CHAPTER XXIV
NEXT day, towards night, we laid up under a little
willow towhead out in the middle, where there was a
village on each side of the river, and the duke and
the king begun to lay out a plan for working them
towns. Jim he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped
it wouldn't take but a few hours, because it got
mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay
all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see,
when we left him all alone we had to tie him,
because if anybody happened on to him all by himself
and not tied it wouldn't look much like he was a
runaway nigger, you know. So the duke said it was
kind of hard to have to lay roped all day, and he'd
cipher out some way to get around it.
He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon
struck it. He dressed Jim up in King Lear's outfit
-- it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a white
horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his
theater paint and painted Jim's face and hands and
ears and neck all over a dead, dull, solid blue,
like a man that's been drownded nine days. Blamed if
he warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see.
Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle
so:
Sick Arab -- but harmless when not out of his head.
And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the
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lath up four or five foot in front of the wigwam.
Jim was satisfied. He said it was a sight better
than lying tied a couple of years every day, and
trembling all over every time there was a sound. The
duke told him to make himself free and easy, and if
anybody ever come meddling around, he must hop out
of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a
howl or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned they
would light out and leave him alone. Which was sound
enough judgment; but you take the average man, and
he wouldn't wait for him to howl. Why, he didn't
only look like he was dead, he looked considerable
more than that.
These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again,
because there was so much money in it, but they
judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe the news
might a worked along down by this time. They
couldn't hit no project that suited exactly; so at
last the duke said he reckoned he'd lay off and work
his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put
up something on the Arkansaw village; and the king
he allowed he would drop over to t'other village
without any plan, but just trust in Providence to
lead him the profitable way -- meaning the devil, I
reckon. We had all bought store clothes where we
stopped last; and now the king put his'n on, and he
told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. The
king's duds was all black, and he did look real
swell and starchy. I never knowed how clothes could
change a body before. Why, before, he looked like
the orneriest old rip that ever was; but now, when
he'd take off his new white beaver and make a bow
and do a smile, he looked that grand and good and
pious that you'd say
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he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was
old Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and
I got my paddle ready. There was a big steamboat
laying at the shore away up under the point, about
three mile above the town -- been there a couple of
hours, taking on freight. Says the king:
"Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better
arrive down from St. Louis or Cincinnati, or some
other big place. Go for the steamboat, Huckleberry;
we'll come down to the village on her."
I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a
steamboat ride. I fetched the shore a half a mile
above the village, and then went scooting along the
bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to
a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting
on a log swabbing the sweat off of his face, for it
was powerful warm weather; and he had a couple of
big carpet-bags by him.
"Run her nose in shore," says the king. I done it.
"Wher' you bound for, young man?"
"For the steamboat; going to Orleans."
"Git aboard," says the king. "Hold on a minute, my
servant 'll he'p you with them bags. Jump out and
he'p the gentleman, Adolphus" -- meaning me, I see.
I done so, and then we all three started on again.
The young chap was mighty thankful; said it was
tough work toting his baggage such weather. He asked
the king where he was going, and the king told him
he'd come down the river and landed at the other
village this morning, and now he was going up a few
mile to see an old friend on a farm up there. The
young fellow says:
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"When I first see you I says to myself, 'It's Mr.
Wilks, sure, and he come mighty near getting here in
time.' But then I says again, 'No, I reckon it ain't
him, or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river.'
You ain't him, are you?"
"No, my name's Blodgett -- Elexander Blodgett --
Reverend Elexander Blodgett, I s'pose I must say, as
I'm one o' the Lord's poor servants. But still I'm
jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not
arriving in time, all the same, if he's missed
anything by it -- which I hope he hasn't."
"Well, he don't miss any property by it, because
he'll get that all right; but he's missed seeing his
brother Peter die -- which he mayn't mind, nobody
can tell as to that -- but his brother would a give
anything in this world to see him before he died;
never talked about nothing else all these three
weeks; hadn't seen him since they was boys together
-- and hadn't ever seen his brother William at all
-- that's the deef and dumb one -- William ain't
more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter and George
were the only ones that come out here; George was
the married brother; him and his wife both died last
year. Harvey and William's the only ones that's left
now; and, as I was saying, they haven't got here in
time."
"Did anybody send 'em word?"
"Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first
took; because Peter said then that he sorter felt
like he warn't going to get well this time. You see,
he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too
young to be much company for him, except Mary Jane,
the red-headed one; and so he was kinder lonesome
after George and his wife died, and didn't seem to
care
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much to live. He most desperately wanted to see
Harvey -- and William, too, for that matter --
because he was one of them kind that can't bear to
make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and
said he'd told in it where his money was hid, and
how he wanted the rest of the property divided up so
George's g'yirls would be all right -- for George
didn't leave nothing. And that letter was all they
could get him to put a pen to."
"Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Wher' does he
live?"
"Oh, he lives in England -- Sheffield -- preaches
there -- hasn't ever been in this country. He hasn't
had any too much time -- and besides he mightn't a
got the letter at all, you know."
"Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his
brothers, poor soul. You going to Orleans, you say?"
"Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in
a ship, next Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my
uncle lives."
"It's a pretty long journey. But it'll be lovely;
wisht I was a-going. Is Mary Jane the oldest? How
old is the others?"
"Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's
about fourteen -- that's the one that gives herself
to good works and has a hare-lip."
"Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world
so."
"Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had
friends, and they ain't going to let them come to no
harm. There's Hobson, the Babtis' preacher; and
Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner
Shackleford, and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Rob-
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inson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley, and
-- well, there's a lot of them; but these are the
ones that Peter was thickest with, and used to write
about sometimes, when he wrote home; so Harvey 'll
know where to look for friends when he gets here."
Well, the old man went on asking questions till he
just fairly emptied that young fellow. Blamed if he
didn't inquire about everybody and everything in
that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and
about Peter's business -- which was a tanner; and
about George's -- which was a carpenter; and about
Harvey's -- which was a dissentering minister; and
so on, and so on. Then he says:
"What did you want to walk all the way up to the
steamboat for?"
"Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard
she mightn't stop there. When they're deep they
won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat will, but
this is a St. Louis one."
"Was Peter Wilks well off?"
"Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land,
and it's reckoned he left three or four thousand in
cash hid up som'ers."
"When did you say he died?"
"I didn't say, but it was last night."
"Funeral to-morrow, likely?"
"Yes, 'bout the middle of the day."
"Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to
go, one time or another. So what we want to do is to
be prepared; then we're all right."
"Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always say
that."
When we struck the boat she was about done load-
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ing, and pretty soon she got off. The king never
said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my ride,
after all. When the boat was gone the king made me
paddle up another mile to a lonesome place, and then
he got ashore and says:
"Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up
here, and the new carpet-bags. And if he's gone over
to t'other side, go over there and git him. And tell
him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now."
I see what he was up to; but I never said nothing,
of course. When I got back with the duke we hid the
canoe, and then they set down on a log, and the king
told him everything, just like the young fellow had
said it -- every last word of it. And all the time
he was a-doing it he tried to talk like an
Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for a
slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't a-going
to try to; but he really done it pretty good. Then
he says:
"How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?"
The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had
played a deef and dumb person on the histronic
boards. So then they waited for a steamboat.
About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little
boats come along, but they didn't come from high
enough up the river; but at last there was a big
one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and
we went aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and
when they found we only wanted to go four or five
mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing,
and said they wouldn't land us. But the king was
ca'm. He says:
"If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile
apiece to be took on and put off in a yawl, a
steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't it?"
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So they softened down and said it was all right; and
when we got to the village they yawled us ashore.
About two dozen men flocked down when they see the
yawl a-coming, and when the king says:
"Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher' Mr. Peter
Wilks lives?" they give a glance at one another, and
nodded their heads, as much as to say, "What d' I
tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and
gentle:
"I'm sorry. sir, but the best we can do is to tell
you where he did live yesterday evening."
Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to
smash, and fell up against the man, and put his chin
on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and says:
"Alas, alas, our poor brother -- gone, and we never
got to see him; oh, it's too, too hard!"
Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of
idiotic signs to the duke on his hands, and blamed
if he didn't drop a carpet-bag and bust out
a-crying. If they warn't the beatenest lot, them two
frauds, that ever I struck.
Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with
them, and said all sorts of kind things to them, and
carried their carpet-bags up the hill for them, and
let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all
about his brother's last moments, and the king he
told it all over again on his hands to the duke, and
both of them took on about that dead tanner like
they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I
struck anything like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough
to make a body ashamed of the human race.
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