vt. 祈祷；恳求；央求
vi. 祈祷；请；恳求
n. (Pray)人名；(匈)普劳伊；(英)普雷
7、祈祷（Pray）：沙特是伊斯兰教发源地，几乎所有公民都是穆斯林。每天5次的祷告时间，每次持续15-30分钟。
基于1110个网页-
2012年职称英语考试理工类词汇学习法6 ... persuade劝导 pray请求 prefer喜欢学习法学习法学习法，宁愿 ...
基于546个网页-
中文:普赖 (卢瓦尔-谢尔省);英语:Pray;法语:Pray;
基于500个网页-
王可可则心慌意乱地祈求(Pray)：“打上一发吧，”但她的子弹也全部脱靶，她随即大叫：“太丢人了。
基于492个网页-
热情地祈祷
更多收起网络短语
&2,447,543篇论文数据，部分数据来源于
address G say a prayer
以上来源于:
请求，恳求：
We pray you to show mercy.
我们恳求你发发慈悲。
祈祷，祷告：
They prayed that she wonld recover.
他们为她尽快康复而祈祷。
乞求，央求：
to pray someone for something
向某人央求某事
请求，恳求：
I earnestly pray for your pardon.
我恳切地请求你原谅。
祈祷，祷告：
The priest prayed for the dying man.
牧师为死者做祷告。
[古语]请，务请：
[古语]请，务请：
Tell me the reason,pray.
请把理由告诉我吧。
be past praying for
(人)毫无希望的，无可挽救的，不可救药的
(物)无法补救
pray consider that…
pray in aid of
pray someone for something(或 to do something)
恳求某人(做某事)，向某人乞求某物
更多收起结果
以上来源于：《21世纪大英汉词典》
When people pray, they speak to God in order to give thanks or to ask for his help. 祈祷
He spent his time in prison praying and studying.
他把在狱中的时间花在了祈祷和学习上。
Now all we have to do is help ourselves and pray to God.
现在我们要做的是自救和向上帝祈祷。
When someone is hoping very much that something will happen, you can say that they are praying that it will happen. 祈望
[usu cont]
I'm just praying that somebody in Congress will do something before it's too late.
我只祈望国会中有人在还来得及的时候做点什么。
恳求，请求
vt. 祈祷；恳求；央求
vi. 祈祷；请；恳求
虔诚的；常常祷告的
祈祷，祷告；恳求；祈祷文
beg, implore, request, pray, require, claim, entreat, ask, demand
这组词都有“要求，请求”的意思，其区别是：
指恳切地或再三地请求或要求，常含低三下四意味，也多用于应酬场合。
书面用词，着重指迫切、焦急或痛苦地恳求或哀求，常含较强的感情色彩。
正式用词，指非常正式，有礼貌的请求或恳求，多含担心因种种原因对方不能答应的意味。
语气庄重，指热情、诚恳和敬祈的要求，现不很常用。
强调根据事业、需要或纪律、法律等而提出的要求。
指有权或宣称有权得到而公开提出的要求。
泛指一般“恳求或哀求”，含企图说服对方或用热烈的请求软化反对意见的意味。
最普通用词，指向对方提出要求或请求，长、晚辈，上下级之间都可使用。
一般指理直气壮地提出强烈要求，或坚持不让对方拒绝的要求。
以上来源于
beg, plead, petition, appeal, pray, entreat
这组词都有“请求，恳求”的意思，其区别是：
比plead通俗，不用于法律范畴，指低声下气地请求，有时含贬义，指某人喋喋不休地要求得到帮助。
指谦卑而又不失尊严地请求，侧重迫切感。
指正式而热切地请愿或祈求。
常指以道义原则为基础或以法律为依据的请求。
指祈求，多用于宗教用语中。
意义与beg的大致相同，但较文雅。
以上来源于
We pray you to show mercy.
我们恳求你发发慈悲。
We all pray for the victims of Japan.
我们都在为日本的受害者祈祷。
So, why not weigh in while I pray for my sins?
所以，当我为自己的罪孽祈祷的时候权衡下呢？
That influence shows up years later in the recording of "If You Pray Right" on Miss Simone's album "Baltimore."
VOA: special.
He said, "I'll pray for him but if he can punch it'll help." In a small respect, that's Machiavelli.
神父说，我将为他祈祷，但是如果他能出拳猛击,那将会很有帮助，小面上说，这就是马基雅维利。
There's some religious practices of blessing the moon, and certainly in June, summer camps, you often pray outside.
有一些宗教仪式,是专门祭拜月亮的，在六月的夏令营，我们也会在户外祈祷。
"I was ashamed, too shy to tell him I didn't know how to pray, " Leuco wrote.
As they prepared to hang up, Leuco said the Pope asked the journalist to pray for him.
On woven plastic mats, women pray to a Buddha statue, barely visible through the thick jasmine smoke.
恳求，请求
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其他错误（选填）：祷告用英语怎么说
美[pre]vt.
祈祷，祷告; 请求，恳求; 央求;vi.
祈祷; 请; 恳求;[例句]He spent his time in prison praying and studying他把狱中的时间都用于祈祷和学习。[其他]
第三人称单数：prays 现在分词：praying 过去式：prayed过去分词：prayed
你好！祷告pray
你好！祷告prayer
英[pre?(r)]
美[prer]n.
祈祷; 祈祷文; 祈祷（习惯）; 经文;[例句]They had joined a religious order and dedicated their lives to prayer and good works他们已加入一个宗教团体，终生都将祈祷和行善。
祷告[词典] say one'[例句]她每天临睡前做祷告。She says her prayers before she gets into bed.
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普通版（General
CHAPTER I.
know about me without you have read a book by the
name of The Adventures of Tom S 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 s but it was rough
living in the house all the time, considering how
dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her
and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I
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.
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
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
but by and by she let it out that Moses
had been dead a co 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, 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, H& and &Don't scrunch up like
that, Huckleberry—& 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
wanted was a change, I warn't particular.&
She said it was wicked to say what I
said she wouldn't say it 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
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.
Miss Watson
she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and
lonesome.&
By and by they fetched the niggers in and had
prayers, and then everybody was off to bed.&
I went up to my room with a piece of candle,
and put it on the table.&
Then I set down in a chair by the window and
tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't
I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead.&
The stars were shining, and the leaves
rustled in the wo and I heard
an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that
was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about
somebody t and the wind was
trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't
make out what it was, and so it made the cold
shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I
heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when
it wants to tell about something that's on its mind
and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest
easy in its grave, and has to go about that way
every night grieving.&
I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I
had some company.&
Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my
shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the
and before I could budge it was all
shriveled up.&
I didn't need anybody to tell me that that
was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad
luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off
of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three
times and crossed
and then I
tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to
keep witches away.&
But I hadn't no confidence.&
You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that
you've found, instead of nailing it up over the
door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any
way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider.
I set down
again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a
for the house was all as still as death now,
and so the widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long
time I heard the clock away off in the town go
boom—boom—boom— and all still
again—stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig
snap down in the dark amongst the trees—something
was a stirring.&
I set still and listened.&
Directly I could just barely hear a &me-yow!
me-yow!& down there.&
That was good!&
Says I, &me-yow! me-yow!& as soft as I could,
and then I put out the light and scrambled out of
the window on to the shed.&
Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled
in among the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom
Sawyer waiting for me.
CHAPTER II.
tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back
towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down
so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When
we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and
made a noise.&
We scrouched down and laid still.&
Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was
setting we could see him pretty
clear, because there was a light behind him.&
He got up and stretched his neck out about a
minute, listening.&
Then he says:
&Who dah?&
He listened
then he come tiptoeing down and stood
we could a touched him, nearly.&
Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that
there warn't a sound, and we all there so close
together.&
There was a place on my ankle that got to
itching, but I dasn' and then my ear
and next my back, right between my
shoulders.&
Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch.&
Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times
If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or
trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy—if you
are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch,
why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand
places. Pretty soon Jim says:
&Say, who is
Whar is you?&
Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I
know what I's gwyne to do:&
I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I
hears it agin.&
down on the ground betwixt me and Tom.&
He leaned his back up against a tree, and
stretched his legs out till one of them most touched
one of mine.&
My nose begun to itch.&
It itched till the tears come into my eyes.&
But I dasn't scratch.&
Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I
got to itching underneath.&
I didn't know how I was going to set still.
This miserableness went on as much as six or seven
but it seemed a sight longer than that.&
I was itching in eleven different places now.&
I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a
minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready
Just then Jim be next he begun
to snore—and then I was pretty soon comfortable
Tom he made
a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his
mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and
When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and
wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun.&
But I he might wake and make a
disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in.
Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he
would slip in the kitchen and get some more.&
I didn't want him to try.&
I said Jim might wake up and come.&
But T so we slid in
there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents
on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in
but nothing would do Tom but he
must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees,
and play something on him.&
I waited, and it seemed a good while,
everything was so still and lonesome.
As soon as
Tom was back we cut along the path, around the
garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep
top of the hill the other side of the house.&
Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head
and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim
stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim
said the witches be witched him and put him in a
trance, and rode him all over the State, and then
set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a
limb to show who done it.&
And next time Jim told it he said they rode
him down to New O and, after that, every time
he told it he spread it more and more, till by and
by he said they rode him all over the world, and
tired him most to death, and his back was all over
saddle-boils.&
Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got
so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers.&
Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell
about it, and he was more looked up to than any
nigger in that country.&
Strange niggers would stand with their mouths
open and look him all over, same as if he was a
Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark
but whenever one was talking
and letting on to know all about such things, Jim
would happen in and say, &Hm!&
What you know 'bout witches?& and that nigger
was corked up and had to take a back seat.&
Jim always kept that five-center piece round
his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the
devil give to him with his own hands, and told him
he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches
whenever he wanted to just by saying something to
but he never told what it was he said to it.&
Niggers would come from all around there and
give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that
five- but they wouldn't touch it,
because the devil had had his hands on it.&
Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he
got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and
been rode by witches.
Well, when
Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked
away down into the village and could see three or
four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks,
and the stars over us was sparkling ever so
and down by the village was the river, a whole
mile broad, and awful still and grand.&
We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and
Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid
in the old tanyard.&
So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the
river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the
hillside, and went ashore.
We went to a
clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to
keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the
hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes.&
Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on
our hands and knees.&
We went about two hundred yards, and then the
cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the
passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where
you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole.&
We went along a narrow place and got into a
kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and
there we stopped.&
&Now, we'll
start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's
Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take
an oath, and write his name in blood.&
was willing.&
So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had
wrote the oath on, and read it.&
It swore every boy to stick to the band, and
never tel and if anybody done
anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was
ordered to kill that person and his family must do
it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he
had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts,
which was the sign of the band. And nobody that
didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and
if he and if he done it again
he must be killed.&
And if anybody that belonged to the band told
the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then
have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered
all around, and his name blotted off of the list
with blood and never mentioned again by the gang,
but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever.
said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if
he got it out of his own head.&
He said, some of it, but the rest was out of
pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that
was high-toned had it.
Some thought
it would be good to kill the FAMILIES of boys that
told the secrets.&
Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a
pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says:
&Here's Huck
Finn, he hain' what you going to do
'bout him?&
hain't he got a father?& says Tom Sawyer.
&Yes, he's
got a father, but you can't never find him these
used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but
he hain't been seen in these parts for a year or
They talked
it over, and they was going to rule me out, because
they said every boy must have a family or somebody
to kill, or else it wouldn't be fair and square for
the others.&
Well, nobody could think of anything to
do—everybody was stumped, and set still.&
I w but all at once I
thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss
Watson—they could kill her.&
Everybody said:
&Oh, she'll
That's all right.&
Huck can come in.&
all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to
sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.
&Now,& says
Ben Rogers, &what's the line of business of this
only robbery and murder,& Tom said.
&But who are
we going to rob?—houses, or cattle, or—&
stealing cattle and such things ain' it's
burglary,& says Tom Sawyer.&
&We ain't burglars.&
That ain't no sort of style.&
We are highwaymen.&
We stop stages and carriages on the road,
with masks on, and kill the people and take their
watches and money.&
always kill the people?&
certainly.&
It's best.&
Some authorities think different, but mostly
it's considered best to kill them—except some that
you bring to the cave here, and keep them till
they're ransomed.&
&Ransomed?&
What's that?&
But that's what they do.&
I' and so of course
that's what we've got to do.&
&But how can
we do it if we don't know what it is?&
&Why, blame
it all, we've GOT to do it.&
Don't I tell you it's in the books?&
Do you want to go to doing different from
what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?&
&Oh, that's
all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but how in the
nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we
don't know how to do it to them?—that's the thing I
want to get at.&
Now, what do you reckon it is?&
don't know.&
But per'aps if we keep them till they're
ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're
&Now, that's
something LIKE.&
That'll answer.&
Why couldn't you said that before?&
We'll keep them till they're ransomed to
and a bothersome lot they'll be, too—eating
up everything, and always trying to get loose.&
talk, Ben Rogers.&
How can they get loose when there's a guard
over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a
&A guard!&
Well, that IS good.&
So somebody's got to set up all night and
never get any sleep, just so as to watch them.&
I think that's foolishness. Why can't a body
take a club and ransom them as soon as they get
&Because it
ain't in the books so—that's why.&
Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things
regular, or don't you?—that's the idea.&
Don't you reckon that the people that made
the books knows what's the correct thing to do?&
Do you reckon YOU can learn 'em anything?&
Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on
and ransom them in the regular way.&
&All right.&
I don' but I say it's a fool way,
Say, do we kill the women, too?&
&Well, Ben
Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let
the women?&
No; nobody ever saw anything in the books
like that.&
You fetch them to the cave, and you're always
as p and by and by they fall in
love with you, and never want to go home any more.&
that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock
in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered
up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed,
that there won't be no place for the robbers. But go
ahead, I ain't got nothing to say.&
Little Tommy
Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he
was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home
to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber any more.
So they all
made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that
made him mad, and he said he would go straight and
tell all the secrets.&
But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet,
and said we would all go home and meet next week,
and rob somebody and kill some people.
Ben Rogers
said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so
he wanted to begin next S but all the boys
said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that
settled the thing.&
They agreed to get together and fix a day as
soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer
first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the
Gang, and so started home.
I clumb up
the shed and crept into my window just before day
was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and
clayey, and I was dog-tired.
CHAPTER III.
WELL, I got
a good going-over in the morning from old Miss
Watson on a but the widow she
didn't scold, but only cleaned off the grease and
clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would
behave awhile if I could.&
Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet
and prayed, but nothing come of it.&
She told me to pray every day, and whatever I
asked for I would get it.&
But it warn't so.&
I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no
It warn't any good to me without hooks.&
I tried for the hooks three or four times,
but somehow I couldn't make it work.&
By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to
try for me, but she said I was a fool.&
She never told me why, and I couldn't make it
out no way.
I set down
one time back in the woods, and had a long think
about it.&
I says to myself, if a body can get anything
they pray for, why don't Deacon Winn get back the
money he lost on pork?&
Why can't the widow get back her silver
snuffbox that was stole?&
Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to
my self, there ain't nothing in it.&
I went and told the widow about it, and she
said the thing a body could get by praying for it
was &spiritual gifts.&&
This was too many for me, but she told me
what she meant—I must help other people, and do
everything I could for other people, and look out
for them all the time, and never think about myself.
This was including Miss Watson, as I took it.&
I went out in the woods and turned it over in
my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage
about it—except
so at last I
reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any more, but
just let it go.&
Sometimes the widow would take me one side
and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's
but maybe next day Miss Watson would
take hold and knock it all down again.&
I judged I could see that there was two
Providences, and a poor chap would stand
considerable show with the widow's Providence, but
if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for
him any more.&
I thought it all out, and reckoned I would
belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I
couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any
better off then than what he was before, seeing I
was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.
hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was
I didn't want to see him no
used to always whale me when he was sober and could
though I used to take to the
woods most of the time when he was around.&
Well, about this time he was found in the
river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so
people said.&
They judged it was him, said this
drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and
had uncommon long hair, wh but
they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because
it had been in the water so long it warn't much like
a face at all.&
They said he was floating on his back in the
They took him and buried him on the bank.&
But I warn't comfortable long, because I
happened to think of something.&
I knowed mighty well that a drownded man
don't float on his back, but on his face.&
So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but
a woman dressed up in a man's clothes.&
So I was uncomfortable again.&
I judged the old man would turn up again by
and by, though I wished he wouldn't.
robber now and then about a month, and then I
resigned.&
All the boys did.&
We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any
people, but only just pretended.&
We used to hop out of the woods and go
charging down on hog-drivers and women in carts
taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived
any of them.&
Tom Sawyer called the hogs &ingots,& and he
called the turnips and stuff &julery,& and we would
go to the cave and powwow over what we had done, and
how many people we had killed and marked.&
But I couldn't see no profit in it.&
One time Tom sent a boy to run about town
with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan
(which was the sign for the Gang to get together),
and then he said he had got secret news by his spies
that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants
and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow
with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels,
and over a thousand &sumter& mules, all loaded down
with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard of
four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in
ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and
scoop the things.&
He said we must slick up our swords and guns,
and get ready.&
He never could go after even a turnip-cart
but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up
for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks,
and you might scour at them till you rotted, and
then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than
what they was before.&
I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd
of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the
camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day,
Saturday, and when we got the word
we rushed out of the woods and down the hill.&
But there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs, and
there warn't no camels nor no elephants.&
It warn't anything but a Sunday-school
picnic, and only a primer-class at that.&
We busted it up, and chased the children up
but we never got anything but some
doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll,
and Jo Harper got a hymn- and then
the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything
&I didn't see
no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so.&
He said there was loads of them there,
and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and
elephants and things.&
I said, why couldn't we see them, then?&
He said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read
a book called Don Quixote, I would know without
He said it was all done by enchantment.&
He said there was hundreds of soldiers there,
and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had
enemies which and they had
turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school,
just out of spite.&
I said, then the thing for us to
do was to go for the magicians.&
Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.
&Why,& said
he, &a magician could call up a lot of genies, and
they would hash you up like nothing before you could
say Jack Robinson.&
They are as tall as a tree and as big around
as a church.&
says, &s'pose we got some genies to help US—can't we
lick the other crowd then?&
going to get them?&
How do THEY get them?&
&Why, they
rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the
genies come tearing in, with the thunder and
lightning a-ripping around and the smoke a-rolling,
and everything they're told to do they up and do it.&
They don't think nothing of pulling a
shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a
Sunday-school superintendent over the head with
it—or any other man.&
&Who makes
them tear around so?&
whoever rubs the lamp or the ring.&
They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the
ring, and they've got to do whatever he says.&
If he tells them to build a palace forty
miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full of
chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an
emperor's daughter from China for you to marry,
they've got to do it—and they've got to do it before
sun-up next morning, too.&
And more:&
they've got to waltz that palace around over
the country wherever you want it, you understand.&
&Well,& says
I, &I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not
keeping the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them
away like that.&
And what's more—if I was one of them I would
see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business
and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.&
talk, Huck Finn.&
Why, you'd HAVE to come when he rubbed it,
whether you wanted to or not.&
&What! and I
as high as a tree and as big as a church?&
All right, I WOULD but I lay I'd
make that man climb the highest tree there was in
the country.&
&Shucks, it
ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn.&
You don't seem to know anything,
somehow—perfect saphead.&
all this over for two or three days, and then I
reckoned I would see if there was anything in it.&
I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and
went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I
sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace
but it warn't no use, none of the
genies come.&
So then I judged that all that stuff was only
just one of Tom Sawyer's lies.&
I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the
elephants, but as for me I think different.&
It had all the marks of a Sunday-school.
CHAPTER IV.
WELL, three
or four months run along, and it was well into the
winter now. I had been to school most all the time
and could spell and read and write just a little,
and could say the multiplication table up to six
times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I
could ever get any further than that if I was to
live forever.&
I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway.
At first I
hated the school, but by and by I got so I could
stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played
hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good
and cheered me up.&
So the longer I went to school the easier it
got to be.&
I was getting sort of used to the widow's
ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me.&
Living in a house and sleeping in a bed
pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the
cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the
woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me.&
I liked the old ways best, but I was getting
so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The
widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and
doing very satisfactory.&
She said she warn't ashamed of me.
One morning
I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at
breakfast.&
I reached for some of it as quick as I could
to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad
luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and
crossed me off. She says, &Take your hands away,
H what a mess you are always making!&&
The widow put in a good word for me, but that
warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that
well enough.&
I started out, after breakfast, feeling
worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going
to fall on me, and what it was going to be.&
There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad
luck, but this wasn' so I never
tried to do anything, but just poked along
low-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down
to the front garden and clumb over the stile where
you go through the high board fence.&
There was an inch of new snow on the ground,
and I seen somebody's tracks.&
They had come up from the quarry and stood
around the stile a while, and then went on around
the garden fence.&
It was funny they hadn't come in, after
standing around so.&
I couldn't make it out.&
It was very curious, somehow.&
I was going to follow around, but I stooped
down to look at the tracks first.&
I didn't notice anything at first, but next I
There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with
big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in
a second and shinning down the hill.&
I looked over my shoulder every now and then,
but I didn't see nobody.&
I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I could
get there.&
boy, you are all out of breath.&
Did you come for your interest?&
&No, sir,& I
&is there some for me?&
&Oh, yes, a
half-yearly is in last night—over a hundred and
fifty dollars.&
Quite a fortune for you.&
You had better let me invest it along with
your six thousand, because if you take it you'll
spend it.&
&No, sir,& I
says, &I don't want to spend it.&
I don't want it at all—nor the six thousand,
I I want to give it to you—the
six thousand and all.&
surprised.&
He couldn't seem to make it out.&
&Why, what
can you mean, my boy?&
&Don't you ask me no questions about it, please.&
You'll take it—won't you?&
&Well, I'm
Is something the matter?&
&Please take
it,& says I, &and don't ask me nothing—then I won't
have to tell no lies.&
He studied a
while, and then he says:
I think I see.&
You want to SELL all your property to me—not
That's the correct idea.&
wrote something on a paper and read it over, and
see it says 'for a consideration.'&
That means I have bought it of you and paid
you for it.&
Here's a dollar for you.&
Now you sign it.&
So I signed
it, and left.
Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your
fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach
of an ox, and he used to do magic with it.&
He said there was a spirit inside of it, and
it knowed everything.&
So I went to him that night and told him pap
was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow.&
What I wanted to know was, what he was going
to do, and was he going to stay?&
Jim got out his hair-ball and said something
over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on
the floor.&
It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about
Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it
acted just the same.&
Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear
against it and listened.&
But it warn' he said it wouldn't
talk. He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without
told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that
warn't no good because the brass showed through the
silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if
the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it
felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every
reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I
got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money,
but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe
it wouldn't know the difference.&
Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and
said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it
was good.&
He said he would split open a raw Irish
potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it
there all night, and next morning you couldn't see
no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and
so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let
alone a hair-ball.&
Well, I knowed a potato would do that before,
but I had forgot it.
Jim put the
quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and
listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was
all right.&
He said it would tell my whole fortune if I
wanted it to.&
I says, go on.&
So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told
it to me.&
father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do.&
Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den agin
he spec he'll stay.&
De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole man
take his own way.&
Dey's two angels hoverin' roun' 'bout him.&
One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one
is black. De white one gits him to go right a little
while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up.&
A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to
fetch him at de las'.&
But you is all right.&
You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo'
life, en considable joy.&
Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes
y but every time you's gwyne to
git well agin.&
Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life.&
One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark.
One is rich en t'other is po'.&
You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de
rich one by en by.&
You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much
as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase it's down in
de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung.&
When I lit
my candle and went up to my room that night there
sat pap his own self!
CHAPTER V.
I HAD shut
the door to.&
Then I turned around and there he was.&
I used to be scared of him all the time, he
tanned me so much.&
I reckoned I was scared now, but in a
minute I see I was mistaken—that is, after the first
jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of
hitched, he but right away
after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothring
He was most
fifty, and he looked it.&
His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and
hung down, and you could see his eyes shining
through like he was behind vines.&
It was all black, so was his long,
mixed-up whiskers.&
There warn't no color in his face, where his
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-belly white.&
As for his clothes—just rags, that was all.&
He had one ankle resting on t' the
boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes
stuck through, and he worked them now and then.&
His hat was laying on the floor—an old black
slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.
a- he set there a-looking at me, with
his chair tilted back a little.&
I set the candle down.&
I notic so he had clumb
in by the shed.&
He kept a-looking me all over.&
By and by he says:
clothes—very.&
You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,
DON'T you?&
&Maybe I am,
maybe I ain't,& I says.
&Don't you
give me none o' your lip,& says he.&
&You've put on considerable many frills since
I been away.&
I'll take you down a peg before I get done
with you.&
You're educated, too, they say—can read and
You think you're better'n your father, now, don't
you, because he can't?&
I'LL take it out of you.&
Who told you you might meddle with such
hifalut'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
shovel about a thing that ain't none of her
business?&
never told her.&
&Well, I'll
learn her how to meddle.
&And looky
here—you drop that school, you hear?&
I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on
airs over his own father and let on to be better'n
what HE is.&
You lemme catch you fooling around that
school again, you hear?&
Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't
write, nuther, before she died.&
None of the family couldn't before THEY died.&
I can't; and here you're a-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 the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute,
he fetched the book a whack with his hand and
knocked it across the house.&
&It's so.&
You can do it.&
I had my doubts when you told me.&
N you stop that putting on
I won't have it.&
I'll lay for you, 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, and says:
something they give me for learning my lessons
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
&AIN'T you a
sweet-scented dandy, though?&
A and a look'n'-
and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own
father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard.&
I never see such a son.&
I bet 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's that?&
lie—that's how.&
here—min I'm a-standing about
all I can stand now—so don't gimme no sass.&
I've been in town two days, and I hain't
heard nothing but about you bein' rich.&
I heard about it away down the river, too.&
That's why I come.&
You git me that money to-morrow—I want it.&
got no money.&
&It's a lie.&
Judge Thatcher's got it.&
You git it.&
I want it.&
got no money, I tell you.&
You ask Judge T he'll tell you the
&All right.&
I' and I'll make him pungle, too,
or I'll know the reason why.&
Say, how much you got in your pocket?&
I want it.&
got only a dollar, and I want that to—&
make no difference what you want it for—you just
shell it out.&
He took it
and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said
he was going down tow 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 me for
putting on frills and trying t
and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put
his head in again, and told me to mind about that
school, because he was going to lay for me and lick
me if I didn't drop that.
Next day he
was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and
bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the
but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make
the law force him.
and the widow went to law to get the court to take
me away from him and let one of
but it was a new judge that had just come, and he
didn' so he said courts mustn't
interfere and separate families if they could help
said he'd druther not take a child away from its
So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the
That pleased
the old man till he couldn't rest.&
He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and
blue if I didn't raise some money for him.&
I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher,
and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing
around and cussing and whoo and
he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till
then they jailed him, and next day
they had him before court, and jailed him again for
But he said HE said he was boss of
his 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, and had him to breakfast and
dinner and supper with the family, and was just old
pie to him, so to speak.&
And after supper he talked to him about
temperance and such things till the old man cried,
and said he'd been a fool, and
but now he was a-going to turn over a new leaf and
be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped
the judge would help him and not look down on him.&
The judge said he could hug him for them
so he cried, and his
pap said he'd been a man that had always been
misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed
old man said that what a man wanted that was down
was sympathy, and the
cried again.&
And when it was bedtime the old man rose up
and held out his hand, and says:
&Look at it,
gent take a- shake
it. There's a hand that w but
it ain' it's the hand of a man that's
started in on a new life, and'll die before he'll go
You mark them words—don't forget I said them.&
It' shake it—don't be
shook it, one after the other, all around, and
The judge's wife she kissed it.&
Then the old man he signed a pledge—made his
mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on
record, or something like that. Then they tucked the
old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare
room, and in the night some time he got powerful
thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid
down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug
of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good
and towards daylight he crawled out again,
drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and
broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze
to death when somebody found him after sun-up.&
And when they come to look at that spare room
they had to take soundings before they could
navigate it.
The judge he
felt kind of sore.&
He said he reckoned a body could reform the
old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no
other way.
CHAPTER VI.
WELL, pretty
soon the old man was up and around again, and then
he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him
give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not
stopping school.&
He catched me a couple of times and thrashed
me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged
him or outrun him most of the time.&
I didn't want to go to school much before,
but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap.&
That law trial was a slow business—appeared
like they warn't ever going
every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars
off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a
cowhiding.&
Every time he go and
every time he got drunk he raised C
and every time he raised Cain he got jailed.&
He was just suited—this kind of thing was
right in his line.
hanging around the widow's too much and so she told
him at last that if he didn't quit using around
there she would make trouble for him. Well, WASN'T
He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss.&
So he watched out for me one day in the
spring, and catched me, and took me up the river
about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the
Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't
no houses but an old log hut in a place where the
timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you
didn't know where it was.
He kept me
with him all the time, and I never got a chance to
run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always
locked the door and put the key under his head
He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we
fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on.&
Every little while he locked me in and went
down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and
traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home
and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me.&
The widow she found out where I was by and
by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of
but pap drove him off with the gun, and it
warn't long after that till I was used to being
where I was, and liked it—all but the cowhide part.
It was kind
of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day,
smoking and fishing, and no books nor study.&
Two months or more run along, and my clothes
got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how
I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's,
where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb
up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever
bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson
pecking at you all the time.&
I didn't want to go back no more.&
I had stopped cussing, because the widow
didn' but now I took to it again because
pap hadn't no objections.&
It was pretty good times up in the woods
there, take it all around.
But by and
by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I
couldn't stand it. I was all over welts.&
He got to going away so much, too, and
locking me in.&
Once he locked me in and was gone three days.&
It was dreadful lonesome.&
I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't
ever going to get out any more.&
I was scared.&
I made up my mind I would fix up some way to
leave there.&
I had tried to get out of that cabin many a
time, but I couldn't find no way.&
There warn't a window to it big enough for a
dog to get through.&
I couldn' it was too
The door was thick, solid oak slabs.&
Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife
or anything in the ca I reckon
I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred
well, I was most all the time at it, because
it was about the only way to put in the time.&
But this time I fou I
found an old rusty wood-sa it
was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of
the roof. I greased it up and went to work.&
There was an old horse-blanket nailed against
the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the
table, to keep the wind from blowing through the
chinks and putting the candle out.&
I got under the table and raised the blanket,
and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom
log out—big enough to let me through.&
Well, it was a good long job, but I was
getting towards the end of it when I heard pap's gun
in the woods.&
I got rid of the signs of my work, and
dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon
pap come in.
Pap warn't
in a good humor—so he was his natural self.&
He said he was down town, and everything was
going wrong.&
His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his
lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started
but then there was ways to put it off
a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it.
And he said people allowed there'd be another trial
to get me away from him and give me to the widow for
my guardian, and they guessed it would win this
This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want
to go back to the widow's any more and be so cramped
up and sivilized, as they called it.&
Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed
everything and everybody he could think of, and then
cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't
skipped any, and after that he polished off with a
kind of a general cuss all round, including a
considerable parcel of people which he didn't know
the names of, and so called them what's-his-name
when he got to them, and went right along with his
He said he
would like to see the widow get me.&
He said he would watch out, and if they tried
to come any such game on him he knowed of a place
six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they
might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find
made me pretty uneasy again, b
I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that
The old man
made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had
got. There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and
a side of bacon, ammunition, and a four-gallon jug
of whisky, and an old book and two newspapers for
wadding, besides some tow.&
I toted up a load, and went back and set down
on the bow of the skiff to rest.&
I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would
walk off with the gun and some lines, and take to
the woods when I run away.&
I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but
just tramp right across the country, mostly night
times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get
so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't
ever find me any more.&
I judged I would saw out and leave that night
if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would.&
I got so full of it I didn't notice how long
I was staying till the old man hollered and asked me
whether I was asleep or drownded.
things all up to the cabin, and then it was about
While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig
or two and got sort of warmed up, and went to
ripping again.&
He had been drunk over in town, and laid in
the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.&
A body would a thought he was Adam—he was
just all mud.&
Whenever his liquor begun to work he most
always went for the govment, this time he says:
&Call this a
govment! why, just look at it and see what it's
like. Here's the law a-standing ready to take a
man's son away from him—a man's own son, which he
has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all
the expense of raising.&
Yes, just as that man has got that son raised
at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do
suthin' for HIM and give him a rest, the law up and
goes for him.&
And they call THAT govment!&
That ain't all, nuther.&
The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and
helps him to keep me out o' my property.&
Here's what the law does:&
The law takes a man worth six thousand
dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap
of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in
clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that
A man can't get his rights in a govment like this.
Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the
country for good and all. Yes, and I TOLD ' I
told old Thatcher so to his face.&
Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I
Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country
and never come a-near it agin.&
Them's the very words.&
I says look at my hat—if you call it a
hat—but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes
down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't
rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was
shoved up through a jint o' stove-pipe.&
Look at it, says I—such a hat for me to
wear—one of the wealthiest men in this town if I
could git my rights.
this is a wonderful govment, wonderful.&
Why, looky here. There was a free nigger
there from Ohio—a mulatter, most as white as a white
had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the
and there ain't a man in that town
that's got as fine cl and he
had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed
cane—the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the
And what do you think?&
They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and
could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed
everything.&
And that ain't the wust. They said he could
VOTE when he was at home.&
Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the
country a-coming to?&
It was 'lection day, and I was just about to
go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get
but when they told me there was a State in
this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I
drawed out.&
I says I'll never vote agin.&
Them's the very words I they all heard
and the country may rot for all me—I'll never
vote agin as long as I live.&
And to see the cool way of that nigger—why,
he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved
him out o' the way.&
I says to the people, why ain't this nigger
put up at auction and sold?—that's what I want to
And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he
couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six
months, and he hadn't been there that long yet.&
There, now—that's a specimen.&
They call that a govment that can't sell a
free nigger till he's been in the State six months.&
Here's a govment that calls itself a govment,
and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a
govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six
whole months before it can take a hold of a
prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free
nigger, and—&
agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber
legs was taking him to, so he went head over heels
over the tub of salt pork and barked both shins, and
the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of
language—mostly hove at the nigger and the govment,
though he give the tub some, too, all along, here
and there.&
He hopped around the cabin considerable,
first on one leg and then on the other, holding
first one shin and then the other one, and at last
he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and
fetched the tub a rattling kick.&
But it warn't good judgment, because that was
the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out
of so now he raised a howl that
fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in
the dirt, and rolled there, and
the cussing he done then laid over anything he had
ever done previous.&
He said so his own self afterwards.&
He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best
days, and he said it laid over him, but I
reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.
After supper
pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky
there for two drunks and one delirium tremens.&
That was always his word.&
I judged he would be blind drunk in about an
hour, and then I would steal the key, or saw myself
out, one or t'other.&
He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his
but luck didn't run my way.&
He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy.&
He groaned and moaned and thrashed around
this way and that for a long time.&
At last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my
eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed
what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle
I don't know
how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was
an awful scream and I was up.&
There was pap looking wild, and skipping
around every which way and yelling about snakes.&
He said they was
then he would give a jump and scream, and say one
had bit him on the cheek—but I couldn't see no
He started and run round and round the cabin,
hollering &Take him off! take him off! he's biting
me on the neck!&&
I never see a man look so wild in the eyes.
Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down
then he rolled over and over wonderful
fast, kicking things every which way, and striking
and grabbing at the air with his hands, and
screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him.&
He wore out by and by, and laid still a
while, moaning.&
Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a
could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the
woods, and it seemed terrible still.&
He was laying over by the corner. By and by
he raised up part way and listened, with his head to
one side.&
He says, very low:
&Tramp—tramp— that'
tramp—tramp— they' but I
won't go.&
Oh, they're here! don't touch me—don't! hands
off—they' let go.&
Oh, let a poor devil alone!&
Then he went
down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to
let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his
blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table,
still a- and then he went to crying.&
I could hear him through the blanket.
By and by he
rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild,
and he see me and went for me.&
He chased me round and round the place with a
clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and
saying he would kill me, and then I couldn't come
for him no more.&
I begged, and told him I was only H but
he laughed SUCH a screechy laugh, and roared and
cussed, and kept on chasing me up.&
Once when I turned short and dodged under his
arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between
my shoulders, and I thought I but I slid
out of the jacket quick as lightning, and saved
myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and
dropped down with his back against the door, and
said he would rest a minute and then kill me. He put
his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get
strong, and then he would see who was who.
So he dozed
off pretty soon.&
By and by I got the old split-bottom chair
and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any
noise, and got down the gun.&
I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it
was loaded, then I laid it across the turnip barrel,
pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait
for him to stir.&
And how slow and still the time did drag
CHAPTER VII.
What you 'bout?&
I opened my
eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I
was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep.&
Pap was standing over me looking sour and
sick, too.&
doin' with this gun?&
I judged he
didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so
tried to get in, so I was laying for him.&
&Why didn't
you roust me out?&
tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you.&
&Well, all
Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with
you and see if there's a fish on the lines for
breakfast.&
I'll be along in a minute.&
He unlocked
the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank.&
I noticed some pieces of limbs and such
things floating down, and
knowed the river had begun to rise.&
I reckoned I would have great times now if I
was over at the town.&
The June rise used to b
because as soon as that rise begins here comes
cordwood floating down, and pieces of log
rafts—sometimes a so all you
have to do is to catch them and sell them to the
wood-yards and the sawmill.
I went along
up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one
out for what the rise might fetch along.&
Well, all at onc just a
beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long,
riding high like a duck.&
I shot head-first off of the bank like a
frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the
just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it,
because people often done that to fool folks, and
when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd
raise up and laugh at him.&
But it warn't so this time.&
It was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb
in and paddled her ashore.&
Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he
sees this—she's worth ten dollars.&
But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight
yet, and as I was running her into a little creek
like a gully, all hung over with vines and willows,
I struck another idea:&
I judged I'd hide her good, and then, 'stead
of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down
the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for
good, and not have such a rough time tramping on
pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard
the old man but I
and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows,
and there was the old man down the path a piece just
drawing a bead on a bird with his gun.&
So he hadn't seen anything.
When he got
along I was hard at it taking up a &trot& line.&
He abused me a litt but
I told him I fell in the river, and that was what
made me so long.&
I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he
would be asking questions.&
We got five catfish off the lines and went
laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us
being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I
could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from
trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing
than trusting to luck to get far enough off before
you see, all kinds of things might
Well, I didn't see no way for a while, but by and by
pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of
water, and he says:
time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me
out, you hear? That man warn't here for no good.&
I'd a shot him.&
Next time you roust me out, you hear?&
dropped down and but what he
had been saying give me the very idea I wanted.&
I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody
won't think of following me.
About twelve
o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank.&
The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots
of driftwood going by on the rise. By and by along
comes part of a log raft—nine logs fast together.&
We went out with the skiff and towed it
Then we had dinner. Anybody but pap would a waited
and seen the day through, so as
but that warn't pap's style.&
Nine logs was he must
shove right over to town and sell.&
So he locked me in and took the skiff, and
started off towing the raft about half-past three.&
I judged he wouldn't come back that night.&
I waited till I reckoned he had got a good
then I out with my saw, and went to work on
that log again.&
Before he was t'other side of the river I was
him and his raft was just a speck
on the water away off yonder.
I took the
sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was
hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put
then I done the same wi
then the whisky-jug.&
I took all the coffee and sugar there was,
an I I took
I took a dipper and a tin cup,
and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and
the coffee-pot.&
I took fish-lines and matches and other
things—everything that was worth a cent.&
I cleaned out the place.&
I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only
the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was
going to leave that.&
I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
I had wore
the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and
dragging out so many things.&
So I fixed that as good as I could from the
outside by scattering dust on the place, which
covered up the smoothness and the sawdust.&
Then I fixed the piece of log back into its
place, and put two rocks under it and one against it
to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place
and didn't qui