Chapter 12 - Page 2

for to
hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in
sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep it
from being seen. We made an extra steering-oar,
too, because one of the others might get broke on a
snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick
to hang the old lantern on, because we must always
light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming
down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we
wouldn't have to light it for up-stream boats unless we
see we was in what they call a "crossing"; for the
river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still a
little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always
run the channel, but hunted easy water.

This second night we run between seven and eight
hours, with a current that was making over four mile
an hour. We catched fish and talked, and we took a
swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was
kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, lay-
ing on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't
ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we
laughed -- only a little kind of a low chuckle. We
had mighty good weather as a general thing, and noth-
ing ever happened to us at all -- that night, nor the
next, nor the next.

Every night we passed towns, some of them away
up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of
lights; not a house could you see. The fifth night we
passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit
up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was
twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I
never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of
lights at two o'clock that still night. There warn't a
sound there; everybody was asleep.

Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten
o'clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen
cents' worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat;
and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting
comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said,
take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you
don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody
that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never
see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but
that is what he used to say, anyway.

Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields
and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a
punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind.
Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if
you was meaning to pay them back some time; but
the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name for
stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim said he
reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly
right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two
or