哈克贝利·费恩历险记(插图·中文导读英文版)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)


发布时间:2020-05-18 03:42:29

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作者:(美)马克·吐温(Twain, M.)

出版社:清华大学出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

哈克贝利·费恩历险记(插图·中文导读英文版)

哈克贝利·费恩历险记(插图·中文导读英文版)试读:

前言

马克·吐温(Mark Twain,1835—1910),美国著名作家,十九世纪后期美国现实主义文学的杰出代表,被誉为“美国文学中的林肯”、“美国文学之父”。马克·吐温是他的笔名,他的原名塞缪尔·朗荷恩·克列门斯。

1835年11月30日,马克·吐温出生于美国密西西比河畔小城汉尼拔。他的父亲是当地的律师,收入微薄,家境拮据。在他四岁的时候,母亲去世,他们一家迁往密苏里州密西西比河的一个港口,而这就成为了他后来的著作《汤姆·索亚历险记》和《顽童流浪记》中圣彼得堡的城市的灵感。那时的密苏里州是联邦的奴隶州,而年轻的吐温开始了解奴隶制,这成为了往后在他的历险小说中的主题。十二岁时,父亲去世,他从此开始了独立的劳动生活,当过排字工人、密西西比河水手、士兵和记者,还经营过木材业、矿业和出版业,但他最出色的工作是从事文学创作。

马克·吐温一生著作颇丰,代表作有《汤姆·索亚历险记》、《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》、《竞选州长》、《百万英镑》等。他的创作大致可分为三个时期:早期作品表现了对美国民主所存的幻想,以短篇为主,幽默与讽刺结合,如短篇小说《竞选州长》、《哥尔斯密的朋友再度出洋》等;中期以长篇小说为主,讽刺性加强,如《镀金时代》、《哈克贝里·费恩历险记》及《傻瓜威尔逊》等;后期作品则由幽默讽刺转到愤怒的揭发、谴责,甚至有悲观的情绪,如《赤道环行记》、《败坏了哈德莱堡的人》、《神秘来客》等。他的作品对后来的美国文学产生了深远的影响,人们普遍认为马克·吐温是美国文学史上里程碑式的人物。美国著名作家威廉·福克纳称马克·吐温为“第一位真正的美国作家,我们都是继承他而来”。著名盲人作家海伦·凯勒说:“我喜欢马克·吐温——谁会不喜欢他呢?即使是上帝,亦会钟爱他,赋予其智慧,并于其心灵里绘画出一道爱与信仰的彩虹”。他的主要作品大多已有中文译本。

在马克·吐温的众多杰作中,《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》是他最重要的代表作之一,《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》以哈克贝利为故事中心,以成人为主要读者,思想内容更深刻,艺术风格更独特,是作者佳作之一,同时也是世界文学宝库中的经典之作。海明威曾说:“所有美国现代文学皆起源于马克·吐温的一本书,名叫《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》……这是我们前所未有的最佳之作”这部小说把现实主义的细致刻画和浪漫主义的抒情描写紧密结合,把人物心理的剖析和幽默风趣的想象紧密结合,自然而又生动地展现了美国南北战争前密西西比河流域的风土人情和社会面貌,既歌颂了追求自由的决心和毅力,也赞美了良知战胜社会偏见,还揭露了宗教礼法和努力制度对人性的扭曲。浓重的乡土气息,丰富的南方方言,流浪汉小说的结构形式,天真儿童的视角,幽默的调侃,尖锐的讽刺,细致入微的心理描写,寓意深刻的象征手法,充分表现了马克·吐温无与伦比的艺术造诣。这部小说和《汤姆·索亚历险记》并列作为美国文学史上的一个辉煌的里程碑,对美国文学,乃至世界文学的发展都产生了深刻的影响。

在中国,《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》同样是最受广大青少年读者欢迎的经典小说之一。目前在中国出版的各类版本总计不下50种。作为世界文学宝库中的传世经典之作,它影响了一代又一代人的美丽童年、少年直至成年。目前,在国内数量众多的《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》书籍中,主要的出版形式有两种:一种是中文翻译版,另一种是中英文对照版。其中的中英文对照读本比较受读者的欢迎,这主要是得益于中国人热衷于学习英文的大环境。从英文学习的角度来看,直接使用纯英文的学习资料更有利于英语学习。考虑到对英文内容背景的了解有助于英文阅读,使用中文导读应该是一种比较好的方式,也可以说是该类型书的第三种版本形式。采用中文导读而非中英文对照的方式进行编排,这样有利于国内读者摆脱对英文阅读依赖中文注释的习惯。基于以上原因,我们决定编译《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》,并采用中文导读英文版的形式出版。在中文导读中,我们尽力使其贴近原作的精髓,也尽可能保留原作简洁、精练、明快的风格。我们希望能够编出为当代中国读者所喜爱的经典读本。读者在阅读英文故事之前,可以先阅读中文导读内容,这样有利于了解故事背景,从而加快阅读速度。同时,为了读者更好地理解故事内容,书中加入了大量插图。我们相信,该经典著作的引进对加强当代中国读者,特别是青少年读者的人文修养是非常有帮助的。

本书主要内容由王勋、纪飞编译。参加本书故事素材搜集整理及编译工作的还有郑佳、刘乃亚、熊金玉、赵雪、李丽秀、熊红华、王婷婷、孟宪行、胡国平、李晓红、贡东兴、陈楠、邵舒丽、冯洁、王业伟、徐鑫、王晓旭、周丽萍、熊建国、徐平国、肖洁、王小红等。限于我们的科学、人文素养和英语水平,书中难免会有不当之处,衷心希望读者朋友批评指正。第一章 摩西和“赶牛人”Chapter 1 Discover Moses and the Bulrushers导读

你看过《汤姆·索亚历险记》吗?书的结尾是汤姆和我找到了强盗窃藏在山洞里的六千块金洋,法官撒切尔替我们放利每人每天得一块金洋,达格丝寡妇收我做了她的干儿子,我受不了她的正经规矩就溜走了。汤姆·索亚打算组织一伙人当强盗,他要我回到寡妇身边,先做体面人才能加入。

寡妇管我叫迷途羔羊,带我做饭前祷告,跟我讲摩西和“赶牛人”的故事。我对死去的人不感兴趣,我想抽烟,寡妇不让,可她自己却闻鼻烟。

她妹妹瓦岑小姐是个很瘦的老姑娘,戴着一副眼镜,逼着我学拼音,并跟我讲好多规矩;我说我想去地狱,不想跟她上天堂。我问她汤姆·索亚能不能上天堂,她说不能。这样我又能和他在一起了。晚上祷告后,我上楼本打算想点高兴的事,但是远处猫头鹰的笑声、夜鹰的嚎声以及野鬼的叫声,弄得我非常沮丧。

远处,镇上的钟声响了十二下,我掏出烟斗抽上一袋烟,隐隐约约听见了外面传来的猫叫声——汤姆·索亚在等着我呢!

Y OU 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.逼我学拼音

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 dismal 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 nothing 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, 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 lonesome. By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was offto 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 shining, 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 easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.I got so downhearted 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 shriveled 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 little 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 listened.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.第二章 秘密的誓词/Chapter 2 Our Gang’s Dark Oath导读

我们踮着脚走到厨房附近时,我让树根绊了一跤,被坐在门口的瓦岑小姐的大个黑奴吉姆听到,他问:“谁在那里呀?”

他走过来,正好站在我们两个中间,我觉得浑身痒得难受,吉姆干脆坐在我和汤姆当中的地上,非要弄个明白,大概有六七分钟的样子,我们听到吉姆的呼噜声,就爬开了。

我们偷偷溜到厨房拿了三支蜡烛,并在桌上放了五分钱。汤姆爬回吉姆那里,把他的帽子挂在头顶的一根树枝上。我们绕过花园墙,来到对面很陡的小山顶上。

从此以后,吉姆总是对人说:他被妖怪迷惑住了,妖怪骑着他周游了全世界。他把那五分钱用绳子拴着,套在脖子上,说随时可以给人治病——只要在那钱上念几句咒,就能把妖怪叫来。许多黑人从四面八方来,把随身的东西都送给吉姆,只为看一眼那个钱。吉姆非常神气,对谁都不放在眼里。

我和汤姆走下山去,见到周·哈波和卞·罗介还有其他两三个孩子,我们乘上一只小木船,又在山根下一块大石壁旁上了岸。

汤姆指着丛林最密处的山洞,让我们起誓保守秘密,然后我们点起蜡烛来到一处又湿又冷、墙上挂满水珠的小屋似的地方,汤姆说:“我们成立汤姆·索亚团,谁要加入,当众宣誓,用血写下名字。”汤姆宣布了誓约,其内容是:每个人都应效忠本团,不能泄密;若有人冒犯本团成员,命令谁去杀掉那人全家,谁都必须执行命令;在没把本团的暗号十字砍在死尸胸脯之前,不许吃饭、睡觉;非本团成员不准使用暗号;若谁泄密,就割断喉咙,烧毁尸体,撒掉骨灰,用血涂去名字把他忘掉。成立汤姆·索亚团

有人提议把泄密者的全家都杀掉,可我没家人,就把瓦岑小姐提出来,大家说行。于是我们用针把手指扎破,挤出血来签名。大伙儿决定专门抢掠、谋杀。在大道上无论公私马东一律拦住,把人杀死,抢劫他们的财宝,或者不把人杀死,把他们囚禁起来,等着被赎。

随后大家选汤姆·索亚为正团长,周·哈波为副团长,然后就回家了。

W E went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back toward 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 upward of a thousand places.Pretty soon Jim says:

“Say, who is you?Whar is you?Dog my cats ef I didn'hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do:I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it ag'in.”

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine.My nose begun to itch.It itched till the tears come into my eyes.But I dasn't scratch.Then it begun to itch on the inside.Next I got to itching underneath.I didn't know how I was going to set still.This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes;but it seemed a sight longer than that.I was itching in eleven different places now.I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try.Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy;next he begun to snore—and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we 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 disturbance, 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 didn't wake.Afterward Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the state, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans;and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils.Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so hewouldn't hardly notice the other niggers.Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country.Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire;but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say,“Hm!What you know'bout witches?”and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.Jim always kept that five-center piece 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 saying 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 hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, 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 Joe 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.”

Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it.It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets;and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band.And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued;and if he done it again he must be killed.And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off 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 killher.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.

“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 mostly it's considered best to kill them—except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed.”

“Ransomed?What's that?”

“I don't know. But that's what they do.I've seen it in books;and so of course that's what we've got to do.”

“But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?”

“Why, blame it all, we've got to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the books?Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, and get things all muddled up?”

“Oh, that's all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it to them?—that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?”

“Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead.”

“Now, that's something like. That'll answer.Why couldn't you 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 trying to get loose.”

“How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?”

“A guard!Well, that is good. So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them.I think that's foolishness.Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?”

“Because it ain't in the books so—that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or don't you?—that's the idea.Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what’s the correct thing to do?Do you reckon you can learn’em anything?Not by a good deal.No, sir, we’ll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.’‘All right. I don't mind;but I say it's a fool way, anyhow.Say, do we kill the women, too?'

“Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill the women?No;nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them;and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home 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 fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers.But go ahead, I ain’t got nothing to say.”

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 crybaby, 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 Joe 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.第三章 伏击阿拉伯人/Chapter 3 We Ambuscade the A-rabs导读

早晨起来,瓦岑小姐因为我弄脏了衣服狠狠地教训了我一通。可是寡妇没骂我,只是把我的衣服都洗干净了。随后瓦岑小姐领我到小屋去祷告,说这样可以想要什么就得到什么。可我回想以往发现这个办法老是不管用。我问寡妇原因,她说祷告能得到的是些“精神礼物”,不是物质的,还告诫我要帮助别人,不要老想自己。

爸爸有一年多没露面了,去年有人发现他在河里淹死了,仰面朝天漂在水面上。可我知道,淹死的男人是不会仰面朝天的——老头子不久还会回来。

我们隔几天就当一回强盗,玩了一段时间就不干了——这样常常进攻放猪的人和赶集的女人,一点儿意思也没有。一次,汤姆说得到情报,第二天有整队的西班牙商人和阿拉伯富翁要在好雷洞安营扎寨,他们带有大象、骆驼和“驮骡”,载满了钻石,并让我们预先埋伏,把人通通杀死,把财宝抢下来。第二天,我们一接到命令,就马上跳出树林,根本没有西班牙商人和财宝,只是一群主日学校的初级班学生在野餐,领队的老师反攻过来,我们扔下东西就跑了。

我问汤姆·索亚为什么没有商人和钻石。他说魔术家把他们变成了主日学校的学生。我要找魔术家算账,汤姆说我们干不过他们。我建议找几个妖怪来帮忙。反过来被人追赶

汤姆说,把一盏旧锡灯或一个小铁圈用手一擦,妖怪就会一阵风似的跑来,你让他干什么就干什么;并说就是让他用金刚钻盖一座宫殿,里面装满了你想要的一切,他也能办到!

我想他们真是一群傻蛋,干嘛不留着自己用呢?!

我决定试一试,于是找了一盏旧锡灯、一个小铁环,跑到小树林里摩擦了一遍又一遍,出了一身汗,但是一点用也没有。

W ELL, 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 snuff-box that was stole?Why can't Miss Watson fat up?No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it.I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was“spiritual gifts.”This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant—I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself.This was including Miss Watson, as I took it.I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it—except for the other people;so at last I reckoned I wouldn’t worry about it any more, but just let it go.Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body’smouth 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 a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.

Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me;I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me;though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around.Well, about this time he was found in the river 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 floating on his back in the water.They took him and buried him on the bank.But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something.I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don’t float on his back, but on his face.So I knowed, then, that this warn’t pap, but a woman dressed up in a man’s clothes.So I was uncomfortable again.I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he wouldn’t.

We played 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 hogdrivers 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 sign for the Gang to gettogether),and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand“sumter”mules, all loaded down with 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 broomsticks, 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 hollow;but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Joe 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 Zuixote, 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 Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.”用旧锡灯和小铁环召唤妖怪

“Well,”I says,“s'pose we got some genies to help us—can't we lick the other crowd then?”

“How you going to get them?”

“I don't know. How do they get them?”

“Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it—or any other man.”

“Who makes them tear around so?”

“Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says.If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill it full of chew-ing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it—and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too.And more:they’ve got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand.”

“Well,”says I,“I think they are a pack of fatheads for not keeping the palace themselves'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's more—if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.”

“How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not.”

“What!and I as high as a tree and as big as a church?All right, then;I would come;but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country.”

“Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to know anything, somehow—perfect saphead.”

I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and wentout in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace, and sell it;but it warn't no use, none of the genies come.So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies.I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different.It had all the marks of a Sunday-school.第四章 毛球算卦/Chapter 4 The Hair-ball Oracle导读

三四个月时间过去了,冬天到了。我一直在上学,但我对算术一点都不感兴趣,厌倦的时候我就逃学。第二天的那顿板子对我不算什么,反而能使我振作起来。天不冷的时候我到林子里睡觉,那样才真叫休息。

一天早上,我在饭桌上不小心把盐罐儿打翻了,这预示着什么不好的兆头。我吃完饭就出去了,不知道还会遇到什么更坏的事情。我来到花园,地上的雪有一英尺厚,发现地上左靴子脚印的后跟上有个大钉子的十字架——一个避邪的十字架。

我马上跑到法官撒切尔的家,他问我是不是来取利钱的,半年总共一百五十多块呢,我说我不想要它了,连本钱也不想要了。他就在纸上写了些字说明我把自己的财产都卖给他了,然后给了我一块钱,我画了个押就走了。

黑奴吉姆有个拳头大的毛球,他常用它耍把戏,说里面有神仙。晚上我去找他,告诉他我发现了爸爸的脚印,让他算一算爸爸想干什么。

吉姆算了算说,你爸爸也拿不定主意干什么。他还说我命里会遇到两个姑娘,应离水越远越好,卦上还说我要死在断头台上。

夜里我回到楼上卧室,爸爸正在里面坐着呢!

WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever.I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway.发现脚印

At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up.So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be.I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me.Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me.I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit.The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory.She said she warn't ashamed of me.

One morning I happened to turn over the saltcellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off.She says,“Take your hands away, Huckleberry;what a mess you are always making!”The widow put in a good word for me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough.I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be.There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one of them kind;so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.

I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebody's tracks.They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence.It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so.I couldn't make it out.It was very curious, somehow.I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first.I didn't notice anything at first, but next I did.Therewas a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.

I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody.I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I could get there.He said:

“Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?”

“No, sir,”I says;“is there some for me?”

“Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night—over a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you.You had better let me invest it along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it.”

“No, sir,”I says,“I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at all—nor the six thousand, nuther.I want you to take it;I want to give it to you—the six thousand and all.”

He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out.He says:

“Why, what can you mean, my boy?”

I says,“Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take it—won't you?”

He says:

“Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?”

“Please take it,”says I,“and don't ask me nothing—then I won't have to tell no lies.”

He studied a while, and then he says:

“Oho-o!I think I see. You want to sell all your property to me—not give it.That's the correct idea.”

Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:

“There;you see it says‘for a consideration.'That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you.Now you sign it.”

So I signed it, and left.

Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything.So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in thesnow.What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay?Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor.It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch.Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same.Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened.But it warn't no use;he said it wouldn't talk.He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without money.I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn’t pass nohow, even if the brass didn’t show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time.(I reckoned I wouldn’t say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.)I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn’t know the difference.Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it was good.He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldn’t see no brass, and it wouldn’t feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball.Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.

Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right.He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to.I says, go on.So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me.He says:

“Yo'ole father doan'know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec he'll go'way, en den ag’in he spec he’ll stay.De bes’way is to res’easy en let de ole man take his own way.Dey’s two angels hoverin’roun’’bout him.One uv’em is white en shiny, en t’other one is black.De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up.A body can’t tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las’.But you is all right.You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo’life, en considable joy.Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick;but every time you’s gwyne to git well ag’in.Dey’s two gals flyin’’bout you in yo’life.One uv’em’s light ent’other one is dark.One is rich en t’other is po’.You’s gwyne to marry de po’one fust en de rich one by en by.You wants to keep’way fum de water as much as you kin, en don’t run no resk,’kase it’s down in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung.”

When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap—his own self!第五章 爸爸开始新生活/Chapter 5 Pap Starts in on a New Life导读

爸爸快五十岁了,穿的衣服只是一身破烂布,鞋子也露着脚趾,帽顶也陷了进去,像个锅盖似的。

他坐在那里问我要钱。我告诉他我没有钱了。他说知道钱在法官那里,明天去找他要回来,又把我身上仅有的一块钱也拿走了。第二天他喝醉了到法官家里闹,并说如果他不拿出钱来就到法院告他。

法官和寡妇来到法院,想当我的保护人。可新任审判官上任不久,说无论如何不能让一个做儿子的跟父亲散伙,法官和寡妇只好丢开不管了。

这下老头子高兴了,非让我给他钱,要不就用鞭子抽我,我到法官那里借了三块钱,爸爸拿了钱去喝得烂醉,还到处乱骂,闹到半夜,被法院判了一个星期的监禁。

他从看守所出来后,审判官劝他重新做人,并把他带回自己的公馆,打扮得干干净净,一起吃饭,要他戒酒,说得老头子直掉眼泪,下定决心重新做人。大家都很感动。接着老头子在保证书上画了押,审判官把老头子安排在楼上一间漂亮的屋子里,可是到了半夜他酒瘾大发,从窗上爬下楼来,用一件新衣服换了一瓶很猛的烧酒,爬回屋内,好好过了一下酒瘾。天快亮时他又爬到外面,从走廊上滚下来,把左胳膊摔断了,差点没痛死。审判官心里实在不好受,他认为要让老头子改邪归正,除非是让老头子死了!酒鬼爸爸

I had shut the door to. Then I turned around, and there he was.I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much.I reckoned I was scared now, too;but in a minute I see I was mistaken—that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected;but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth bothring about.

He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines.It was all black, no gray;so was his long, mixed-up whiskers.There warn't no color in his face, where his face showed;it was white;not like another man's white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl—a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white.As for his clothes—just rags, that was all.He had one ankle resting on t'other knee;the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then.His hat was laying on the floor—an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him;he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down.I noticed the window was up;so he had clumb in by the shed.He kept a-looking me all over.By and by he says:

“Starchy clothes—very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, don't you?”

“Maybe I am, maybe I ain't,”I says.

“Don't you give me none o'your lip,”says he.“You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you.You're educated, too, they say—can read and write.You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you, because he can’t?I’ll take it out of you.Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut’n foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?”

“The widow. She told me.”

“The widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business?”

“Nobody never told her.”

“Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that school, you hear?I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is.You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear?Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died.None of the family couldn’t before they died.I can’t;and here you’re a-swelling yourself up like this.I ain’t the man to stand it—you hear?Say, lemme hear you read.”

I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house.He says:

“It's so. You can do it.I had my doubts when you told me.Now looky here;you stop that putting on frills.I won't have it.I'll lay for you, my smarty;and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good.First you know you'll get religion, too.I never see such a son.”

He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says:

“What's this?”

“It's something they give me for learning my lessons good.”

He tore it up, and says:

“I'll give you something better—I'll give you a cowhide.”

He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:

“Ain't you a sweet-scented dandy, though?A bed;and bed-clothes;and a look'n'-glass;and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son.I bet I'll take some o'these frills out o’you before I’m done with you.Why, there ain’t no end to your airs—they say you’re rich.Hey?—how’s that?”

“They lie—that's how.”

“Looky here—mind how you talk to me;I'm a-standing about all I can stand now—so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't heard nothing but about you bein'rich.I heard about it away down the river, too.That’s why I come.You git me that money to-morrow—I want it.”

“I hain't got no money.”

“It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it.You git it.I want it.”

“I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher;he'll tell you the same.”

“All right. I'll ask him;and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why.Say, how much you got in your pocket?I want it.”

“I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to—”

“It don't make no difference what you want it for—you just shell it out.”

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down-town to get some whisky;said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him;and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that.

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money;but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian;but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didn't know the old man;so he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it;said he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business.

That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him.I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on;and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight;then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week.But he said he was satisfied;said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for him.

When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to break-fast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak.And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life;but now he was a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him.The judge said he could hug him for them words;so he cried, and his wife she cried again;pap said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it.The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so;so they cried again.And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:

“Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all;take a-hold of it;shake it. There's a hand that was the hand of a hog;but it ain't so no more;it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die before he’ll go back.You mark them words—don’t forget I said them.It’s a clean hand now;shake it—don’t be afeard.”

So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The judge's wife she kissed it.Then the old man he signed a pledge—made his mark.The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that.Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of fortyrod, and clumb back again and had a good old time;and toward daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up.And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it.

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way.第六章 爸爸大战索命鬼/Chapter 6 Pap Struggles with the Death Angel导读

不久,老头子伤好了,他到法院告撒切尔,让撒切尔把钱交出来。爸爸因为我没停学,还揍了我两回。

后来,他老去寡妇住的地方转,寡妇想让我变好,就警告他。他却说只有他自己才能管住我,让寡妇不要操心。

一次,他用船把我带到上游的一片森林里。我们白天捕鱼打猎,到了晚上他就把门锁起来睡觉。这样我总没机会逃跑。隔几天他就会把我锁在屋里,出去用猎物换些烧酒,常常喝得烂醉然后痛打我一顿。时间久了,我渐渐也喜欢上了这样懒惰的生活,除了挨鞭子这部分。

没过多久,因为爸爸总是动不动就拿硬木棍打我,我实在受不下去了,决心想办法逃出来。于是我把屋里翻了个遍,居然找到一把生锈的、没把的锯,我给它抹了点油,在离门口最远的地方锯下一节木头,快完工时,听见爸爸的枪声在林子里响了,我忙把工具收起来,爸爸就回来了。

爸爸说,他的律师说人家总有办法拖着不开庭,并说寡妇要打官司做我的保护人。接着老头子又骂了起来。

老头子叫我到船上去取他带回来的东西,把东西运到小屋时,天已快黑了。老头子又大喝了一阵,有点醉了,嚷嚷道:“这叫什么政府,算什么法律,人家刚把儿子养大,正要叫他做点事,来孝敬老子,可法律却跑来不依不饶,还给撒切尔撑腰,让我得不到自己的财产,一个人受这样的政府管,还能享受权利吗?”老头子抄起大刀满屋子追我

晚饭以后,爸爸又抱起酒瓶子。我揣摩等他一会儿醉得不省人事了,就把钥匙拿到手或是锯掉木头逃走。他喝了又喝,并没有睡,只是觉得难受,反倒是我睡着了。

不知睡了多长时间,我被爸爸的尖叫声惊醒,他说有条蛇咬了他的脖子,让我帮他揪下来。可我没发现蛇,我从来没见过一个人眼睛里会显出这么惊慌的神气。他还用手在空中乱抓,说让小鬼抓着了。过了一会儿,他乏累了,静静地躺着哼哼。远处林子里猫头鹰和狼的叫声越发叫人觉得可怕。

不久,他跳了起来,抄起一把大刀,在屋子里来回赶我,并管我叫追命鬼。他说只要杀掉我这个追命鬼我就没办法再追他的命了。我告诉他我是哈克,他惨笑一声,继续追我。一会儿,他便累倒在地上,说先歇一歇再来杀我。

他很快打起盹来,我马上取下枪,用铁条探一探,知道枪筒里确实装好了弹药,就把枪口对准了爸爸。

W ELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time.I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap.That law trial was a slow business—appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on it;so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding.Every time he got money he got drunk;and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town;and every time he raised Cain he got jailed.He was just suited—this kind of thing was right in his line.

He got to hanging around the widow's too much, and so she told him at last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasn't he mad?He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss.So hewatched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it was.

He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights.He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on.Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me.The widow she found out where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me;but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it—all but the cowhide part.

It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time.I didn't want to go back no more.I had stopped cussing, because the widow didn't like it;but now I took to it again because pap hadn’t no objections.It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around.

But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand it. I was all over welts.He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in.Once he locked me in and was gone three days.It was dreadful lonesome.

I judged he had got drowned, and I wasn't ever going to get out any more. I was scared.I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there.I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I couldn't find no way.There warn't a window to it big enough for a dog to get through.I couldn't get up the chimbly;it was too narrow.The door was thick, solid oak slabs.Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away;Ireckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times;well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time.But this time I found something at last;I found an old rusty wood-saw without any handle;it was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof.I greased it up and went to work.There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out.I got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out—big enough to let me through.Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting toward the end of it when I heard pap's gun in the woods.I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in.

Pap warn't in a good humor—so he was his natural self. He said he was down-town, and everything was going wrong.His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial;but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it And he said people allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time.This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it.Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn’t know the names of, and so called them what’s-his-name when he got to them, and went right along with his cussing.

He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find me.That made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute;I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that chance.

The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got. There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon, ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two newspapers for wadding, besides some tow.I toted up a load, and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest.I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and take to the woods when I run away.I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly nighttimes, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more.I judged I would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would.I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.

I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up, and went to ripping again.He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.A body would'a'thought he was Adam—he was just all mud.Whenever his liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment.This time he says:

“Call this a govment!Why, just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him—a man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising.Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin'for him and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him.And they call that govment!That ain’t all, nuther.The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o’my property.Here’s what the law does:The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up’ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain’t fitten for a hog.They call that govment!A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this.Sometimes I’ve a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all.Yes, and I told’em so;I told old Thatcher so to his face.Lots of’em heard me, and can tell what I said.Says I, for two cents I’dleave the blamed country and never come a-near it ag’in.Them’s the very words.I says, look at my hat—if you call it a hat—but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it’s below my chin, and then it ain’t rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o’stove-pipe.Look at it, says I—such a hat for me to wear—one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights.

“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here.There was a free nigger there from Ohio—a mulatter, most as white as a white man.He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat;and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had;and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane—the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state.And what do you think?They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything.And that ain't the wust.They said he could vote when he was at home.Well, that let me out.Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to?It was'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there;but when they told me there was a state in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out.I says I’ll never vote ag’in.Them’s the very words I said;they all heard me;and the country may rot for all me—I’ll never vote ag’in as long as I live.And to see the cool way of that nigger—why, he wouldn’t’a’give me the road if I hadn’t shoved him out o’the way.I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?—that’s what I want to know.And what do you reckon they said?Why, they said he couldn’t be sold till he’d been in the state six months, and he hadn’t been there that long yet.There, now—that’s a specimen.They call that a govment that can’t sell a free nigger till he’s been in the state six months.Here’s a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet’s got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a-hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and—”

Pap was a-going on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and barkedboth shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of language—mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick.But it warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it;so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes;and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous.He said so his own self afterwards.He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too;but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.

After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word.I judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other.He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets by and by;but luck didn't run my way.He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy.He groaned and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for a long time.At last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.

I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes.He said they was crawling up his legs;and then he would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheek—but I couldn't see no snakes.He started and run round and round the cabin, hollering“Take him off!take him off!he's biting me on the neck!”I never see a man look so wild in the eyes.Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting;then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him.He wore out by and by, and laid still a while, moaning.Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound.I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still.He was laying over by the corner.By and by he raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side.He says, very low:

“Tramp—tramp—tramp;that's the dead;tramp—tramp—tramp;they're coming after me;but I won't go. Oh, they're here!don't touch me—don’t!hands off—they’re cold;let go.Oh, let a poor devil alone!”

Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging;and then he went to crying. I could hear him through the blanket.

By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me, and then I couldn't come for him no more.I begged, and told him I was only Huck;but he laughed such a screechy laugh, and roared and cussed, and kept on chasing me up.Once when I turned short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone;but I slid out of the jacket quick as lightning, and saved myself.Pretty soon he was all tired out, and dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me.He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who.

So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the old splitbottom chair and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the gun.I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, and then I laid it across the turnip-barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down behind it to wait for him to stir.And how slow and still the time did drag along.第七章 从爸爸眼皮底下跑掉/Chapter 7 I Fool Pap and Get Away导读

第二天早上,我被爸爸叫醒了。他问我拿枪干什么,我料想他不知道昨天晚上的事,就告诉有人想进屋来,可是我又叫不醒他,所以我只好埋伏起来。他让我去看看钓到鱼了没有,好预备早饭。我到河岸时发现涨水了。

我沿着河岸往上游走去,看到有一只独木船漂了下来,就连衣服都没脱游了过去,然后爬上船把它划到岸边。我想老头子看到船一定会非常高兴的,但是等了一会儿我就决定把船藏起来以便我逃跑的时候用。我刚把船藏好,就见老头子一个人顺着小道过来了,我急忙装作在用力往上拖“拦河钩”的绳子,他却怪我慢手慢脚的。我谎称自己掉到水里去了,他并不怀疑,于是我们摘下五条大鱼就回家了。

吃完早饭,刚刚睡了一会儿,爸爸就撑起身子,喝了一罐水后叮嘱我,如果有人再来,一定要把他叫醒,他要用枪打死那个人,然后倒地睡着了。他说的话正好帮我出了个好主意。

十二点钟左右,我们在河里捞到了一节木筏——由九根木材连在一起的,然后就回去吃午饭了。他想早点到镇上去卖掉木材,于是下午三点左右的时候便把我锁在屋里,用小船拖着木筏就动身走了。我认为晚上他都回不来的,就立马拿出锯,把木头锯掉。他还没划到对岸,我早已经出来了。

我把有用的东西都拿出来,搬到独木船上,并把枪也拿出来,藏在一个洞内,又把洞外也好好收拾了一遍,使别人看不出来里面的玄机。我平平地躺在船底

我走进树林本打算打几只鸟,迎面碰见了一头野猪。我突然有了一个好主意,我一枪将它打死并拖回住处,用斧头砍破了房门,乱砸乱劈一阵,用猪血制造了现场。这时天就快要黑了,我将独木船漂到柳树底下拴好,只等月亮上来。我吃了点东西,心想他们一定会以为我被强盗杀死,扔进河里,并到处打捞我的尸体,还会去追赶抢了东西的强盗!

我累得很,不知不觉睡着了,醒来的时候听见远处有摇桨的声音。隔着柳枝我发现远处有一条小船,等它漂近,我看到船上只有一个人,打我面前顺流而下,把船划到水流和缓的地方上了岸,那人正是爸爸,他今天没喝醉。

我一点儿也不敢耽搁,一口气划了二英里半,然后把船划向中流,我怕有人见到我,对我打招呼,就平平地躺在船底,让它随便漂着。我抽着烟,好好歇了一阵。我听见码头上人们闲谈的声音渐渐远去,便站起身来,看见甲克森岛就在前面。

我没费多大工夫,就到了那儿。把船拴好的,我上了岸,又走到树林里躺下,想在早饭前睡一觉。

“G IT up!What you'bout?”

I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. It was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep.Pap was standing over me looking sour—and sick, too.

He says:

“What you doin'with this gun?”

I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I says:

“Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him.”

“Why didn't you roust me out?”

“Well, I tried to, but I couldn't;I couldn't budge you.”

“Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast.I'll be along in a minute.”

He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the riverbank. I noticed somepieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark;so I knowed the river had begun to rise.I reckoned I would have great times now if I was over at the town.The June rise used to be always luck for me;because as soon as that rise begins here comes cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts—sometimes a dozen logs together;so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the woodyards and the sawmill.

I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one out for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a canoe;just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding high like a duck.I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe.I just expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd raise up and laugh at him.But it warn't so this time.It was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore.Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this—she's worth ten dollars.But when I got to shore pap wasn’t in sight yet, and as I was running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and willows, I struck another idea:I judged I’d hide her good, and then,’stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I’d go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time tramping on foot.

It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man coming all the time;but I got her hid;and then I out and looked around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen anything.

When he got along I was hard at it taking up a“trot”line. He abused me a little for being so slow;but I told him I fell in the river, and that was what made me so long.I knowed he would see I was wet, and then he would be asking questions.We got five catfish off the lines and went home.

While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing than trusting to luck toget far enough off before they missed me;you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see no way for a while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water, and he says:

“Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you hear?That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him.Next time you roust me out, you hear?”

Then he dropped down and went to sleep again;what he had been saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody won't think of following me.

About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise.By and by along comes part of a log raft—nine logs fast together.We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore.Then we had dinner.Anybody but pap would'a'waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more stuff;but that warn't pap's style.Nine logs was enough for one time;he must shove right over to town and sell.So he locked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half past three.I judged he wouldn’t come back that night.I waited till I reckoned he had got a good start;then I out with my saw, and went to work on that log again.Before he was t’other side of the river I was out of the hole;him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.

I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in;then I done the same with the side of bacon;then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition;I took the wadding;I took the bucket and gourd;I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot.I took fish-lines and matches and other things—everything that was worth a cent.I cleaned out the place.I wanted an ax, but there wasn't any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that.I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.

I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside byscattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust.Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground.If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you wouldn't never notice it;and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there.

It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I followed around to see.I stood on the bank and looked out over the river.All safe.So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig;hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairiefarms.I shot this fellow and took him into camp.

I took the ax and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it considerable a-doing it.I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the ax, and laid him down on the ground to bleed;I say ground because it was ground—hard packed, and no boards.Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it—all I could drag—and I started it from the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight.You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground.I did wish Tom Sawyer was there;I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches.Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.

Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the ax good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the ax in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket(so he couldn't drip)till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river.Now I thought of something else.So I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house.I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the place—pap done everything with his clasp-knife about thecooking.Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes—and ducks too, you might say, in the season.There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river.The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake.I dropped pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident.Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn’t leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again.

It was about dark now;so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow;then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan.I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me.And they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things.They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass.They'll soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me.All right;I can stop anywhere I want to.Jackson’s Island is good enough for me;I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there.And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I want.Jackson’s Island’s the place.

I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute.I set up and looked around, a little scared.Then I remembered.The river looked miles and miles across.The moon was so bright I could'a'counted the drift-logs that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from shore.Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and smelt late.You know what I mean—I don't know the words to put it in.

I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened.Pretty soon I made it out.It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working inrowlocks when it's a still night.I peeped out through the willow branches, and there it was—a skiff, away across the water.I couldn't tell how many was in it.It kept a-coming, and when it was abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it.Thinks I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him.He dropped below me with the current, and by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water, and he went by so close I could’a’reached out the gun and touched him.Well, it was pap, sure enough—and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars.

I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down-stream soft, but quick, in the shade of the bank.I made two mile and a half, and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry-landing, and people might see me and hail me.I got out amongst the driftwood, and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float.I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky;not a cloud in it.The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine;I never knowed it before.And how far a body can hear on the water such nights!I heard people talking at the ferry-landing.I heard what they said, too—every word of it.One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights now.T'other one said this warn't one of the short ones, he reckoned—and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed again;then they waked up another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh;he ripped out something brisk, and said let him alone.The first fellow said he'lowed to tell it to his old woman—she would think it was pretty good;but he said that warn’t nothing to some things he had said in his time.I heard one man say it was nearly three o’clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn’t wait more than about a week longer.After that the talk got further and further away, and I couldn’t make out the words any more;but I could hear the mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.

I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson's Island, about two mile and a half down-stream, heavy-timbered and standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like a steamboat without anylights.There warn't any signs of the bar at the head—it was all under water now.

It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side towards the Illinois shore.I run the canoe into a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about;I had to part the willow branches to get in;and when I made fast nobody could'a'seen the canoe from the outside.

I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile up-stream, coming along down, with a lantern in the middle of it.I watched it come creeping down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say,“Stern oars, there!heave her head to stabboard!”I heard that just as plain as if the man was by my side.

There was a little gray in the sky now;so I stepped into the woods, and laid down for a nap before breakfast.第八章 我宽恕了瓦岑小姐家的吉姆/Chapter 8 I Spare Miss Watson’s Jim导读

我睡醒的时候,太阳已经很高,突然间听见“砰”的一声响,我隔着树叶看过去,发现一群人乘船从上游下来在向水里开枪——他们打算用这种方法让我的尸体浮起来。

等船靠近时,我看见船上有爸爸、法官撒切尔、周·哈波和汤姆·索亚,另外还有许多人。人人都在谈论这起凶杀案,他们沿着小岛搜索了一圈,没发现什么后就开足马力向上游回家了。

我知道我可以安心了,我用毯子搭了个帐篷,把小船上的东西放在地下,又捉了条大鲶鱼做了一顿晚饭吃,觉得满意极了。

第四天我打算到整个岛上看看,以便知道整个小岛的情况。我在森林里乱跑了一阵,忽然踩在一堆还在冒烟的火灰上,我忽然警觉起来,飞快地往回跑。我把东西又收拾到小船上,把灰撒开爬到树上去了。

晚上,我饿极了,就划船过河到对岸做了顿晚饭。饭后把小船拴在老地方,打算睡在小船里,可怎么也睡不着——我一定要去看看谁和我一起藏在岛上。

我乘小船来到岛尾,上了岸,朝白天见到火堆的地方走去,看见地上躺着一个人,头上蒙着一条毯子,我藏在他身后。天蒙蒙亮的时候,那人坐了起来,原来是瓦岑小姐家的吉姆。

吉姆见到我,十分害怕,以为见到了鬼。我告诉他我还活着,吉姆说他是我被“杀”的那天晚上跑出来的,几天来,一直吃杨梅一类的东西,都饿坏了。我领他来到独木船停泊的地方,生火做了一顿早饭,吉姆使劲往肚子里装,因为他快饿死了。吉姆问我在小屋里被杀的人如果不是我那会是谁,我把事情都告诉他了,他说我耍得真漂亮。我飞快地往回跑

我问吉姆为什么在这里,他说有天晚上听见老小姐对寡妇说打算为了八百块钱把他卖到奥尔良去,他就跑了出来,晚上爬上木筏顺流而下,就到这里了。

吉姆想到自己值八百块钱,觉得自己很阔,感到很满足。

T HE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied.I could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all about, and gloomy in there amongst them.There was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze up there.A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly.

I was powerful lazy and comfortable—didn't want to get up and cook breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep sound of“boom!”away up the river.I rouses up, and rests on my elbow and listens;pretty soon I hears it again.I hopped up, and went and looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways up—about abreast the ferry.And there was the ferryboat full of people floating along down.I knowed what was the matter now.“Boom!”I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's side.You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my carcass come to the top.

I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire, because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the cannon-smoke and listened to the boom.The river was a mile wide there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning—so I was having a good enough time seeing themhunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to eat.Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the drownded carcass and stop there.So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show.I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed.A big double loaf come along, and I most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further.Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore—I knowed enough for that.But by and by along comes another one, and this time I won.I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in.It was“baker’s bread”—what the quality eat;none of your low-down corn-pone.

I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching the bread and watching the ferryboat, and very well satisfied. And then something struck me.I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it.So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing—that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind.

I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in close, where the bread did.When she'd got pretty well along down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place.Where the log forked I could peep through.

By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could'a'run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat.Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Joe Harper, and Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more.Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says:

“Look sharp, now;the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he'swashed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I hope so, anyway.”

“I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might.I could see them first-rate, but they couldn't see me.Then the captain sung out:

“Stand away!”and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deefwith the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone. If they'd'a'had some bullets in, I reckon they'd'a’got the corpse they was after.Well, I see I warn’t hurt, thanks to goodness.The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island.I could hear the booming now and then, further and further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn’t hear it no more.The island was three mile long.I judged they had got to the foot, and was giving it up.But they didn’t yet a while.They turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went.I crossed over to that side and watched them.When they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town.

I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come ahunting after me.I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods.I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things under so the rain couldn't get at them.I catched a catfish and haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp-fire and had supper.Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast.

When it was dark I set by my camp-fire smoking, and feeling pretty well satisfied;but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the stars and drift-logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed;there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome;you can't stay so, you soon get over it.

And so for three days and nights. No difference—just the same thing.But the next day I went exploring around down through the island.I was boss of it;it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it;but mainly I wanted to put in the time.I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime;and green summer grapes, and green razberries;and the green blackberries was just beginning to show.They would all come handy by and by, I judged.

Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot nothing;it was for protection;thought I would kill some game nigh home.About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it.I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp-fire that was still smoking.

My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could.Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else.I slunk along another piece further, then listened again;and so on, and so on.If I see a stump, I took it for a man;if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too.

When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in my craw;but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last-year's camp, and then clumb a tree.

I reckon I was up in the tree two hours;but I didn't see nothing, I didn't hear nothing—I only thought I heard and seen as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever;so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time.All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast.

By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinoisbank—about a quarter of a mile.I went out in the woods and cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all night when I hear a plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk, and says to myself, horses coming;and next I hear people's voices.I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods to see what I could find out.I hadn't got far when I hear a man say:

“We better camp here if we can find a good place;the horses is about beat out. Let's look around.”

I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.

I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking.And every time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck.So the sleep didn't do me no good.By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way;I'm a-going to find out who it is that’s here on the island with me;I’ll find it out or bust.Well, I felt better right off.

So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day.I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound asleep.Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island.A little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying the night was about done.I give her a turn with the paddle and brung her nose to shore;then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge of the woods.I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the leaves.I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket the river.But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, and knowed the day was coming.So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp-fire, stopping every minute or two to listen.But I hadn't no luck somehow;I couldn't seem to find the place.But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees.I went for it, cautious and slow.By and by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground.It most give me the fantods.He had a blanket around his head, and hishead was nearly in the fire.I set there behind a clump of bushes in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady.It was getting gray daylight now.Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim!I bet I was glad to see him.I says:

“Hello, Jim!”and skipped out.

He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees, and puts his hands together and says:“Doan'hurt me—don't!I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz liked dead people, en done all I could for'em.You go en git in de river ag’in, whah you b’longs, en doan’do nuffn to Ole Jim,’at’uz awluz yo’fren’。”

Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so glad to see Jim.I warn't lonesome now.I told him I warn't afraid of him telling the people where I was.I talked along, but he only set there and looked at me;never said nothing.Then I says:

“It's good daylight. Le's get breakfast.Make up your camp-fire good.”

“What's de use er makin'up de camp-fire to cook strawbries en sich truck?But you got a gun, hain't you?Den we kin git sumfn better den strawbries.”

“Strawberries and such truck,”I says.“Is that what you live on?”

“I couldn'git nuffn else,”he says.

“Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?”

“I come heah de night arter you's killed.”

“What, all that time?”

“Yes—indeedy.”

“And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?”

“No, sah—nuffn else.”

“Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?”

“I reck'n I could eat a hoss. I think I could.How long you ben on de islan'?”

“Since the night I got killed.”

“No!W'y, what has you lived on?But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a gun.Dat's good.Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire.”

So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him with his knife, and fried him.

When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved.Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied.

By and by Jim says:

“But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat'uz killed in dat shanty ef it warn't you?”

Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had.Then I says:

“How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?”

He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he says:

“Maybe I better not tell.”

“Why, Jim?”

“Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn'tell on me ef I'uz to tell you, would you, Huck?”

“Blamed if I would, Jim.”

“Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I—I run off.”

“Jim!”

“But mind, you said you wouldn'tell—you know you said you wouldn'tell, Huck.”

“Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it.Honest injun, I will.People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don't make no difference.I ain't a-going to tell, and I ain't a-going back there, anyways.So, now, le’s know all about it.”

“Well, you see, it'uz dis way. Ole missus—dat's Miss Watson—she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn'sell me down to Orleans.But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader roun'de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy.Well, one night I creeps to de do'pooty late, en de do’warn’t quite shet, en I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn’want to, but she could git eight hund’d dollars for me, en it’uz sich a big stack o’money she couldn’resis’.De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn’do it, but I never waited to hear de res’.I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.

“I tuck out en shin down de hill, en'spec to steal a skift'long de sho'som'ers'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid in de ole tumbledown cooper shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go’way. Well, I wuz dah all night.Dey wuz somebody roun’all de time.’Long’bout six in de mawnin’skifts begin to go by, en’bout eight er nine every skift dat went’long wuz talkin’’bout how yo’pap come over to de town en say you’s killed.Dese las’skirts wuz full o’ladies en genlmen a-goin’over for to see de place.Sometimes dey’d pull up at de sho’en take a res’b’fo’dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to know all’bout de killin’.I’uz powerful sorry you’s killed, Huck, but I ain’t no mo’now.

“I laid dah under de shavin's all day I'uz hungry, but I warn't afeard;bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin'to start to de camp-meet'n’right arter breakfas’en be gone all day, en dey knows I goes off wid de cattle’bout daylight, so dey wouldn’’spec to see me roun’de place, en so dey wouldn’miss me tell arter dark in de evenin’. De yuther servants wouldn’miss me, kase dey’d shin out en take holiday soon as de ole folks‘uz out’n de way.

“Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went'bout two mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my mine'bout what I's a-gwyne to do.You see, ef I kep’on tryin’to git away afoot, de dogs’ud track me;ef I stole a skirt to cross over, dey’d miss dat skirt, you see, en dey’d know’bout whah I’d lan’on de yuther side, en whah to pick up my track.So I says, a raff is what I’s arter;it doan’make no track.

“I see a light a-comin'roun'de p'int bymeby, so I wade'in en shove'a log ahead o’me en swum more’n half-way acrost de river, en got in’mongst dedriftwood, en kep’my head down low, en kinder swum agin de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck a-holt.It clouded up en’uz pooty dark for a little while.So I clumb up en laid down on de planks.De men’uz all’way yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz.De river wuz arisin’,en dey wuz a good current;so I reck’n’d’at by fo’in de mawnin’I’d be twenty-five mile down de river, en den I’d slip in jis b’fo’daylight en swim asho’,en take to de woods on de Illinois side.

“But I didn'have no luck. When we'uz mos'down to de head er de islan'a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn't no use fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan’.Well, I had a notion I could lan’mos’anywhers, but I couldn’t—bank too bluff.I’uz mos’to de foot er de islan’b’fo’I found’a good place.I went into de woods en jedged I wouldn’fool wid raffs no mo,’long as dey move de lantern roun’so.I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg en some matches in my cap, en dey warn’t wet, so I’uz all right.”

“And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time?Why didn't you get mud-turkles?”

“How you gwyne to git'm?You can't slip up on um en grab um;en how's a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock?How could a body do it in de night?En I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime.”

“Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of course.Did you hear'em shooting the cannon?”

“Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you.I see um go by heah—watched um thoo de bushes.”

Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain.He said it was a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the same way when young birds done it.I was going to catch some of them, but Jim wouldn't let me.He said it was death.He said his father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny said his father would die, and he did.

And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck.

The same if you shook the tablecloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die.Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots;but I didn't believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting me.

I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them. Jim knowed all kinds of signs.He said he knowed most everything.I said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked him if there warn't any good-luck signs.He says:

“Mighty few—an'dey ain't no use to a body. What you want to know when good luck's a-comin'for?Want to keep it off?”And he said:“Ef you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas,’it’s a sign dat you’s a-gwyne to be rich.Well, dey’s some use in a sign like dat,’kase it’s so fur ahead.You see, maybe you’s got to be po’a long time fust, en so you might git discourage’en kill yo’sef’f you didn’know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby.”

“Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?”

“What's de use to ax dat question?Don't you see I has?”

“Well, are you rich?”

“No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich ag'in. Wunst I had foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n',en got busted out.”

“What did you speculate in, Jim?”

“Well, fust I tackled stock.”

“What kind of stock?”

“Why live stock—cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow.But I ain'gwyne to resk no mo'money in stock.De cow up'n'died on my han's.”

“So you lost the ten dollars.”

“No, I didn't lose it all. I on'y los''bout nine of it.I sole de hide en taller for a dollar en ten cents.”

“You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more?”

“Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto Bradish?Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar would git fo'dollarsmo'at de en'er de year.Well, all de niggers went in, but dey didn't have much.I wuz de on’y one dat had much.So I stuck out for mo’dan fo’dollars, en I said’f I didn’git it I’d start a bank mysef.Well, o’course dat nigger want’to keep me out er de business, bekase he says dey warn’t business’nough for two banks, so he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de en’er de year.

“So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves'de thirty-five dollars right off en keep things a-movin'.Dey wuz a nigger name’Bob, dat had ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn’know it;en I bought it off’n him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en’er de year come;but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex’day de one-laigged nigger say de bank’s busted.So dey didn’none uv us git no money.”

“What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?”

“Well, I'uz gwyne to spen'it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me to give it to a nigger name'Balum—Balum's Ass dey call him for short;he's one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But he’s lucky, dey say, en I see I warn’t lucky.De dream say let Balum inves’de ten cents en he’d make a raise for me.Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po’len’to de Lord, en boun’to git his money back a hund’d times.So Balum he tuck en give de ten cents to de po,’en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to come of it.”

“Well, what did come of it, Jim?”

“Nuffn never come of it. I couldn'manage to k'leck dat money no way;en Balum he couldn'.I ain'gwyne to len'no mo’money’dout I see de security.Boun’to git yo’money back a hund’d times, de preacher says!Ef I could git de ten cents back, I’d call it squah, en be glad er de chanst.”

“Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again some time or other.”

“Yes;en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars.I wisht I had de money, I wouldn'want no mo'.”第九章 河上漂来死人宅/Chapter 9 The House of Death Floats By导读

岛当中有个很陡的山脊,约有四十英尺高。在几乎到山顶的地方有个山洞。我们把东西都搬上去,搁在洞里,然后把船藏在柳树林里,又从鱼绳上取下几条鱼,开始做晚饭。

刚吃完晚饭,就打雷扯闪,下起了大雨,河里一连涨了十一二天的水,岛上洼下的地方和河边都有三四英尺的浮水,晚上我们捞了一小截儿木筏——都是很好的松木板。

一天晚上,天亮之前我们在岛头看到西边漂来一所两层的木房子,我们把小船拴上去,跟着一起漂。快漂到岛尾时,天有点亮,我们从窗户往里看,里面有床、桌子、椅子,还躺着一个人,进去一看,人已死了,脊梁上挨了一枪,我们在屋里找到了很多有用的东西。我们离开时已经到了小岛下游四五百码的地方,我让吉姆用被子蒙着头,我沿着静水往上划,我们平平安安地回来了。

I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I'd found when I was exploring;so we started and soon got to it, because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide.

This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it, and by and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on the side towards Illinois.The cavern was as big as two or three rooms bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it.It was cool in there.Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time.漂来一截儿木筏

Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to get wet?

So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows.We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.

The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner.

We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern.Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten;so the birds was right about it.Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so.It was one of these regular summer storms.It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely;and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby;and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves;and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild;and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest—fst!it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of treetops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before;dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the underside of the world, like rolling empty barrels down-stairs—where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.

“Jim, this is nice,”I says.“I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread.”

“Well, you wouldn't a ben here'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn'mos’drownded, too;dat you would, honey.Chickens knows when it’s gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile.”

The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom.On that side it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same old distance across—a half a mile—because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs.

Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside.We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way.Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things;and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand on them if you wanted to;but not the snakes and turtles—they would slide off in the water.The ridge our cavern was in was full of them.We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.

One night we catched a little section of a lumber-raft—nice pine planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the top stood above water six or seven inches—a solid, level floor.We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go;we didn't show ourselves in daylight.

Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was a two-story, and tilted over considerable.We paddled out and got aboard—clumbin at an up-stairs window.But it was too dark to see yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.

The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we looked in at the window.We could make out a bed, and a table, and two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there was clothes hanging against the wall.There was something laying on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man.So Jim says:

“Hello, you!”

But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:

“De man ain't asleep—he's dead. You hold still—I'll go en see.”

He went, and bent down and looked, and says:

“It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy;naked, too.He's ben shot in de back.I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days.Come in, Huck, but doan'look at his face—it’s too gashly.”

I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he needn't done it;I didn't want to see him.There was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky-bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth;and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too.We put the lot into the canoe—it might come good.There was a boy’s old speckled straw hat on the floor;I took that, too.And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck.We would’a’took the bottle, but it was broke.There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke.They stood open, but there warn’t nothing left in them that was any account.The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a hurry, and warn’t fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff.

We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, and a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchet and some nails, and a fish-line as thick as my little finger with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label on them;and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the other one, though we hunted all around.人已经死了

And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day;so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off.I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most a half a mile doing it.I crept up the dead water under the bank, and hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody.We got home all safe.第十章 玩蛇皮的倒霉结果/Chapter 10 What Comes of Handlin’Snake-skin导读

早饭后,我们在一件旧呢大衣的里子里发现了八块银圆,我就开玩笑地对吉姆说:“前天我把在山顶上捡的那条蛇皮拿回来,你说捡蛇皮是件倒霉的事,咱们要天天这样倒霉就不错了”,吉姆叫我不要高兴得太早了。星期五晚饭后我回洞取烟,发现了一条响尾蛇,我把它打死后放在吉姆被窝脚底下,想跟他开个玩笑,可到夜里忘了拿走,吉姆一躺下,死蛇的老伴在那咬了他一口,吉姆大喊一声,跳了起来,我抄起棍子一下打死了它。吉姆光着脚,蛇正好咬在他的脚后跟上,脚肿得很高,连腿都肿了,他让我把蛇肉切一片烤烤吃掉,说是以毒攻毒,又不停地喝酒,躺了四天四夜,才消了肿。

我跟吉姆说我打算去镇上探听近来的情况,他很喜欢这个主意,让我把从木屋里捡来的衣服穿上,戴着草帽,扮成一个女孩。天黑后我朝镇上走去,我发现在一间久没住人的小草屋里点着一盏灯,还坐着一个外乡女人,我就在门上敲了一下。

A FTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch bad luck;and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us;he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than one that was planted and comfortable.That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more;but I couldn’t keep from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.

We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd'a'knowed the money was there they wouldn't’a’left it.I said I reckoned they killed him, too;but Jim didn’t want to talk about that.I says:

“Now you think it's bad luck;but what did you say when I fetched in the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday?You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck!We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides.I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim.”

“Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart.It's a-comin'.Mind I tell you, it's a-comin.”

It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk.Well, after dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco.I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there.I killed him, and curled him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun when Jim found him there.Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the snake's mate was there, and bit him.

He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to pour it down.

He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it.Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it.I done it, and he eat it and said it would help cure him.He made me take offthe rattles and tie them around his wrist, too.He said that that would help.Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes;for I warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.

Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled;but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg;but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was all right;but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky.

Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone and he was around again.I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it.Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time.And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet.He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand.Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do.Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it;and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say;and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it.Pap told me.But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool.

Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again;and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course;he would'a'flung us into Illinois.We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded.We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage.We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it.Jim said he'd had it there a long time, tocoat it over so and make a ball of it.It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon.Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one.He would’a’been worth a good deal over at the village.They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there;everybody buys some of him;his meat’s as white as snow and makes a good fry.

Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring-up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and find out what was going on.Jim liked that notion;but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp.Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl?That was a good notion, too.So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it.Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit.I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe.Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly.I practised around all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl;and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket.I took notice, and done better.

I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.

I started across to the town from a little below the ferrylanding, and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I tied up and started along the bank.There was a light burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there.I slipped up and peeped in at the window.There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by a candle that was on a pine table.I didn't know her face;she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know.Now this was lucky, because I was weakening;I was getting afraid I had come;people might know my voice and find me out.But if this woman had been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I wanted to know;so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.第十一章 他们在追我们!Chapter 11 They’re After Us!导读

女人让我进屋坐下,用她那双小眼睛打量着我,问我叫什么名字,我告诉她我叫赛拉·威廉司,住在河下头七英里,是来镇上找舅舅的,我想歇会儿就走。

她不让我一个人走,说她丈夫一会儿回来跟我一块儿走:又谈到她的亲戚,不久话题就转到爸爸和那件凶杀案上了。她说:开始怀疑是我爸爸把儿子杀了,可后来发现当晚吉姆跑了,就认定是吉姆干的,现在悬赏三百块大洋捉拿吉姆;老头子第二天连哭带喊地去找法官撒切尔要钱,说要去找吉姆,法官给了他一点钱,他就在当天晚上喝了个烂醉,后来跟人走了一直没回来。

但还是有人怀疑是老头子自己杀了儿子,摆了个疑阵,好把哈克的钱弄到手。女人说,他们很快就会抓住黑奴的,到时也许能逼他招出来,已经有人猜那黑奴不会走得太远,说不定就在甲克森岛上,并说出事前一两天还看见那上头冒烟,她丈夫打算找人今晚去看一看,这时她又问我叫什么名字,我说我叫玛莉·威廉司。

这女人又谈起年头不好,让我帮她绕毛线,又让我帮她打老鼠,说了她和丈夫的很多事,谈了不大工夫,便带着快活的样子,望着我问我真正的名字叫什么。我还想装下去,她告诉我她不会害我的,还会替我保密。于是我告诉她我爹妈都已经不在了,法官把我判给一个乡下的庄稼汉,我偷了他女儿的衣服,跑来高兴镇找我舅舅的。她说这不是高兴镇,准是醉汉骗了你;我说我想天亮前找到舅舅,她就给我弄了点吃的带上,又问我叫什么名字,我说叫乔治·彼得,她让我不要再装女孩子了。原来她早就看出来了,绕毛线和打老鼠都是在试探我。女人让我帮她绕毛线

我沿河向上游走了大约五十码,然后回到我停船的地方,跳上船就匆匆忙忙划走了,这时镇上的钟声响了十一下。我来到岛上,在原来露营的地方,生起一大堆火来。

然后我又跳上小船,朝着我们的住处拼命划过去,喊醒吉姆,把我们所有的东西都搬到木筏上,静静地溜过了岛尾。

“C OME in,”says the woman, and I did. She says:“Take a cheer.”

I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says:

“What might your name be?”

“Sarah Williams.”

“Where'bouts do you live?In this neighborhood?'

“No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below.I've walked all the way and I'm all tired out.”

“Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something.”

“No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below here at a farm;so I ain't hungry no more.It's what makes me so late.My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to tell my uncle Abner Moore.He lives at the upper end of the town, she says.I hain’t ever been here before.Do you know him?”

“No;but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite two weeks.It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town.You better stay here all night.Take off your bonnet.”

“No,”I says;“I'll rest awhile, I reckon, and go on. I ain't afeard of the dark.”

She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in by and by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me. Thenshe got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better off they used to was, and how they didn't know but they'd made a mistake coming to our town, instead of letting well alone—and so on and so on, till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in the town;but by and by she dropped on to pap and the murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along.She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the twelve thousand dollars(only she got it twenty)and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered.I says:

“Who done it?We've heard considerable about these goings-on down in Hookerville, but we don't know who'twas that killed Huck Finn.”

“Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people here that'd like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself.”

“No—is that so?”

“Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come to getting lynched.But before night they changed around and judged it was done by a run-away nigger named Jim.”

“Why he—”

I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still.She run on, and never noticed I had put in at all:

“The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there's a reward out for him—three hundred dollars.And there's a reward out for old Finn, too—two hundred dollars.You see, he come to town the morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with'em on the ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left.Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see.Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone;they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done.So then they put it on him, you see;and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with.The judge gave him some, and that eveninghe got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them.Well, he hain’t come back sence, and they ain’t looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he’d get Huck’s money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit.People do say he warn’t any too good to do it.Oh, he’s sly, I reckon.If he don’t come back for a year he’ll be all right.You can’t

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