Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

CHAPTER XLII.. Tom Sawyer Wounded.—the Doctor’s Story.—Tom Confesses.—Aunt Polly

Tom Sawyer Wounded.—The Doctor’s Story.—Tom Confesses.—Aunt Polly Arrives.—Hand Out Them Letters.

CHAPTER THE LAST. Out of Bondage.—Paying the Captive.—Yours Truly, Huck Finn.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Widows Moses and the “Bulrushers” Miss Watson Huck Stealing Away They Tip-toed Along Jim Tom Sawyer’s Band of Robbers Huck Creeps into his Window Miss Watson’s Lecture The Robbers Dispersed Rubbing the Lamp ! ! ! ! Judge Thatcher surprised Jim Listening “Pap” Huck and his Father Reforming the Drunkard Falling from Grace Getting out of the Way Solid Comfort Thinking it Over Raising a Howl “Git Up” The Shanty Shooting the Pig Taking a Rest In the Woods Watching the Boat Discovering the Camp Fire Jim and the Ghost Misto Bradish’s Nigger Exploring the Cave In the Cave Jim sees a Dead Man They Found Eight Dollars Jim and the Snake Old Hank Bunker “A Fair Fit” “Come In” “Him and another Man” She puts up a Snack “Hump Yourself” On the Raft He sometimes Lifted a Chicken “Please don’t, Bill” “It ain’t Good Morals” “Oh! Lordy, Lordy!” In a Fix “Hello, What’s Up?” The Wreck We turned in and Slept Turning over the Truck Solomon and his Million Wives The story of “Sollermun” “We Would Sell the Raft” Among the Snags Asleep on the Raft “Something being Raftsman” “Boy, that’s a Lie” “Here I is, Huck” Climbing up the Bank “Who’s There?” “Buck” “It made Her look Spidery” “They got him out and emptied Him” The House Col. Grangerford Young Harney Shepherdson Miss Charlotte “And asked me if I Liked Her” “Behind the Wood-pile” Hiding Day-times “And Dogs a-Coming” “By rights I am a Duke!” “I am the Late Dauphin” Tail Piece On the Raft The King as Juliet “Courting on the Sly” “A Pirate for Thirty Years” Another little Job Practizing Hamlet’s Soliloquy “Gimme a Chaw” A Little Monthly Drunk The Death of Boggs Sherburn steps out A Dead Head He shed Seventeen Suits Tragedy Their Pockets Bulged Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor Harmless Adolphus He fairly emptied that Young Fellow “Alas, our Poor Brother” “You Bet it is” Leaking Making up the “Deffisit” Going for him The Doctor The Bag of Money The Cubby Supper with the Hare-Lip Honest Injun The Duke looks under the Bed Huck takes the Money A Crack in the Dining-room Door The Undertaker “He had a Rat!” “Was you in my Room?” Jawing In Trouble Indignation How to Find Them He Wrote Hannah with the Mumps The Auction The True Brothers The Doctor leads Huck The Duke Wrote “Gentlemen, Gentlemen!” “Jim Lit Out” The King shakes Huck The Duke went for Him Spanish Moss “Who Nailed Him?” Thinking He gave him Ten Cents Striking for the Back Country Still and Sunday-like She hugged him tight “Who do you reckon it is?” “It was Tom Sawyer” “Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?” A pretty long Blessing Traveling By Rail Vittles A Simple Job Witches Getting Wood One of the Best Authorities The Breakfast-Horn Smouching the Knives Going down the Lightning-Rod Stealing spoons Tom advises a Witch Pie The Rubbage-Pile “Missus, dey’s a Sheet Gone” In a Tearing Way One of his Ancestors Jim’s Coat of Arms A Tough Job Buttons on their Tails Irrigation Keeping off Dull Times Sawdust Diet Trouble is Brewing Fishing Every one had a Gun Tom caught on a Splinter Jim advises a Doctor The Doctor Uncle Silas in Danger Old Mrs. Hotchkiss Aunt Sally talks to Huck Tom Sawyer wounded The Doctor speaks for Jim Tom rose square up in Bed “Hand out them Letters” Out of Bondage Tom’s Liberality Yours Truly

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 ORDNANCE.

EXPLANATORY

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest 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.

HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago

CHAPTER I.

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 made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow 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 cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow 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-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer 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 them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by-and-by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, 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 to not do it any more. 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-bothering 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 all right, because she done it 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 middling 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 wished 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 warn’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 up 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.

Continue reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn free in the Wunder reader →