Chapter 05 (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

01V.

02V.

03I had shut the door, too.

04Then I turned round and there he was.

05I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much.

06I reckoned I was scared now, too, but in a minute I see I was mistaken—that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected—but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothering about.

07He was most fifty, and he looked it.

08His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines.

09It was all black, no gray.

10So was his long, mixed-up whiskers.

11There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed.

12It was white—not like another man's white—but a white to make a body sick.

13A white to make a body's flesh crawl.

14A tree-toed white.

15A fish-belly white.

16As for his clothes—just rags, that was all.

17He had one ankle resting on the other knee.

18The boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then.

19His hat was laying on the floor, an old black slouch with the top caved in like a lid.

20I stood a-looking at him.

21He sat there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little.

22I set the candle down.

23I noticed the window was up, so he had clumb in by the shed.

24He kept a-looking me all over.

25By-and-by, he says, "'Starchy clothes—very.

26You think you're a good deal of a big bug, don't you?' Maybe I am—maybe I ain't,' I says.

27"'Don't you give me none of your lip,' says he.

28You've put on considerable many frills since I've been away.

29I take you down a peg before I get done with you.

30You're educated, too, they say.

31Can read and write.

32You think you're better'n your father now, don't you?

33Because he can't.

34I'll take it out of you.

35Who told you you might meddle with such highfalutin' foolishness, hey?

36Who told you you could?' The widow.

37The widow?

38She told me.

39The widow, hey?

40And who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business?

41Nobody never told her.

42Well, I'll learn her how to meddle.

43And looky here.

44You drop dat school, you hear?

45I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father, and let on to be better'n what he is.

46You let me catch you foolin' round dat school again, you hear?

47Your mother couldn't read.

48She couldn't write another before she died.

49None of the family couldn't before they died.

50I can't.

51And here you're a-swellin' yourself up like this.

52I ain't the man to stand it.

53You hear?

54Say.

55Let me hear you read.

56I took up a book and begun somethin' about General Washington and the wars.

57When I'd read about half a minute, he fetched the book a-whack with his hand and knocked it across the house.

58He says, It's so.

59You can do it.

60I had my doubts when you told me.

61Now looky here.

62You stop dat puttin' on frills.

63I won't have it.

64I'll lay for you, my smarty, and if I catch you about dat school I'll tan you good.

65First you know you'll get religion, too.

66I never seen such a son." He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says, What's this?

67It's somethin' they give me for learnin' my lessons good.

68He tore it up, and says, I'll give you somethin' better.

69I'll give you a cowhide." He's set there a-mumblin' and a-growlin' a minute, and then he says, Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though?

70A bed, and bed-clothes, and a lookin' glass, and a piece of carpet on the floor, and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tan-yard.

71I never see such a son.

72I bet I'll take some of these frills out of you before I'm done with you.

73Why, there ain't no end o' your airs.

74They say you're rich.

75Hey, how's that?" They lie, that's how.

76Lookie here, mind how you talk to me.

77I'm a-standin' about all I can stand now, so don't gimme no sass.

78I've been in town two days, and I ain't heard nothin' but about you bein' rich.

79I heard about it away down the river, too.

80That's why I come.

81You git me that money to-morrow.

82I want it." I hain't got no money.

83It's a lie.

84Judge Thatcher's got it.

85You git it.

86I want it.

87I hain't got no money, I tell you.

88You ask Judge Thatcher, he'd tell you the same.

89All right.

90I'll ask him, and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why.

91Say, how much you got in your pocket?

92I want it." I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to—' It don't make no difference what you want it for.

93You just shell it out." He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was goin' down-town to get some whisky.

94Said he hadn't had a drink all day.

95When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again and cussed me for puttin' on frills and tryin' to be better than him.

96And when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again and told me to mind about that school, because he was goin' to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that.

97Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's, and bully-ragged him, and tried to make him give up the money, but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him.

98The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him, and let one of them be my guardian.

99But it was a new judge that had just come, and he didn't know the old man.

100So he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it.

101Said he'd rather not take a child away from its father.

102So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.

103That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest.

104He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him.

105I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and Pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowin' around and cussin' and whoopin' and carryin' on, and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan till most midnight.

106Then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week.

107But he said he was satisfied, said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him.

108When he got out the new judge said he was a-goin' to make a man of him.

109So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast, and dinner, and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak.

110And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life.

111But now he was a-goin' to turn over a new leaf, and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him.

112The judge said he could hug him for them words, so he cried, and his wife she cried again.

113Pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it.

114The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so, so they cried again.

115And when it was bed-time the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says, Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all.

116Take a hold of it.

117Shake it.

118There's a hand that was the hand of a hog.

119But it hain't so no more.

120It's the hand of a man that started in on a new life, and'll die before he'll go back.

121You mark them words.

122Don't forget I said them.

123It's a clean hand now.

124Shake it.

125Don't be afeard." So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried.

126The judge's wife, she kissed it.

127Then the old man, he signed a pledge, made his mark.

128The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that.

129Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty, and clumb out on to the porch roof, and slid down a stanchion, and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time.

130And towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch, and broke his left arm in two pieces, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up.

131And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.

132The judge, he felt kind of sore.

133He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.

134End of chapter.

135End of chapter.