ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN 2

Chapter I
Mark Twain: Adventures
You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the
of Huckleberry Finn (1884) name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter.
That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, main-
ly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
NOTICE That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another,
without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly–
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prose- Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is–and Mary, and the Widow Douglas, is all
cuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; per- told about in that book–which is mostly a true book; with some
sons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. stretchers, as I said before.
Now the way that the book winds up, is this: Tom and me found
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We
Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance. got six thousand dollars apiece–all gold. It was an awful sight of mon-
ey when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it
out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece, all the year
round–more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow
EXPLANATORY Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me;
but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dis-
In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri ne- mal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I
gro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dia- couldn’t stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags, and my
lect; the ordinary “Pike-County” dialect; and four modified varieties of sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he
this last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-hazard fashion, or hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I
by guess-work; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I
and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. went back.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and
would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm
not succeeding. by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing
but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing
THE AUTHOR. commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to
come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eat-
ing, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and
grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything
the matter with them. That is, nothing only everything was cooked by
itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up,
and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.
3 MARK TWAIN ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN 4

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lone-
the Bulrushers; and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by- some. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then
and-by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle
time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and
stock in dead people. tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars was shining, and the
she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away
must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill
They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind
Here she was a bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn’t make out what it
no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the
with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to
too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself. tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself under-
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles stood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave and has to go about that way
on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now, with a every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared, I did wish I
spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoul-
then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. der, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could
Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson budge it was all shriveled up. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that
would say, “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was
scrunch up like that, Huckleberry–set up straight;” and pretty soon scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned
she would say, “Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry–why around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and
don’t you try to behave?” Then she told me all about the bad place, then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches
and I said I wished I was there. She got mad, then, but I didn’t mean away. But I hadn’t no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a
no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but
change, I warn’t particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; I hadn’t ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck
said she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as when you’d killed a spider.
to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going I set down again, a shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a
where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I smoke; for the house was all as still as death, now, and so the widow
never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no wouldn’t know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in
good. the town go boom–boom–boom–twelve licks–and all still again–
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap, down in the dark
good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go amongst the trees–something was a stiffing. I set still and listened.
around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t Directly I could just barely hear a “me-yow! me-yow!” down there. That
think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom was good! Says I, “me-yow! me-yow!” as soft as I could, and then I put
Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was out the light and scrambled out of the window onto the shed. Then I
glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together. slipped down to the ground and crawled in amongst the trees, and sure
enough there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
5 MARK TWAIN ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN 6

Chapter XV I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good, now. That was
somebody else’s whoop, or else I was turned around.
We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind
bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what me yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its
we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again
way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble. and I knowed the current had swung the canoe’s head down stream
Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a and I was all right, if that was Jim and not some other raftsman holler-
towhead to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in fog; but when I ing. I couldn’t tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don’t
paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line, to make fast, there warn’t look natural nor sound natural in a fog.
anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming
them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, down on a cut bank with smoky ghost of big trees on it, and the cur-
and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots rent throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that
and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick fairly roared, the current was tearing by them so swift.
and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me– In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
and then there warn’t no raft in sight; you couldn’t see twenty yards. I perfectly still, then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn’t
jumped into the canoe and run back to the stem and grabbed the pad- draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.
dle and set her back a stroke. But she didn’t come. I was in such a hur- I just give up, then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank
ry I hadn’t untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so was an island, and Jim had gone down t’other side of it. It warn’t no
excited my hands shook so I couldn’t hardly do anything with them. towhead, that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber
As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, of a regular island; it might be five or six mile long and more than half
right down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the a mile wide.
towhead warn’t sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I
I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn’t no more idea which way was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don’t
I was going than a dead man. ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying dead still on the
Thinks I, it won’t do to paddle; first I know I’ll run into the bank water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by, you don’t think to your-
or a towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it’s self how fast you’re going, but you catch your breath and think, my!
mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. how that snag’s tearing along. If you think it ain’t dismal and lonesome
I whooped and listened. Away down there, somewheres, I hears a small out in a fog that way, by yourself, in the night, you try it once–you’ll
whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp see.
to hear it again. The next time it come, I see I wasn’t heading for it but Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I
heading away to the right of it. And the next time, I was heading away hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn’t
to the left of it–and not gaining on it much, either, for I was flying do it, and directly I judged I’d got into a nest of towheads, for I had
around, this way and that and t’other, but it was going straight ahead little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me, sometimes just a nar-
all the time. row channel between; and some that I couldn’t see, I knowed was
I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the there, because I’d hear the wash of the current against the old dead
time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops brush and trash that hung over the banks. Well, I wasn’t long loosing
that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly the whoops, down amongst the towheads; and I only tried to chase
7 MARK TWAIN ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN 8

them a little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack- “What’s the matter with you, Jim? You been a drinking?”
o’-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap “Drinkin’? Has I ben a drinkin’? Has I had a chance to be a
places so quick and so much. drinkin’?”
I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively, four or five times, to “Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”
keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the “How does I talk wild?”
raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would “How? Why, hain’t you been talking about my coming back, and all
get further ahead and clear out of hearing–it was floating a little faster that stuff, as if I’d been gone away?”
than what I was. “Huck–Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye.
Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I Hain’t you ben gone away?”
couldn’t hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had “Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain’t been
fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good gone anywheres. Where would I go to?”
and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t bother no “Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who
more. I didn’t want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat’s what I wants to know?”
couldn’t help it; so I thought I would take just one little cat-nap. “Well, I think you’re here, plain enough, but I think you’re a tan-
But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the gle-headed old fool, Jim.”
stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down “I is, is I? Well you answer me dis. Didn’t you tote out de line in de
a big bend stem first. First I didn’t know where I was; I thought I was canoe fer to make fas’ to de tow-head?”
dreaming; and when things began to come back to me, they seemed to “No, I didn’t. What tow-head? I hain’t seen no tow-head.”
come up dim out of last week. “You hain’t seen no towhead? Looky here–didn’t de line pull
It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest loose en de raf’ go a hummin’ down de river, en leave you en de canoe
kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see, by behine in de fog?”
the stars. I looked away down stream, and seen a black speck on the “What fog?”
water. I took out after it; but when I got to it it warn’t nothing but a “Why, de fog!–de fog dat’s ben aroun’ all night. En didn’t you
couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and whoop, en didn’t I whoop, tell we got mix’ up in de islands en one un
chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft. us got los’ en t’other one was jis’ as good as los’, ’kase he didn’ know
When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between whah he wuz? En didn’t I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a
his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering oar. The turrible time en mos’ git drownded? Now ain’ dat so, boss–ain’t it so?
other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and You answer me dat.”
branches and dirt. So she’d had a rough time. “Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain’t seen no fog, nor no is-
I made fast and laid down under Jim’s nose on the raft, and begun lands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with
to gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says: you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon
“Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you stir me up?” I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in that time, so of course
“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead–you ain’ you’ve been dreaming.”
drownded–you’s back agin? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too “Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”
good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you. No, you “Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’t any of it
ain’ dead! you’s back agin, ’live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck–de happen.”
same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!” “But Huck, it’s all jis’ as plain to me as–”
9 MARK TWAIN ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN 10

“It don’t make no difference how plain it is; there ain’t nothing in er me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en
it. I know, because I’ve been here all the time.” soun’, de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo’
Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but set there study- foot, I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ’bout wuz how you could
ing over it. Then he says: make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en trash is what
“Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ’em
ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t ever had no dream ashamed.”
b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one.” Then he got up slow, and walked to the wigwam, and went in
“Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body like there, without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made
everything, sometimes. But this one was a staving dream–tell me all me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it
about it, Jim.” back.
So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and
just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it
must start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning. He afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I
said the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that
good, but the current was another man that would get us away from way.
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
towheads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome peo-
ple 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 onto 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