Next day, toward night, we stopped under a little island out in the middle, in a place where there was a village on each side, and the duke and the king started to lay out a plan for working them towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn’t take but a few hours, because it got very difficult for him when he had to lie all day in the tent tied with the rope. You see, when we left him all alone we had to tie him, because if anyone happened onto him not tied it wouldn’t look much like he was a prisoner. So the duke said it was kind of bad to have to be tied up all day, and he’d work out some way to get around it.
He was very smart, the duke, and he soon found it. He dressed Jim up in one of his acting uniforms -- it was a long dress. -- with white hair and a white beard; and then he took his theatre paint and painted Jim’s face and hands and ears and neck all over solid blue, like a man that’s been drowned nine days. I’ll be... if he weren’t the most awful looking thing I ever did see. Then the duke took and wrote out a sign like so:
Sick Arab -- but safe enough when he's not out of his head.
And he nailed that sign to a stick, and put the stick up four or five foot in front of the tent. Jim was happy with that. He said it was better than lying tied two years every day, and shaking all over each time there was a sound. The duke told him to make himself free and easy, and if anyone ever come looking around, he must run out of the tent, and carry on a little, and give a shout or two like a wild animal, and he believed they would run off and leave him alone. Which was true enough; but you take most people, they wouldn’t even wait for him to shout. Why, he didn’t only look like he was dead, he looked even worse than that.
These old robbers wanted to try The King’s Foolishness again, because there was so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn’t be safe, because maybe the news might a worked along down by this time. They couldn’t hit no plan that fitted perfectly; so at last the duke said he thought he’d rest and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn’t put up something on the Arkansas village; and the king he said he would drop over to t’other village without any plan, but just trust in God to lead him the best way -- meaning the devil, I think. We had all paid for shop clothes where we stopped last; and now the king put his on, and he told me to put mine on. The king’s clothes was all black, and he did look real smart and straight.
I never knowed how clothes could change a body before. Why, before, he looked like the worst old man that ever was; but now, when he’d take off his new white animal skin hat and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that great and good and holy that you’d say he had walked right out of the Temple, and maybe was old Moses himself.
Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my oar ready. There was a big river-boat stopped on the beach away up under the point, about three mile above the town -- been there two or three hours, taking on boxes and other things.
Says the king: "Seeing how I’m dressed, I think maybe I should arrive down from St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the river-boat, Huckleberry; we’ll come down to the village on her."
I didn’t have to be told more than once to go and take a river-boat ride. I reached the side a half a mile above the village, and then went moving up river in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to a nice-looking young country man sitting on a log rubbing the heat off of his face, for it was powerful warm weather; and he had two big bags by him.
"Run her nose in," says the king.
I done it.
"Where you going, young man?"
"To the river boat; going to Orleans."
"Get in," says the king. "Hold on a minute, my servant will help you with them bags. Jump out and help the man, Adolphus" -- meaning me, I see.
I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young man was very thankful; said it was hard work carrying his bags in such weather. He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him he’d come down the river and landed at the other village this morning, and now he was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up there. The young man says: "When I first see you I says to myself, ‘It’s Mr. Wilks, sure, and he come very close to getting here in time.’ But then I says again, ‘No, I think it ain’t him, or else he wouldn’t be coming up the river in a canoe.’ You ain’t him, are you?"
"No, my name’s Blodgett -- Alexander Blodgett -- Reverend Alexander Blodgett, I must say, as I’m one of the Lord’s poor servants. But still I’m just as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving in time, all the same, if he’s missed anything by it -- which I hope he hasn’t."
"Well, he don’t miss any wealth by it, because he’ll get that all right; but he’s missed seeing his brother Peter die -- which he may not feel bad about, nobody can tell as to that -- but his brother would a give anything in this world to see him before he died; never talked about nothing else all these three weeks; hadn’t seen him since they was boys together -- and hadn’t ever seen his brother William at all -- that’s the one that can’t hear or talk -- William ain’t more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter and George were the only ones that come out here; George was the married brother; him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and William’s the only ones that’s left now; and, as I was saying, they haven’t got here in time."
"Did anyone send ‘em word?"
"Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter said then that he felt like he weren’t going to get well this time. You see, he was pretty old, and George’s girls was too young to be much company for him, apart from Mary Jane, the red-headed one. He was kind of sad after George and his wife died, and didn’t seem to care much to live. He most truly wanted to see Harvey -- and William, too -- because he was one of them that can’t be worried about making papers for what to do with his wealth after he died. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he’d told in it where his money was hiding, and how he wanted the land and other things cut up so George’s girls would be all right -- for George didn’t leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get him to put a pen to."
"Why do you think Harvey didn’t come? Where's he live?"
"Oh, he lives in England -- preaches there -- hasn’t ever been in this country. He hasn’t had any too much time -- and besides he mightn’t a got the letter at all, you know."
"Too bad, too bad he couldn’t a lived to see his brothers, poor soul. You going to Orleans, you say?"
"Yes, but that ain’t only a part of it. I’m going in a ship, next Wednesday, for Rio de Janeiro, where my uncle lives."
"It’s a pretty long trip. But it’ll be nice; wish I was a-going. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?"
"Mary Jane’s nineteen, Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s about fourteen. Mary Jane's one that gives herself to good works."
"Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so."
"Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they ain’t going to let them come to no bad end. There’s Hobson, the Baptist preacher; and Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Doctor Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley, and -- well, there’s a lot of them; but these are the ones that Peter was closest to, and used to write about sometimes, when he wrote home; so Harvey will know where to look for friends when he gets here."
Well, the old man went on asking questions until he close to emptied that young man. I’ll be blamed if he didn’t ask about everybody and everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about Peter’s business -- which was making leather; and about George’s -- which was a carpenter; and about Harvey’s -- which was a free preacher; and so on, and so on. Then he says:
"What'd you want to walk all the way up to the boat for?"
"Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afraid she mightn’t stop here. When they’re deep they won’t stop for a shout. A Cincinnati boat will, but this is a St. Louis one."
"Was Peter Wilks well off?"
"Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it’s believed he left three or four thousand in gold hiding Lord knows where."
"When did you say he died?"
"I didn’t say, but it was last night."
"Funeral tomorrow, you think?"
"Yes, about the middle of the day."
"Well, it’s all very sad; but we’ve all got to go, one time or another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we’re all right."
"Yes, sir, it’s the best way. Mum used to always say that."
When we reached the boat she was about finished putting things in, and pretty soon she left. The king never said nothing about getting on her, so I lost my ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me push up another mile in the canoe, to a place away from any houses, and then he got off and says:
"Now hurry back, right now, and bring the duke up here, and the new bags. And if he’s gone over to t’other side, go over there and get him. And tell him to get himself up quickly. Move along, now."
I see what he was up to; but I never said nothing. When I got back with the duke we put the canoe in a good hiding place, and then they sat down on a log, and the king told him everything, just like the young man had said it -- every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he tried to talk like he was from Britain; and he done it pretty well, too, for a learner. I can’t do it, and so I ain’t a-going to try to; but he really done it pretty good.
Then he says: "How are you on not being able to hear or talk, Bilgewater?"
The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played such a person on the stage. So then they waited for a river boat.
About the middle of the afternoon two little boats come along, but they didn’t come from high enough up; but at last there was a big one, and they called out to her. She sent out her small boat, and we went onto her, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile they was shouting angry, and called us a few bad names, and said they wouldn’t land us. But the king was quiet and easy. He says:
"If men are happy to pay a dollar a mile each to be took on and off in your little boat, a river boat can carry ‘em, can’t it?"
So they went a little softer and said it was all right; and when we got to the village they sent us to the landing in their little boat. About twenty men crowded down when they see the little boat a-coming, and when the king says: "Can any of you tell me where Mr. Peter Wilks lives?"
They looked at each other, moving their heads, as much as to say, "What did I tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and quiet: "I’m sorry. sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he did live yesterday evening."
Fast as you can wink that dirty old robber went and fell up against the man, and put his head on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and says:
"Oh no, oh no, our poor brother -- gone, and we never got to see him; oh, it’s too, too hard!"
Then he turns around, crying, and makes a lot of stupid signs to the duke on his hands, and I’ll be blamed if he didn’t drop a bag and break out a-crying too. If they weren’t the most low down lot, them two robbers, that ever I saw.
Well, the men come around and tried to make them feel better, and said a lot of kind things, and carried their bags up the hill for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about his brother’s last days, and the king he told it all over again on his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead leather maker like they’d lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I saw anything like it, I’m a slave. It was enough to make a body feel guilty just for being the same animal as them.