YOU don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made
By Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which
He stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never
Seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or
The widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly – Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is – and
Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is
Mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.
Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money
That the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six
Thousand dollars apiece – all gold. It was an awful sight of money when
It was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at
Interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round
– more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took
Me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough
Living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and
Decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no
Longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again,
And was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he
Was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back
To the widow and be respectable. So I went back.
The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she
Called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.
She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat
And sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced
Again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to
come to time.
When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to
Wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the
Victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them, – that
Is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds
And ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of
Swaps around, and the things go better.
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the
Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by
She let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then
I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead
People.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
Wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must
Try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They
Get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was
A-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody,
Being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a
Thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that
Was all right, because she done it herself.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on,
Had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a
Spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then
The widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for
An hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say,
“Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t scrunch up like
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