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CHAPTER XXXV.

IT would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down
into the woods; because Tom said we got to have SOME light to see how to
dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble; what
we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called fox-fire, and
just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a dark place.  We
fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom
says, kind of dissatisfied:

"Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be.
And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan.  There
ain't no watchman to be drugged--now there OUGHT to be a watchman.  There
ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to.  And there's Jim chained
by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of his bed:  why, all you
got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain.  And Uncle
Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the punkin-headed nigger, and
don't send nobody to watch the nigger.  Jim could a got out of that
window-hole before this, only there wouldn't be no use trying to travel
with a ten-foot chain on his leg.  Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest
arrangement I ever see. You got to invent ALL the difficulties.  Well, we
can't help it; we got to do the best we can with the materials we've got.
Anyhow, there's one thing--there's more honor in getting him out
through a lot of difficulties and dangers, where there warn't one of them
furnished to you by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and
you had to contrive them all out of your own head.  Now look at just that
one thing of the lantern.  When you come down to the cold facts, we
simply got to LET ON that a lantern's resky.  Why, we could work with a
torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe.  Now, whilst I think of
it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the first chance we
get."

"What do we want of a saw?"

"What do we WANT of a saw?  Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed
off, so as to get the chain loose?"

"Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain
off."

"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn.  You CAN get up the
infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing.  Why, hain't you ever read
any books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny,
nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes?  Who ever heard of getting a
prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that?  No; the way all the
best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just so,
and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put some dirt and
grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see no
sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound.
Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip
off your chain, and there you are.  Nothing to do but hitch your rope
ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moat
--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know--and there's
your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you
across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or
wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck.  I wish there was a moat to this cabin.
If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one."

I says:

"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under
the cabin?"

But he never heard me.  He had forgot me and everything else.  He had his
chin in his hand, thinking.  Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head;
then sighs again, and says:

"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it."

"For what?"  I says.

"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.

"Good land!"  I says; "why, there ain't NO necessity for it.  And what
would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"

"Well, some of the best authorities has done it.  They couldn't get the
chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved.  And a leg would
be better still.  But we got to let that go.  There ain't necessity
enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't
understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so
we'll let it go.  But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we
can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough.  And we
can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way.  And I've et
worse pies."

"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a rope
ladder."

"He HAS got use for it.  How YOU talk, you better say; you don't know
nothing about it.  He's GOT to have a rope ladder; they all do."

"What in the nation can he DO with it?"

"DO with it?  He can hide it in his bed, can't he?"  That's what they all
do; and HE'S got to, too.  Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do
anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the
time. S'pose he DON'T do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, for
a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews?  Of
course they will.  And you wouldn't leave them any?  That would be a
PRETTY howdy-do, WOULDN'T it!  I never heard of such a thing."

"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it, all
right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no
regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing up
our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble
with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born.  Now, the way I look at it,
a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing, and is
just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag
ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no experience, and so
he don't care what kind of a--"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep still
--that's what I'D do.  Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a
hickry-bark ladder?  Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."

"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my advice,
you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline."

He said that would do.  And that gave him another idea, and he says:

"Borrow a shirt, too."

"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"

"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."

"Journal your granny--JIM can't write."

"S'pose he CAN'T write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if we
make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron
barrel-hoop?"

"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better
one; and quicker, too."

"PRISONERS don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens
out of, you muggins.  They ALWAYS make their pens out of the hardest,
toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like
that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks and
months and months to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by
rubbing it on the wall.  THEY wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had it.
It ain't regular."

"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?"

"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort and
women; the best authorities uses their own blood.  Jim can do that; and
when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to
let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom
of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window.  The Iron Mask
always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too."

"Jim ain't got no tin plates.  They feed him in a pan."

"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."

"Can't nobody READ his plates."

"That ain't got anything to DO with it, Huck Finn.  All HE'S got to do is
to write on the plate and throw it out.  You don't HAVE to be able to
read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner writes on
a tin plate, or anywhere else."

"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"

"Why, blame it all, it ain't the PRISONER'S plates."

"But it's SOMEBODY'S plates, ain't it?"

"Well, spos'n it is?  What does the PRISONER care whose--"

He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing.  So we
cleared out for the house.

Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the
clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went
down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too.  I called it borrowing,
because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn't
borrowing, it was stealing.  He said we was representing prisoners; and
prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody
don't blame them for it, either.  It ain't no crime in a prisoner to
steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's his right; and
so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to
steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves
out of prison with.  He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very
different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he
warn't a prisoner.  So we allowed we would steal everything there was
that come handy.  And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that,
when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made
me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for.
Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we NEEDED. Well,
I says, I needed the watermelon.  But he said I didn't need it to get out
of prison with; there's where the difference was.  He said if I'd a
wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal
with, it would a been all right.  So I let it go at that, though I
couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set
down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I
see a chance to hog a watermelon.

Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled
down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he
carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep
watch.  By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile
to talk.  He says:

"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed."

"Tools?"  I says.

"Yes."

"Tools for what?"

"Why, to dig with.  We ain't a-going to GNAW him out, are we?"

"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a
nigger out with?"  I says.

He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:

"Huck Finn, did you EVER hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and
all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with?  Now
I want to ask you--if you got any reasonableness in you at all--what kind
of a show would THAT give him to be a hero?  Why, they might as well lend
him the key and done with it.  Picks and shovels--why, they wouldn't
furnish 'em to a king."

"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do we
want?"

"A couple of case-knives."

"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?"

"Yes."

"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."

"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the RIGHT way--and
it's the regular way.  And there ain't no OTHER way, that ever I heard
of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these
things. They always dig out with a case-knife--and not through dirt, mind
you; generly it's through solid rock.  And it takes them weeks and weeks
and weeks, and for ever and ever.  Why, look at one of them prisoners in
the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that
dug himself out that way; how long was HE at it, you reckon?"

"I don't know."

"Well, guess."

"I don't know.  A month and a half."

"THIRTY-SEVEN YEAR--and he come out in China.  THAT'S the kind.  I wish
the bottom of THIS fortress was solid rock."

"JIM don't know nobody in China."

"What's THAT got to do with it?  Neither did that other fellow.  But
you're always a-wandering off on a side issue.  Why can't you stick to
the main point?"

"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he COMES out; and Jim
don't, either, I reckon.  But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too old to
be dug out with a case-knife.  He won't last."

"Yes he will LAST, too.  You don't reckon it's going to take thirty-seven
years to dig out through a DIRT foundation, do you?"

"How long will it take, Tom?"

"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't take
very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans.  He'll
hear Jim ain't from there.  Then his next move will be to advertise Jim,
or something like that.  So we can't resk being as long digging him out
as we ought to.  By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years; but
we can't.  Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this:  that we
really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can LET ON,
to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years.  Then we can snatch
him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm.  Yes, I reckon
that 'll be the best way."

"Now, there's SENSE in that," I says.  "Letting on don't cost nothing;
letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind letting
on we was at it a hundred and fifty year.  It wouldn't strain me none,
after I got my hand in.  So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of
case-knives."

"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."

"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says,
"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the
weather-boarding behind the smoke-house."

He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:

"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck.  Run along and smouch
the knives--three of them."  So I done it.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the
lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile
of fox-fire, and went to work.  We cleared everything out of the way,
about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log.  Tom said we
was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and when we got
through there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there was any hole
there, because Jim's counter-pin hung down most to the ground, and you'd
have to raise it up and look under to see the hole.  So we dug and dug
with the case-knives till most midnight; and then we was dog-tired, and
our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn't see we'd done anything
hardly.  At last I says:

"This ain't no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year job,
Tom Sawyer."

He never said nothing.  But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped
digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking.
Then he says:

"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work.  If we was prisoners it
would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no hurry;
and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while they was
changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and we could
keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, and the
way it ought to be done.  But WE can't fool along; we got to rush; we
ain't got no time to spare.  If we was to put in another night this way
we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get well--couldn't
touch a case-knife with them sooner."

"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"

"I'll tell you.  It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like
it to get out; but there ain't only just the one way:  we got to dig him
out with the picks, and LET ON it's case-knives."

"NOW you're TALKING!"  I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler all
the time, Tom Sawyer," I says.  "Picks is the thing, moral or no moral;
and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow.  When I
start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school book, I
ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's done.  What I want is my
nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my
Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing
I'm a-going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school
book out with; and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks
about it nuther."

"Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like
this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by
and see the rules broke--because right is right, and wrong is wrong, and
a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows
better.  It might answer for YOU to dig Jim out with a pick, WITHOUT any
letting on, because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for me,
because I do know better.  Gimme a case-knife."

He had his own by him, but I handed him mine.  He flung it down, and
says:

"Gimme a CASE-KNIFE."

I didn't know just what to do--but then I thought.  I scratched around
amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took
it and went to work, and never said a word.

He was always just that particular.  Full of principle.

So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about, and
made the fur fly.  We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as long
as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for it.
When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing his
level best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his hands was
so sore.  At last he says:

"It ain't no use, it can't be done.  What you reckon I better do?  Can't
you think of no way?"

"Yes," I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular.  Come up the stairs, and
let on it's a lightning-rod."

So he done it.

Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house,
for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I hung
around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin
plates.  Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever see
the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel
and jimpson weeds under the window-hole--then we could tote them back and
he could use them over again.  So Tom was satisfied.  Then he says:

"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."

"Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."

He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard
of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying.  By and by he said
he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to decide
on any of them yet.  Said we'd got to post Jim first.

That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took
one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard
Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him.  Then we
whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half
the job was done.  We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and
pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile,
and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle
and gradual.  He was so glad to see us he most cried; and called us
honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was for having us
hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with right away,
and clearing out without losing any time.  But Tom he showed him how
unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our plans, and
how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an alarm; and not
to be the least afraid, because we would see he got away, SURE.  So Jim
he said it was all right, and we set there and talked over old times
awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim told him
Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally
come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and both of
them was kind as they could be, Tom says:

"NOW I know how to fix it.  We'll send you some things by them."

I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass ideas
I ever struck;" but he never paid no attention to me; went right on.  It
was his way when he'd got his plans set.

So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and other
large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the
lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and we
would put small things in uncle's coat-pockets and he must steal them
out; and we would tie things to aunt's apron-strings or put them in her
apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and told him what they would be and
what they was for.  And told him how to keep a journal on the shirt with
his blood, and all that. He told him everything.  Jim he couldn't see no
sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed
better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just as
Tom said.

Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good
sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to bed,
with hands that looked like they'd been chawed.  Tom was in high spirits.
He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most
intellectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we would keep
it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out;
for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the more he
got used to it.  He said that in that way it could be strung out to as
much as eighty year, and would be the best time on record.  And he said
it would make us all celebrated that had a hand in it.

In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass
candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in
his pocket.  Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's
notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a
corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how it
would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most mashed
all his teeth out; and there warn't ever anything could a worked better.
Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it was only just a
piece of rock or something like that that's always getting into bread,
you know; but after that he never bit into nothing but what he jabbed his
fork into it in three or four places first.

And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on
piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room in
there to get your breath.  By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to
door!  The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches" once, and keeled
over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was
dying.  Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, and
the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back
again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other door too.
Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and
asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again.  He raised up,
and blinked his eyes around, and says:

"Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a
million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in dese
tracks.  I did, mos' sholy.  Mars Sid, I FELT um--I FELT um, sah; dey was
all over me.  Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's on one er
dem witches jis' wunst--on'y jis' wunst--it's all I'd ast.  But mos'ly I
wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does."

Tom says:

"Well, I tell you what I think.  What makes them come here just at this
runaway nigger's breakfast-time?  It's because they're hungry; that's the
reason.  You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for YOU to do."

"But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie?  I doan'
know how to make it.  I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."

"Well, then, I'll have to make it myself."

"Will you do it, honey?--will you?  I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo' foot,
I will!"

"All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and
showed us the runaway nigger.  But you got to be mighty careful.  When we
come around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the pan,
don't you let on you see it at all.  And don't you look when Jim unloads
the pan--something might happen, I don't know what.  And above all, don't
you HANDLE the witch-things."

"HANNEL 'm, Mars Sid?  What IS you a-talkin' 'bout?  I wouldn' lay de
weight er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion dollars, I
wouldn't."




CHAPTER XXXVII.

THAT was all fixed.  So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pile in
the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces of
bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched
around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well as
we could, to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it full
of flour and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nails
that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and
sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in Aunt
Sally's apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and t'other we stuck
in the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because we
heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the runaway nigger's
house this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the
pewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coat-pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come
yet, so we had to wait a little while.

And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly wait
for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one hand
and cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble with the other,
and says:

"I've hunted high and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what HAS

become of your other shirt."

My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard
piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the
road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the
children in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cry
out of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around
the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for
about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold out
for half price if there was a bidder.  But after that we was all right
again--it was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold.
Uncle Silas he says:

"It's most uncommon curious, I can't understand it.  I know perfectly
well I took it OFF, because--"

"Because you hain't got but one ON.  Just LISTEN at the man!  I know you
took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gethering memory,
too, because it was on the clo's-line yesterday--I see it there myself.
But it's gone, that's the long and the short of it, and you'll just have
to change to a red flann'l one till I can get time to make a new one.
And it 'll be the third I've made in two years.  It just keeps a body on
the jump to keep you in shirts; and whatever you do manage to DO with 'm
all is more'n I can make out.  A body 'd think you WOULD learn to take
some sort of care of 'em at your time of life."

"I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can.  But it oughtn't to be
altogether my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have nothing
to do with them except when they're on me; and I don't believe I've ever
lost one of them OFF of me."

"Well, it ain't YOUR fault if you haven't, Silas; you'd a done it if you
could, I reckon.  And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther.  Ther's a
spoon gone; and THAT ain't all.  There was ten, and now ther's only nine.
The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never took the spoon,
THAT'S certain."

"Why, what else is gone, Sally?"

"Ther's six CANDLES gone--that's what.  The rats could a got the candles,
and I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with the whole place,
the way you're always going to stop their holes and don't do it; and if
they warn't fools they'd sleep in your hair, Silas--YOU'D never find it
out; but you can't lay the SPOON on the rats, and that I know."

"Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been remiss; but I
won't let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes."

"Oh, I wouldn't hurry; next year 'll do.  Matilda Angelina Araminta
PHELPS!"

Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the
sugar-bowl without fooling around any.  Just then the nigger woman steps
on to the passage, and says:

"Missus, dey's a sheet gone."

"A SHEET gone!  Well, for the land's sake!"

"I'll stop up them holes to-day," says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.

"Oh, DO shet up!--s'pose the rats took the SHEET?  WHERE'S it gone,
Lize?"

"Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss' Sally.  She wuz on de
clo'sline yistiddy, but she done gone:  she ain' dah no mo' now."

"I reckon the world IS coming to an end.  I NEVER see the beat of it in
all my born days.  A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can--"

"Missus," comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstick miss'n."

"Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!"

Well, she was just a-biling.  I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned I
would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated.  She
kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and
everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking
kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket.  She stopped,
with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was in
Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says:

"It's JUST as I expected.  So you had it in your pocket all the time; and
like as not you've got the other things there, too.  How'd it get there?"

"I reely don't know, Sally," he says, kind of apologizing, "or you know I
would tell.  I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen before
breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put
my Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ain't in; but
I'll go and see; and if the Testament is where I had it, I'll know I
didn't put it in, and that will show that I laid the Testament down and
took up the spoon, and--"

"Oh, for the land's sake!  Give a body a rest!  Go 'long now, the whole
kit and biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got back my
peace of mind."

I'd a heard her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it out;
and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead.  As we was passing
through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and the
shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and
laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out.  Tom
see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says:

"Well, it ain't no use to send things by HIM no more, he ain't reliable."
Then he says:  "But he done us a good turn with the spoon, anyway,
without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without HIM knowing
it--stop up his rat-holes."

There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole
hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape.  Then we heard
steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes the
old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in t'other,
looking as absent-minded as year before last.  He went a mooning around,
first to one rat-hole and then another, till he'd been to them all.  Then
he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candle and
thinking.  Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs, saying:

"Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it.  I could show
her now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats.  But never mind
--let it go.  I reckon it wouldn't do no good."

And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left.  He was a
mighty nice old man.  And always is.

Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said
we'd got to have it; so he took a think.  When he had ciphered it out he
told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the spoon-basket
till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to counting the spoons
and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of them up my sleeve, and
Tom says:

"Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons YET."

She says:

"Go 'long to your play, and don't bother me.  I know better, I counted 'm
myself."

"Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine."

She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count--anybody
would.

"I declare to gracious ther' AIN'T but nine!" she says.  "Why, what in
the world--plague TAKE the things, I'll count 'm again."

So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she
says:

"Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther's TEN now!" and she looked huffy and
bothered both.  But Tom says:

"Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten."

"You numskull, didn't you see me COUNT 'm?"

"I know, but--"

"Well, I'll count 'm AGAIN."

So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time.  Well,
she WAS in a tearing way--just a-trembling all over, she was so mad.  But
she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd start to count in
the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times they come out
right, and three times they come out wrong.  Then she grabbed up the
basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the cat galley-west;
and she said cle'r out and let her have some peace, and if we come
bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she'd skin us.  So we
had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apron-pocket whilst she was
a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right, along with her
shingle nail, before noon.  We was very well satisfied with this
business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took, because
he said NOW she couldn't ever count them spoons twice alike again to save
her life; and wouldn't believe she'd counted them right if she DID; and
said that after she'd about counted her head off for the next three days
he judged she'd give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to
ever count them any more.

So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of her
closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a couple of
days till she didn't know how many sheets she had any more, and she
didn't CARE, and warn't a-going to bullyrag the rest of her soul out
about it, and wouldn't count them again not to save her life; she druther
die first.

So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon and
the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up
counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it would
blow over by and by.

But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie.  We fixed
it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it done at
last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and we had to
use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through, and we got
burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out with the smoke;
because, you see, we didn't want nothing but a crust, and we couldn't
prop it up right, and she would always cave in.  But of course we thought
of the right way at last--which was to cook the ladder, too, in the
pie.  So then we laid in with Jim the second night, and tore up the sheet
all in little strings and twisted them together, and long before daylight
we had a lovely rope that you could a hung a person with.  We let on it
took nine months to make it.

And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go into
the pie.  Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope enough
for forty pies if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left over for soup, or
sausage, or anything you choose.  We could a had a whole dinner.

But we didn't need it.  All we needed was just enough for the pie,
and so we throwed the rest away.  We didn't cook none of the pies in the
wash-pan--afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a noble
brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged
to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over from
England with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early
ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old pots and things
that was valuable, not on account of being any account, because they
warn't, but on account of them being relicts, you know, and we snaked her
out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on the first pies,
because we didn't know how, but she come up smiling on the last one.  We
took and lined her with dough, and set her in the coals, and loaded her
up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut down the lid, and put
hot embers on top, and stood off five foot, with the long handle, cool
and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned out a pie that was a
satisfaction to look at. But the person that et it would want to fetch a
couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that rope ladder wouldn't
cramp him down to business I don't know nothing what I'm talking about,
and lay him in enough stomach-ache to last him till next time, too.

Nat didn't look when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan; and we put the
three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jim
got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted into
the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick, and scratched
some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the window-hole.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.

MAKING them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and Jim
allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all.  That's the
one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall.  But he had to have
it; Tom said he'd GOT to; there warn't no case of a state prisoner not
scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms.

"Look at Lady Jane Grey," he says; "look at Gilford Dudley; look at old
Northumberland!  Why, Huck, s'pose it IS considerble trouble?--what you
going to do?--how you going to get around it?  Jim's GOT to do his
inscription and coat of arms.  They all do."

Jim says:

"Why, Mars Tom, I hain't got no coat o' arm; I hain't got nuffn but dish
yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat."

"Oh, you don't understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different."

"Well," I says, "Jim's right, anyway, when he says he ain't got no coat
of arms, because he hain't."

"I reckon I knowed that," Tom says, "but you bet he'll have one before he
goes out of this--because he's going out RIGHT, and there ain't going to
be no flaws in his record."

So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim
a-making his'n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon, Tom
set to work to think out the coat of arms.  By and by he said he'd struck
so many good ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but there was one
which he reckoned he'd decide on.  He says:

"On the scutcheon we'll have a bend OR in the dexter base, a saltire
MURREY in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under
his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron VERT in a chief
engrailed, and three invected lines on a field AZURE, with the nombril
points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway nigger, SABLE,
with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister; and a couple of
gules for supporters, which is you and me; motto, MAGGIORE FRETTA, MINORE
OTTO.  Got it out of a book--means the more haste the less speed."

"Geewhillikins," I says, "but what does the rest of it mean?"

"We ain't got no time to bother over that," he says; "we got to dig in
like all git-out."

"Well, anyway," I says, "what's SOME of it?  What's a fess?"

"A fess--a fess is--YOU don't need to know what a fess is.  I'll show him
how to make it when he gets to it."

"Shucks, Tom," I says, "I think you might tell a person.  What's a bar
sinister?"

"Oh, I don't know.  But he's got to have it.  All the nobility does."

That was just his way.  If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to you,
he wouldn't do it.  You might pump at him a week, it wouldn't make no
difference.

He'd got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to
finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a
mournful inscription--said Jim got to have one, like they all done.  He
made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so:

1.  Here a captive heart busted. 2.  Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the
world and friends, fretted his sorrowful life. 3.  Here a lonely heart
broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after thirty-seven years of
solitary captivity. 4.  Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven
years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of
Louis XIV.

Tom's voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke down.
When he got done he couldn't no way make up his mind which one for Jim to
scrabble on to the wall, they was all so good; but at last he allowed he
would let him scrabble them all on.  Jim said it would take him a year to
scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a nail, and he didn't
know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he would block them out
for him, and then he wouldn't have nothing to do but just follow the
lines.  Then pretty soon he says:

"Come to think, the logs ain't a-going to do; they don't have log walls
in a dungeon:  we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock.  We'll fetch a
rock."

Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him such
a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn't ever get out.  But
Tom said he would let me help him do it.  Then he took a look to see how
me and Jim was getting along with the pens.  It was most pesky tedious
hard work and slow, and didn't give my hands no show to get well of the
sores, and we didn't seem to make no headway, hardly; so Tom says:

"I know how to fix it.  We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and
mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock.
There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it, and
carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, too."

It warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a grindstone
nuther; but we allowed we'd tackle it.  It warn't quite midnight yet, so
we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work.  We smouched the
grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation tough
job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn't keep her from falling over,
and she come mighty near mashing us every time.  Tom said she was going
to get one of us, sure, before we got through.  We got her half way; and
then we was plumb played out, and most drownded with sweat.  We see it
warn't no use; we got to go and fetch Jim So he raised up his bed and
slid the chain off of the bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round his neck,
and we crawled out through our hole and down there, and Jim and me laid
into that grindstone and walked her along like nothing; and Tom
superintended.  He could out-superintend any boy I ever see.  He knowed
how to do everything.

Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the grindstone
through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough.  Then Tom
marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them,
with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the
lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his candle
quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone under
his straw tick and sleep on it.  Then we helped him fix his chain back on
the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves.  But Tom thought of
something, and says:

"You got any spiders in here, Jim?"

"No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom."

"All right, we'll get you some."

"But bless you, honey, I doan' WANT none.  I's afeard un um.  I jis' 's
soon have rattlesnakes aroun'."

Tom thought a minute or two, and says:

"It's a good idea.  And I reckon it's been done.  It MUST a been done; it
stands to reason.  Yes, it's a prime good idea.  Where could you keep
it?"

"Keep what, Mars Tom?"

"Why, a rattlesnake."

"De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom!  Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to
come in heah I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid
my head."

Why, Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it after a little.  You could tame
it."

"TAME it!"

"Yes--easy enough.  Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting,
and they wouldn't THINK of hurting a person that pets them.  Any book
will tell you that.  You try--that's all I ask; just try for two or three
days. Why, you can get him so in a little while that he'll love you; and
sleep with you; and won't stay away from you a minute; and will let you
wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth."

"PLEASE, Mars Tom--DOAN' talk so!  I can't STAN' it!  He'd LET me shove
his head in my mouf--fer a favor, hain't it?  I lay he'd wait a pow'ful
long time 'fo' I AST him.  En mo' en dat, I doan' WANT him to sleep wid
me."

"Jim, don't act so foolish.  A prisoner's GOT to have some kind of a dumb
pet, and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's more glory
to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other way
you could ever think of to save your life."

"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' WANT no sich glory.  Snake take 'n bite Jim's
chin off, den WHAH is de glory?  No, sah, I doan' want no sich doin's."

"Blame it, can't you TRY?  I only WANT you to try--you needn't keep it up
if it don't work."

"But de trouble all DONE ef de snake bite me while I's a tryin' him.
Mars Tom, I's willin' to tackle mos' anything 'at ain't onreasonable, but
ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I's gwyne to
LEAVE, dat's SHORE."

"Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bull-headed about it.  We
can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on their
tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll have to
do."

"I k'n stan' DEM, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout um,
I tell you dat.  I never knowed b'fo' 't was so much bother and trouble
to be a prisoner."

"Well, it ALWAYS is when it's done right.  You got any rats around here?"

"No, sah, I hain't seed none."

"Well, we'll get you some rats."

"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' WANT no rats.  Dey's de dadblamedest creturs to
'sturb a body, en rustle roun' over 'im, en bite his feet, when he's
tryin' to sleep, I ever see.  No, sah, gimme g'yarter-snakes, 'f I's got
to have 'm, but doan' gimme no rats; I hain' got no use f'r um, skasely."

"But, Jim, you GOT to have 'em--they all do.  So don't make no more fuss
about it.  Prisoners ain't ever without rats.  There ain't no instance of
it.  And they train them, and pet them, and learn them tricks, and they
get to be as sociable as flies.  But you got to play music to them.  You
got anything to play music on?"

"I ain' got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o' paper, en a juice-harp;
but I reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juice-harp."

"Yes they would.  THEY don't care what kind of music 'tis.  A jews-harp's
plenty good enough for a rat.  All animals like music--in a prison they
dote on it.  Specially, painful music; and you can't get no other kind
out of a jews-harp.  It always interests them; they come out to see
what's the matter with you.  Yes, you're all right; you're fixed very
well.  You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep, and
early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp; play 'The Last Link is
Broken'--that's the thing that 'll scoop a rat quicker 'n anything else;
and when you've played about two minutes you'll see all the rats, and the
snakes, and spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you, and
come.  And they'll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good
time."

"Yes, DEY will, I reck'n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is JIM havin'?
Blest if I kin see de pint.  But I'll do it ef I got to.  I reck'n I
better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de house."

Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else; and
pretty soon he says:

"Oh, there's one thing I forgot.  Could you raise a flower here, do you
reckon?"

"I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it's tolable dark in heah,
en I ain' got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a pow'ful sight o'
trouble."

"Well, you try it, anyway.  Some other prisoners has done it."

"One er dem big cat-tail-lookin' mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars
Tom, I reck'n, but she wouldn't be wuth half de trouble she'd coss."

"Don't you believe it.  We'll fetch you a little one and you plant it in
the corner over there, and raise it.  And don't call it mullen, call it
Pitchiola--that's its right name when it's in a prison.  And you want to
water it with your tears."

"Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom."

"You don't WANT spring water; you want to water it with your tears.  It's
the way they always do."

"Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid
spring water whiles another man's a START'N one wid tears."

"That ain't the idea.  You GOT to do it with tears."

"She'll die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan' skasely
ever cry."

So Tom was stumped.  But he studied it over, and then said Jim would have
to worry along the best he could with an onion.  He promised he would go
to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's coffee-pot, in the
morning. Jim said he would "jis' 's soon have tobacker in his coffee;"
and found so much fault with it, and with the work and bother of raising
the mullen, and jews-harping the rats, and petting and flattering up the
snakes and spiders and things, on top of all the other work he had to do
on pens, and inscriptions, and journals, and things, which made it more
trouble and worry and responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he
ever undertook, that Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was
just loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in
the world to make a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to
appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him.  So Jim he was
sorry, and said he wouldn't behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved
for bed.




CHAPTER XXXIX.

IN the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and
fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we
had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put it
in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed.  But while we was gone for
spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found
it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out,
and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was
a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what
they could to keep off the dull times for her.  So she took and dusted us
both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching another
fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn't the
likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock.
I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was.

We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and
caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet's
nest, but we didn't.  The family was at home.  We didn't give it right
up, but stayed with them as long as we could; because we allowed we'd
tire them out or they'd got to tire us out, and they done it.  Then we
got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right
again, but couldn't set down convenient.  And so we went for the snakes,
and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in a
bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was supper-time, and a
rattling good honest day's work:  and hungry?--oh, no, I reckon not!  And
there warn't a blessed snake up there when we went back--we didn't half
tie the sack, and they worked out somehow, and left.  But it didn't
matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres.  So we
judged we could get some of them again.  No, there warn't no real
scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell.  You'd see
them dripping from the rafters and places every now and then; and they
generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck, and most of
the time where you didn't want them.  Well, they was handsome and
striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of them; but that never
made no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed what
they might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it; and
every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference
what she was doing, she would just lay that work down and light out.  I
never see such a woman.  And you could hear her whoop to Jericho.  You
couldn't get her to take a-holt of one of them with the tongs.  And if
she turned over and found one in bed she would scramble out and lift a
howl that you would think the house was afire.  She disturbed the old man
so that he said he could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes
created.  Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the
house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn't over it yet; she warn't
near over it; when she was setting thinking about something you could
touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump right
out of her stockings.  It was very curious.  But Tom said all women was
just so.  He said they was made that way for some reason or other.

We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she
allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever
loaded up the place again with them.  I didn't mind the lickings, because
they didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had to lay in
another lot.  But we got them laid in, and all the other things; and you
never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd all swarm out
for music and go for him.  Jim didn't like the spiders, and the spiders
didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for him, and make it mighty warm for
him.  And he said that between the rats and the snakes and the grindstone
there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely; and when there was, a body
couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively, he said,
because THEY never all slept at one time, but took turn about, so when
the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in
the snakes come on watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his
way, and t'other gang having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt
a new place the spiders would take a chance at him as he crossed over.
He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner
again, not for a salary.

Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape.  The
shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would
get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh; the
pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the
grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust,
and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache.  We reckoned we was all going
to die, but didn't.  It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever see; and
Tom said the same.  But as I was saying, we'd got all the work done now,
at last; and we was all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim.  The
old man had wrote a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to
come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because
there warn't no such plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in
the St. Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis
ones it give me the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose.
So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters.

"What's them?"  I says.

"Warnings to the people that something is up.  Sometimes it's done one
way, sometimes another.  But there's always somebody spying around that
gives notice to the governor of the castle.  When Louis XVI. was going to
light out of the Tooleries a servant-girl done it.  It's a very good way,
and so is the nonnamous letters.  We'll use them both.  And it's usual
for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she stays in,
and he slides out in her clothes.  We'll do that, too."

"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to WARN anybody for that
something's up?  Let them find it out for themselves--it's their
lookout."

"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them.  It's the way they've acted
from the very start--left us to do EVERYTHING.  They're so confiding and
mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all.  So if we don't
GIVE them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us,
and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll go off
perfectly flat; won't amount to nothing--won't be nothing TO it."

"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."

"Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted.  So I says:

"But I ain't going to make no complaint.  Any way that suits you suits
me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?"

"You'll be her.  You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that
yaller girl's frock."

"Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she
prob'bly hain't got any but that one."

"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the
nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door."

"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my
own togs."

"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl THEN, would you?"

"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, ANYWAY."

"That ain't got nothing to do with it.  The thing for us to do is just to
do our DUTY, and not worry about whether anybody SEES us do it or not.
Hain't you got no principle at all?"

"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl.  Who's Jim's
mother?"

"I'm his mother.  I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."

"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves."

"Not much.  I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed
to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's
gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together.  When a
prisoner of style escapes it's called an evasion.  It's always called so
when a king escapes, f'rinstance.  And the same with a king's son; it
don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural one."

So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's
frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the
way Tom told me to.  It said:

Beware.  Trouble is brewing.  Keep a sharp lookout. UNKNOWN FRIEND.

Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and
crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a coffin on
the back door.  I never see a family in such a sweat.  They couldn't a
been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them
behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air.  If a
door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said "ouch!" if anything fell, she
jumped and said "ouch!" if you happened to touch her, when she warn't
noticing, she done the same; she couldn't face noway and be satisfied,
because she allowed there was something behind her every time--so she was
always a-whirling around sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd got
two-thirds around she'd whirl back again, and say it again; and she was
afraid to go to bed, but she dasn't set up.  So the thing was working
very well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory.
He said it showed it was done right.

So he said, now for the grand bulge!  So the very next morning at the
streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we
better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going to
have a nigger on watch at both doors all night.  Tom he went down the
lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep,
and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back.  This letter said:

Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend.  There is a desprate gang of
cut-throats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your runaway
nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will
stay in the house and not bother them.  I am one of the gang, but have
got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will
betray the helish design. They will sneak down from northards, along the
fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the nigger's cabin
to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I see any
danger; but stead of that I will BA like a sheep soon as they get in and
not blow at all; then whilst they are getting his chains loose, you slip
there and lock them in, and can kill them at your leasure.  Don't do
anything but just the way I am telling you; if you do they will suspicion
something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I do not wish any reward but to
know I have done the right thing. UNKNOWN FRIEND.
}
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