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Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
CHAPTER I
In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity
Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two
gentlemen were sitting alone
over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of
P -- -- , in Kentucky.
There were no servants present, and the gentlemen, with chairs
closely approaching,
seemed to be discussing some subject with great earnestness.
For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two gentlemen.
One of the parties,
however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly

speaking, to come under the
species. He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse,
commonplace features, and that
swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is
trying to elbow his way
upward in the world. He was much over-dressed, in a gaudy vest
of many colors, a blue
neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow spots, and arranged
with a flaunting tie, quite
in keeping with the general air of the man. His hands, large and
coarse, were plentifully
bedecked with rings; and he wore a heavy gold watch-chain,
with a bundle of seals of
portentous size, and a great variety of colors, attached to it, --
which, in the ardor of
conversation, he was in the habit of flourishing and jingling
with evident satisfaction. His
conversation was in free and easy defiance of Murray's
Grammar, 1 and was garnished
at convenient
-42-
intervals with various profane expressions, which not even the
desire to be graphic in

our account shall induce us to transcribe.
His companion, Mr. Shelby, had the appearance of a
gentleman; and the
arrangements of the house, and the general air of the
housekeeping, indicated easy,
and even opulent circumstances. As we before stated, the two
were in the midst of an
earnest conversation.
"That is the way I should arrange the matter," said Mr.
Shelby.
"I can't make trade that way -- I positively can't, Mr. Shelby,"
said the other, holding up
a glass of wine between his eye and the light.
"Why, the fact is, Haley, Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is
certainly worth that sum
anywhere, -- steady, honest, capable, manages my whole farm
like a clock."
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"You mean honest, as niggers go," said Haley, helping
himself to a glass of brandy.
"No; I mean, really, Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious
fellow. He got religion at a
camp-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really did get it.
I've trusted him, since
then, with everything I have, -- money, house, horses, -- and let
him come and go round
the country; and I always found him true and square in
everything."
"Some folks don't believe there is pious niggers Shelby," said
Haley, with a candid
flourish of his hand, "but I do. I had a fellow, now, in this yer
last lot I took to Orleans -- 't
was as good as a meetin, now, really, to hear that critter pray;
and he was quite gentle
and quiet like. He fetched me a good sum, too, for I bought him
cheap of a man that
was 'bliged to sell out; so I realized six hundred on him. Yes, I
consider religion a
valeyable thing in a nigger, when it's the genuine article, and no
mistake."
"Well, Tom's got the real article, if ever a fellow

-43-
had," rejoined the other. "Why, last fall, I let him go to
Cincinnati alone, to do business
for me, and bring home five hundred dollars. 'Tom,' says I to
him, 'I trust you, because I
think you're a Christian -- I know you wouldn't cheat.' Tom
comes back, sure enough; I
knew he would. Some low fellows, they say, said to him -- Tom,
why don't you make
tracks for Canada?' 'Ah, master trusted me, and I couldn't,' --
they told me about it. I am
sorry to part with Tom, I must say. You ought to let him cover
the whole balance of the
debt; and you would, Haley, if you had any conscience."
"Well, I've got just as much conscience as any man in
business can afford to keep, --
just a little, you know, to swear by, as 't were," said the trader,
jocularly; "and, then, I'm
ready to do anything in reason to 'blige friends; but this yer,
you see, is a leetle too hard
on a fellow -- a leetle too hard." The trader sighed
contemplatively, and poured out
some more brandy.

"Well, then, Haley, how will you trade?" said Mr. Shelby,
after an uneasy interval of
silence.
"Well, haven't you a boy or gal that you could throw in with
Tom?"
"Hum! -- none that I could well spare; to tell the truth, it's
only hard necessity makes
me willing to sell at all. I don't like parting with any of my
hands, that's a fact."
Here the door opened, and a small quadroon boy, between
four and five years of age,
entered the room. There was something in his appearance
remarkably beautiful and
engaging. His black hair, fine as floss silk, hung in glossy curls
about his round, dimpled
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face, while a pair of large dark eyes, full of fire and softness,

looked out from beneath
the rich, long lashes, as he peered curiously into the apartment.
A gay robe of scarlet
and yellow plaid, carefully made and neatly fitted, set off to
advantage the dark and rich
style of his
-44-
beauty; and a certain comic air of assurance, blended with
bashfulness, showed that he
had been not unused to being petted and noticed by his master.
"Hulloa, Jim Crow!" said Mr. Shelby, whistling, and snapping
a bunch of raisins
towards him, "pick that up, now!"
The child scampered, with all his little strength, after the
prize, while his master
laughed.
"Come here, Jim Crow," said he. The child came up, and the
master patted the curly
head, and chucked him under the chin.
"Now, Jim, show this gentleman how you can dance and
sing." The boy commenced
one of those wild, grotesque songs common among the negroes,

in a rich, clear voice,
accompanying his singing with many comic evolutions of the
hands, feet, and whole
body, all in perfect time to the music.
"Bravo!" said Haley, throwing him a quarter of an orange.
"Now, Jim, walk like old Uncle Cudjoe, when he has the
rheumatism," said his master.
Instantly the flexible limbs of the child assumed the
appearance of deformity and
distortion, as, with his back humped up, and his master's stick
in his hand, he hobbled
about the room, his childish face drawn into a doleful pucker,
and spitting from right to
left, in imitation of an old man.
Both gentlemen laughed uproariously.
"Now, Jim," said his master, "show us how old Elder Robbins
leads the psalm." The
boy drew his chubby face down to a formidable length, and
commenced toning a psalm
tune through his nose, with imperturbable gravity.
"Hurrah! bravo! what a young 'un!" said Haley; "that chap's a
case, I'll promise. Tell

you what," said he, suddenly clapping his hand on Mr. Shelby's
shoulder, "fling in that
chap, and I'll settle the business -- I
-45-
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will. Come, now, if that ain't doing the thing up about the
rightest!"
At this moment, the door was pushed gently open, and a
young quadroon woman,
apparently about twenty-five, entered the room.
There needed only a glance from the child to her, to identify
her as its mother. There
was the same rich, full, dark eye, with its long lashes; the same
ripples of silky black
hair. The brown of her complexion gave way on the cheek to a
perceptible flush, which
deepened as she saw the gaze of the strange man fixed upon her

in bold and
undisguised admiration. Her dress was of the neatest possible
fit, and set off to
advantage her finely moulded shape; -- a delicately formed hand
and a trim foot and
ankle were items of appearance that did not escape the quick
eye of the trader, well
used to run up at a glance the points of a fine female article.
"Well, Eliza?" said her master, as she stopped and looked
hesitatingly at him.
"I was looking for Harry, please, sir;" and the boy bounded
toward her, showing his
spoils, which he had gathered in the skirt of his robe.
"Well, take him away then," said Mr. Shelby; and hastily she
withdrew, carrying the
child on her arm.
"By Jupiter," said the trader, turning to him in admiration,
"there's an article, now! You
might make your fortune on that ar gal in Orleans, any day. I've
seen over a thousand,
in my day, paid down for gals not a bit handsomer."
"I don't want to make my fortune on her," said Mr. Shelby,
dryly; and, seeking to turn

the conversation, he uncorked a bottle of fresh wine, and asked
his companion's opinion
of it.
"Capital, sir, -- first chop!" said the trader; then turning, and
slapping his hand
familiarly on Shelby's shoulder, he added
-46-
"Come, how will you trade about the gal? -- what shall I say
for her -- what'll you
take?"
"Mr. Haley, she is not to be sold," said Shelby. "My wife
would not part with her for her
weight in gold."
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"Ay, ay! women always say such things, cause they ha'nt no
sort of calculation. Just

show 'em how many watches, feathers, and trinkets, one's
weight in gold would buy,
and that alters the case, I reckon."
"I tell you, Haley, this must not be spoken of; I say no, and I
mean no," said Shelby,
decidedly.
"Well, you'll let me have the boy, though," said the trader;
"you must own I've come
down pretty handsomely for him."
"What on earth can you want with the child?" said Shelby.
"Why, I've got a friend that's going into this yer branch of the
business -- wants to buy
up handsome boys to raise for the market. Fancy articles
entirely -- sell for waiters, and
so on, to rich 'uns, that can pay for handsome 'uns. It sets off
one of yer great places --
a real handsome boy to open door, wait, and tend. They fetch a
good sum; and this little
devil is such a comical, musical concern, he's just the article!'
"I would rather not sell him," said Mr. Shelby, thoughtfully;
"the fact is, sir, I'm a
humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother, sir."

"O, you do? -- La! yes -- something of that ar natur. I
understand, perfectly. It is mighty
onpleasant getting on with women, sometimes, I al'ays hates
these yer screechin,'
screamin' times. They are mighty onpleasant; but, as I manages
business, I generally
avoids 'em, sir. Now, what if you get the girl off for a day, or a
week, or so; then the
thing's done quietly, -- all over before she comes home. Your
wife might get her some
ear-rings, or a new gown, or some such truck, to make up with
her."
"I'm afraid not."
"Lor bless ye, yes! These critters ain't like white
-47-
folks, you know; they gets over things, only manage right. Now,
they say," said Haley,
assuming a candid and confidential air, "that this kind o' trade
is hardening to the
feelings; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never could do things
up the way some fellers
manage the business. I've seen 'em as would pull a woman's
child out of her arms, and

set him up to sell, and she screechin' like mad all the time; --
very bad policy -- damages
the article -- makes 'em quite unfit for service sometimes. I
knew a real handsome gal
once, in Orleans, as was entirely ruined by this sort o' handling.
The fellow that was
trading for her didn't want her baby; and she was one of your
real high sort, when her
blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms,
and talked, and went on
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real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think of 't; and
when they carried off the
child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin' mad, and died in a
week. Clear waste, sir,
of a thousand dollars, just for want of management, -- there's
where 't is. It's always best

to do the humane thing, sir; that's been my experience." And the
trader leaned back in
his chair, and folded his arm, with an air of virtuous decision,
apparently considering
himself a second Wilberforce.
The subject appeared to interest the gentleman deeply; for
while Mr. Shelby was
thoughtfully peeling an orange, Haley broke out afresh, with
becoming diffidence, but as
if actually driven by the force of truth to say a few words more.
"It don't look well, now, for a feller to be praisin' himself; but
I say it jest because it's
the truth. I believe I'm reckoned to bring in about the finest
droves of niggers that is
brought in, -- at least, I've been told so; if I have once, I reckon
I have a hundred times, -
- all in good case, -- fat and likely, and I lose as few as any man
in the business. And I
lays it all to my management, sir; and humanity, sir, I may say,
is the great pillar of my
management."
-48-
Mr. Shelby did not know what to say, and so he said,

"Indeed!"
"Now, I've been laughed at for my notions, sir, and I've been
talked to. They an't
pop'lar, and they an't common; but I stuck to 'em, sir; I've stuck
to 'em, and realized well
on 'em; yes, sir, they have paid their passage, I may say," and
the trader laughed at his
joke.
There was something so piquant and original in these
elucidations of humanity, that
Mr. Shelby could not help laughing in company. Perhaps you
laugh too, dear reader; but
you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms
now-a-days, and there is no
end to the odd things that humane people will say and do.
Mr. Shelby's laugh encouraged the trader to proceed.
"It's strange, now, but I never could beat this into people's
heads. Now, there are Tom
Loker, my old partner, down in Natchez; he was a clever fellow,
Tom was, only the very
devil with niggers, -- on principle 't was, you see, for a better
hearted feller never broke
bread; 't was his system, sir. I used to talk to Tom. 'Why, Tom,'

I used to say, 'when your
gals takes on and cry, what's the use o' crackin on' em over the
head, and knockin' on
'em round? It's ridiculous,' says I, 'and don't do no sort o' good.
Why, I don't see no
harm in their cryin',' says I; 'it's natur,' says I, 'and if natur can't
blow off one way, it will
another. Besides, Tom,' says I, 'it jest spiles your gals; they get
sickly, and down in the
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mouth; and sometimes they gets ugly, -- particular yallow gals
do, -- and it's the devil
and all gettin' on 'em broke in. Now,' says I, 'why can't you
kinder coax 'em up, and
speak 'em fair? Depend on it, Tom, a little humanity, thrown in
along, goes a heap
further than all your jawin' and crackin'; and it pays better,' says
I, 'depend on 't.' But

Tom couldn't get the hang on 't; and he spiled so many for me,
that I had to break off
with him, though he was a good-hearted fellow, and as fair a
business hand as is goin'"
-49-
"And do you find your ways of managing do the business
better than Tom's?" said Mr.
Shelby.
"Why, yes, sir, I may say so. You see, when I any ways can, I
takes a leetle care
about the onpleasant parts, like selling young uns and that, --
get the gals out of the way
-- out of sight, out of mind, you know, -- and when it's clean
done, and can't be helped,
they naturally gets used to it. 'Tan't, you know, as if it was
white folks, that's brought up
in the way of 'spectin' to keep their children and wives, and all
that. Niggers, you know,
that's fetched up properly, ha'n't no kind of 'spectations of no
kind; so all these things
comes easier."
"I'm afraid mine are not properly brought up, then," said Mr.
Shelby.

"S'pose not; you Kentucky folks spile your niggers. You mean
well by 'em, but 'tan't no
real kindness, arter all. Now, a nigger, you see, what's got to be
hacked and tumbled
round the world, and sold to Tom, and Dick, and the Lord
knows who, 'tan't no kindness
to be givin' on him notions and expectations, and bringin' on
him up too well, for the
rough and tumble comes all the harder on him arter. Now, I
venture to say, your niggers
would be quite chop-fallen in a place where some of your
plantation niggers would be
singing and whooping like all possessed. Every man, you know,
Mr. Shelby, naturally
thinks well of his own ways; and I think I treat niggers just
about as well as it's ever
worth while to treat 'em."
"It's a happy thing to be satisfied," said Mr. Shelby, with a
slight shrug, and some
perceptible feelings of a disagreeable nature.
"Well," said Haley, after they had both silently picked their
nuts for a season, "what do
you say?"

"I'll think the matter over, and talk with my wife," said Mr.
Shelby. "Meantime, Haley, if
you want the matter carried on in the quiet way you speak of,
you'd best not let your
business in this neighborhood be
Saylor.org
-50-
known. It will get out among my boys, and it will not be a
particularly quiet business
getting away any of my fellows, if they know it, I'll promise
you."
"O! certainly, by all means, mum! of course. But I'll tell you.
I'm in a devil of a hurry,
and shall want to know, as soon as possible, what I may depend
on," said he, rising and
putting on his overcoat.

"Well, call up this evening, between six and seven, and you
shall have my answer,"
said Mr. Shelby, and the trader bowed himself out of the
apartment.
"I'd like to have been able to kick the fellow down the steps,"
said he to himself, as he
saw the door fairly closed, "with his impudent assurance; but he
knows how much he
has me at advantage. If anybody had ever said to me that I
should sell Tom down south
to one of those rascally traders, I should have said, 'Is thy
servant a dog, that he should
do this thing?' And now it must come, for aught I see. And
Eliza's child, too! I know that I
shall have some fuss with wife about that; and, for that matter,
about Tom, too. So much
for being in debt, -- heigho! The fellow sees his advantage, and
means to push it."
Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be
seen in the State of
Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a
quiet and gradual nature,
not requiring those periodic seasons of hurry and pressure that
are called for in the

business of more southern districts, makes the task of the negro
a more healthful and
reasonable one; while the master, content with a more gradual
style of acquisition, has
not those temptations to hardheartedness which always
overcome frail human nature
when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the
balance, with no heavier
counterpoise than the interests of the helpless and unprotected.
Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-
humored indulgence of
some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of
some slaves,
-51-
might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a
patriarchal institution, and
all that; but over and above the scene there broods a portentous
shadow -- the shadow
of law. So long as the law considers all these human beings,
with beating hearts and
living affections, only as so many things belonging to a master,
-- so long as the failure,
or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner,
may cause them any day

to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of
hopeless misery and toil,
-- so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or
desirable in the best regulated
administration of slavery.
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Mr. Shelby was a fair average kind of man, goodnatured and
kindly, and disposed to
easy indulgence of those around him, and there had never been a
lack of anything
which might contribute to the physical comfort of the negroes
on his estate. He had,
however, speculated largely and quite loosely; had involved
himself deeply, and his
notes to a large amount had come into the hands of Haley; and
this small piece of
information is the key to the preceding conversation.

Now, it had so happened that, in approaching the door, Eliza
had caught enough of
the conversation to know that a trader was making offers to her
master for somebody.
She would gladly have stopped at the door to listen, as she
came out; but her
mistress just then calling, she was obliged to hasten away.
Still she thought she heard the trader make an offer for her
boy; -- could she be
mistaken? Her heart swelled and throbbed, and she involuntarily
strained him so tight
that the little fellow looked up into her face in astonishment.
"Eliza, girl, what ails you to-day?" said her mistress, when
Eliza had upset the wash-
pitcher, knocked down the workstand, and finally was
abstractedly offering her mistress
a long nightgown in place of the silk dress she had ordered her
to bring from the
wardrobe.
-52-
Eliza started. "O, missis!" she said, raising her eyes; then,
bursting into tears, she sat

down in a chair, and began sobbing.
"Why, Eliza child, what ails you?" said her mistress.
"O! missis, missis," said Eliza, "there's been a trader talking
with master in the parlor! I
heard him."
"Well, silly child, suppose there has."
"O, missis, do you suppose mas'r would sell my Harry?" And
the poor creature threw
herself into a chair, and sobbed convulsively.
"Sell him! No, you foolish girl! You know your master never
deals with those southern
traders, and never means to sell any of his servants, as long as
they behave well. Why,
you silly child, who do you think would want to buy your
Harry? Do you think all the
world are set on him as you are, you goosie? Come, cheer up,
and hook my dress.
There now, put my back hair up in that pretty braid you learnt
the other day, and don't
go listening at doors any more."

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"Well, but, missis, you never would give your consent -- to --
to -- "
"Nonsense, child! to be sure, I shouldn't. What do you talk so
for? I would as soon
have one of my own children sold. But really, Eliza, you are
getting altogether too proud
of that little fellow. A man can't put his nose into the door, but
you think he must be
coming to buy him."
Reassured by her mistress' confident tone, Eliza proceeded
nimbly and adroitly with
her toilet, laughing at her own fears, as she proceeded.
Mrs. Shelby was a woman of high class, both intellectually
and morally. To that
natural magnanimity and generosity of mind which one often
marks as characteristic of
the women of Kentucky, she added high moral and religious
sensibility and principle,

carried out with great energy and ability into practical results.
Her husband, who made
no professions to any particular
-53-
religious character, nevertheless reverenced and respected the
consistency of hers,
and stood, perhaps, a little in awe of her opinion. Certain it was
that he gave her
unlimited scope in all her benevolent efforts for the comfort,
instruction, and
improvement of her servants, though he never took any decided
part in them himself. In
fact, if not exactly a believer in the doctrine of the efficiency of
the extra good works of
saints, he really seemed somehow or other to fancy that his wife
had piety and
benevolence enough for two -- to indulge a shadowy expectation
of getting into heaven
through her superabundance of qualities to which he made no
particular pretension.
The heaviest load on his mind, after his conversation with the
trader, lay in the
foreseen necessity of breaking to his wife the arrangement
contemplated, -- meeting the

importunities and opposition which he knew he should have
reason to encounter.
Mrs. Shelby, being entirely ignorant of her husband's
embarrassments, and knowing
only the general kindliness of his temper, had been quite sincere
in the entire incredulity
with which she had met Eliza's suspicions. In fact, she
dismissed the matter from her
mind, without a second thought; and being occupied in
preparations for an evening visit,
it passed out of her thoughts entirely.
1. English Grammar (1795), by Lindley Murray (1745-1826),
the most authoritative
American grammarian of his day.
-54-
Chapter 2
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CHAPTER II
The Mother
Eliza had been brought up by her mistress, from girlhood, as a
petted and indulged
favorite.
The traveller in the south must often have remarked that
peculiar air of refinement,
that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many cases
to be a particular gift to
the quadroon and mulatto women. These natural graces in the
quadroon are often
united with beauty of the most dazzling kind, and in almost
every case with a personal
appearance prepossessing and agreeable. Eliza, such as we have
described her, is not
a fancy sketch, but taken from remembrance, as we saw her,
years ago, in Kentucky.
Safe under the protecting care of her mistress, Eliza had reached
maturity without those
temptations which make beauty so fatal an inheritance to a
slave. She had been
married to a bright and talented young mulatto man, who was a

slave on a neighboring
estate, and bore the name of George Harris.
This young man had been hired out by his master to work in a
bagging factory, where
his adroitness and ingenuity caused him to be considered the
first hand in the place. He
had invented a machine for …
Walden
or,
Life in the Woods
Henry David Thoreau
1854
The Internet Bookmobile
1
Text from the Library of America edition: A Week on the
Concord
and Merrimack Rivers ; Walden, or, Life in the Woods ; The
Maine
Woods ; Cape Cod, by Henry David Thoreau, Edited by Robert
F.
Sayre, ISBN: 0940450275.

Out of copyright text comes originally from the Literary
Classics of
the U.S reprint, 1985.
Online text at Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia,
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ThoWald.html
See also http://eserver.org/thoreau/walden00.html
http://www.gutenberg.net/etext95/waldn10.txt
This free, public domain edition was published at Walden Pond
by the Internet Bookmobile, July 8, 2004. To arrange a free
Internet
Bookmobile visit, see
http://www.archive.org/texts/bookmobile.php
Made possible by the Internet Archive and Anywhere Books.
“Much is published but little printed.” (p. 84)
2
3
I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as
lustily
as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to
wake
my neighbors up.—Page 66.

4
Contents
1. Economy .................................................. 6
2. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For ......... 62
3. Reading ........................................................ 75
4. Sounds ........................................................ 84
5. Solitude ........................................................ 97
6. Visitors ........................................................ 105
7. The Bean-Field ............................................. 116
8. The Village .................................................. 125
9. The Ponds .................................................. 130
10. Baker Farm .................................................. 150
11. Higher Laws .............................................. 157
12. Brute Neighbors ........................................ 167
13. House-Warming ........................................ 178
14. Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors ....... 191
15. Winter Animals ........................................ 202
16. The Pond in Winter ................................. 210
17. Spring ......................................................... 223
18. Conclusion ................................................... 238
5
Economy
hen I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them,
I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a
house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden

Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the
labor
of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At
present
I am a sojourner in civilized life again.
W
I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of
my
readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by
my
townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would
call
impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent,
but,
considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some
have
asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not
afraid;
and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of
my
income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have
large
families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore
ask
those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to
pardon
me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this
book. In
most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it
will be
retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main
difference. We
commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always
the first

person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about
myself if
there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I
am
confined to this theme by the narrowness of my
experience.
Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a
simple
and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has
heard
of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send
to his
kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must
have
been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are
more
particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my
readers,
they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none
will
6
stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good
service to
him whom it fits.
I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese
and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are
said to
live in New England; something about your condition,
especially
your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this
town,

what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is,
whether it
cannot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal
in
Concord; and every where, in shops, and offices, and
fields, the
inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a
thousand
remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed
to
four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging
suspended,
with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the
heavens
over their shoulders “until it becomes impossible for them to
resume
their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing
but
liquids can pass into the stomach;” or dwelling, chained for life,
at
the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like
caterpillars, the
breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of
pillars,
—even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more
incredible
and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness.
The twelve
labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which
my
neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and
had an
end; but I could never see that these men slew or
captured any
monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolas to burn
with

a hot iron the root of the hydra’s head, but as soon as one head
is
crushed, two spring up.
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to
have
inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for
these are
more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been
born in
the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have
seen
with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who
made
them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres,
when
man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why
should they
begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? They have
got to
live a man’s life, pushing all these things before them, and get
on as
well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met
well
nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the
road of
life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its
Augean
stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land,
tillage,
mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! The portionless, who struggle
with
7

no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor
enough to
subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.
But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is
soon
ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate,
commonly
called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book,
laying
up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves
break
through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they
get to
the end of it, if not before. It is said that Deucalion and
Pyrrha
created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them:—
Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,
Et documenta damus quâ simus origine nati.
Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,—
“From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and
care,
Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.”
So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing
the
stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they
fell.
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through
mere
ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares

and
superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits
cannot be
plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too
clumsy
and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man
has not
leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to
sustain the
manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated
in the
market. He has no time to be any thing but a machine. How can
he
remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who
has
so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and
clothe him
gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials,
before we
judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the
bloom on
fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet
we
do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live,
are
sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that
some
of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners
which
you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which
are fast
wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to
spend
borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is

very
8
evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my
sight
has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to
get
into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient
slough,
called by the Latins aes alienum, another’s brass, for some of
their
coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by
this
other’s brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-
morrow,
and dying to-day, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get
custom, by
how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying,
flattering,
voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or
dilating
into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that
you may
persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or
his
coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him;
making
yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick
day,
something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking
behind
the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter
where, no

matter how much or how little.
I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost
say,
as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of
servitude
called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters
that
enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern
overseer; it
is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are
the
slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look
at the
teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night;
does
any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and
water his
horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the
shipping
interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How
godlike,
how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how
vaguely all
the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the
slave and
prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by
his own
deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our
own
private opinion.
What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or
rather
indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the West
Indian

provinces of the fancy and imagination,—what Wilberforce is
there
to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land
weaving
toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an
interest
in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring
eternity.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is
called
resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city
you go
into the desperate country, and have to console yourself
with the
9
bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but
unconscious
despair is concealed even under what are called the games
and
amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this
comes
after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do
desperate
things.
When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is
the
chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means
of life,
it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common
mode of

living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly
think
there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember
that
the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
No
way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted
without
proof. What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true
to-day
may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of
opinion,
which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle
fertilizing
rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try
and
find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for
new.
Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh
fuel
to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under
a pot,
and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a
way to
kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly
so well,
qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so
much as
it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned
any
thing of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no
very
important advice to give the young, their own experience has
been so
partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for
private

reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some
faith
left which belies that experience, and they are only less young
than
they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I
have
yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice
from
my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell
me
any thing, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great
extent
untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it.
If I
have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect
that
this my Mentors said nothing about.
One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food
solely,
for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he
religiously
devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with
the raw
material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind
his oxen,
which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his
lumbering
10
plough along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are
really
necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and

diseased,
which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are
entirely
unknown.
The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been
gone
over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and
all
things to have been cared for. According to Evelyn, “the
wise
Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of
trees; and
the Roman praetors have decided how often you may go into
your
neighbor’s land to gather the acorns which fall on it without
trespass,
and what share belongs to that neighbor.” Hippocrates has even
left
directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even with the
ends of
the fingers, neither shorter nor longer. Undoubtedly the very
tedium
and ennui which presume to have exhausted the variety and the
joys
of life are as old as Adam. But man’s capacities have
never been
measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any
precedents,
so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures
hitherto, “be
not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou
hast
left undone?”
We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for

instance,
that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a
system
of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have
prevented
some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed
them. The
stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What
distant and
different beings in the various mansions of the universe
are
contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and
human
life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say
what
prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle
take place
than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an
instant? We
should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay,
in all the
worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!—I know
of no
reading of another’s experience so startling and informing
as this
would be.
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in
my
soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to
be my
good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so
well?
You may say the wisest thing you can old man,—you who have
lived
seventy years, not without honor of a kind,—I hear an

irresistible
voice which invites me away from all that. One generation
abandons
the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.
11
I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
We
may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly
bestow
elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as
to our
strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a
well nigh
incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the
importance
of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! Or,
what if
we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! Determined not
to live
by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night
we
unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to
uncertainties. So
thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing
our
life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way,
we
say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii
from one
centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a
miracle
which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, “To know

that
we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do
not
know, that is true knowledge.” When one man has reduced a
fact of
the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee
that all
men will at length establish their lives on that basis. * * *
Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and
anxiety
which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary
that
we be troubled, or, at least, careful. It would be some advantage
to
live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an
outward
civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of
life and
what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look
over
the old day-books of the merchants, to see what it was that men
most
commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what
are the
grossest groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but
little
influence on the essential laws of man’s existence; as our
skeletons,
probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our
ancestors.
By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that
man
obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from
long

use has become, so important to human life that few, if any,
whether
from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt
to do
without it. To many creatures there is in this sense but one
necessary
of life, Food. To the bison of the prairie it is a few inches of
palatable
grass, with water to drink; unless he seeks the Shelter of the
forest or
the mountain’s shadow. None of the brute creation
requires more
than Food and Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this
climate
may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several
heads of
Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured
these
12
are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with
freedom
and a prospect of success. Man has invented, not only
houses, but
clothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental
discovery
of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first a
luxury,
arose the present necessity to sit by it. We observe cats
and dogs
acquiring the same second nature. By proper Shelter and
Clothing we
legitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of

these,
or of Fuel, that is, with an external heat greater than our own
internal,
may not cookery properly be said to begin? Darwin, the
naturalist,
says of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own
party,
who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from
too
warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were
observed, to
his great surprise, “to be streaming with perspiration at
undergoing
such a roasting.” So, we are told, the New Hollander goes naked
with
impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes. Is it
impossible
to combine the hardiness of these savages with the
intellectualness of
the civilized man? According to Liebig, man’s body is a stove,
and
food the fuel which keeps up the internal combustion in the
lungs. In
cold weather we eat more, in warm less. The animal heat is the
result
of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place when
this is
too rapid; or for want of fuel, or from some defect in the
draught, the
fire goes out. Of course the vital heat is not to be confounded
with
fire; but so much for analogy. It appears, therefore, from the
above
list, that the expression, animal life, is nearly synonymous with
the
expression, animal heat; for while Food may be regarded as the

Fuel
which keeps up the fire within us,—and Fuel serves only to
prepare
that Food or to increase the warmth of our bodies by addition
from
without,—Shelter and Clothing also serve only to retain the heat
thus
generated and absorbed.
The grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep warm, to
keep
the vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, not only
with
our Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our beds, which
are our
night-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare
this
shelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grass and
leaves at
the end of its burrow! The poor man is wont to complain that
this is a
cold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer
directly
a great part of our ails. The summer, in some climates,
makes
possible to man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his
Food,
is then unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the
fruits are
sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more
various,
13

and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly
or half
unnecessary. At the present day, and in this country, as I find
by my
own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a
spade, a
wheelbarrow, &c., and for the studious, lamplight,
stationery, and
access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can
all be
obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other
side of
the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote
themselves
to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live,—
that is,
keep comfortably warm,—and die in New England at last.
The
luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm,
but
unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course
à la
mode.
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life,
are
not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the
elevation
of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest
have
ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The
ancient
philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class
than
which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so
rich in

inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable
that we
know so much of them as we do. The same is true of
the more
modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can
be an
impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage
ground
of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the
fruit
is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or
art.
There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not
philosophers.
Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to
live.
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor
even
to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to
its
dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and
trust. It
is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically,
but
practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is
commonly a
courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to
live
merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in
no
sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why
do men
degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the
nature of
the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we
sure that

there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in
advance of
his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed,
sheltered,
clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man
be a
14
philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better
methods than
other men?
When a man is warmed by the several modes which I
have
described, what does he want next? Surely not more warmth of
the
same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid
houses,
finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous incessant
and
hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those things
which
are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to
obtain the
superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation
from
humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited
to the
seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send
its
shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted
himself
thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same

proportion
into the heavens above?—for the nobler plants are valued for
the fruit
they bear at last in the air and light, far from the ground, and
are not
treated like the humbler esculents, which, though they may
be
biennials, are cultivated only till they have perfected their root,
and
often cut down at top for this purpose, so that most would not
know
them in their flowering season.
I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures,
who
will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and
perchance
build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the
richest,
without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they
live,
—if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to
those
who find their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the
present
condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and
enthusiasm
of lovers,—and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number;
I do
not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever
circumstances, and they know whether they are well
employed or
not;—but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and
idly
complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when
they

might improve them. There are some who complain most
energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they
say,
doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly
wealthy, but
most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated
dross,
but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged
their
own golden or silver fetters.
If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in
years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who
are
somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would
certainly
15
astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at
some of
the enterprises which I have cherished.
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been
anxious
to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to
stand on
the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is
precisely
the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon
some
obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in
most
men’s, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from

its very
nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never
paint
“No Admittance” on my gate.
I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtledove, and am
still
on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning
them,
describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have
met
one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp …
T H E A D V E N T U R E S O FT H E A D V E N T U R E S
O F
H U C K L E B E R RH U C K L E B E R R Y F I N NY F I N
N
BY
M A R K T W A I N
A G L A S S B O O K C L A S S I C
Lisa K. Clark
H U C K L E B E R R Y F I N N
The Adventures of

Huckleberry
Finn
(Tom Sawyer’s Comrade)
by
Mark Twain
A G L A S S B O O K C L A S S I C
NOTICE
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be
pros-
ecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be
banished; per-
sons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,
Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
EXPLANATORY
IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri
negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods
Southwestern
dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified
vari-
eties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a
haphazard
fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the

trustworthy
guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several
forms
of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many
readers
would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike
and
not succeeding.
THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE 1
CHAPTER TWO 5
CHAPTER THREE 11
CHAPTER FOUR 16
CHAPTER FIVE 20
CHAPTER SIX 25
CHAPTER SEVEN 32
CHAPTER EIGHT 39
CHAPTER NINE 50
CHAPTER TEN 54
CHAPTER ELEVEN 58

CHAPTER TWELVE 66
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 73
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 79
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 84
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 90
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 99
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 108
CHAPTER NINETEEN 120
C O N T E N T S
v
C O N T E N T S
vi
CHAPTER TWENT Y 129
CHAPTER TWENT Y-ONE 138
CHAPTER TWENT Y-TWO 148
CHAPTER TWENT Y-THREE 154
CHAPTER TWENT Y-FOUR 160

CHAPTER TWENT Y-FIVE 166
CHAPTER TWENT Y-SIX 174
CHAPTER TWENT Y-SEVEN 182
CHAPTER TWENT Y-EIGHT 189
CHAPTER TWENT Y-NINE 198
CHAPTER THIRT Y 208
CHAPTER THIRT Y-ONE 212
CHAPTER THIRT Y-TWO 221
CHAPTER THIRT Y-THREE 227
CHAPTER THIRT Y-FOUR 234
CHAPTER THIRT Y-FIVE 240
CHAPTER THIRT Y-SIX 247
CHAPTER THIRT Y-SEVEN 253
CHAPTER THIRT Y-EIGHT 260
CHAPTER THIRT Y-NINE 267
CHAPTER FORT Y 273
CHAPTER FORT Y-ONE 279
CHAPTER FORT Y-TWO 286

THE CHAPTER LAST 294
CHAPTER ONE
1
HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Scene: The Mississippi Valley
Time: Forty to fifty years ago
You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the
name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no
matter. That
book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth,
mainly.
There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the
truth.
That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or
another,
without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt
Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow
Douglas
is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with
some
stretchers, as I said before.
Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found
the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich.
We
got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight
of
money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it

and put
it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the
year
round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow
Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize
me;
but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering
how dis-
mal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so
when I
couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and
my
sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom
Sawyer he
hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers,
and
I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable.
So
I went back.
The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb,
and
she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no
harm
by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do
noth-
ing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then,
the old
thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and
you
had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go
right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down
her

head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t
really
anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything
was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different;
things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the
things go better.
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses
and
the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him;
but by
and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable
long
time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t
take
no stock in dead people.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me.
But
she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean,
and I
must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some
people.
They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about
it.
Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her,
and
no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of
fault
with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she
took
snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it
herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles
on,

2
had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a
spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour,
and
then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much
longer.
Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss
Watson
would say, “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and
“Don’t
scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;” and pretty
soon
she would say, “Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—
why
don’t you try to behave?” Then she told me all about the bad
place,
and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn’t
mean
no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a
change, I warn’t particular. She said it was wicked to say what I
said;
said she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to
live so
as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in
going
where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for
it. But
I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and
wouldn’t do
no good.

Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about
the
good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to
go
around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I
didn’t
think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned
Tom
Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable
sight. I
was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be
together.
Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and
lone-
some. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers,
and
then everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a
piece of
candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the
window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t
no
use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were
shin-
ing, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I
heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was
dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that
was
going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to
me,
and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold
shivers
run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a
sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something
that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t

rest
3
easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night
grieving. I
got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company.
Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I
flipped it
off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all
shriv-
eled up. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that was an awful
bad
sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and
most
shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my
tracks
three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up
a lit-
tle lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I
hadn’t
no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that
you’ve
found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever
heard
anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d
killed a
spider.
I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a
smoke; for the house was all as still as death now, and so the
widow

wouldn’t know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away
off in
the town go boom—boom—boom—twelve licks; and all still
again—stiller than ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in
the
dark amongst the trees—something was a stirring. I set still and
lis-
tened. Directly I could just barely hear a “me-yow! me-yow!”
down
there. That was good! Says I, “me-yow! me-yow!” as soft as I
could,
and then I put out the light and scrambled out of the window on
to
the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in
among
the trees, and, sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for
me.
4
We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards
the end of the widow’s garden, stooping down so as the
branches
wouldn’t scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen
I fell
over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still.
Miss
Watson’s big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen
door; we
could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind
him. He
got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening.

Then he
says:
“Who dah?”
He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing 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 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 anywheres 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’ hear
sum-
f ’n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do: I’s gwyne to set down
here
and listen tell I hears it agin.”
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

CHAPTER TWO
5
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 was 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 distur-
bance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he
hadn’t
got candles enough, and he would 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
did-
n’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
mon-
strous 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.
6
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-cen-
ter piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm
the
devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could
cure
anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just
by say-
ing something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it.
Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim
anything
they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they
wouldn’t
touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was
most
ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of

having
seen the devil and been rode by witches.
Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill-top we
looked
away down into the village and could see three or four lights
twin-
kling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us
was
sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a
whole
mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill
and
found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the
boys,
hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down
the
river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and
went
ashore.
We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear
to
keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in
the
thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled
in
on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and
then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the
passages,
and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn’t a
noticed
that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got
into a
kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we
stopped.

Tom says:
“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.”
7
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
any-
thing 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 was going to rule me out, because
they said every boy must have a family or somebody 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. 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.
8
“But who are we going to rob?—houses, or cattle, or—”
“Stuff! stealing cattle and such things 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
most-
ly 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
reck-
on it is?”
“Well, I don’t know. But per’aps if we keep them till they’re
ran-
somed, it means that we keep them till they’re dead. “
“Now, that’s something like. That’ll answer. Why couldn’t you
said
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 try-
ing 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

fool-
ishness. 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 ‘em anything?
Not
9
by a good deal. No, sir, we’ll just go on and ransom them in the
reg-
ular 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

any more.”
“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 fel-
lows waiting to be ransomed, that there won’t be no place for
the
robbers. But go ahead, I ain’t got nothing to say.”
Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him
up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to
his
ma, and didn’t want to be a robber any more.
So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that
made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the
secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we
would
all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill
some
people.
Ben Rogers said he couldn’t get out much, only Sundays, and so
he
wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be
wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They
agreed to
get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we
elected
Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the
Gang,
and so started home.
I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day
was

breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I
was
dog-tired.
10
Well I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss
Watson on account of my clothes; but the widow she didn’t
scold,
but only cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry
that I
thought I would behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she
took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She
told
me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it.
But it
warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It
warn’t
any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or
four
times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By and by, one
day, I
asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She
never
told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way.
I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think
about
it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything 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 my self, 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 any
more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me
one
CHAPTER THREE
11
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 any more. 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 agoing 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 com-
fortable 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 drownded, about
twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was
him,
anyway; said this drownded 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 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
float-
ing 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 robber now and then about a month, and then I
resigned. All the boys did. We hadn’t robbed nobody, hadn’t
killed
any people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the
woods and go charging down on hog-drivers 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 powwow 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
12
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
mer-
chants 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 di’monds, 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 believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-
rabs,
but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I was on hand
next
day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the word we
rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn’t no
Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn’t no camels nor no
elephants.
It warn’t anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a
primer-
class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the
hol-
low; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam,
though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-
book
and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop
everything and cut. I didn’t see no di’monds, and I told Tom
Sawyer
so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway; and he said
there
was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why
couldn’t
we see them, then? He said if I warn’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,” said he, “a magician could call up a lot of genies, and
they
would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack …

Source URL httpetext.virginia.eduetcbintoccer-new2.docx

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Source URL httpetext.virginia.eduetcbintoccer-new2.docx