got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymnbook and a tract; and then the teacher

charged in and made us drop everything and cut. I didn’t see no diamonds, and I
told Tom Sawyer so. He said there were loads of them there, anyway; and he said
there were Arabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldn’t we see
them, then? He said if I wasn’t 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. 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,” says he, “a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would hash you
up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and
as big around as a church.”
“Well,” I say, “suppose we got some genies to help us-can’t we lick the other crowd
then?”
“How you going to get them?”
“I don’t 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 they're told to do they up and do it. They don’t 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 they've got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace
forty miles long, out of diamonds, and fill it full of chewing gum, or it at all nor the
six thousand, nether. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you the six thousand
and all.”
He looked surprised. He couldn’t seem to make it out.
He says:
“Why, what can you mean, my boy?”
I say, “Don’t you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take it won’t you?”
He says:
“Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"
“Please take it,” says I, “and don’t ask me nothing—then I won't 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. That's the
correct idea.”
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
“There you see it says for a consideration.” That means I have bought it of you and
paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now, you sign it.”
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watson's 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
hairball, 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 warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said
sometimes it wouldn't talk without slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t
want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so,
we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.
Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom, but
he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on
him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back, we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and
by-and-by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom
said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and
Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched
him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him
under the trees again and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next
time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and after that, every
time he told it he spread it more and more, till by-and-by he said they rode him all
over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils.
Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the
other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more
looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their
mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always
talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking
and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, “Hm!
What you know ‘bout witches?” and that nigger was corked up and had to take a
back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece around his neck with a string, and
said it was a charm the devil gives to him with his own hands and told him he could
cure anybody to kill, or else it wouldn’t be fair and square for the others. 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, she'll do, she'll do. That's 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, “what's 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! stealing cattle and such tings ain't robbery, it’s burglary,” says Tom Sawyer.
“We ain't burglars. That ain't 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. It's best. Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered
best to kill them. Except some that you bring to the cave here and keep them till
they're ransomed.”
“Ransomed? What's that?”
“I don’t know. But that’s what they do. I've seen it in books; and so of course that’s
what we've got to do.”
“But how can we do it if we don’t know what it is?”
“Why blame it all, we've got to do it. Don’t I tell you it’s in the books? Do you want
to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?”
“Oh, that’s all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows
going to be ransomed if we don’t know how to do it to them? that’s the thing I want
to get at. Now what do you reckon it is?”
“Well, I don’t know. But perhaps if we keep them till, they're ransomed, it means
that we keep them till they're dead.”
“Now, that’s something like. That'll answer. Why couldn't you say that before? We'll
keep them till they're ransomed to death and a bothersome lot they'll be, too,
eating up everything and always trying to get loose.”
“How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard over
them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?”
“A guard. Well, that is good. So somebody's got to set up all night and never get
any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's foolishness. Why can’t a body
take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?
“Because it ain't in the books so that’s why. Now Ben Rogers, do you want to do
things regular, or don’t you? that’s the idea. Don’t you reckon that the people that
made the books knows what's the correct thing to do? Do you reckon you can
learn them anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them
in the regular way.”
“All right. I don’t mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow, Say do we kill the women,
too?”
“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you, I wouldn't let on. Kill the women?
No nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave,
and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by-and-by they fall in love with you
and never want to go home anymore.”
“Well, if that’s the way, I'm agreed, but I don’t take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll
have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed,
that there won't be no place for the robbers. But go ahead, I ain’t got nothing to
say.”
not come out again until all the dwarves had gone away. Suddenly he found that
the music and the singing had stopped, and they were all looking at him with eyes
shining in the dark.
“Where are you going?” said Thorin, in a tone that seemed to show that he
guessed both halves of the hobbit’s mind.
“What about a little light?” said Bilbo apologetically.
“We like the dark,” said all the dwarves. “Dark for dark business! There are many
hours before dawn.”
“Of course!” said Bilbo, and sat down in a hurry. He missed the stool and sat in the
fender, knocking over the poker and shovel with a crash.
“Hush!” said Gandalf. “Let Thorin speak!” And this is how Thorin began.
“Gandalf, dwarves and Mr. Baggins! We are met together in the house of our friend
and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit may the hair on
his toes never fall out! all praise to his wine and ale!” He paused for breath and for
a polite remark from the hobbit, but the compliments were quite lost on poor Bilbo
Baggins, who was wagging his mouth in protest at being called audacious and
worst of all fellow conspirator, though no noise came out, he was so flummoxed.
So Thorin went on:
“We are met to discuss our plans, our ways, means, policy and devices. We shall
soon before the break of day starts on our long journey, a journey from which some
of

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;

The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim

To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by
cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire
of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he
wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the
waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick. He
looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He
thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood
beyond The Water a flame leapt up probably somebody lighting a wood fire and he
thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames.
He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill,
again.
He got up trembling. He had less than half a mind to fetch the lamp, and more than
half a mind to pretend to, and go and hide behind the beer-barrels in the cellar, and
Thorin. They came back with viols as big as themselves, and with Thorin’s harp
wrapped in a green cloth. It was a beautiful golden harp, and when Thorin struck it
the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else,
and was swept away into dark lands under strange moons, far over The Water and
very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.
The dark came into the room from the little window that opened in the side of The
Hill; the firelight flickered —it was April— and still they played on, while the shadow
of Gandalf’s beard wagged against the wall.
The dark filled all the room, and the fire died down, and the shadows were lost, and
still they played on. And suddenly first one and then another began to sing as they
played, deep-throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient
homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without
their music.

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,

While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

And of course, they did none of these dreadful things, and everything was cleaned
and put away safe as quick as lightning, while the hobbit was turning round and
round in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they were doing. Then they
went back and found Thorin with his feet on the fender smoking a pipe. He was
blowing the most enormous smoke-rings, and wherever he told one to go, it went—
up the chimney, or behind the clock on the mantelpiece, or under the table, or
round and round the ceiling; but wherever it went it was not quick enough to
escape Gandalf. Pop! he sent a smaller smoke-ring from his short clay-pipe
straight through each one of Thorin’s. Then Gandalf’s smoke-ring would go green
and come back to hover over the wizard’s head. He had a cloud of them about him
already, and in the dim light it made him look strange and sorcerous. Bilbo stood
still and watched — he loved smoke-rings—and then he blushed to think how
proud he had been yesterday morning of the smoke-rings he had sent up the wind
over The Hill.
“Now for some music!” said Thorin. “Bring out the instruments!”
Kili and Fili rushed for their bags and brought back little fiddles; Dori, Nori, and Ori
brought out flutes from somewhere inside their coats; Bombur produced a drum
from the hall; Bifur and Bofur went out too, and came back with clarinets that they
had left among the walking-sticks. Dwalin and Balin said: “Excuse me, I left mine in
the porch!” “Just bring mine in with you!” said “Put on a few eggs, there’s a good
fellow!” Gandalf called after him, as the hobbit stumped off to the pantries. “And
just bring out the cold chicken and pickles!”
“Seems to know as much about the inside of my larders as I do myself!” thought
Mr. Baggins, who was feeling positively flummoxed, and was beginning to wonder
whether a most wretched adventure had not come right into his house. By the time
he had got all the bottles and dishes and knives and forks and glasses and plates
and spoons and things piled up on big trays, he was getting very hot, and red in the
face, and annoyed.
“Confiscate and bebother these dwarves!” he said aloud. “Why don’t they come
and lend a hand?” Lo and behold! there stood Balin and Dwalin at the door of the
kitchen, and Fili and Kili behind them, and before he could say knife, they had
whisked the trays and a couple of small tables into the parlor and set out
everything afresh.
Gandalf sat at the head of the party with the thirteen dwarves all round: and Bilbo
sat on a stool at the fireside, nibbling at a biscuit (his appetite was quite taken
away), and trying to look as if this was all perfectly ordinary and not in the least an
adventure. The dwarves ate and ate, and talked and talked, and time got on. At
last, they pushed their chairs back, and Bilbo made a move to collect the plates
and glasses.
“I suppose you will all stay to supper?” he said in his politest unpressing tones.
“Carefully! Carefully!” he said. “It is not like you, Bilbo, to keep friends waiting on
the mat, and then open the door like a pop-gun! Let me introduce Bifur, Bofur,
Bombur, and especially Thorin!”
“At your service!” said Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur standing in a row. Then they hung
up two yellow hoods and a pale green one; and also, a sky-blue one with a long
silver tassel. This last belonged to Thorin, an enormously important dwarf, in fact
no other than the great Thorin Oakenshield himself, who was not at all pleased at
falling flat on Bilbo’s mat with Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur on top of him. For one thing
Bombur was immensely fat and heavy. Thorin indeed was very haughty and said
nothing about service; but poor Mr. Baggins said he was sorry so many times, that
at last he grunted “pray don’t mention it,” and stopped frowning.
“Now we are all here!” said Gandalf, looking at the row of thirteen hoods —the best
detachable party hoods— and his own hat hanging on the pegs. “Quite a merry
gathering! I hope there is something left for the late comers to eat and drink!
What's that? Tea! No thank you! A little red wine, I think for me.”
“And for me,” said Thorin.
“And raspberry jam and apple-tart,” said Bifur.
“And mince-pies and cheese,” said Bofur.
“And pork-pie and salad,” said Bombur.
“And more cakes —and ale— and coffee, if you don’t mind,” called the other
dwarves through the door.

stay to supper. Then the bell rang again louder than ever, and he had to run to the
door. It was not four after all, it was five. Another dwarf had come along while he
was wondering in the hall. He had hardly turned the knob, before they were all
inside, bowing and saying “at your service” one after another. Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin,
and Gloin were their names; and very soon two purple hoods, a grey hood, a
brown hood, and a white hood were hanging on the pegs, and off they marched
with their broad hands stuck in their gold and silver belts to join the others. Already
it had almost become a throng. Some called for ale, and some for porter, and one
for coffee, and all of them for cakes; so the hobbit was kept very busy for a while.
A big jug of coffee had just been set in the hearth, the seed-cakes were gone, and
the dwarves were starting on a round of buttered scones, when there came a loud
knock. Not a ring, but a hard rat-tat on the hobbit’s beautiful green door. Somebody
was banging with a stick!
Bilbo rushed along the passage, very angry, and altogether bewildered and
bewuthered — this was the most awkward Wednesday he ever remembered. He
pulled open the door with a jerk, and they all fell in, one on top of the other. More
dwarves, four more! And there was Gandalf behind, leaning on his staff and
laughing. He had made quite a dent on the beautiful door; he had also, by the way,
knocked out the secret mark that he had put there the morning before.

hung his red one next to it, and “Balin at your service!” he said with his hand on his
breast.
“Thank you!” said Bilbo with a gasp. It was not the correct thing to say, but they
have begun to arrive had flustered him badly. He liked visitors, but he liked to know
them before they arrived, and he preferred to ask them himself. He had a horrible
thought that the cakes might run short, and then he —as the host: he knew his duty
and stuck to it however painful— he might have to go without.
“Come along in, and have some tea!” he managed to say after taking a deep
breath.
“A little beer would suit me better, if it is all the same to you, my good sir,” said
Balin with the white beard. “But I don’t mind some cake— seed-cake, if you have
any.”
“Lots!” Bilbo found himself answering, to his own surprise; and he found himself
scuttling off, too, to the cellar to fill a pint beer-mug, and then to a pantry to fetch
two beautiful round seed-cakes which he had baked that afternoon for his after-
supper morsel.

When he got back Balin and Dwalin were talking at the table like old friends (as a
matter of fact they were brothers). Bilbo plumped down the beer and the cake in
front of them, when loud came a ring at the bell again, and then another ring.
“Gandalf for certain this time,” he thought as he puffed along the passage. But it
was not. It was two more dwarves, both with blue hoods, silver belts, and yellow

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting!” he was going to say, when he saw that it was
not Gandalf at all. It was a dwarf with a blue beard tucked into a golden belt, and
very bright eyes under his dark-green hood. As soon as the door was opened, he
pushed inside, just as if he had been expected.
He hung his hooded cloak on the nearest peg, and “Dwalin at your service!” he
said with a low bow.
“Bilbo Baggins at yours!” said the hobbit, too surprised to ask any questions for the
moment. When the silence that followed had become uncomfortable, he added: “I
am just about to take tea; pray come and have some with me.” A little stiff perhaps,
but he meant it kindly. And what would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and
hung his things up in your hall without a word of explanation?
They had not been at table long, in fact they had hardly reached the third cake,
when there came another even louder ring at the bell.
“Excuse me!” said the hobbit, and off he went to the door.
“So you have got here at last!” That was what he was going to say to Gandalf this
time. But it was not Gandalf. Instead, there was a very old-looking dwarf on the
step with a white beard and a scarlet hood; and he too hopped inside as soon as
the door was open, just as if he had been invited.
“I see they have begun to arrive already,” he said when he caught sight of Dwalin’s
green hood hanging up. He

Very amusing for me, very good for you and profitable too, very likely, if you ever
get over it.”
“Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But
please come to tea any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow!
Goodbye!” With that the hobbit turned and scuttled inside his round green door,
and shut it as quickly as he dared, not to seem rude. Wizards after all are wizards.
“What on earth did I ask him to tea for!” he said to himself, as he went to the
pantry. He had only just had breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of
something would do him good after his fright.
Gandalf in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but
quietly. After a while he stepped up, and with the spike on his staff scratched a
queer sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door. Then he strode away, just
about the time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think
that he had escaped adventures very well.
The next day he had almost forgotten about Gandalf. He did not remember things
very well, unless he put them down on his Engagement Tablet: like this: Gandalf
Tea Wednesday. Yesterday he had been too flustered to do anything of the kind.
Just before tea-time there came a tremendous ring on the front-door bell, and then
he remembered! He rushed and put on the kettle, and put out another cup and
saucer, and an extra cake or two, and ran to the door.

diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not
the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and
goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of
widows’ sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks!
I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid!
They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and
hang in the twilight all evening!” You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not
quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers. “Dear
me!” he went on. “Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and
lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures? Anything from climbing trees to
visiting elves— or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! Bless me, life used to be
quite inter I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time.
I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business.”
“Where else should I be?” said the wizard. “All the same I am pleased to find you
remember something about me. You seem to remember my fireworks kindly, at
any rate, and that is not without hope. Indeed for your old grandfather Took’s sake,
and for the sake of poor Belladonna, I will give you what you asked for.”
“I beg your pardon, I haven’t asked for anything!”
“Yes, you have! Twice now. My pardon. I give it you.
In fact I will go so far as to send you on this adventure.

of his own since they were all small hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls.
All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He
had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long
white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.
“Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass
was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that
stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is
a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that
it is a morning to be good on?”
“All of them at once,” said Bilbo. “And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out
of doors, into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of
mine! There’s no hurry, we have all day before us!” Then Bilbo sat down on a seat
by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that
sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over The Hill.
“Very pretty!” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke-rings this morning. I
am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very
difficult to find anyone.”
“I should think so— in these parts! We are plain quiet
 Chapter 1
AN UNEXPECTED PARTY

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with
the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing
in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow
brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a
tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors
tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats
and coats— the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going
fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill —The Hill, as all the people for
many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on
one side and then on another.
No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of
these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-
rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best
rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to
have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows
beyond, sloping down to the river.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The
Bagginess had lived in the neighborhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and
people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were
rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected:
you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of
asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure and found himself
doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbors’
respect, but he gained — well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.
The mother of our particular hobbit—what is a hobbit? I suppose hobbits need
some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big
People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height,
and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or
no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to
disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come
blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.
They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colors (chiefly green
and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and
thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever
brown fingers, good natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after
dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Now you know enough
to go on with. As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit —of Bilbo Baggins, that is
— was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the
Old Took, head of the hob- bits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran
at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the
Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but
certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a
while member of the Took- clan would go and have adventures. They discreetly
dis- appeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks
were not as respectable as the Bagginess, though they were undoubtedly richer.
Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo
Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo’s father, built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her
(and partly with her money) that was to be found folk and have no use for
adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t
think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb
behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out
his morning letters, and began to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old
man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort and wanted him to go away.
But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the
hobbit without saying anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable and even a little
cross.
“Good morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you!
You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that the
conversation was at an end.
“What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!” said Gandalf. “Now you mean
that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”
“Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don’t think I know your name?”
“Yes, yes, my dear sir—and I do know your name, Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you do
know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and
Gandalf means me! To think that I should have lived to be good morning by
Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”
“Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old
Took a pair of magic beards; and each of them carried a bag of tools and a spade.
In they hopped as soon as the door began to open— Bilbo was hardly surprised at
all.
“What can I do for you, my dwarves?” he said.
“Kili at your service!” said the one. “And Fili!” added the other; and they both swept
off their blue hoods and bowed.
“At yours and your family’s!” replied Bilbo, remembering his manners this time.
“Dwalin and Balin here already, I see,” said Kili. “Let us join the throng!”
“Throng!” thought Mr. Baggins. “I don’t like the sound of that. I really must sit down
for a minute and collect my wits and have a drink.” He had only just had a sip—in
the corner, while the four dwarves sat round the table, and talked about mines and
gold and troubles with the goblins, and the depredations of dragons, and lots of
other things which he did not understand, and did not want to, for they sounded
much too adventurous —when, ding-dong- a-ling-dang, his bell rang again, as if
some naughty little hobbit-boy was trying to pull the handle off.
“Someone at the door!” he said, blinking.
“Some four, I should say by the sound,” said Fil. “Besides, we saw them coming
along behind us in the distance.”
The poor little hobbit sat down in the hall and put his head in his hands, and
wondered what had happened, and what was going to happen, and whether they
would all

“Of course!” said Thorin. “And after. We shan’t get through the business till late,
and we must have some music first. Now to clear up!”
Thereupon the twelve dwarves —not Thorin, he was too important, and stayed
talking to Gandalf— jumped to their feet, and made tall piles of all the things. Off
they went, not waiting for trays, balancing columns of plates, each with a bottle on
the top, with one hand, while the hobbit ran after them almost squeaking with fright:
“please be careful!” and “please, don’t trouble! I can manage.” But the dwarves
only started to sing:
Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates—
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
 Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
Splash the wine on every door!

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;

Pound them up with a thumping pole;
And when you've finished, if any are whole,
Send them down the hall to roll!

That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!

So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

For ancient king and elvish lord

There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung

The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,

The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale

And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon’s ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why
can’t the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can’t Miss
Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain’t 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
couldn’t see no advantage about it—except for the other people—so at last I
reckoned I wouldn't worry about it anymore, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow
would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's
mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all
down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap
would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's
got him there warn’t no help for him anymore. I thought it all out, and reckoned I
would belong to the widow's, if he wanted me, though I couldn’t 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 hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I
didn’t want to see him no more. He used to always whale me 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 drowned,
about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway;
said this drowned man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long
hair —which was all like pap—but they couldn’t make nothing out

“Now we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody
that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”
Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath
on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the
secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was
ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he
mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was
the sign of the band. And nobody that didn’t belong to the band could use that
mark, and if he did, he must be sued; and if he done it again, he must be killed.
And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat
cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and
his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang,
but have a curse put on it and be forgot, forever.
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 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:
“Here's Huck Finn, he hain’t got no family —what you going to do 'bout him?”
“Well, hain’t he got a father?” says Tom Sawyer.
“Yes, he's got a father, but you can’t never find him, these days. He used to lay
drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain’t been seen in these parts for a year
or more.”
They talked it over, and they were going to rule me out, because they said every
boy must have a family or somebody more; then he come tip-toeing down and
stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes
and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There
was a place on my ankle that got to itching; but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear
begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if
I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty of times since. If you are with
the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy if you are
anywhere where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards
of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:
“Say—who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn’t’ hear sumf’n. Well, I know
what I's gwyne to do. I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it again.”
So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against
a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. - My
nose begun to itch, It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch,
Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didn’t know
how I was going to set still, This miserableness went on as much as six or seven
minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different
places now. I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth
hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to
snore—and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we went
creeping away on our hands and knees. When we were ten foot off, Tom
whispered to me and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun; but I said no; he might
wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said
he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would of the face, because it had been in
the water so long it warn’t 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 warn’t
comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well
that a drownded man don’t float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then,
that this warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a man’s clothes. So I was
uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by-and-by, though I
wished he wouldn't.
We played robbers now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys
did. We hadn't robbed nobody, we hadn’t killed any people, but only just
pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog-drovers
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 pow-wow over what we had done and how many
people we had killed and marked. But I couldn't 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
diamonds, and they didn't 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, 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 broom-sticks, and you might scour at them till you
rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was
before. I didn’t
was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky
bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls was
the ignorantest kind of words and pictures, made with charcoal. There was two old
dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some women’s under-clothes, hanging
against the wall, and some men’s clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoe; it
might come good. There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that
too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it; and it had a rag stopper for a
baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was broke. There was a seedy old
chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. They stood open, but there
warn't nothing left in them that was any account. The way things was scattered
about, we reckoned the people left in a hurry and warn't fixed so as to carry off
most of their stuff.
We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher knife without any handle, and a bran-new
Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin
candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bed-quilt off the bed, and a
reticule with needles aud pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such
truck in it, and a hatchet and some nails, and a fish-line as thick as my little finger,
with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar,
and a horse-shoe, and some vials of medicine that didn’t have no label on them ;
and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found
a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of it, but barring
that, it was a good enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long enough
for Jim, and we couldn’t find the other one, though we hunted all around.
And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we were ready to shove off,
we were a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I
made Jim lay down till at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four
foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it
was a good many miles wide; but on the Missouri side it was the same old distance
across —a half a mile— because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs.
Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was mighty cool and shady
in the deep woods even if the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out
amongst the trees; and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away
and go some other way. Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see
rabbits, and snakes, and such things; and when the island had been overflowed a
day or two, they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could paddle
right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles
—they would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them.
We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.
One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft—nice pine planks. It was
twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the top stood above
water six or seven inches, a solid level floor. We could see saw-logs go by in the
daylight, sometimes, but we let them go; we didn’t show ourselves in daylight.
Another night, when we was up at the head of the island, just before daylight, here
comes a frame house down, on the west side. She was a two-storey, and tilted
over, considerable. We paddled out and got aboard—clumb in at an upstairs
window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to
wait for daylight.
The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we looked in
at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and two old chairs, and lots
of things

He tore it up, and says:

“I'll give you something better —I'll give you a cowhide.”
He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:
“Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n-
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 I'll take some 0’ these frills out o"
you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain’t no end to your airs —they say you're
rich. Hey?— how's that ?”
“They lie—that’s how.”
“Looky here —mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can stand, now—
so don’t gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain’t heard nothing but
about you bein’ rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. That's why I come.
You git me that money to-morrow—I want it.”
“I hain’t got no money.”
“It’s a lie. Judge Thatcher’s got it. You git it. I want it.”
“I hain’t got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell you the same.”
“All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why. Say
—how much you got in your pocket? I want it.”
“I hain’t got only a dollar, and I want that to —"
“It don’t 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 hadn't 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 came back and put his
head in again, and told me to mind
He got to hanging around the widow’s too much, and so she told him at last, that if
he didn’t quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasn’t he
mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss. So he watched out for
me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three
mile, in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there
warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you
couldn't find it if you didn’t know where it was.
He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in
that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head,
nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and
that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the
store, three miles to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky and fetched it
home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out
where I was by-and-by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me, but pap
drove him off with the gun, and it warn’t long after that till I was used to being
where I was, and liked it, all but the cowhide part.
It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and
no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all
rags and dirt, and I didn’t see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's,
where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get
up regular, and be forever bothering over a book and have old Miss Watson
pecking at you all the time: I didn’t want to go back no more. I had stopped
cussing, because the widow didn’t like it; but now I took to it again because pap
hadn’t no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all
around.
But by-and-by pap got too handy with his hick’ry, and I through a jint o’ stove-pipe.
Look at it, says I —such a hat for me to wear— one of the wealthiest men in this
town, if I could git my rights.
“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a
free nigger there, from Ohio; a mulatter, most as white as a white man, He had the
whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that
town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain,
and a silver-headed cane—the awfullest old grey-headed nabob in the State. And
what do you think? they said he was a professor in a college, and could talk all
kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the wust. They said he
could vote, when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the
country a-coming to? It was election day, and I was just about to go and vote,
myself, if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in
this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote
agin. Them’s the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for
all me—1I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger
—why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o’ the way. I says
to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?—that’s what I want
to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn’t be sold till
he'd been in the State six months, and he hadn’t been there that long yet. There,
now—that’s a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till
he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and
lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got to set stock-still
for six whole months before it can take ahold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-
shirted free nigger, and —"

He unlocked the door and I cleared out, up the river bank. I noticed some pieces of
limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark; so I knowed the river
had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have great times, now, if I was over at the
town. The June rise used to be always luck for me; because as soon as that rise
begins, here comes cord-wood floating down, and pieces of log rafts—sometimes
a dozen logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the
wood yards and the sawmill.
I went’ along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one out for what the
rise might fetch along. Well, all at once, here comes a canoe; just a beauty, too,
about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck. I shot head first off of
the bank, like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just
expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to
fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd raise up and
laugh at him. But it warn’t so this time. It was a drift- canoe, sure enough, and I
clumb in and paddled her ashore. Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees
this —she’s worth ten dollars. But when I got to shore pap wasn’t in sight yet, and
as I was running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and
willows, I struck another idea; I judged I'd hide her good, and then, stead of taking
to the woods when I run off, I'd go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one
place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot.
It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man coming, all the
time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows, and
there was the old man down the path apiece just drawing a bead on a bird with his
gun. So he hadn’t seen anything.
When he got along, I was hard at it taking up a “trot” a log on the bank in a little
open place. Where the log forked I could peep through.
By-and-by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a run out a
plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap, and Judge
Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt
Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was talking about the
murder, but the captain broke in and says:
“Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he’s washed
ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I hope so, anyway.”
I didn’t hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face,
and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see them first-rate, but they
couldn't see me.
Then the captain sung out:

“Stand away!” and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me
deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone.
If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a got the corpse they was after.
Well, I see I warn’t hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of
sight around the shoulder of the island. I could hear the booming, now and then,
further and further off, and by-and-by after an hour, I didn’t hear it no more. The
island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and was giving it up.
But they didn’t yet awhile. They turned around the foot of the island and started up
the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as
they went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast
the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore
and went home to the town.
I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come ahunting after me. I got my
traps out of the canoe and made and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe,
looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you
lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before. And how far a
body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry landing.
I heard what they said, too, every word of it. One man said it was getting towards
the long days and the short nights, now. T'other one said this warn’t one of the
short ones, he reckoned —and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and
they laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and laughed,
but he didn’t laugh; he ripped out some- thing brisk and said let him alone. The first
fellow said he ‘lowed to tell it to his old woman—she would think it was pretty good;
but he said that warn’t nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one
man say it was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than
about a week longer. After that, the talk got further and further away, and I couldn’t
make out the words anymore, but I could hear the mumble; and now and then a
laugh, too, but it seemed a long way off.
I was away below the ferry now. I rose up and there was Jackson's Island, about
two mile and a half downstream, heavy- timbered and standing up out of the
middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like a steamboat without any lights.
There warn't any signs of the bar at the head—it was all under water now.
It didn’t take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping rate, the current
was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side towards the
Illinois shore. T run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I
had to part the willow branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a
seen the canoe from the outside.

after they had got away from the prairie farms. I shot this fellow and took him into
camp.
I took the axe and smashed in the door. T beat it and hacked it considerable, a-
doing it. I fetched the pig in and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into
his throat with the axe and laid him down on the ground to bleed—I say ground,
because it was ground-—hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack
and put a lot of big rocks in it, — all I could drag—and I started it from the pig and
dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in,
and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been
dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there, I knowed he would
take an interest in this kind of business and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody
could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.
Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and bloodied the axe good, and stuck it on
the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him
to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't drip) till I got a good piece below the
house and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of something else. So I
went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe und fetched them to
the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom
of it with the saw, for there warn’t no knives and forks on the place—pap done
everything with his clasp-knife, about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a
hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house, to a
shallow lake that was five miles wide and full of rushes—and ducks too, you might
say, in the season. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other
side, that went miles away, I don’t know where, but it didn’t go to the river. The
mead sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap’s
whetstone there too, so as to look like it had roust me out, you hear? That man
warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time, you roust me out, you hear?”
Then he dropped down and went to sleep again—but what he had been saying
give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody won't
think of following me.
About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was
coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise. By-and-by, along
comes part of a log raft—nine logs fast together. We went out with the skiff and
towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. Anybody but pap would a waited and seen
the day through, so as to catch more stuff; but that warn’t pap’s style. Nine logs
was enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked
me in and took the skiff and started off towing the raft about half-past three. I
judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good
start, then I out with my saw and went to work on that log again. Before he was
t'other side of the river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on
the water away off yonder.
I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved
the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of
bacon; then the whisky jug; I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the
ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the bucket and gourd, I took a dipper and a
tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took
fish-lines and matches and other things—everything that was worth a cent. I
cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn’t any, only the one out at
the wood pile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun,
and now I was done.
I had wore the ground a good deal, crawling out of the hole and dragging out so
many things. So I fixed that as good as been done by accident. Then I tied up the
rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my
saw to the canoe again.
It was about dark, now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows
that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. 1 made fast to a willow ;
then I took a bite to eat, and by-and-by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and
lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the
shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake
and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed
me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead
carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won’t bother no more about me. All right;
I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know that
island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to
town, nights, and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island’s the
place.
I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed, I was asleep. When I woke up I
didn’t know where I was, for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little scared.
Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so
bright I could a counted the drift logs that went a slipping along, black and still,
hundreds of yards out from shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late,
and smelt late. You know what I mean—I don’t know the words to put it in.
I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start, when I
heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It was that
dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in rowlocks when it’s a
still night. I peeped out through the willow branches,

“I laid dah under de shavins all day. I ´uz hungry, but I warn't afeared; bekase I
knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin’ to start to de camp-meetn’ right arter
breakfast’ en be gone all day, en dey knows I goes off wid de cattle "bout day-light,
so dey wouldn’t’ spec to see me roun’ de place, en so dey wouldn’ miss me tell
arter dark in de evenin’. De yuther servants wouldn’ miss me, kase dey'd shin out
en take holiday, soon as de ole-folks ´uz out’n de way.
“Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went ´bout two mile er
more to whah dey warn’t no houses. I'd made up my mine ‘bout what I's agwyne to
do. You see ef I kep’ on tryin’ to git away afoot, de dogs ´ud track me; ef I stole a
skift to cross over, dey’d miss dat skift, you see, en dey’d know ’bout whah I'd lan’
on de yuther side en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I's arter; it
doan’ make no track.
“I see a light a-comin’ roun’ de p'int, bymeby, so I wade’ in en shove’ a log ahead 0’
me, en swum more'n half-way acrost de river, en got in mongst de drift-wood, en
kep’ my head down low, en kinder swum agin de current tell the raff come along.
Den I swum to de stern uv it, en tuck aholt. It clouded up en ´uz pooty dark for a
little while. So I clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men ’uz all ‘way yonder in
de middle, whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz arisin’ en dey wuz a good current; so
I reck’n’d “at by fo’ in de mawnin’ I'd be twenty-five mile down de river, en den I'd
slip in, jis’ b'fo’ daylight, en swim asho’ en take to de woods on de Illinoi side.
“But I didn’ have no luck. When we ’uz mos’ down to de head er de islan’, a man
begin to come aft wid de lantern. I see it warn’t no use fer to wait, so I slid
overboard, en struck out fer de islan’. Well, I had a notion I could lan’ mos’
anywhers, but I couldn’t—bank too bluff. I ´uz mos’ to de foot er de islan’ b’fo’ I
foun’ a good place. I went into de woods en

“Well, I bllieve you, Huck. I—I run off.”

“Jim!”
“But mind, you said you wouldn't tell—you know you said you wouldn't tell, Huck.”
“Well, I did. Isaid I wouldn't, and I'll stick toit. Honest injun I will. People would call
me a low down Ablitionist and despise me for keeping mum-—-but that don't make
no difference. I ain't agoing to tell, and I ain't agoing back there anyways. So now,
le’s know all about it.”
“Well, you see, its 'uz dis way. Ole Missus—dat’s Miss Watson—she pecks on me
all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn’t’ sell me
down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader roun’ de place considable,
lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do’, pooty late, en de
do’ warn’t quite shet, en I hear ole missus tell the widder she gwyne to sell me
down to Orleans, but she didn’ want to, but she could git eight hund’d dollars for
me, en it ´uz sich a big stack o’ money she couldn’ resis’. De widder she try to git
her to say she wouldn’ do it, but I never waited to hear de res’. I lit out mighty
quick, I tell you.
“I tuck out en shin down de hill en ´spec to steal a skift ´long de sho’ som’ers ‘hove
de town, but dey wuz pedple astiin’ yit, so I hid in de ole tumble-down cooper shop
on de bank to wait for everybody to go way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz
somebody roun’ all de time. ‘Long ‘bout six in the mawnin’, skifts begin to go by, en
"bout eight er nine every skift dat went "long wuz talkin’ ‘bout how yo’ pap come
over to de town en say you's killed. Dese las’ skifts wuz full o’ ladies en genlmen
agoin’ over for to see de place. Sometimes dey'd pull up at de sho’ en take a res’
b’fo’ dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to know all ‘bout de killin". 1 uz powerful
sorry you's killed, Huck, but I ain’t no mo’, now.
time I was most down to the foot of the island. A little ripply, cool breeze begun to
blow, and that was as good as saying the night was about done. I give her a turn
with the paddle and brung her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out
and into the edge of the woods. I set down there on a log and looked out through
the leaves. I see the moon go off watch and the darkness begin to blanket the
river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the tree-tops, and knowed the day
was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that
camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck, somehow; I
couldn't seem to find the place. But by-and-by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of
fire, away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow. By-and-by I was close
enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the
fan-tods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I
set there behind a clump of bushes, in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on
him steady. It was getting gray daylight, now. Pretty soon he gapped, and
stretched himself, and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim! I bet I
was glad to see him. I says:
« Hello, Jim!" and skipped out.
He bounced up and stared at e wild. Then he drops down on his knees, and puts
his hands together and says:
“Doan’ hurt me —don’t! I hain’t ever done no harm to a ghos’. I awluz liked dead
people, en done all I could for ’em. You go en git in de river agin, whah you
b’longs, en doan’ do nuffn to Ole Jim, "at ´uz awluz yo’ fren’. |
Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn’t dead. I was ever so glad to see
Jim. I warn’t lonesome, now. I told him I warn’t afraid of kim telling the people
where I was. I talked along, but he only set there and looked at me; never said
nothing. Then I says:

me a nice camp in the thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blunkets to
put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a cat-fish and
haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and
had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.
When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty satisfied; but
by-and-by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened
to the currents washing along, and counted the stars and drift-logs and rafts that
come down, and then went to bed; there ain't no better way to put in time when you
are lonesome ; you can’t stay so, you soon get over it.
And so, for three days and nights. No difference —just the same thing. But the next
day I went exploring around down through the island. I was boss of it; it all
belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it ; but mainly I wanted
to put in the time. I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer-
grapes, and green razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to
show. They would all come handy by-and-by, I judged.
Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far from the foot of
the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot nothing; it was for protection;
thought I would kill some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped
on a good-sized snake, and it went sliding off’ through the grass and flowers, and I
after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right
on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking.
My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but
uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tip-toes as fast as ever I could.
Every now and then I stopped a second, amongst the thick leaves, and listened;

and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By-and-by he raised
up, part way, and listened, with his head to one side. He says very low:
“Tramp—tramp—tramp; that’s the dead; tramp—tramp—tramp ; they’re coming
after me ; but I won't go— Oh, they're here! don’t touch me—don’t! hands off —
they’re cold; let go—Oh, let a poor devil alone!”
Then he went down on all fours and crawled off begging them to let him alone, and
he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-
begging; and then he went to crying. I could hear him through the blanket.
By-and-by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he see me and
went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a clasp-knife, calling
me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me, and then I couldn't come for
him no more. I begged, and told him I was only Huck, but he laughed such a
screechy laugh, and roared and cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I
turned short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket
between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket quick
as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and dropped down
with his back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me.
He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and then he
would see who was who.
So he dozed off, pretty soon. By-and-by I got the old split- bottom chair and clumb
up, as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the gun. I slipped the
ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, and then I laid it across the turnip
barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how
slow and still the time did drag along.

so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body’s hair raise, and down he went in
the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he done then laid over
anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self, afterwards. He had
heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too; but I
reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.
After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drunks
and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged he would be blind
drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key, or saw myself out, one or
t'other. He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets, by-and-by; but luck
didn’t run my way. He didn't go sound asleep but was uneasy. He groaned, and
moaned, and thrashed around this way and that, for a long time. At last I got so
sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open, all I could do, and so before I knowed what I
was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.
I don’t know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream
and [ was up. There was pap, looking wild and skipping around every which way
and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs; and then he
would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheek—but I
couldn't see no snakes. He started and run round and round the cabin bollering
“take him off! take him off! he's biting me on the neck!” I never see a man look so
wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he
rolled over and over, wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking
and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming, and saying there was devils
ahold of him. He wore out, by-and-by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid
stiller, and didn’t make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves, away off in
the woods I judged I would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough,
and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying, till
the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.
I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking
supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up, and went to
ripping again. He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and
he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adam, he was just all
mud. Whenever his liquor begun to work, he most always went for the govment.
This time he says:
“Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it’s like. Here's the law a-
standing ready to take a man’s son away from him—a man’s own son, which he
has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising. Yes, just
as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do
suthin’ for him and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call that
govment! That ain’t all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and
helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law does. The law takes
a man worth six thousand dollars and upards, and jams him into an old trap of a
cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call
that govment! A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a
mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I told ’em so; I
told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of ´em heard me, and can tell what I said.
Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come anear it agin,
Them’s the very words. I says, look at my hat —if you call it a hat— but the lid
raises up and the rest of it goes down till it’s below my chin, and then it ain't rightly
a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up

THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN,

work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the
cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and
putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the blanket and went to
work to saw a section of the big bottom log out, big enough to let me through. Well,
it was a good long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard pap’s
gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and
hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in.
Pap warn't in a good humour—so he was his natural self. He said he was down to
town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would win
his lawsuit and get the money, if they ever got started on the trial; but then there
was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he
said people allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me
to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win, this time. This shook
me up considerable, because I didn’t want to go back to the widow's anymore and
be so cramped up, and sivilised, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing,
and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all
over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with
a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which
he didn’t know the names of, and so called them what’s-his-name, when he got to
them, and went right along with his cussing.
He said he would like to sce the widow get me. He said he would watch out, and if
they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place six or seven mile
off, to stow me in, where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find
me. Thut made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't
stay on hand till he got that chance.

about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn’t drop
that.
Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him and
tried to make him give up the money, but he couldn’t, and then he swore he'd
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 didn’t know the old man; so he said courts mustn’t interfere and separate
families if they could help it; said he'd 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 couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me till T was
black and blue if I didn’t 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 he’d make it warm for him.
When he got out the new judge said he was agoing 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, so to
speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the
old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life ; but now he was
agoing to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't 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
he'd been a man was white; not like another man’s white, but a white to make a
body sick, a white to make a body's 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
t'other 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 you're a good deal of a big-bug, don’t you?"
“Maybe I am, maybe I ain't,” I says.
“Don’t you give me none o’ your lip,” says he. “You've put on considerble many
frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're
educated, too, they say; can read and write. You think you're better´n your father,
now, don’t you, because he can’t? I'll take it out of you. Who told you might meddle
with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey? —who told you could?
“The widow. She told me.”
“The widow, hey? —and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a
thing that ain't none of her business?”
“Nobody never told her.”
“Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here —you drop that school, you
hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on
to be better'n what he is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again,
you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she
died. None of the family couldn't, before they died. [I can’t; and here you're a-
swelling yourself was as big as two or three rooms bunched together, and Jim
could stand up straight in it. It was cool in there. Jim was for putting our traps in
there, right away, but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the
time.
Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps In the
cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, and they would
never find us with-out dogs. And besides, he said them little birds had said it was
going to rain, and did I want the things to get wet?
So we went back and got the canoe and paddled up abreast the cavern, and
lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the
canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off of the lines and set
them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.
The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one side of
the door the floor stuck out a little bit and was flat and a good place to build a fire
on. So we built it there and cooked dinner.
We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there. We put all
the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty soon it darkened up and
begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was right about it. Directly it begun to
rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of
these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black out-
side, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little
ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that
would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then
a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their
arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and
blackest—fst / it was as bright as glory and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops
a-plunging went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the
widow's ways, too, and they warn’t 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, 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 warn't ashamed of me.
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 warn't 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 wasn’t 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 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
somebody's 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 hadn't come in,
after standing around so. I couldn't 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 didn’t
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.