"HAND OUT THEM LETTERS.

433

mile, and find out what that creetur's up to, this time; as long as I couldn't seem to get any answer out of you about it."

"Why, I never heard nothing from you," says Aunt Sally. "Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote to you twice, to ask you what you could mean by Sid being here." "Well, I never got 'em, Sis."

"HAND OUT THEM LETTERS."

Aunt Polly, she turns around slow and severe, and says: "You, Tom!"

Well-what?" he says, kind of pettish.

"Don't you what me, you impudent thing-hand out them letters."

"What letters?"

F F

I'll

"Them letters. I be bound, if I have to take aholt of you

"They're in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as they was when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, I hain't touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if you warn't in no hurry, I'd "

"Well, you do need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And I wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he

66

"

"No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but it's all right, I've got that one."

I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.

G

Chapter the last.

OUT OF BONDAGE.

The first time I catched

Tom, private, I asked him what was his idea, time of the evasion? -what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before? And he said, what he had planned in his head, from the start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river, on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about his

being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and

get out all the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brass band, and then he would be a hero, and so would we. But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was.

We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom, they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him all he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we had him up to the

sick-room; and had a high talk; and Tom give Jim forty dollars for being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so good, and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted out, and says:

66

Dah, now, Huck, what I tell you?-what I tell you up

PAYING THE CAPTIVE.

437

dah on Jackson islan'? I tole you I got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it; en I tole you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich agin; en it's come true; en heah she is! Dah, now! doan' talk to me-signs is signs, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz gwineter be rich agin as I's a stannin' heah dis minute!"

And then Tom he talked along, and talked along, and says, le's all three slide out of here, one of these nights, and get an outfit, and go for howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for a couple of weeks or so; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I ain't got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get none from home, because it's likely pap's been back before now, and got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.

"No he hain't," Tom says; "it's all there, yet-six thousand dollars and more; and your pap hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when I come away, anyhow."

"He ain't a comin' back no mo', Huck."

"Nemmine why, Huck-but he ain't comin' back no mo'." But I kept at him; so at last he says:

"Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let you come in? Well, den, you k'n git yo' money when you wants it; kase dat wuz him."

Tom's most well, now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it and ain't agoing to no more.