Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Chapter XXXV.
IT would be most an hour yet till
breakfast, so we left and struck down into
the woods; because Tom said we got to have
SOME light to see how to dig by, and a
lantern makes too much, and might get us
into trouble; what we must have was a lot
of them rotten chunks that's called fox-
fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow
when you lay them in a dark place.
We fetched an armful and hid it in the
weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom says,
kind of dissatisfied:
"Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy
and awkward as it can be.
And so it makes it so rotten difficult to
get up a difficult plan.
There ain't no watchman to be drugged--now
there OUGHT to be a watchman.
There ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-
mixture to.
And there's Jim chained by one leg, with a
ten-foot chain, to the leg of his bed:
why, all you got to do is to lift up the
bedstead and slip off the chain.
And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends
the key to the punkin-headed ***, and
don't send nobody to watch the ***.
Jim could a got out of that window-hole
before this, only there wouldn't be no use
trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on
his leg.
Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest
arrangement I ever see.
You got to invent ALL the difficulties.
Well, we can't help it; we got to do the
best we can with the materials we've got.
Anyhow, there's one thing--there's more
honor in getting him out through a lot of
difficulties and dangers, where there
warn't one of them furnished to you by the
people who it was their duty to furnish
them, and you had to contrive them all out
of your own head.
Now look at just that one thing of the
lantern.
When you come down to the cold facts, we
simply got to LET ON that a lantern's
resky.
Why, we could work with a torchlight
procession if we wanted to, I believe.
Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt
up something to make a saw out of the first
chance we get."
"What do we want of a saw?"
"What do we WANT of it?
Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed
off, so as to get the chain loose?"
"Why, you just said a body could lift up
the bedstead and slip the chain off."
"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck
Finn.
You CAN get up the infant-schooliest ways
of going at a thing.
Why, hain't you ever read any books at
all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor
Benvenuto Chelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor
none of them heroes?
Who ever heard of getting a prisoner loose
in such an old-maidy way as that?
No; the way all the best authorities does
is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it
just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it
can't be found, and put some dirt and
grease around the sawed place so the very
keenest seneskal can't see no sign of it's
being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is
perfectly sound.
Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg
a kick, down she goes; slip off your chain,
and there you are.
Nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder to
the battlements, shin down it, break your
leg in the moat --because a rope ladder is
nineteen foot too short, you know--and
there's your horses and your trusty
vassles, and they scoop you up and fling
you across a saddle, and away you go to
your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or
wherever it is.
It's gaudy, Huck.
I wish there was a moat to this cabin.
If we get time, the night of the escape,
we'll dig one."
I says:
"What do we want of a moat when we're going
to snake him out from under the cabin?"
But he never heard me.
He had forgot me and everything else.
He had his chin in his hand, thinking.
Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head;
then sighs again, and says:
"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity
enough for it."
"For what?"
I says.
"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.
"Good land!"
I says; "why, there ain't NO necessity for
And what would you want to saw his leg off
for, anyway?"
"Well, some of the best authorities has
done it.
They couldn't get the chain off, so they
just cut their hand off and shoved.
And a leg would be better still.
But we got to let that go.
There ain't necessity enough in this case;
and, besides, Jim's a ***, and wouldn't
understand the reasons for it, and how it's
the custom in Europe; so we'll let it go.
But there's one thing--he can have a rope
ladder; we can tear up our sheets and make
him a rope ladder easy enough.
And we can send it to him in a pie; it's
mostly done that way.
And I've et worse pies."
"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says;
"Jim ain't got no use for a rope ladder."
"He HAS got use for it.
How YOU talk, you better say; you don't
know nothing about it.
He's GOT to have a rope ladder; they all
"What in the nation can he DO with it?"
"DO with it?
He can hide it in his bed, can't he?
That's what they all do; and HE'S got to,
too.
Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do
anything that's regular; you want to be
starting something fresh all the time.
S'pose he DON'T do nothing with it? ain't
it there in his bed, for a clew, after he's
gone? and don't you reckon they'll want
clews?
Of course they will.
And you wouldn't leave them any?
That would be a PRETTY howdy-do, WOULDN'T
it!
I never heard of such a thing."
"Well," I says, "if it's in the
regulations, and he's got to have it, all
right, let him have it; because I don't
wish to go back on no regulations; but
there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to
tearing up our sheets to make Jim a rope
ladder, we're going to get into trouble
with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're
born.
Now, the way I look at it, a hickry-bark
ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste
nothing, and is just as good to load up a
pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any
rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim,
he ain't had no experience, and so he don't
care what kind of a--"
"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as
ignorant as you I'd keep still --that's
what I'D do.
Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping
by a hickry-bark ladder?
Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."
"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way;
but if you'll take my advice, you'll let me
borrow a sheet off of the clothesline."
He said that would do.
And that gave him another idea, and he
says:
"Borrow a shirt, too."
"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"
"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."
"Journal your granny--JIM can't write."
"S'pose he CAN'T write--he can make marks
on the shirt, can't he, if we make him a
pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece
of an old iron barrel-hoop?"
"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a
goose and make him a better one; and
quicker, too."
"PRISONERS don't have geese running around
the donjon-keep to pull pens out of, you
muggins.
They ALWAYS make their pens out of the
hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of
old brass candlestick or something like
that they can get their hands on; and it
takes them weeks and weeks and months and
months to file it out, too, because they've
got to do it by rubbing it on the wall.
THEY wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had
it.
It ain't regular."
"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink
out of?"
"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears;
but that's the common sort and women; the
best authorities uses their own blood.
Jim can do that; and when he wants to send
any little common ordinary mysterious
message to let the world know where he's
captivated, he can write it on the bottom
of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out
of the window.
The Iron Mask always done that, and it's a
blame' good way, too."
"Jim ain't got no tin plates.
They feed him in a pan."
"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."
"Can't nobody READ his plates."
"That ain't got anything to DO with it,
Huck Finn.
All HE'S got to do is to write on the plate
and throw it out.
You don't HAVE to be able to read it.
Why, half the time you can't read anything
a prisoner writes on a tin plate, or
anywhere else."
"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting
the plates?"
"Why, blame it all, it ain't the PRISONER'S
plates."
"But it's SOMEBODY'S plates, ain't it?"
"Well, spos'n it is?
What does the PRISONER care whose--"
He broke off there, because we heard the
breakfast-horn blowing.
So we cleared out for the house.
Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet
and a white shirt off of the clothes-line;
and I found an old sack and put them in it,
and we went down and got the fox-fire, and
put that in too.
I called it borrowing, because that was
what pap always called it; but Tom said it
warn't borrowing, it was stealing.
He said we was representing prisoners; and
prisoners don't care how they get a thing
so they get it, and nobody don't blame them
for it, either.
It ain't no crime in a prisoner to steal
the thing he needs to get away with, Tom
said; it's his right; and so, as long as we
was representing a prisoner, we had a
perfect right to steal anything on this
place we had the least use for to get
ourselves out of prison with.
He said if we warn't prisoners it would be
a very different thing, and nobody but a
mean, ornery person would steal when he
warn't a prisoner.
So we allowed we would steal everything
there was that come handy.
And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day,
after that, when I stole a watermelon out
of the ***-patch and eat it; and he made
me go and give the *** a dime without
telling them what it was for.
Tom said that what he meant was, we could
steal anything we NEEDED.
Well, I says, I needed the watermelon.
But he said I didn't need it to get out of
prison with; there's where the difference
was.
He said if I'd a wanted it to hide a knife
in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the
seneskal with, it would a been all right.
So I let it go at that, though I couldn't
see no advantage in my representing a
prisoner if I got to set down and chaw over
a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that
every time I see a chance to hog a
watermelon.
Well, as I was saying, we waited that
morning till everybody was settled down to
business, and nobody in sight around the
yard; then Tom he carried the sack into the
lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep
watch.
By and by he come out, and we went and set
down on the woodpile to talk.
He says:
"Everything's all right now except tools;
and that's easy fixed."
"Tools?"
I says.
"Yes."
"Tools for what?"
"Why, to dig with.
We ain't a-going to GNAW him out, are we?"
"Ain't them old crippled picks and things
in there good enough to dig a *** out
with?"
I says.
He turns on me, looking pitying enough to
make a body cry, and says:
"Huck Finn, did you EVER hear of a prisoner
having picks and shovels, and all the
modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig
himself out with?
Now I want to ask you--if you got any
reasonableness in you at all--what kind of
a show would THAT give him to be a hero?
Why, they might as well lend him the key
and done with it.
Picks and shovels--why, they wouldn't
furnish 'em to a king."
"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the
picks and shovels, what do we want?"
"A couple of case-knives."
"To dig the foundations out from under that
cabin with?"
"Yes."
"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."
"It don't make no difference how foolish it
is, it's the RIGHT way--and it's the
regular way.
And there ain't no OTHER way, that ever I
heard of, and I've read all the books that
gives any information about these things.
They always dig out with a case-knife--and
not through dirt, mind you; generly it's
through solid rock.
And it takes them weeks and weeks and
weeks, and for ever and ever.
Why, look at one of them prisoners in the
bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the
harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out
that way; how long was HE at it, you
reckon?"
"I don't know."
"Well, guess."
"I don't know.
A month and a half."
"THIRTY-SEVEN YEAR--and he come out in
China.
THAT'S the kind.
I wish the bottom of THIS fortress was
solid rock."
"JIM don't know nobody in China."
"What's THAT got to do with it?
Neither did that other fellow.
But you're always a-wandering off on a side
issue.
Why can't you stick to the main point?"
"All right--I don't care where he comes
out, so he COMES out; and Jim don't,
either, I reckon.
But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too
old to be dug out with a case-knife.
He won't last."
"Yes he will LAST, too.
You don't reckon it's going to take thirty-
seven years to dig out through a DIRT
foundation, do you?"
"How long will it take, Tom?"
"Well, we can't resk being as long as we
ought to, because it mayn't take very long
for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by
New Orleans.
He'll hear Jim ain't from there.
Then his next move will be to advertise
Jim, or something like that.
So we can't resk being as long digging him
out as we ought to.
By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple
of years; but we can't.
Things being so uncertain, what I recommend
is this: that we really dig right in, as
quick as we can; and after that, we can LET
ON, to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-
seven years.
Then we can *** him out and rush him
away the first time there's an alarm.
Yes, I reckon that 'll be the best way."
"Now, there's SENSE in that," I says.
"Letting on don't cost nothing; letting on
ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I
don't mind letting on we was at it a
hundred and fifty year.
It wouldn't strain me none, after I got my
hand in.
So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a
couple of case-knives."
"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to
make a saw out of."
"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious
to sejest it," I says, "there's an old
rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking
under the weather-boarding behind the
smoke-house."
He looked kind of weary and discouraged-
like, and says:
"It ain't no use to try to learn you
nothing, Huck.
Run along and smouch the knives--three of
them."
So I done it.