. _Here a captive heart busted._
2. _Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends, fretted out his sorrowful life._
3. _Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest,after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity._
4. _Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter captivity,perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV._
Tom’s voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke down.When he got done he couldn’t no way make up his mind which one for Jim to scrabble on to the wall,they was all so good; but at last he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on.Jim said it would take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a nail,and he didn’t know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he would block them out for him,and then he wouldn’t have nothing to do but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says:
“Come to think, the logs ain’t a-going to do; they don’t have log walls in a dungeon:we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We’ll fetch a rock.”
Jim said the rock was worse than the logs;he said it would take him such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn’t ever get out.But Tom said he would let me help him do it.Then he took a look to see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens.It was most pesky tedious hard work and slow,and didn’t give my hands no show to get well of the sores, and we didn’t seem to make no headway, hardly; so Tom says:
“I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and mournful inscriptions,and we can kill two birds with that same rock. There’s a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill,and we’ll smouch it, and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, too.”
It warn’t no slouch of an idea; and it warn’t no slouch of a grindstone nuther;but we allowed we’d tackle it. It warn’t quite midnight yet, so we cleared out for the mill,leaving Jim at work. We smouched the grindstone, and set out to roll her home,but it was a most nation tough job. Sometimes, do what we could,we couldn’t keep her from falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time.Tom said she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got through. We got her half way;and then we was plumb played out, and most drownded with sweat. We see it warn’t no use;we got to go and fetch Jim. So he raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the bed-leg,and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down there,and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along like nothing; and Tom superintended.He could out-superintend any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything.
Our hole was pretty big, but it warn’t big enough to get the grindstone through;but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough.Then Tom marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them,with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the lean-to for a hammer,and told him to work till the rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed,and hide the grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it.Then we helped him fix his chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom thought of something, and says:
“You got any spiders in here, Jim?”
“No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain’t, Mars Tom.”
“All right, we’ll get you some.”
“But bless you, honey, I doan’ _want_ none. I’s afeard un um.I jis’ ’s soon have rattlesnakes aroun’.”
Tom thought a minute or two, and says:
“It’s a good idea. And I reckon it’s been done. It _must_ a been done; it stands to reason. Yes,it’s a prime good idea. Where could you keep it?”
“Keep what, Mars Tom?”
“Why, a rattlesnake.”
“De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom!Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to come in heah I’d take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid my head.”
“Why, Jim, you wouldn’t be afraid of it after a little. You could tame it.”
“_Tame_ it!”
“Yes—easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting,and they wouldn’t _think_ of hurting a person that pets them. Any book will tell you that.You try—that’s all I ask; just try for two or three days. Why, you can get him so,in a little while, that he’ll love you; and sleep with you; and won’t stay away from you a minute;and will let you wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth.”
“_Please_, Mars Tom—_doan_’ talk so!I can’t _stan_’ it!He’d _let_ me shove his head in my mouf—fer a favor, hain’t it?I lay he’d wait a pow’ful long time ’fo’ I _ast_ him. En mo’ en dat, I doan’ _want_ him to sleep wid me.”
“Jim, don’t act so foolish. A prisoner’s _got_ to have some kind of a dumb pet,and if a rattlesnake hain’t ever been tried, why,there’s more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other way you could ever think of to save your life. ”
“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ _want_ no sich glory. Snake take ’n bite Jim’s chin off, den _whah_ is de glory?No, sah, I doan’ want no sich doin’s.”
“Blame it, can’t you _try?_ I only _want_ you to try—you needn’t keep it up if it don’t work.”
“But de trouble all _done_ ef de snake bite me while I’s a tryin’ him. Mars Tom,I’s willin’ to tackle mos’ anything ’at ain’t onreasonable,but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I’s gwyne to _leave_, dat’s _shore_.”
“Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you’re so bull-headed about it.We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on their tails,and let on they’re rattlesnakes, and I reckon that’ll have to do.”
“I k’n stan’ _dem_, Mars Tom, but blame’ ’f I couldn’ get along widout um, I tell you dat.I never knowed b’fo’ ’t was so much bother and trouble to be a prisoner.”
“Well, it _always_ is when it’s done right. You got any rats around here?”
“No, sah, I hain’t seed none.”
“Well, we’ll get you some rats.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ _want_ no rats. Dey’s de dadblamedest creturs to ’sturb a body,en rustle roun’ over ’im, en bite his feet, when he’s tryin’ to sleep, I ever see. No, sah,gimme g’yarter-snakes, ’f I’s got to have ’m, but doan’ gimme no rats; I hain’ got no use f’r um, skasely.”
“But, Jim, you _got_ to have ’em—they all do. So don’t make no more fuss about it.Prisoners ain’t ever without rats. There ain’t no instance of it. And they train them,and pet them, and learn them tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies.But you got to play music to them. You got anything to play music on?”
“I ain’ got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o’ paper, en a juice-harp;but I reck’n dey wouldn’ take no stock in a juice-harp.”
“Yes they would. _They_ don’t care what kind of music ’tis.A jews-harp’s plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music—in a prison they dote on it.Specially, painful music; and you can’t get no other kind out of a jews-harp.It always interests them; they come out to see what’s the matter with you. Yes, you’re all right;you’re fixed very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep,and early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp;play ‘The Last Link is Broken’—that’s the thing that’ll scoop a rat quicker ’n anything else;and when you’ve played about two minutes you’ll see all the rats, and the snakes, and spiders,and things begin to feel worried about you, and come. And they’ll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good time.”
“Yes, _dey_ will, I reck’n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is _Jim_ havin’?Blest if I kin see de pint. But I’ll do it ef I got to. I reck’n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de house.”
Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn’t nothing else; and pretty soon he says:
“Oh, there’s one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you reckon?”
“I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it’s tolable dark in heah,en I ain’ got no use f’r no flower, nohow, en she’d be a pow’ful sight o’ trouble.”
“Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it.”
“One er dem big cat-tail-lookin’ mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars Tom, I reck’n,but she wouldn’t be wuth half de trouble she’d coss.”
“Don’t you believe it. We’ll fetch you a little one and you plant it in the corner over there,and raise it. And don’t call it mullen,call it Pitchiola—that’s its right name when it’s in a prison.And you want to water it with your tears.”
“Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom.”
“You don’t _want_ spring water; you want to water it with your tears. It’s the way they always do.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid spring water whiles another man’s a _start’n_ one wid tears. ”
“That ain’t the idea. You _got_ to do it with tears.”
“She’ll die on my han’s, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan’ skasely ever cry.”
So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over,and then said Jim would have to worry along the best he could with an onion.He promised he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim’s coffee-pot,in the morning. Jim said he would “jis’ ’s soon have tobacker in his coffee;” and found so much fault with it, and with the work and bother of raising the mullen,and jews-harping the rats, and petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things,on top of all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and journals, and things,which made it more trouble and worry and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook,that Tom most lost all patience with him;and said he was just loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for himself,and yet he didn’t know enough to appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him.So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn’t behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and fetched it down,and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones;and then we took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally’s bed.But while we was gone for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there,and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did;and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain,and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times for her.So she took and dusted us both with the hickry,and we was as much as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub,and they warn’t the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock.I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was.
We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and caterpillars,and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet’s nest, but we didn’t.The family was at home. We didn’t give it right up, but stayed with them as long as we could;because we allowed we’d tire them out or they’d got to tire us out, and they done it.Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right again,but couldn’t set down convenient. And so we went for the snakes,and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in a bag,and put it in our room, and by that time it was supper-time, and a rattling good honest day’s work: and hungry?—oh, no, I reckon not!And there warn’t a blessed snake up there when we went back—we didn’t half tie the sack,and they worked out somehow, and left. But it didn’t matter much,because they was still on the premises somewheres. So we judged we could get some of them again.No, there warn’t no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell.You’d see them dripping from the rafters and places every now and then;and they generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck,and most of the time where you didn’t want them. Well, they was handsome and striped,and there warn’t no harm in a million of them; but that never made no difference to Aunt Sally;she despised snakes, be the breed what they might,and she couldn’t stand them no way you could fix it;and every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn’t make no difference what she was doing,she would just lay that work down and light out. I never see such a woman.And you could hear her whoop to Jericho.You couldn’t get her to take a-holt of one of them with the tongs.And if she turned over and found one in bed she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would think the house was afire.She disturbed the old man so that he said he could most wish there hadn’t ever been no snakes created.Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn’t over it yet;she warn’t near over it; when she was setting thinking about something you could touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all women was just so. He said they was made that way for some reason or other.
We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way,and she allowed these lickings warn’t nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded up the place again with them.I didn’t mind the lickings, because they didn’t amount to nothing;but I minded the trouble we had to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in,and all the other things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim’s was when they’d all swarm out for music and go for him.Jim didn’t like the spiders, and the spiders didn’t like Jim; and so they’d lay for him,and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone there warn’t no room in bed for him,skasely; and when there was, a body couldn’t sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively,he said, because _they_ never all slept at one time, but took turn about,so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck,and when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had one gang under him,in his way, and t’other gang having a circus over him,and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed over.He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn’t ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.
Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape. The shirt was sent in early,in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh;the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the grindstone;the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust,and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache. We reckoned we was all going to die, but didn’t.It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the same.
But as I was saying, we’d got all the work done now, at last; and we was all pretty much fagged out,too, but mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger,but hadn’t got no answer, because there warn’t no such plantation;so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans papers;and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold shivers,and I see we hadn’t no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters.
“What’s them?” I says.
“Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it’s done one way, sometimes another.But there’s always somebody spying around that gives notice to the governor of the castle.When Louis XVI. was going to light out of the Tooleries, a servant-girl done it.It’s a very good way, and so is the nonnamous letters. We’ll use them both.And it’s usual for the prisoner’s mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in,and he slides out in her clothes. We’ll do that, too.”
“But looky here, Tom, what do we want to _warn_ anybody for that something’s up?Let them find it out for themselves—it’s their lookout.”
“Yes, I know; but you can’t depend on them.It’s the way they’ve acted from the very start—left us to do _everything_.They’re so confiding and mullet-headed they don’t take notice of nothing at all.So if we don’t _give_ them notice there won’t be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us,and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape ’ll go off perfectly flat;won’t amount to nothing—won’t be nothing _to_ it.”
“Well, as for me, Tom, that’s the way I’d like.”
“Shucks!” he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:
“But I ain’t going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits me.What you going to do about the servant-girl?”
“You’ll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that yaller girl’s frock.”
“Why, Tom, that’ll make trouble next morning; because, of course,she prob’bly hain’t got any but that one.”
“I know; but you don’t want it but fifteen minutes,to carry the nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door.”
“All right, then, I’ll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my own togs.”
“You wouldn’t look like a servant-girl _then_, would you?”
“No, but there won’t be nobody to see what I look like, _anyway_.”
“That ain’t got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just to do our _duty_,and not worry about whether anybody _sees_ us do it or not. Hain’t you got no principle at all?”
“All right, I ain’t saying nothing; I’m the servant-girl. Who’s Jim’s mother?”
“I’m his mother. I’ll hook a gown from Aunt Sally.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves.”
“Not much. I’ll stuff Jim’s clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed to represent his mother in disguise,and Jim ’ll take the nigger woman’s gown off of me and wear it, and we’ll all evade together.When a prisoner of style escapes it’s called an evasion. It’s always called so when a king escapes,f’rinstance. And the same with a king’s son;it don’t make no difference whether he’s a natural one or an unnatural one.”
So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench’s frock that night,and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the way Tom told me to. It said:
_Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout._ UNKNOWN FRIEND.
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: