
YOU don't know about
me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but
that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark
Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched,
but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one
time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt
Polly � Tom's Aunt Polly, she is � and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all
told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I
said before.
Now the way that the book winds up is
this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made
us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece � all gold. It was an awful sight
of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at
interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round � more
than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her
son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all
the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her
ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old
rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he
hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join
if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.
The widow she cried over me, and called
me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never
meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do
nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing
commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time.
When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait
for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals,
though there warn't really anything the matter with them, � that is, nothing
only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is
different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the
things go better.
After supper she got out her book and
learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all
about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable
long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no
stock in dead people.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and
asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and
wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with
some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it.
Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to
anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a
thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all
right, because she done it herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable
slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set
at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour,
and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for
an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, �Don't
put your feet up there, Huckleberry;�
and �Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry � set up straight;� and
pretty soon she would say, �Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry �
why don't you try to behave?� Then she told me all about the bad place, and I
said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I
wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She
said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole
world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see
no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try
for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do
no good.
Now she had got a start, and she went
on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do
there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I
didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom
Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad
about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
Glossary
- sugar-hogshead: a large barrel used to store sugar
- victuals: food, provisions
- Bulrushers: Egyptians, bulrush is a Biblical word for
papyrus
- middling: fairly, moderately
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