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ð¾ðð... [IMH - logotype]( Dear Reader, A Former Vice President of a Major Investment Bank just released [this U.S. bank "blacklist" with 110 banks.]( I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistakenâthat is, after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warnât scared of him worth bothring about. He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed-up whiskers. There warnât no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another manâs white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a bodyâs flesh crawlâa tree-toad white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothesâjust rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on tâother knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was laying on the floorâan old black slouch with the top caved in, like a lid. I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By and by he says: âStarchy clothesâvery. You think youâre a good deal of a big-bug, donât you?â âMaybe I am, maybe I ainât,â I says. âDonât you give me none oâ your lip,â says he. "Youâve put on considerable many frills since I been away. Iâll take you down a peg before I get done with you. Youâre educated, too, they sayâcan read and write. You think youâre betterân your father, now, donât you, because he canât? Iâll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalutân foolishness, hey?âwho told you you could?â âThe widow. She told me.â âThe widow, hey?âand who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ainât none of her business?â âNobody never told her.â âWell, Iâll learn her how to meddle. And looky hereâyou drop that school, you hear? Iâll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be betterân what he is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldnât read, and she couldnât write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldnât before they died. I canât; and here youâre a-swelling yourself up like this. I ainât the man to stand itâyou hear? Say, lemme hear you read.â I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When Iâd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says: âItâs so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills. I wonât have it. Iâll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school Iâll tan you good. First you know youâll get religion, too. I never see such a son.â He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says: âWhatâs this?â âItâs something they give me for learning my lessons good.â He tore it up, and says: âIâll give you something betterâIâll give you a cowhide.â He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says: âAinât you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a lookânâ-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floorâand your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet Iâll take some oâ these frills out oâ you before Iâm done with you. Why, there ainât no end to your airsâthey say youâre rich. Hey?âhowâs that?â âThey lieâthatâs how.â âLooky hereâmind how you talk to me; Iâm a-standing about all I can stand nowâso donât gimme no sass. Iâve been in town two days, and I hainât heard nothing but about you beinâ rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. Thatâs why I come. You git me that money to-morrowâI want it.â âI hainât got no money.â âItâs a lie. Judge Thatcherâs got it. You git it. I want it.â âI hainât got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; heâll tell you the same.â âAll right. Iâll ask him; and Iâll make him pungle, too, or Iâll know the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it.â âI hainât got only a dollar, and I want that toââ âIt donât make no difference what you want it forâyou just shell it out.â He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whisky; said he hadnât had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didnât drop that. Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcherâs and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldnât, and then he swore heâd make the law force him. The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didnât know the old man; so he said courts mustnât interfere and separate families if they could help it; said heâd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the business. That pleased the old man till he couldnât rest. He said heâd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didnât raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; then they ailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and heâd make it warm for him. When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said heâd been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldnât be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said heâd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says: âLook at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it. Thereâs a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ainât so no more; itâs the hand of a man thatâs started in on a new life, andâll die before heâll go back. You mark them wordsâdonât forget I said them. Itâs a clean hand now; shake itâdonât be afeard.â c05-43.jpg (51K) So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The judgeâs wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledgeâmade his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it. The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didnât know no other way.WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didnât want to go to school much before, but I reckoned Iâd go now to spite pap. That law trial was a slow businessâappeared like they warnât ever going to get started on it; so every now and then Iâd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suitedâthis kind of thing was right in his line. He got to hanging around the widowâs too much and so she told him at last that if he didnât quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, wasnât he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finnâs boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warnât no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldnât find it if you didnât know where it was.But by and by pap got too handy with his hickâry, and I couldnât stand it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasnât ever going to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many a time, but I couldnât find no way. There warnât a window to it big enough for a dog to get through. I couldnât get up the chimbly; it was too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away; I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in the time. But this time I found something at last; I found an old rusty wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log outâbig enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting towards the end of it when I heard papâs gun in the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in. Pap warnât in a good humorâso he was his natural self. He said he was down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed thereâd be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up considerable, because I didnât want to go back to the widowâs any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadnât skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didnât know the names of, and so called them whatâs-his-name when he got to them, and went right along with his cussing. He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldnât find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldnât stay on hand till he got that chance.rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint oâ stove-pipe. Look at it, says Iâsuch a hat for me to wearâone of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights. âOh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohioâa mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ainât a man in that town thatâs got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed caneâthe awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a pâfessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ainât the wust. They said he could vote when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was âlection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warnât too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where theyâd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says Iâll never vote agin. Themâs the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all meâIâll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that niggerâwhy, he wouldnât a give me the road if I hadnât shoved him out oâ the way. I says to the people, why ainât this nigger put up at auction and sold?âthatâs what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldnât be sold till heâd been in the State six months, and he hadnât been there that long yet. There, nowâthatâs a specimen. They call that a govment that canât sell a free nigger till heâs been in the State six months. Hereâs a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yetâs got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, andââ Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of languageâmostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it warnât good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he raised a howl that fairly made a bodyâs hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too; but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe. After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key, or saw myself out, one or tâother. He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets by and by; but luck didnât run my way. He didnât go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldnât keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning. c06-51.jpg (64K) I donât know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheekâbut I couldnât see no snakes. He started and run round and round the cabin, hollering âTake him off! take him off! heâs biting me on the neck!â I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by and by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didnât make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, very low: âTrampâtrampâtramp; thatâs the dead; trampâtrampâtramp; theyâre coming after me; but I wonât go. Oh, theyâre here! donât touch meâdonât! hands offâtheyâre cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!â Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could hear him through the blanket. By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me, and then I couldnât come for him no more. I begged, and told him I was only Huck; but he laughed such a screechy laugh, and roared and cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket quick as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, and said he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who. Please, pay close attention because if your bank is on this list⦠[dolar replacement]( Your entire life savings could be at risk. According to this famous banker, you must move your cash before July 26...or risk losing everything. The Wall Street Journal even wrote about it, saying: "The game-changing development could have a profound impact on the banking system. But few people still understand it." That means most Americans will be caught by surprise and might end up holding a bunch of worthless dollars. 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 dasnât scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath. I didnât 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 couldnât stand it moreân 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 snoreâand then I was pretty soon comfortable again. Tom he made a sign to meâkind of a little noise with his mouthâand 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 theyâd find out I warnât in. Then Tom said he hadnât got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didnât 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 Jimâs hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didnât 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 wouldnât 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 one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, âHm! What you know âbout witches?â and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldnât touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldnât a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says: âNow, weâll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyerâs Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.â Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustnât eat and he mustnât sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didnât belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever. Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it. Some thought it would be good to kill the families of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote it in. Then Ben Rogers says: âHereâs Huck Finn, he hainât got no family; what you going to do âbout him?â âWell, hainât he got a father?â says Tom Sawyer. âYes, heâs got a father, but you canât never find him these days. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hainât been seen in these parts for a year or more.â They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldnât be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to doâeverybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss Watsonâthey could kill her. Everybody said: âOh, sheâll do. Thatâs all right. Huck can come in.â Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper. âNow,â says Ben Rogers, âwhatâs the line of business of this Gang?â âNothing only robbery and murder,â Tom said. âBut who are we going to rob?âhouses, or cattle, orââ âStuff! stealing cattle and such things ainât robbery; itâs burglary,â says Tom Sawyer. "We ainât burglars. That ainât no sort of style. We are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money.â âMust we always kill the people?â âOh, certainly. Itâs best. Some authorities think different, but mostly itâs considered best to kill themâexcept some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till theyâre ransomed.â âRansomed? Whatâs that?â âI donât know. But thatâs what they do. Iâve seen it in books; and so of course thatâs what weâve got to do.â âBut how can we do it if we donât know what it is?â âWhy, blame it all, weâve got to do it. Donât I tell you itâs in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from whatâs in the books, and get things all muddled up?â âOh, thatâs all very fine to say, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation are these fellows going to be ransomed if we donât know how to do it to them?âthatâs the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it is?â âWell, I donât know. But perâaps if we keep them till theyâre ransomed, it means that we keep them till theyâre dead.â âNow, thatâs something like. Thatâll answer. Why couldnât you said that before? Weâll keep them till theyâre ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot theyâll be, tooâeating up everything, and always trying to get loose.â âHow you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when thereâs a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?â âA guard! Well, that is good. So somebodyâs got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think thatâs foolishness. Why canât a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?â âBecause it ainât in the books soâthatâs why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or donât you?âthatâs the idea. Donât you reckon that the people that made the books knows whatâs the correct thing to do? Do you reckon you can learn âem anything? Not by a good deal. No, sir, weâll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.â âAll right. I donât mind; but I say itâs a fool way, anyhow. Say, do we kill the women, too?â âWell, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldnât let on. Kill the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and youâre always as polite as pie to them; and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more.â âWell, if thatâs the way Iâm agreed, but I donât take no stock in it. Mighty soon weâll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there wonât be no place for the robbers. But go ahead, I ainât got nothing to say.â Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didnât want to be a robber any more. So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people. Ben Rogers said he couldnât get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home. I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was dog-tired.WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I donât reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I donât take no stock in mathematics, anyway. At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widowâs ways, too, and they warnât so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warnât ashamed of me. One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, âTake your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!â The widow put in a good word for me, but that warnât going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasnât one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out. I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebodyâs tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadnât come in, after standing around so. I couldnât make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didnât notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil. I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didnât see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcherâs as quick as I could get there. He said: âWhy, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?â When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his own self! c05-39.jpg (158K) CHAPTER V. [Click here to get the details and learn how to prepare.]( It doesn't have to be like that for you. Regards, Kendall Castillo Managing Editor, Palm Beach Letter This editorial email with educational news was sent to {EMAIL}. Inception Media, LLC appreciates your comments and inquiries. Please keep in mind, that Inception Media, LLC are not permitted to provide individualized financial advise. 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