The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"Well, I don't know.  But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed,
it means that we keep them till they're dead."

"Now, that's something LIKE.  That'll answer.  Why couldn't you said that
before?  We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome
lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying to get
loose."

"How you talk, Ben Rogers.  How can they get loose when there's a guard
over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?"

"A guard!  Well, that IS good.  So somebody's got to set up all night and
never get any sleep, just so as to watch them.  I think that's
foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they
get here?"

"Because it ain't in the books so--that's why.  Now, Ben Rogers, do you
want to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea.  Don't you
reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing
to do?  Do you reckon YOU can learn 'em anything?  Not by a good deal.
No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way."

"All right.  I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow.  Say, do we
kill the women, too?"

"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on.  Kill
the women?  No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.  You
fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and
by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any
more."

"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it.
Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows
waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers.
But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say."

Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was
scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't
want to be a robber any more.

So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him
mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets.  But Tom
give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet
next week, and rob somebody and kill some people.

Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted
to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it
on Sunday, and that settled the thing.  They agreed to get together and
fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first
captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home.

I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was
breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was
dog-tired.




CHAPTER III.

WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on
account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned
off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would
behave awhile if I could.  Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and
prayed, but nothing come of it.  She told me to pray every day, and
whatever I asked for I would get it.  But it warn't so.  I tried it.
Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks.  It warn't any good to me without
hooks.  I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't
make it work.  By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but
she said I was a fool.  She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out
no way.

I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it.  I
says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't
Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork?  Why can't the widow get
back her silver snuffbox that was stole?  Why can't Miss Watson fat up?
No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it.  I went and told the
widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it
was "spiritual gifts."  This was too many for me, but she told me what
she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for other
people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself.
This was including Miss Watson, as I took it.  I went out in the woods
and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no
advantage about it--except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I
wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go.  Sometimes the
widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a
body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and
knock it all down again.  I judged I could see that there was two
Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the
widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for
him any more.  I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the
widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to
be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant,
and so kind of low-down and ornery.

Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable
for me; I didn't want to see him no more.  He used to always whale me
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