then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think about him.'
Somebody says:
'Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say.'
Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised, right out and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more.
Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but they didn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but I judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as soon as I'd got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of me—explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night paddling around hunting the runaway nigger.
But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged him.
Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and pale, not fire- faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and laid for him to wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding in, and there I was, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still, and set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be joyful now, because all the symptoms was first-rate, and he'd been sleeping like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuller all the time, and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind.
So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says:
'Hello!—why, I'm at HOME! How's that? Where's the raft?'
'It's all right,' I says.
'And JIM?'
'The same,' I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash. But he never noticed, but says:
'Good! Splendid! NOW we're all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?'
I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says: 'About what, Sid?'
'Why, about the way the whole thing was done.'
'What whole thing?'
'Why, THE whole thing. There ain't but one; how we set the runaway nigger free—me and Tom.'
'Good land! Set the run—What IS the child talking about! Dear, dear, out of his head again!'
'NO, I ain't out of my HEAD; I know all what I'm talking about. We DID set him free—me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we DONE it. And we done it elegant, too.' He'd got a start, and she never checked him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and I see it warn't no use for ME to put in. 'Why, Aunty, it cost us a power of work—weeks of it—hours and hours, every night, whilst you was all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt, and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things, and you can't think what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or another, and you can't think HALF the fun it was. And we had to make up the pictures of coffins and things, and nonnamous letters from the robbers, and get up and down the lightning-rod, and dig the hole into the cabin, and made the rope ladder and send it in cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and things to work with in your apron pocket—'
'Mercy sakes!'
'—and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company for Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let them go by, and when the dogs come they warn't interested in us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by ourselves, and WASN'T it bully, Aunty!'
'Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was YOU, you little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble, and turned everybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to death. I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out o' you this very minute. To think, here I've been, night after night, a—YOU just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the Old Harry out o' both o' ye!'
But Tom, he WAS so proud and joyful, he just COULDN'T hold in, and his tongue just WENT it—she a- chipping in, and spitting fire all along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and she says:
'WELL, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it NOW, for mind I tell you if I catch you meddling with him again—'
'Meddling with WHO?' Tom says, dropping his smile and looking surprised.
'With WHO? Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who'd you reckon?'
Tom looks at me very grave, and says:
'Tom, didn't you just tell me he was all right? Hasn't he got away?'
'HIM?' says Aunt Sally; 'the runaway nigger? 'Deed he hasn't. They've got him back, safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again, on bread and water, and loaded down with chains, till he's claimed or sold!'
Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening and shutting like gills, and sings out to me:
'They hain't no RIGHT to shut him up! SHOVE!—and don't you lose a minute. Turn him loose! he ain't no slave; he's as free as any cretur that walks this earth!'
'What DOES the child mean?'
'I mean every word I SAY, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go, I'LL go. I've knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and SAID so; and she set him free in her will.'
'Then what on earth did YOU want to set him free for, seeing he was already free?'
'Well, that IS a question, I must say; and just like women! Why, I wanted the ADVENTURE of it; and I'd a waded neck-deep in blood to—goodness alive, AUNT POLLY!'
If she warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!
Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed, for it was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me. And I peeped out, and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles— kind of grinding him into the earth, you know. And then she says:
'Yes, you BETTER turn y'r head away—I would if I was you, Tom.'
'Oh, deary me!' says Aunt Sally; 'IS he changed so? Why, that ain't TOM, it's Sid; Tom's—Tom's—why, where is Tom? He was here a minute ago.'
'You mean where's Huck FINN—that's what you mean! I reckon I hain't raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I SEE him. That WOULD be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that bed, Huck Finn.'
So I done it. But not feeling brash.
Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever see—except one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told it all to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn't know
