NOTICE: PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;

persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to

find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

EXPLANATORY: IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri

negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the

ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last.

The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but

painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal

familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that

all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

THE AUTHOR.

ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty

to fifty years ago

Chapter I. YOU don't know about me without you have

read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

That book was made by Mr.

Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but

mainly he told the truth. That is nothing.

I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the

widow, or maybe Mary.

Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she is--and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told

about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said

before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers

hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece--all

gold.

It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up.

Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar

a day apiece all the year round --more than a body could tell what to do with.

The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it

was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent

the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out.

I got into my old rags and my sugar- hogshead again, and was free and satisfied.

But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I

might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable.

So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot

of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it.

She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat,

and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again.

The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time.

When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for

the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there

warn't really anything the matter with

them,--that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself.

In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the

juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers,

and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that

Moses had been dead a considerable long

time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead

people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked

the widow to let me.

But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't

clean, and I must try to not do it any more.

That is just the way with some people.

They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it.

Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody,

being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had

some good in it.

And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.

Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to

live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book.

She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up.

I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I

was fidgety.

Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch

up like that, Huckleberry--set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say,

"Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry--why don't you try to behave?"

Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there.

She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm.

All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular.

She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole

world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place.

Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I

wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only

make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.

Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place.

She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp

and sing, forever and ever.

So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so.

I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a

considerable sight.

I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.

Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome.

By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to

bed. I went up to my room with a piece of

candle, and put it on the table.

Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful,

but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was

dead.

The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and

I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill

and a dog crying about somebody that was

going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't

make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me.

Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it

wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and

so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.

I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company.

Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit

in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up.

I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me

some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me.

I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every

time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away.

But I hadn't no confidence.

You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that you've found, instead of nailing it up

over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad

luck when you'd killed a spider.

I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; for the house

was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't know.

Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town go boom--boom--boom--

twelve licks; and all still again--stiller than ever.

Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees --something was a

stirring. I set still and listened.

Directly I could just barely hear a "me- yow! me-yow!" down there.

That was good!

Says I, "me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and

scrambled out of the window on to the shed.

Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure

enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.

>

Chapter II. WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the

trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches

wouldn't scrape our heads.

When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise.

We scrouched down and laid still.

Miss Watson's big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see

him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him.

He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening.

Then he says: "Who dah?"

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us;

we could a touched him, nearly.

Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there

so close together.

There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then

my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders.

Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch.

Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since.

If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you

ain't sleepy--if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will

itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.

Pretty soon Jim says: "Say, who is you?

Whar is you?

Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's

gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin."

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom.

He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them

most touched one of mine.

My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes.

But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside.

Next I got to itching underneath.

I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six

or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that.

I was itching in eleven different places now.

I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and

got ready to try.

Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty

soon comfortable again.

Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and we went creeping

away on our hands and knees.

When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for

fun.

But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I

warn't in.

Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get

some more. I didn't want him to try.

I said Jim might wake up and come.

But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid

five cents on the table for pay.

Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he

must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him.

I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.

As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and

by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house.

Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him,

and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake.

Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him

all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb

to show who done it.

And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that,

every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him

all over the world, and tired him most to

death, and his back was all over saddle- boils.

Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other

niggers.

Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than

any nigger in that country.

Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as

if he was a wonder.

Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever