“Huck—Huck Finn, you look me in de eye;look me in de eye. _Hain’t_ you ben gone away?”
“Gone away?Why, what in the nation do you mean?_I_ hain’t been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?”
“Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is.Is I _me_, or who _is_ I?Is I heah, or whah _is_ I?Now dat’s what I wants to know.”
“Well, I think you’re here, plain enough,but I think you’re a tangle-headed old fool, Jim.”
“I is, is I?Well, you answer me dis:Didn’t you tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fas’ to de tow-head?”
“No, I didn’t. What tow-head?I hain’t see no tow-head.”
“You hain’t seen no tow-head?Looky here, didn’t de line pull loose en de raf’ go a-hummin’ down de river,en leave you en de canoe behine in de fog?”
“What fog?”
“Why, _de_ fog!—de fog dat’s been aroun’ all night.En didn’t you whoop, en didn’t I whoop,tell we got mix’ up in de islands en one un us got los’ en t’other one was jis’ as good as los’, ’kase he didn’ know whah he wuz?En didn’t I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible time en mos’ git drownded?Now ain’ dat so, boss—ain’t it so?You answer me dat.”
“Well, this is too many for me, Jim.I hain’t seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles,nor nothing. I been setting here talking with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in that time, so of course you’ve been dreaming.”
“Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”
“Well, hang it all, you did dream it,because there didn’t any of it happen.”
“But, Huck, it’s all jis’ as plain to me as—”
“It don’t make no difference how plain it is;there ain’t nothing in it. I know,because I’ve been here all the time.”
Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes,but set there studying over it. Then he says:
“Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck;but dog my cats ef it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see.En I hain’t ever had no dream b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one. ”
“Oh, well, that’s all right,because a dream does tire a body like everything sometimes.But this one was a staving dream; tell me all about it, Jim.”
So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through,just as it happened,only he painted it up considerable.Then he said he must start in and “’terpret” it,because it was sent for a warning.He said the first tow-head stood for a man that would try to do us some good,but the current was another man that would get us away from him.The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then,and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, ’stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of tow-heads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t have no more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft,but it was clearing up again now.
“Oh, well, that’s all interpreted well enough as far as it goes,Jim,” I says; “but what does _these_ things stand for?”
It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar.You could see them first-rate now.
Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me,and back at the trash again.He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he couldn’t seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:
“What do dey stan’ for?I’se gwyne to tell you.When I got all wore out wid work,en wid de callin’ for you, en went to sleep,my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’,en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er me en de raf’.En when I wake up en fine you back agin,all safe en soun’, de tears come,en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo’ foot,I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ’bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is _trash;_ en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ’em ashamed.”
Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam,and went in there without saying anything but that.But that was enough.It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed _his_ foot to get him to take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.
CHAPTER XVI.
We slept most all day, and started out at night,a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It _amounted_ to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.
We went drifting down into a big bend,and the night clouded up and got hot.The river was very wide,and was walled with solid timber on both sides;you couldn’t see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.We talked about Cairo,and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it.I said likely we wouldn’t,because I had heard say there warn’t but about a dozen houses there,and if they didn’t happen to have them lit up,how was we going to know we was passing a town?Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there,that would show. But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim—and me too. So the question was, what to do?I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed,and tell them pap was behind,coming along with a trading-scow,and was a green hand at the business,and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo.Jim thought it was a good idea,so we took a smoke on it and waited.