CHAPTER XXXIX
IN the morning we went up to the village and bought
a wire rat-trap and fetched it down, and unstopped
the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we had
fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we
took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt
Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders
little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander
Phelps found it there, and opened the door of it to
see if the rats would come out, and they did; and
Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was
a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the
rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull
times for her. So she took and dusted us both with
the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching
another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome
cub, and they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because
the first haul was the pick of the flock. I never
see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul
was.
We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs,
and frogs, and caterpillars, and one thing or
another; and we like to got a hornet's nest, but we
didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give it
right up, but stayed with them as long as we could;
because we allowed we'd tire them out or they'd got
to tire us out, and they done it. Then we got
allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty
near all right
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again, but couldn't set down convenient. And so we
went for the snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen
garters and house-snakes, and put them in a bag, and
put it in our room, and by that time it was
supper-time, and a rattling good honest day's work:
and hungry? -- oh, no, I reckon not! And there
warn't a blessed snake up there when we went back --
we didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out
somehow, and left. But it didn't matter much,
because they was still on the premises somewheres.
So we judged we could get some of them again. No,
there warn't no real scarcity of snakes about the
house for a considerable spell. You'd see them
dripping from the rafters and places every now and
then; and they generly landed in your plate, or down
the back of your neck, and most of the time where
you didn't want them. Well, they was handsome and
striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of
them; but that never made no difference to Aunt
Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed what they
might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could
fix it; and every time one of them flopped down on
her, it didn't make no difference what she was
doing, she would just lay that work down and light
out. I never see such a woman. And you could hear
her whoop to Jericho. You couldn't get her to take
a-holt of one of them with the tongs. And if she
turned over and found one in bed she would scramble
out and lift a howl that you would think the house
was afire. She disturbed the old man so that he said
he could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes
created. Why, after every last snake had been gone
clear out of the house for as much as a week Aunt
Sally warn't over it yet; she
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warn't near over it; when she was setting thinking
about something you could touch her on the back of
her neck with a feather and she would jump right out
of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said
all women was just so. He said they was made that
way for some reason or other.
We got a licking every time one of our snakes come
in her way, and she allowed these lickings warn't
nothing to what she would do if we ever loaded up
the place again with them. I didn't mind the
lickings, because they didn't amount to nothing; but
I minded the trouble we had to lay in another lot.
But we got them laid in, and all the other things;
and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was
when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him.
Jim didn't like the spiders, and the spiders didn't
like Jim; and so they'd lay for him, and make it
mighty warm for him. And he said that between the
rats and the snakes and the grindstone there warn't
no room in bed for him, skasely; and when there was,
a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was
always lively, he said, because they never all slept
at one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes
was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats
turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had
one gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang
having a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a
new place the spiders would take a chance at him as
he crossed over. He said if he ever got out this
time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a
salary.
Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in
pretty good shape. The shirt was sent in early, in a
pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he would get up
and
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write a little in his journal whilst the ink was
fresh; the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on
was all carved on the grindstone; the bed-leg was
sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust, and it
give us a most amazing stomach-ache. We reckoned we
was all going to die, but didn't. It was the most
undigestible sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the
same. But as I was saying, we'd got all the work
done now, at last; and we was all pretty much fagged
out, too, but mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a
couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to
come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no
answer, because there warn't no such plantation; so
he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis
and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the
St. Louis ones it give me the cold shivers, and I
see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now for
the nonnamous letters.
"What's them?" I says.
"Warnings to the people that something is up.
Sometimes it's done one way, sometimes another. But
there's always somebody spying around that gives
notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis
XVI. was going to light out of the Tooleries a
servant-girl done it. It's a very good way, and so
is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both. And
it's usual for the prisoner's mother to change
clothes with him, and she stays in, and he slides
out in her clothes. We'll do that, too."
"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to warn
anybody for that something's up? Let them find it
out for themselves -- it's their lookout."
"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them. It's
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the way they've acted from the very start -- left us
to do everything. They're so confiding and
mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at
all. So if we don't give them notice there won't be
nobody nor nothing to interfere with us, and so
after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll
go off perfectly flat; won't amount to nothing --
won't be nothing to it."
"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."
"Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:
"But I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way
that suits you suits me. What you going to do about
the servant-girl?"
"You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the
night, and hook that yaller girl's frock."
"Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning;
because, of course, she prob'bly hain't got any but
that one."
"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes,
to carry the nonnamous letter and shove it under the
front door."
"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it
just as handy in my own togs."
"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl then, would
you?"
"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look
like, anyway."
"That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for
us to do is just to do our duty, and not worry about
whether anybody sees us do it or not. Hain't you got
no principle at all?"
"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the
servant-girl. Who's Jim's mother?"
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"I'm his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."
"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when
me and Jim leaves."
"Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw
and lay it on his bed to represent his mother in
disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's gown
off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together.
When a prisoner of style escapes it's called an
evasion. It's always called so when a king escapes,
f'rinstance. And the same with a king's son; it
don't make no difference whether he's a natural one
or an unnatural one."
So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched
the yaller wench's frock that night, and put it on,
and shoved it under the front door, the way Tom told
me to. It said:
Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout.
UNKNOWN FRIEND.
Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in
blood, of a skull and crossbones on the front door;
and next night another one of a coffin on the back
door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They
couldn't a been worse scared if the place had a been
full of ghosts laying for them behind everything and
under the beds and shivering through the air. If a
door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said "ouch!"
if anything fell, she jumped and said "ouch!" if you
happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she
done the same; she couldn't face noway and be
satisfied, because she allowed there was something
behind her every time -- so she was always
a-whirling
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around sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd
got two-thirds around she'd whirl back again, and
say it again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but
she dasn't set up. So the thing was working very
well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work
more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done
right.
So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very
next morning at the streak of dawn we got another
letter ready, and was wondering what we better do
with it, because we heard them say at supper they
was going to have a nigger on watch at both doors
all night. Tom he went down the lightning-rod to spy
around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep,
and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come
back. This letter said:
Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is
a desprate gang of cut-throats from over in the
Indian Territory going to steal your runaway nigger
to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so
as you will stay in the house and not bother them. I
am one of the gang, but have got religgion and wish
to quit it and lead an honest life again, and will
betray the helish design. They will sneak down from
northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with
a false key, and go in the nigger's cabin to get
him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn if I
see any danger; but stead of that I will BA like a
sheep soon as they get in and not blow at all; then
whilst they are getting his chains loose, you slip
there and lock them in, and can kill them at your
leasure. Don't do anything but just the way I am
telling you; if you do they will suspicion something
and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I do not wish any
reward but to know I have done the right thing.
UNKNOWN FRIEND. |
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