



Produced by David Widger





HUCKLEBERRY FINN

By Mark Twain

Part 4.



CHAPTER XVI.

WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a
monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession.  She had
four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty
men, likely.  She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open
camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end.  There was a
power of style about her.  It AMOUNTED to something being a raftsman on
such a craft as that.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got
hot.  The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both
sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light.  We talked
about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it.  I
said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but about a
dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them lit up, how
was we going to know we was passing a town?  Jim said if the two big
rivers joined together there, that would show.  But I said maybe we might
think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old
river again. That disturbed Jim--and me too.  So the question was, what
to do?  I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell
them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a green
hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo.  Jim
thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.

There warn't nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and
not pass it without seeing it.  He said he'd be mighty sure to see it,
because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it
he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom.  Every
little while he jumps up and says:

"Dah she is?"

But it warn't.  It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set
down again, and went to watching, same as before.  Jim said it made him
all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.  Well, I can
tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him,
because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free--and who
was to blame for it?  Why, ME.  I couldn't get that out of my conscience,
no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest; I couldn't
stay still in one place.  It hadn't ever come home to me before, what
this thing was that I was doing.  But now it did; and it stayed with me,
and scorched me more and more.  I tried to make out to myself that I
warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner;
but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you knowed
he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told
somebody."  That was so--I couldn't get around that noway.  That was
where it pinched.  Conscience says to me, "What had poor Miss Watson done
to you that you could see her <DW65> go off right under your eyes and
never say one single word?  What did that poor old woman do to you that
you could treat her so mean?  Why, she tried to learn you your book, she
tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way
she knowed how.  THAT'S what she done."

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead.  I
fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was
fidgeting up and down past me.  We neither of us could keep still.  Every
time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went through me like a
shot, and I thought if it WAS Cairo I reckoned I would die of
miserableness.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself.  He was
saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he
would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he
got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to
where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two
children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an
Ab'litionist to go and steal them.

It most froze me to hear such talk.  He wouldn't ever dared to talk such
talk in his life before.  Just see what a difference it made in him the
minute he judged he was about free.  It was according to the old saying,
"Give a <DW65> an inch and he'll take an ell."  Thinks I, this is what
comes of my not thinking.  Here was this <DW65>, which I had as good as
helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would
steal his children--children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a
man that hadn't ever done me no harm.

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.  My
conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says
to it, "Let up on me--it ain't too late yet--I'll paddle ashore at the
first light and tell."  I felt easy and happy and light as a feather
right off.  All my troubles was gone.  I went to looking out sharp for a
light, and sort of singing to myself.  By and by one showed.  Jim sings
out:

"We's safe, Huck, we's safe!  Jump up and crack yo' heels!  Dat's de good
ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it!"

I says:

"I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim.  It mightn't be, you know."

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for
me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:

"Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on accounts
o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it hadn' ben for
Huck; Huck done it.  Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de bes' fren'
Jim's ever had; en you's de ONLY fren' ole Jim's got now."

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this,
it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me.  I went along slow
then, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad I started or
whether I warn't.  When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:

"Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his
promise to ole Jim."

Well, I just felt sick.  But I says, I GOT to do it--I can't get OUT of
it.  Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and
they stopped and I stopped.  One of them says:

"What's that yonder?"

"A piece of a raft," I says.

"Do you belong on it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any men on it?"

"Only one, sir."

"Well, there's five <DW65>s run off to-night up yonder, above the head of
the bend.  Is your man white or black?"

I didn't answer up prompt.  I tried to, but the words wouldn't come. I
tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn't man
enough--hadn't the spunk of a rabbit.  I see I was weakening; so I just
give up trying, and up and says:

"He's white."

"I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves."

"I wish you would," says I, "because it's pap that's there, and maybe
you'd help me tow the raft ashore