He looked scornful, the way he’s always done when
he was ashamed of a person, and says:
“Huck Finn, do you mean to tell me you don’t
know what a crusade is?”
“No,” says I, “I don’t. And I don’t care to,
nuther. I’ve lived till now and done without it, and
had my health, too. But as soon as you tell me, I’ll
know, and that’s soon enough. I don’t see any use in
finding out things and clogging up my head with them
when I mayn’t ever have any occasion to use ’em.
There was Lance Williams, he learned how to talk
Choctaw here till one come and dug his grave for him.
Now, then, what’s a crusade? But I can tell you one
thing before you begin; if it’s a patent-right, there’s
no money in it. Bill Thompson he –”
“Patent-right!” says he. “I never see such an
idiot. Why, a crusade is a kind of war.”
I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he
was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly
ca’m.
“A crusade is a war to recover the Holy Land from
the paynim.”
“Which Holy Land?”
“Why, the Holy Land — there ain’t but one.”
“What do we want of it?”
“Why, can’t you understand? It’s in the hands of
the paynim, and it’s our duty to take it away from
them.”
“How did we come to let them git hold of it?”
“We didn’t come to let them git hold of it. They
always had it.”
“Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don’t it?”
“Why of course it does. Who said it didn’t?”
I studied over it, but couldn’t seem to git at the
right of it, no way. I says:
“It’s too many for me, Tom Sawyer. If I had a
farm and it was mine, and another person wanted it,
would it be right for him to –”
“Oh, shucks! you don’t know enough to come in
when it rains, Huck Finn. It ain’t a farm, it’s entirely
different. You see, it’s like this. They own the land,
just the mere land, and that’s all they DO own; but it
was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it
holy, and so they haven’t any business to be there
defiling it. It’s a shame, and we ought not to stand it
a minute. We ought to march against them and take
it away from them.”
“Why, it does seem to me it’s the most mixed-up
thing I ever see! Now, if I had a farm and another
person –”
“Don’t I tell you it hasn’t got anything to do with
farming? Farming is business, just common low-down
business: that’s all it is, it’s all you can say for it; but
this is higher, this is religious, and totally different.”
“Religious to go and take the land away from
people that owns it?”
“Certainly; it’s always been considered so.”
Jim he shook his head, and says:
“Mars Tom, I reckon dey’s a mistake about it
somers — dey mos’ sholy is. I’s religious myself, en
I knows plenty religious people, but I hain’t run across
none dat acts like dat.”
It made Tom hot, and he says:
“Well, it’s enough to make a body sick, such
mullet-headed ignorance! If either of you’d read any-
thing about history, you’d know that Richard Cur de
Loon, and the Pope, and Godfrey de Bulleyn, and lots
more of the most noble-hearted and pious people in
the world, hacked and hammered at the paynims for
more than two hundred years trying to take their land
away from them, and swum neck-deep in blood the
whole time — and yet here’s a couple of sap-headed
country yahoos out in the backwoods of Missouri set-
ting themselves up to know more about the rights and
wrongs of it than they did! Talk about cheek!”
Well, of course, that put a more different light on it,
and me and Jim felt pretty cheap and ignorant, and
wished we hadn’t been quite so chipper. I couldn’t
say nothing, and Jim he couldn’t for a while; then he
says:
“Well, den, I reckon it’s all right; beca’se ef dey