CHAPTER III
WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from
old Miss Watson on account of my clothes; but the
widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned off the
grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought
I would behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson
she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing
come of it. She told me to pray every day, and
whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't
so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no
hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I
tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow
I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked
Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a
fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it
out no way.
I set down one time back in the woods, and had a
long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can
get anything they pray for, why don't Deacon Winn
get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the
widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole?
Why can't Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to my self,
there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the widow
about it, and she said the thing a body could get by
praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too
many for me, but she told me what she meant -- I
must help other people, and do everything I could
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for other people, and look out for them all the
time, and never think about myself. This was
including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in
the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time,
but I couldn't see no advantage about it -- except
for the other people; so at last I reckoned I
wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it
go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and
talk about Providence in a way to make a body's
mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would
take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I
could see that there was two Providences, and a poor
chap would stand considerable show with the widow's
Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there
warn't no help for him any more. I thought it all
out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if
he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was
a-going to be any better off then than what he was
before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of
low-down and ornery.
Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and
that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see
him no more. He used to always whale me when he was
sober and could get his hands on me; though I used
to take to the woods most of the time when he was
around. Well, about this time he was found in the
river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so
people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said
this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged,
and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap;
but they couldn't make nothing out of the face,
because it had been in the water so long it warn't
much like a face at all. They said he was floating
on his back in the water. They took him and buried
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him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long,
because I happened to think of something. I knowed
mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his
back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this
warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's
clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the
old man would turn up again by and by, though I
wished he wouldn't.
We played robber now and then about a month, and
then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn't robbed
nobody, hadn't killed any people, but only just
pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go
charging down on hog-drivers and women in carts
taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived
any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots,"
and he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we
would go to the cave and powwow over what we had
done, and how many people we had killed and marked.
But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom
sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick,
which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the
Gang to get together), and then he said he had got
secret news by his spies that next day a whole
parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was
going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred
elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a
thousand "sumter" mules, all loaded down with
di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard of four
hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade,
as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the
things. He said we must slick up our swords and
guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a
turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all
scoured up for it,
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though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you
might scour at them till you rotted, and then they
warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they
was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a
crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see
the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day,
Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the word
we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But
there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there
warn't no camels nor no elephants. It warn't
anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a
primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased
the children up the hollow; but we never got
anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben
Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book
and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and
made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no
di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there
was loads of them there, anyway; and he said there
was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I
said, why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I
warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don
Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was
all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds
of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and
so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians;
and they had turned the whole thing into an infant
Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all right;
then the thing for us to do was to go for the
magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.
"Why," says he, "a magician could call up a lot of
genies, and they would hash you up like nothing be-
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fore you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall
as a tree and as big around as a church."
"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help
us -- can't we lick the other crowd then?"
"How you going to get them?"
"I don't know. How do they get them?"
"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and
then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder
and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke
a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up
and do it. They don't think nothing of pulling a
shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a
Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it
-- or any other man."
"Who makes them tear around so?"
"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong
to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they've
got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to
build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and
fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want,
and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you
to marry, they've got to do it -- and they've got to
do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more:
they've got to waltz that palace around over the
country wherever you want it, you understand."
"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of
flat-heads for not keeping the palace themselves
'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's
more -- if I was one of them I would see a man in
Jericho before I would drop my business and come to
him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp."
"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd have to come
when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not."
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"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a
church? All right, then; I would come; but I lay I'd
make that man climb the highest tree there was in
the country."
"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn.
You don't seem to know anything, somehow -- perfect
saphead."
I thought all this over for two or three days, and
then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in
it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went
out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat
like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and
sell it; but it warn't no use, none of the genies
come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only
just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he
believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for
me I think different. It had all the marks of a
Sunday-school.
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