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Chapter IV.
WELL, three or four months run along, and
it was well into the winter now.
I had been to school most all the time and
could spell and read and write just a
little, and could say the multiplication
table up to six times seven is thirty-five,
and I don't reckon I could ever get any
further than that if I was to live forever.
I don't take no stock in mathematics,
anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by and by
I got so I could stand it.
Whenever I got uncommon tired I played
hookey, and the hiding I got next day done
me good and cheered me up.
So the longer I went to school the easier
it got to be.
I was getting sort of used to the widow's
ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me.
Living in a house and sleeping in a bed
pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but
before the cold weather I used to slide out
and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so
that was a rest to me.
I liked the old ways best, but I was
getting so I liked the new ones, too, a
little bit.
The widow said I was coming along slow but
sure, and doing very satisfactory.
She said she warn't ashamed of me.
One morning I happened to turn over the
salt-cellar at breakfast.
I reached for some of it as quick as I
could to throw over my left shoulder and
keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was
in ahead of me, and crossed me off.
She says, "Take your hands away,
Huckleberry; what a mess you are always
making!"
The widow put in a good word for me, but
that warn't going to keep off the bad luck,
I knowed that well enough.
I started out, after breakfast, feeling
worried and shaky, and wondering where it
was going to fall on me, and what it was
going to be.
There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad
luck, but this wasn't one of them kind; so
I never tried to do anything, but just
poked along low-spirited and on the watch-
out.
I went down to the front garden and clumb
over the stile where you go through the
high board fence.
There was an inch of new snow on the
ground, and I seen somebody's tracks.
They had come up from the quarry and stood
around the stile a while, and then went on
around the garden fence.
It was funny they hadn't come in, after
standing around so.
I couldn't make it out.
It was very curious, somehow.
I was going to follow around, but I stooped
down to look at the tracks first.
I didn't notice anything at first, but next
I did.
There was a cross in the left boot-heel
made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the
hill.
I looked over my shoulder every now and
then, but I didn't see nobody.
I was at Judge Thatcher's as quick as I
could get there.
He said:
"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath.
Did you come for your interest?"
"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"
"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--
over a hundred and fifty dollars.
Quite a fortune for you.
You had better let me invest it along with
your six thousand, because if you take it
you'll spend it."
"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend
it.
I don't want it at all --nor the six
thousand, nuther.
I want you to take it; I want to give it to
you--the six thousand and all."
He looked surprised.
He couldn't seem to make it out.
He says:
"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"
I says, "Don't you ask me no questions
about it, please.
You'll take it --won't you?"
He says:
"Well, I'm puzzled.
Is something the matter?"
"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me
nothing--then I won't have to tell no
lies."
He studied a while, and then he says:
"Oho-o!
I think I see.
You want to SELL all your property to me--
not give it.
That's the correct idea."
Then he wrote something on a paper and read
it over, and says:
"There; you see it says 'for a
consideration.'
That means I have bought it of you and paid
you for it.
Here's a dollar for you.
Now you sign it."
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watson's ***, Jim, had a hair-ball
as big as your fist, which had been took
out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he
used to do magic with it.
He said there was a spirit inside of it,
and it knowed everything.
So I went to him that night and told him
pap was here again, for I found his tracks
in the snow.
What I wanted to know was, what he was
going to do, and was he going to stay?
Jim got out his hair-ball and said
something over it, and then he held it up
and dropped it on the floor.
It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about
an inch.
Jim tried it again, and then another time,
and it acted just the same.
Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear
against it and listened.
But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't
talk.
He said sometimes it wouldn't talk without
money.
I told him I had an old slick counterfeit
quarter that warn't no good because the
brass showed through the silver a little,
and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the
brass didn't show, because it was so slick
it felt greasy, and so that would tell on
it every time.
(I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about
the dollar I got from the judge.)
I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe
the hair-ball would take it, because maybe
it wouldn't know the difference.
Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and
said he would manage so the hair-ball would
think it was good.
He said he would split open a raw Irish
potato and stick the quarter in between and
keep it there all night, and next morning
you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't
feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town
would take it in a minute, let alone a
hair-ball.
Well, I knowed a potato would do that
before, but I had forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball,
and got down and listened again.
This time he said the hair-ball was all
right.
He said it would tell my whole fortune if I
wanted it to.
I says, go on.
So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim
told it to me.
He says:
"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-
gwyne to do.
Sometimes he spec he'll go 'way, en den
agin he spec he'll stay.
De bes' way is to res' easy en let de ole
man take his own way.
Dey's two angels hoverin' roun' 'bout him.
One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other
one is black.
De white one gits him to go right a little
while, den de black one sail in en bust it
all up.
A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to
fetch him at de las'.
But you is all right.
You gwyne to have considable trouble in yo'
life, en considable joy.
Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en
sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every
time you's gwyne to git well agin.
Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo'
life.
One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark.
One is rich en t'other is po'.
You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de
rich one by en by.
You wants to keep 'way fum de water as much
as you kin, en don't run no resk, 'kase
it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to
git hung."
When I lit my candle and went up to my room
that night there sat pap--his own self!