Huckleberry Finn by Dave Mckay, Mark Twain (recommended books to read TXT) 📕

told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men returned; said they was up to some bad business or other -- wouldn’t be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I was too scared to come down.

 

Buck started to cry and shout, and promised that him and his cousin Joe (that was the other young man) would make up for this day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons had been waiting to take them by surprise. Buck said his father and brothers should have waited for their relatives -- the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they’d got across the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he had not killed Harney that day he tried to shoot him -- I ain’t ever heard anything like it.

 

All of a once, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns -- the men had moved secretly around through the trees and come in from behind without their horses! The boys jumped for the river -- both of them hurt -- and as they were swimming down the river the men run along the side shooting at them and singing out, “Kill them, kill them!” It made me so sick I almost fell out of the tree. I ain’t a-going to tell all that happened -- it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come to land that first night to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them -- lots of times I dream about them.

 

I stayed in the tree until it started to get dark, afraid to come down. At times I heard shooting off in the trees; and two times I seen gangs of men ride past the shop with guns; so I believed the trouble was still going on. I was mighty sad; so I said I wouldn’t ever go near that house again, because I believed I was to blame, in one way or another. I judged that that piece of paper was telling Miss Sophia to meet Harney at half-past two and run off; and I judged I should have told her father about that paper and the strange way she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful killing wouldn’t ever have happened.

 

When I got down out of the tree I went quietly along down the side of the river a piece, and found the two bodies lying in the shallow water, and pulled at them until I got them to land; then I covered up their faces, and got away as fast as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.

 

It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but went through the trees and made for the wet land. Jim weren’t on his island, so I walked off in a hurry to where the raft was hiding and crowded through the trees around it, red-hot to jump on and get out of that awful country. But the raft was gone! My living soul, but I was scared! I couldn’t breathe right for a minute. Then I let out a shout. A voice not twenty-five foot from me says: “Good land! is dat you, honey? Don’t make no noise.”

 

It was Jim’s voice -- nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the river a piece and got on the raft, and Jim he reached out and hugged me, he was so glad to see me. He says: "Lord bless you, child, I was right down sure you was dead again. Jack’s been here; he says he thinks you’s been killed, because you didn’t come home no more; so I’s just dis minute a starting de raft down toward de mouth of dis little side river, so as to be all ready for to push off and leave soon as Jack comes again and tells me for sure you is dead. Good Lord, I’s mighty glad to get you back again, honey."

 

I says: “All right -- that’s mighty good; they won’t find me, and they’ll think I’ve been killed, and my body has gone on down the river -- there’s something up there that’ll help them think so -- so don’t you lose no time, Jim, but just push off for the big water as fast as ever you can.”

 

I never felt easy until the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we put up our lantern, and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn’t had a bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn bread and milk, and salted meat and cabbage and greens -- there ain’t nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked right -- and while I ate my dinner we talked and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the wet land. We said there weren’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so squeezed up and hard to breathe in, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

 

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Two or three days and nights went by; I might say they flew, they was so quiet and smooth and nice. Here is the way we put in the time: It was a great big river down there -- sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, but soon as night was almost gone we stopped sailing and tied up -- nearly always in the dead water under a little island; and then cut young trees and covered the raft with them. Then we set out the fishing lines. Next we would get into the river and have a swim, so as to clean up and cool off; then we would sit on the sand on the bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watch the sun come up. Not a sound anywhere -- perfectly quiet -- just like the whole world was asleep, apart from maybe a few frogs at times. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of grey line -- that was the trees on t’other side; you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a light place in the sky; then more light reaching out; then the river would show up softly away off, and it weren’t black any more, but grey; you could see little dark spots moving along ever so far away -- business boats, and such things; and long black lines -- rafts.

 

At times you could hear an oar moving; or mixed up voices, it was so quiet, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a line on the water which you know by the look of it that there was a branch sticking up in the movement of water that breaks on it; and you see like a little cloud coming up off of the water, and the east turns red, and the river too, and then you can make out a log cabin looking out through the trees, away on t’other side of the river, often being a timber yard, likely with the cut timber made to look like more than it was by putting pieces on top of each other in a way to leave holes big enough to throw a dog through. Then a nice wind comes up, so cool and clean and sweet to smell on because of the trees and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish lying around, and they do get pretty awful; and next you’ve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song birds just going at it!

 

By that time our little smoke wouldn’t be easy to see, so we would take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And after, we would watch the big empty river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off to sleep, then wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a river boat coughing along up the river, so far off toward t'other side you couldn’t tell nothing about her only if she was a back wheel or a side wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn’t be nothing to hear and nothing to see -- just solid empty.

Next you’d see a raft going by, away off in the distance, and maybe a man on it cutting timber, because they’re most always doing it on a raft; you’d see the axe fly up and come down -- you don’t hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time it’s above the man’s head then you hear the k’chunk! -- it had took all that time to come over the water.

 

So we'd put in the whole day, lazying around, listening to the quiet.

 

Once there was a thick fog, and people on rafts and things that went by was hitting tin pans so the river boats wouldn’t run over them. A flat boat or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and using bad language and laughing -- heard them clear as anything; but we couldn’t see no sign of them; it made you feel strange; it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says:

 

“No; spirits wouldn’t say, ‘Curse the cursed fog.’”

 

Soon as it was night out we would push off again. When we got her out to about the middle we let her alone, and let her go wherever the river wanted her to; then we smoked the pipes, and put our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds of things -- we was always without real clothes, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us -- the new clothes Buck’s family made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn’t go much on clothes, anyway.

 

Sometimes we’d have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Off in the distance was the sides and the islands, across the water; and maybe the smallest little light -- which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water you could see a light or two -- on a raft or a flat boat, you know; and maybe you could hear a violin or a song coming over from one of them. It’s great to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all covered with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and talk about if they was made or only just happened. Jim he believed they was made, but I believed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a made them; well, that seemed easy enough to believe, so I didn’t say nothing against it, because I’ve seen a fog make almost as many, so that proved it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them come flying down. Jim believed it was ones that was too selfish and they was being pushed out of the nest.

 

One or two times each night we would see a river-boat coming along in the dark, and now and then she would cough up a whole world of fire and smoke from out of her chimneys, and the little pieces of fire would rain down in the river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would