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Chapter XXXIX.
IN the morning we went up to the village
and bought a wire rat-trap and fetched it
down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and
in about an hour we had fifteen of the
bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it
and put it in a safe place under Aunt
Sally's bed.
But while we was gone for spiders little
Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson
Elexander Phelps found it there, and opened
the door of it to see if the rats would
come out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she
come in, and when we got back she was a-
standing on top of the bed raising Cain,
and the rats was doing what they could to
keep off the dull times for her.
So she took and dusted us both with the
hickry, and we was as much as two hours
catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat
that meddlesome cub, and they warn't the
likeliest, nuther, because the first haul
was the pick of the flock.
I never see a likelier lot of rats than
what that first haul was.
We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders,
and bugs, and frogs, and caterpillars, and
one thing or another; and we like to got a
hornet's nest, but we didn't.
The family was at home.
We didn't give it right up, but stayed with
them as long as we could; because we
allowed we'd tire them out or they'd got to
tire us out, and they done it.
Then we got allycumpain and rubbed on the
places, and was pretty near all right
again, but couldn't set down convenient.
And so we went for the snakes, and grabbed
a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes,
and put them in a bag, and put it in our
room, and by that time it was supper-time,
and a rattling good honest day's work: and
hungry?--oh, no, I reckon not!
And there warn't a blessed snake up there
when we went back--we didn't half tie the
sack, and they worked out somehow, and
left.
But it didn't matter much, because they was
still on the premises somewheres.
So we judged we could get some of them
again.
No, there warn't no real scarcity of snakes
about the house for a considerable spell.
You'd see them dripping from the rafters
and places every now and then; and they
generly landed in your plate, or down the
back of your neck, and most of the time
where you didn't want them.
Well, they was handsome and striped, and
there warn't no harm in a million of them;
but that never made no difference to Aunt
Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed
what they might, and she couldn't stand
them no way you could fix it; and every
time one of them flopped down on her, it
didn't make no difference what she was
doing, she would just lay that work down
and light out.
I never see such a woman.
And you could hear her whoop to Jericho.
You couldn't get her to take a-holt of one
of them with the tongs.
And if she turned over and found one in bed
she would scramble out and lift a howl that
you would think the house was afire.
She disturbed the old man so that he said
he could most wish there hadn't ever been
no snakes created.
Why, after every last snake had been gone
clear out of the house for as much as a
week Aunt Sally warn't over it yet; she
warn't near over it; when she was setting
thinking about something you could touch
her on the back of her neck with a feather
and she would jump right out of her
stockings.
It was very curious.
But Tom said all women was just so.
He said they was made that way for some
reason or other.
We got a licking every time one of our
snakes come in her way, and she allowed
these lickings warn't nothing to what she
would do if we ever loaded up the place
again with them.
I didn't mind the lickings, because they
didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the
trouble we had to lay in another lot.
But we got them laid in, and all the other
things; and you never see a cabin as
blithesome as Jim's was when they'd all
swarm out for music and go for him.
Jim didn't like the spiders, and the
spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay
for him, and make it mighty warm for him.
And he said that between the rats and the
snakes and the grindstone there warn't no
room in bed for him, skasely; and when
there was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so
lively, and it was always lively, he said,
because THEY never all slept at one time,
but took turn about, so when the snakes was
asleep the rats was on deck, and when the
rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so
he always had one gang under him, in his
way, and t'other gang having a circus over
him, and if he got up to hunt a new place
the spiders would take a chance at him as
he crossed over.
He said if he ever got out this time he
wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for
a salary.
Well, by the end of three weeks everything
was in pretty good shape.
The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and
every time a rat bit Jim he would get up
and write a little in his journal whilst
the ink was fresh; the pens was made, the
inscriptions and so on was all carved on
the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in
two, and we had et up the sawdust, and it
give us a most amazing stomach-ache.
We reckoned we was all going to die, but
didn't.
It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever
see; and Tom said the same.
But as I was saying, we'd got all the work
done now, at last; and we was all pretty
much *** out, too, but mainly Jim.
The old man had wrote a couple of times to
the plantation below Orleans to come and
get their runaway ***, but hadn't got no
answer, because there warn't no such
plantation; so he allowed he would
advertise Jim in the St.
Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he
mentioned the St.
Louis ones it give me the cold shivers, and
I see we hadn't no time to lose.
So Tom said, now for the nonnamous letters.
"What's them?"
I says.
"Warnings to the people that something is
up.
Sometimes it's done one way, sometimes
another.
But there's always somebody spying around
that gives notice to the governor of the
castle.
When Louis XVI. was going to light out of
the Tooleries, a servant-girl done it.
It's a very good way, and so is the
nonnamous letters.
We'll use them both.
And it's usual for the prisoner's mother to
change clothes with him, and she stays in,
and he slides out in her clothes.
We'll do that, too."
"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to
WARN anybody for that something's up?
Let them find it out for themselves--it's
their lookout."
"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them.
It's the way they've acted from the very
start--left us to do EVERYTHING.
They're so confiding and mullet-headed they
don't take notice of nothing at all.
So if we don't GIVE them notice there won't
be nobody nor nothing to interfere with us,
and so after all our hard work and trouble
this escape 'll go off perfectly flat;
won't amount to nothing--won't be nothing
TO it."
"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd
like."
"Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted.
So I says:
"But I ain't going to make no complaint.
Any way that suits you suits me.
What you going to do about the servant-
girl?"
"You'll be her.
You slide in, in the middle of the night,
and hook that yaller girl's frock."
"Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next
morning; because, of course, she prob'bly
hain't got any but that one."
"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen
minutes, to carry the nonnamous letter and
shove it under the front door."
"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could
carry it just as handy in my own togs."
"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl
THEN, would you?"
"No, but there won't be nobody to see what
I look like, ANYWAY."
"That ain't got nothing to do with it.
The thing for us to do is just to do our
DUTY, and not worry about whether anybody
SEES us do it or not.
Hain't you got no principle at all?"
"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the
servant-girl.
Who's Jim's mother?"
"I'm his mother.
I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."
"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the
cabin when me and Jim leaves."
"Not much.
I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and
lay it on his bed to represent his mother
in disguise, and Jim 'll take the ***
woman's gown off of me and wear it, and
we'll all evade together.
When a prisoner of style escapes it's
called an evasion.
It's always called so when a king escapes,
f'rinstance.
And the same with a king's son; it don't
make no difference whether he's a natural
one or an unnatural one."
So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I
smouched the yaller ***'s frock that
night, and put it on, and shoved it under
the front door, the way Tom told me to.
It said:
Beware.
Trouble is brewing.
Keep a sharp lookout.
UNKNOWN FRIEND.
Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom
drawed in blood, of a skull and crossbones
on the front door; and next night another
one of a coffin on the back door.
I never see a family in such a sweat.
They couldn't a been worse scared if the
place had a been full of ghosts laying for
them behind everything and under the beds
and shivering through the air.
If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and
said "ouch!" if anything fell, she jumped
and said "ouch!" if you happened to touch
her, when she warn't noticing, she done the
same; she couldn't face noway and be
satisfied, because she allowed there was
something behind her every time--so she was
always a-whirling around sudden, and saying
"ouch," and before she'd got two-thirds
around she'd whirl back again, and say it
again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but
she dasn't set up.
So the thing was working very well, Tom
said; he said he never see a thing work
more satisfactory.
He said it showed it was done right.
So he said, now for the grand bulge!
So the very next morning at the streak of
dawn we got another letter ready, and was
wondering what we better do with it,
because we heard them say at supper they
was going to have a *** on watch at both
doors all night.
Tom he went down the lightning-rod to spy
around; and the *** at the back door was
asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his
neck and come back.
This letter said:
Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend.
There is a desprate gang of cutthroats from
over in the Indian Territory going to steal
your runaway *** to-night, and they have
been trying to scare you so as you will
stay in the house and not bother them.
I am one of the gang, but have got
religgion and wish to quit it and lead an
honest life again, and will betray the
helish design.
They will sneak down from northards, along
the fence, at midnight exact, with a false
key, and go in the ***'s cabin to get
him.
I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn
if I see any danger; but stead of that I
will BA like a sheep soon as they get in
and not blow at all; then whilst they are
getting his chains loose, you slip there
and lock them in, and can kill them at your
leasure.
Don't do anything but just the way I am
telling you, if you do they will suspicion
something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo.
I do not wish any reward but to know I have
done the right thing.
UNKNOWN FRIEND.