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 my self, 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 thatthere 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.

                                  * * *
 
   The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit
comfortable. Pretty soon she says"

   "What did you say your name was, honey?"

   "M--Mary Williams."

   Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I
didn't look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of
cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman
would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But
now she says:

   "Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"

   "Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some
calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."

   "Oh, that's the way of it?"

   "Yes'm."

   I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I
couldn't look up yet.

   Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor
they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place,
and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about the
rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every
little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when
she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed me a bar of
lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly,
but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't know whether she
could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and directly banged
away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!" it hurt her arm
so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away
before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on. I got the
thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd a
stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was
first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got
the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn
which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she put
the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband's
matters. But she broke off to say:

   "Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap,
handy."

   So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped
my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a minute.
Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very
pleasant, and says:

   "Come, now, what's your real name?"

   "Wh--what, mum?"

   "What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?"

   I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do. But 
I says:

   "Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the
way here, I'll--"

   "No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt
you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your
secret, and trust me. I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help you.  
So'll my old man if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway 'prentice,
that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it.  You've been
treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I
wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that's a good boy."

   So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I
would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go
back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and
the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile
back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no
longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so Itook my chance
and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had
been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid
daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home
lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my uncle
Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for
this town of Goshen.

   "Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's ten
mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?"

   "Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn
into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I
must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen."

   "He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong."

   "Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got
to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight."

   "Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it."

   So she put me up a snack, and says:

   "Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer
up prompt now--don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?"

   "The hind end, mum."

   "Well, then, a horse?"

   "The for'rard end, mum."

   "Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?"

   "North side."

   "If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with
their heads pointed the same direction?"

   "The whole fifteen, mum."

   "Well, I reckon you HAVE lived in the country. I thought maybe you was
trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now?"

   "George Peters, mum."

   "Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's
Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander
when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a
girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe.  Bless you, child,
when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch
the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it;
that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other
way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe
and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your
rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like
there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist
and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when
a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she
don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of
lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and
I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your
uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into
trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what
I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time
you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one, and
your feet'll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon."

                                  * * *
   We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a
steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.

   "Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with
the parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads
off. But mostly they hang round the harem."

   "Roun' de which?"

   "Harem."

   "What's de harem?"

   "The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem?  
Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."

   "Why, yes, dat's so; I--I'd done forgot it. A harem's a bo'd'n-house, I
reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n de
wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say Sollermun
de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in dat.  Bekase why:
would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a blim-blammin' all de
time? No--'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take en buil' a biler-factry;
en den he could shet DOWN de biler-factry when he want to res'."

   "Well, but he WAS the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me
so, her own self."

   "I doan k'yer what de widder say, he WARN'T no wise man nuther. He had
some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile
dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"

   "Yes, the widow told me all about it."

   "WELL, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' take en
look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women;  heah's
you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's de
chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun' mongs' de
neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b'long to, en han' it over
to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat had any
gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half un it to
you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman.  Dat's de way Sollermun was
gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what's de use er dat half
a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I wouldn'
give a dern for a million un um."

   "But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point--blame it, you've
missed it a thousand mile."

   "Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I knows
sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat. De
'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile;  
en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half
a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' talk to me 'bout
Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."

   "But I tell you you don't get the point."

   "Blame de point! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de REAL
pint is down furder--it's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was
raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne
to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it. HE know how to
value 'em. But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen runnin'
roun' de house, en it's diffunt. HE as soon chop a chile in two as a cat.
Dey's plenty mo'. A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't no consekens to
Sollermun, dad fatch him!"

   I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there
warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any
nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon
slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France
long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a
king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there.

   "Po' little chap."

   "But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."

   "Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome--dey ain' no kings here, is
dey, Huck?"

   "No."

   "Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?"

   "Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them
   learns people how to talk French."

   "Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"

   "NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single
   word."

   "Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"

   "I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.
S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you
think?"

   "I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat is, if
he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."

   "Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know
how to talk French?"

   "Well, den, why couldn't he SAY it?"

   "Why, he IS a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's WAY of saying it."

   "Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo'
'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

   "Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

   "No, a cat don't."

   "Well, does a cow?"

   "No, a cow don't, nuther."

   "Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"

   "No, dey don't."

   "It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other,
ain't it?"

   "Course."

   "And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different
from US?"

   "Why, mos' sholy it is."

   "Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a FRENCHMAN to talk
different from us? You answer me that."

   "Is a cat a man, Huck?"

   "No."
 
   "Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a
man?--er is a cow a cat?"

   "No, she ain't either of them."

   "Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the
yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"

   "Yes."

   "WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like a man? You answer me
DAT!"

                                  * * *

   This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste
obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the
Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. It
was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name of
Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded:

   ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D

   And did young Stephen sicken,
   And did young Stephen die?
   And did the sad hearts thicken,
   And did the mourners cry?

   No; such was not the fate of
   Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
   Though sad hearts round him thickened,
   'Twas not from sickness' shots.

   No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
   Nor measles drear with spots;
   Not these impaired the sacred name
   Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

   Despised love struck not with woe
   That head of curly knots,
   Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
   Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

   O no. Then list with tearful eye,
   Whilst I his fate do tell.
   His soul did from this cold world fly
   By falling down a well.

   They got him out and emptied him;
   Alas it was too late;
   His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
   In the realms of the good and great.

   If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was
fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by. Buck
said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to
stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't
find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down
another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write about
anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful.
Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on
hand with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called them tributes. The
neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the
undertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and
then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was
Whistler. She warn't ever the same after that; she never complained, but
she kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many's the time I
made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her
poor old scrap-book and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating
me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones
and all, and warn't going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline
made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't
seem right that there warn't nobody to make some about her now she was
gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn't seem
to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim and nice, and all
the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was
alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room
herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a good
deal and read her Bible there mostly.

                                  * * *

   Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh
and says:

   "Alas!"

   "What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head.

   "To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be
degraded down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of his
eye with a rag.

   "Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the
baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

   "Yes, it IS good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who
fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame YOU,
gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let the
cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave somewhere for
me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take everything from
me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take that. Some day
I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart will be at
rest." He went on a-wiping.

   "Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heaving
your pore broken heart at US f'r? WE hain't done nothing."

   "No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought
myself down--yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer--perfectly
right--I don't make any moan."

   "Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"

   "Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass--
'tis no matter. The secret of my birth--"

   "The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say--"

   "Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to you,
for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"

   Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.  
Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?"

   "Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled
to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure air
of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father dying
about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the titles and
estates--the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal descendant of
that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and here am I,
forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold
world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the companionship of
felons on a raft!"

   Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but
he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we was
a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything
else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to
bow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your
Lordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain "Bridgewater,"
which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to
wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him he wanted done.

   Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood
around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or
some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to
him.

   But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say,
and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on
around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind.  So, along in
the afternoon, he says:

   "Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you
ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."

   "No?"

   "No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down
wrongfully out'n a high place."

   "Alas!"

   "No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And,
by jings, HE begins to cry.

   "Hold! What do you mean?"

   "Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of
   sobbing.

   "To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,
and says, "That secret of your being: speak!"

   "Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

   You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:

   "You are what?"

   "Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very
moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy
the Sixteen and Marry Antonette."

   "You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must
be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."

   "Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has
brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you
see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled,
trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of France."

   Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what
to do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too.
So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort HIM.
But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all
could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier and
better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got
down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"
and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence till
he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this and
that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might set
down. This done him heaps ofgood, and so he got cheerful and comfortable.
But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit satisfied with
the way things was going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him,
and said the duke's great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of
Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by HIS father, and was allowed to
come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while,
till by and by the king says:

   "Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer
raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only
make things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it
ain't your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry? Make
the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto. This
ain't no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy
life--come, give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."

   The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took
away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it
would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft;
for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be
satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

   It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no
kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never
said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you
don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble.  If they wanted us
to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would
keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't
tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the
best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their
own way.

                                  * * *

   After dinner the duke says:

   "Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so
I guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to
answer encores with, anyway."

   "What's onkores, Bilgewater?"

   The duke told him, and then says:

   "I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and
you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy."

   "Hamlet's which?"

   "Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in
Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I
haven't got it in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can
piece it out from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if
I can call it back from recollection's vaults."

   So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible
every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would
squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan;  next
he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was beautiful to
see him. By and by he got it. He told us to give attention. Then he
strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms
stretched away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky; and
then he begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that, all
through his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his
chest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before.
This is the speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to
the king:

   To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so
long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to
Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the innocent
sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling the arrows
of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of. There's the
respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou
couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's
wrong, the proud man's contumely, The law's delay, and the quietus which
his pangs might take, In the dead waste and middle of the night, when
churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But that the
undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, Breathes forth
contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of resolution, like the
poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er with care, And all the clouds that
lowered o'er our housetops, With this regard their currents turn awry, And
lose the name of action. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But
soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get
thee to a nunnery--go!

   Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he
could do it first-rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and when
he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he
would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it off.

                                  * * *

   That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there,
and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on them, and
the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of the
table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and
how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens
was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out
compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said
so--said "How DO you get biscuits to brown so nice?" and "Where, for the
land's sake, DID you get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind of
humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.

   And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen
off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up
the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest if
I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says:

   "Did you ever see the king?"

   "Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church." I
knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes
to our church, she says:

   "What--regular?"

   "Yes--regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the
pulpit."

   "I thought he lived in London?"

   "Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?"

   "But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?"

   I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken
bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:

   "I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's
only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths."

   "Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea."

   "Well, who said it was?"

   "Why, you did."

   "I DIDN'T nuther."

   "You did!"

   "I didn't."

   "You did."

   "I never said nothing of the kind."

   "Well, what DID you say, then?"

   "Said he come to take the sea BATHS--that's what I said."

   "Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the
sea?"

   "Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?"

   "Yes."

   "Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"

   "Why, no."

   "Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea
bath."

   "How does he get it, then?"

   "Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels.  
There in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his
water hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea.
They haven't got no conveniences for it."

   "Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved
time."

   When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was
comfortable and glad. Next, she says:

   "Do you go to church, too?"

   "Yes--regular."

   "Where do you set?"
 
   "Why, in our pew."

   "WHOSE pew?"

   "Why, OURN--your Uncle Harvey's."

   "His'n? What does HE want with a pew?"

   "Wants it to set in. What did you RECKON he wanted with it?"

   "Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."

   Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I
played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says:

   "Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?"

   "Why, what do they want with more?"

   "What!--to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you.  
They don't have no less than seventeen."

   "Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that, not
if I NEVER got to glory. It must take 'em a week."

   "Shucks, they don't ALL of 'em preach the same day--only ONE of 'em."

   "Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"

   "Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate--and one thing or
another. But mainly they don't do nothing."

   "Well, then, what are they FOR?"

   "Why, they're for STYLE. Don't you know nothing?"

   "Well, I don't WANT to know no such foolishness as that. How is
servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our
niggers?"

   "NO! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs."

   "Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's
week, and Fourth of July?"

   "Oh, just listen! A body could tell YOU hain't ever been to England by
that. Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year's end
to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger shows, nor
nowheres."

   "Nor church?"

   "Nor church."

   "But YOU always went to church."

   Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But
next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was
different from a common servant and HAD to go to church whether he wanted
to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the law. But I
didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she warn't satisfied.
She says:

   "Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?"

   "Honest injun," says I.

   "None of it at all?"

   "None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.

   "Lay your hand on this book and say it."

   I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and
said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:

   "Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll
believe the rest."

   "What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in with
Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him, and
him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be
treated so?"

   "That's always your way, Maim--always sailing in to help somebody
before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some
stretchers, I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's
every bit and grain I DID say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like
that, can't he?"

   "I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's here in
our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you was
in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't to say a
thing to another person that will make THEM feel ashamed."

   "Why, Maim, he said--"

   "It don't make no difference what he SAID--that ain't the thing. The
thing is for you to treat him KIND, and not be saying things to make him
remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks."  I says
to myself, THIS is a girl that I'm letting that old reptle rob her of her
money!

   Then Susan SHE waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give
Hare-lip hark from the tomb!

   Says I to myself, and this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her
of her money!

   Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely
again--which was her way; but when she got done there warn't hardly
anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.

   "All right, then," says the other girls; "you just ask his pardon."

   She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful
it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so she
could do it again.

   I says to myself, this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting him rob her of
her money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves out to
make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so ornery and
low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up;  I'll hive
that money for them or bust.

                                  * * *

   "Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will see
each other again inside of two weeks--here in this house--and PROVE how I
know it--will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?"

   "Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!"

   "All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of YOU than just
your word--I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She
smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it, I'll
shut the door--and bolt it."

   Then I come back and set down again, and says:

   "Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell
the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind,
and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These uncles
of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of frauds-- regular
dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand the rest
middling easy."

   It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal
water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher all
the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck that
young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she flung
herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed her
sixteen or seventeen times--and then up she jumps, with her face afire
like sunset, and says:

   "The brute! Come, don't waste a minute--not a SECOND--we'll have them
tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!"

   Says I:

   "Cert'nly. But do you mean BEFORE you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or--"

   "Oh," she says, "what am I THINKING about!" she says, and set right
down again. "Don't mind what I said--please don't--you WON'T, now, WILL
you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that I said I
would die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up," she says; "now go
on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, and whatever you
say I'll do it."

   "Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so I
got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not--I
druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would
get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another
person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble.  Well, we got to
save HIM, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on them."

   Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I could
get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave.
But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard to
answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working till
pretty late to-night. I says:

   "Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to
stay at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?"

   "A little short of four miles--right out in the country, back here."

   "Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low till
nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home again--
tell them you've thought of something. If you get here before eleven put a
candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait TILL eleven, and THEN
if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the way, and safe. Then
you come out and spread the news around, and get these beats jailed."

   "Good," she says, "I'll do it."

   "And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along
with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, and
you must stand by me all you can."

   "Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!"  
she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said
it, too.

   "If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions
ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I WAS here. I could swear they
was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something. Well,
there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're people that
ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you how to find
them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There--'Royal Nonesuch,
Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court wants to find
out something about these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say
they've got the men thatplayed the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some
witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here before you can
hardly wink, Miss Mary.  And they'll come a-biling, too."

   I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says:

   "Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't
have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction on
accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till they
get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to count,
and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way it was with
the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be back before long.
Why, they can't collect the money for the NIGGERS yet--they're in the
worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary."

   "Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start
straight for Mr. Lothrop's."

   "'Deed, THAT ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner
of means; go BEFORE breakfast."

   "Why?"

   "What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?"

   "Well, I never thought--and come to think, I don't know. What was it?"

   "Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I don't
want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read
it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles
when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never--"

   "There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast--I'll be glad to.  
And leave my sisters with them?"

   "Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while. They
might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to see
them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to ask
how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something.  No, you
go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them. I'll
tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went away
for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a friend,
and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning."

   "Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to
them."

   "Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell HER so--no harm
in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's the
little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below; it
would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then I
says: "There's one more thing--that bag of money."

   "Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think HOW
they got it."

   "No, you're out, there. They hain't got it."

   "Why, who's got it?"

   "I wish I knowed, but I don't. I HAD it, because I stole it from them;  
and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm afraid
it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm just as sorry
as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest.  I come nigh
getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I come to, and
run--and it warn't a good place."

   "Oh, stop blaming yourself--it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow
it-- you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it?"

   I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I
couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that
corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So for
a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:

   "I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't
mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and
you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to.

   Do you reckon that 'll do?"

   "Oh, yes."

   So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was
crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty
sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."

   It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by
herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own
roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to
her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand,
hard, and says:

   "GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I
don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of you
a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!"--and she was gone.

   Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more
nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that
kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there
warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in
my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my
opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't
no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she lays over
them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of
that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've thought of
her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray
for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me to pray for
HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

   Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see
her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

   "What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that
you all goes to see sometimes?"

   They says:

   "There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

   "That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she
told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of
them's sick."

   "Which one?"

   "I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--"

   "Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"

   "I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."

   "My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

   "It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary
Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

   "Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?"

   I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:

   "Mumps."

   "Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the
mumps."

   "They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with THESE mumps.  
These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said."

   "How's it a new kind?"

   "Because it's mixed up with other things."

   "What other things?"

   "Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and
yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."

   "My land! And they call it the MUMPS?"

   "That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

   "Well, what in the nation do they call it the MUMPS for?"

   "Why, because it IS the mumps. That's what it starts with."

   "Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take
pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains
out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up
and say, 'Why, he stumped his TOE.' Would ther' be any sense in that? NO.
And ther' ain't no sense in THIS, nuther. Is it ketching?"

   "Is it KETCHING? Why, how you talk. Is a HARROW catching--in the dark?  
If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, ain't you?
And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the wholeharrow
along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow, as you
may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you come to get it
hitched on good."

   "Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle
Harvey and--"

   "Oh, yes," I says, "I WOULD. Of COURSE I would. I wouldn't lose no
time."

   "Well, why wouldn't you?"

   "Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles
obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you
reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that
journey by yourselves? YOU know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good.  
Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a PREACHER
going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a SHIP CLERK?
--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now YOU know he
ain't. What WILL he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but my
church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my niece
has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my
bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show
on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to tell
your uncle Harvey--"

   "Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good
times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's got
it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins."

   "Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors."

   "Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't you
SEE that THEY'D go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not tell
anybody at ALL."

   "Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you ARE right."

   "But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while,
anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?"

   "Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to
give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over
the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what IS the name of that rich family your
uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one that--"

   "Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?"

   "Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to
remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run over
for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this
house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than
anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till they say they'll come,
and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home;  and if she is,
she'll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say nothing about
the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll be perfectly true,
because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know
it, because she told me so herself."

   "All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and
give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.

   Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because
they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther Mary
Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of Doctor
Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat--I reckoned
Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of course he would a
throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not being
brung up to it.

                                  * * * 

   Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be
a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd GOT to be a slave,
and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss
Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd
be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her,
and so she'd sell him straight down the river again;  and if she didn't,
everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they'd make Jim
feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then
think of ME! It would get all around that HuckFinn helped a nigger to get
his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be
ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a
person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no
consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace.
That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my
conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and
ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that
here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting
me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in
heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever
done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the
lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only
just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared.
Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself
by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but
something inside of me kept saying, "There was the Sunday-school, you
could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that
people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting
fire."

   It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I
couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I
kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no
use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well
why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was
because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was
letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the
biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right
thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and
tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He
knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I found that out.

   So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to
do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and
then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light
as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a
piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

   Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below
Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the
reward if you send.

   HUCK FINN.

   I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever
felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it
straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking how
good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and
going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip
down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in
the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating
along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to
strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd
see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I
could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of
the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the
feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me
and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was;
and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had
small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend
old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I
happened to look around and see that paper.

   It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was
a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I
knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to
myself:

   "All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up.

   It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let
them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the
whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again,
which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for
a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I
could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I
was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

                                  * * *