Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Next day, toward night, we tied 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 began to lay out a plan for working those towns. Jim spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn’t take more than a few hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome for him when he had to lie all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we left him all alone we had to tie him, because if anybody happened onto him all by himself and not tied, it wouldn’t look much as if he were a runaway enslaved man, you know. So the duke said it was kind of hard to have to lie roped all day, and he would figure out some way to get around it.

He was uncommonly bright, the duke was, and he soon hit upon it. He dressed Jim up in King Lear’s outfit—it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a white horsehair 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 who has been drowned nine days. Blamed if he wasn’t the most horrible-looking outrage I ever saw. Then the duke wrote out a sign on a shingle like this:

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 feet 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 came meddling around, he must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and let out a howl or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned the meddlers would light out and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judgment; but take the average man, and he wouldn’t wait for him to howl. Why, he didn’t merely look dead; he looked considerably 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 have worked along down by this time. They couldn’t hit on any project that suited exactly; so at last the duke said he reckoned he would lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn’t put up something on the Arkansas village; and the king allowed he would drop over to the 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 on, and told me to put mine on. I did it, of course. The king’s duds were all black, and he did look really swell and starchy. I had never known how clothes could change a body before. Why, before, he looked like the orneriest old rip that ever was; but now, when he took off his new white beaver and made a bow and gave a smile, he looked so grand and good and pious that you would 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 lying at the shore away up under the point, about three miles above the town—been there a couple of hours, taking on freight. Said the king:

“Seeing how I’m dressed, I reckon maybe I had 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 reached the shore half a mile above the village, and then went scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we came to a nice innocent-looking young country bumpkin sitting on a log, swabbing the sweat off his face, for it was mighty warm weather; and he had a couple of big carpetbags by him.

“Run her nose inshore,” said the king. I did it. “Where are you bound for, young man?”

“For the steamboat; going to Orleans.”

“Get aboard,” said the king. “Hold on a minute, my servant will help you with those bags. Jump out and help the gentleman, Adolphus”—meaning me, I saw.

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

“When I first saw you I said to myself, ‘It’s Mr. Wilks, sure, and he came mighty near getting here in time.’ But then I said again, ‘No, I reckon it isn’t him, or else he wouldn’t be paddling up the river.’ You aren’t him, are you?”

“No, my name’s Blodgett—Alexander Blodgett—Reverend Alexander Blodgett, I suppose I must say, as I’m one of the Lord’s poor servants. But still I’m just 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 doesn’t miss any property by it, because he’ll get that all right; but he’s missed seeing his brother Peter die—which he may not mind, nobody can tell as to that—but his brother would have given anything in this world to see him before he died; never talked about anything else all these three weeks; hadn’t seen him since they were boys together—and had never seen his brother William at all—that’s the one who is deaf and unable to speak—William isn’t more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter and George were the only ones who came out here; George was the married brother; he and his wife both died last year. Harvey and William are the only ones who are left now; and, as I was saying, they haven’t gotten here in time.”

“Did anybody send them word?”

“Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first taken ill; because Peter said then that he sort of felt that he wasn’t going to get well this time. You see, he was pretty old, and George’s girls were too young to be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and so he was kind of 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 the kind of person who can’t bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he had told in it where his money was hidden, and how he wanted the rest of the property divided up so George’s girls would be all right—for George didn’t leave anything. And that letter was all they could get him to put a pen to.”

“Why do you reckon Harvey doesn’t come? Where 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 might not have gotten the letter at all, you know.”

“Too bad, too bad he couldn’t have lived to see his brothers, poor soul. You’re going to Orleans, you say?”

“Yes, but that’s only a part of it. I’m going in a ship, next Wednesday, for Rio de Janeiro, where my uncle lives.”

“It’s a pretty long journey. But it’ll be lovely; I wish I were going. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old are the others?”

“Mary Jane’s nineteen, Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s about fourteen—that’s the one who gives herself to good works and has a cleft lip.”

“Poor things! To be left alone in the cold world so.”

“Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they aren’t going to let them come to any harm. There’s Hobson, the Baptist preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, 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 sometimes, when he wrote home; so Harvey will know where to look for friends when he gets here.”

Well, the old man went on asking questions until 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—he was a tanner; and about George’s—he was a carpenter; and about Harvey’s—he was a dissenting minister; and so on, and so on. Then he said:

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

“Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afraid she might not 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 hidden away somewhere.”

“When did you say he died?”

“I didn’t say, but it was last night.”

“Funeral tomorrow, probably?”

“Yes, about the middle of the day.”

“Well, it’s all terribly sad; but we all have 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 always used to say that.”

When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she got off. The king never said anything about going aboard, so I lost my ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and said:

“Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new carpetbags. And if he’s gone over to the other side, go over there and get him. And tell him to get himself up regardless. Shove along, now.”

I saw what he was up to; but I never said anything, of course. When I got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they sat down on a log, and the king told him everything, just the way the young fellow had said it—every last word of it. And all the time he was doing it he tried to talk like an Englishman; and he did it pretty well, too, for a slouch. I can’t imitate him, and so I’m not going to try to; but he really did it pretty well. Then he said:

“How are you at playing someone who is deaf and unable to speak, Bilgewater?”

The duke said to leave that to him; said he had played a person who was deaf and unable to speak on the histrionic boards. So then they waited for a steamboat.

About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats came 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 miles they were booming mad, and cursed us out, and said they wouldn’t land us. But the king was calm. He said:

“If gentlemen can afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be taken on and put off in a yawl, a steamboat can afford to carry them, 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 saw the yawl coming, and when the king said:

“Can any of you gentlemen tell me where Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they gave a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, “What did I tell you?” Then one of them said, 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 creature went all to smash, and fell up against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and said:

“Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see him; oh, it’s too, too hard!”

Then he turned around, blubbering, and made a lot of foolish signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn’t drop a carpetbag and burst out crying. If they weren’t the most remarkable lot, those two frauds, that I ever struck.

Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpetbags 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 told it all over again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead tanner as if they had lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I struck anything like it, I’ll eat my hat. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.