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 muck
short of it. That was what we allowed.
It was a most lovely day now, and bright and sun.
shiny; 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 any-
wheres.”
“So would I. It looks perfectly solid and genu-
wyne, 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 syca-
mores?”
“No.”
“Or any sign of one?”
“No.”
“Mighty good reason. Hadn’t ever been any corpse
there.”