Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim (15 page)

This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded:

Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd

And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the sad hearts thicken, And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sad hearts round him thickened, ‘Twas not from sickness’ shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear with spots; Not these impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor stomach troubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul did from this cold world fly By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him; Alas it was too late; His spirit was gone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great.

If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by. Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write about anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful. Every time a man died, or come back, or a woman died, or come back, or a child died, or come back, she would be on hand with her “tribute” before he was cold. She called them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker-the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same after that; she never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many's the time I made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrap-book and read in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all, and warn't going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, all the alive people who was dead, and it didn't seem right that there warn't nobody to make some about her now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn't seem to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room herself, though there was plenty of baggers to do the work, and she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there mostly.

Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing “The Last Link is Broken” and play “The Battle of Prague” on it. The walls of all the rooms was plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house was whitewashed on the outside.

It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn't be better. And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of it too!

When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got up out of their chairs and give them good-day, and didn't set down again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard where the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him, and he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed, and then they bowed and said, “Our duty to you, sir, and madam;” and
they
bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so they drank, all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old people too.

Bob was the oldest and Tom next-tall, beautiful men with very broad shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and wore broad Panama hats.

Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn't stirred up; but when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks, like her father. She was beautiful.

So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty.

Each person had their own bagger to wait on them-Buck too, an’ he believed his to be the smartest and best of all. My bagger had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having anybody do anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time.

This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be more-three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.

The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred baggers. He freed all his negros on the very day the zomby legislation was past. He said he never felt none too good about workin’ humans, no matter how dark they was, an’ usin’ the dead was the smartest idea anyone ever come up with. He said it would radicalize the whole future.

Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a handsome lot of quality, I tell you.

There was another clan of aristocracy around there-five or six families-mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing, which was about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went up there with a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their fine horses.

One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:

"Quick! Jump for the woods!"

We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Pretty soon a splendid young man come galloping down the road, setting his horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from his head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was hid. But we didn't wait. We started through the woods on a run. The woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he rode away the way he come-to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't see. I only know Harney coulda had ‘im, if he wanted.

I got a bad feelin’ in my guts. I thought about that li'l bagger boy what I finished off. He warn't even alive no more. I couldn't imagine killin’ a real live boy. I think I'd toss up my vittles an’ never eat or sleep right ag'in.

We never stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman's eyes blazed a minute-'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged-then his face sort of smoothed down, and he says, kind of gentle:

"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you step into the road, my boy?"

"The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage."

Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned pale, but the color come back when she found the man warn't hurt.

Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by ourselves, I says:

"Did you want to kill him, Buck?"

"Well, I bet I did."

"What did he do to you?"

"Him? He never done nothing to me."

"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"

"Why, nothing-only it's on account of the feud."

"What's a feud?"

"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?"

"Never heard of it before-tell me about it."

"Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills
him
; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the
cousins
chip in-and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time."

"Has this one been going on long, Buck?"

"Well, I should
reckon
! It started thirty year ago, or som'ers along there. There was trouble ‘bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit-which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody would."

"What was the trouble about, Buck?-land?"

"I reckon maybe-I don't know."

"Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?"

"Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago."

"Don't anybody know?"

"Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but they don't know now what the row was about in the first place."

"Has there been many killed, Buck?"

"Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don't always kill. Pa's got a few buckshot in him; but he don't mind it ‘cuz he don't weigh much, anyway. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's been hurt once or twice."

"Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?"

"Yes; we got one and they got one. ‘Bout three months ago my cousin Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on t'other side of the river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame’ foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming behind him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin’ after him with his gun in his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and ‘stead of jumping off and taking to the brush, Bud ‘lowed he could out-run him; so they had it, nip and tuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining all the time; so at last Bud seen it warn't any use, so he stopped and faced around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know, and the old man he rode up and shot him down. But he didn't git much chance to enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our folks laid
him
out."

"I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck."

"I reckon he
warn't
a coward. Not by a blame’ sight. There ain't a coward amongst them Shepherdsons-not a one. And there ain't no cowards amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep’ up his end in a fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come out winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got behind a little woodpile, and kep’ his horse before him to stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and capered around the old man, and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them. Him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the Grangerfords had to be
fetched
home-and one of ‘em was dead, and another died the next day. No, sir; if a body's out hunting for cowards he don't want to fool away any time amongst them Shepherdsons, becuz they don't breed any of that
kind
."

Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching-all about

Judgment an’ Damnation, and such-like tiresomeness; and how the fissythis was runnin’ out of control an’ the bunderlugs was agents of Satan who would shortly turn against mankind; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination and anything to change the subject away from Judgment and Damnation, and I don't know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.

We ate and the old gentleman said that the fissythis pox, like all poxes and all things, would ‘ventually run its course and the world would right itself.

He said there had been ten years or better of fissythis an’ I didn't realize it had been around such a long time. He said it started out as consumption, faraways back, and changed its disposition when it arrived in America. That information was in the books he owned, though he admitted there were not a few minds who were in disagreement over the whole thing.

"Either way, it'll pass."

I had to wonder what would become of the workforce if the fissythis really did go away. When all the baggers go back to Hell, who will folks buy and sell? They already set the negros free, so I supposed they'd have to get out there an’ catch Chinamen or A-rabs to pick up the slack.

About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went up to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took me in her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I liked her, and I said I did; and she asked me if I would do something for her and not tell anybody, and I said I would. Then she said she'd forgot her Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two other books, and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and not say nothing to nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.

Says I to myself, something's up; it ain't natural for a girl to be in such a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out drops a little piece of paper with “
half-past two
” wrote on it with a pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad; and before a body could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anybody. She was mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal astonished, but when I got my breath I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could read writing, and I told her “no, only coarse-hand,” and then she said the paper warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and play now.

I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon I noticed that my bagger was following along behind. Not Jim, but the one that was provided for me by the Grangerfords. I din’ know what become of Jim. When this bagger was out of sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comes a-running, and says:

"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a whole stack o’ water-moccasins."

Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He oughter know a body don't love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says:

"All right; trot ahead."

I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded ankle deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a little flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines, and he says:

"You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah's whah dey is. I's seed ‘m befo'; I don't k'yer to see ‘em no mo'."

Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hid him. I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying there asleep-and, by jings, it was my old Jim!

I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to him to see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried he was so glad, but he warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he didn't want nobody to pick
him
up and take him into slavery again. Says he:

"I got sad a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considable ways behine you towards de las'; when you landed I reck'ned I could ketch up wid you on de lan’ ‘dout havin’ to shout at you, but when I see dat house I begin to go slow. I ‘uz off too fur to hear what dey say to you-I wuz ‘fraid o’ de dogs; but when it ‘uz all quiet agin I knowed you's in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for day. Early in de mawnin’ some er de baggers come along, gwyne to de fields, en dey tuk me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can't track me on accounts o’ de water, en dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how you's a-gitt'n along."

"Why didn't you tell my bunderlug to fetch me here sooner, Jim?"

"Well, ‘twarn't no use to ‘sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn-but we's all right now. I ben doin’ what I cain, en a-patchin’ up de raf’ nights when-"

"
What
raft, Jim?"

"Our ole raf'."

"You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?"

"No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal-one en’ of her was; but dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos’ all los'. Ef we hadn’ dive’ so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn’ ben so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich punkin-heads, as de sayin’ is, we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis’ as well we didn't, ‘kase now she's all fixed up agin mos’ as good as new, en we's got a new lot o’ stuff, in de place o’ what ‘uz los'."

"Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim-did you catch her?"

"How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No; some er de zombys foun’ her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in a crick ‘mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin’ ‘bout which un ‘um she b'long to de mos’ dat I come to heah ‘bout it pooty soon, so I ups en settles de trouble by tellin’ ‘um she don't b'long to none uv um, but to you en me; en I ast ‘m if dey gwyne to grab a young white genlman's propaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I gin ‘m ten cents apiece, en dey ‘uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo’ raf's ‘ud come along en make ‘m rich agin. Dey's mighty good to me, dese baggers is, sma'test I ever did meet, en whatever I wants ‘m to do fur me I doan’ have to ast ‘m twice, honey. Dat Jack's a good bagger, en pooty clever."

"Yes, he is. Grangerford money buys the best of the bunch. These almost as smart as you, Jim. But this bagger ain't ever told me you was here; told me to come, and he'd show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens
he
ain't mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it'll be the truth."

I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I'll cut it pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was-didn't seem to be anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs-nobody around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks I, what does it mean? Down by the wood-pile I comes across my bagger, and says:

"What's it all about?"

Says he:

"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?"

"No,” says I, “I don't."

"Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! ‘deed she has. She run off in de night some time-nobody don't know jis’ when; run off to get married to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know-leastways, so dey ‘spec. De fambly foun’ it out ‘bout half an hour ago-maybe a little mo'-en’ I
tell
you dey warn't no time los'. Sich another hurryin’ up guns en hosses
you
never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up de relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de river road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him ‘fo’ he kin git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n dey's gwyne to be mighty rough times."