08 Mark Twain, 'Huckleberry Finn'

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

because rapscallions and dead beats is the kind the widow and
78
good people takes the most interest in.
Well, before long, here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding
along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I
struck out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there
warn't much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all
around her and hollered a little, but there wasn't any answer; all
dead still. I felt a little bit heavyhearted about the gang, but not
much, for I reckoned if they could stand it, I could.
Then here comes the ferry-boat; so I shoved for the middle of
the river on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out
of eye-reach, I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and
smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the
captain would know her uncle Horseback would want them; and
then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up and went for shore, and I
laid into my work and went a-booming down the river.
It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up;
and when it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By
the time I got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the
east; so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff,
and turned in and slept like dead people.
79
80
Chapter Fourteen
By-and-by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang
had stole off the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes,
and all sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and
three boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before, in
neither of our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the
afternoon in the woods talking, and me reading the books, and
having a general good time. I told Jim all about what happened
inside the wreck, and at the ferry-boat; and I said these kinds of
things was adventures; but he said he didn't want no more
adventures. He said that when I went in the texas and he crawled
back to get on the raft and found her gone, he nearly died; because
he judged it was all up with him, anyway it could be fixed; for if he
didn't get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved,
whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the
reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well,
he was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level
head, for a nigger.
I read considerable to Jim about kings, and dukes, and earls, and
such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put
on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your
lordship, and so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out,
and he was interested. He says:
"I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none
un um, skasely, but old King Sollermun, onless you counts dem
kings dat's in a pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?"
"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they
want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything
belongs to them."
"Ain't dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?"
"They don't do nothing! Why how you talk. They just set
around."
"No- is dat so?"
"Of course it is. They just set around. Except maybe when
there's a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy
81
around; or go hawking- just hawking and sp- Sh!- d'you hear a
noise?"
We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter
of a steamboat's wheel, away down coming around the point; so
we come back.
"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss
with the parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks
their heads off. But mostly they hang round the harem."
"Roun' de which?"
"What's de harem?"
"The place where he keep his wives. Don't you know about the
harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."
"Why, yes, dat's so; I- I'd done forgot it. A harem's a
bo'd'n-house, I reck'on. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de
nussery. En I reck'n de wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de
racket. Yit dey say Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan'
take no stock in dat. Bekase why would a wise man want to live in
de mids'er sich a blimblammin' all de time? No- 'deed he wouldn't.
A wise man 'ud take en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet
down de biler-factry when he want to res'."
"Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow
she told me so, her own self." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podstrony