Pap he hadnt been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didnt want to see him no more. He used to always whale me[19] when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap; but they couldnt make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warnt much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I warnt comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man dont float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warnt pap, but a woman dressed up in a mans clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by and by[20], though I wished he wouldnt.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadnt robbed nobody, hadnt killed any people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs ingots, and he called the turnips and stuff julery, and we would go to the cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked. But I couldnt see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand sumter mules, all loaded down with dimonds, and they didnt have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our swords and guns[21], and get ready. He never could go after even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warnt worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didnt believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warnt no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warnt no camels nor no elephants. It warnt anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut. I didnt see no dimonds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldnt we see them, then? He said if I warnt so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite[22]. I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.
Why, said he, a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson[23]. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.
Well, I says, spose we got some genies to help US cant we lick the other crowd then?
How you going to get them?
I dont know. How do THEY get them?
Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke a-rolling, and everything theyre told to do they up and do it. They dont think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it or any other man.
Who makes them tear around so?
Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and theyve got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of dimonds, and fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperors daughter from China for you to marry, theyve got to do it and theyve got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: theyve got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand.
Well, says I, I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping the palace themselves stead of fooling them away like that. And whats more if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.
How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, youd HAVE to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not.
What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then; I WOULD come; but I lay Id make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country.
Shucks, it aint no use to talk to you[24], Huck Finn. You dont seem to know anything, somehow-perfect saphead[25].
I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warnt no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyers lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all the marks of a Sunday-school.
Chapter IV
Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I dont reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I dont take no stock in mathematics, anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey[26], and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widows ways, too, and they warnt so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best[27], but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warnt ashamed of me.