Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapters 01 to 05 Page 5

  CHAPTER V.

  I HAD shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I usedto be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I wasscared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken--that is, after thefirst jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being sounexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worthbothring about.

  He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled andgreasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like hewas behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-upwhiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed; itwas white; not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick,a white to make a body's flesh crawl--a tree-toad white, a fish-bellywhite. As for his clothes--just rags, that was all. He had one ankleresting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of histoes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was layingon the floor--an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.

  I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chairtilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window wasup; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. Byand by he says:

  "Starchy clothes--very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, DON'Tyou?"

  "Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.

  "Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put onconsiderable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a pegbefore I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say--can read andwrite. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because hecan't? I'LL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with suchhifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you you could?"

  "The widow. She told me."

  "The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovelabout a thing that ain't none of her business?"

  "Nobody never told her."

  "Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here--you drop thatschool, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airsover his own father and let on to be better'n what HE is. You lemmecatch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mothercouldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None ofthe family couldn't before THEY died. I can't; and here you'rea-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--you hear?Say, lemme hear you read."

  I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and thewars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whackwith his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:

  "It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now lookyhere; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay foryou, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good.First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son."

  He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, andsays:

  "What's this?"

  "It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."

  He tore it up, and says:

  "I'll give you something better--I'll give you a cowhide."

  He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:

  "AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and alook'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor--and your own fathergot to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. Ibet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you.Why, there ain't no end to your airs--they say you're rich. Hey?--how'sthat?"

  "They lie--that's how."

  "Looky here--mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I canstand now--so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and Ihain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it awaydown the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that moneyto-morrow--I want it."

  "I hain't got no money."

  "It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."

  "I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tellyou the same."

  "All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll knowthe reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."

  "I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to--"

  "It don't make no difference what you want it for--you just shell itout."

  He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he wasgoing down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day.When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed mefor putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when Ireckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told meto mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick meif I didn't drop that.

  Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyraggedhim, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and thenhe swore he'd make the law force him.

  The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away fromhim and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that hadjust come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn'tinterfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druthernot take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widowhad to quit on the business.

  That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide metill I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. Iborrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and gotdrunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carryingon; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight;then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailedhim again for a week. But he said HE was satisfied; said he was boss ofhis son, and he'd make it warm for HIM.

  When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him.So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, andhad him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was justold pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him abouttemperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been afool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over a newleaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judgewould help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug himfor them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said he'dbeen a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge saidhe believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was downwas sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again. Andwhen it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:

  "Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more; it'sthe hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die beforehe'll go back. You mark them words--don't forget I said them. It's aclean hand now; shake it--don't be afeard."

  So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. Thejudge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge--madehis mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or somethinglike that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which wasthe spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty andclumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded hisnew coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good oldtime; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, androlled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was mostfroze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they cometo look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they couldnavigate it.

  The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reformthe old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.

 
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