Chương Chương 38 · 第38章
Making them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and
Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all. That’s
the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to
have it; Tom said he’d _got_ to; there warn’t no case of a state
prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat
of arms.
“Look at Lady Jane Grey,” he says; “look at Gilford Dudley; look at old
Northumberland! Why, Huck, s’pose it _is_ considerble trouble?—what you
going to do?—how you going to get around it? Jim’s _got_ to do his
inscription and coat of arms. They all do.”
Jim says:
“Why, Mars Tom, I hain’t got no coat o’ arm; I hain’t got nuffn but
dish yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat.”
“Oh, you don’t understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different.”
“Well,” I says, “Jim’s right, anyway, when he says he ain’t got no coat
of arms, because he hain’t.”
“I reckon _I_ knowed that,” Tom says, “but you bet he’ll have one
before he goes out of this—because he’s going out _right_, and there
ain’t going to be no flaws in his record.”
So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim
a-making his’n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon, Tom
set to work to think out the coat of arms. By-and-by he said he’d
struck so many good ones he didn’t hardly know which to take, but there
was one which he reckoned he’d decide on. He says:
“On the scutcheon we’ll have a bend _or_ in the dexter base, a saltire
_murrey_ in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and
under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron _vert_ in
a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field _azure_, with
the nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway
nigger, _sable_, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister;
and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me; motto,
_Maggiore fretta, minore atto._ Got it out of a book—means the more
haste, the less speed.”
“Geewhillikins,” I says, “but what does the rest of it mean?”
“We ain’t got no time to bother over that,” he says; “we got to dig in
like all git-out.”
“Well, anyway,” I says, “what’s _some_ of it? What’s a fess?”
“A fess—a fess is—_you_ don’t need to know what a fess is. I’ll show
him how to make it when he gets to it.”
“Shucks, Tom,” I says, “I think you might tell a person. What’s a bar
sinister?”
“Oh, _I_ don’t know. But he’s got to have it. All the nobility does.”
That was just his way. If it didn’t suit him to explain a thing to you,
he wouldn’t do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn’t make no
difference.
He’d got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to
finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a
mournful inscription—said Jim got to have one, like they all done. He
made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so:
1. _Here a captive heart busted._
2. _Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends, fretted out
his sorrowful life._
3. _Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest,
after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity._
4. _Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter
captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV._
Tom’s voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke
down. When he got done he couldn’t no way make up his mind which one
for Jim to scrabble on to the wall, they was all so good; but at last
he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said it would
take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a
nail, and he didn’t know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he
would block them out for him, and then he wouldn’t have nothing to do
but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says:
“Come to think, the logs ain’t a-going to do; they don’t have log walls
in a dungeon: we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We’ll fetch a
rock.”
Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him
such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn’t ever get
out. But Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he took a look
to see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was most
pesky tedious hard work and slow, and didn’t give my hands no show to
get well of the sores, and we didn’t seem to make no headway, hardly;
so Tom says:
“I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and
mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock.
There’s a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we’ll smouch it,
and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it,
too.”
It warn’t no slouch of an idea; and it warn’t no slouch of a grindstone
nuther; but we allowed we’d tackle it. It warn’t quite midnight yet, so
we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smouched the
grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation
tough job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn’t keep her from
falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time. Tom said
she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got through. We got her
half way; and then we was plumb played out, and most drownded with
sweat. We see it warn’t no use; we got to go and fetch Jim. So he
raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the bed-leg, and wrapt it
round and round his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down
there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along
like nothing; and Tom superintended. He could out-superintend any boy I
ever see. He knowed how to do everything.
Our hole was pretty big, but it warn’t big enough to get the grindstone
through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough. Then Tom
marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on
them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in
the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his
candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the
grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it. Then we helped him fix
his chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom
thought of something, and says:
“You got any spiders in here, Jim?”
“No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain’t, Mars Tom.”
“All right, we’ll get you some.”
“But bless you, honey, I doan’ _want_ none. I’s afeard un um. I jis’ ’s
soon have rattlesnakes aroun’.”
Tom thought a minute or two, and says:
“It’s a good idea. And I reckon it’s been done. It _must_ a been done;
it stands to reason. Yes, it’s a prime good idea. Where could you keep
it?”
“Keep what, Mars Tom?”
“Why, a rattlesnake.”
“De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to
come in heah I’d take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid
my head.”
“Why, Jim, you wouldn’t be afraid of it after a little. You could tame
it.”
“_Tame_ it!”
“Yes—easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting,
and they wouldn’t _think_ of hurting a person that pets them. Any book
will tell you that. You try—that’s all I ask; just try for two or three
days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that he’ll love you;
and sleep with you; and won’t stay away from you a minute; and will let
you wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth.”
“_Please_, Mars Tom—_doan_’ talk so! I can’t _stan_’ it! He’d _let_ me
shove his head in my mouf—fer a favor, hain’t it? I lay he’d wait a
pow’ful long time ’fo’ I _ast_ him. En mo’ en dat, I doan’ _want_ him
to sleep wid me.”
“Jim, don’t act so foolish. A prisoner’s _got_ to have some kind of a
dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain’t ever been tried, why, there’s
more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any
other way you could ever think of to save your life.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ _want_ no sich glory. Snake take ’n bite Jim’s
chin off, den _whah_ is de glory? No, sah, I doan’ want no sich
doin’s.”
“Blame it, can’t you _try?_ I only _want_ you to try—you needn’t keep
it up if it don’t work.”
“But de trouble all _done_ ef de snake bite me while I’s a tryin’ him.
Mars Tom, I’s willin’ to tackle mos’ anything ’at ain’t onreasonable,
but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I’s
gwyne to _leave_, dat’s _shore_.”
“Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you’re so bull-headed about it.
We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on
their tails, and let on they’re rattlesnakes, and I reckon that’ll
have to do.”
“I k’n stan’ _dem_, Mars Tom, but blame’ ’f I couldn’ get along widout
um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b’fo’ ’t was so much bother and
trouble to be a prisoner.”
“Well, it _always_ is when it’s done right. You got any rats around
here?”
“No, sah, I hain’t seed none.”
“Well, we’ll get you some rats.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I doan’ _want_ no rats. Dey’s de dadblamedest creturs
to ’sturb a body, en rustle roun’ over ’im, en bite his feet, when he’s
tryin’ to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g’yarter-snakes, ’f I’s got
to have ’m, but doan’ gimme no rats; I hain’ got no use f’r um,
skasely.”
“But, Jim, you _got_ to have ’em—they all do. So don’t make no more
fuss about it. Prisoners ain’t ever without rats. There ain’t no
instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them
tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play
music to them. You got anything to play music on?”
“I ain’ got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o’ paper, en a
juice-harp; but I reck’n dey wouldn’ take no stock in a juice-harp.”
“Yes they would. _They_ don’t care what kind of music ’tis. A
jews-harp’s plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music—in a
prison they dote on it. Specially, painful music; and you can’t get no
other kind out of a jews-harp. It always interests them; they come out
to see what’s the matter with you. Yes, you’re all right; you’re fixed
very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep,
and early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp; play ‘The Last Link
is Broken’—that’s the thing that’ll scoop a rat quicker ’n anything
else; and when you’ve played about two minutes you’ll see all the rats,
and the snakes, and spiders, and things begin to feel worried about
you, and come. And they’ll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble
good time.”
“Yes, _dey_ will, I reck’n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is _Jim_
havin’? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I’ll do it ef I got to. I
reck’n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de
house.”
Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn’t nothing else; and
pretty soon he says:
“Oh, there’s one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you
reckon?”
“I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it’s tolable dark in
heah, en I ain’ got no use f’r no flower, nohow, en she’d be a pow’ful
sight o’ trouble.”
“Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it.”
“One er dem big cat-tail-lookin’ mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars
Tom, I reck’n, but she wouldn’t be wuth half de trouble she’d coss.”
“Don’t you believe it. We’ll fetch you a little one and you plant it in
the corner over there, and raise it. And don’t call it mullen, call it
Pitchiola—that’s its right name when it’s in a prison. And you want to
water it with your tears.”
“Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom.”
“You don’t _want_ spring water; you want to water it with your tears.
It’s the way they always do.”
“Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid
spring water whiles another man’s a _start’n_ one wid tears.”
“That ain’t the idea. You _got_ to do it with tears.”
“She’ll die on my han’s, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan’ skasely
ever cry.”
So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would
have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he
would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim’s
coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would “jis’ ’s soon have
tobacker in his coffee;” and found so much fault with it, and with the
work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping the rats, and
petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on top of
all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and
journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and
responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that
Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened down
with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make
a name for himself, and yet he didn’t know enough to appreciate them,
and they was just about wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he
wouldn’t behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed.