CHAPTER X
AFTER 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
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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 off the 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
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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,
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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, to coat 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 practiced
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.
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I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just
after dark.
I started across to the town from a little below the
ferry-landing, 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.
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