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 day-
light 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 every-
thing 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 break-
fast. And afterwards we would watch the lonesome-
ness 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 ex-
pecting 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 medi-
cines; 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 for-
get 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 confi-
dence 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 free-
dom; 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 companion-
ship 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 look-
in' at this very moment on the pore disappeared
Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Six-
teen and Marry Antonette."

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

"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done
it; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this prema-
ture balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you,
in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, tram-
pled-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 on-
comfortable. 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.
<--split-->
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 be-
lieved he was a runaway nigger. We don't run day-
times 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 tickQbetter 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 every-
thing; 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 an-
other 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 over-
board. 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 admis-
sion, and "furnish charts of character at twenty-five
cents apiece." The duke said that was HIM. In an-
other bill he was the "world-renowned Shakespearian
tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane, Lon-
don." 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 Sun-
day. 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 con-
dition 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' planta-
tion, 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 any-
body 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.
<--split-->
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! Al-
ways 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 recollec-
tion'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 show-
bills 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
                  The Balcony 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 con-
cerns 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 dif-
ferent 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 peo-
ple 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, be-
cause 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 some-
body 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 natured-
est 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 Sher-
burn 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 min-
utes, 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 min-
utes 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, squirm-
ing 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. Every-
body that seen the shooting was telling how it hap-
pened, and there was a big crowd packed around each
one of these fellows, stretching their necks and listen-
ing. 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 bob-
bing their heads to show they understood, and stoop-
ing 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 hang-
ing with.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXII.

THEY swarmed up towards Sherburn's house, a-
whooping and raging like Injuns, and everything
had to clear the way or get run over and tromped to
mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling
it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to get out
of the way; and every window along the road was full
of women's heads, and there was nigger boys in every
tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence;
and as soon as the mob would get nearly to them they
would break and skaddle back out of reach. Lots of
the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared
most to death.

They swarmed up in front of Sherburn's palings as
thick as they could jam together, and you couldn't
hear yourself think for the noise. It was a little
twenty-foot yard. Some sung out "Tear down the
fence! tear down the fence!" Then there was a
racket of ripping and tearing and smashing, and down
she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to
roll in like a wave.

Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his
little front porch, with a double-barrel gun in his hand,
and takes his stand, perfectly ca'm and deliberate, not
saying a word. The racket stopped, and the wave
sucked back.

Sherburn never said a word -- just stood there, look-
ing down. The stillness was awful creepy and uncom-
fortable. Sherburn run his eye slow along the crowd;
and wherever it struck the people tried a little to out-
gaze him, but they couldn't; they dropped their eyes
and looked sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort
of laughed; not the pleasant kind, but the kind that
makes you feel like when you are eating bread that's
got sand in it.

Then he says, slow and scornful:

"The idea of YOU lynching anybody! It's amusing.
The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to
lynch a MAN! Because you're brave enough to tar and
feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along
here, did that make you think you had grit enough to
lay your hands on a MAN? Why, a MAN'S safe in the
hands of ten thousand of your kind -- as long as it's
daytime and you're not behind him.

"Do I know you? I know you clear through
was born and raised in the South, and I've lived in the
North; so I know the average all around. The
average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody
walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays
for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man
all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the
daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call
you a brave people so much that you think you are
braver than any other people -- whereas you're just AS
brave, and no braver. Why don't your juries hang
murderers? Because they're afraid the man's friends
will shoot them in the back, in the dark -- and it's just
what they WOULD do.

"So they always acquit; and then a MAN goes in
the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back
and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that you
didn't bring a man with you; that's one mistake, and
the other is that you didn't come in the dark and fetch
your masks. You brought PART of a man -- Buck
Harkness, there -- and if you hadn't had him to start
you, you'd a taken it out in blowing.

"You didn't want to come. The average man
don't like trouble and danger. YOU don't like trouble
and danger. But if only HALF a man -- like Buck
Harkness, there -- shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!'
you're afraid to back down -- afraid you'll be found
out to be what you are -- COWARDS -- and so you raise
a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's
coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big
things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is
a mob; that's what an army is -- a mob; they don't
fight with courage that's born in them, but with cour-
age that's borrowed from their mass, and from their
officers. But a mob without any MAN at the head of
it is BENEATH pitifulness. Now the thing for YOU to do
is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a
hole. If any real lynching's going to be done it will
be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they
come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a MAN along.
Now LEAVE -- and take your half-a-man with you" --
tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it
when he says this.

The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all
apart, and went tearing off every which way, and Buck
Harkness he heeled it after them, looking tolerable cheap.
I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to.

I went to the circus and loafed around the back side
till the watchman went by, and then dived in under the
tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold piece and some
other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because
there ain't no telling how soon you are going to need
it, away from home and amongst strangers that way.
You can't be too careful. I ain't opposed to spending
money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but
there ain't no use in WASTING it on them.

It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest
sight that ever was when they all come riding in, two
and two, a gentleman and lady, side by side, the men
just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes nor
stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy
and comfortable -- there must a been twenty of them
-- and every lady with a lovely complexion, and per-
fectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang of real
sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost
millions of dollars, and just littered with diamonds. It
was a powerful fine sight; I never see anything so
lovely. And then one by one they got up and stood,
and went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and
wavy and graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy
and straight, with their heads bobbing and skimming
along, away up there under the tent-roof, and every
lady's rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky around
her hips, and she looking like the most loveliest parasol.

And then faster and faster they went, all of them
dancing, first one foot out in the air and then the other,
the horses leaning more and more, and the ringmaster
going round and round the center-pole, cracking his
whip and shouting "Hi! -- hi!" and the clown crack-
ing jokes behind him; and by and by all hands dropped
the reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips
and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how
the horses did lean over and hump themselves! And
so one after the other they all skipped off into the
ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then
scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and
went just about wild.

Well, all through the circus they done the most
astonishing things; and all the time that clown carried
on so it most killed the people. The ringmaster
couldn't ever say a word to him but he was back at
him quick as a wink with the funniest things a body
ever said; and how he ever COULD think of so many of
them, and so sudden and so pat, was what I couldn't
noway understand. Why, I couldn't a thought of
them in a year. And by and by a drunk man tried to
get into the ring -- said he wanted to ride; said he
could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They
argued and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't
listen, and the whole show come to a standstill. Then
the people begun to holler at him and make fun of
him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip
and tear; so that stirred up the people, and a lot of
men begun to pile down off of the benches and swarm
towards the ring, saying, "Knock him down! throw
him out!" and one or two women begun to scream.
So, then, the ringmaster he made a little speech, and
said he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance, and if
the man would promise he wouldn't make no more
trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could
stay on the horse. So everybody laughed and said all
right, and the man got on. The minute he was on,
the horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort
around, with two circus men hanging on to his bridle
trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to
his neck, and his heels flying in the air every jump,
and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting
and laughing till tears rolled down. And at last, sure
enough, all the circus men could do, the horse broke
loose, and away he went like the very nation, round
and round the ring, with that sot laying down on him
and hanging to his neck, with first one leg hanging
most to the ground on one side, and then t'other one
on t'other side, and the people just crazy. It warn't
funny to me, though; I was all of a tremble to see his
danger. But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle
and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling this way and that; and
the next minute he sprung up and dropped the bridle
and stood! and the horse a-going like a house afire
too. He just stood up there, a-sailing around as easy
and comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his life
-- and then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling
them. He shed them so thick they kind of clogged
up the air, and altogether he shed seventeen suits.
And, then, there he was, slim and handsome, and
dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you ever saw, and
he lit into that horse with his whip and made him fairly
hum -- and finally skipped off, and made his bow and
danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody just
a-howling with pleasure and astonishment.

Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled,
and he WAS the sickest ringmaster you ever see, I
reckon. Why, it was one of his own men! He had
got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let
on to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be
took in so, but I wouldn't a been in that ringmaster's
place, not for a thousand dollars. I don't know;
there may be bullier circuses than what that one was,
but I never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty
good enough for ME; and wherever I run across it, it
can have all of MY custom every time.

Well, that night we had OUR show; but there warn't
only about twelve people there -- just enough to pay
expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that
made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway,
before the show was over, but one boy which was
asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads
couldn't come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted
was low comedy -- and maybe something ruther worse
than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could
size their style. So next morning he got some big
sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and
drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over
the village. The bills said:

            AT THE COURT HOUSE!
            FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY!
      The World-Renowned Tragedians
        DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER!
                    AND
          EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER!
      Of the London and Continental
                 Theatres,
      In their Thrilling Tragedy of
          THE KING'S CAMELEOPARD,
                    OR
         THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! !
            Admission 50 cents.

Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which
said:

LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.

"There," says he, "if that line don't fetch them, I
don't know Arkansaw!"
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXIII.

WELL, all day him and the king was hard at it,
rigging up a stage and a curtain and a row of
candles for footlights; and that night the house was
jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn't
hold no more, the duke he quit tending door and went
around the back way and come on to the stage and
stood up before the curtain and made a little speech,
and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most
thrillingest one that ever was; and so he went on a-
bragging about the tragedy, and about Edmund Kean
the Elder, which was to play the main principal part
in it; and at last when he'd got everybody's expecta-
tions up high enough, he rolled up the curtain, and
the next minute the king come a-prancing out on all
fours, naked; and he was painted all over, ring-
streaked-and-striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid
as a rainbow. And -- but never mind the rest of his
outfit; it was just wild, but it was awful funny. The
people most killed themselves laughing; and when the
king got done capering and capered off behind the
scenes, they roared and clapped and stormed and haw-
hawed till he come back and done it over again, and
after that they made him do it another time. Well, it
would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old
idiot cut.

Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to
the people, and says the great tragedy will be per-
formed only two nights more, on accounts of pressing
London engagements, where the seats is all sold already
for it in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another
bow, and says if he has succeeded in pleasing them
and instructing them, he will be deeply obleeged if
they will mention it to their friends and get them to
come and see it.

Twenty people sings out:

"What, is it over? Is that ALL?"

The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time.
Everybody sings out, "Sold!" and rose up mad, and
was a-going for that stage and them tragedians. But a
big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench and
shouts:

"Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen." They stopped
to listen. "We are sold -- mighty badly sold. But
we don't want to be the laughing stock of this whole
town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as
long as we live. NO. What we want is to go out of
here quiet, and talk this show up, and sell the REST of
the town! Then we'll all be in the same boat. Ain't
that sensible?" ("You bet it is! -- the jedge is
right!" everybody sings out.) "All right, then --
not a word about any sell. Go along home, and ad-
vise everybody to come and see the tragedy."

Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that
town but how splendid that show was. House was
jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the
same way. When me and the king and the duke got
home to the raft we all had a supper; and by and by,
about midnight, they made Jim and me back her out
and float her down the middle of the river, and fetch
her in and hide her about two mile below town.

The third night the house was crammed again -- and
they warn't new-comers this time, but people that was
at the show the other two nights. I stood by the duke
at the door, and I see that every man that went in had
his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under
his coat -- and I see it warn't no perfumery, neither,
not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel,
and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know
the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do,
there was sixty-four of them went in. I shoved in
there for a minute, but it was too various for me; I
couldn't stand it. Well, when the place couldn't hold
no more people the duke he give a fellow a quarter
and told him to tend door for him a minute, and then
he started around for the stage door, I after him; but
the minute we turned the corner and was in the dark
he says:

"Walk fast now till you get away from the houses,
and then shin for the raft like the dickens was after
you!"

I done it, and he done the same. We struck the
raft at the same time, and in less than two seconds we
was gliding down stream, all dark and still, and edging
towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a word.
I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it
with the audience, but nothing of the sort; pretty
soon he crawls out from under the wigwam, and says:

"Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time,
duke?" He hadn't been up-town at all.

We never showed a light till we was about ten mile
below the village. Then we lit up and had a supper,
and the king and the duke fairly laughed their bones
loose over the way they'd served them people. The
duke says:

"Greenhorns, flatheads! I knew the first house
would keep mum and let the rest of the town get roped
in; and I knew they'd lay for us the third night, and
consider it was THEIR turn now. Well, it IS their turn,
and I'd give something to know how much they'd take
for it. I WOULD just like to know how they're putting
in their opportunity. They can turn it into a picnic if
they want to -- they brought plenty provisions."

Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-
five dollars in that three nights. I never see money
hauled in by the wagon-load like that before.
By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim
says:

"Don't it s'prise you de way dem kings carries on,
Huck?"

"No," I says, "it don't."

"Why don't it, Huck?"

"Well, it don't, because it's in the breed. I reckon
they're all alike,"

"But, Huck, dese kings o' ourn is reglar rapscal-
lions; dat's jist what dey is; dey's reglar rapscallions."

"Well, that's what I'm a-saying; all kings is
mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out."

"Is dat so?"

"You read about them once -- you'll see. Look
at Henry the Eight; this 'n 's a Sunday-school Super-
intendent to HIM. And look at Charles Second, and
Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second,
and Edward Second, and Richard Third, and forty
more; besides all them Saxon heptarchies that used
to rip around so in old times and raise Cain. My,
you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was
in bloom. He WAS a blossom. He used to marry a
new wife every day, and chop off her head next morn-
ing. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he
was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he
says. They fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off
her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane
Shore,' he says; and up she comes, Next morning,
'Chop off her head' -- and they chop it off. 'Ring
up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun answers the bell.
Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made
every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he
kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one
tales that way, and then he put them all in a book,
and called it Domesday Book -- which was a good
name and stated the case. You don't know kings,
Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one
of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry
he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with
this country. How does he go at it -- give notice? --
give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he
heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and
whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares
them to come on. That was HIS style -- he never give
anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father,
the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask
him to show up? No -- drownded him in a butt of
mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying
around where he was -- what did he do? He collared
it. S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid
him, and didn't set down there and see that he done
it -- what did he do? He always done the other thing.
S'pose he opened his mouth -- what then? If he
didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every
time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was; and if
we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled
that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say
that ourn is lambs, because they ain't, when you come
right down to the cold facts; but they ain't nothing to
THAT old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings,
and you got to make allowances. Take them all
around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way
they're raised."

"But dis one do SMELL so like de nation, Huck."

"Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a
king smells; history don't tell no way."

"Now de duke, he's a tolerble likely man in some
ways."

"Yes, a duke's different. But not very different.
This one's a middling hard lot for a duke. When
he's drunk there ain't no near-sighted man could tell
him from a king."

"Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um,
Huck. Dese is all I kin stan'."

"It's the way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them
on our hands, and we got to remember what they are,
and make allowances. Sometimes I wish we could
hear of a country that's out of kings."

What was the use to tell Jim these warn't real kings
and dukes? It wouldn't a done no good; and, be-
sides, it was just as I said: you couldn't tell them from
the real kind.

I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was
my turn. He often done that. When I waked up
just at daybreak he was sitting there with his head
down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to
himself. I didn't take notice nor let on. I knowed
what it was about. He was thinking about his wife
and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and
homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from
home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just
as much for his people as white folks does for their'n.
It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. He was
often moaning and mourning that way nights, when
he judged I was asleep, and saying, "Po' little 'Liza-
beth! po' little Johnny! it's mighty hard; I spec' I
ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'!" He
was a mighty good nigger, Jim was.

But this time I somehow got to talking to him about
his wife and young ones; and by and by he says:

"What makes me feel so bad dis time 'uz bekase I
hear sumpn over yonder on de bank like a whack, er
a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time I treat my
little 'Lizabeth so ornery. She warn't on'y 'bout fo'
year ole, en she tuck de sk'yarlet fever, en had a
powful rough spell; but she got well, en one day she
was a-stannin' aroun', en I says to her, I says:

"'Shet de do'.'

"She never done it; jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up
at me. It make me mad; en I says agin, mighty loud,
I says:

"'Doan' you hear me? Shet de do'!'

"She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin' up. I
was a-bilin'! I says:

"'I lay I MAKE you mine!'

"En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat
sont her a-sprawlin'. Den I went into de yuther
room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten minutes; en when I
come back dah was dat do' a-stannin' open YIT, en
dat chile stannin' mos' right in it, a-lookin' down and
mournin', en de tears runnin' down. My, but I WUZ
mad! I was a-gwyne for de chile, but jis' den -- it
was a do' dat open innerds -- jis' den, 'long come de
wind en slam it to, behine de chile, ker-BLAM! -- en my
lan', de chile never move'! My breff mos' hop outer
me; en I feel so -- so -- I doan' know HOW I feel. I
crope out, all a-tremblin', en crope aroun' en open de
do' easy en slow, en poke my head in behine de chile,
sof' en still, en all uv a sudden I says POW! jis' as
loud as I could yell. SHE NEVER BUDGE! Oh, Huck, I
bust out a-cryin' en grab her up in my arms, en say,
'Oh, de po' little thing! De Lord God Amighty
fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive his-
self as long's he live!' Oh, she was plumb deef en
dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb -- en I'd ben a-
treat'n her so!"
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXIV.

NEXT day, towards night, we laid up under a little
willow towhead out in the middle, where there
was a village on each side of the river, and the duke
and the king begun to lay out a plan for working them
towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped
it wouldn't take but a few hours, because it got mighty
heavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay all day
in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we
left him all alone we had to tie him, because if any-
body happened on to him all by himself and not tied
it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway nigger,
you know. So the duke said it WAS kind of hard to
have to lay roped all day, and he'd cipher out some
way to get around it.

He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he
soon struck it. He dressed Jim up in King Lear's
outfit -- it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a white
horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his
theater paint and painted Jim's face and hands and
ears and neck all over a dead, dull, solid blue, like a
man that's been drownded nine days. Blamed if he
warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see. Then
the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so:

  Sick Arab -- but harmless when not out of his head.

And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the
lath up four or five foot in front of the wigwam. Jim
was satisfied. He said it was a sight better than lying
tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all
over every time there was a sound. The duke told
him to make himself free and easy, and if anybody
ever come meddling around, he must hop out of the
wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or two
like a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out
and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judg-
ment; but you take the average man, and he wouldn't
wait for him to howl. Why, he didn't only look like
he was dead, he looked considerable more than that.

These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again,
because there was so much money in it, but they
judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe the news
might a worked along down by this time. They
couldn't hit no project that suited exactly; so at last
the duke said he reckoned he'd lay off and work his
brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put up
something on the Arkansaw village; and the king he
allowed he would drop over to t'other village without
any plan, but just trust in Providence to lead him the
profitable way -- meaning the devil, I reckon. We
had all bought store clothes where we stopped last;
and now the king put his'n on, and he told me to put
mine on. I done it, of course. The king's duds was
all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I
never knowed how clothes could change a body be-
fore. Why, before, he looked like the orneriest old
rip that ever was; but now, when he'd take off his new
white beaver and make a bow and do a smile, he
looked that grand and good and pious that you'd say
he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old
Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I
got my paddle ready. There was a big steamboat lay-
ing at the shore away up under the point, about three
mile above the town -- been there a couple of hours,
taking on freight. Says the king:

"Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better
arrive down from St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some
other big place. Go for the steamboat, Huckleberry;
we'll come down to the village on her."

I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a
steamboat ride. I fetched the shore a half a mile
above the village, and then went scooting along the
bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to
a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on
a log swabbing the sweat off of his face, for it was
powerful warm weather; and he had a couple of big
carpet-bags by him.

"Run her nose in shore," says the king. I done
it. "Wher' you bound for, young man?"

"For the steamboat; going to Orleans."

"Git aboard," says the king. "Hold on a minute,
my servant 'll he'p you with them bags. Jump out
and he'p the gentleman, Adolphus" -- meaning me, I
see.

I done so, and then we all three started on again.
The young chap was mighty thankful; said it was
tough work toting his baggage such weather. He
asked the king where he was going, and the king told
him he'd come down the river and landed at the other
village this morning, and now he was going up a few
mile to see an old friend on a farm up there. The
young fellow says:

"When I first see you I says to myself, 'It's Mr.
Wilks, sure, and he come mighty near getting here in
time.' But then I says again, 'No, I reckon it ain't
him, or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river.'
You AIN'T him, are you?"

"No, my name's Blodgett -- Elexander Blodgett --
REVEREND Elexander Blodgett, I s'pose I must say, as
I'm one o' the Lord's poor servants. But still I'm
jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving
in time, all the same, if he's missed anything by it --
which I hope he hasn't."

"Well, he don't miss any property by it, because
he'll get that all right; but he's missed seeing his
brother Peter die -- which he mayn't mind, nobody
can tell as to that -- but his brother would a give
anything in this world to see HIM before he died;
never talked about nothing else all these three weeks;
hadn't seen him since they was boys together -- and
hadn't ever seen his brother William at all -- that's the
deef and dumb one -- William ain't more than thirty
or thirty-five. Peter and George were the only ones
that come out here; George was the married brother;
him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and
William's the only ones that's left now; and, as I was
saying, they haven't got here in time."

"Did anybody send 'em word?"

"Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was
first took; because Peter said then that he sorter felt
like he warn't going to get well this time. You see,
he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too young
to be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the
red-headed one; and so he was kinder lonesome after
George and his wife died, and didn't seem to care
much to live. He most desperately wanted to see
Harvey -- and William, too, for that matter -- because
he was one of them kind that can't bear to make a
will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said
he'd told in it where his money was hid, and how he
wanted the rest of the property divided up so George's
g'yirls would be all right -- for George didn't leave
nothing. And that letter was all they could get him
to put a pen to."

"Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Wher'
does he live?"

"Oh, he lives in England -- Sheffield -- preaches
there -- hasn't ever been in this country. He hasn't
had any too much time -- and besides he mightn't a
got the letter at all, you know."

"Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his
brothers, poor soul. You going to Orleans, you say?"

"Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going
in a ship, next Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where
my uncle lives."

"It's a pretty long journey. But it'll be lovely;
wisht I was a-going. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How
old is the others?"

"Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's
about fourteen -- that's the one that gives herself to
good works and has a hare-lip."

"Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world
so."

"Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had
friends, and they ain't going to let them come to no
harm. There's Hobson, the Babtis' preacher; and
Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner
Shackleford, and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Rob-
inson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley, and --
well, there's a lot of them; but these are the ones that
Peter was thickest with, and used to write about some-
times, when he wrote home; so Harvey 'll know where
to look for friends when he gets here."

Well, the old man went on asking questions till he
just fairly emptied that young fellow. Blamed if he
didn't inquire about everybody and everything in that
blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about
Peter's business -- which was a tanner; and about
George's -- which was a carpenter; and about Har-
vey's -- which was a dissentering minister; and so on,
and so on. Then he says:

"What did you want to walk all the way up to the
steamboat for?"

"Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard
she mightn't stop there. When they're deep they
won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat will, but this
is a St. Louis one."

"Was Peter Wilks well off?"

"Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and
land, and it's reckoned he left three or four thousand
in cash hid up som'ers."

"When did you say he died?"

"I didn't say, but it was last night."

"Funeral to-morrow, likely?"

"Yes, 'bout the middle of the day."

"Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to go,
one time or another. So what we want to do is to be
prepared; then we're all right."

"Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always
say that."

When we struck the boat she was about done load-
ing, and pretty soon she got off. The king never said
nothing about going aboard, so I lost my ride, after
all. When the boat was gone the king made me pad-
dle up another mile to a lonesome place, and then he
got ashore and says:

"Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up
here, and the new carpet-bags. And if he's gone over
to t'other side, go over there and git him. And tell
him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now."

I see what HE was up to; but I never said nothing,
of course. When I got back with the duke we hid the
canoe, and then they set down on a log, and the king
told him everything, just like the young fellow had
said it -- every last word of it. And all the time he
was a-doing it he tried to talk like an Englishman;
and he done it pretty well, too, for a slouch. I can't
imitate him, and so I ain't a-going to try to; but he
really done it pretty good. Then he says:

"How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?"

The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had
played a deef and dumb person on the histronic boards.
So then they waited for a steamboat.

About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little
boats come along, but they didn't come from high
enough up the river; but at last there was a big one,
and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we
went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when
they found we only wanted to go four or five mile
they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and
said they wouldn't land us. But the king was ca'm.
He says:

"If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile
apiece to be took on and put off in a yawl, a steam-
boat kin afford to carry 'em, can't it?"

So they softened down and said it was all right;
and when we got to the village they yawled us ashore.
About two dozen men flocked down when they see the
yawl a-coming, and when the king says:

"Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher' Mr. Peter
Wilks lives?" they give a glance at one another, and
nodded their heads, as much as to say, "What d' I
tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and
gentle:

"I'm sorry. sir, but the best we can do is to tell
you where he DID live yesterday evening."

Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an
to smash, and fell up against the man, and put his
chin on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and
says:

"Alas, alas, our poor brother -- gone, and we never
got to see him; oh, it's too, too hard!"

Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot
of idiotic signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed
if he didn't drop a carpet-bag and bust out a-crying.
If they warn't the beatenest lot, them two frauds, that
ever I struck.

Well, the men gathered around and sympathized
with them, and said all sorts of kind things to them,
and carried their carpet-bags up the hill for them, and
let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all
about his brother's last moments, and the king he told
it all over again on his hands to the duke, and both of
them took on about that dead tanner like they'd lost
the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I struck anything
like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body
ashamed of the human race.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXV.

THE news was all over town in two minutes, and
you could see the people tearing down on the
run from every which way, some of them putting on
their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the
middle of a crowd, and the noise of the tramping was
like a soldier march. The windows and dooryards was
full; and every minute somebody would say, over a
fence:

"Is it THEM?"

And somebody trotting along with the gang would
answer back and say:

"You bet it is."

When we got to the house the street in front of it
was packed, and the three girls was standing in the
door. Mary Jane WAS red-headed, but that don't make
no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her
face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so
glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his
arms, and Marsy Jane she jumped for them, and the
hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they HAD it!
Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to
see them meet again at last and have such good times.

Then the king he hunched the duke private -- I see
him do it -- and then he looked around and see the
coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so then him
and the duke, with a hand across each other's shoul-
der, and t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and
solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give
them room, and all the talk and noise stopping, people
saying "Sh!" and all the men taking their hats off and
drooping their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall.
And when they got there they bent over and looked in
the coffin, and took one sight, and then they bust out
a-crying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most;
and then they put their arms around each other's
necks, and hung their chins over each other's shoul-
ders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four, I
never see two men leak the way they done. And,
mind you, everybody was doing the same; and the
place was that damp I never see anything like it.
Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and
t'other on t'other side, and they kneeled down and
rested their foreheads on the coffin, and let on to pray
all to themselves. Well, when it come to that it
worked the crowd like you never see anything like it,
and everybody broke down and went to sobbing right
out loud -- the poor girls, too; and every woman,
nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a word,
and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then
put their hand on their head, and looked up towards
the sky, with the tears running down, and then busted
out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give the
next woman a show. I never see anything so dis-
gusting.

Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes for-
ward a little, and works himself up and slobbers out a
speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being
a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the
diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the
long journey of four thousand mile, but it's a trial
that's sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sym-
pathy and these holy tears, and so he thanks them out
of his heart and out of his brother's heart, because out
of their mouths they can't, words being too weak and
cold, and all that kind of rot and slush, till it was just
sickening; and then he blubbers out a pious goody-
goody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes to cry-
ing fit to bust.

And the minute the words were out of his mouth
somebody over in the crowd struck up the doxolojer,
and everybody joined in with all their might, and it
just warmed you up and made you feel as good as
church letting out. Music is a good thing; and after
all that soul-butter and hogwash I never see it freshen
up things so, and sound so honest and bully.

Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and
says how him and his nieces would be glad if a few of
the main principal friends of the family would take
supper here with them this evening, and help set up
with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor
brother laying yonder could speak he knows who he
would name, for they was names that was very dear to
him, and mentioned often in his letters; and so he will
name the same, to wit, as follows, vizz.: -- Rev. Mr.
Hobson, and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker,
and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and Dr. Robin-
son, and their wives, and the widow Bartley.

Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the
end of the town a-hunting together -- that is, I mean
the doctor was shipping a sick man to t'other world,
and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell
was away up to Louisville on business. But the rest
was on hand, and so they all come and shook hands
with the king and thanked him and talked to him; and
then they shook hands with the duke and didn't say
nothing, but just kept a-smiling and bobbing their
heads like a passel of sapheads whilst he made all sorts
of signs with his hands and said "Goo-goo -- goo-goo-
goo" all the time, like a baby that can't talk.

So the king he blattered along, and managed to
inquire about pretty much everybody and dog in town,
by his name, and mentioned all sorts of little things
that happened one time or another in the town, or to
George's family, or to Peter. And he always let on
that Peter wrote him the things; but that was a lie:
he got every blessed one of them out of that young
flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat.

Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father
left behind, and the king he read it out loud and cried
over it. It give the dwelling-house and three thousand
dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard
(which was doing a good business), along with some
other houses and land (worth about seven thousand),
and three thousand dollars in gold to Harvey and
William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid
down cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and
fetch it up, and have everything square and above-
board; and told me to come with a candle. We shut
the cellar door behind us, and when they found the
bag they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely
sight, all them yaller-boys. My, the way the king's
eyes did shine! He slaps the duke on the shoulder
and says:

"Oh, THIS ain't bully nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon
not! Why, Biljy, it beats the Nonesuch, DON'T it?"

The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-
boys, and sifted them through their fingers and let
them jingle down on the floor; and the king says:

"It ain't no use talkin'; bein' brothers to a rich
dead man and representatives of furrin heirs that's got
left is the line for you and me, Bilge. Thish yer
comes of trust'n to Providence. It's the best way, in
the long run. I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no
better way."

Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile,
and took it on trust; but no, they must count it. So
they counts it, and it comes out four hundred and
fifteen dollars short. Says the king:

"Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four
hundred and fifteen dollars?"

They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all
around for it. Then the duke says:

"Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he
made a mistake -- I reckon that's the way of it. The
best way's to let it go, and keep still about it. We
can spare it."

"Oh, shucks, yes, we can SPARE it. I don't k'yer
noth'n 'bout that -- it's the COUNT I'm thinkin' about.
We want to be awful square and open and above-board
here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer money
up stairs and count it before everybody -- then ther'
ain't noth'n suspicious. But when the dead man says
ther's six thous'n dollars, you know, we don't want
to --"

"Hold on," says the duke. "Le's make up the
deffisit," and he begun to haul out yaller-boys out of
his pocket.

"It's a most amaz'n' good idea, duke -- you HAVE
got a rattlin' clever head on you," says the king.
"Blest if the old Nonesuch ain't a heppin' us out
agin," and HE begun to haul out yaller-jackets and
stack them up.

It most busted them, but they made up the six
thousand clean and clear.

"Say," says the duke, "I got another idea. Le's
go up stairs and count this money, and then take and
GIVE IT TO THE GIRLS."

"Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It's the most
dazzling idea 'at ever a man struck. You have cert'nly
got the most astonishin' head I ever see. Oh, this is
the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it. Let
'em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to --
this 'll lay 'em out."

When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around
the table, and the king he counted it and stacked it up,
three hundred dollars in a pile -- twenty elegant little
piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their
chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I
see the king begin to swell himself up for another
speech. He says:

"Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has
done generous by them that's left behind in the vale of
sorrers. He has done generous by these yer poor
little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left
fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed
him knows that he would a done MORE generous by 'em
if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin' his dear William
and me. Now, WOULDN'T he? Ther' ain't no question
'bout it in MY mind. Well, then, what kind o' brothers
would it be that 'd stand in his way at sech a time?
And what kind o' uncles would it be that 'd rob -- yes,
ROB -- sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved so at
sech a time? If I know William -- and I THINK I do --
he -- well, I'll jest ask him." He turns around and
begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his
hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and leather-
headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to catch
his meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with
all his might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times
before he lets up. Then the king says, "I knowed
it; I reckon THAT 'll convince anybody the way HE feels
about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the
money -- take it ALL. It's the gift of him that lays
yonder, cold but joyful."

Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip
went for the duke, and then such another hugging and
kissing I never see yet. And everybody crowded up
with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the hands
off of them frauds, saying all the time:

"You DEAR good souls! -- how LOVELY! -- how COULD
you!"

Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking
about the diseased again, and how good he was, and
what a loss he was, and all that; and before long a big
iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside,
and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying any-
thing; and nobody saying anything to him either,
because the king was talking and they was all busy
listening. The king was saying -- in the middle of
something he'd started in on --

"-- they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased.
That's why they're invited here this evenin'; but to-
morrow we want ALL to come -- everybody; for he
respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's
fitten that his funeral orgies sh'd be public."

And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear
himself talk, and every little while he fetched in his
funeral orgies again, till the duke he couldn't stand it
no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper,
"OBSEQUIES, you old fool," and folds it up, and goes
to goo-gooing and reaching it over people's heads to
him. The king he reads it and puts it in his pocket,
and says:

"Poor William, afflicted as he is, his HEART'S aluz
right. Asks me to invite everybody to come to the
funeral -- wants me to make 'em all welcome. But he
needn't a worried -- it was jest what I was at."

Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and
goes to dropping in his funeral orgies again every now
and then, just like he done before. And when he
done it the third time he says:

"I say orgies, not because it's the common term,
because it ain't -- obsequies bein' the common term --
but because orgies is the right term. Obsequies ain't
used in England no more now -- it's gone out. We
say orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because
it means the thing you're after more exact. It's a
word that's made up out'n the Greek ORGO, outside,
open, abroad; and the Hebrew JEESUM, to plant, cover
up; hence inTER. So, you see, funeral orgies is an
open er public funeral."

He was the WORST I ever struck. Well, the iron-
jawed man he laughed right in his face. Everybody
was shocked. Everybody says, "Why, DOCTOR!" and
Abner Shackleford says:

"Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This
is Harvey Wilks."

The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his
flapper, and says:

"Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and phy-
sician? I --"

"Keep your hands off of me!" says the doctor.
"YOU talk like an Englishman, DON'T you? It's the
worst imitation I ever heard. YOU Peter Wilks's
brother! You're a fraud, that's what you are!"

Well, how they all took on! They crowded around
the doctor and tried to quiet him down, and tried to
explain to him and tell him how Harvey 'd showed in
forty ways that he WAS Harvey, and knowed every-
body by name, and the names of the very dogs, and
begged and BEGGED him not to hurt Harvey's feelings
and the poor girl's feelings, and all that. But it warn't
no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that
pretended to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate
the lingo no better than what he did was a fraud and a
liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king and cry-
ing; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on
THEM. He says:

"I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend;
and I warn you as a friend, and an honest one that
wants to protect you and keep you out of harm and
trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have
nothing to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his
idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as he calls it. He is the
thinnest kind of an impostor -- has come here with a
lot of empty names and facts which he picked up
somewheres, and you take them for PROOFS, and are
helped to fool yourselves by these foolish friends here,
who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you
know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend,
too. Now listen to me; turn this pitiful rascal out --
I BEG you to do it. Will you?"

Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she
was handsome! She says:

"HERE is my answer." She hove up the bag of
money and put it in the king's hands, and says,
"Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for me
and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give
us no receipt for it."

Then she put her arm around the king on one side,
and Susan and the hare-lip done the same on the
other. Everybody clapped their hands and stomped
on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held
up his head and smiled proud. The doctor says:

"All right; I wash MY hands of the matter. But I
warn you all that a time 's coming when you're going
to feel sick whenever you think of this day." And
away he went.

"All right, doctor," says the king, kinder mocking
him; "we'll try and get 'em to send for you;" which
made them all laugh, and they said it was a prime
good hit.
<--split-->
CHAPTER XXVI.

WELL, when they was all gone the king he asks
Mary Jane how they was off for spare rooms,
and she said she had one spare room, which would do
for Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to
Uncle Harvey, which was a little bigger, and she would
turn into the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot;
and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it.
The king said the cubby would do for his valley --
meaning me.

So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them
their rooms, which was plain but nice. She said she'd
have her frocks and a lot of other traps took out of
her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he
said they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall,
and before them was a curtain made out of calico that
hung down to the floor. There was an old hair trunk
in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all
sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like
girls brisken up a room with. The king said it was all
the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings,
and so don't disturb them. The duke's room was
pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was my
cubby.

That night they had a big supper, and all them men
and women was there, and I stood behind the king and
the duke's chairs and waited on them, and the niggers
waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of
the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how
bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was,
and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was --
and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for
to force out compliments; and the people all knowed
everything was tiptop, and said so -- said "How DO
you get biscuits to brown so nice?" and "Where, for
the land's sake, DID you get these amaz'n pickles?"
and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way
people always does at a supper, you know.

And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had
supper in the kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others
was helping the niggers clean up the things. The
hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and
blest if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin
sometimes. She says:

"Did you ever see the king?"

"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have -- he
goes to our church." I knowed he was dead years
ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes to
our church, she says:

"What -- regular?"

"Yes -- regular. His pew's right over opposite
ourn -- on t'other side the pulpit."

"I thought he lived in London?"

"Well, he does. Where WOULD he live?"

"But I thought YOU lived in Sheffield?"

I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get
choked with a chicken bone, so as to get time to think
how to get down again. Then I says:

"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in
Sheffield. That's only in the summer time, when he
comes there to take the sea baths."

"Why, how you talk -- Sheffield ain't on the sea."

"Well, who said it was?"

"Why, you did."

"I DIDN'T nuther."

"You did!"

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I never said nothing of the kind."

"Well, what DID you say, then?"

"Said he come to take the sea BATHS -- that's what I
said."

"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if
it ain't on the sea?"

"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any
Congress-water?"

"Yes."

"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get
it?"

"Why, no."

"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to
the sea to get a sea bath."

"How does he get it, then?"

"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-
water -- in barrels. There in the palace at Sheffield
they've got furnaces, and he wants his water hot.
They can't bile that amount of water away off there at
the sea. They haven't got no conveniences for it."

"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first
place and saved time."

When she said that I see I was out of the woods
again, and so I was comfortable and glad. Next, she
says:

"Do you go to church, too?"

"Yes -- regular."

"Where do you set?"

"Why, in our pew."

"WHOSE pew?"

"Why, OURN -- your Uncle Harvey's."

"His'n? What does HE want with a pew?"

"Wants it to set in. What did you RECKON he wanted
with it?"

"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."

Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was
up a stump again, so I played another chicken bone
and got another think. Then I says:

"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one
preacher to a church?"

"Why, what do they want with more?"

"What! -- to preach before a king? I never did
see such a girl as you. They don't have no less than
seventeen."

"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out
such a string as that, not if I NEVER got to glory. It
must take 'em a week."

"Shucks, they don't ALL of 'em preach the same
day -- only ONE of 'em."


"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"

"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate
-- and one thing or another. But mainly they don't
do nothing."

"Well, then, what are they FOR?"

"Why, they're for STYLE. Don't you know noth-
ing?"

"Well, I don't WANT to know no such foolishness as
that. How is servants treated in England? Do they
treat 'em better 'n we treat our niggers?"

"NO! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat
them worse than dogs."

"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do,
Christmas and New Year's week, and Fourth of July?"

"Oh, just listen! A body could tell YOU hain't ever
been to England by that. Why, Hare-l -- why, Joanna,
they never see a holiday from year's end to year's
end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger
shows, nor nowheres."

"Nor church?"

"Nor church."

"But YOU always went to church."

Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old
man's servant. But next minute I whirled in on a
kind of an explanation how a valley was different from
a common servant and HAD to go to church whether
he wanted to or not, and set with the family, on ac-
count of its being the law. But I didn't do it pretty
good, and when I got done I see she warn't satisfied.
She says:

"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a
lot of lies?"

"Honest injun," says I.

"None of it at all?"

"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.

"Lay your hand on this book and say it."

I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my
hand on it and said it. So then she looked a little
better satisfied, and says:

"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to
gracious if I'll believe the rest."

"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary
Jane, stepping in with Susan behind her. "It ain't
right nor kind for you to talk so to him, and him a
stranger and so far from his people. How would you
like to be treated so?"

"That's always your way, Maim -- always sailing in
to help somebody before they're hurt. I hain't done
nothing to him. He's told some stretchers, I reckon,
and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's every
bit and grain I DID say. I reckon he can stand a little
thing like that, can't he?"

"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas
big; he's here in our house and a stranger, and it
wasn't good of you to say it. If you was in his place
it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't
to say a thing to another person that will make THEM
feel ashamed."

"Why, Maim, he said --"

"It don't make no difference what he SAID -- that
ain't the thing. The thing is for you to treat him
KIND, and not be saying things to make him remember
he ain't in his own country and amongst his own
folks."

I says to myself, THIS is a girl that I'm letting that
old reptle rob her of her money!

Then Susan SHE waltzed in; and if you'll believe
me, she did give Hare-lip hark from the tomb!

Says I to myself, and this is ANOTHER one that I'm
letting him rob her of her money!

Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went
in sweet and lovely again -- which was her way; but
when she got done there warn't hardly anything left o'
poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.

"All right, then," says the other girls; "you just
ask his pardon."

She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She
done it so beautiful it was good to hear; and I wished
I could tell her a thousand lies, so she could do it
again.

I says to myself, this is ANOTHER one that I'm letting
him rob her of her money. And when she got through
they all jest laid theirselves out to make me feel at
home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so
ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself,
my mind's made up; I'll hive that money for them or
bust.

So then I lit out -- for bed, I said, meaning some
time or another. When I got by myself I went to
thinking the thing over. I says to myself, shall I go
to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds?
No -- that won't do. He might tell who told him;
then the king and the duke would make it warm for
me. Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? No --
I dasn't do it. Her face would give them a hint,
sure; they've got the money, and they'd slide right
out and get away with it. If she was to fetch in help
I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done
with, I judge. No; there ain't no good way but one.
I got to steal that money, somehow; and I got to
steal it some way that they won't suspicion that I done
it. They've got a good thing here, and they ain't
a-going to leave till they've played this family and this
town for all they're worth, so I'll find a chance time
enough. I'll steal it and hide it; and by and by,
when I'm away down the river, I'll write a letter and
tell Mary Jane where it's hid. But I better hive it to-
night if I can, because the doctor maybe hasn't let up
as much as he lets on he has; he might scare them
out of here yet.

So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Up-
stairs the hall was dark, but I found the duke's room,
and started to paw around it with my hands; but I
recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let
anybody else take care of that money but his own self;
so then I went to his room and begun to paw around
there. But I see I couldn't do nothing without a
candle, and I dasn't light one, of course. So I judged
I'd got to do the other thing -- lay for them and
eavesdrop. About that time I hears their footsteps
coming, and was going to skip under the bed; I
reached for it, but it wasn't where I thought it would
be; but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane's
frocks, so I jumped in behind that and snuggled in
amongst the gowns, and stood there perfectly still.

They come in and shut the door; and the first thing
the duke done was to get down and look under the
bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found the bed when I
wanted it. And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to
hide under the bed when you are up to anything
private. They sets down then, and the king says:

"Well, what is it? And cut it middlin' short, be-
cause it's better for us to be down there a-whoopin'
up the mournin' than up here givin' 'em a chance to
talk us over."

"Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't com-
fortable. That doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to
know your plans. I've got a notion, and I think it's a
sound one."

"What is it, duke?"

"That we better glide out of this before three in the
morning, and clip it down the river with what we've
got. Specially, seeing we got it so easy -- GIVEN back
to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of
course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for
knocking off and lighting out."

That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or
two ago it would a been a little different, but now it
made me feel bad and disappointed, The king rips out
and says:

"What! And not sell out the rest o' the property?
March off like a passel of fools and leave eight or nine
thous'n' dollars' worth o' property layin' around jest
sufferin' to be scooped in? -- and all good, salable
stuff, too."

The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was
enough, and he didn't want to go no deeper -- didn't
want to rob a lot of orphans of EVERYTHING they had.

"Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We
sha'n't rob 'em of nothing at all but jest this money.
The people that BUYS the property is the suff'rers;
because as soon 's it's found out 'at we didn't own
it -- which won't be long after we've slid -- the sale
won't be valid, and it 'll all go back to the estate.
These yer orphans 'll git their house back agin, and
that's enough for THEM; they're young and spry, and
k'n easy earn a livin'. THEY ain't a-goin to suffer.
Why, jest think -- there's thous'n's and thous'n's that
ain't nigh so well off. Bless you, THEY ain't got noth'n'
to complain of."

Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he
give in, and said all right, but said he believed it was
blamed foolishness to stay, and that doctor hanging
over them. But the king says:

"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for HIM?
Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And
ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"

So they got ready to go down stairs again. The
duke says:

"I don't think we put that money in a good place."

That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't
going to get a hint of no kind to help me. The king
says:

"Why?"

"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this
out; and first you know the nigger that does up the
rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put
'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across
money and not borrow some of it?"

"Your head's level agin, duke," says the king; and
he comes a-fumbling under the curtain two or three
foot from where I was. I stuck tight to the wall and
kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered
what them fellows would say to me if they catched
me; and I tried to think what I'd better do if they did
catch me. But the king he got the bag before I could
think more than about a half a thought, and he never
suspicioned I was around. They took and shoved the
bag through a rip in the straw tick that was under the
feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst
the straw and said it was all right now, because a
nigger only makes up the feather-bed, and don't turn
over the straw tick only about twice a year, and so it
warn't in no danger of getting stole now.

But I knowed better. I had it out of there before
they was half-way down stairs. I groped along up to
my cubby, and hid it there till I could get a chance
to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of the
house somewheres, because if they missed it they would
give the house a good ransacking: I knowed that very
well. Then I turned in, with my clothes all on; but I
couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in
such a sweat to get through with the business. By
and by I heard the king and the duke come up; so I
rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the top of
my ladder, and waited to see if anything was going to
happen. But nothing did.

So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the
early ones hadn't begun yet; and then I slipped down
the ladder.