CHAPTER VIII. TALKING WITH THE GHOST
IT warn’t very cheerful at breakfast. Aunt Sally she looked old and tired and let the children snarl and fuss at one another and didn’t seem to notice it was going on, which wasn’t her usual style; me and Tom had a plenty to think about without talking; Benny she looked like she hadn’t had much sleep, and whenever she’d lift her head a little and steal a look towards her father you could see there was tears in her eyes; and as for the old man, his things stayed on his plate and got cold without him knowing they was there, I reckon, for he was thinking and thinking all the time, and never said a word and never et a bite.
By and by when it was stillest, that nigger’s head was poked in at the door again, and he said his Marse Brace was getting powerful uneasy about Marse Jubiter, which hadn’t come home yet, and would Marse Silas please — He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, like the rest of his words was froze; for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky and steadied himself leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at last he got his words started, and says:
“Does he — does he — think — WHAT does he think! Tell him — tell him— “ Then he sunk down in his chair limp and weak, and says, so as you could hardly hear him: “Go away — go away!”
The nigger looked scared and cleared out, and we all felt — well, I don’t know how we felt, but it was awful, with the old man panting there, and his eyes set and looking like a person that was dying. None of us could budge; but Benny she slid around soft, with her tears running down, and stood by his side, and nestled his old gray head up against her and begun to stroke it and pet it with her hands, and nodded to us to go away, and we done it, going out very quiet, like the dead was there.
Me and Tom struck out for the woods mighty solemn, and saying how different it was now to what it was last summer when we was here and everything was so peaceful and happy and everybody thought so much of Uncle Silas, and he was so cheerful and simple-hearted and pudd’n-headed and good — and now look at him. If he hadn’t lost his mind he wasn’t much short of it. That was what we allowed.
It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sunshiny; and the further and further we went over the hills towards the prairie the lovelier and lovelier the trees and flowers got to be and the more it seemed strange and somehow wrong that there had to be trouble in such a world as this. And then all of a sudden I catched my breath and grabbed Tom’s arm, and all my livers and lungs and things fell down into my legs.
“There it is!” I says. We jumped back behind a bush shivering, and Tom says:
“‘Sh! — don’t make a noise.”
It was setting on a log right in the edge of a little prairie, thinking. I tried to get Tom to come away, but he wouldn’t, and I dasn’t budge by myself. He said we mightn’t ever get another chance to see one, and he was going to look his fill at this one if he died for it. So I looked too, though it give me the fan-tods to do it. Tom he HAD to talk, but he talked low. He says:
“Poor Jakey, it’s got all its things on, just as he said he would. NOW you see what we wasn’t certain about — its hair. It’s not long now the way it was: it’s got it cropped close to its head, the way he said he would. Huck, I never see anything look any more naturaler than what It does.”
“Nor I neither,” I says; “I’d recognize it anywheres.”
“So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genuwyne, just the way it done before it died.”
So we kept a-gazing. Pretty soon Tom says:
“Huck, there’s something mighty curious about this one, don’t you know? IT oughtn’t to be going around in the daytime.”
“That’s so, Tom — I never heard the like of it before.”
“No, sir, they don’t ever come out only at night — and then not till after twelve. There’s something wrong about this one, now you mark my words. I don’t believe it’s got any right to be around in the daytime. But don’t it look natural! Jake was going to play deef and dumb here, so the neighbors wouldn’t know his voice. Do you reckon it would do that if we was to holler at it?”
“Lordy, Tom, don’t talk so! If you was to holler at it I’d die in my tracks.”
“Don’t you worry, I ain’t going to holler at it. Look, Huck, it’s a-scratching its head — don’t you see?”
“Well, what of it?”
“Why, this. What’s the sense of it scratching its head? There ain’t anything there to itch; its head is made out of fog or something like that, and can’t itch. A fog can’t itch; any fool knows that.”
“Well, then, if it don’t itch and can’t itch, what in the nation is it scratching it for? Ain’t it just habit, don’t you reckon?”
“No, sir, I don’t. I ain’t a bit satisfied about the way this one acts. I’ve a blame good notion it’s a bogus one — I have, as sure as I’m a-sitting here. Because, if it — Huck!”
“Well, what’s the matter now?”
“YOU CAN’T SEE THE BUSHES THROUGH IT!”
“Why, Tom, it’s so, sure! It’s as solid as a cow. I sort of begin to think— “
“Huck, it’s biting off a chaw of tobacker! By George, THEY don’t chaw — they hain’t got anything to chaw WITH. Huck!”
“I’m a-listening.”
“It ain’t a ghost at all. It’s Jake Dunlap his own self!”
“Oh your granny!” I says.
“Huck Finn, did we find any corpse in the sycamores?”
“No.”
“Or any sign of one?”
“No.”
“Mighty good reason. Hadn’t ever been any corpse there.”
“Why, Tom, you know we heard— “
“Yes, we did — heard a howl or two. Does that prove anybody was killed? Course it don’t. And we seen four men run, then this one come walking out and we took it for a ghost. No more ghost than you are. It was Jake Dunlap his own self, and it’s Jake Dunlap now. He’s been and got his hair cropped, the way he said he would, and he’s playing himself for a stranger, just the same as he said he would. Ghost? Hum! — he’s as sound as a nut.”
Then I see it all, and how we had took too much for granted. I was powerful glad he didn’t get killed, and so was Tom, and we wondered which he would like the best — for us to never let on to know him, or how? Tom reckoned the best way would be to go and ask him. So he started; but I kept a little behind, because I didn’t know but it might be a ghost, after all. When Tom got to where he was, he says:
“Me and Huck’s mighty glad to see you again, and you needn’t be afeared we’ll tell. And if you think it’ll be safer for you if we don’t let on to know you when we run across you, say the word and you’ll see you can depend on us, and would ruther cut our hands off than get you into the least little bit of danger.”
First off he looked surprised to see us, and not very glad, either; but as Tom went on he looked pleasanter, and when he was done he smiled, and nodded his head several times, and made signs with his hands, and says:
“Goo-goo — goo-goo,” the way deef and dummies does.
Just then we see some of Steve Nickerson’s people coming that lived t’other side of the prairie, so Tom says:
“You do it elegant; I never see anybody do it better. You’re right; play it on us, too; play it on us same as the others; it’ll keep you in practice and prevent you making blunders. We’ll keep away from you and let on we don’t know you, but any time we can be any help, you just let us know.”
Then we loafed along past the Nickersons, and of course they asked if that was the new stranger yonder, and where’d he come from, and what was his name, and which communion was he, Babtis’ or Methodis’, and which politics, Whig or Democrat, and how long is he staying, and all them other questions that humans always asks when a stranger comes, and animals does, too. But Tom said he warn’t able to make anything out of deef and dumb signs, and the same with goo-gooing. Then we watched them go and bullyrag Jake; because we was pretty uneasy for him. Tom said it would take him days to get so he wouldn’t forget he was a deef and dummy sometimes, and speak out before he thought. When we had watched long enough to see that Jake was getting along all right and working his signs very good, we loafed along again, allowing to strike the schoolhouse about recess time, which was a three-mile tramp.
I was so disappointed not to hear Jake tell about the row in the sycamores, and how near he come to getting killed, that I couldn’t seem to get over it, and Tom he felt the same, but said if we was in Jake’s fix we would want to go careful and keep still and not take any chances.
The boys and girls was all glad to see us again, and we had a real good time all through recess. Coming to school the Henderson boys had come across the new deef and dummy and told the rest; so all the scholars was chuck full of him and couldn’t talk about anything else, and was in a sweat to get a sight of him because they hadn’t ever seen a deef and dummy in their lives, and it made a powerful excitement.
Tom said it was tough to have to keep mum now; said we would be heroes if we could come out and tell all we knowed; but after all, it was still more heroic to keep mum, there warn’t two boys in a million could do it. That was Tom Sawyer’s idea about it, and I reckoned there warn’t anybody could better it.