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, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making! The widow put in a good word for me, but that warnt 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 wasnt one of them kind; 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 somebodys 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 hadnt come in, after standing around so. I couldnt 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 didnt notice anything at first, but next I did. 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 didnt see nobody. I was at Judge Thatchers as quick as I could get there. He said:
Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?[28]
No, sir, I says; 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 youll spend it.
No, sir, I says, I dont want to spend it. I dont want it at all nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you the six thousand and all.
He looked surprised. He couldnt seem to make it out. He says:
Why, what can you mean, my boy?
I says, Dont you ask me no questions about it, please. Youll take it wont you?
He says:
Well, Im puzzled. Is something the matter?
Please take it, says I, and dont ask me nothing then I wont have to tell no lies.
He studied a while, and then he says:
Oho-o! I think I see. You want to SELL all your property to me not give it. Thats the correct idea.
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
There; you see it says for a consideration[29]. That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Heres a dollar for you. Now you sign it.
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watsons 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 an inch. 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 warnt no use; he said it wouldnt talk. He said sometimes it wouldnt talk without money.
I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter[30] that warnt no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldnt pass nohow, even if the brass didnt show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldnt 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 wouldnt 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 couldnt see no brass, and it wouldnt 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. He says:
Yo ole father doan know yit what hes a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec hell go way, en den agin he spec hell stay. De bes way is to res easy en let de ole man take his own way. Deys two angels hoverin roun bout him. One uv em is white en shiny, en tother 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 cant 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 you gwyne to git sick; but every time yous gwyne to git well agin[31]. Deys two gals flyin bout you in yo life. One uv ems light en tother one is dark. One is rich en tother is po. Yous 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 dont run no resk, kase its down in de bills dat yous 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, too; 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 being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warnt scared of him worth bothring about.
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, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warnt no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another mans white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a bodys 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 tother knee; 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.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By and by he says:
Starchy clothes very. You think youre a good deal of a big-bug, DONT you?
Maybe I am, maybe I aint, I says.
Dont you give me none o your lip[32], says he. Youve put on considerable many frills since I been away. Ill take you down a peg before I get done with you. Youre educated, too, they say can read and write. You think youre bettern your father, now, dont you, because he cant? ILL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalutn foolishness, hey? who told you you could?
Starchy clothes very. You think youre a good deal of a big-bug, DONT you?
Maybe I am, maybe I aint, I says.
Dont you give me none o your lip[32], says he. Youve put on considerable many frills since I been away. Ill take you down a peg before I get done with you. Youre educated, too, they say can read and write. You think youre bettern your father, now, dont you, because he cant? ILL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalutn 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[33] about a thing that aint none of her business?
Nobody never told her.
Well, Ill learn her how to meddle. And looky here you drop that school, you hear? Ill learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be bettern what HE is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldnt read, and she couldnt write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldnt before THEY died. I cant; and here youre a-swelling yourself up like this. I aint the man to stand it you hear? Say, lemme hear you read.
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington[34] and the wars. When Id read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:
Its so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills. I wont have it. Ill lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school Ill tan you good. First you know youll 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:
Whats this?
Its something they give me for learning my lessons good. He tore it up, and says:
Ill give you something better Ill give you a cowhide[35].
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
AINT you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a lookn-glass; 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 Ill take some o these frills out o you before Im done with you. Why, there aint no end to your airs-they say youre rich. Hey? hows that?
They lie thats how.
Looky here mind how you talk to me; Im a-standing about all I can stand now so dont gimme no sass[36]. Ive been in town two days, and I haint heard nothing but about you bein rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. Thats why I come. You git me that money to-morrow I want it.
I haint got no money.
Its a lie. Judge Thatchers got it. You git it. I want it.
I haint got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; hell tell you the same.
All right. Ill ask him; and Ill make him pungle, too, or Ill know the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it.
I haint got only a dollar, and I want that to
It dont 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 town to get some whisky; said he hadnt 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 to be better than him; 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 didnt drop that.
Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatchers and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldnt, and then he swore hed make the law force him.
The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didnt know the old man; so he said courts mustnt interfere and separate families if they could help it; said hed druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.
That pleased the old man till he couldnt rest. He said hed cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didnt 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 whooping and carrying on; 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 jailed him again for a week. But he said HE was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and hed 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[37], so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said hed been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldnt 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 words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said hed been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again. And when 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. Theres a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it aint so no more; its the hand of a man thats started in on a new life, andll die before hell go back. You mark them words dont forget I said them. Its a clean hand now; shake it dont be afeard.
So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The judges 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[38], and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler[39], and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sunup. 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 didnt 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 didnt want to go to school much before, but I reckoned Id go now to spite pap. That law trial was a slow business appeared like they warnt ever going to get started on it; so every now and then Id borrow two or three dollars off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain[40] around town; and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited this kind of thing was right in his line[41].