LumberChunker/GutenQA_Paragraphs · Datasets at Hugging Face

Book Name stringclasses 100 values	Chunk ID int64 0 14.3k	Chapter stringlengths 1 207	Chunk stringlengths 2 30.5k
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	400	CHAPTER XII.	“Blame it, I’d sorter begun to think you wasn’t. Well, then, that’s all right. Le’s go and do it.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	401	CHAPTER XII.	“Hold on a minute; I hain’t had my say yit. You listen to me. Shooting’s good, but there’s quieter ways if the thing’s got to be done. But what I say is this: it ain’t good sense to go court’n around after a halter if you can git at what you’re up to in some way that’s jist as good and at the same time don’t bring you into no resks. Ain’t that so?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	402	CHAPTER XII.	“You bet it is. But how you goin’ to manage it this time?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	403	CHAPTER XII.	“Well, my idea is this: we’ll rustle around and gather up whatever pickins we’ve overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we’ll wait. Now I say it ain’t a-goin’ to be more’n two hours befo’ this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? He’ll be drownded, and won’t have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that’s a considerble sight better ’n killin’ of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals. Ain’t I right?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	404	CHAPTER XII.	“Yes, I reck’n you are. But s’pose she don’t break up and wash off?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	405	CHAPTER XII.	“Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can’t we?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	406	CHAPTER XII.	“All right, then; come along.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	407	CHAPTER XII.	So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, “Jim!” and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	408	CHAPTER XII.	“Quick, Jim, it ain’t no time for fooling around and moaning; there’s a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don’t hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can’t get away from the wreck there’s one of ’em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put all of ’em in a bad fix—for the Sheriff ’ll get ’em. Quick—hurry! I’ll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	409	CHAPTER XII.	“Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf’? Dey ain’ no raf’ no mo’; she done broke loose en gone I—en here we is!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	410	CHAPTER XIII.	Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warn’t no time to be sentimentering. We’d got to find that boat now—had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too—seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn’t believe he could go any further—so scared he hadn’t hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door, there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	411	CHAPTER XIII.	“Heave that blame lantern out o’ sight, Bill!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	412	CHAPTER XIII.	He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and got in. Packard says, in a low voice:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	413	CHAPTER XIII.	“All ready—shove off!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	414	CHAPTER XIII.	I couldn’t hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	415	CHAPTER XIII.	“Hold on—’d you go through him?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	416	CHAPTER XIII.	“No. Didn’t you?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	417	CHAPTER XIII.	“No. So he’s got his share o’ the cash yet.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	418	CHAPTER XIII.	“Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	419	CHAPTER XIII.	“Say, won’t he suspicion what we’re up to?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	420	CHAPTER XIII.	“Maybe he won’t. But we got to have it anyway. Come along.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	421	CHAPTER XIII.	So they got out and went in.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	422	CHAPTER XIII.	The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went!
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	423	CHAPTER XIII.	We didn’t touch an oar, and we didn’t speak nor whisper, nor hardly even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	424	CHAPTER XIII.	When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	425	CHAPTER XIII.	Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men—I reckon I hadn’t had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain’t no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like it? So says I to Jim:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	426	CHAPTER XIII.	“The first light we see we’ll land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a place where it’s a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then I’ll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their time comes.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	427	CHAPTER XIII.	But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering, and by-and-by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we made for it.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	428	CHAPTER XIII.	It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it, three or four more showed—up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by, I see it was a lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferry-boat. I skimmed around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by-and-by I found him roosting on the bitts, forward, with his head down between his knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	429	CHAPTER XIII.	He stirred up, in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only me, he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	430	CHAPTER XIII.	“Hello, what’s up? Don’t cry, bub. What’s the trouble?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	431	CHAPTER XIII.	I says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	432	CHAPTER XIII.	“Pap, and mam, and sis, and—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	433	CHAPTER XIII.	Then I broke down. He says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	434	CHAPTER XIII.	“Oh, dang it now, don’t take on so; we all has to have our troubles, and this’n ’ll come out all right. What’s the matter with ’em?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	435	CHAPTER XIII.	“They’re—they’re—are you the watchman of the boat?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	436	CHAPTER XIII.	“Yes,” he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. “I’m the captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; and sometimes I’m the freight and passengers. I ain’t as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can’t be so blame’ generous and good to Tom, Dick and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I’ve told him a many a time ’t I wouldn’t trade places with him; for, says I, a sailor’s life’s the life for me, and I’m derned if I’d live two mile out o’ town, where there ain’t nothing ever goin’ on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	437	CHAPTER XIII.	I broke in and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	438	CHAPTER XIII.	“They’re in an awful peck of trouble, and—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	439	CHAPTER XIII.	“Who is?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	440	CHAPTER XIII.	“Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you’d take your ferry-boat and go up there—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	441	CHAPTER XIII.	“Up where? Where are they?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	442	CHAPTER XIII.	“On the wreck.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	443	CHAPTER XIII.	“What wreck?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	444	CHAPTER XIII.	“Why, there ain’t but one.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	445	CHAPTER XIII.	“What, you don’t mean the Walter Scott?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	446	CHAPTER XIII.	“Yes.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	447	CHAPTER XIII.	“Good land! what are they doin’ there, for gracious sakes?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	448	CHAPTER XIII.	“Well, they didn’t go there a-purpose.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	449	CHAPTER XIII.	“I bet they didn’t! Why, great goodness, there ain’t no chance for ’em if they don’t git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever git into such a scrape?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	450	CHAPTER XIII.	“Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	451	CHAPTER XIII.	“Yes, Booth’s Landing—go on.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	452	CHAPTER XIII.	“She was a-visiting there at Booth’s Landing, and just in the edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stay all night at her friend’s house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disremember her name—and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn’t notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so we saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple—and oh, he was the best cretur!—I most wish’t it had been me, I do.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	453	CHAPTER XIII.	“My George! It’s the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what did you all do?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	454	CHAPTER XIII.	“Well, we hollered and took on, but it’s so wide there we couldn’t make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and Miss Hooker she said if I didn’t strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he’d fix the thing. I made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do something, but they said, ‘What, in such a night and such a current? There ain’t no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.’ Now if you’ll go and—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	455	CHAPTER XIII.	“By Jackson, I’d like to, and, blame it, I don’t know but I will; but who in the dingnation’s a-going’ to pay for it? Do you reckon your pap—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	456	CHAPTER XIII.	“Why that’s all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, particular, that her uncle Hornback—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	457	CHAPTER XIII.	“Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of a mile out you’ll come to the tavern; tell ’em to dart you out to Jim Hornback’s, and he’ll foot the bill. And don’t you fool around any, because he’ll want to know the news. Tell him I’ll have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I’m a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	458	CHAPTER XIII.	I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some woodboats; for I couldn’t rest easy till I could see the ferry-boat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	459	CHAPTER XIII.	Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn’t much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a little, but there wasn’t any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could stand it, I could.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	460	CHAPTER XIII.	Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of the river on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach, I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker’s remainders, because the captain would know her uncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferry-boat give it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down the river.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	461	CHAPTER XIII.	It did seem a powerful long time before Jim’s light showed up; and when it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	462	CHAPTER XIV.	By-and-by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three boxes of seegars. We hadn’t ever been this rich before in neither of our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferry-boat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn’t want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone, he nearly died; because he judged it was all up with him, anyway it could be fixed; for if he didn’t get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head, for a nigger.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	463	CHAPTER XIV.	I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, ’stead of mister; and Jim’s eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	464	CHAPTER XIV.	“I didn’ know dey was so many un um. I hain’t hearn ’bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat’s in a pack er k’yards. How much do a king git?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	465	CHAPTER XIV.	“Get?” I says; “why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	466	CHAPTER XIV.	“Ain’ dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	467	CHAPTER XIV.	“They don’t do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	468	CHAPTER XIV.	“No; is dat so?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	469	CHAPTER XIV.	“Of course it is. They just set around—except, maybe, when there’s a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or go hawking—just hawking and sp— Sh!—d’ you hear a noise?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	470	CHAPTER XIV.	We skipped out and looked; but it warn’t nothing but the flutter of a steamboat’s wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	471	CHAPTER XIV.	“Yes,” says I, “and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody don’t go just so he whacks their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	472	CHAPTER XIV.	“Roun’ de which?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	473	CHAPTER XIV.	“Harem.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	474	CHAPTER XIV.	“What’s de harem?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	475	CHAPTER XIV.	“The place where he keeps his wives. Don’t you know about the harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	476	CHAPTER XIV.	“Why, yes, dat’s so; I—I’d done forgot it. A harem’s a bo’d’n-house, I reck’n. Mos’ likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck’n de wives quarrels considable; en dat ’crease de racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wises’ man dat ever live’. I doan’ take no stock in dat. Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids’ er sich a blim-blammin’ all de time? No—’deed he wouldn’t. A wise man ’ud take en buil’ a biler-factry; en den he could shet down de biler-factry when he want to res’.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	477	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me so, her own self.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	478	CHAPTER XIV.	“I doan k’yer what de widder say, he warn’t no wise man nuther. He had some er de dad-fetchedes’ ways I ever see. Does you know ’bout dat chile dat he ’uz gwyne to chop in two?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	479	CHAPTER XIV.	“Yes, the widow told me all about it.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	480	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, den! Warn’ dat de beatenes’ notion in de worl’? You jes’ take en look at it a minute. Dah’s de stump, dah—dat’s one er de women; heah’s you—dat’s de yuther one; I’s Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill’s de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun’ mongs’ de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill do b’long to, en han’ it over to de right one, all safe en soun’, de way dat anybody dat had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in two, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat’s de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what’s de use er dat half a bill?—can’t buy noth’n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I wouldn’ give a dern for a million un um.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	481	CHAPTER XIV.	“But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point—blame it, you’ve missed it a thousand mile.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	482	CHAPTER XIV.	“Who? Me? Go ’long. Doan’ talk to me ’bout yo’ pints. I reck’n I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as dat. De ’spute warn’t ’bout a half a chile, de ’spute was ’bout a whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a ’spute ’bout a whole chile wid a half a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain. Doan’ talk to me ’bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	483	CHAPTER XIV.	“But I tell you you don’t get the point.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	484	CHAPTER XIV.	“Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de real pint is down furder—it’s down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; he can’t ’ford it. He know how to value ’em. But you take a man dat’s got ’bout five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. A chile er two, mo’ er less, warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	485	CHAPTER XIV.	I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	486	CHAPTER XIV.	“Po’ little chap.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	487	CHAPTER XIV.	“But some says he got out and got away, and come to America.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	488	CHAPTER XIV.	“Dat’s good! But he’ll be pooty lonesome—dey ain’ no kings here, is dey, Huck?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	489	CHAPTER XIV.	“No.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	490	CHAPTER XIV.	“Den he cain’t git no situation. What he gwyne to do?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	491	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, I don’t know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	492	CHAPTER XIV.	“Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we does?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	493	CHAPTER XIV.	“No, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said—not a single word.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	494	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	495	CHAPTER XIV.	“I don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy—what would you think?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	496	CHAPTER XIV.	“I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head—dat is, if he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ’low no nigger to call me dat.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	497	CHAPTER XIV.	“Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know how to talk French?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	498	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, den, why couldn’t he say it?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	499	CHAPTER XIV.	“Why, he is a-saying it. That’s a Frenchman’s way of saying it.”

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CHAPTER XII.

“Blame it, I’d sorter begun to think you wasn’t. Well, then, that’s all right. Le’s go and do it.”

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CHAPTER XII.

“Hold on a minute; I hain’t had my say yit. You listen to me. Shooting’s good, but there’s quieter ways if the thing’s got to be done. But what I say is this: it ain’t good sense to go court’n around after a halter if you can git at what you’re up to in some way that’s jist as good and at the same time don’t bring you into no resks. Ain’t that so?”

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CHAPTER XII.

“You bet it is. But how you goin’ to manage it this time?”

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CHAPTER XII.

“Well, my idea is this: we’ll rustle around and gather up whatever pickins we’ve overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we’ll wait. Now I say it ain’t a-goin’ to be more’n two hours befo’ this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? He’ll be drownded, and won’t have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that’s a considerble sight better ’n killin’ of him. I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals. Ain’t I right?”

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CHAPTER XII.

“Yes, I reck’n you are. But s’pose she don’t break up and wash off?”

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CHAPTER XII.

“Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can’t we?”

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CHAPTER XII.

“All right, then; come along.”

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So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, “Jim!” and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says:

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CHAPTER XII.

“Quick, Jim, it ain’t no time for fooling around and moaning; there’s a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don’t hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can’t get away from the wreck there’s one of ’em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put all of ’em in a bad fix—for the Sheriff ’ll get ’em. Quick—hurry! I’ll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and—”

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CHAPTER XII.

“Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf’? Dey ain’ no raf’ no mo’; she done broke loose en gone I—en here we is!”

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Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warn’t no time to be sentimentering. We’d got to find that boat now—had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too—seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn’t believe he could go any further—so scared he hadn’t hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door, there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, and says:

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Heave that blame lantern out o’ sight, Bill!”

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CHAPTER XIII.

He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and got in. Packard says, in a low voice:

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CHAPTER XIII.

“All ready—shove off!”

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CHAPTER XIII.

I couldn’t hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says:

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Hold on—’d you go through him?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“No. Didn’t you?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“No. So he’s got his share o’ the cash yet.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Say, won’t he suspicion what we’re up to?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Maybe he won’t. But we got to have it anyway. Come along.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

So they got out and went in.

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CHAPTER XIII.

The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went!

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CHAPTER XIII.

We didn’t touch an oar, and we didn’t speak nor whisper, nor hardly even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it.

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CHAPTER XIII.

When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was.

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CHAPTER XIII.

Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men—I reckon I hadn’t had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain’t no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like it? So says I to Jim:

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CHAPTER XIII.

“The first light we see we’ll land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a place where it’s a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then I’ll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their time comes.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering, and by-and-by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we made for it.

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CHAPTER XIII.

It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it, three or four more showed—up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by, I see it was a lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferry-boat. I skimmed around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by-and-by I found him roosting on the bitts, forward, with his head down between his knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to cry.

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CHAPTER XIII.

He stirred up, in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only me, he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says:

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Hello, what’s up? Don’t cry, bub. What’s the trouble?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

I says:

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Pap, and mam, and sis, and—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

Then I broke down. He says:

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Oh, dang it now, don’t take on so; we all has to have our troubles, and this’n ’ll come out all right. What’s the matter with ’em?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“They’re—they’re—are you the watchman of the boat?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Yes,” he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. “I’m the captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; and sometimes I’m the freight and passengers. I ain’t as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can’t be so blame’ generous and good to Tom, Dick and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I’ve told him a many a time ’t I wouldn’t trade places with him; for, says I, a sailor’s life’s the life for me, and I’m derned if I’d live two mile out o’ town, where there ain’t nothing ever goin’ on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

I broke in and says:

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“They’re in an awful peck of trouble, and—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Who is?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you’d take your ferry-boat and go up there—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Up where? Where are they?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“On the wreck.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“What wreck?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Why, there ain’t but one.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“What, you don’t mean the Walter Scott?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Yes.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Good land! what are they doin’ there, for gracious sakes?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Well, they didn’t go there a-purpose.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“I bet they didn’t! Why, great goodness, there ain’t no chance for ’em if they don’t git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever git into such a scrape?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Yes, Booth’s Landing—go on.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“She was a-visiting there at Booth’s Landing, and just in the edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stay all night at her friend’s house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I disremember her name—and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn’t notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so we saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but Bill Whipple—and oh, he was the best cretur!—I most wish’t it had been me, I do.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“My George! It’s the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what did you all do?”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Well, we hollered and took on, but it’s so wide there we couldn’t make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, and Miss Hooker she said if I didn’t strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he’d fix the thing. I made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do something, but they said, ‘What, in such a night and such a current? There ain’t no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.’ Now if you’ll go and—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“By Jackson, I’d like to, and, blame it, I don’t know but I will; but who in the dingnation’s a-going’ to pay for it? Do you reckon your pap—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Why that’s all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, particular, that her uncle Hornback—”

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CHAPTER XIII.

“Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of a mile out you’ll come to the tavern; tell ’em to dart you out to Jim Hornback’s, and he’ll foot the bill. And don’t you fool around any, because he’ll want to know the news. Tell him I’ll have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I’m a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer.”

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CHAPTER XIII.

I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among some woodboats; for I couldn’t rest easy till I could see the ferry-boat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest in.

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CHAPTER XIII.

Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn’t much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a little, but there wasn’t any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could stand it, I could.

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CHAPTER XIII.

Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of the river on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach, I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker’s remainders, because the captain would know her uncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferry-boat give it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down the river.

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CHAPTER XIII.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim’s light showed up; and when it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.

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CHAPTER XIV.

By-and-by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three boxes of seegars. We hadn’t ever been this rich before in neither of our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferry-boat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn’t want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone, he nearly died; because he judged it was all up with him, anyway it could be fixed; for if he didn’t get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head, for a nigger.

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CHAPTER XIV.

I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, ’stead of mister; and Jim’s eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says:

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CHAPTER XIV.

“I didn’ know dey was so many un um. I hain’t hearn ’bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat’s in a pack er k’yards. How much do a king git?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Get?” I says; “why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Ain’ dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“They don’t do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“No; is dat so?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Of course it is. They just set around—except, maybe, when there’s a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or go hawking—just hawking and sp— Sh!—d’ you hear a noise?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

We skipped out and looked; but it warn’t nothing but the flutter of a steamboat’s wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Yes,” says I, “and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody don’t go just so he whacks their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Roun’ de which?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Harem.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“What’s de harem?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“The place where he keeps his wives. Don’t you know about the harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Why, yes, dat’s so; I—I’d done forgot it. A harem’s a bo’d’n-house, I reck’n. Mos’ likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck’n de wives quarrels considable; en dat ’crease de racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wises’ man dat ever live’. I doan’ take no stock in dat. Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids’ er sich a blim-blammin’ all de time? No—’deed he wouldn’t. A wise man ’ud take en buil’ a biler-factry; en den he could shet down de biler-factry when he want to res’.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me so, her own self.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“I doan k’yer what de widder say, he warn’t no wise man nuther. He had some er de dad-fetchedes’ ways I ever see. Does you know ’bout dat chile dat he ’uz gwyne to chop in two?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Yes, the widow told me all about it.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, den! Warn’ dat de beatenes’ notion in de worl’? You jes’ take en look at it a minute. Dah’s de stump, dah—dat’s one er de women; heah’s you—dat’s de yuther one; I’s Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill’s de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun’ mongs’ de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill do b’long to, en han’ it over to de right one, all safe en soun’, de way dat anybody dat had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in two, en give half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat’s de way Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what’s de use er dat half a bill?—can’t buy noth’n wid it. En what use is a half a chile? I wouldn’ give a dern for a million un um.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point—blame it, you’ve missed it a thousand mile.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Who? Me? Go ’long. Doan’ talk to me ’bout yo’ pints. I reck’n I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as dat. De ’spute warn’t ’bout a half a chile, de ’spute was ’bout a whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a ’spute ’bout a whole chile wid a half a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain. Doan’ talk to me ’bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“But I tell you you don’t get the point.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de real pint is down furder—it’s down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; he can’t ’ford it. He know how to value ’em. But you take a man dat’s got ’bout five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. A chile er two, mo’ er less, warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!”

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CHAPTER XIV.

I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say he died there.

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Po’ little chap.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“But some says he got out and got away, and come to America.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Dat’s good! But he’ll be pooty lonesome—dey ain’ no kings here, is dey, Huck?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“No.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Den he cain’t git no situation. What he gwyne to do?”

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491

CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, I don’t know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French.”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

492

CHAPTER XIV.

“Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we does?”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

493

CHAPTER XIV.

“No, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said—not a single word.”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

494

CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

495

CHAPTER XIV.

“I don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy—what would you think?”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

496

CHAPTER XIV.

“I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head—dat is, if he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ’low no nigger to call me dat.”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

497

CHAPTER XIV.

“Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know how to talk French?”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

498

CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, den, why couldn’t he say it?”

Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain

0

499

CHAPTER XIV.

“Why, he is a-saying it. That’s a Frenchman’s way of saying it.”