Chapter 36 - Page 2

by and see the
rules broke -- because right is right, and wrong is
wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong
when he ain't ignorant and knows better. It might
answer for YOU to dig Jim out with a pick, WITHOUT any
letting on, because you don't know no better; but it
wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme
a case-knife."

He had his own by him, but I handed him mine.
He flung it down, and says:

"Gimme a CASE-KNIFE."

I didn't know just what to do -- but then I thought.
I scratched around amongst the old tools, and got a
pickaxe and give it to him, and he took it and went to
work, and never said a word.

He was always just that particular. Full of principle.

So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and
shoveled, turn about, and made the fur fly. We stuck
to it about a half an hour, which was as long as we
could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to
show for it. When I got up stairs I looked out at the
window and see Tom doing his level best with the
lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his hands was
so sore. At last he says:

"It ain't no use, it can't be done. What you
reckon I better do? Can't you think of no way?"

"Yes," I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular.
Come up the stairs, and let on it's a lightning-rod."

So he done it.

Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass
candlestick in the house, for to make some pens for
Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I hung around
the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three
tin plates. Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said
nobody wouldn't ever see the plates that Jim throwed
out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel and jimpson
weeds under the window-hole -- then we could tote
them back and he could use them over again. So
Tom was satisfied. Then he says:

"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the
things to Jim."

"Take them in through the hole," I says, "when
we get it done."

He only just looked scornful, and said something
about nobody ever heard of such an idiotic idea, and
then he went to studying. By and by he said he had
ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no
need to decide on any of them yet. Said we'd got to
post Jim first.

That night we went down the lightning-rod a little
after ten, and took one of the candles along, and
listened under the window-hole, and heard Jim snoring;
so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we
whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two
hours and a half the job was done. We crept in under
Jim's bed and into the cabin, and pawed around and
found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile,