Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter
now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read
and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to
six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any
further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in
mathematics, anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand it.
Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got
next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school
the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's
ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and
sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold
weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so
that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so
I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming
along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn't
ashamed of me.
One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I
reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left
shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me,
and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what
a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but
that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.
I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and
wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to
be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't
one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along
low-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go
through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the
ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry
and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden
fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I

couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to
follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't
notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left
boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my
shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge
Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:
"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your
interest?"
"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"
"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in, last night—over a hundred and fifty
dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along
with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."
"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at
all—nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give
it to you—the six thousand and all."
He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:
"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take
it—won't you?"
He says:
"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"
"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing—then I won't have
to tell no lies."
He studied a while, and then he says:
"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to sell all your property to me—not
give it. That's the correct idea."
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have bought
it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign
it."
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which
had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do
magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed
everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here
again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was,
what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his
hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and
dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an

inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the
same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and
listened. But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said
sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick
counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed
through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the
brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that
would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about
the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but
maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the
difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would
manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split
open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it
there all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it
wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a
minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that
before, but I had forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened
again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would
tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the
hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he
spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to
res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin'
roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black.
De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail
in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch
him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable
trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git
hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to
git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One uv
'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'.

You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants
to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no resk,
'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."
When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap
his own self!

I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used
to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I
was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken—that is,
after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched,
he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of
him worth bothring about.
He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and
greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like
he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long,
mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face
showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make
a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a
fish-belly white. As for his clothes—just rags, that was all. He had
one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted,
and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His
hat was laying on the floor—an old black slouch with the top caved in,
like a lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair
tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was
up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over.
By-and-by he says:
"Starchy clothes—very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,
don't you?"
"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on
considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg
before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say—can read and
write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because
he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with
such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?"
"The widow. She told me."
"The widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
about a thing that ain't none of her business?"
"Nobody never told her."
"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that
school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs

over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme
catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother
couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of
the family couldn't before they died. I can't; and here you're
a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it—you hear?
Say, lemme hear you read."
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the
wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack
with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for
you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good.
First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son."
He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and
says:
"What's this?"
"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."
He tore it up, and says:
"I'll give you something better—I'll give you a cowhide."
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
"Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and
a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own father
got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I
bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you.
Why, there ain't no end to your airs—they say you're rich. Hey?—how's
that?"
"They lie—that's how."
"Looky here—mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can
stand now—so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I
hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away
down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money
to-morrow—I want it."
"I hain't got no money."
"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."
"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell
you the same."
"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know
the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."
"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to—"

"It don't make no difference what you want it for—you just shell it
out."
He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day.
When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me
for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I
reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told
me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and
lick me if I didn't drop that.
Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged
him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then
he swore he'd make the law force him.
The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away
from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge
that had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts
mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it; said
he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher
and the widow had to quit on the business.
That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me
till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I
borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying
on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most
midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court,
and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was satisfied; said
he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him.
When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him.
So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and
had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was
just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him
about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd
been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn
over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he
hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said

he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried
again; pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood
before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a
man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so
they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held
out his hand, and says:
"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.
There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more;
it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die
before he'll go back. You mark them words—don't forget I said them.
It's a clean hand now; shake it—don't be afeard."
So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The
judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge—made
his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or
something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful
room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got
powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a
stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb
back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out
again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left
arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him
after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to
take soundings before they could navigate it.
The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform
the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.