Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim (22 page)

"I hain't never thought you'd come back a bagger."

I says:

"I hain't come back a bagger-I hain't even
died
."

When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite satisfied yet. He says:

"Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injun, you ain't a bagger or a ghost?"

"Honest injun, I ain't,” I says. “I din’ catch no pox for surely."

"Well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn't you ever sick or murdered or eaten at all?"

"No. I warn't ever, not at all-I played it on them. You come in here and smell me if you don't believe it."

So he done it, had a sniff; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me again he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says:

"It's all right; I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you; and you needn't let on to know me at first."

I says:

"All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing-a thing that
nobody
don't know but me. And that is, there's a bagger here that I'm a-trying to rescue, and his name is
Jim
-old Miss Watson's Jim."

He says:

"What! Why, Jim is-"

He stopped and went to studying. I says:

"I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low-down business; but what if it is? I'm low down; and I'm a-going to steal him, and I want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?"

His eye lit up, and he says:

"I'll
help
you steal him!"

Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard-and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer a bagger-stealer!

"Oh, shucks!” I says; “you're joking."

"I ain't joking, either."

"Well, then,” I says, “joking or no joking, if you hear anything said about a runaway zomby, don't forget to remember that
you
don't know nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him."

Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and he says:

"Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in that mare to do it? I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair-not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse now-I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before, and thought ‘twas all she was worth."

That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and done the same way, down South. But he made most of his money off the exchange of baggers, an’ it was a considerable weight on his conscience that they was havin’ to round up these zombys just to finish ‘em off so cruel-like. He said,

"Sometimes I think they still a bit human inside."

"Yes,” I said. “I reckon they seem that way to me sometimes, too."

"But it's Armageddon comin’ down the pike. An’ you know that as well as anyone, don't ya, Tom? I'm sure you've seen awful sights."

"Yes sir."

An’ deep inside, I knowed this man was right. I saw them dead hordes for myself. Saw ‘em an’ heard ‘em and smelt ‘em. But still I couldn't let Jim go down like that. I said,

"Das you check ‘em all for brands?"

"Don't matter,” he told me. “Brands don't matter no more. Whether they got ‘em or don't, it don't change the situation at all."

In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty yards, and says:

"Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who ‘tis? Why, I do believe it's a stranger. Jimmy” (that's one of the children) “run and tell Lize to put on another plate for dinner."

Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger don't come
every
year, and so he lays over the yaller-fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an audience-and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, and says:

"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?"

"No, my boy,” says the old gentleman, “I'm sorry to say ‘t your driver has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more. Come in, come in."

Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, “Too late-he's out of sight."

"Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's."

"Oh, I
can't
make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it. I'll walk-I don't mind the distance."

"But we won't
let
you walk-it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do it. Come right in."

"Oh,
do
,” says Aunt Sally; “it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we can't let you walk. Not in these uncertain times. And, besides, I've already told ‘em to put on another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us. Come right in and make yourself at home."

So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson-and he made another bow.

Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent, an’ about how pret’ near ever'one in town got all gobbled up by rovin’ bunderlugs, and I getting a little nervious, and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand, and says:

"You owdacious puppy!"

He looked kind of hurt, and says:

"I'm surprised at you, m'am."

"You're s'rp-Why, what do you reckon I am? I've a good notion to take and-Say, what do you mean by kissing me?"

He looked kind of humble, and says:

"I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I-I-thought you'd like it."

"Why, you born fool!” She took up the spinning stick, and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. “What made you think I'd like it?"

"Well, I don't know. Only, they-they-told me you would."

"
They
told you I would. Whoever told you's
another
lunatic. I never heard the beat of it. Who's
they
?"

"Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am."

It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:

"Who's ‘everybody'? Out with their names, or there'll be an idiot short."

He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:

"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said it-every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no more-I won't, honest."

"You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd
reckon
you won't!"

"No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again-till you ask me."

"Till I
ask
you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask you-or the likes of you."

"Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so. I can't make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But-” He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, “Didn't
you
think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?"

"Why, no; I-I-well, no, I b'lieve I didn't."

Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:

"Tom, didn't
you
think Aunt Sally'd open out her arms and say, ‘Sid Sawyer-’”

"My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you impudent young rascal, to fool a body so-” and was going to hug him, but he fended her off, and says:

"No, not till you've asked me first."

So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says:

"Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for
you
at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but him."

"It's because it warn't
intended
for any of us to come but Tom,” he says; “There's a lotto to see who gets on which boat an’ it was just Tom what did on the first one, as you know. But one feller died before he got his spot an’ I begged and begged, and at the last minute I was let to come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger to come."

"No-not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I don't mind the terms-I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it, I was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack."

We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven families-and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that's laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long blessing over it, said all kinda things about plague and Judgment an’ death an’ forgiveness, but it was worth it; and it didn't cool it a bit, neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times. There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn't no use, they didn't happen to say nothing about the rounded-up baggers, an’ where they was bein’ corralled, and we was afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the little boys says:

"Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show when it comes?"

"No,” says the old man, “I reckon it's gonna be gruesome, an’ you young fellas-though I know it you already seen a lot-you shore don't need to be seein’ what's comin'. We had fifty penned out at Cobb Field, an’ there's bound to be more…"

So there it was!-but I couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep in the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night and went up to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the lightning-rod, and shoved for the town.

On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was murdered, and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn't come back no more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all about our li'l adventures, ‘bout the King an’ the Duke an’ thet crazed Birdock, and as much of the raft voyage as I had time to; and as we struck into the town and up through the-here comes a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by; and as they went by I see they had Birdock astraddle of a rail-that is, I knowed it
was
Birdock, though he was all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the world that was human-just looked like a monstrous big soldier-plume. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for that poor pitiful fool, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against him any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings
can
be awful cruel to one another.

Someone said he was caught touchin’ a young feller, most inappropriate.

I heard ‘bout men like him before. I wunnert if'n he been sizin’ me up like that all along. That whole bit about pretendin’ to be a bagger jus’ some kinda ruse to seem least like a threat. Mebby not, mebby so. But it was a good thing Jim was most always nearby.

We see we was too late-couldn't do no good. We asked some stragglers about it, and they said they was going to toss Birdock into the gulch an’ burn him alive. Birdock yelled,

"Huck! I is caught in a bad way!"

But what could I do for him?

All I could muster was a wave as they carted him past.

An’ thet's southern justice for ya.

We went to where Tom figgered Cobb Field was, and it was, and we could see that so many baggers had been put into a corral, ‘cept it was dark and we'd hafta get good an’ close to see if Jim was in with ‘em.

They was all bein’ presided over by one of them traders, plus two fellas in tall hats. Some baggers was groaning and some was mumbling and some was talkin’ low, an’ all of them seemed perfectly well heeled, in my opinion. Tom said,

"You bes’ watch an’ be shore, Huck. They look tame enough, but I seen what happens when the change comes. It's a sore sight. Whole big groups of ‘em just go mad."

"I seen it, too,” I says. “Don't ferget that. But I know Jim ain't like the others; an’ if Hell comes to Earth, ol’ Jim will stan’ by me."

And then Tom had a laugh ‘cause he was rememberin’ playin’ tricks on the old fella. An’ I laughed, too, and soon we was both laughin’ to beat the band. I said,

"I'm shore glad you're here, Tom."

Tom nodded and smiled an’ I could see his nose was runnin’ yella.

I never said nothing; but I knowed mighty well it weren't a good thing.

And it warn't.

That bagger trader come over and told us to scoot; to get goin’ home before he got th’ urge to whack us good.

So we did. An’ on the way back to the Phelpses Tom told me he had a plan, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a zomby as any of mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it on the ‘morrow.