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CHAPTER XIX.

TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by,
they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely.  Here is the way we put
in the time.  It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a mile
and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as
night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always in
the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and
willows, and hid the raft with them.  Then we set out the lines.  Next we
slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off;
then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep,
and watched the daylight come.  Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still
--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs
a-cluttering, maybe.  The first thing to see, looking away over the water,
was a kind of dull line--that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn't
make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness
spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't black
any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever
so far away--trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks
--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices,
it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a
streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's
a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak
look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the
east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge
of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the river, being a
woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through
it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from
over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods
and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they've left dead
fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next
you've got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the
song-birds just going it!

A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of
the lines and cook up a hot breakfast.  And afterwards we would watch the
lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off
to sleep.  Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see
a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side
you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or
side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor
nothing to see--just solid lonesomeness.  Next you'd see a raft sliding
by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're
most always doing it on a raft; you'd see the axe flash and come down
--you don't hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time
it's above the man's head then you hear the K'CHUNK!--it had took all
that time to come over the water.  So we would put in the day, lazying
around, listening to the stillness.  Once there was a thick fog, and the
rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats
wouldn't run over them.  A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear
them talking and cussing and laughing--heard them plain; but we couldn't
see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits
carrying on that way in the air.  Jim said he believed it was spirits;
but I says:

"No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'"

Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the
middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted
her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and
talked about all kinds of things--we was always naked, day and night,
whenever the mosquitoes would let us--the new clothes Buck's folks made
for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on
clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest
time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a
spark--which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water
you could see a spark or two--on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe
you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts.
It's lovely to live on a raft.  We had the sky up there, all speckled
with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and
discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.  Jim he
allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would
have took too long to MAKE so many.  Jim said the moon could a LAID them;
well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it,
because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.
We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak down.  Jim
allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the nest.

Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the
dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of
her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful
pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and
her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her
waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the
raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't
tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.

After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or three
hours the shores was black--no more sparks in the cabin windows.  These
sparks was our clock--the first one that showed again meant morning was
coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.

One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to
the main shore--it was only two hundred yards--and paddled about a mile
up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get some
berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed
the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as
they could foot it.  I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was
after anybody I judged it was ME--or maybe Jim.  I was about to dig out
from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung out
and begged me to save their lives--said they hadn't been doing nothing,
and was being chased for it--said there was men and dogs a-coming.  They
wanted to jump right in, but I says:

"Don't you do it.  I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got time
to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you
take to the water and wade down to me and get in--that'll throw the dogs
off the scent."

They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, and
in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off,
shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't see
them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got
further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at
all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the
river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid
in the cottonwoods and was safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head
and very gray whiskers.  He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a
greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed
into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses--no, he only had one.  He had
an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over
his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery.  After
breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out
was that these chaps didn't know one another.

"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.

"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth--and
it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it--but I
stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of
sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and you
told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off.  So I
told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out WITH you.
That's the whole yarn--what's yourn?

"Well, I'd ben a-running' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a week,
and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makin' it
mighty warm for the rummies, I TELL you, and takin' as much as five or
six dollars a night--ten cents a head, children and niggers free--and
business a-growin' all the time, when somehow or another a little report
got around last night that I had a way of puttin' in my time with a
private jug on the sly.  A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and told
me the people was getherin' on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and
they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, and
then run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and feather
me and ride me on a rail, sure.  I didn't wait for no breakfast--I warn't
hungry."

"Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it
together; what do you think?"

"I ain't undisposed.  What's your line--mainly?"

"Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theater-actor
--tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when there's a
chance; teach singing-geography school for a change; sling a lecture
sometimes--oh, I do lots of things--most anything that comes handy, so it
ain't work.  What's your lay?"

"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time.  Layin' on o'
hands is my best holt--for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I
k'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out
the facts for me.  Preachin's my line, too, and workin' camp-meetin's,
and missionaryin' around."

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh
and says:

"Alas!"

"What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head.

"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded
down into such company."  And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with
a rag.

"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the
baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

"Yes, it IS good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who
fetched me so low when I was so high?  I did myself.  I don't blame YOU,
gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody.  I deserve it all.  Let
the cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave somewhere
for me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take everything
from me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take that.
Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken heart
will be at rest."  He went on a-wiping.

"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heaving
your pore broken heart at US f'r?  WE hain't done nothing."

"No, I know you haven't.  I ain't blaming you, gentlemen.  I brought
myself down--yes, I did it myself.  It's right I should suffer--perfectly
right--I don't make any moan."

"Brought you down from whar?  Whar was you brought down from?"

"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass
--'tis no matter.  The secret of my birth--"

"The secret of your birth!  Do you mean to say--"

"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to you,
for I feel I may have confidence in you.  By rights I am a duke!"

Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.
Then the baldhead says:  "No! you can't mean it?"

"Yes.  My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled
to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure
air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father
dying about the same time.  The second son of the late duke seized the
titles and estates--the infant real duke was ignored.  I am the lineal
descendant of that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and
here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by
the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the
companionship of felons on a raft!"

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but
he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we was
a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything
else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how.  He said we ought to
bow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your
Lordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain
"Bridgewater," which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and
one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him
he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it.  All through dinner Jim stood
around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or
some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to
him.

But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say, and
didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on
around that duke.  He seemed to have something on his mind.  So, along in
the afternoon, he says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you
ain't the only person that's had troubles like that."

"No?"

"No you ain't.  You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down
wrongfully out'n a high place."

"Alas!"

"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth."  And,
by jings, HE begins to cry.

"Hold!  What do you mean?"

"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of sobbing.

"To the bitter death!"  He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,
and says, "That secret of your being:  speak!"

"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time.  Then the duke says:

"You are what?"

"Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very moment
on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the
Sixteen and Marry Antonette."

"You!  At your age!  No!  You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must
be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."

"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung
these gray hairs and this premature balditude.  Yes, gentlemen, you see
before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampled-on,
and sufferin' rightful King of France."

Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to
do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too.  So
we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort HIM.
But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all
could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel easier and
better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got
down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"
and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down in his presence
till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this
and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us we might
set down.  This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and
comfortable.  But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit
satisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted real
friendly towards him, and said the duke's great-grandfather and all the
other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by HIS father, and
was allowed to come to the palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy
a good while, till by and by the king says:

"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer raft,
Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour?  It 'll only make
things oncomfortable.  It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it ain't
your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry?  Make the
best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto.  This ain't
no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy life--come,
give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends."

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it.  It took away
all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because it
would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft;
for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be
satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no
kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds.  But I
never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way;
then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble.  If they
wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as
it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I
didn't tell him.  If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt
that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them
have their own way.




CHAPTER XX.

THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we covered
up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running
--was Jim a runaway nigger?  Says I:

"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run SOUTH?"

No, they allowed he wouldn't.  I had to account for things some way, so I
says:

"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and
they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike.  Pa, he 'lowed he'd
break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little
one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans.  Pa was
pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't
nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim.  That warn't enough
to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way.  Well,
when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketched this
piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it.  Pa's luck
didn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner of the raft one
night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel; Jim and me
come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four years old, so
they never come up no more.  Well, for the next day or two we had
considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in skiffs and
trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was a runaway
nigger.  We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they don't bother us."

The duke says:

"Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we
want to.  I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that'll fix it.
We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to go by
that town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy."

Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat
lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was
beginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see
that.  So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see
what the beds was like.  My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, which
was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shuck tick,
and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dry shucks
sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it makes such a
rustling that you wake up.  Well, the duke allowed he would take my bed;
but the king allowed he wouldn't.  He says:

"I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you that
a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on.  Your Grace 'll
take the shuck bed yourself."

Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was
going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when
the duke says:

"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of
oppression.  Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I
submit; 'tis my fate.  I am alone in the world--let me suffer; can bear
it."

We got away as soon as it was good and dark.  The king told us to stand
well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we
got a long ways below the town.  We come in sight of the little bunch of
lights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a half
a mile out, all right.  When we was three-quarters of a mile below we
hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to rain
and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told us to
both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the duke
crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night.  It was my watch
below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed,
because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not
by a long sight.  My souls, how the wind did scream along!  And every
second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half
a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain,
and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum!
bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling
and grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash and
another sockdolager.  The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes,
but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind.  We didn't have no trouble
about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant
that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or
that and miss them.

I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time,
so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was always
mighty good that way, Jim was.  I crawled into the wigwam, but the king
and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show for
me; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and
the waves warn't running so high now.  About two they come up again,
though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, because he
reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he was mistaken
about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a regular ripper
and washed me overboard.  It most killed Jim a-laughing.  He was the
easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway.

I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by the
storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showed I
rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the day.

The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him and
the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game.  Then they got tired
of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they called it.
The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot of little
printed bills and read them out loud.  One bill said, "The celebrated Dr.
Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on the Science of
Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day of blank, at ten
cents admission, and "furnish charts of character at twenty-five cents
apiece."  The duke said that was HIM.  In another bill he was the
"world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury
Lane, London."  In other bills he had a lot of other names and done other
wonderful things, like finding water and gold with a "divining-rod,"
"dissipating witch spells," and so on.  By and by he says:

"But the histrionic muse is the darling.  Have you ever trod the boards,
Royalty?"

"No," says the king.

"You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen Grandeur," says
the duke.  "The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do the
sword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.
How does that strike you?"

"I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but, you
see, I don't know nothing about play-actin', and hain't ever seen much of
it.  I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace.  Do you
reckon you can learn me?"

"Easy!"

"All right.  I'm jist a-freezn' for something fresh, anyway.  Le's
commence right away."

So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was, and
said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet.

"But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my white
whiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe."

"No, don't you worry; these country jakes won't ever think of that.
Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all the
difference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight
before she goes to bed, and she's got on her night-gown and her ruffled
nightcap.  Here are the costumes for the parts."

He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was meedyevil
armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white cotton
nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match.  The king was satisfied; so
the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the most splendid
spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same time, to show
how it had got to be done; then he give the book to the king and told him
to get his part by heart.

There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and
after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to run
in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he would
go down to the town and fix that thing.  The king allowed he would go,
too, and see if he couldn't strike something.  We was out of coffee, so
Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some.

When we got there there warn't nobody stirring; streets empty, and
perfectly dead and still, like Sunday.  We found a sick nigger sunning
himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young or
too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in the
woods.  The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work that
camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too.

The duke said what he was after was a printing-office.  We found it; a
little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop--carpenters and
printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked.  It was a dirty,
littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures of
horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls.  The duke shed
his coat and said he was all right now.  So me and the king lit out for
the camp-meeting.

We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a most
awful hot day.  There was as much as a thousand people there from twenty
mile around.  The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched
everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep off
the flies.  There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with
branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of
watermelons and green corn and such-like truck.

The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was
bigger and held crowds of people.  The benches was made out of outside
slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into
for legs. They didn't have no backs.  The preachers had high platforms to
stand on at one end of the sheds.  The women had on sun-bonnets; and some
had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the young ones
had on calico.  Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of the
children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen shirt.  Some of
the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting on
the sly.

The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn.  He lined
out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,
there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then he
lined out two more for them to sing--and so on.  The people woke up more
and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some begun to
groan, and some begun to shout.  Then the preacher begun to preach, and
begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side of the platform
and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the front of it, with
his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out with
all his might; and every now and then he would hold up his Bible and
spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting,
"It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness!  Look upon it and live!"  And
people would shout out, "Glory!--A-a-MEN!"  And so he went on, and the
people groaning and crying and saying amen:

"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (AMEN!) come,
sick and sore! (AMEN!) come, lame and halt and blind! (AMEN!) come, pore
and needy, sunk in shame! (A-A-MEN!) come, all that's worn and soiled and
suffering!--come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite heart! come
in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is free, the door
of heaven stands open--oh, enter in and be at rest!" (A-A-MEN!  GLORY,
GLORY HALLELUJAH!)

And so on.  You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on
account of the shouting and crying.  Folks got up everywheres in the
crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners' bench,
with the tears running down their faces; and when all the mourners had
got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and shouted and
flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.

Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him
over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, and
the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it.  He
told them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in the
Indian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in
a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to
goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat
without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that
ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for the
first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start right
off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of his
life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could do it
better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews in that
ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there without
money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he
would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me no credit; it
all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting, natural
brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher there, the
truest friend a pirate ever had!"

And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody.  Then somebody sings
out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!"  Well, a half
a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let HIM pass the
hat around!"  Then everybody said it, the preacher too.

So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes,
and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being so
good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while the
prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would
up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and he
always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or
six times--and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to
live in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he said
as this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and
besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to
work on the pirates.

When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had
collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.  And then he had
fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a
wagon when he was starting home through the woods.  The king said, take
it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the missionarying
line.  He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't amount to shucks
alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.

The duke was thinking HE'D been doing pretty well till the king come to
show up, but after that he didn't think so so much.  He had set up and
printed off two little jobs for farmers in that printing-office--horse
bills--and took the money, four dollars.  And he had got in ten
dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he said he would
put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance--so they done it.
The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he took in three
subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of them paying him in
advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions as usual, but he
said he had just bought the concern and knocked down the price as low as
he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash.  He set up a little
piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of his own head--three
verses--kind of sweet and saddish--the name of it was, "Yes, crush, cold
world, this breaking heart"--and he left that all set up and ready to
print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it.  Well, he took in
nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty square day's work
for it.

Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged for,
because it was for us.  It had a picture of a runaway nigger with a
bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it.  The
reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot.  It said he
run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans, last
winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and send him
back he could have the reward and expenses.

"Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if we
want to.  Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot
with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we
captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so
we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to
get the reward.  Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but
it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor.  Too much like
jewelry.  Ropes are the correct thing--we must preserve the unities, as
we say on the boards."

We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no trouble
about running daytimes.  We judged we could make miles enough that night
to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work in the
printing office was going to make in that little town; then we could boom
right along if we wanted to.

We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten o'clock;
then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't hoist our
lantern till we was clear out of sight of it.

When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says:

"Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis trip?"

"No," I says, "I reckon not."

"Well," says he, "dat's all right, den.  I doan' mine one er two kings,
but dat's enough.  Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' much
better."

I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hear
what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so long, and
had so much trouble, he'd forgot it.




CHAPTER XXI.

IT was after sun-up now, but we went right on and didn't tie up.  The
king and the duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty; but after
they'd jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a good deal.
After breakfast the king he took a seat on the corner of the raft, and
pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let his legs dangle
in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went to
getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart.  When he had got it pretty good
him and the duke begun to practice it together.  The duke had to learn
him over and over again how to say every speech; and he made him sigh,
and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done it
pretty well; "only," he says, "you mustn't bellow out ROMEO! that way,
like a bull--you must say it soft and sick and languishy, so--R-o-o-meo!
that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you
know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass."

Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out of
oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight--the duke called himself
Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around the raft was
grand to see.  But by and by the king tripped and fell overboard, and
after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all kinds of adventures
they'd had in other times along the river.

After dinner the duke says:

"Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so I
guess we'll add a little more to it.  We want a little something to
answer encores with, anyway."

"What's onkores, Bilgewater?"

The duke told him, and then says:

"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and
you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy."

"Hamlet's which?"

"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare.
Ah, it's sublime, sublime!  Always fetches the house.  I haven't got it
in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can piece it out
from memory.  I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call
it back from recollection's vaults."

So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible every
now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would squeeze
his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan; next he would
sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear.  It was beautiful to see him.
By and by he got it.  He told us to give attention.  Then he strikes a
most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms stretched
away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky; and then he
begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that, all through
his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his chest, and
just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before.  This is the
speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the king:

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so
long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to
Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the
innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling
the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of.
There's the respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking!  I
would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The
oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The law's delay, and the
quietus which his pangs might take, In the dead waste and middle of the
night, when churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But that
the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, Breathes
forth contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of resolution, like
the poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er with care, And all the clouds
that lowered o'er our housetops, With this regard their currents turn
awry, And lose the name of action. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be
wished.  But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble
jaws, But get thee to a nunnery--go!

Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he
could do it first-rate.  It seemed like he was just born for it; and when
he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he
would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it off.

The first chance we got the duke he had some showbills printed; and after
that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft was a most
uncommon lively place, for there warn't nothing but sword fighting and
rehearsing--as the duke called it--going on all the time.  One morning,
when we was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw, we come in sight of a
little one-horse town in a big bend; so we tied up about three-quarters
of a mile above it, in the mouth of a crick which was shut in like a
tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took the canoe and
went down there to see if there was any chance in that place for our
show.

We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there that
afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in
all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses.  The circus would leave
before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance.  The duke he
hired the courthouse, and we went around and stuck up our bills.  They
read like this:

Shaksperean Revival ! ! !
Wonderful Attraction!
For One Night Only!

The world renowned tragedians, David Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane
Theatre London, and Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket
Theatre, Whitechapel, Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the Royal
Continental Theatres, in their sublime Shaksperean Spectacle entitled

TheBalcony Scene in Romeo and Juliet ! ! !

Romeo...................Mr. Garrick
Juliet..................Mr. Kean

Assisted by the whole strength of the company!
New costumes, new scenes, new appointments!
Also: The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling
Broad-sword conflict In Richard III. ! ! !

Richard III.............Mr. Garrick
Richmond................Mr. Kean

Also: (by special request) Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy ! !
By The Illustrious Kean! Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris!
For One Night Only, On account of imperative European engagements!
Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents.

Then we went loafing around town.  The stores and houses was most all
old, shackly, dried up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they
was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of
reach of the water when the river was over-flowed.  The houses had little
gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in
them but jimpson-weeds, and sunflowers, and ash piles, and old curled-up
boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out tinware.
The fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed on at different
times; and they leaned every which way, and had gates that didn't generly
have but one hinge--a leather one.  Some of the fences had been
white-washed some time or another, but the duke said it was in Clumbus'
time, like enough.  There was generly hogs in the garden, and people
driving them out.

All the stores was along one street.  They had white domestic awnings in
front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awning-posts.
There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on
them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and chawing
tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretching--a mighty ornery lot.
They generly had on yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella, but
didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats, they called one another Bill, and
Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and used
considerable many cuss words.  There was as many as one loafer leaning up
against every awning-post, and he most always had his hands in his
britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw of
tobacco or scratch.  What a body was hearing amongst them all the time
was:

"Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank."

"Cain't; I hain't got but one chaw left.  Ask Bill."

Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain't got none.
Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a chaw
of tobacco of their own.  They get all their chawing by borrowing; they
say to a fellow, "I wisht you'd len' me a chaw, Jack, I jist this minute
give Ben Thompson the last chaw I had"--which is a lie pretty much
everytime; it don't fool nobody but a stranger; but Jack ain't no
stranger, so he says:

"YOU give him a chaw, did you?  So did your sister's cat's grandmother.
You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, Lafe Buckner,
then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge you no back
intrust, nuther."

"Well, I DID pay you back some of it wunst."

"Yes, you did--'bout six chaws.  You borry'd store tobacker and paid back
nigger-head."

Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the
natural leaf twisted.  When they borrow a chaw they don't generly cut it
off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with
their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in two;
then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when
it's handed back, and says, sarcastic:

"Here, gimme the CHAW, and you take the PLUG."

All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn't nothing else BUT mud
--mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and two
or three inches deep in ALL the places.  The hogs loafed and grunted
around everywheres.  You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come
lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in the way, where
folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch out and shut her eyes and
wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as happy as if
she was on salary. And pretty soon you'd hear a loafer sing out, "Hi!  SO
boy! sick him, Tige!" and away the sow would go, squealing most horrible,
with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and three or four dozen more
a-coming; and then you would see all the loafers get up and watch the thing
out of sight, and laugh at the fun and look grateful for the noise.  Then
they'd settle back again till there was a dog fight.  There couldn't
anything wake them up all over, and make them happy all over, like a dog
fight--unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting
fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to
death.

On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank, and
they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in, The people had
moved out of them.  The bank was caved away under one corner of some
others, and that corner was hanging over.  People lived in them yet, but
it was dangersome, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house
caves in at a time.  Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep
will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the
river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back,
and back, and back, because the river's always gnawing at it.

The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the wagons
and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time.  Families
fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them in the
wagons.  There was considerable whisky drinking going on, and I seen
three fights.  By and by somebody sings out:

"Here comes old Boggs!--in from the country for his little old monthly
drunk; here he comes, boys!"

All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having fun out
of Boggs.  One of them says:

"Wonder who he's a-gwyne to chaw up this time.  If he'd a-chawed up all
the men he's ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have
considerable ruputation now."

Another one says, "I wisht old Boggs 'd threaten me, 'cuz then I'd know I
warn't gwyne to die for a thousan' year."

Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an
Injun, and singing out:

"Cler the track, thar.  I'm on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins is
a-gwyne to raise."

He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year
old, and had a very red face.  Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him
and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and lay
them out in their regular turns, but he couldn't wait now because he'd
come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, "Meat
first, and spoon vittles to top off on."

He see me, and rode up and says:

"Whar'd you come f'm, boy?  You prepared to die?"

Then he rode on.  I was scared, but a man says:

"He don't mean nothing; he's always a-carryin' on like that when he's
drunk.  He's the best naturedest old fool in Arkansaw--never hurt nobody,
drunk nor sober."

Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down so
he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells:

"Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you've swindled.
You're the houn' I'm after, and I'm a-gwyne to have you, too!"

And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue
to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and
going on.  By and by a proud-looking man about fifty-five--and he was a
heap the best dressed man in that town, too--steps out of the store, and
the crowd drops back on each side to let him come.  He says to Boggs,
mighty ca'm and slow--he says:

"I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till one o'clock.  Till one
o'clock, mind--no longer.  If you open your mouth against me only once
after that time you can't travel so far but I will find you."

Then he turns and goes in.  The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody
stirred, and there warn't no more laughing.  Boggs rode off blackguarding
Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street; and pretty soon
back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping it up.  Some men
crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't; they
told him it would be one o'clock in about fifteen minutes, and so he MUST
go home--he must go right away.  But it didn't do no good.  He cussed
away with all his might, and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode
over it, and pretty soon away he went a-raging down the street again,
with his gray hair a-flying. Everybody that could get a chance at him
tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they could lock him up
and get him sober; but it warn't no use--up the street he would tear
again, and give Sherburn another cussing.  By and by somebody says:

"Go for his daughter!--quick, go for his daughter; sometimes he'll listen
to her.  If anybody can persuade him, she can."

So somebody started on a run.  I walked down street a ways and stopped.
In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his
horse.  He was a-reeling across the street towards me, bare-headed, with
a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him along.
He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn't hanging back any, but was
doing some of the hurrying himself.  Somebody sings out:

"Boggs!"

I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel Sherburn.
He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a pistol raised in
his right hand--not aiming it, but holding it out with the barrel tilted
up towards the sky.  The same second I see a young girl coming on the
run, and two men with her.  Boggs and the men turned round to see who
called him, and when they see the pistol the men jumped to one side, and
the pistol-barrel come down slow and steady to a level--both barrels
cocked. Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, "O Lord, don't
shoot!"  Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back, clawing at the
air--bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards on to the
ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out.  That young girl
screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on her
father, crying, and saying, "Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him!"  The
crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with
their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to
shove them back and shouting, "Back, back! give him air, give him air!"

Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the ground, and turned around
on his heels and walked off.

They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just
the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good place
at the window, where I was close to him and could see in.  They laid him
on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened another
one and spread it on his breast; but they tore open his shirt first, and
I seen where one of the bullets went in.  He made about a dozen long
gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his breath, and
letting it down again when he breathed it out--and after that he laid
still; he was dead.  Then they pulled his daughter away from him,
screaming and crying, and took her off.  She was about sixteen, and very
sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared.

Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and
pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people that
had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them was saying
all the time, "Say, now, you've looked enough, you fellows; 'tain't right
and 'tain't fair for you to stay thar all the time, and never give nobody
a chance; other folks has their rights as well as you."

There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there
was going to be trouble.  The streets was full, and everybody was
excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened,
and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows,
stretching their necks and listening.  One long, lanky man, with long
hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a
crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs
stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from
one place to t'other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their
heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their
hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with his
cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn had stood,
frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes, and sung out,
"Boggs!" and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says "Bang!"
staggered backwards, says "Bang!" again, and fell down flat on his back.
The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect; said it was
just exactly the way it all happened.  Then as much as a dozen people got
out their bottles and treated him.

Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched.  In about a
minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and
snatching down every clothes-line they come to to do the hanging with.


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