Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by Mark Twain, W. Bill Czolgosz Read Free Book Online Page B

kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see no way for a while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of water, and he says:
    "Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you hear? Don't matter if he's alive or dead, you rouse me for sure. That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time you roust me out, you hear?"
    Then he dropped down and went to sleep again, all sniffly and sniveling and hacking up a tempest; but what he had been saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so nobody won't think of following me.
    About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the rise. By and by along comes part of a log raft-nine logs fast together. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs was enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three. I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that log again. Before he was t'other side of the river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder.

    I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and matches and other things-everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out at the woodpile, which pap liked to use for dis'embering baggers, and I knowed why I was going to leave that, as part o’ my scheme. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.
    I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you wouldn't never notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there.
    It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, and was hunting around for some birds when I see the dead boy from the day b'fore; all alone now and looking more helpless than ever. I don't know where his playmates got off to and I doubt he did neither. His arm had finally dropped all the way off an’ I could see that flies had made something of a hive out of his head.
    Well, what's be the right thing for me to do? And what would his mammy tell me to do if she saw her little fella in such a dreadful situation? I knowed that killing a bagger wasn't exactly a crime, and I also knowed a thing or two ‘bout what Tom Sawyer called mercy killing.
    I shot this fellow and took him into camp.
    I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it considerable a-doing it. I fetched the boy in, and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground-hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot