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	500	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’ ’bout it. Dey ain’ no sense in it.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	501	CHAPTER XIV.	“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	502	CHAPTER XIV.	“No, a cat don’t.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	503	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, does a cow?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	504	CHAPTER XIV.	“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	505	CHAPTER XIV.	“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	506	CHAPTER XIV.	“No, dey don’t.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	507	CHAPTER XIV.	“It’s natural and right for ’em to talk different from each other, ain’t it?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	508	CHAPTER XIV.	“’Course.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	509	CHAPTER XIV.	“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	510	CHAPTER XIV.	“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	511	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	512	CHAPTER XIV.	“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	513	CHAPTER XIV.	“No.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	514	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	515	CHAPTER XIV.	“No, she ain’t either of them.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	516	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of ’em. Is a Frenchman a man?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	517	CHAPTER XIV.	“Yes.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	518	CHAPTER XIV.	“Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he talk like a man? You answer me dat!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	519	CHAPTER XIV.	I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	520	CHAPTER XV.	We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	521	CHAPTER XV.	Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn’t anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me—and then there warn’t no raft in sight; you couldn’t see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn’t come. I was in such a hurry I hadn’t untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn’t hardly do anything with them.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	522	CHAPTER XV.	As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right down the tow-head. That was all right as far as it went, but the tow-head warn’t sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn’t no more idea which way I was going than a dead man.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	523	CHAPTER XV.	Thinks I, it won’t do to paddle; first I know I’ll run into the bank or a tow-head or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it’s mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come, I see I warn’t heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away to the left of it—and not gaining on it much either, for I was flying around, this way and that and t’other, but it was going straight ahead all the time.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	524	CHAPTER XV.	I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good now. That was somebody else’s whoop, or else I was turned around.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	525	CHAPTER XV.	I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its place, and I kept answering, till by-and-by it was in front of me again, and I knowed the current had swung the canoe’s head down-stream, and I was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. I couldn’t tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don’t look natural nor sound natural in a fog.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	526	CHAPTER XV.	The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared, the currrent was tearing by them so swift.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	527	CHAPTER XV.	In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn’t draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	528	CHAPTER XV.	I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an island, and Jim had gone down t’other side of it. It warn’t no tow-head that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half a mile wide.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	529	CHAPTER XV.	I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don’t ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying dead still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don’t think to yourself how fast you’re going, but you catch your breath and think, my! how that snag’s tearing along. If you think it ain’t dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it once—you’ll see.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	530	CHAPTER XV.	Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn’t do it, and directly I judged I’d got into a nest of tow-heads, for I had little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me—sometimes just a narrow channel between, and some that I couldn’t see I knowed was there because I’d hear the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warn’t long loosing the whoops down amongst the tow-heads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack-o’-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	531	CHAPTER XV.	I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would get further ahead and clear out of hearing—it was floating a little faster than what I was.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	532	CHAPTER XV.	Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by-and-by, but I couldn’t hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t bother no more. I didn’t want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn’t help it; so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	533	CHAPTER XV.	But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big bend stern first. First I didn’t know where I was; I thought I was dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come up dim out of last week.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	534	CHAPTER XV.	It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn’t nothing but a couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	535	CHAPTER XV.	When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and branches and dirt. So she’d had a rough time.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	536	CHAPTER XV.	I made fast and laid down under Jim’s nose on the raft, and began to gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	537	CHAPTER XV.	“Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you stir me up?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	538	CHAPTER XV.	“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead—you ain’ drownded—you’s back agin? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you. No, you ain’ dead! you’s back agin, ’live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck—de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	539	CHAPTER XV.	“What’s the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	540	CHAPTER XV.	“Drinkin’? Has I ben a-drinkin’? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin’?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	541	CHAPTER XV.	“Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	542	CHAPTER XV.	“How does I talk wild?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	543	CHAPTER XV.	“How? Why, hain’t you been talking about my coming back, and all that stuff, as if I’d been gone away?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	544	CHAPTER XV.	“Huck—Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. Hain’t you ben gone away?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	545	CHAPTER XV.	“Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain’t been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	546	CHAPTER XV.	“Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat’s what I wants to know.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	547	CHAPTER XV.	“Well, I think you’re here, plain enough, but I think you’re a tangle-headed old fool, Jim.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	548	CHAPTER XV.	“I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn’t you tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fas’ to de tow-head?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	549	CHAPTER XV.	“No, I didn’t. What tow-head? I hain’t see no tow-head.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	550	CHAPTER XV.	“You hain’t seen no tow-head? Looky here, didn’t de line pull loose en de raf’ go a-hummin’ down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in de fog?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	551	CHAPTER XV.	“What fog?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	552	CHAPTER XV.	“Why, de fog!—de fog dat’s been aroun’ all night. En didn’t you whoop, en didn’t I whoop, tell we got mix’ up in de islands en one un us got los’ en t’other one was jis’ as good as los’, ’kase he didn’ know whah he wuz? En didn’t I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible time en mos’ git drownded? Now ain’ dat so, boss—ain’t it so? You answer me dat.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	553	CHAPTER XV.	“Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain’t seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in that time, so of course you’ve been dreaming.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	554	CHAPTER XV.	“Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	555	CHAPTER XV.	“Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’t any of it happen.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	556	CHAPTER XV.	“But, Huck, it’s all jis’ as plain to me as—”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	557	CHAPTER XV.	“It don’t make no difference how plain it is; there ain’t nothing in it. I know, because I’ve been here all the time.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	558	CHAPTER XV.	Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying over it. Then he says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	559	CHAPTER XV.	“Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t ever had no dream b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	560	CHAPTER XV.	“Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body like everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all about it, Jim.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	561	CHAPTER XV.	So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the first tow-head stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, ’stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of tow-heads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t have no more trouble.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	562	CHAPTER XV.	It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it was clearing up again now.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	563	CHAPTER XV.	“Oh, well, that’s all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim,” I says; “but what does these things stand for?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	564	CHAPTER XV.	It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You could see them first-rate now.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	565	CHAPTER XV.	Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he couldn’t seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	566	CHAPTER XV.	“What do dey stan’ for? I’se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin’ for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun’, de tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo’ foot, I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ’bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ’em ashamed.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	567	CHAPTER XV.	Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	568	CHAPTER XV.	It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	569	CHAPTER XVI.	We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	570	CHAPTER XVI.	We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides; you couldn’t see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn’t, because I had heard say there warn’t but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn’t happen to have them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim—and me too. So the question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	571	CHAPTER XVI.	There warn’t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it. He said he’d be mighty sure to see it, because he’d be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it he’d be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	572	CHAPTER XVI.	“Dah she is?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	573	CHAPTER XVI.	But it warn’t. It was Jack-o’-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay still in one place. It hadn’t ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, “But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody.” That was so—I couldn’t get around that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, “What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That’s what she done.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	574	CHAPTER XVI.	I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every time he danced around and says, “Dah’s Cairo!” it went through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	575	CHAPTER XVI.	Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist to go and steal them.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	576	CHAPTER XVI.	It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	577	CHAPTER XVI.	I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, “Let up on me—it ain’t too late yet—I’ll paddle ashore at the first light and tell.” I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By-and-by one showed. Jim sings out:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	578	CHAPTER XVI.	“We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels! Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	579	CHAPTER XVI.	I says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	580	CHAPTER XVI.	“I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	581	CHAPTER XVI.	He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	582	CHAPTER XVI.	“Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	583	CHAPTER XVI.	I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along slow then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	584	CHAPTER XVI.	“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlman dat ever kep’ his promise to ole Jim.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	585	CHAPTER XVI.	Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it—I can’t get out of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	586	CHAPTER XVI.	“What’s that yonder?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	587	CHAPTER XVI.	“A piece of a raft,” I says.
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	588	CHAPTER XVI.	“Do you belong on it?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	589	CHAPTER XVI.	“Yes, sir.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	590	CHAPTER XVI.	“Any men on it?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	591	CHAPTER XVI.	“Only one, sir.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	592	CHAPTER XVI.	“Well, there’s five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head of the bend. Is your man white or black?”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	593	CHAPTER XVI.	I didn’t answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn’t man enough—hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	594	CHAPTER XVI.	“He’s white.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	595	CHAPTER XVI.	“I reckon we’ll go and see for ourselves.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	596	CHAPTER XVI.	“I wish you would,” says I, “because it’s pap that’s there, and maybe you’d help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He’s sick—and so is mam and Mary Ann.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	597	CHAPTER XVI.	“Oh, the devil! we’re in a hurry, boy. But I s’pose we’ve got to. Come, buckle to your paddle, and let’s get along.”
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	598	CHAPTER XVI.	I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a stroke or two, I says:
Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_-_Mark_Twain	599	CHAPTER XVI.	“Pap’ll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can’t do it by myself.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’ ’bout it. Dey ain’ no sense in it.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“No, a cat don’t.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, does a cow?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”

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505

CHAPTER XIV.

“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“No, dey don’t.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“It’s natural and right for ’em to talk different from each other, ain’t it?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“’Course.”

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509

CHAPTER XIV.

“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?”

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510

CHAPTER XIV.

“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that.”

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512

CHAPTER XIV.

“Is a cat a man, Huck?”

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513

CHAPTER XIV.

“No.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“No, she ain’t either of them.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of ’em. Is a Frenchman a man?”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Yes.”

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CHAPTER XIV.

“Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he talk like a man? You answer me dat!”

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CHAPTER XIV.

I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.

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CHAPTER XV.

We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.

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CHAPTER XV.

Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn’t anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me—and then there warn’t no raft in sight; you couldn’t see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn’t come. I was in such a hurry I hadn’t untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn’t hardly do anything with them.

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CHAPTER XV.

As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right down the tow-head. That was all right as far as it went, but the tow-head warn’t sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn’t no more idea which way I was going than a dead man.

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CHAPTER XV.

Thinks I, it won’t do to paddle; first I know I’ll run into the bank or a tow-head or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it’s mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come, I see I warn’t heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was heading away to the left of it—and not gaining on it much either, for I was flying around, this way and that and t’other, but it was going straight ahead all the time.

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CHAPTER XV.

I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly I hears the whoop behind me. I was tangled good now. That was somebody else’s whoop, or else I was turned around.

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CHAPTER XV.

I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its place, and I kept answering, till by-and-by it was in front of me again, and I knowed the current had swung the canoe’s head down-stream, and I was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. I couldn’t tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don’t look natural nor sound natural in a fog.

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CHAPTER XV.

The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly roared, the currrent was tearing by them so swift.

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CHAPTER XV.

In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn’t draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.

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CHAPTER XV.

I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an island, and Jim had gone down t’other side of it. It warn’t no tow-head that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half a mile wide.

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CHAPTER XV.

I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don’t ever think of that. No, you feel like you are laying dead still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don’t think to yourself how fast you’re going, but you catch your breath and think, my! how that snag’s tearing along. If you think it ain’t dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it once—you’ll see.

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CHAPTER XV.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn’t do it, and directly I judged I’d got into a nest of tow-heads, for I had little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me—sometimes just a narrow channel between, and some that I couldn’t see I knowed was there because I’d hear the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warn’t long loosing the whoops down amongst the tow-heads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack-o’-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.

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CHAPTER XV.

I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would get further ahead and clear out of hearing—it was floating a little faster than what I was.

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CHAPTER XV.

Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by-and-by, but I couldn’t hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t bother no more. I didn’t want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn’t help it; so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.

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CHAPTER XV.

But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a big bend stern first. First I didn’t know where I was; I thought I was dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come up dim out of last week.

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CHAPTER XV.

It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn’t nothing but a couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.

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CHAPTER XV.

When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and branches and dirt. So she’d had a rough time.

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CHAPTER XV.

I made fast and laid down under Jim’s nose on the raft, and began to gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:

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537

CHAPTER XV.

“Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you stir me up?”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain’ dead—you ain’ drownded—you’s back agin? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you. No, you ain’ dead! you’s back agin, ’live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck—de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!”

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539

CHAPTER XV.

“What’s the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?”

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540

CHAPTER XV.

“Drinkin’? Has I ben a-drinkin’? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin’?”

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541

CHAPTER XV.

“Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”

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542

CHAPTER XV.

“How does I talk wild?”

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543

CHAPTER XV.

“How? Why, hain’t you been talking about my coming back, and all that stuff, as if I’d been gone away?”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Huck—Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. Hain’t you ben gone away?”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain’t been gone anywheres. Where would I go to?”

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546

CHAPTER XV.

“Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who is I? Is I heah, or whah is I? Now dat’s what I wants to know.”

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547

CHAPTER XV.

“Well, I think you’re here, plain enough, but I think you’re a tangle-headed old fool, Jim.”

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CHAPTER XV.

“I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn’t you tote out de line in de canoe fer to make fas’ to de tow-head?”

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549

CHAPTER XV.

“No, I didn’t. What tow-head? I hain’t see no tow-head.”

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CHAPTER XV.

“You hain’t seen no tow-head? Looky here, didn’t de line pull loose en de raf’ go a-hummin’ down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in de fog?”

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551

CHAPTER XV.

“What fog?”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Why, de fog!—de fog dat’s been aroun’ all night. En didn’t you whoop, en didn’t I whoop, tell we got mix’ up in de islands en one un us got los’ en t’other one was jis’ as good as los’, ’kase he didn’ know whah he wuz? En didn’t I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible time en mos’ git drownded? Now ain’ dat so, boss—ain’t it so? You answer me dat.”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain’t seen no fog, nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in that time, so of course you’ve been dreaming.”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’t any of it happen.”

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CHAPTER XV.

“But, Huck, it’s all jis’ as plain to me as—”

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CHAPTER XV.

“It don’t make no difference how plain it is; there ain’t nothing in it. I know, because I’ve been here all the time.”

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CHAPTER XV.

Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying over it. Then he says:

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CHAPTER XV.

“Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain’t ever had no dream b’fo’ dat’s tired me like dis one.”

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CHAPTER XV.

“Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire a body like everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all about it, Jim.”

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CHAPTER XV.

So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must start in and “’terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the first tow-head stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, ’stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of tow-heads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t have no more trouble.

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CHAPTER XV.

It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it was clearing up again now.

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CHAPTER XV.

“Oh, well, that’s all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim,” I says; “but what does these things stand for?”

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CHAPTER XV.

It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You could see them first-rate now.

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CHAPTER XV.

Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he couldn’t seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:

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CHAPTER XV.

“What do dey stan’ for? I’se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin’ for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ k’yer no’ mo’ what become er me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe en soun’, de tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo’ foot, I’s so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin’ ’bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ’em ashamed.”

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CHAPTER XV.

Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.

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CHAPTER XV.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.

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CHAPTER XVI.

We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.

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CHAPTER XVI.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides; you couldn’t see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn’t, because I had heard say there warn’t but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn’t happen to have them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim—and me too. So the question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.

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CHAPTER XVI.

There warn’t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it. He said he’d be mighty sure to see it, because he’d be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it he’d be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Dah she is?”

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CHAPTER XVI.

But it warn’t. It was Jack-o’-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most free—and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay still in one place. It hadn’t ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, “But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody.” That was so—I couldn’t get around that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, “What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That’s what she done.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every time he danced around and says, “Dah’s Cairo!” it went through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.

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CHAPTER XVI.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist to go and steal them.

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CHAPTER XVI.

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn’t ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm.

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CHAPTER XVI.

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, “Let up on me—it ain’t too late yet—I’ll paddle ashore at the first light and tell.” I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By-and-by one showed. Jim sings out:

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CHAPTER XVI.

“We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and crack yo’ heels! Dat’s de good ole Cairo at las’, I jis knows it!”

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CHAPTER XVI.

I says:

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580

CHAPTER XVI.

“I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along slow then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlman dat ever kep’ his promise to ole Jim.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it—I can’t get out of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:

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CHAPTER XVI.

“What’s that yonder?”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“A piece of a raft,” I says.

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Do you belong on it?”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Yes, sir.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Any men on it?”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Only one, sir.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Well, there’s five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head of the bend. Is your man white or black?”

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CHAPTER XVI.

I didn’t answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn’t man enough—hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says:

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CHAPTER XVI.

“He’s white.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“I reckon we’ll go and see for ourselves.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“I wish you would,” says I, “because it’s pap that’s there, and maybe you’d help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He’s sick—and so is mam and Mary Ann.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Oh, the devil! we’re in a hurry, boy. But I s’pose we’ve got to. Come, buckle to your paddle, and let’s get along.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a stroke or two, I says:

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CHAPTER XVI.

“Pap’ll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can’t do it by myself.”