Huckleberry Finn Grows Up

By Sam Sackett

With his last adventures officially behind him, Huck Finn has just made up his mind to escape Aunt Sallys wishes for him to get sivilized. Without a second thought, Huck strikes out for the Injun Territory on foot, leaving Tom Sawyer and Jim behind. But before long, the mischievous Huck Finn soon realizes that getting to Injun Territory is not going to be as easy as he thought.
It is not long before Huck secures an opportunity as a drover for a party of settlers heading for Oregon. As soon as he feels confident he is headed in the right direction, the settlers inform him he is closer to Injun Territory than he thinks. After he departs from the family, he meets a traveling doctor who convinces him to be a swami; and an Injun named Mankiller who introduces him to the ways of the Cherokee tribe and teaches him about responsibility. As he slowly immerses himself into a new life, Huck sees another side of racism, falls in love, and learns what it is like to become a man.
In this adventurous tale, Huckleberry Finn embarks on a journey of self-discovery where he eventually uncovers the truths about sivilization, slavery, and the differences between right and wrong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475930283

Sam Sackett

Sam Sackett received his doctorate from UCLA. After 23 years as a university professor of English, he escaped from academe to work for (in chronological order) a newspaper, an advertising agency, and a public relations firm. Then, having become an expert on career change, he was a career counselor for 15 years. He retired for six years in Thailand and has now returned to the US. The stories in Through Farang Eyes are based on personal observation, stories told him by Thai friends, and stories in the Bangkok Post and on Thai news broadcasts. None of the characters are accurate portrayals of real people.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Sam Sackett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3027-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3028-3 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3029-0 (dj)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909765

iUniverse rev. date: 6/28/2012

Cover design and photography by Thomas Johannessen

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

DEDICATION

To Alan Robinett,

who is very much unlike Huckleberry Finn in some ways

but in other ways is more like him than he knows,

and

to the memories of

Benjamin S Harrison

I came to his class liking Mark Twain; I left his class loving him.

and Leon Howard

I came to his class loving Mark Twain, and I left his class feeling I knew him in person.

A NOTE ON THE TEXT

When the late Thornton W. Wells retired in 1954 as Professor of English at what was then Fort Hays Kansas State College, now Fort Hays State University, he donated to the Western Collection of Forsyth Library at the college a locked metal box with written instructions that it was not to be opened for fifty years.

The university’s Librarian, Lawrence Mac Reed, opened the box in 2004 and found that it contained twenty-seven notebooks written in Pitman shorthand, obviously of an age much greater than fifty years; the manuscripts of three poems; and a faded tintype, undated and with no identification of its subject. There was much difficulty in getting the notebooks transcribed, because the Pitman system had been superseded by Gregg shorthand in 1888, and in the twenty-first century few stenographers could be found who had been trained in it. Nationwide advertising finally located four persons who had, for their own amusement, learned the Pitman system, and over the next several years the notebooks were transcribed. It was discovered that they contained the further adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who, according to Mark Twain’s account of him, left Missouri for Indian Territory because he resisted being sivilized, at least partially because of his disgust over the way sivilization had treated his friend and comrade, Jim, an African-American slave. Internal evidence in the subjoined account suggests that Finn must have left Missouri around 1842 or 1843.

The evidence in the accompanying narrative also suggests that the three manuscripts are authentic autograph copies of poems by Richard Realf, a minor poet of the 1860s, who lived in Kansas for a while and died by his own hand in San Francisco, where he was employed by the United States Mint. The tintype has been photographed, retouched, and rephotographed. Even though there is no evidence that it portrays Huckleberry Finn, I have made the assumption that it shows him at the time he was mining gold in Hangtown and have used a portion of it on the cover of this book.

Because there were four transcribers at work on the notebooks, their transcriptions were not entirely uniform stylistically; and they reported that, because of differences in handwriting, the original shorthand version itself seemed to have been written down by several different stenographers, who apparently listened to Mr. Finn’s account of his adventures in rotation. This will very likely explain any stylistic discrepancies which may be found in the subjoined narrative. On the other hand, it is also possible that Mr. Finn’s use of English was not scrupulously consistent.

As editor, I have attempted to minimize these stylistic discrepancies to the best of my ability, but I am sure that some have escaped me. For these I apologize. I have also eliminated some duplications, as Mr. Finn described the same event twice on thirteen occasions; in dealing with these repetitions, I have conflated the text, using some words, phrases, and sentences from each of the two versions in an attempt to smooth out the narrative. Nothing else has been omitted.

Orthography was a problem. As I edited the typescripts, I became aware that the original amanuenses had apparently endeavored to be faithful to Mr. Finn’s East Missouri dialect, but that some of the transcribers had attempted to apply nineteenth-century spelling conventions while others had used those of the twenty-first century. While none of the four was absolutely consistent, one almost always used modern spelling, another almost always attempted to render the transcription phonetically, and the other two were somewhere between these extremes. Thus I had to choose between, e.g., feller and fella, goin’ to and gonna, etc. I chose the earlier forms as more appropriate to the historical period during which Mr. Finn lived, but some later usages may have escaped my scrutiny. I have retained some of the phonetic spellings used by one transcriber, following the practice used in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

One specific spelling problem deserves attention. According to the original shorthand versions of his narrative, Mr. Finn uniformly pronounced the word were as war, giving the negative warn’t, as in fact appears many times in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But, following the usage of three of the four transcribers, I have uniformly used the spelling were, in order to avoid confusion with the word war.

I attempted to make the orthography in the narrative portions of the document correspond approximately to the usage in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Thus, while the transcribers uniformly spelled civilization, as I’m sure Mr. Finn would have pronounced it, I altered this to sivilization in order to preserve the usage in the earlier book. On the other hand, despite his claim, Mark Twain did not actually reproduce the Pike County dialect, either accurately or consistently, in the narrative portions of his novel, fearing perhaps that unorthodox spellings and a forest of apostrophes would discourage a prospective reader. An example is that he uniformly used a terminal -g in such words as nothing and going. Another, not involving the terminal -g, is that he used eat as the past tense of eat, whereas an East Missourian would doubtless have pronounced it et. Similarly Twain used learnt to reflect a word that an East Missourian would certainly have pronounced larnt. While following his practice in those and other instances, I have allowed a little more deviance in an effort to allow the reader to hear while reading what I perceive to have been Mr. Finn’s voice.

In the dialogue, again following the precedent of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I let the spelling retain the flavor of Mr. Finn’s dialect, relegating the use of apostrophes to the dialogue so as not to impede the reader in the narrative. This resulted in some inconsistency between the narrative and the dialogue. On the other hand, Mr. Finn reported the conversations of persons more educated than he, as might be expected, in his own speech. I have taken the liberty of normalizing the quotations ascribed to such persons. Today’s reader may be surprised to find the occasional use of okay. The term entered the language during the presidency of Andrew Jackson and thus was becoming fairly common during Mr. Finn’s lifetime.

It will be observed by readers in these sensitive days that when Mr. Finn refers to Americans of African descent he uses the term nigger. It must be borne in mind that most of the events described herein occurred before the American Civil War and that Mr. Finn was born and raised in a slave-holding state in which that was the only term used for persons of African descent. Any reader who is tempted to object to his use of the term must also bear in mind the facts that Mr. Finn’s attitude toward such persons was uniformly favorable and that he took all the steps within his power to end their involuntary servitude.

Some persons may find Mr. Finn’s account of his experiences in Kansas Territory biased. Such readers must remember that Mr. Finn was not writing objective history; he was only recounting events as he lived through them from his point of view. His emotions, of course, were strongly engaged on the free-state side, and it is only understandable that he minimizes the faults of that side and maximizes the faults of the other.

Mr. Finn’s adherence to strict chronological order in the last portion of his narrative, giving many specific dates for the events he describes, is difficult to account for. Equally difficult to explain is his ability to provide accurate figures for, for example, voting results. My own conjecture, which has absolutely no evidence to support it, is that his account of his years in Kansas are based on a diary, perhaps his own, but more likely – in view of Mr. Finn’s marginal literacy – that of his wife.

Why Mr. Finn terminated his account in 1865 is impossible now to determine. The Civil War was still in progress, and there does not seem to be any particular reason why the narrative breaks off so suddenly. There is no indication that Mr. Finn, presumably then in his middle thirties, was in poor health; and history does not record any disaster affecting Lawrence at that time. This abrupt ending, indeed, raises the question whether there may be another trove of stenographic notebooks somewhere, awaiting discovery.

How Professor Wells obtained the notebooks is a mystery. A native Kansan, he was in his late seventies at the time of his retirement, having set a record for the longest career in education in the state. One of his courses at the university was Literature of the Middle West, and by the time of his retirement he had accumulated in the Western Collection of Forsyth Library probably the third largest collection of Kansas history and literature in the state, excelled only by the Kansas State Historical Library in Topeka and the Kansas Room of the University of Kansas Library. Since the narrative ends with Mr. Finn in Lawrence, one would suppose that the University of Kansas, rather than the institution at Hays, would have been the repository of the notebooks.

The reason why Professor Wells felt the notebooks should remain in a locked case for fifty years is also a mystery. Surely even in 1954 none of the persons mentioned in Mr. Finn’s narrative would still have been alive and subject to embarrassment by anything he said about them. It may be that Professor Wells’s concern was generated by the possibility that some of their children were still alive. In the course of the narrative Mr. Finn revealed things about himself that he specified he did not want his wife to know. Persons of Professor Wells’s generation, especially in conservative Kansas, were well known for their scrupulous delicacy, and perhaps that explains his reticence.

Arguably the most intriguing question raised by this discovery is whether the hero of Mark Twain’s novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a real person and, if so, the extent to which that novel was based on an account which that person provided orally to Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens).

S.S.

Chapter One

When I finished my book, that Mr. Mark Twain helped me with, I’d made up my mind to light out for the Territory to excape getting sivilized like Aunt Sally wanted to do with me. And I didn’t see no reason to wait.

So that night I decided that when everbody was sound asleep, I’d make tracks. But danged if I didn’t fall asleep. When I woke up, it was still quiet, so I got up out of bed and got ready to go. I didn’t have no clothes to pack, and I didn’t have no shoes to put on, so getting ready didn’t take me longer than it takes a dog to know he’s got a flea to scratch.

But then I thought all of a sudden that I hadn’t ought to leave without saying goodbye to Jim and Tom. They’d wake up in the morning and find me gone, and they’d think they’d ought to of seen me before I left. And there was Tom, sleeping jest as sound as a turtle in the sun, right in the other bed in the room.

So I went over to him and touched him on the shoulder, careful-like so as not to fright him, and he opened his eyes and sat up in bed.

What’s the matter, Huck?

I says, Tom, I cain’t stand the idee of another lady tryin’ to sivilize me. I had a bucketful o’ that with the Widow Douglas, an’ I’m still a-tryin' to dry out from it. So I’m a-goin’ to run away.

Tom says, Where to?

I tole him I was goin to the Injun Territory.

Bully! Tom says. That’s the plan, all right! But I said we was all three goin’ together, you an’ me an’ Jim, an’ spend two or three weeks mongst the injuns.

I done the fastest thinking I’d done in my life up to that time. I never stood up to Tom much, but I knowed I had to. I says, No, Tom, that won’t work. You’re too use to bein’ sivilized.

No I ain’t! Tom says. I ain’t hardly sivilized at all. Come on, Huck. We kin live with the injuns an’ take scalps an’ have a howlin’ time.

Right there I seen a way out of it. Tom, I don’ wan’ to take no scalps. I ain’t got no use fer ‘em.

Then what’s the sense o’ goin’ to the Territory?

Jis’ git away from sivilization.

But I could have been talking to a fence post. Tom was off and running. It’ll be bully fun, Huck. You an’ me kin wear war bonnets an’ ride injun ponies without no saddles an’ live in tepees an’ shoot bufflas with bows an’ arras –

No, Tom. We’re still frien’s, an’ we’ll allus be frien’s, but this is suthin’ I got to do by myse’f. I jes didn’ wan’ to leave without sayin’ goodbye. I jes wan’ to git away from sivilization. I don’t wan’ to take no scalps an’ wear no war bonnet an’ ride no injun ponies. So goodbye. And I headed for the window so’s I could get out.

Wait!

So I waited to hear what he wanted to say.

Don’t go to the Territory. I’ll be goin’ back home with Aunt Polly, an’ you can come with me, an’ we kin have all the fun together jes’ like we use to have.

So that made me think about living with the Widow Douglas and wearing shoes and going to school, and I knowed I didn’t want to go through that agin. So I started to try to tell Tom how I looked at it, but he kept on talking and all I could do was just keep shaking my head No, and then we heered the roosters start reminding the sun to wake up and get out of bed, and I knowed pretty soon everbody’d be up and stirring, and I’d lost my chance to get away. But Tom kept on talking, and Tom could talk the tail offen a dog, and the more he talked the more I give up on my idee and started to cotton to his. Sides, I was coming to think that if I didn’t want to take scalps and such there warn’t much pint my going to the Territory.

I asked Tom, How’m I s’pose to tell Aunt Sally I ain’t stayin’ here?

That pulled him up, and he was quiet for about two blinks of my eyes. Then he says, Remember, Judge Thatcher’s holdin’ six thousand dollars that belongs to you. Tell Aunt Sally you need to go back with us to git that money and bring it back here for her to keep for you. Then when you’re back home you can write Aunt Sally and tell her you’ve changed your mind.

Given all the plans Tom’d made up to set Jim free, this was the first one that really made sense to me. So I said, Okay, and just then we heard a knock on the door and Aunt Sally said, Breakfast is jest about ready, boys.

We went down to breakfast, and Tom laid out the scheme that I was to go back with Aunt Polly and him to collect my money.

How’s he going to get back? Aunt Sally asked.

He’ll have plenty o’ money to ride down the river on a steamboat, Tom said. And that ride’ll be a rare treat for him, too.

Aunt Sally looked at me with a question plowing furrows in her brow.

Uncle Silas said, Seems to me like this is the best idee we’ve had out o’ Tom since he come down here.

Tom split his face with a big smile when he heered that.

Aunt Polly said, He’ll be welcome to ride back with us.

Aunt Sally’s furrows went away then, and she said, Well, I reckon that’s what we’d better do.

So that got settled, and I hung round and me and Tom played at being injuns till it was time to go. Tom wanted to play like the hogs was bufflers and let them out of their pen, but I said we didn’t have no bows and arras to shoot them with, so he give up on that for a while and set us to making some bows and arras. That took some time, because we couldn’t find sticks that would bend right for the bows or be straight enough for the arras, and when we did find a stick that bent right and tied a piece of string to both ends, the string warn’t tight enough to shoot an arra with.

All that time I was wondring to myself was I doing the right thing. Tom and me was real close, and I didn’t have no better friend, but I thought we warn’t being straight with Aunt Sally, and I felt kind of mean.

So at last it was time to go. Aunt Sally said we was welcome to stay, but Aunt Polly said she didn’t want to leave Sid alone for too long, even though he was a good boy and wouldn’t get into no trouble.

She’d come down in a kind of shay, an old mare hitched to it, with room in back for her portmanteau, so she fixed it so Jim would drive and she would ride up on the seat with him, and Tom and me would ride in the back. It was a cold day, and Aunt Polly was so bundled up in wraps she could hardly see out. Tom wore a coat, and Aunt Polly made him wear a hat, earmuffs and gloves, but when he got in back of her where she couldn’t see him, he up and took the earmuffs off. I was used to being outside in all kinds of weather, so the cold didn’t bother me none. Jim didn’t have no warm clothes on, but he said he’d stood worse than this.

Aunt Sally kissed me and told me to hurry back, and we was on our way to St. Petersburg. Tom and me talked some bout the kinds of fun we’d have together. We whispered so Aunt Polly couldn’t hear us. But sometimes Tom couldn’t help hisself and busted out laughing, and Aunt Polly would say, You, Tom! What air you gigglin’ about?

And Tom would always say he’d just thought of something funny that had happened that Aunt Polly had laughed at herownself.

The weather got colder the farther north we went, but it warn’t too bad. It was jest a couple weeks past the shortest day of the year, so by the time we got to St. Petersburg it was dark at night, and they had the street lanterns lit. The windows in the Widow Douglas’s house was plum dark, so we knowed she’d gone to bed.

Aunt Polly said I’d best stay with her that night. She fretted some count of she didn’t have no bed for me.

Tom said, He can sleep with me, Aunt Polly.

She said, Tom Sawyer, that bed ain’t hardly big enough for you, the way you’ve grown, let alone two of you.

I said, I kin sleep on the floor. I done worse than that many’s the time.

She fussed about it, but finely she give in count of there warn’t nothing else to do.

Now the question come up of where Jim was to sleep. Even I knowed that it warn’t right for a nigger, no matter iffen he’d been man-you-mitted, and no matter how good a nigger he was, to sleep in a house with white folks.

Don’t you worry ‘bout me none, Jim said. Mebbe Miss Watson is daid, but her slave quarters is still dar, I kin fine my way all right. So then he took off.

Soon’s Tom and me got off by ourselfs, Tom begun to deliver one of his schemes. He said, Huck, the Widow Douglas probly thinks you’re dead. So I’ll go in there first and talk with her, and then you wrap yourself up in a sheet and walk in, and she’ll think you’re a ghost for sure. Then I’ll get up and pull off yer sheet, an’ we’ll tell ‘er you’ve come back to life.

I didn’t like that idee at all. The Widow Douglas’d never done me no harm. I didn’t take to being sivilized, but everything she done, she done because she thought it was best for me. So I didn’t cotton to doing nothing that would give her that big of a fright. I didn’t say nothing, because I knowed Tom warn’t the kind of feller that would want to harm nobody; he jest come up with idees for things he thought would be fun to do, and I knowed if he thought about this’n fer a while he’d know it was something he’d better not do.

Then we went to the bedroom. Sid was laying there asleep, and he sat up rubbing his eyes when we come in. Tom told him to go back to sleep, and Sid didn’t make no fuss about doing it. Then Tom got into his bed, and I stretched myself out on the floor.

My body was tired, but my mind kept on working. I thought to myself, What in the dickens did I let Tom talk me into coming up here for? He made it sound like we wouldn’t have nothing to do up here but play around all the time, but he’ll be in school most of the day, and I’ll have to be in school too. And school is right smack dab in the middle of the places I don’t want to be.

So I wished I’d stuck to my plan of going to the Territory. If I’d only knowed it, I was nearer the Territory when I was at Aunt Sally’s than I was in St. Petersburg, but I didn’t know joggerfy then. The more I thought, the more I knowed I’d done wrong in letting Tom talk me into coming up here with him. And I jest about made up my mind to sneak out and go right then.

But then I thought about the six thousand dollars Judge Thatcher was keeping for me. I knowed that iffen I lit out for the Territory that night, there wouldn’t be no chance of getting that money. Iffen I wanted the money, I’d have to wait till the morning, when the judge was awake, to get it.

Then I thought, what do I want with six thousand dollars in the Territory, anyway? I never had no money before, and I got along all right. And I judged that there warn’t much to buy in the Territory anyway. Which goes to show how little I knowed about the Territory. Anyways, I made up my mind to leave the money with Judge Thatcher and send for it later if I needed it.

Now that I’d decided that, there warn’t nothing to keep me there cept saying goodbye to Tom. And I judged I’d made that mistake once before and there warn’t no pint in making it again. Iffen I had a paper and pencil, I’d of left a note, but I didn’t carry any truck like that along with me.

Jest then the big clock downstairs struck one, and I knowed it was time to go. So I went to the window and shinnied down the drainpipe. But a sudden thought stopped me when I hit the ground. What about saying goodbye to Jim? I wanted to do it, but I was afeerd I’d raise a racket finding him and telling him what I was doing. So I shut that door, and I was on my way to the Territory.

I knowed I wanted to go west, so I kept the rising sun at my back that morning. It had snowed a while back, and there was still some patches here and there, but after the sun come up a body could most see the sun sucking up the snow.

I got a ride with a farmer part of the way. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I had a big brother out in the Territory that I was going to try to find because our ma was sick. He shook his head and tole me I’d never find him, but I said I’d got to try. He wished me luck when he let me off.

Aside from that, most of the day I was on foot. Once I was clear of St. Petersburg I stuck to the main roads, figgering if anybody was going to the Territory that I could get another ride with, that was how they’d go.

*

Getting to the Injun Territory warn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. Old Andy Jackson had jest set it up, and there warn’t many people heading thataway. I thought I’d get out there ahead of everybody else, and I reckon I was too far ahead.

A party of settlers going to Oregon happened to come through, and I seen that they could use another drover for their cattle, so when they was bedding down for the night I went up to the wagon master to offer my services. He was a little squinty feller with a big gray beard, not much taller’n I was.

He let a squirt of tobacco fly at a rangy black and white dog and missed, mostly cause the dog moved. He looked me up and down and said, You ain’t dry behind the ears yet. Whut makes you think you kin keep a herd of cows together?

I said, I’m older’n I look. I been herdin’ cows on my uncle’s farm over to Lewis County. Which was so fat a lie it’d have to go through the barn door sideways, but Lewis County was so far away there warn’t no chance he could check up on me.

Well, he said, after chomping some more on the wad in his cheek, I reckon we kin give you a try, anyhoo. You’ll get two bits a day and found.

Thankee kindly, I said. Jest then I spied a gal about my own age, yeller hair shining like gold in the setting sun, tied with blue ribbon into two braids. And say, she warn’t half pretty! Even Miss Becky Thatcher couldn’t hold a candle to her. Who’s that? I asked the wagon master.

Oh, that ther’s Rev’rend Davies’s girl, he said. He kind of chuckled like he knew I cottoned to her. You kin ask him iffen you kin bed down with ‘em at night.

Thankee kindly, I said again.

I went over to the wagon where the gal was and tried not to look like I was looking at her. Her mother was cooking something in a big black kettle hanging over a fire, and her father was laying out pallets on the ground. He was a tall, thin man, clean shaven, dressed all in black. Rev’rend Davies? I said to get his attention.

He straightened up and scowled at me. What is it?

My name’s Huck Finn, I told him, and I’ve jest signed on as a drover. The wagon master tole me mebbe I could jine your party. Which pulled the truth out of shape jest a mite.

He glared at me like he was trying to look inside my head to see what was going on there. Finally he said, Are you saved?

I didn’t have no idea what he meant by that. I knowed that the wagon master had saved me from having to walk all the way to the Territory by my lonesome, so I said, Yes, Sir.

Then he said, Well, then, you may join us. But we have only enough pallets for our family.

I don’t mind sleepin’ on the ground, I said. I done it many’s the time.

I suppose you won’t mind doing some work for your keep.

No, Sir, I won’t mind.

Fine. Then you can split that firewood for me. He pointed to a little stack of tree branches that had been sawed into lengths about half as long as my arm and three times as big around. I seen an axe tied to the side of the wagon, so I untied it and split each branch into four pieces. Ever time I finished one of the branches, I snuck a glance over at the gal to see if she was watching me, but either she warn’t paying me no mind at all or she was good at looking away just fore I looked at her.

About the time I got finished with my splitting, Mrs. Davies started ladling out what was in the kettle into bowls, and I seen there was four bowls, so she meant for me to have some. I tied the axe back on the wagon, come over to where she was, and took my bowl. She gave me a spoon, and I stuck it in and was just about to weigh in when I heard the Revrend start to pray. I’d had a plenty of praying at the Widow Douglas’s, but I gritted my teeth and listened:

Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank Thee for what we are about to partake. Thou Who hast made the mountains and the valleys, make our way smooth as we depart for Oregon. Soothe the savage breasts of the Indian tribes through whose lands we pass, that we may arrive safe. Should we be called upon to surrender up our souls on this journey, please receive them in Thy bright heaven. Bless us every one, including the boy Huck who has joined our party this day. Amen.

That reminded us of the dangers we was going to be facing, and it sobered us up right smart. So then I started in on what was in the bowl, which were a pretty good stew. I liked my victuals so they was all mixed together, so the flavors could shake hands and be friends.

The girl said to me, Is your name really Huck?

I said, My whole name’s Huckleberry.

She laughed and said, That’s a funny name.

I said, Well, it’s all I got. What’s yore name?

Sarah, she said.

I said, That’s a right pretty name. But that didn’t get noplace, so the talking was done.

After we ate, we started singing hymns around the campfire. The fire felt real good, cause the air was getting cold. The Widow Douglas had tried to learn me some hymns, but they didn’t stay put in my head. I didn’t know the tunes to any of the hymns, let alone the words, so I just set and listened.

Betwixt Amazing Grace and The Sweet Bye and Bye Mrs. Davies said to me, Huck, you’re not singing.

I ain’t got much of a voice, I said. When I sing, people pay me to shut up.

Mrs. Davies laughed and said, Well, then, we’re grateful for your silence.

But I noticed the Reverend were a-scowling at me.

After they got tired singing, the Davieses knelt by their pallets and begun to praying silently. I warn’t no great hand at praying, but kneeling didn’t bother me none, so I put on a good show and seemed to satisfy the audience.

It was a cold night, but I wrapped me up in a blanket the Revrend gave me. I didn’t have no trouble getting to sleep, and it seemed like I’d just done that when somebody was shaking my shoulder. I sat up, and there was the wagon master.

Git up, lad, and start gittin’ them cattle togither.

It was that kind a gray light just fore the sun comes up. I dragged myself up and staggered out to where the cattle was pastured. They was in a meadow with deep grass, so they hadn’t strayed very far. They was a couple that needed to rejoin the herd, so I slapped them on the rumps and got them moving back to where they ought to be.

Then there didn’t seem to be nothing that required my presence for a while, so I went back to the Davies wagon and found Mrs. Davies using some of the wood I’d split the night before to heat up a kettle of oatmeal. Reverend Davies was rolling up the pallets and stowing them in the wagon.

When I come near, he turned and looked at me with that scowl he had. Huckleberry, he said, did you tell me the truth when you said you were saved?

Yes, Sir. I still didn’t know what he was driving at.

Forgive me if I am wronging you, he said, but I cannot help being doubtful. I observed that you seemed about to begin eating before I said grace, and you didn’t know any of the hymns we sang. Do you know your catechism?

I didn’t know what kind of a cat that was, but I warn’t going to admit it. So I said, Yes, Sir.

So he said, What is the chief end of man?

That was a real stunner. I thought for a little while and then it come to me that when a man comes to his end, he’s dead. So I said, The chief end of man is death.

I reckon that was the wrong answer. The Revrend was silent for a long time. Then he said, Huckleberry, you have been lying to me. Why?

I didn’t know how to answer that question. I said, You kept askin’ me questions I didn’t unnerstan’, so I jest give you the answers I thought you wanted.

He found another long silence somewheres and trotted it out. Then he said, Why did you want to come with us?

Well, I for sartin sure warn’t going to tell him that I picked his wagon cause he had such a purty daughter, so I said, I jest wanted some he’p gettin’ to the Injun Territory.

There warn’t no silence now. I never seen nobody laugh so hard in all my born days. Indian Territory! the Reverend said when he caught his breath. What makes you think you’re going to Indian Territory!

Well, I knowed you was goin’ to Oregon, so I figgered I could drop off at Injun Territory along the way.

You’re closer to Indian Territory right now, he said, than you would be in Oregon. And the Oregon Trail doesn’t go anywhere near Indian Territory. Look here. He took a stick and scratched a square on the ground. We’re here. He made a little dot in the middle. Oregon’s up here. He made an X in the upper left corner. And Indian Territory’s here. He made another X about halfway to the lower left corner.

I studied the square. Looks like I’d be goin’ north to git south, I said.

Exactly, he agreed. Now, Huckleberry, you seem to be a young man in dire need of salvation, and I would love to have you come with us so that I could wrestle for your soul and bring you to the mourner’s bar. But I would be doing you a disservice should I do so.

So it looked like I warn’t going to be traveling with Sarah Davies after all. And I could say goodbye to my two bits a day.

You could accompany us for a short while, he went on, but we will be journeying by way of St. Joseph; and what I would advise for you is to head for Kansas City and try to get to the Indian Territory from there.

Thankee kindly, I said.

In the meantime, he said, the oatmeal is ready, and you can have breakfast with us before we part company.

It didn’t rile me none to scape all the preaching and praying the Revrend Davies would have put me through, though I did wish I could have got to know his daughter better. So I eat nuff oatmeal to stick to my ribs, cause I didn’t know when I’d get another meal, and I got my fill of looking at Sarah Davies’ yeller hair, cause I figured I’d never see her or it again. I guess I looked at her so long I set a tintype of her in my head. And then there warn’t nothing for it but to set out again on shank’s mare, on a different road than the Oregon train.

*

I had my pipe with me, and I’d brought a sack of tobacco, so I lit up and set out. It was cold and spitting snow, but I judged what had to be done had to be done, and I tried to amuse myself by looking at the dry grasses along the road as I went past.

I’d put in about two hours of that, by the sun that I could see by a glow in the clouds, when I heard a kind a rumbling behind me. I turned and looked and seen a cloud of dust proceeding down the road toward me. I judged there was some kind of wagon or carriage affixed to the dust, so I stepped over to the edge of the road to let it go by me.

But it surprised me by stopping alongside. I looked up and seen it was a big wooden wagon, pulled by a sorry-looking piebald mare, with

DOCTOR POTESTO

painted on the side of the wagon. The feller setting up in the driver’s seat was a funny looking chap, dressed up like he was going to a funeral, in a black suit with a stovepipe hat. He had long moustaches, ending in curlicues on both sides, and his face was pale and wrinkled. The mare looked at me with sad eyes.

The driver greeted me with How do you do, young man?

I said Howdy back at him.

And whither are you bound?

I didn’t know what he meant, so I just looked at him slack-jawed.

I mean, what is your destination?

I judged he wanted to know where I was going, so I said, I’m headed for the Injun Territory.

He kind of scowled at that, wrinkling up his face even more. In the vernacular of this benighted land, he said, that’s a fur piece. My intention is for this superannuated beast to pull me as far as Kansas City, and I would be pleased to have your company should you be willing to join me.

Don’t mind iffen I do, I said. It beats walking.

So he moved over on the seat, and I jined him. He shook the reins, and we was off at the fastest pace the old nag could muster up.

By what appellation are you known? he asked me.

That was another poser, so I just looked at him again.

I mean, what is your name?

Huckleberry Finn.

He repeated it like he was trying to learn it by heart, and then said, And I am known in the capitals of the world as Doctor Potesto. Do you know Latin, by any chance?

I said, No, what’s ‘is last name?

Latin, he said, is the language of the ancient Romans. It was the language of Caesar and Cicero, of Virgil and Ovid.

The names didn’t mean nothing to me. I knowed a nigger once named Caesar, that got sold down the river and his family busted up, and there was a boy back home, a little older than me and Tom, named Virgil Boddiger, but I judged Doctor Potesto warn’t talking about them.

He went on, "In Latin poto, potere signifies power, ability, capacity. Potest means ‘he is capable, he is able, he has the power to accomplish his ends.’ My mission in life is to enhance the abilities of every man, woman, and child on this continent to achieve their goals."

I said, That sounds right grand.

It is, Huckleberry, it is. From time to time you will hear a clinking sound from the wagon behind us.

I nodded. I’d already noticed it.

That clinking sound is made by bottles, intended to hold a supply of an elixir which has the virtue of increasing the powers of human beings to accomplish their hearts’ desires. In addition, it has been known to cure the gout, rheumatism, lumbago, and other diseases to which the flesh of man is heir. The recipe was given me in Calcutta by a Hindu swami. I travel the highways and byways of this great land enabling those I meet to purchase a supply of this marvelous tonic for only fifty cents a bottle.

I’m sorry, Doctor Potesto, I said, but I ain’t got no fifty cents.

I didn’t think you did, Huckleberry my lad, and it was not my purpose in telling you this to invite you to buy a bottle yourself. Rather, my intention was to solicit your assistance in selling it to the multitudes.

Whut do you want me to do? I asked.

I need someone to represent the swami. The last swami I had was a runaway slave I was helping escape, but in the last town but one someone recognized him from his poster, and I lost him. I had some difficulty myself in avoiding bodily harm; fortunately I was able to urge Rosinante here – he waved his whip at the hoss – to the speed she had when she was ten years younger, and we effected our deliverance from the angry mob. I hope that you don’t find my efforts to liberate my African friend objectionable.

I felt a little kinder toward the doctor at that. Him and me was the same kind of scalawag, for I’d tried to help a runaway myself, Jim, like I told about in my book. I said, I done somethin’ like that myself. And I told him about me and Jim. I finished up by saying, I know I done wrong, but somehow I cain’t feel sorry for it.

He flashed me a broad smile under his moustaches. I’m pleased to meet a fellow Abolitionist here in the moral and intellectual quagmire of Missouri. He put out his hand for me to shake; and, even though I didn’t like being called an Abolitionist, not knowing for sartin what one was, I shook it. Will you assist me?

How?

When I make my presentation to the crowd, I like to have the swami on the stage beside me. You, my friend Huckleberry, will be the swami.

I ain’t never been no swami before. What do I have to do?

Just sit there and look wise. I was able to preserve from the mob the raiments which my last swami wore. When we approach the next town, I’ll get them out and adorn you with them. Fortunately, your skin has been bronzed enough by the sun that I think you’ll pass. How old are you, Huckleberry?

I added on five years to make it seem like I was old enuff to be a swami.

You’re a little small for your age, but I think the garb will fit you. In the meantime, the sun has reached its meridian, and I propose we stop here on the roadside for lunch. Will you join me?

I said, You bet.

He pulled on the right rein and got Rosinante over on the grass. The snow had stopped by that time, so it was just like a little powder skifted over everything. The mare was happy enuff to rest and started cropping the grass without waiting for no invite. We got down off the wagon, and the doctor spread out a blanket for us to sit on. Then he opened up a door in the side of the wagon and got out some kindling wood, a skillet, a fork, a loaf of bread, and a string of big fat link sausages. Even though I’d had a good breakfast, the look of them sausages made my stomach pull tight inside. The doctor pulled out a Barlow knife, cut off four sausages, and put them in the pan, which he set aside on the grass. Then he got out some lucifers from his coat pocket and coaxed a fire out of the kindling. Once it got to roaring, he started vibrating the pan over it so as to roll the sausages over and back and get them done through.

Have you ever consumed knackwurst? he asked me.

Is thet whut them sausages is? I asked.

The same.

No, I never eat nothin’ like that.

You are in for a treat, my boy, he said. I conceive of the Norse deities sitting around in their Valhalla nibbling knackwurst, for this is truly food fit for the gods.

That didn’t make much more sense to me than a lot of what the doctor said, so I just kept my peace and looked at the sausages getting browner first on one side and then the other. Finally the doctor said they was done, laid the skillet on the grass, cut two slabs of bread off the loaf with the Barlow knife, and used the fork to lay a sausage on each slab. He showed me how to kind a wrap the bread around the sausage to hold it, and then I bit in. Well, that sausage just shot out its hot juices into my mouth, and whatever the doctor had said about it, I had to admit that was as good to eat as I’d ever had in all my born days.

After dinner we went through a passel of little villages that the doctor said was too minus cool for us to bother with, and then we come to Moberly, which was the county seat. We stopped outside of town at a little crick that Rosinante enjoyed,