WE judged that three nights
more would fetch us to Cairo,
at the bottom of Illinois, where
the Ohio River comes in, and
that was what we was after. We
would sell the raft and get on
a steamboat and go way up the
Ohio amongst the free States,
and then be out
of trouble.
Well, the second night a fog
begun to come on, and we made
for a towhead to tie to, for
it wouldn't do to try to run
in a fog; but when I paddled
ahead in the canoe, with the
line to make fast, there warn't
anything but little saplings
to tie to. I passed the line
around one of them right on the
edge of the cut bank, but there
was a stiff current, and the
raft come booming down so lively
she tore it out by the roots
and away she went. I see the
fog closing down, and it made
me so sick and scared I couldn't
budge for most a half a minute
it seemed to me -- and then there
warn't no raft in sight; you
couldn't see twenty yards. I
jumped into the canoe and run
back to the stern, and grabbed
the paddle and set her back a
stroke. But she didn't come.
I was in such a hurry I hadn't
untied her. I got up and tried
to untie her, but I was so excited
my hands shook so I couldn't
hardly do anything with them.
As soon as I got started I
took out after the raft, hot
and heavy, right down the towhead.
That was all right as far as
it went, but the towhead warn't
sixty yards long, and the minute
I flew by the foot of it I shot
out into the solid white fog,
and hadn't no more idea which
way I was going than a dead man.
Thinks I, it won't do to paddle;
first I know I'll run into the
bank or a towhead or something;
I got to set still and float,
and yet it's mighty fidgety business
to have to hold your hands still
at such a time. I whooped and
listened. Away down there somewheres
I hears a small whoop, and up
comes my spirits. I went tearing
after it, listening sharp to
hear it again. The next time
it come I see I warn't heading
for it, but heading away to the
right of it. And the next time
I was heading away to the left
of it -- and not gaining on it
much either, for I was flying
around, this way and that and
t'other, but it was going straight
ahead all the time.
I did wish the fool would think
to beat a tin pan, and beat it
all the time, but he never did,
and it was the still places between
the whoops that was making the
trouble for me. Well, I fought
along, and directly I hears the
whoop BEHIND me. I was tangled
good now. That was somebody else's
whoop, or else I was turned around.
I throwed the paddle down.
I heard the whoop again; it was
behind me yet, but in a different
place; it kept coming, and kept
changing its place, and I kept
answering, till by and by it
was in front of me again, and
I knowed the current had swung
the canoe's head down-stream,
and I was all right if that was
Jim and not some other raftsman
hollering. I couldn't tell nothing
about voices in a fog, for nothing
don't look natural nor sound
natural in a fog.
The whooping went on, and in
about a minute I come a-booming
down on a cut bank with smoky
ghosts of big trees on it, and
the current throwed me off to
the left and shot by, amongst
a lot of snags that fairly roared,
the currrent was tearing by them
so swift.
In another second or two it
was solid white and still again.
I set perfectly still then, listening
to my heart thump, and I reckon
I didn't draw a breath while
it thumped a hundred.
I just give up then. I knowed
what the matter was. That cut
bank was an island, and Jim had
gone down t'other side of it.
It warn't no towhead that you
could float by in ten minutes.
It had the big timber of a regular
island; it might be five or six
miles long and more than half
a mile wide.
I kept quiet, with my ears
cocked, about fifteen minutes,
I reckon. I was floating along,
of course, four or five miles
an hour; but you don't ever think
of that. No, you FEEL like you
are laying dead still on the
water; and if a little glimpse
of a snag slips by you don't
think to yourself how fast YOU'RE
going, but you catch your breath
and think, my! how that snag's
tearing along. If you think it
ain't dismal and lonesome out
in a fog that way by yourself
in the night, you try it once
-- you'll see.
Next, for about a half an hour,
I whoops now and then; at last
I hears the answer a long ways
off, and tries to follow it,
but I couldn't do it, and directly
I judged I'd got into a nest
of towheads, for I had little
dim glimpses of them on both
sides of me -- sometimes just
a narrow channel between, and
some that I couldn't see I knowed
was there because I'd hear the
wash of the current against the
old dead brush and trash that
hung over the banks. Well, I
warn't long loosing the whoops
down amongst the towheads; and
I only tried to chase them a
little while, anyway, because
it was worse than chasing a Jack-o'-lantern.
You never knowed a sound dodge
around so, and swap places so
quick and so much.
I had to claw away from the
bank pretty lively four or five
times, to keep from knocking
the islands out of the river;
and so I judged the raft must
be butting into the bank every
now and then, or else it would
get further ahead and clear out
of hearing -- it was floating
a little faster than what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the
open river again by and by, but
I couldn't hear no sign of a
whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim
had fetched up on a snag, maybe,
and it was all up with him. I
was good and tired, so I laid
down in the canoe and said I
wouldn't bother no more. I didn't
want to go to sleep, of course;
but I was so sleepy I couldn't
help it; so I thought I would
take jest one little cat-nap.
But I reckon it was more than
a cat-nap, for when I waked up
the stars was shining bright,
the fog was all gone, and I was
spinning down a big bend stern
first. First I didn't know where
I was; I thought I was dreaming;
and when things began to come
back to me they seemed to come
up dim out of last week.
It was a monstrous big river
here, with the tallest and the
thickest kind of timber on both
banks; just a solid wall, as
well as I could see by the stars.
I looked away down-stream, and
seen a black speck on the water.
I took after it; but when I got
to it it warn't nothing but a
couple of sawlogs made fast together.
Then I see another speck, and
chased that; then another, and
this time I was right. It was
the raft.
When I got to it Jim was setting
there with his head down between
his knees, asleep, with his right
arm hanging over the steering-oar.
The other oar was smashed off,
and the raft was littered up
with leaves and branches and
dirt. So she'd had a rough time.
I made fast and laid down under
Jim's nose on the raft, and began
to gap, and stretch my fists
out against Jim, and says:
"Hello, Jim,
have I been asleep? Why didn't
you stir me up?"
"Goodness gracious,
is dat you, Huck? En you ain'
dead --
you ain' drownded -- you's back
agin? It's too good for true,
honey, it's too good for true.
Lemme look at you chile, lemme
feel o' you. No, you ain' dead!
you's back agin, 'live en soun',
jis de same ole Huck -- de same
ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"
"What's the
matter with you, Jim? You been
adrinking?"
"Drinkin'?
Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I
had a chance to be a-drinkin'?"
"Well, then,
what makes you talk so wild?"
"How does I
talk wild?"
"HOW? Why,
hain't you been talking about
my coming back,
and all that stuff, as if I'd
been gone away?"
"Huck -- Huck
Finn, you look me in de eye;
look me in de eye.
HAIN'T you ben gone away?"
"Gone away?
Why, what in the nation do
you mean? I hain't
been gone anywheres. Where would
I go to?"
"Well, looky
here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong,
dey is. Is I ME,
or who IS I? Is I heah, or whah
IS I? Now dat's what I wants
to know."
"Well, I think
you're here, plain enough,
but I think you're
a tangle-headed old fool, Jim."
"I is, is I?
Well, you answer me dis: Didn't
you tote out de
line in de canoe fer to make
fas' to de towhead?"
"No, I didn't.
What tow-head? I hain't see
no tow-head."
"You hain't
seen no towhead? Looky here,
didn't de line pull
loose en de raf' go a-hummin'
down de river, en leave you en
de canoe behine in de fog?"
"What fog?"
"Why, de fog!
-- de fog dat's been aroun'
all night. En didn't
you whoop, en didn't I whoop,
tell we got mix' up in de islands
en one un us got los' en t'other
one was jis' as good as los',
'kase he didn' know whah he wuz?
En didn't I bust up agin a lot
er dem islands en have a turrible
time en mos' git drownded? Now
ain' dat so, boss -- ain't it
so? You answer me dat."
"Well, this
is too many for me, Jim. I
hain't seen no fog,
nor no islands, nor no troubles,
nor nothing. I been setting here
talking with you all night till
you went to sleep about ten minutes
ago, and I reckon I done the
same. You couldn't a got drunk
in that time, so of course you've
been dreaming."
"Dad fetch
it, how is I gwyne to dream
all dat in ten minutes?"
"Well, hang
it all, you did dream it, because
there didn't
any of it happen."
"But, Huck,
it's all jis' as plain to me
as --"
"It don't make
no difference how plain it
is; there ain't
nothing in it. I know, because
I've been here all the time."
Jim didn't say nothing for
about five minutes, but set there
studying over it. Then he says:
"Well, den,
I reck'n I did dream it, Huck;
but dog my cats
ef it ain't de powerfullest dream
I ever see. En I hain't ever
had no dream b'fo' dat's tired
me like dis one."
"Oh, well,
that's all right, because a
dream does tire a body
like everything sometimes. But
this one was a staving dream;
tell me all about it, Jim."
So Jim went
to work and told me the whole
thing right through,
just as it happened, only he
painted it up considerable. Then
he said he must start in and "'terpret" it,
because it was sent for a warning.
He said the first towhead stood
for a man that would try to do
us some good, but the current
was another man that would get
us away from him. The whoops
was warnings that would come
to us every now and then, and
if we didn't try hard to make
out to understand them they'd
just take us into bad luck, 'stead
of keeping us out of it. The
lot of towheads was troubles
we was going to get into with
quarrelsome people and all kinds
of mean folks, but if we minded
our business and didn't talk
back and aggravate them, we would
pull through and get out of the
fog and into the big clear river,
which was the free States, and
wouldn't have no more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty dark
just after I got on to the raft,
but it was clearing up again
now.
"Oh, well, that's all interpreted
well enough as far as it goes,
Jim," I says; "but what does
THESE things stand for?"
It was the leaves and rubbish
on the raft and the smashed oar.
You could see them first-rate
now.
Jim looked at the trash, and
then looked at me, and back at
the trash again. He had got the
dream fixed so strong in his
head that he couldn't seem to
shake it loose and get the facts
back into its place again right
away. But when he did get the
thing straightened around he
looked at me steady without ever
smiling, and says:
"What do dey
stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell
you. When I got
all wore out wid work, en wid
de callin' for you, en went to
sleep, my heart wuz mos' broke
bekase you wuz los', en I didn'
k'yer no' mo' what become er
me en de raf'. En when I wake
up en fine you back agin, all
safe en soun', de tears come,
en I could a got down on my knees
en kiss yo' foot, I's so thankful.
En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout
wuz how you could make a fool
uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck
dah is TRASH; en trash is what
people is dat puts dirt on de
head er dey fren's en makes 'em
ashamed."
Then he got up slow and walked
to the wigwam, and went in there
without saying anything but that.
But that was enough. It made
me feel so mean I could almost
kissed HIS foot to get him to
take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before
I could work myself up to go
and humble myself to a nigger;
but I done it, and I warn't ever
sorry for it afterwards, neither.
I didn't do him no more mean
tricks, and I wouldn't done that
one if I'd a knowed it would
make him feel that way. |