Everybody 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[10] 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:
Heres Huck Finn, he haint got no family; what you going to do bout him?
Well, haint he got a father? says Tom Sawyer.
Yes, hes got a father, but you cant never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he haint been seen in these parts for a year or more.
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 wouldnt be fair and square for the others[11]. Well, nobody could think of anything to do everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watson they could kill her. Everybody said:
Oh, shell do. Thats all right. Huck can come in.
Then they 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, whats the line of business of this Gang?
Nothing only robbery and murder, Tom said.
But who are we going to rob? houses, or cattle, or
Stuff![12] stealing cattle and such things aint robbery; its burglary, says Tom Sawyer. We aint burglars. That aint 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.
Must we always kill the people?
Oh, certainly. Its best. Some authorities think different, but mostly its considered best to kill them except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till theyre ransomed.
Ransomed? Whats that?
I dont know. But thats what they do. Ive seen it in books; and so of course thats what weve got to do.
But how can we do it if we dont know what it is?
Why, blame it all, weve GOT to do it. Dont I tell you its in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from whats in the books, and get things all muddled up?
Oh, thats all very fine to SAY, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we dont know how to do it to them? thats the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?
Well, I dont know. But peraps if we keep them till theyre ransomed, it means that we keep them till theyre dead.
Now, thats something LIKE. Thatll answer. Why couldnt you said that before? Well keep them till theyre ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot theyll be, too eating up everything, and always trying to get loose.
How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when theres a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg[13]?
A guard! Well, that IS good. So somebodys got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think thats foolishness. Why cant a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?
Because it aint in the books so thats why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or dont you? thats the idea. Dont you reckon that the people that made the books knows whats the correct thing to do? Do you reckon YOU can learn em anything? Not by a good deal.[14] No, sir, well just go on and ransom them in the regular way.
All right. I dont mind; but I say its a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too?
Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldnt let on. Kill the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and youre always as polite as pie[15] to them; and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more.
Well, if thats the way Im agreed, but I dont take no stock in it. Mighty soon well have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there wont be no place for the robbers. But go ahead, I aint 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 didnt 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 couldnt get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday; 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[16] 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 account of my clothes; but the widow she didnt 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 warnt so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warnt any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldnt 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 couldnt make it out no way[17].
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 dont Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why cant the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why cant Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to my self, there aint 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 couldnt see no advantage about it except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldnt 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 bodys mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again[18]. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widows Providence, but if Miss Watsons got him there warnt no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widows if he wanted me, though I couldnt 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.
Pap he hadnt been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didnt want to see him no more. He used to always whale me[19] when he was sober and could get his hands on me; 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, anyway; said this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap; but they couldnt make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warnt much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I warnt comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man dont float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warnt pap, but a woman dressed up in a mans clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by and by[20], though I wished he wouldnt.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadnt robbed nobody, hadnt 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 couldnt 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 dimonds, and they didnt 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[21], 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 warnt worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didnt 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, in the ambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warnt no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warnt no camels nor no elephants. It warnt anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut. I didnt see no dimonds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldnt we see them, then? He said if I warnt so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. 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 he called magicians; and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite[22]. I said, all right; 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[23]. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.
Well, I says, spose we got some genies to help US cant we lick the other crowd then?
How you going to get them?
I dont know. 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 theyre told to do they up and do it. They dont 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?
Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and theyve got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of dimonds, and fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperors daughter from China for you to marry, theyve got to do it and theyve got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: theyve 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 whats 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.
How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, youd 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, then; I WOULD come; but I lay Id make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country.
Shucks, it aint no use to talk to you[24], Huck Finn. You dont seem to know anything, somehow-perfect saphead[25].
I thought 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 and sell it; but it warnt no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyers 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 dont reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I dont 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[26], 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 widows ways, too, and they warnt 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[27], 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 warnt ashamed of me.