الفصل الفصل 43 · 第43章

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:

“_Dah_, now, Huck, what I tell you?—what I tell you up 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 two; 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.”

Jim says, kind of solemn:

“He ain’t a-comin’ back no mo’, Huck.”

I says:

“Why, Jim?”

“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 kin 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 a-going to no more. But I reckon I got to light

out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going

to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.

THE END. YOURS TRULY, _HUCK FINN_.