Part 7 (1/2)

”Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday?

You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides I e could have some bad luck like this every day, Jiit too peart It's a-comin' Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'”

It did come, too It was a Tuesday that we had that talk Well, after dinner Friday as laying around in the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there I killed him, and curled hi there'd be soot all about the snake, and when Jiht the snake's , and the first thing the light shoas the var I laid hirabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to pour it down

He was barefooted, and the snake bit hi such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the body and roast a piece of it I done it, and he eat it and said it would help cure him He made me take off the rattles and tie them around his wrist, too He said that that would help Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away a to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it

Jiot out of his head and pitched around and yelled; but every tiain His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to coht; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky

Ji was all gone and he was around again I ain with my hands, now that I see what had come of it Jim said he reckoned I would believe hi a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that ot to the end of it yet He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand ti to feel that wayat the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you eways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it Pap toldat the , and the river went down between its banks again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a hed over two hundred pounds We couldn't handle hi us into Illinois We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded We found a brass button in his stoe We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it Ji ti a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon Jier one He would a been worth a good deal over at the village

They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there; everybody buys soood fry

Next et a stirring up some way I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and find out as going on Jio in the dark and look sharp Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on soirl?

That was a good notion, too So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up ot into it Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and seedown a joint of stove-pipe Jim said nobody would know me, even in the dayti of the things, and by and by I could do pretty well in theirl; and he said I et at my britches-pocket I took notice, and done better

I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark

I started across to the town fro, and the drift of the current fetchedthe bank There was a light burning in a little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there I slipped up and peeped in at theThere was a wo by a candle that was on a pine table I didn't know her face; she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know

Now this was lucky, because I eakening; I was getting afraid I had coht know my voice and find me out But if this woman had been in such a little too days she could tell me all I wanted to know; so I knocked at the door, and irl

CHAPTER XI

”COME in,” says the woman, and I did She says: ”Take a cheer”

I done it She looked me all over with her little shi+ny eyes, and says:

”What ht your name be?”

”Sarah Williahborhood?'

”No'm In Hookerville, seven mile below I've walked all the way and I'ry, too, I reckon I'll find you sory I had to stop two ry no more It's what makes me so late

My , and I come to tell my uncle Abner Moore He lives at the upper end of the town, she says I hain't ever been here before Do you know him?”

”No; but I don't know everybody yet I haven't lived here quite teeks It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town You better stay here all night Take off your bonnet”

”No,” I says; ”I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on I ain't afeared of the dark”