Chapter 02 (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

01CHAPTER II We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads.

02When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root, made a noise.

03We scrouched down and laid still.

04Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door.

05We could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him.

06He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening.

07Then he says, Who da?

08He listened some more.

09Then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us.

10We could have touched him nearly.

11Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there weren't a sound, and we all there so close together.

12There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it, and then my ear begun to itch.

13And next my back, right between my shoulders.

14Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch.

15Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since.

16If you are with a quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy, if you are anywhere's where it won't do for you to scratch, why, you will itch all over and upwards of a thousand places.

17Pretty soon Jim says, Say, who is you?

18Where is you?

19Dog my cats if I didn't hear something.

20Well, I knows what I's going to do.

21I's going to sit down here and listen till I hears it again.

22So he sat down on the ground twixt me and Tom.

23He leaned his back up against the tree, and stretched his legs out till I wanted to most touch one of mine.

24My nose begun to itch.

25It itched till the tears come into my eyes.

26But I dasn't scratch.

27Then it begun to itch on the inside.

28Next I got to itching underneath.

29I didn't know how I was going to sit still.

30This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes.

31But it seemed a sight longer than that.

32I was itching in eleven different places now.

33I reckoned I couldn't stand it more than a minute longer.

34But I set my teeth hard, and got ready to try.

35Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy.

36Next he begun to snore.

37And then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

38Tom, he made a sign to me, kind of a little noise with his mouth.

39And we went creeping away on our hands and knees.

40When we was ten foot off, Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun.

41But I said no.

42He might wake and make a disturbance.

43And then they'd find out I weren't in.

44Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more.

45I didn't want him to try.

46I said Jim might wake up and come.

47But Tom wanted to risk it.

48So we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.

49Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away.

50But nothing would do Tom he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him.

51I waited, and it seemed a good while.

52Everything was so still and lonesome.

53As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house.

54Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head, and hung it on a limb right over him.

55And Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake.

56Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him, and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the state, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.

57And next time Jim told it, he said they rode him down to New Orleans, and after that, every time he told it, he spread it more and more, till by and by, he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils.

58Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers.

59Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it.

60He was more looked up to than any nigger in that country.

61Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open, and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.

62Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire.

63But whenever one was talking, and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, Hmm, what you know about witches?

64And that nigger was corked up, and had to take a back seat.

65Jim always kept that fire centerpiece around his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil gave to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it, and fetch witches whenever he wanted to, just by saying something to it.

66But he never told what it was he said to it.

67Niggers would come from all around there, and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece.

68But they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it.

69Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil, and been rode by witches.

70Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop, we looked away down into the village, and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there were sick folks, maybe, and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine, and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand.

71We went down the hill, and found Joe Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old ten-yard.

72So we unhitched a skiff, and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore.

73We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes.

74Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees.

75We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up.

76Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall, where you wouldn't have noticed that there was a hole.

77We went along a narrow place, and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped.

78Tom says, Now, we'll start this band of robbers, and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang.

79Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.

80Everybody was willing.

81So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it.

82It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets.

83And if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family, must do it.

84And he mustn't eat, and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them, and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was a sign of the band.

85And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark.

86And if he did, he must be sued.

87And if he done it again, he must be killed.

88And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up, and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood, and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it, and be forgot forever.

89Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head.

90He said some of it, but the rest was out of pirate books, and robber books, and every gang that was high-toned had it.

91Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets.

92Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in.

93Then Ben Rogers says, Here's Huck Finn.

94He ain't got no family.

95What are you going to do about him?

96Well, ain't he got a father?

97Said Tom Sawyer.

98Oh, yeah, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days.

99He used to lay drunk with the hogs and the tanyar, but he ain't been seen in these parts for a year more.

100They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for the others.

101Well, nobody could think of anything to do.

102Everybody was stumped, and set still.

103I was most ready to cry, but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson.

104They could kill her.

105Everybody said, Oh, she'll do.

106That's all right.

107Huck could come in.

108Then they all stuck a pen in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.

109Now, says Ben Rogers, what's the line of business of this gang?

110Nothing, only robbery and murder, Tom said.

111But who are we going to rob?

112Houses or cattle or...

113Stuff!

114Stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery.

115It's burglary, says Tom Sawyer.

116We ain't burglars.

117That ain't no sort of style.

118We are highwaymen.

119We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money.

120Must we always kill the people?

121Oh, certainly.

122It's best.

123Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them.

124Except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed.

125Ransomed?

126What's that?

127I don't know, but that's what they do.

128I seen it in books, and so of course that's what we gotta do.

129But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?

130Why, blame it all we got to do it.

131Don't I tell you it's in the books?

132Do you want to go doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?

133Oh, that's very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them?

134That's the thing I want to get at.

135Now what do you reckon it is?

136Well, I don't know, but perhaps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead.

137Now that's something like.

138That'll answer.

139Why couldn't you said that before?

140We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death, and a bothersome lot they'll be, too, eating up everything and always trying to get loose.

141How you talk, Ben Rogers?

142How can they get loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?

143A guard!

144Well, that is good.

145So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them.

146I think that's foolishness.

147Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?

148Because it ain't in the books, so.

149That's why.

150Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular?

151Or don't you?

152That's the idea.

153Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do?

154Do you reckon you can learn them anything?

155Not by a good deal.

156No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.

157All right.

158I don't mind, but I say it's a full way, anyhow.

159Say, do we kill the women, too?

160Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you, I wouldn't let on.

161Kill the women?

162No.

163Nobody ever said anything in the books like that.

164You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them, and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more.

165Well, if that's the way, I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.

166Mighty soon, we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, there won't be no place for the robbers.

167But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say.

168Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up, he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber no more.

169So they all made fun of him, and called him Crybaby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets.

170But Tom gave him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.

171Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday.

172But all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing.

173They agreed to get together, and fix the day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer, first captain, and Joe Harper, second captain of the gang, and so started home.

174I clumb up the shed, and crept into my window, just before day was breaking.

175My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dog-tired.

176End of chapter