Part 3 (1/2)

”It don't make no difference what you want it for?you just shell it out”

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going don to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day

When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussedto be better than hione he coain, and toldto lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged hiive up the money; but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd e and the ent to law to get the court to take uardian; but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druther not take a child away froe Thatcher and thehad to quit on the business

That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise soe Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over toith a tin pan, till ht; then they jailed hiain for a week But he said _he_ was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd e said he was a-going to make a man of him

So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak And after supper he talked to his till the old man cried, and said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life; but noas a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a e would help hi hiain; pap said he'd been a e said he believed it The old man said that what a e said it was so; so they cried again And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:

”Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it

There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more; it's the hand of a o back You et I said them It's a clean hand now; shake it?don't be afeard”

So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried The judge's wife she kissed it Then the old e said it was the holiest ti like that Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful rooot powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and cluht he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up And when they cos before they could navigate it

The judge he felt kind of sore He said he reckoned a body could reforun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way

CHAPTER VI

WELL, pretty soon the old e Thatcher in the courts to ive up thatschool He catched me a couple of times and thrashed ed hio to school o now to spite pap That law trial was a slow business?appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on it; so every now and then I'd borroo or three dollars off of the judge for hiot ot drunk he raised Cain around town; and every tiot jailed He was just suited?this kind of thing was right in his line

He got to hanging around the 's tooaround there she would make trouble for him Well, _wasn't_ he mad? He said he would shoas Huck Finn's boss So he watched out for , and catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it oody and there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't knohere it was

He kept ot a chance to run off

We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that e lived on Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three aood time, and licked me Theshe found out where I was by and by, and she sent a et hold ofafter that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it?all but the cowhide part

It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off co, and no books nor study Two s and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever got to like it so well at the here you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and coular, and be forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the ti, because thedidn't like it; but now I took to it again because pap hadn't no objections It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around

But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand it I was all over welts He got to going away so one three days It was dreadful lonesoet out any more I was scared I made up my et out of that cabin many a time, but I couldn't find no way There warn't ato it big enough for a dog to get through I couldn't get up the chimbly; it was too narrow The door was thick, solid oak slabs Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he ay; I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in the ti at last; I found an old rusty wood-saithout any handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof I greased it up and went to work There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind fro the candle out I got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big bottoood long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard pap's gun in the woods I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid ood humor?so he was his natural self He said he was don, and everything was going wrong His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the ot started on the trial; but then there ays to put it off a long tie Thatcher knowed how to do it And he said people allowed there'd be another trial to get uardian, and they guessed it would win this tio back to the 's any more and be so craot to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed theain to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the naot to the

He said he would like to see theget me He said he would watch out, and if they tried to coame on him he knowed of a place six or seven ht hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find ain, but only for a ot that chance

The old ot There was a fifty-pound sack of cornof whisky, and an old book and tspapers for wadding, besides some tow I toted up a load, and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and souessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but just traht tiet so far away that the old ed I would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered and asked s all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark While I was cooking supper the old ot sort of warain He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at A body would a thought he was Adaun to work he ovovment! why, just look at it and see what it's like

Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him?a man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising Yes, just as that o to work and begin to do suthin' for _hioes for hiove Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property Here's what the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jao round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog They call that govovhty notion to just leave the country for good and all Yes, and I _told_ 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blain Them's the very words I says look at my hat?if you call it a hat?but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below htly a hat at all, but h a jint o'

stove-pipe Look at it, says I?such a hat for it ovger there from Ohio?a mulatter, most as white as a white man He had the whitest shi+rt on you ever see, too, and the shi+niest hat; and there ain't a ot as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane?the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything And that ain't the wust They said he could _vote_ when he was at home Well, that letto? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote et there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out I says I'll never vote agin

Them's the very words I said; they all heard in as long as I live And to see the cool way of that nigger?why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved hier put up at auction and sold??that's what I want to know And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State sixyet There, now?that's a specier till he's been in the State six ovovot to set stock-still for six whole , infernal, white-shi+rted free nigger, and?”