One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making! The widow put in a good word for me, but that warnt going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasnt one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebodys tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadnt come in, after standing around so. I couldnt make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didnt notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didnt see nobody. I was at Judge Thatchers as quick as I could get there. He said:
Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?[28]
No, sir, I says; is there some for me?
Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night over a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along with your six thousand, because if you take it youll spend it.
No, sir, I says, I dont want to spend it. I dont want it at all nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you the six thousand and all.
He looked surprised. He couldnt seem to make it out. He says:
Why, what can you mean, my boy?
I says, Dont you ask me no questions about it, please. Youll take it wont you?
He says:
Well, Im puzzled. Is something the matter?
Please take it, says I, and dont ask me nothing then I wont have to tell no lies.
He studied a while, and then he says:
Oho-o! I think I see. You want to SELL all your property to me not give it. Thats the correct idea.
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
There; you see it says for a consideration[29]. That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Heres a dollar for you. Now you sign it.
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watsons nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it warnt no use; he said it wouldnt talk. He said sometimes it wouldnt talk without money.
I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter[30] that warnt no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldnt pass nohow, even if the brass didnt show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldnt say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldnt know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldnt see no brass, and it wouldnt feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
Yo ole father doan know yit what hes a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec hell go way, en den agin he spec hell stay. De bes way is to res easy en let de ole man take his own way. Deys two angels hoverin roun bout him. One uv em is white en shiny, en tother one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body cant tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de las. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time yous gwyne to git well agin[31]. Deys two gals flyin bout you in yo life. One uv ems light en tother one is dark. One is rich en tother is po. Yous gwyne to marry de po one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep way fum de water as much as you kin, en dont run no resk, kase its down in de bills dat yous gwyne to git hung.
When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his own self!
Chapter V
I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken that is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warnt scared of him worth bothring about.
He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warnt no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another mans white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a bodys flesh crawl a tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on tother knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floor an old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid.
I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By and by he says:
Starchy clothes very. You think youre a good deal of a big-bug, DONT you?
Maybe I am, maybe I aint, I says.
Dont you give me none o your lip[32], says he. Youve put on considerable many frills since I been away. Ill take you down a peg before I get done with you. Youre educated, too, they say can read and write. You think youre bettern your father, now, dont you, because he cant? ILL take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalutn foolishness, hey? who told you you could?