Chapter 1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Ted Kaouk of Jacksonville, Florida. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Notice. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted. Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished. Persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By order of the author, Per G.G. Chief of Ordinance. Explanatory. In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit. The Missouri Negro dialect. The extremist form of the Backwoods Southwestern dialect. The Ordinary Pike County dialect. And four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion or by guesswork, but painstakingly and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. I make this explanation for the reason that without it, many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. The Author. Chapter 1. Discover Moses and the Bullrushers You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But that ain't no matter. That book was by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There were things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That's nothing. I had never seen anybody but Lide one time or other without it was Aunt Polly or the Witte or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly. Tom's Aunt Polly she is. And Mary. And the Witte Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book with some stretchers as I said before. Now the way that the book winds up is this. Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the game and it made us rich. We got $6,000 a piece. All gold. It was an awful set of money when it was all piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out in interest. And it fetched us a dollar a day a piece all the year round. More than the body could tell what to do with. The Witte Douglas she took me for her son and allowed she would civilize me. But it was rough living in the house all the time considering how dismal, regular and decent the Witte was in all her ways. And so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar hogs head again and was free and satisfied. But Tom swear he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. The widow she cried over me and called me a poor lost lamb and she called me a lot of other names too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in the new clothes again and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and feel all cramped up. Well then the old thing commenced again. The widow run a bill for supper and you had to come to time.  But it won't really anything to 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 things go better. After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the bull rushers and I wasn't a sweat to find out all about them. But by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time so that I didn't care no more about them because I don't take no stock in dead people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke and asked the widow to let me, but she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean and I must try not to do it anymore. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a bother about Moses which was no kin to her and no use to anybody being gone you see yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff too. Of course that was alright because she done it to herself. Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid with goggles on, had just come to live with her and took a set at me now with a spelling book. She worked me milling hard for about an hour and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, don't put your feet up there Huckleberry and don't scrunch up like that Huckleberry set up straight. And pretty soon she would say, don't gap and stretch like that Huckleberry why don't you try to behave. Then she told me all about the bad place and I said I wish I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres. All I wanted was a change. I weren't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said. Said she wouldn't say it for the whole world. She was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going so I made it in my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so because it would only make trouble and wouldn't do no good. Now she had got a start and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was go around all day long with a harp and sing forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it but I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there and she said not by a considerable side. I was glad about that because I wanted him and me to be together. Miss Watson she kept pecking at me and it got tiresome and lonesome.  I went up to my room with a piece of candle and put it on the table. Then I sat down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful but it weren't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful.  And the wind was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn't make out what it was and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood and so can't rest easy in its grave and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so downhearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need nobody to tell me what that was, an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck.  I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I had no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you found instead of nailing it up over the door. But I haven't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd kill the spider. I sat down again to shake it all over and got up my pipe for a smoke. The house was all as still as death now and so the widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock tick away off in the town to go boom, boom, boom, 12 licks and all still again, stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down the dark amongst the trees. Something was stirring. I sat still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a, down there. That was good, says I, meow, meow, as soft as I could. And then I put out the light and scrambled out of the window onto the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees. And sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Ted Kaouk of Jacksonville, Florida. Chapter 2 We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back toward the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scratched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was sitting in the kitchen door. We could see him pretty clear because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says, who dare? He listened some more and he came tiptoeing down and stood right between us. We could have touched him nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes there to warn the sound. And we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I didn't scratch it. And then my ear begun to itch. And next to my back, right between my shoulders, seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty of times since. If you are with the quality or at a funeral or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy, if you are anywhere where it won't do for you to scratch while you will itch all over in upward of a thousand places. Pretty soon, Jim says. Say, who is you? Why is you? Dog my cats if I didn't hear something. Well, I know what I was going to do. I was going to sit down here and listen till I hear it again. So we sat down on the ground between me and Tom. He leaned his back up against the tree and stretched his legs out to one of the most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I didn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next, I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to sit still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes. But it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckon I couldn't stand it more than a minute longer, but I sat in my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then, Jim began to breathe heavy. Next he began to snore. Tom, he made a sign to me.  And we went off creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off, Tom whispered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no. He might wake and make a disturbance and then they'd find out I weren't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to rescue it. So we slid in there and got three candles and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out and I wasn't as sweat to get away. But nothing would do Tom, but he must crawl to where Jim was on his hands and knees and place something on him. I waited and it seemed a good while. Everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path around the garden fence and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house.  Afterward Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance and rode him all over the state and then set him under the trees again and hung his hat on a limb to show who'd done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him to New Orleans and after that every time he told it he spread it more and more till by and by he said they rode him all over the world and tied him most to death and his back was all over saddle boils. Jim was monstrous proud of it and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look them all over same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things Jim would happen in and say, hmm, what you know about witches?  Jim always kept that five centerpiece around his neck with a string and said it was a charm the devil give him with his own hands and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had just for the sight of that five centerpiece but they wouldn't touch it because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling where there were sick folks maybe and the stars over us were sparkling and down by the village was the river a whole mile broad and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Joe Harper and Ben Rogers and two or three more of the boys hit an old tanyard so we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half to the big scar on the hillside and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes and Tom made everybody swear to keep a secret and then showed them a hole in the hill right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about 200 yards and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't have noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room that was damp and sweaty and cold and there we stopped. Tom says, Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath and write his name in blood. Everybody was willing so Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band and never tell any of the secrets and had anybody done anything to any boy in the band or person and his family must do it and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked across in their breasts which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark and if he did he must be sued and if he'd done it again he must be killed and if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets he must have his throat cut and then have his carcass burn up and rub it off the list with blood and never mention again by the big gang but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever. Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said some of it but the rest of it was out of pirate books and robber books and every gang that was high toned had it. Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea and wrote a pencil and wrote it in.  Well ain't he got a father? says Tom Sawyer. Yes he's got a father but you can't ever find him these days he used to lay drunk with the hogs and the tannered but he'd been seen in these parts for a year or more. They talked it over and they was gonna rule me out because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill nobody could think of anything to do everybody was stumped and set still I was most ready to cry but all at once I thought of a way and so I offered them Miss Watson they could kill her everybody said oh she'll do that's alright her can come in then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with and I made my mark on the paper now says Ben Rogers what's the line of business of this gang Tom said but who are we gonna rob houses or cattle or stuff stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery it's burglary says Tom Sawyer we ain't burglars that ain't no sort of style we are highwaymen we stop stages and carriages on the road with masks on and kill the people and take their watches and money must we always kill the people oh certainly it's best some authorities think different obviously it's considered best to kill them except some that you bring to the cave here and keep them till they're ransom ransom what's that I don't know but that's what they do I seen it in books and so of course that's what we've got to do but how could we do it if we don't know what it is why blame it all we've got to do it don't I tell you it's in the books do you want to go doing different from what's in the books and get things all muddled up oh that's all very fine to say Tom Sawyer but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransom if we don't know how to do it to them that's the thing I want to get out now what do you reckon it is well I don't know but perhaps if we keep them till they're ransom it means that we keep them till they're dead now that's something like that'll answer why couldn't you say that before we'll keep them there till they're ransom to death and a bothersome lot they'll be to eating up everything and always trying to get loose how you talk Ben Rogers how can they get loose when there's a guard over them ready to shoot them down if they move a peg well guard well that is good so somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep just so as to watch them I think that's foolishness why can't a body take a club and ransom as soon as they get here because it ain't in the books that's why now Ben Rogers do you want to do things regular or don't you that's the idea don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do do you reckon you can learn anything not by a good deal no sir we'll just go on and ranch with them in the regular way alright I don't mind but I say it's a fool's way anyhow say do we kill the women too well Ben Rogers if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on kill the women no nobody ever saw anything in the books like that you fetch them to the cave and you're always polite as pie to them and bye bye they fall in love with you and never want to go home anymore well that's the way I'm agreed but I don't take no stock in it might as soon will have the cave so cluttered up with women and fellows waiting to be ransom that there won't be no place for the robbers but go ahead I ain't got nothing to say little Tommy Barnes was asleep now and when they waked him up he was scared and cried and said he wanted to go home to his ma and didn't want to be a robber anymore so they all made fun of him and called him cry baby and that made him mad and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets but Tom gave him five cents to keep quiet and said we would all go home and meet next week and rob somebody and kill some people Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much only Sundays and so he wanted to begin next Sunday but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday and that settled the thing they agreed to get together and fix a day as soon as they could and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Joe Harper second captain of the gang and so started home I clumped up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking my new clothes was all greased up and clay and I was dog tired end of chapter 2 chapter 3 the adventures of Huckleberry Finn this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading is by Ted Kaouk of Jacksonville Florida Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain chapter 3 we ambuscade the A-Rabs well I got a good going over in the morning from old Miss Watson on account of my clothes but the widow she didn't scold but only cleaned off the grease and clay and looked so sorry that I thought I would behave a while if I could then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed but nothing come of it she told me to pray every day and whatever I asked for I would get it but it weren't so I tried it once I got a fish line but no hooks they weren't any good to me without hooks I tried for the hooks 3 or 4 times but somehow I couldn't make it work by and by one day I asked Miss Watson to try for me but she said I was a fool she never told me why I couldn't make it out in no way I went 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 Deakin win and get the money he lost on pork why can't the widow get back her silver snuff facts that was stole why can't Miss Watson fat up No says out of myself 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 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 last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it anymore but just let it go sometimes a 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 that there were two providences and a poor chap could stand considerable show with the widow's providence but if Miss Watson's got him there weren't no help for him anymore 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 going to be any better off than when he was before seeing I was so ignorant and so kind of low down and ordering Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year and that was comfortable for me I didn't want to see him no more he used to always wail on me when he was sober and could get his hands on me though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was round well about this time he was found in the river drowning about 12 miles above town they judged it was him anyway said this drowned man was just his size and was ragged and had uncommon long hair which was all like Pap but they couldn't take nothing out of the face because it had been in the water so long it weren't much like a face at all they said he was floating on his back in the water they took him and buried him on the bank but I wasn't comfortable long because I happened to think of something I know it might well that a drowned man don't float on his back but on his face so I know then this weren't Pap but a woman dressed up in an old man's clothes so I was uncomfortable again I judged the old man would turn up again by and by though I wished he wouldn't we played robber now and then about a month and then I resigned all the boys did we hadn't robbed nobody hadn't killed any people but only just pretended we used to hop out of the woods we'd run on hog drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market but we never hived any of them Tom Sawyer called the hogs ingots and he called the turnips and stuff jewelry and we would go to the cave and pow well over what we had done and how many people we had killed and marked but I couldn't see no profit in it one time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick which he called a slogan which was the sign for the gang to get together he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-Rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with 200 elephants and 600 camels and over a thousand Sumter mules all loaded down with diamonds and they didn't have only a guard of 400 soldiers and so we could lay an ambush gate as he called it and kill a lot and scoop the things he said we must slick up our swords and guns and get ready he never could go after even a turnip cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it though they was only lay them broomsticks and you might scour at them till you're rotted and then they weren't worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-Rabs but I wanted to see the camels and elephants so I was on hand next day Saturday in the ambush gate and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill but there weren't no Spaniards and A-Rabs and there weren't no camels nor new elephants there weren't anything but a Sunday school picnic and only a primer class at that we busted it up and chased the children up the hollow but we never got anything but some donuts and jam though Ben Rogers got a ragdoll and Joe Harper got a hymnbook and a tract and then the teacher charged and made us drop everything and cut I didn't see no diamonds and I told Tom Sawyer so he said there were loads of them there and he said there was A-Rabs too and elephants and things I said, why couldn't we see them then he said if I weren't so ignorant but I'd read a book called Don Quixote I wouldn't know without asking he said it was all done by enchantment he said there was hundreds of soldiers there and elephants and treasure and so on but we had enemies which he called magicians and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday school just out of spite I said, alright and the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians Tom Sawyer said I was a numb skull why said he a magician could call up a lot of genies and they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson they are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church well I says, suppose we got some genies to help us can't we lick the other crowd then how are you gonna get them I don't know how do they get them why they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring and then the genies come tearing in with the thunder and lightning are ripping around and the smoke are rolling and everything they're told to do, they up and do it they don't think nothing of pulling a shop tower up by the roots and belting a Sunday school superintendent over the head with it or any other man what makes them tear around so why whoever rubs the lamp or the ring they belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring and they've got to do whatever he says if he tells them to build a palace 40 miles long out of diamonds and fill it full of chewing gum or whatever you want and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to marry they've got to do it and they've got to do it before sun up next morning too and more they've got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand well, says I I think they're a pack of fed heads for not keeping the palace themselves instead of fooling around like that and what's more, if I was one of them before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp how you talk, Huck Finn why, you'd have to come when you rubbed it whether you wanted to or not what, an eye as high as a tree and as big as a church alright then, I would come but I lay out and make that lamb climb the highest tree there was in the country shucks it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn you don't seem to know anything somehow perfect sap head I thought all this over for two or three days and then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an engine calculating to build a palace and sell it but it weren't no use none of the genius come so then I judged that all that stuff was just one of Tom Sawyer's lies I reckoned he believed in the A-Rabs and the elephants but as for me, I think different it had all the marks of a Sunday school End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This reading is by Ted Kaouk of Jacksonville, FL Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 4 The Hairball Oracle Well 3 or 4 months run along and it was well in the winter now I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little and could say the multiplication table up to 6 times 7 is 35 and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever I don't take no stock in mathematics anyway because I hated the school but by and by I got so I could stand it whenever I got uncomfortable or tired I played hooky and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up the longer I went to school the easier it got to be I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways too and they weren't so raspy on me living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes I liked the old ways best but I was getting used so I liked the new ones too a little bit the widow said I was coming along slow but sure and doing very satisfactory she said she weren't ashamed of me one morning I happened to turn over the salt seller at breakfast I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck but Miss Watson was in the head of me and crossed me off as a way Huckleberry, what a mess you are always making the widow put in a good word for me but that weren't going to keep off the bad luck I know that well enough I started out after breakfast feeling worried and shaky and wondering where it was going to fall on me and what it was going to be there's ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck but this wasn't one of them kind so I never tried to do anything but just poked along low spirited and on the watch out I went down to the front garden and clump over the style where you go through the high board fence there was an inch of new snow on the ground and I seen somebody's tracks they had come up from the quarry and stood around the style a while and then went on around the garden fence it was funny they hadn't come in after standing around so I couldn't make it out I was very curious somehow I was going to follow around but I stooped down to look at the tracks first I didn't notice anything at first the next I did there was a cross in the left boot hill made with big nails to keep off the devil I was up in a second and shinin' down the hill I looked over my shoulder every now and then but I didn't see nobody I was at judge stature as quick as I could get there he said why my boy you're all out of breath did you come for your interest no sir I says is there some for me a half yearly isn't last night over a hundred and fifty dollars quite a fortune for you you had better let me invest it along with your six thousand because if you take it you'll spend it no sir I says I don't want to spend it I don't want it at all nor the six thousand other I want you to take it I want to give it to you the six thousand and all he looked surprised he couldn't seem to make it out he says why what can you mean my boy please you'll take it won't you he says well I'm puzzled is something the matter please take it says I and don't ask me nothing but I won't have to tell no lies he studied a while and then he says oh I think I see you want to sell all your property to me not give it that's the correct idea then he wrote something on a paper and read it over and says there you see it says for a consideration I have bought it of you and paid you for it here's a dollar for you now you sign it so I signed it and left Miss Watson's nigger Jim had a hair ball as big as your fists which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox and he used to do magic with it he said there was a spirit inside of it and it knowed everything so I went to him that night and told him Pap was here again for I found his tracks in the snow what I wanted to know was what was he going to do and was he going to stay Jim got out his hair ball and said something over it and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor it felt pretty solid and only rolled about an inch Jim tried it again and then another time and it acted just the same Jim got down on his knees and put his ear against it and listened but it weren't no use he said it wouldn't talk he said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that weren't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little and it wouldn't pass know-how even if the brass didn't show because it was so slick it felt greasy and so that would tell on it every time I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge I said it was pretty bad money but maybe the hair ball would take it because maybe it wouldn't know the difference Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it and said he would manage so the hair ball would think it was good he said he would slip open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night and next morning you couldn't see no brass and it wouldn't feel greasy no more and so anybody in town would take it in a minute let alone a hair ball well I know the potato would do that before but I had forgot it Jim put the quarter under the hair ball and got down and listened again this time he said the hair ball was alright he said it would tell my whole future if I wanted to and I says go on so the hair ball talked to Jim and Jim told it to me he says the old father don't know yet what he's going to do sometimes he specs he'll go away and then again he spec he'll stay the best way is to rest easy and let the old man take his own way there's two angels hovering around about him one of them is white and shiny and the other one is black the white one gets him to go right a little while then the black one sailing and busted all up a body can't tell yet which one going to fetch him at the last but you is alright you're going to have considerable trouble in your life and considerable joy sometimes you're going to get hurt and sometimes you're going to get sick but every time you's going to get well again there's two gals flying about you in your life one of them is light and the other one is dark one of them is rich and the other one is poor you's going to marry the poor one first and then the rich one buy and buy you wants to keep away from the water as much as you can and don't run no risk case it's down in the bills that you's going to get hung when I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat Pat his own self end of chapter 4 chapter 5 the adventures of Huckleberry Finn this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are on the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading is by Ted Cowick of Jacksonville, Florida Huckleberry Finn chapter 5 Pat starts in on a new life I had shut the door too then I turned around and there he was I used to be scared of him all the time he tanned me so much I reckon I was scared now too but in a minute I see I was mistaken that is after the first jolt as you may say my breast sort of hitched but right away after I see I weren't scared of him worth bothering about he was most 50 and he looked it his hair was long and tangled and greasy and hung down and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines it was all black, no gray so was his long mixed up whiskers there weren't no color in his face where his face showed it was white not like another man's white a white to make a body's flesh crawl a tree-toed white a fish-belly white as for his clothes just rags that was all he had one ankle resting on the other knee the boot on that foot was busted and two of his toes stuck through and he worked them now and then his hat was laying on the floor an old black slouch with the top caved in like a lid I stood a looking at him he sat there a looking at me with his chair tilted back a little I set the candle down I noticed the window was up so he had come in by the shed he kept a looking me all over by and by he says starchy clothes, Barry you think you're a good deal of a big bug, don't you? maybe I am maybe I ain't don't give me none of your lip says he you put on considerable many frills I've been away I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you you're educated too they say, can read and write you think you're better than your father now, don't you? because he can't I'll take it out of you who told you you might meddle with such highfalutin' fools hey, who told you you could? the widow she told me the widow, hey and told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business nobody never told her well, I'll learn her how to meddle and looky here, you dropped that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on air of his over his own father and let on to be better than what he is you let me catch you foolin' around that school again, you hear? your mother couldn't read and she couldn't write neither before she died none of the family could before they died I can't and here you're a swellin' yourself up like this I ain't the man to stand it, you hear? say let me hear you read I took up a book and begun something about General Washington in the wars when I'd read about a half a minute he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house he says, it's so you can do it I had my doubts when he told me now looky here, you stop that puttin' on frills I won't have it I'll lay for you my smarty about that school I'll tan you good first you know, you'll get religion too I never see such a son he took up a little blue and yellow picture of some cows and a boy and says what's this? it's something they give me for learning my lessons good he tore it up and says I'll give you something better I'll give you a cow hide he sat there a mumbling and a growlin' a minute and then he says you know, a bed and bed clothes and a looking glass and a piece of carpet on the floor and your own father got to sleep with the hogs and the tanyard I never see such a son I bet I'll take some of these frills out of you before I'm done with you why there ain't no end to your heirs they say you're rich hey how's that they lie, that's how looky here mind how you talk to me I'm not standing about all I can stand now so don't give me no sass I've been to town two days and ain't heard nothing but about you being rich I heard it a way down the river too that's why I come you get me that money tomorrow I want it I ain't got no money it's a lie Judge Thatcher's got it you get it, I want it I ain't got no money I tell you you ask Judge Thatcher he'll tell you the same alright, I'll ask him and I'll make him pungle too or I'll know the reason why say how much you got in your pocket I want it I ain't only got a dollar it don't make no difference what you want it for you just shell it out he took it and bid it to see if it was good and then he said he was going downtown to get some whiskey said he hadn't had a drink all day when he got out on the shed he put his head in again and tried to be better than him and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again and told me to mind about that school because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that next day he was drunk and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bully ragged and tried to make him give up the money but he couldn't and then he swore he'd make the law force him the judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian but it was a new judge that had just come and he didn't know the old man so he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it so he'd rather not take a child away from his father so Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business that pleased the old man till he couldn't rest he said he'd cow hide me till I was black and boo if I didn't raise some money for him I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher and Pap took it and got drunk and went a blowing around and cussing and carrying on and he kept it up all over town with a tin pan till most midnight then they jailed him and next day they had him before court and jailed him again for a week but he said he was satisfied said he was boss of his son and he'd make it warm for him when he got out the new judge said he was going to make a man of him so he took him to his own house and dressed him up clean and nice and had him to breakfast there was just old pie to him so to speak and after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried and said he'd been a fool and fooled away his life but now he was going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him the judge said he could hug him for them words so he cried and his wife she cried again Pap said he'd been a man before and the judge said he believed it the old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy and the judge said it was so so they cried again and when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand and says look at it gentlemen ladies all take a hold of it shake it there's a hand that was the hand of a haul but it ain't so no more it's the hand of a man that started in on a new life and died before he'll go back you mark them words don't forget I said them it's a clean hand now shake it don't be afraid so they shook it one after the other all around and cried the judge's wife she kissed it then the old man he signed a pledge made his mark the judge said it was the holiest time on record or something like that then they took the old man into a beautiful room which was the spare room at that time he got powerful thirsty and clumped out under the porch roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of 40 rod and clumped back down again and had a good old time and toward daylight he crawled out again drunk as a fiddler and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun up and when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it the judge he felt connoisseur he said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun maybe but he didn't know no other way End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by John Welsh The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 6 Well pretty soon the old man was up and around again and he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money and he went for me too for not stopping school He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me but I went to school just the same and dodged him around running most of the time I didn't want to go to school much before but I reckoned I'd go now despite Pat That law trial was a slow business It all appeared like they weren't ever going to get started on it so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off the judge for him to keep him getting a cow hiding Every time he got money he got drunk and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town and every time he raised Cain he got jailed He was just suited this kind of thing was right in his life He got to hanging around the widows too much and so she told him at last if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him Well, wasn't he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss so he watched out for me one day in the spring and catch me and took me up the river about three miles in a skip and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there weren't no houses but no log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was He kept me with him all the time and I never got a chance to run off We lived in that old cabin and he always locked the door and put the key under his headlights He had a gun which he had stole I reckon and we fished and hunted and that was what we lived on Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store three miles to the ferry and traded fishing game for whiskey and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time and licked me The widow she found out where I was buying by and she sent a man over to try and get a hold of me but Pat drove him off with a gun and it worked long after that till I was used to being where I was and licked it all but the cow hide part It was kind of lazy and jolly laying off comfortable all day smoking and fishing and no books in her study Two months or more run along and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt and I didn't see how I'd ever get to like it so well at the widow's We had to wash, meet on a plate and comb up and go to bed and get up regular and be forever bothering over a book and have Ole Miss Watson pecking at you all the time I didn't want to go back no more I'd stopped cussing because the widow didn't like it but now I took to it again because Pat had no objections It was pretty good at times up there in the woods take it all around but buying by Pat got too handy with his hickory and I couldn't stand it I was all over welts He got the going away so much too Once he locked me in and was gone three days it was dreadful lonesome I judged he had got drowned and I wasn't ever going to get out anymore I was scared I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there I tried to get out of that cabin many a time but I couldn't find no way there weren't a window to it big enough for a dog to get through I couldn't get up the chimney it was too narrow the door was thick solid oak slabs Pat was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times while I was most all the time at it because it was the only way to put in the time but this time I found something that last I found an old rusty wood saw without any handle it was laid in between a rafter and the clappards of the roof I greased it up and went to work there was an old horse blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table to keep a wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out I got under the table and raised the blanket and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out big enough to let me through well it was a good long job but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard Pat's gun in the woods I got rid of the signs of my work and dropped the blanket ahead of my saw and pretty soon Pat came in Pat warned in a good humor so he was his natural self he said he was downtown and everything was going wrong his lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial but then there was ways to put it off a long time and Judge Thaster had known how to do it and he said people allowed there to be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian and they guessed it would win this time this shook me up considerable because I didn't want to go back to the widows anymore and be so cramped up and civilized as they called it then the old man got the cuss in everything and everybody he could think of and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any and after that he polished off with a kind of general cuss all around including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names of and so called them what's his name when he got to then went right along with his cussing he said he'd like to see the widow get me he said he would watch out and if they tried to comb any such game on him he know to play six or seven mile off to stow me where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find me that made me pretty uneasy again but only for a minute I reckon I wouldn't stay on hand until the old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he'd got there was a 50 pound sack of corn meal and a side of bacon ammunition and a four gallon jug of whiskey and an old book and two newspapers for wine besides some toad I towed it up a load and went back to the west I thought it all over and I reckon I would walk off with a gun and some lines and take to the woods when I run away I guess I wouldn't stay in one place but just tramp right across the country mostly night times and hunting fish to keep alive and get so far away that the old man nor the widow could never find me anymore I judged I would saw out and leave that night if Pat got drunk enough and I reckoned he would I didn't notice how long I was staying until the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drowned I got the things all up to the cabin and then it was about dark while I was up cooking supper the old man took a swig of chewing out sort of warmed up and went to ripping again he'd been drunk over in town and laid in the gutter all night and he was a sat to look at a buddy would think he was Adam he was just all mud whenever his liquor began to work this time he says call this a government while I just look at it to see what it's like here's the law standing ready to take a man's son away from him a man's own son in which he's had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising yes just as that man has got that son raised at last and ready to go to work and begin to do something for him and give him a rest the law up and goes for him and they call that government the law backs that old thatcher up there and helps him to keep me out of my property here's what the law does the law takes a man's worth six thousand dollars in upwards and jams him into an old drap of a cabin like this and lets him go around and close that ain't fitting for a haul take all that government a man can't get his rights in a government like this sometime I have a mind and notion to just leave the country for good and all yes and I told him so I told a judge thatcher do his face lots of them heard me and can tell what I said says I for two cents I leave the blame country and never come near it again them's the very words I says look at my hat if you call it a hat but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down that is below my chin then it ain't rightly a hat at all but more like my head was shoved up through a gentle stove pipe I said to hat for me to wear one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could get my rights oh yes this is a wonderful government wonderful there was a free nigger there from Ohio in their lotter most as wide as a white man he had the widest shirt on you ever see too in the shiniest hat there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had and he had a gold watch and a chain and a silver-headed cane and he was involved in the state and what do you think? they said he was a professor in college he could talk all kinds of languages and know everything and that ain't the worst they said he could vote when he was at home well that let me out thinks where is this country coming to it was election day and I was just about to go and vote myself if I weren't too drunk to get there but when they told me there was a state in this country and I said I'll never vote again there was a very word I said and they all heard me and the country may rot for all of me I'll never vote again as long as I live and to see that cool way of that nigger well he wouldn't give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out of the way I said to the people why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold that's what I want to know and what do you reckon they said well they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the state six months there now that's a specimen they call that a government and can't sell a free nigger until he's been in the state six months here's a government that calls itself a government and lets all of them to be a government and thinks it is a government and yet it's got to sit stock still for six whole months before it can take hold of a prowling themed and infernal white sugar free nigger and Pat was going on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taken into so he went over head over heels over the tub of salt fork and barked both shins the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of language mostly home at the nigger and the government but we give the tub some too all along here and there he hopped around the cabin considerable first on one leg and then on the other holding first one shin and then the other one and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rathlin kick but it weren't good judgment because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it so now we raised a howl that fella made about his hair rise and down he went in the dirt and rolled there and held his toes and the cussing he had done then laid over everything he had ever done previous he said so his own self afterwards he had heard all so very hanging in his best days and he said it laid over him too but I reckon that was sort of piloted at all maybe after supper pat took the jug and he said he had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one delirium drums that was always his word I judged he would be blind drunken in about an hour and then I would steal the key or saw myself out one of the other he drank and drank and tumbled down on his blankets by and by but luck didn't run my way he didn't go sound asleep but was uneasy he groaned and moaned and thrashed around his way in that for a long time at last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do so before I know what I was about I found a sleep in the candle bourbon I don't know how long I was asleep but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up there was Pat looking wild skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes he said there was crawling up his legs and then he would give a jump and a scream on the cheek but I couldn't see no snakes he started running around all around the cabin howling take him off, take him off, he's biting me on the neck I never see a man look so wild in the eyes pretty soon he was all fagged out and fell down panting then he rolled over and over wonderful fast kicking things every which way and striking and grabbing at air with his hands and screaming and saying there was devils ahold of him he wore out by and by a moan and he laid stiller and didn't make a sound I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods and it seemed terrible still he was laying over on the corner by and by he raised up part way and listened with his head to one side he says very low tramp, tramp, tramp that's the dead tramp, tramp tramp they're coming after me but I won't go oh they're here don't touch me don't hands off they're cold let go oh let a poor devil alone then he went down on all fours and crawled off begging him to let him alone and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pond table still a begging and then he went to crying I could hear him through the blanket by and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild and he see me and went for me he chased me around and round my place with a class map calling me the angel of death and saying he would kill me and then I couldn't come for him no more I begged and told him I was only hooked but he laughed such a screechy laugh and roared and cussed and kept on chasing me up once when I turned short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders and I thought I was gone but I split out of the jacket quick as Latin and saved myself pretty soon he was all tired out and he dropped down with his back against the door and said he would rest a minute and then kill me he put his knife under him and said he would sleep and get strong and then he would see who was who so he dozed off pretty soon by and by I got the old split bottom chair and clumped up as easy as I could not to make any noise and got down the gun I slipped the ramrod down to make sure it was loaded and then I laid it across the turnip barrel pointing towards pap and waited for him to stir and how slow and still the time did drag along End of Chapter 6 Recording by John Welch Chapter 7 Of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Patricia York The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Chapter 7 Get up what you bout I opened my eyes and looked around trying to make out where I was it was after sun up and I had been sound asleep Pap was standing over me looking sour and sick too he says what you doing with this gun I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing so I says somebody tried to get in so I was laying for him why didn't you rouse me out well I tried to but I couldn't I couldn't budge ya well alright don't stand there pull avarine all day but be out with ya and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast long in a minute he unlocked the door and I cleared out up the river bank I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down and a sprinkling of bark so I'd know the river had begun to rise I reckon I would have great times now if I was over at the town the June rise used to be always luck for me because as soon as that rise begins here comes cored wood floating down and pieces of log graphs sometimes a dozen logs together so all you have to do is catch them and sell them to the wood yards in the sawmill I went along up the bank with one eye out for path and the other one out for what the rise might fetch along well all at once here comes a canoe just a beauty too about 13 or 14 foot long riding high like a duck I shot head first off of the bank like a frog clothes and all on and struck out for the canoe I just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it because people often done that to fool folks and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd raise up and laugh at him but it weren't so this time it was a drift canoe sure enough I clumped in and paddled her to shore thanks I the old man will be glad when he sees this she's worth ten dollars but when I got to shore Pat wasn't in sight yet and as I was running her into a little creek like a golly all hugged over with vines and willows I struck another idea I judged I'd hide her good and then instead of taking to the woods when I run off I'd go down to the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good and not have such a rough time tramping on foot it was pretty close to the shanty and I thought I heard the old man coming all the time but I got her head then I out and looked around a bunch of willows and there was the old man down the path of peace just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun so he hadn't seen anything when he got along I was hard at it taking up a trot line he abused me a little for being so slow but I told him I fell in the river and that's what made me so long I knowed he would see I was wet and then he would be asking questions he got five catfish off the lines and went home while we laid off after breakfast to sleep up both of us being about wore out I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep patting the widow from trying to follow me it would be a certain her thing then trusting to luck to get far enough off before they miss me you see all kind of things might happen but I didn't see no way for a while but by and by a pat raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water and he says another time a man comes prowling around here you rouse me out you hear that man weren't here for no good I had a shot him next time you rouse me out you hear then he dropped down and went to sleep again but what he had been saying give me the very idea I wanted I says to myself I can fix it now so nobody won't think of following me about 12 o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank the river was coming up pretty fast and lots of driftwood going by on the rise by and by a long comes part of the log graft nine logs fast together we went out with a skiff and towed to the shore then we had dinner anybody but Pat would have waited and seen the day through so as to catch more stuff but that weren't Pat's style nine logs was enough for one time he must shove right over to town and sail soon he locked me in and took the skiff and started off towing the raft about half past three I judged he wouldn't come back that night I waited till I reckon he had got a good start then I out with my saw and went to work on that log again before he was to other side of the river I was out of that hole and his raft was just a speck on the water way off yonder I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was head and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in and then I done the same thing with the side of bacon and the whiskey jug I took out all the coffee and sugar there was and all the ammunition I took the widen, I took the bucket and the gourd I took a dipper and a tin cup and my old saw and two blankets and a skillet I took fish lines and matches and other things everything that was worth a cent I cleaned out the place I wanted an axe but there weren't any only one out at the wood pile and I knowed why I was going to leave that I fetched out the gun and now I was done I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things so I fixed that as good as I could I decided by scattering dust on the place which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust then I fixed the piece of log back into its place and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch the ground if you stood four or five feet away and didn't know it was sawd you wouldn't never notice it and besides this was the back of the cabin and it weren't likely anybody down there it was all grass clear to the canoe so I hadn't left a track I followed around to sea I stood on the bank looked out over the river all safe so I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms I shot this fella and took him into camp I took the axe and smashed it in the door I beat it and hacked it considerable of doing it, fetched the pig in and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe and laid him down on the ground to bleed I say ground cause it was ground hard packed in no boards well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it all like a drag and I started it from the pig and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in and down it sunk out of sight you could easily see that something had been dragged over the ground I did wish Tom Sawyer was there I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business and throw in the fancy touches nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing like that well last I pulled out some of my hair and bloodied the axe good and stuck it at the back side and slung the axe in the corner then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket so he couldn't drip till I got a good piece below the house and dumped him into the river now I thought of something else so I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe and fetched them up to the house I took the bag where it used to stand and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw for there weren't no knives or forks on the place papped on everything with his clasp knife about the cooking then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes and ducks too you might say in season there was a slow or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away I don't know where but it didn't go to the river I dropped paps wet stone there too so as to look like it had been done by accident then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string so it wouldn't leak no more and took it and my saw to the canoe again it was about dark now so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank and waited for the moon to rise I made fast to a willow then I took a bite to eat and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan I says to myself they'll follow the track of that sack full of rocks to the shore then drag the river for me then they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things they won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass they'll soon get tired of that and won't bother no more about me alright I can stop anywhere I want to Jackson's Island is good enough for me I know that island pretty well and nobody ever comes there and then I can paddle over to town nights and slink around and pick up things I want Jackson Island's the place I was pretty tired and the first thing I knowed I was asleep when I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute I set up and looked around a little scared then I remembered the river looked miles and miles across the moon was so bright I could have counted the drift logs that went a slipping along black and still hundreds of yards out from shore everything was dead quiet and it looked light and smelt light you know what I mean I don't know the words to put it in I took a good gap and stretch and was just going to unhitch and start when I heard a sound way over the water I listened pretty soon I made it out it was that dull kind of regular sound that comes from oars working in rollox when it's a still night I peeped out through the willow branches and there it was a skiff away across the water I couldn't tell how many was in it it kept a coming and when it was abreast of me I see there weren't but one man in it thinks I maybe it's Pat though I weren't expecting him he dropped below me with the current and by and by he came swinging up shore in the easy water he went by so close I could have reached out the gun and touched him well it was Pat sure enough and sober too by the way he laid his oars I didn't lose no time the next minute I was a spinning downstream soft but quick in the shade of the bank I made two mile and a half and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more toward the middle of the river because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing and people might see me and hail me I got out amongst the driftwood then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float I laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe looking away into the sky not a cloud in it the sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine I never knowed it before and how far a body can hear the on the water such nights I heard people talking at the ferry landing I heard what they said too every word of it one man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights now the other one said this weren't one of the short ones he reckoned and then they laughed and he said it over again and they laughed again then they waked up another fella but he didn't laugh he ripped out something brisk and said let him alone first fella said he'd allowed to tell it to his old woman she would think it was pretty good but he said that weren't nothing to some things he had said in his time I heard one man say it was nearly three o'clock and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than about a week longer after that the talk got further and further away I couldn't make out the words anymore but I could hear the mumble and now and then a laugh too but it seemed a long ways off I was away below the ferry now I rose up and there was Jackson's island about two mile and a half downstream heavy timbered and standing up out of the middle of the river big and dark and solid like a steamboat without any lights but weren't any signs of the bar he said it was all under water now it didn't take me long to get there I shot past the head at a ripping rate the current was so swift and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side toward the Illinois shore I run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about I had to part the willow branches to get in and when I made fast nobody could have seen the canoe from outside I went up and sat down on a log at the head of the island and looked out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town three mile away where there was three or four lights twinkling a monstrous big lumber raft was about a mile upstream coming along down with a lantern in the middle of it I watched it come creeping down and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say stern oars there, heaver head to starboard I heard that just as plain as if the man was by my side there was a little gray in the sky now so I stepped in the woods and laid down for a nap before breakfast this is the end of chapter 7 this has been a LibriVox recording Chapter 8 of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Markus Wachenheim The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Chapter 8 The sun was up so high when I walked that I judged it was after 8 o'clock I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about things and feeling rested and rather comfortable and satisfied I could see the sun out at one or two holes but mostly it was big trees all about and gloomy in there amongst them there was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves and the freckled places swapped about a little showing there was a little breeze up there these squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly I was powerful, lazy and comfortable didn't want to get up and cook breakfast well I was dozing off again when I think I hear a deep sound of boom away up the river I rouses up and rests on my elbow and listens pretty soon I hears it again I hopped up and went and looked out at a hole in the leaves there was a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways up about to breast the ferry and there was the ferry boat full of people floating along down I knowed what was the matter now boom I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferry boat side you see there was fire and cannon over the water trying to make my car cast come to the top I was pretty hungry but I won't go into do for me to start a fire because they might see the smoke so I sat there and watched the cannon smoke and listened to the boom the river was a mile wide there and it always looked pretty on a summer morning so I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to eat well then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver and loafs of bread and float them off because they always go right to the drowned car cast so says I I'll keep a look out and if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show I changed to the ill-noise edge of the island to see what look I could have and I weren't disappointed a big double loaf come along and I most got it with a long stick but my foot slipped and she floated out further of course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore I knowed enough for that but by and by along comes another one and this time I won I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver and set my teeth in it was baker's bread what the quality eat none of your low down compound I got a good place amongst the leaves and sat there on a log munching the bread and watching the ferry boat and very well satisfied and then something struck me that says now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me and here it has gone and done it so there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing that is there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays but it don't work for me and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke and went on watching the ferry boat was floating with the current and I allowed I to have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along because she would come in close where the bread did when she got pretty well along down towards me I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread and lay down behind the log on the bank in a little open place where the log forked I could peep through by and by she come along and lifted in so close that they could have run out a plank and walked ashore most everybody was on that boat Pop and Judge Thatcher and Bessie Thatcher and Joe Harper and Tom Sawyer and his old Aunt Polly and Sid and Mary and plenty more everybody was talking about the murder but the captain broke in and says look sharp now the current sets in the closest here got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge I hope so anyway well I didn't hope so they all crowded up and leaned over the rails nearly in my face and kept still watching with all their might I could see them first rate but they couldn't see me then the captain sung out stand away and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deaf with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke and I judged I was gone if they'd had some bullets in I reckon they'd have got the corpse they was after well I see it won't hurt thanks to goodness the boat floated on and went out aside around the shoulder of the island I could hear the boomin' now and then further and further off and by and by after an hour I didn't hear it no more the island was three mile long I judged they had got to the foot and was giving it up but they didn't yet a while they turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side under steam and boomin' once in a while as they went I crossed over to that side and watched them when they got abreast the head of the island they quit shootin' and dropped over to the Missouri shore to the town I knowed I was all right now nobody else would come a-hunting after me I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw and towards sundown I started my campfire and had supper then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast when it was dark I sat by my campfire smokin' and feelin' pretty well satisfied but by and by it got sorta lonesome and so I went and sat on the bank and listened to the currents washin' along and counted the stars and drift logs and rafts that come down and then went to bed there ain't no better way to put in time you can't say so you soon get over it and so for three days and nights no difference just the same thing but the next day I went exploring around down through the island I was boss of it it all belonged to me so to say and I wanted to know all about it but mainly I wanted to put in the time I found plenty strawberries ripe and prime and green summer grapes raspberries and the green blackberries was just beginning to show they would all come handy by and by I judged well, I went foolin' along in the deep woods till I judged I weren't far from the foot of the island I had my gun along but I hadn't shot nothin' it was for protection thought I would kill some game I home about this time I mighty near stepped on a good sized snake off through the grass and flowers and I after it, trying to get a shot at it I clipped along and all of a sudden I bounded right onto the ashes of a campfire that was still smoking my heart jumped up amongst my lungs I never waited for it to look further but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as I ever could every now and then I stopped second amongst the thick leaves and listened but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothin' else I slung along another piece further then listened again and so on and so on if I see a stump I took it for a man if I trod on a stick and broke it it made me feel like a person that cut one of my breaths into and I only got half and the short half too when I got to the camp I weren't feelin' very brash there weren't much sand in my craw but I says this ain't no time to be foolin' around so I got all my traps in to my canoe again so as to have them out of sight and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last year's camp and then comb a tree I reckon I was up in the tree two hours but I didn't see nothin' I didn't hear nothin' I only thought I heard and seen as much as a thousand things well I couldn't stay up there forever so at last I got down but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time all I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast by the time it was night I was pretty hungry so when it was good and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinois Bank about a quarter of a mile I went out in the woods and cooked a supper and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all night when I hear a plunkety-plunk plunkety-plunk and says to myself horse is comin' and next I hear people's voices I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could and went creepin' through the woods to see what I could find out I hadn't got far when I hear a man say we better camp here we can find a good place the horses is about beat out let's look around I didn't wait but shoved out and paddled away easy I tied up in the old place and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe I didn't sleep much I couldn't somehow for thinking and every time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck so the sleep didn't do me no good by and by I says to myself I live this way I'm going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me I'll find it out or bust well I felt better right off so I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows the moon was shining and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day I poked along well onto an hour everything still is rocks and sound asleep well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island a little ripply cool breeze began to blow and that was as good as saying the night was about done I give her a turn with the paddle and brung her nose to shore then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge of the woods I sat down there on a log and looked out through the leaves I see the moon go off watch and the darkness begin to blanket the river but in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops and know the day was coming so I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that campfire stopping every minute or two to listen but I had no luck somehow I couldn't seem to find the place but by and by sure enough I catch the glimpse of a fire away through the trees I went for it cautious and slow by and by I was close enough to have a look and there laid a man on the ground it most give me the phantas he had a blanket around his head and his head was nearly in the fire I sat there behind the clump of bushes in about six foot of him and kept my eyes on him steady it was getting grey daylight now pretty soon he capped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket and it was Miss Watson's Jim I bet I was glad to see him I says hello Jim and skipped out he bounced up and stared at me wild then he drops down on his knees and puts his hand together and says don't hurt me don't I ain't ever done no harm to a ghost I always like dead people and done all I could for him you go and get in the river again what you belongs and don't don't do nothing to old Jim and as always your friend well I weren't long making him understand I wasn't dead I was ever so glad to see Jim I weren't lonesome now I told him I weren't afraid of him telling the people where I was I talked along but he only sat there and looked at me never said nothing then I says it's good daylight let's get breakfast make up your campfire good what's the use of making a campfire to cook strawberries and such-talk but you got a gun ain't ya then we can get something better than strawberries strawberries and such-talk I says is that what you live on I couldn't get nothin' else he says why how long you been on the island Jim I come here the night after you's killed what all that time yes indeedy and ain't you had nothin' but that kind of rubbish to eat nothin' else well you must be most starved ain't ya I reckon I could eat a horse I think I could how long you been on the island since the night I got killed no why what has you lived on but you got a gun oh yes you got a gun that's good now you kill something and I'll make up the fire so we went out over what we knew was and while he built a fire in a grassy open place amongst the trees I fetched meal and bacon and coffee and coffee pot and frying pan and sugar and tin cups and the nigger was set back to considerable because he reckoned it was all done with rich craft I catched a good big catfish too and Jim cleaned him with his knife and fried him when breakfast was ready we lulled on the grass and ate it smokin' hot Jim laid it in with all his mat for he was most about starved then when we had got pretty well stuffed we laid off and lazied by and by Jim says but looky here hook who was it that was killed in that shanty if it ain't weren't you then I told him the whole thing and he said it was smart and he said Tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had then I says how do you come to be here Jim and how'd you get here he looked pretty uneasy and didn't say nothing for a minute then he says maybe I better not tell why Jim well there's reasons but you wouldn't tell on me if I was to tell you would you hook blamed if I would Jim well I believe you hook I run off Jim but mine you said you wouldn't tell you know you said you wouldn't tell hook well I did I said I wouldn't and I'll stick to it honest engine I will people would call me a low down abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum but that don't make no difference I ain't gonna tell and I ain't going back there anyways so now let's know all about it well you see it is this way old Mrs that Mrs Watson she pecks on me all the time and treats me pretty rough but she always said she wouldn't sell me down to Orleans but I noticed there was a nigger trade around the place considerable lately and I began to get uneasy well one night I creeps to the door put it late and the door won't quite shut and I hear old Mrs tell the winner she gonna sell me down to Orleans but she didn't wanna but she could get $800 for me and it was such a big stack of money she couldn't resist the winner she try to get her to say she wouldn't do it but I never waited to hear the rest I lit out mighty quick I tell you I took out and shunned down the hill and spec'd to steal a skiff along the shore somewhere was above the town but there was people stirring yet so I hid in the old tumble down caught my shop on the bank to wait for everybody to go away well I was there all night there was somebody around all the time long about six in the morning skiffs begin to go by and about eight or nine every skiff that went long was talking about how your pop come over to town and say you's killed these last skiffs was full of ladies and gentlemen had gone over to see the place sometimes they'd pull up to the shore and take a rest before they started across so they'd talk I got to know all about the killing I was powerful, sorry you's killed talk but I ain't no more now I laid down the shavings all day I was hungry but I wasn't afraid because I know the old missus and the widow was going to start to camp meeting right after breakfast and be gone all day and they knows I goes off to the cattle about daylight so they wouldn't expect to see me round the place and so they wouldn't miss me to laugh to dark in the evening the other servants wouldn't miss me because they'd shin out and take holiday as soon as the old folks was out of the way well when it come dark I took out up the river road and went about two miles more to where there were no houses I'd make up my mind to do you see if I kept on trying to get away foot the dogs attract me if I stole a skiff to cross over they'd miss that skiff you see and they'd know about where I'd land on the other side and where to pick up my track so I says a raft is what I was after it don't make no track I see a light coming round the point by and by and show the log ahead of me and swum more and half way cross the river and got amongst the driftwood and kept my head down low and kind of swum again the current till the raft come along then I swum to the stern of it and took a hold it clouded up and I was pretty dark for a while so I clump up and lay down on the planks the man is all the way yonder in the middle where the lantern was the river was rising and there was a good current so I reckoned at it by 4 in the morning I'd be 25 miles down the river and then I'd slip in just before daylight and swim ashore and take to the woods in the Illinois side but I didn't have no luck when we was most down to the head of the island a man began to come out with the lantern I see it weren't no use for it to wait so I slid overboard and struck out for the island well I had a notion I could land most anywheres but I couldn't I ain't too bluff I was most to the foot of the island before I found a good place I went in the woods and judged I wouldn't fool with rafts no more long as they moved the lantern round so I had my pipe and a plug a dog leg and some matches in my cap and they weren't wet so I was alright and so you ain't had no meat no bread to eat all this time why didn't you get mud turtles how you going to get them you can't slip up on them and grab them and how's a body going to hit them with a rock how could a body do it in the night and I won't go on to show myself on the bank in the daytime well that's so I had to keep in the woods all time of course did you hear him shooting the cannon oh yes I know there was after you I see him go by watched him to the bushes some young birds come along flying a yard or two at a time and lighting Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain he said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way and so he reckoned it was the same way the birds done it I was going to catch some of them but Jim wouldn't let me he said it was death he said his father laid mighty sick once and some of them catched a bird and his old grand he said his father would die and he did and Jim said you mustn't count the things you're going to cook for dinner because that will bring bad luck the same if you shook the tablecloth after sundown and he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died the bees must be told about it before sundown next morning or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots but I didn't believe that because I had tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me I had heard about some of these things before but not all of them I had heard about all kinds of signs he said he knowed most everything I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck and so I asked him if there weren't any good luck signs he says mind a few and day ain't no use to a body what you want to know when good lucks are coming for want to keep it off and he said if you's got hairy arms and a hairy breast it's a sign that you's gonna be rich well there's some use in a sign like that because it's so far ahead you see maybe you's gotta be poor a long time first and so you might get discouraged and kill yourself if you didn't know by the sign that you're gonna be rich by and by have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast Jim what's the use to ask that question don't you see I has well are you rich no but I've been rich once I ain't gonna be rich again once I'd have $14 but I took to speculate and then got busted out what did you speculate in Jim well first I tackled stock what kind of stock why livestock cattle you know I put $10 in a cow but I ain't gonna risk no more money in stock a cow up and died on my hands so you lost the $10 no I didn't lose it at all I only lost about 9 of it I sold a hide and taller for a $1.10 you had $5.10 left did you speculate anymore yes you know that one legged nigger that belongs to old miss Bradish well he sought up a bank and say anybody that put in a dollar would get $4 more at the end of the year well all the niggers went in but they didn't have much the only one that had much so I stuck out for more than $4 and I said if I didn't get it I'd start a bank myself well of course that nigger want to keep me out of the business because he says they weren't business enough for two banks so he said I could put in my $5 and he pay me $35 at the end of the year so I had done it then I reckoned I'd invest $35 right off and keep things a moving there was a nigger named Bob that had catch the wood flat and his master didn't know it and I bought it off of him and told him to take the $35 when the end of the year come but somebody stole the wood flat that night and next day the one legged niggers say the banks busted so they didn't none of us get no money what did you do with the ten cents Jim well I was going to spend it but I had a dream and the dream told me to give it to a nigger named Balloom Ballooms as they call him for short he's one of them chuckleheads you know but he's lucky they say and I see I weren't lucky the dream say let Balloom invest the ten cents and he'd make a rise for me well Balloomy took the money and when he was in church he'd hear the preacher say that whoever give to the pool lend to the Lord and bound to get his money back a hundred times so Balloomy took and give the ten cents to the pool and laid low to see what was going to come of it well what did come of it Jim nothing ever come of it I couldn't manage to collect that money no way and Balloomy couldn't I ain't going to lend no more money doubt I see the security bound to get your money back a hundred times the preacher says if I could get the ten cents back I'd call it squash and be glad of the chance what was alright anyway Jim long as you're going to be rich again sometime or other yes and as rich now come to look of it I owns myself worth eight hundred dollars I wished I'd had the money I wouldn't want no more end of chapter eight Chapter 9 The House of Death Floats by I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I'd found when I was exploring so we started and soon got to it because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide this place was a tolerable long steep hill or ridge about forty foot high we had a rough time going to the top the sides were so steep and the bushes so thick we tramped and climbed around all over and by and by found a good big cavern in the rock most up to the top on the side towards Illinois the cavern was as big as two or three rooms bunched together and Jim could stand up straight in it it was cool in there Jim was for putting our traps in there right away but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time Jim said if we had the canoe hidden a good place and had all the traps in the cavern we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island and they would never find us without dogs and besides he said them little birds had said it was going to rain and did I want the things to get wet? so we went back and got the canoe and paddled up and lugged all the traps up there then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in amongst the thick willows we took some fish off the line and set them again and begun to get ready for dinner the door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hog's head in and on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit and was flat and a good place to build a fire on so we built it there and cooked dinner we spread the blankets inside for a carpet and eat our dinner in there we put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern pretty soon it darkened up and begun to thunder and lightning so the birds was right about it directly it began to rain and it rained like all fury too and I never see the wind blow so it was one of these regular summer storms it would get so dark that it looked all blue black outside and lovely and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider webby and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to toss in their arms as if they was just wild and next when it was just about the bluest and blackest it was as bright as glory and you'd have a little glimpse of tree tops a plunge and about away off yonder in the storm hundreds of yards further than you could see before darkest sin again in a second and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash and then go rumbling grumbling, tumbling down the sky towards the underside of the world like rolling empty barrels downstairs where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know Jim this is nice I says I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot cornbread well you wouldn't have been here if it hadn't been for Jim you'd have been down day under woods without any dinner and getting most drowned too that you would honey chickens nose wins gold rain and so do the birds child the river went on raising and raising to ten or twelve days till at last it was over the banks the water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom on that side it was a good many miles wide but on the Missouri side it was just the same old distance across half a mile because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs day times we paddled all over the island in the canoe it was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods even if the sun was blazing outside we went winding in and out amongst the trees and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way well on every old broken down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame on account of being hungry that you could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to but not the snakes and turtles they would slide off in the water the ridge our cavern was in was full of them we could have had pets enough if we wanted them one night we catched a little section of lumber raft nice pine planks it was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long and the top stood above water six or seven inches a solid level floor we could see saw logs go by in the daylight sometimes but we let them go we didn't show ourselves in daylight another night when we was up at the head of the island just before daylight here comes a frame house down on the west side she was a two story and tilted over considerable we paddled out and got aboard clumbed in at an upstairs window but it was too dark to see yet so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for the daylight the light began to come before we got to the foot of the island then we looked in at the window we could make out a bed and a table and two old chairs and lots of things around about on the floor and there was clothes hanging against the wall there was something laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man so Jim says hello you but it didn't budge so I hollered again and then Jim says the man ain't asleep he dead you hold still I'll go and see he went and bent down and looked and says it's a dead man yes indeedy naked too he's been shot in the back and I reckon he's been dead two or three days come in Huck but don't look at his face it's too ghastly I didn't look at him at all Jim throwed some old rags over him but he needn't done it I didn't want to see him there was heaps of greasy old cards scattered around over the floor and old whiskey bottles and a couple of masks made out of black cloth and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal there was two old dirty calico dresses and a sun bonnet and some women's underclothes hanging against a wall and some men's clothing too we put the lot into the canoe it might come good there was a boy's old speckle straw hat on the floor I took that too and there was a bottle that had had milk in it and it had a ragstopper for a baby to suck we woulda took the bottle but it was broke there was a seedy old chest and an old hair-trunk with the hinges broke they stood open but there weren't nothing left in them that was any account the way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a hurry and weren't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff we got an old tin lantern and a butcher knife without any handle and a brand new Barlow knife with two bits in any store and a lot of tallow candles and a tin candlestick and a gourd and a tin cup and a ratty old bed quilt off the bed and a ridicule with needles and pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such tuck in it and a hatchet and some nails and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some monstrous hooks on it and a roll of buckskin and a shoe and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on them and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry comb and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow and a wooden leg the straps was broke off it but mar and that it was a good enough leg though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim and we couldn't find the other one though we hunted all around and so take it all around we made a good haul when we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below at the island and it was pretty broad day so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the quilt because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off I paddled over to the Illinois shore and drifted down most a half a mile doing it I crept up the dead water under the bank and had no accidents and didn't see nobody we got home all safe end of chapter 9