Next day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow tow-head out in themiddle, where there was a village on each side of the river, and the duke andthe king begun to lay out a plan for working them towns. Jim he spoke to theduke, and said he hoped it wouldn’t take but a few hours, because it got mightyheavy and tiresome to him when he had to lay all day in the wigwam tied withthe rope. You see, when we left him all alone we had to tie him, because ifanybody happened on to him all by himself and not tied it wouldn’t look muchlike he was a runaway nigg*r, you know. So the duke said it was kind ofhard to have to lay roped all day, and he’d cipher out some way to get aroundit.
He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He dressed Jim upin King Lear’s outfit—it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a white horse-hairwig and whiskers; and then he took his theater paint and painted Jim’s face andhands and ears and neck all over a dead, dull, solid blue, like a man that’sbeen drownded nine days. Blamed if he warn’t the horriblest looking outrage Iever see. Then the duke took and wrote out a sign on a shingle so:
Sick Arab—but harmless when not out of his head.
And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or five footin front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a sight better thanlying tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all over every time therewas a sound. The duke told him to make himself free and easy, and if anybodyever come meddling around, he must hop out of the wigwam, and carry on alittle, and fetch a howl or two like a wild beast, and he reckoned they wouldlight out and leave him alone. Which was sound enough judgment; but you takethe average man, and he wouldn’t wait for him to howl. Why, he didn’t only looklike he was dead, he looked considerable more than that.
These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there was so muchmoney in it, but they judged it wouldn’t be safe, because maybe the news mighta worked along down by this time. They couldn’t hit no project that suitedexactly; so at last the duke said he reckoned he’d lay off and work his brainsan hour or two and see if he couldn’t put up something on the Arkansaw village;and the king he allowed he would drop over to t’other village without any plan,but just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable way—meaning the devil,I reckon. We had all bought store clothes where we stopped last; and now theking put his’n on, and he told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. Theking’s duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I neverknowed how clothes could change a body before. Why, before, he looked like theorneriest old rip that ever was; but now, when he’d take off his new whitebeaver and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that grand and good and piousthat you’d say he had walked right out of the ark, and maybe was old Leviticushimself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I got my paddle ready. There was a bigsteamboat laying at the shore away up under the point, about three mile abovethe town—been there a couple of hours, taking on freight. Says the king:
“Seein’ how I’m dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St. Louis orCincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the steamboat, Huckleberry; we’llcome down to the village on her.”
I didn’t have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride. I fetchedthe shore a half a mile above the village, and then went scooting along thebluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to a nice innocent-lookingyoung country jake setting on a log swabbing the sweat off of his face, for itwas powerful warm weather; and he had a couple of big carpet-bags by him.
“Run her nose in shore,” says the king. I done it. “Wher’ you bound for, youngman?”
“For the steamboat; going to Orleans.”
“Git aboard,” says the king. “Hold on a minute, my servant ’ll he’p you withthem bags. Jump out and he’p the gentleman, Adolphus”—meaning me, I see.
I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap was mightythankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage such weather. He asked theking where he was going, and the king told him he’d come down the river andlanded at the other village this morning, and now he was going up a few mile tosee an old friend on a farm up there. The young fellow says:
“When I first see you I says to myself, ‘It’s Mr. Wilks, sure, and he comemighty near getting here in time.’ But then I says again, ‘No, I reckon itain’t him, or else he wouldn’t be paddling up the river.’ You ain’t him,are you?”
“No, my name’s Blodgett—Elexander Blodgett—Reverend Elexander Blodgett,I s’pose I must say, as I’m one o’ the Lord’s poor servants. But still I’m jistas able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving in time, all the same, ifhe’s missed anything by it—which I hope he hasn’t.”
“Well, he don’t miss any property by it, because he’ll get that all right; buthe’s missed seeing his brother Peter die—which he mayn’t mind, nobody can tellas to that—but his brother would a give anything in this world to seehim before he died; never talked about nothing else all these threeweeks; hadn’t seen him since they was boys together—and hadn’t ever seen hisbrother William at all—that’s the deef and dumb one—William ain’t more thanthirty or thirty-five. Peter and George were the only ones that come out here;George was the married brother; him and his wife both died last year. Harveyand William’s the only ones that’s left now; and, as I was saying, they haven’tgot here in time.”
“Did anybody send ’em word?”
“Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter saidthen that he sorter felt like he warn’t going to get well this time. You see,he was pretty old, and George’s g’yirls was too young to be much company forhim, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and so he was kinder lonesome afterGeorge and his wife died, and didn’t seem to care much to live. He mostdesperately wanted to see Harvey—and William, too, for that matter—because hewas one of them kind that can’t bear to make a will. He left a letter behindfor Harvey, and said he’d told in it where his money was hid, and how he wantedthe rest of the property divided up so George’s g’yirls would be all right—forGeorge didn’t leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get him to puta pen to.”
“Why do you reckon Harvey don’t come? Wher’ does he live?”
“Oh, he lives in England—Sheffield—preaches there—hasn’t ever been in thiscountry. He hasn’t had any too much time—and besides he mightn’t a got theletter at all, you know.”
“Too bad, too bad he couldn’t a lived to see his brothers, poor soul. You goingto Orleans, you say?”
“Yes, but that ain’t only a part of it. I’m going in a ship, next Wednesday,for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives.”
“It’s a pretty long journey. But it’ll be lovely; wisht I was a-going. Is MaryJane the oldest? How old is the others?”
“Mary Jane’s nineteen, Susan’s fifteen, and Joanna’s about fourteen—that’s theone that gives herself to good works and has a hare-lip.”
“Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so.”
“Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they ain’t going tolet them come to no harm. There’s Hobson, the Babtis’ preacher; and Deacon LotHovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, the lawyer; andDr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley, and—well, there’s a lotof them; but these are the ones that Peter was thickest with, and used to writeabout sometimes, when he wrote home; so Harvey ’ll know where to look forfriends when he gets here.”
Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied thatyoung fellow. Blamed if he didn’t inquire about everybody and everything inthat blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about Peter’s business—whichwas a tanner; and about George’s—which was a carpenter; and aboutHarvey’s—which was a dissentering minister; and so on, and so on. Then he says:
“What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?”
“Because she’s a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn’t stop there.When they’re deep they won’t stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat will, but thisis a St. Louis one.”
“Was Peter Wilks well off?”
“Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it’s reckoned he leftthree or four thousand in cash hid up som’ers.”
“When did you say he died?”
“I didn’t say, but it was last night.”
“Funeral to-morrow, likely?”
“Yes, ’bout the middle of the day.”
“Well, it’s all terrible sad; but we’ve all got to go, one time or another. Sowhat we want to do is to be prepared; then we’re all right.”
“Yes, sir, it’s the best way. Ma used to always say that.”
When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she gotoff. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost my ride, afterall. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up another mile to alonesome place, and then he got ashore and says:
“Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the newcarpet-bags. And if he’s gone over to t’other side, go over there and git him.And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now.”
I see what he was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When I gotback with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a log, and theking told him everything, just like the young fellow had said it—every lastword of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he tried to talk like anEnglishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for a slouch. I can’t imitate him,and so I ain’t a-going to try to; but he really done it pretty good. Then hesays:
“How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?”
The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef and dumbperson on the histronic boards. So then they waited for a steamboat.
About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along, but theydidn’t come from high enough up the river; but at last there was a big one, andthey hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went aboard, and she was fromCincinnati; and when they found we only wanted to go four or five mile they wasbooming mad, and gave us a cussing, and said they wouldn’t land us. But theking was ca’m. He says:
“If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and putoff in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry ’em, can’t it?”
So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the villagethey yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when they see the yawla-coming, and when the king says:
“Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher’ Mr. Peter Wilks lives?” they give aglance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, “What d’ Itell you?” Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle:
“I’m sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he did liveyesterday evening.”
Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to smash, and fell up againstthe man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his back, and says:
“Alas, alas, our poor brother—gone, and we never got to see him; oh, it’s too,too hard!”
Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to the dukeon his hands, and blamed if he didn’t drop a carpet-bag and bust outa-crying. If they warn’t the beatenest lot, them two frauds, that ever Istruck.
Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all sorts ofkind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill for them, andlet them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about his brother’s lastmoments, and the king he told it all over again on his hands to the duke, andboth of them took on about that dead tanner like they’d lost the twelvedisciples. Well, if ever I struck anything like it, I’m a nigg*r. It was enoughto make a body ashamed of the human race.
