Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Well, when they were all gone the king asked Mary Jane how they were off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would do for Uncle William, and she would give her own room, which was a little bigger, to Uncle Harvey, and she would move into the room with her sisters and sleep on a cot; and up in the garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his valet—meaning me.

So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which were plain but nice. She said she would have her frocks and a lot of other gear taken out of her room if they were in Uncle Harvey’s way, but he said they weren’t. The frocks were hung along the wall, and in front of 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 gimcracks around, the kind that girls liven up a room with. The king said it was all the more homelike and pleasant for these decorations, and so she should not 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 those men and women were there, and I stood behind the king’s and the duke’s chairs and waited on them, and the enslaved people waited on the rest. Mary Jane sat at the head of the table, with Susan alongside her, and said how bad the biscuits were, and how skimpy the preserves were, and how poor and tough the fried chickens were—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do to force out compliments; and the people all knew everything was tiptop, and said so—said “How do you get biscuits to brown so nicely?” and “Where, for the land’s sake, did you get these amazing pickles?” and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always do at a supper, you know.

And when it was all done Joanna and I had supper in the kitchen off the leavings, while the others were helping the enslaved people clean up the things. Joanna started pumping me about England, and I’ll be blessed if I didn’t think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She said:

“Did you ever see the king?”

“Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have—he goes to our church.” I knew he had been dead for years, but I never let on. So when I said he went to our church, she said:

“What—regularly?”

“Yes—regularly. His pew is right across from ours—on the other side of the pulpit.”

“I thought he lived in London?”

“Well, he does. Where would he live?”

“But I thought you lived in Sheffield?”

I saw I was up a stump. I had to pretend to get choked with a chicken bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I said:

“I mean he goes to our church regularly when he’s in Sheffield. That’s only in the summertime, when he comes there to take the sea baths.”

“Why, how you talk—Sheffield isn’t on the sea.”

“Well, who said it was?”

“Why, you did.”

“I did not.”

“You did!”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I never said anything of the kind.”

“Well, what did you say, then?”

“I said he comes to take the sea baths—that’s what I said.”

“Well, then, how is he going to take the sea baths if it isn’t on the sea?”

“Look here,” I said; “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?”

“He gets it the way people down here get Congress water—in barrels. There in the palace at Sheffield they have furnaces, and he wants his water hot. They can’t boil that amount of water way off there at the sea. They don’t have any conveniences for it.”

“Oh, I see now. You might have said that in the first place and saved time.”

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

“Do you go to church, too?”

“Yes—regularly.”

“Where do you sit?”

“Why, in our pew.”

“Whose pew?”

“Why, ours—your Uncle Harvey’s.”

“His? What does he want with a pew?”

“He wants it to sit 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 saw I was up a stump again, so I played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I said:

“Blame it, do you suppose there’s only 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 have no fewer than seventeen.”

“Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn’t sit out such a string as that, not if I never got to glory. It must take them a week.”

“Shucks, they don’t all of them preach the same day—only one of them.”

“Well, then, what do the rest of them do?”

“Oh, nothing much. They loll around, pass the plate—and do one thing or another. But mainly they don’t do anything.”

“Well, then, what are they for?”

“Why, they’re for style. Don’t you know anything?”

“Well, I don’t want to know any such foolishness as that. How are servants treated in England? Do they treat them better than we treat our enslaved people?”

“No! A servant is nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs.”

“Don’t they give them holidays, the way we do—Christmas and New Year’s week, and the Fourth of July?”

“Oh, just listen! A person could tell you haven’t ever been to England by that. Why, Jo—why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year’s end to year’s end; they never go to the circus, or the theater, or minstrel shows, or anywhere.”

“Nor church?”

“Nor church.”

“But you always went to church.”

Well, I was done for again. I forgot I was the old man’s servant. But the next minute I whirled in on a kind of explanation of how a valet was different from a common servant and had to go to church whether he wanted to or not, and sit with the family, on account of its being the law. But I didn’t do it very well, and when I got done I saw she wasn’t satisfied. She said:

“Honestly, now, haven’t you been telling me a lot of lies?”

“Honestly,” I said.

“None of it at all?”

“None of it at all. Not a lie in it,” I said.

“Lay your hand on this book and say it.”

I saw it was nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and said:

“Well, then, I’ll believe some of it; but I declare I won’t believe the rest.”

“What is it you won’t believe, Joe?” said Mary Jane, stepping in with Susan behind her. “It isn’t right or kind for you to talk like that to him, when he is a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be treated that way?”

“That’s always your way, Maim—always sailing in to help people before they’re hurt. I haven’t done anything to him. He’s told some whoppers, 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 it was little or whether it was big; he’s here in our house and a stranger, and it wasn’t good of you to say it. If you were in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn’t to say a thing to another person that will make that person feel ashamed.”

“Why, Mam, he said—”

“It doesn’t make any difference what he said—that isn’t the thing. The thing is for you to treat him kindly, and not be saying things to make him remember he isn’t in his own country and among his own folks.”

I said to myself, this is a girl that I’m letting that old reptile rob of her money!

Then Susan waltzed in; and if you’ll believe me, she did give Joanna hark from the tomb!

I said to myself, and this is another one that I’m letting him rob of her money!

Then Mary Jane took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely again—which was her way; but when she got done there was hardly anything left of poor Joanna. So she hollered.

“All right, then,” said the other girls; “you just ask his pardon.”

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

I said to myself, this is another one that I’m letting him rob of her money. And when she got through they all just went out of their way to make me feel at home and know I was among friends. I felt so contemptible and low-down and mean that I said to myself, my mind’s made up; I’ll grab that money for them or bust.

So then I lit out—for bed, I said, meaning sometime or other. When I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I said to myself, shall I go to that doctor, privately, 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, privately, and tell Mary Jane? No—I don’t dare do it. Her face would give them a hint, sure; they have the money, and they’d slide right out and get away with it. If she were to fetch in help, I’d get mixed up in the business before it was done with, I judge. No; there is no good way but one. I have to steal that money, somehow; and I have to steal it in some way that they won’t suspect I did it. They have a good thing here, and they aren’t going to leave until 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 hidden. But I had better grab it tonight 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, I thought, I’ll go and search those rooms. Upstairs the hall was dark, but I found the duke’s room, and started to paw around it with my hands; but I remembered it wouldn’t be much like the king to let anybody else take care of that money but himself; so then I went to his room and began to paw around there. But I saw I couldn’t do anything without a candle, and I didn’t dare light one, of course. So I judged I would have to do the other thing—lie in wait for them and eavesdrop. About that time I heard 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 among the gowns, and stood there perfectly still.

They came in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke did 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 sat down then, and the king said:

“Well, what is it? And cut it pretty short, because it’s better for us to be down there whooping up the mourning than up here giving them a chance to talk us over.”

“Well, this is it, Capet. I’m not easy; I’m not comfortable. That doctor weighs on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I have a notion, and I think it’s a sound one.”

“What is it, duke?”

“That we had better glide out of this before three in the morning, and clip it down the river with what we have. Especially, seeing that we got it so easily—given back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of course we expected 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 have been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed. The king ripped out and said:

“What! And not sell out the rest of the property? March off like a bunch of fools and leave eight or nine thousand dollars’ worth of property lying around just suffering to be scooped in?—and all good, salable stuff, too.”

The duke grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn’t want to go any deeper—didn’t want to rob a lot of orphans of everything they had.

“Why, how you talk!” said the king. “We shall not rob them of anything at all but just this money. The people who buy the property are the sufferers; because as soon as it’s found out that we didn’t own it—which won’t be long after we’ve slid—the sale won’t be valid, and it will all go back to the estate. These orphans will get their house back again, and that’s enough for them; they’re young and spry, and can easily earn a living. They aren’t going to suffer. Why, just think—there are thousands and thousands who aren’t nearly so well off. Bless you, they have nothing to complain of.”

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

“Cuss the doctor! What do we care for him? Don’t we have all the fools in town on our side? And isn’t that a big enough majority in any town?”

So they got ready to go downstairs again. The duke said:

“I don’t think we put that money in a good place.”

That cheered me up. I had begun to think I wasn’t going to get a hint of any kind to help me. The king said:

“Why?”

“Because Mary Jane will be in mourning from now on; and before you know it the enslaved person who does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put them away; and do you reckon an enslaved person can run across money and not borrow some of it?”

“Your head’s level again, duke,” said the king; and he came fumbling under the curtain two or three feet from where I was. I stuck tight to the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what those fellows would say to me if they caught me; and I tried to think what I had better do if they did catch me. But the king got the bag before I could think more than about half a thought, and he never suspected I was around. They took the bag and shoved it through a rip in the straw tick that was under the feather bed, and crammed it in a foot or two among the straw and said it was all right now, because an enslaved person only makes up the feather bed, and turns over the straw tick only about twice a year, and so it wasn’t in any danger of getting stolen now.

But I knew better. I had it out of there before they were halfway downstairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there until I could get a chance to do better. I judged I had better hide it outside the house somewhere, because if they missed it they would give the house a good ransacking: I knew that very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes all on; but I couldn’t have gone to sleep if I had 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 lay 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 until all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn’t begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.