The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for
Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle
Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give it up
and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down
the river.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and when
it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off.  By the time I got
there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we
struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in
and slept like dead people.




CHAPTER XIV.

BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole
off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all
sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three
boxes of seegars.  We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of our
lives.  The seegars was prime.  We laid off all the afternoon in the
woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time.
I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the ferryboat,
and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn't
want no more adventures.  He said that when I went in the texas and he
crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone he nearly died,
because he judged it was all up with HIM anyway it could be fixed; for if
he didn't get saved he would get drownded; and if he did get saved,
whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and
then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure.  Well, he was right; he was
most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger.

I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and
how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each
other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead
of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested.  He says:

"I didn' know dey was so many un um.  I hain't hearn 'bout none un um,
skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a
pack er k'yards.  How much do a king git?"

"Get?"  I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want
it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them."

"AIN' dat gay?  En what dey got to do, Huck?"

"THEY don't do nothing!  Why, how you talk! They just set around."

"No; is dat so?"

"Of course it is.  They just set around--except, maybe, when there's a
war; then they go to the war.  But other times they just lazy around; or
go hawking--just hawking and sp--Sh!--d' you hear a noise?"

We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a
steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back.

"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the
parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off.
But mostly they hang round the harem."

"Roun' de which?"

"Harem."

"What's de harem?"

"The place where he keeps his wives.  Don't you know about the harem?
Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."

"Why, yes, dat's so; I--I'd done forgot it.  A harem's a bo'd'n-house, I
reck'n.  Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery.  En I reck'n de
wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket.  Yit dey say
Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'.  I doan' take no stock in dat.
Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a
blim-blammin' all de time?  No--'deed he wouldn't.  A wise man 'ud take
en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet DOWN de biler-factry when
he want to res'."

"Well, but he WAS the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me
so, her own self."

"I doan k'yer what de widder say, he WARN'T no wise man nuther.  He had
some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see.  Does you know 'bout dat chile
dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?"

"Yes, the widow told me all about it."

"WELL, den!  Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'?  You jes' take en
look at it a minute.  Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women; heah's
you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's de
chile.  Bofe un you claims it.  What does I do?  Does I shin aroun'
mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b'long to, en
han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat
had any gumption would?  No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half
un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman.  Dat's de way
Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile.  Now I want to ast you:  what's
de use er dat half a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it.  En what use is a
half a chile?  I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um."