You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of Tom Sawyer; but don’t worry none about that. That other book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mostly. There was things which he put on a little, but mostly he told the truth. And putting on is nothing. I never seen anyone but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.
Mary, Aunt Polly -- Tom’s Aunt Polly, that is -- and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some putting on, as I said before.
Now the way that the book finishes up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers was hiding in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars each -- all gold. It was an awful mountain of money when it was all there in front of us. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it give us a dollar a day each all the year round -- more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and believed she would make me straight; but it was rough living in the house all the time, seeing as how boringly straight and good the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t take it no longer I took off. I got into my old clothes and took up sleeping in my old sugar barrel again, and was free and happy.
But Tom Sawyer he looked me up and said he was going to start up a gang of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be straight for a time. So I went back, and that’s where this story starts.
The widow she cried over me when I come back, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant to hurt me by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but feel hot and scratchy and all tied up. Well, then, the old troubles started again.
The widow would ring a bell for meals, 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 bend down her head and whisper a little over the food, when there weren’t really anything wrong with it, -- that is, nothing only that everything was cooked by itself. It’s different when it’s cooked in a barrel of this and that all together; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of moves around it all, and the things go down better.
After eating she got out her book and taught me about Moses and the Bulrushes, and I was in a hurry to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a very long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no interest in dead people.
When I wanted to smoke, I asked the widow to let me, but she wouldn’t. She said it was a low act 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-worrying about Moses, who was no family to her, and no use to anyone, being gone, you see, yet finding a lot of wrong with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took tobacco herself too (breathed it up her nose, she did); but that was all right, because she done it.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a thin old woman with glasses, and no husband, had just come to live with her, and got herself worked up trying to teach me good English. She worked me hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her back off. I couldn’t of stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was nothing... just boring, and I was having trouble just sitting still.
Miss Watson would say, "Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don’t squeeze up like that, Huckleberry -- sit up straight;" and a minute later she would say, "Don’t open your arms and put your legs out like that, Huckleberry -- why don’t you try to be good?"
Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got angry then, but I didn’t mean no trouble. All I wanted was to go somewhere; all I wanted was a change, I wasn’t big on where it had to be. She said it was evil to say what I said; said she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no help 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 said so. I asked her if she thought Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a long way. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
Miss Watson she never let up that night, and it got very hard to put up with it all. By and by they asked the slaves to come in and had prayers, and then everyone was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I sat down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something to make me happy, but it weren’t no use. I felt so much alone I almost wished I was dead. The stars were out, and the leaves moving in the trees sounded ever so sad; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about someone that was dead, and a dog crying about someone that was going to die; 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 shakes run over me. Then away out in the trees 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 it can’t rest easy in the ground, and has to go about that way every night feeling sad.
I got so low and scared I did wish I had some company. Soon a spider went walking up my shoulder, and I hit it off and it landed in the candle; and before I could move an inch it was all burned up. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would bring me some bad luck, so I was scared and was almost shaking the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around on the spot three times and crossed my chest every time; and then I tied up a little piece of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn’t no confidence. You can do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t never heard anyone say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d killed a spider.
I sat down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; for the house was all as quiet as death now, so the widow wouldn’t know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom -- boom -- boom -- twelve hits; and all quiet again -- quieter than ever. Pretty soon I heard a little branch break down in the dark between the trees -- something was a moving. I sat quiet and listened. I could only just 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 climbed out of the window onto the roof of the tool room. Then I jumped down to the ground and moved on my hands and knees into the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.
