Next, for about half an hour, I shouts now and then; at last I hears the answer a long way off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn’t do it, and soon I judged I had got into a nest of little islands, for I could see little movements of them on both sides of me -- sometimes just a narrow channel between, and some that I couldn’t see I knowed was there because I’d hear the wash of the water against the old dead bushes and branches that was hanging over the sides. Well, I weren’t long losing the shouts down in all those little islands; and I only tried to follow them a little while, anyway, because it was worse than running after a ghost. You never knowed a sound jump around so, and change places so quickly and so much.
I had to fight to get away from the sides of the islands pretty strongly four or five times, to keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the raft must be hitting into the sides every now and then too, or else it would be farther ahead and out of hearing -- it was moving a little faster than what I was.
Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn’t hear no sign of a shout nowhere. I reasoned Jim had been stopped by a branch, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was dead tired, so I lay myself down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t worry no more. I didn’t want to go to sleep; but I was so sleepy I couldn’t help it; so I thought I would take just one little very short sleep.
But I think it was more than a little sleep, for when I waked up the stars was out, the fog was all gone, and I was turning down a big bend back first. At first I thought I was dreaming; and when things started to come back to me they seemed to come up out of last week.
It was an awful big river here, with the tallest and the thickest kind of timber on both sides; just a solid wall, as well as I could see by the stars. I looked away down the river, and seen a black spot on the water. I took after it; but when I got to it it weren’t nothing but two saw logs tied together. Then I see another spot, and ran after that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.
When I got to it Jim was sitting there with his head down between his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The other oar was broken off, and the raft was covered with leaves and branches and dirt. So she’d had a rough time.
I tied up and got down on the raft under Jim’s nose on the raft, and started to push my fists out against Jim, like I was just waking up, and says: “Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Good Lord, is dat you, Huck? And you ain’t dead -- you ain’t drowned -- you’s back again? It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Let me look at you child, let me feel of you. No, you ain’t dead! you’s back again, alive and safe, just de same old Huck -- de same old Huck, thanks to de good Lord!”
“What’s the trouble with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?”
“Drinking? Has I been a-drinking? Has I had a way to be a-drinking?”
“Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?”
“How does I talk wild?”
“How? Why, ain’t you been talking about my coming back, and all that, as if I’d been gone away?”
“Huck -- Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. Ain’t you been gone away?”
“Gone away? Why, what in the world do you mean? I ain’t been gone anywhere. Where would I go to?”
“Well, look here, boss, dey’s something wrong, dey is. Is I me, or who is I? Is I here, or where is I? Now dat’s what I wants to know.”
“Well, I think you’re here, clear enough, but I think you’re a mixed up old crazy man, Jim.”
“I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn’t you take out de rope in de canoe for to tie up to dat little island?”
“No, I didn’t. What little island? I ain’t seen no little island.”
“You ain’t seen no little island? Look here, didn’t de rope pull loose and de raft go whistling down de river, and leave you and de canoe behind in de fog?”
“What fog?”
“Why, de fog! -- de fog dat’s been around all night. And didn’t you shout, and didn’t I shout, until we got mixed up in de islands and one of us got lost and t’other was just as good as lost, because he didn’t know where he was? And didn’t I hit up against a lot of dem islands and have an awful time and almost get drowned? Now ain’t dat so, boss -- ain’t it so? You answer me dat.”
“Well, this is too much for me, Jim. I ain’t seen no fog, or no islands, or no troubles, or nothing. I been sitting here talking with you all night until you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I think I done the same. You couldn’t a got drunk in that time, so it must be you’ve been dreaming.”
“Dad blame it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?”
“Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’t any of it happen.”
“But, Huck, it’s all just as clear to me as -- “
“It don’t make no difference how clear it is; there ain’t nothing in it. I know, because I’ve been here all the time.”
Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but sat there studying over it. Then he says: “Well, den, I think I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats if it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever seen. And I ain’t ever had no dream before dat’s tired me like dis one.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does make a body tired like everything at times. But this one was a powerful dream; tell me all about it, Jim.”
So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it happened, only he painted it up a lot. Then he said he must start in and get the meaning of it, because it was sent for a warning. He said the first little island stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the water movement was another man that would get us away from him. The shouts was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, instead of keeping us out of it. The group of little islands was troubles we was going to get into with people who want to argue, and with all kinds of bad people, but if we stayed to ourselves and didn’t talk back and make them angry, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free place, and we wouldn’t have no more trouble.
It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it was clearing up again now.
“Oh, well, that’s all understood well enough as far as it goes, Jim,” I says; “but what does these things stand for?”
It was the leaves and dirt on the raft and the broken oar. You could see them easily now.
Jim looked at the messy raft, and then looked at me, and back at the raft again. He had got the dream so strong in his head that he couldn’t seem to shake it loose and get the truth back into its place again right away. But when he did get the thing straight he looked at me without ever smiling, and says: “What do dey stand for? I’s gwyne to tell you what dey stand for. When I got all tired out wid work, and wid de calling for you, and went to sleep, my heart was almost broken because you was lost, and I didn’t care no more what become of me and de raft. And when I wake up and find you back again, all safe and healthy, de tears come, and I could a got down on my knees and kissed your foot, I was so thankful. And all you was thinking about was how you could make a joke of old Jim wid a lie. Dat dere on de raft is dirt; and dirt is what people is dat puts dirt on de heads of dey friends and makes ‘em feel bad.”
Then he got up slow and walked to the tent, and went in there without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a slave; but I done it, and I weren’t ever sorry for it after that either. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t a done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.
Chapter 16
After sleeping almost all day, we started out at
night, a little ways behind an awful long raft that was as long going by as a parade. She had four long oars at each end to steer it, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big tents on her, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle. There was a lot of show about her. Being a worker on a raft as big as that would be something special.
We went down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides.
You couldn’t see a break in it hardly, or a light. We talked about Cairo, and were not sure if we would know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn’t, because I heard say there weren’t but about ten or twelve houses there, and if they didn’t happen to have a light on, how was we going to know we was passing it? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we'd think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again. That worried Jim -- and me too. So the question was, what to do? I said, land the raft the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming with a flat boat, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good plan, so we took a smoke on it and waited.
There weren’t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it. He said he’d be mighty sure to look, because he’d be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it he’d be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says: “Dere she is!”
But it weren’t. It was candles in pumpkins, or fire flies; so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him all over shaking and hot to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over shaking and hot, too, to hear him, because I started to get it through my head that he was almost free -- and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay in one place. It hadn’t ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and burned me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I weren’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his owner; but it weren’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, “But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a landed and told someone.” That was so -- I couldn’t get around that no way. That was where it hurt. Conscience says to me,
“What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her slave go off right under your eyes and never say one word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could be so mean to her? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you the best ways to act, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That’s what she done.”
I got to feeling so mean and so bad I almost wished I was dead. I walked up and down the raft, arguing with myself, and Jim was walking up and down past me. Both of us couldn’t stay in one place. Every time he danced around and said, “Dere’s Cairo!” it went through me like a bullet, and I thought if it was Cairo I would die of guilt.
Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got free, he would go to saving up money and never spend a cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Abolitionist to go and rob them.
It was enough to freeze me hearing such talk. He wouldn’t ever have had confidence to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was as the old saying goes, “Give a slave an inch and he’ll take a yard.” Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this slave, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would take his children -- children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever hurt me.
I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was so low of him. My conscience got to making me hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, “Let up on me -- it ain’t too late yet -- I’ll land at the first light and tell.” I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light, and kind of singing to myself. By and by one showed.
Jim sings out: “We’s safe, Huck, we’s safe! Jump up and hit your heels toether! Dat’s de good old Cairo at last, I just knows it!”
I says: “I’ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn’t be, you know.”
He jumped up and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to sit on, and give me the oar; and as I pushed off, he says:
“Pretty soon I’ll be a-shouting for happiness, and I’ll say, it’s all because of Huck; I’s a free man, and I couldn’t ever been free if it hadn’t been for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won’t ever forget you, Huck; you’s de best friend Jim’s ever had; and you’s de only friend old Jim’s got now.”
I was heading off, all in a hurry to tell on him; but when he said this, it seemed to kind of take the enthusiasm all out of me. I went along slow then, and I weren’t right down sure if I was glad I started or if I weren’t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:
“Dere you goes, de old true Huck; de only white man dat ever kept his promise to old Jim.”
Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it -- I can’t get out of it. Right then along comes a boat with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says: “What’s that up there?”
“A piece of a raft,” I says.
“Do you belong on it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any men on it?”
“Only one, sir.”
“Well, there’s five slaves run off tonight up a piece, above the head of the bend. Is your man white or black?”
I didn’t answer up quickly. I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried for a second or two to force it out, but I weren’t man enough -- hadn’t the strength of a rabbit. I see I was getting weak; so I just give up trying, and up and says: “He’s white.”
“I think we’ll go and see for ourselves.”
“I wish you would,” says I, “because it’s pap that’s there, and maybe you’d help me pull the raft to the beach where the light is. He’s sick -- and so is mom and Mary Ann.”
“Oh, the devil! we’re in a hurry, boy. But we probably should do something. Come, move along and let’s go see.”
I picked up my oar and they picked up theirs. When we had made a push or two, I says: “Pap’ll be mighty much thankful to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me bring the raft in, and I can’t do it by myself.”
“Well, that’s awful mean of them. Strange, too. Say, boy, what’s the problem with your father?”
“It’s the -- a -- the -- well, it ain’t anything much.”
They stopped pulling. It weren’t but a little ways to the raft now. One says:
“Boy, that’s a lie. What IS the problem with your pap? Answer up square now, and it’ll be the better for you.”
“I will, sir, I will, honest -- but don’t leave us, please. It’s the -- the -- Sirs, if you’ll only pull ahead, and let me throw you the rope, you won’t have to come near the raft -- please do.”
“Turn her back, John, turn her back!” says one. They backed water. “Keep away, boy -- keep to the left. Worst luck, the wind has probably blowed it to us. Your pap’s got the smallpox, and you know it very well. Why didn’t you come out and say so? Do you want to give it to all of us?”
“Well,” says I, a-crying, “I’ve told everybody before, and they just went away and left us.”
“Poor devil, there’s something in that. We are right down sorry for you, but we -- well, hang it, we don’t want the smallpox, you see. Look here, I’ll tell you what to do. Don’t
you try to land by yourself, or you’ll break everything to pieces. You go along down about twenty miles, and you’ll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It will be long after the sun has come up by then, and when you ask for help you tell them your parents are down with shakes and being hot. Don’t be so stupid again, and let people see the truth. Now we’re trying to be kind to you; so you just put twenty miles between us, that’s a good boy. It wouldn’t do any good to land down there where the light is -- it’s only a timber yard. Say, I think your father’s poor, and I’m sure he’s had some pretty hard luck. So here, I’ll put a twenty dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it goes by you on the water. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my lord! it won’t do to play with smallpox, don’t you see?”
“Hold on, Parker,” says the other man, “Here’s a twenty to put on the board for me too. Goodbye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you’ll be all right.”