Chapter 16 - Page 2

for his free-
dom, and you could a paddled ashore and told some-
body." That was so -- I couldn't get around that
noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says
to me, "What had poor Miss Watson done to you
that you could see her nigger go off right under your
eyes and never say one single word? What did that
poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so
mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried
to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you
every way she knowed how. THAT'S what she done."

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished
I was dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing
myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting up and down
past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every
time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it
went through me like a shot, and I thought if it WAS
Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking
to myself. He was saying how the first thing he
would do when he got to a free State he would go to
saving up money and never spend a single cent, and
when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was
owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived;
and then they would both work to buy the two chil-
dren, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd
get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them.

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't
ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just
see what a difference it made in him the minute he
judged he was about free. It was according to the old
saying, "Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell."
Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking.
Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped
to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying
he would steal his children -- children that belonged to
a man I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever
done me no harm.

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a
lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up
hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, "Let up on
me -- it ain't too late yet -- I'll paddle ashore at the
first light and tell." I felt easy and happy and light
as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I
went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of sing-
ing to myself. By and by one showed. Jim sings
out:

"We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack
yo' heels! Dat's de good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows
it!"

I says:

"I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It
mightn't be, you know."

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old
coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the
paddle; and as I shoved off,