Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0135/01352.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 12KB | 223 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01352}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Trying To Help Jim}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{jim
tom
says
ain't
right
how
nigger
wouldn't
better
done}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, The
Author:      Twain, Mark

Trying To Help Jim

     As soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the
lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile of
fox-fire, and went to work.  We cleared everything out of the way, about four
or five foot along the middle of the bottom log.  Tom said we was right
behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and when we got through there
couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole there, because
Jim's counterpin hung down most to the ground, and you'd have to raise it up
and look under to see the hole.  So we dug and dug with the case-knives till
most midnight; and then we was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and
yet you couldn't see we'd done anything hardly.  At last I says:

     "This ain't no thirty-seven-year job; this is a thirty-eight-year job,
Tom Sawyer."

     He never said nothing.  But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped
digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking.
Then he says:

     "It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work.  If we was prisoners
it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry;
and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was
changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could keep
it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the way it
ought to be done.  But we can't fool along; we got to rush; we ain't got no
time to spare.  If we was to put in another night this way we'd have to knock
off for a week to let our hands get well - couldn't touch a case-knife with
them sooner."

     "Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"

     "I'll tell you.  It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like
it to get out; but there ain't only just the one way: we got to dig him out
with the picks, and let on it's case-knives."

     "Now you're talking!" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler all
the time, Tom Sawyer," I says.  "Picks is the thing, moral or no moral; and
as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow.  When I start
in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school book, I ain't no
ways particular how it's done so it's done.  What I want is my nigger; or
what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my Sunday-school book; and if
a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing I'm a-going to dig that nigger
or that watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with; and I don't give a
dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther."

     "Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting on in a case like
this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by and
see the rules broke - because right is right and wrong is wrong, and a body
ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better.
It might answer for you to dig Jim out with a pick, without any letting on,
because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for me, because I do know
better.  Gimme a case-knife."

     He had his own by him, but I handed him mine.  He flung it down, and
says:

     "Gimme a case-knife."

     I didn't know just what to do - but then I thought.  I scratched around
amongst the old tools, and got a pickax and give it to him, and he took it
and went to work, and never said a word.

     He was always just that particular.  Full of principle.

     So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about, and
made the fur fly.  We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as long as
we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for it.  When I
got up-stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing his level best
with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his hands was so sore.  At
last he says:

     "It ain't no use, it can't be done.  What you reckon I better do?  Can't
you think of no way?"

     "Yes," I says," but I reckon it ain't regular.  Come up the stairs, and
let on it's a lightning-rod."

     So he done it.

     Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house,
for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I hung
around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin plates.
Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever see the plates
that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel and jimpson weeds
under the window-hole - then we could tote them back and he could use them
over again.  So Tom was satisfied.  Then he says:

     "Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."

     "Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."

     He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard
of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying.  By and by he said he
had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide on any
of them yet.  Said we'd got to post Jim first.

     That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took
one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard Jim
snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him.  Then we whirled in
with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half the job was done.
We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and pawed around and found
the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile, and found him looking
hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle and gradual.  He was so
glad to see us he most cried; and called us honey, and all the pet names he
could think of; and was for having us hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain
off of his leg with right away, and clearing out without losing any time.
But Tom he showed him how unregular it would be, and set down and told him
all about our plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time there
was an alarm; and not to be the least afraid, because we would see he got
away, sure.  So Jim he said it was all right, and we set there and talked
over old times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim
told him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt
Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of
them was kind as they could be, Tom says:

     "Now I know how to fix it.  We'll send you some things by them."

     I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass
ideas I ever struck"; but he never paid no attention to me; went right on.
It was his way when he'd got his plans set.

     So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and other
large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the lookout,
and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and we would put
small things in uncle's coat pockets and he must steal them out; and we would
tie things to aunt's apron strings or put them in her apron pocket, if we got
a chance; and told him what they would be and what they was for.  And told
him how to keep a journal on the shirt with his blood, and all that.  He told
him everything.  Jim he couldn't see no sense in the most of it, but he
allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him; so he was satisfied,
and said he would do it all just as Tom said.

     Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good
sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to bed, with
hands that looked like they'd been chawed.  Tom was in high spirits.  He said
it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most intellectural; and
said if he only could see his way to it we would keep it up all the rest of
our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out; for he believed Jim would
come to like it better and better the more he got used to it.  He said that
in that way it could be strung out to as much as eighty years, and would be
the best time on record.  And he said it would make us all celebrated that
had a hand in it.

     In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass
candlestick into handy sizes and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in his
pocket.  Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's notice off,
Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a corn-pone that was in
Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how it would work, and it just
worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most mashed all his teeth out; and
there warn't ever anything could 'a' worked better.  Tom said so himself.
Jim he never let on but what it was only just a piece of rock or something
like that that's always getting into bread, you know; but after that he never
bit into nothing but what he jabbed his fork into it in three or four places
first.

     And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on piling
in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room in there to
get your breath.  By jings we forgot to fasten that lean-to door!  The nigger
Nat he only just hollered "Witches" once, and keeled over onto the floor
amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was dying.  Tom jerked the door
open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and the dogs went for it, and in
two seconds he was out himself and back again and shut the door, and I knowed
he'd fixed the other door too.  Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing
him and petting him and asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something
again.  He raised up, and blinked his eyes around, and says:

     "Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a
million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in dese
tracks.  I did, mos, sholy.  Mars Sid, I felt um - I felt um, sah; dey was
all over me.  Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's on one er dem
witches jis' wunst - on'y jis' wunst - it's all I'd ast.  But mos'ly I wisht
dey'd lemme 'lone, I does."

     Tom says:

     "Well, I tell you what I think.  What makes them come here just at this
runaway nigger's breakfast-time?  It's because they're hungry; that's the
reason.  You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for you to do."

     "But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie?  I doan'
know how to make it.  I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."

     "Well, then, I'll have to make it myself."

     "Will you do it, honey - will you?  I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo'
foot, I will!"

     "All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and
showed us the runaway nigger.  But you got to be mighty careful.  When we
come around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the pan,
don't you let on you see it at all.  And don't you look when Jim unloads the
pan - something might happen, I don't know what.  And above all, don't you
handle the witch things."

     "Hannel 'm, Mars Sid?  What is you a-talkin' 'bout?  I wouldn't lay de
weight er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion dollars, I
wouldn't."